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[LastFootnote]

Offering: Action - Heirloom, $0
+$1
Receive your set-aside Boons in any order, keeping them.
When you discard this from play, if you have fewer than 3 Boons set aside, take a Boon and set it aside.

So during one of the many times Fool was on the edge of being cut from Nocturne, I came up with this as a sort of replacement. This was back when the Boon deck was 24 cards (2 copies of each Boon) and when you chose a Boon from three face-up options. Anyway it didn't work out in Nocturne due to various factors (a 12-card Boon deck, Fool not being cut etc.), but my testing group had (and still has) a ton of fun with it, so I'm posting it here.

The idea is that you can use it in games with Nocturne, but which have no Fate cards. It only supports games with 2 to 4 players, since each player will end up with three of the Boons, and there are only 12 Boons. The concept is that over the course of the game you build up this powerful, custom card that only you have access to. Sort of a Black Market kind of experience. It starts out as a terminal Copper in order to not mess up your opening, and gets better from there.

I don't know how much of an audience there is for it here at f.DS, since it's more "fun" than it is "fair" or "strategic". But it can be interesting how one player's Offering might cause them to pursue one strategy, while another player's might push them into a different direction. For instance if your Offering is a Wisp-gaining machine, you might favor $2 Kingdom cards more than the other players.

[GendoIkari]

I don't like that each player ends up with a different set of Boons. That feels very swingy to me. I mean, Boons are already swingy in a similar way. But here, if player 1 gets a particular boon on turn 1, then player 2 immediately knows that they can never receive that Boon the entire game.

Also, if you do have Fate cards in the Kingdom, then they suddenly play very weirdly; you could end up with no Boons in the Boon pile when you play a Fate card.

[Holunder9]

I like it, kind of a build-up card like Travellers.

I don't like that each player ends up with a different set of Boons. That feels very swingy to me. I mean, Boons are already swingy in a similar way. But here, if player 1 gets a particular boon on turn 1, then player 2 immediately knows that they can never receive that Boon the entire game.

Also, if you do have Fate cards in the Kingdom, then they suddenly play very weirdly; you could end up with no Boons in the Boon pile when you play a Fate card.

The idea is that you can use it in games with Nocturne, but which have no Fate cards. It only supports games with 2 to 4 players, since each player will end up with three of the Boons, and there are only 12 Boons.

[LastFootnote]

I don't like that each player ends up with a different set of Boons. That feels very swingy to me. I mean, Boons are already swingy in a similar way. But here, if player 1 gets a particular boon on turn 1, then player 2 immediately knows that they can never receive that Boon the entire game.

Yep. It's swingy. It's really a card for Timmy-type players. A for-fun card, and we've had a lot of fun with it indeed. I'm sure there will be a lot of players who just hate the kind of swinginess it can create. Heck some people hate Black Market, even though it's been proven to be a "high-skill" card.

EDIT: I am guessing, though, that it's not quite as swingy as it looks. Rather, I don't think it's swingy as I think it looks, but your mileage may vary.

[Holunder9]

It doesn't seem to be a combo-Heirloom due to the random nature of it but did you use it with a particular Kingdom card?

[Titandrake]

Black Market is swingy, but it ends up being a high-skill card because of all the choices it introduces - when do you buy your first Black Market, when do you play your Black Market, and do you choose to buy any of the cards.

Offering also looks swingy. I don't think it's as swingy as Black Market or Swindler though.

It looks cool, my main criticism is that there's basically no choice involved. You add the top Boon to your Offering, and then picking the order for the Boons you set aside should usually be straightforward. Have you tried revealing the Boon and having the set-aside be optional? It'll add some action paralysis, but it could introduce some neat play patterns.

[Neirai the Forgiven]

Yeah, I'd say the only thing I'd change is the lowest text, to "when you discard this, look at the next boon, and either discard it or set it aside."

[LostPhoenix]

I don't like that each player ends up with a different set of Boons. That feels very swingy to me. I mean, Boons are already swingy in a similar way. But here, if player 1 gets a particular boon on turn 1, then player 2 immediately knows that they can never receive that Boon the entire game.

Yep. It's swingy. It's really a card for Timmy-type players. A for-fun card, and we've had a lot of fun with it indeed. I'm sure there will be a lot of players who just hate the kind of swinginess it can create. Heck some people hate Black Market, even though it's been proven to be a "high-skill" card.

EDIT: I am guessing, though, that it's not quite as swingy as it looks. Rather, I don't think it's swingy as I think it looks, but your mileage may vary.

Gotta say, as a Timmy player, I absolutely love this card. It reminds me of Miser, which is also a favourite of mine.

[LibraryAdventurer]

What does "Timmy player" mean?

[Gubump]

What does "Timmy player" mean?

According to a quick google search, "Timmy is a nickname used to describe a Magic player whose enjoyment of the game is derived primarily from playing powerful cards and producing crushing, decisive wins."

[pacovf]

It's an old classification of players that stems from M:TG

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03

[Titandrake]

Timmy plays games for the experience. They favor big, flashy effects.

Johnny plays games as an outlet for creativity. They favor weird cards that can be used in innovative ways.

Spike plays games for the competition. They favor powerful cards that let them outplay their opponent.

Hunting Grounds is a Timmy card because it draws a ton of cards.
Rats is a Johnny card because it reads weirdly, but can be very powerful with the right enabler.
Margrave is a Spike card, because it's very powerful, but doesn't completely simplify the game.

Players can be a mix of archetypes and cards can appeal to multiple archetypes. For example, Margrave could also be seen as a Timmy card.

[Gazbag]

Seems like a fun thing to play with friends in a more casual setting, but I would imagine it would be the deciding factor in too many games to be much fun in a more competitive environment. This could end up better than Grand Market for one player and a Navigator Bureacratty thing for another!

Random Heirloom idea this made me think of is a Copper that has 1 Boon set aside Druid style that it does. So with Flame's gift it would be Goat or with Mountains gift it would be Lucky Coin and with some other Boons it would be more exotic and with Moon's gift it would be Copper.

[Neirai the Forgiven]

Margrave could also be seen as a Timmy card.

Margrave can also be a trap for inexperienced Timmies, who may get stuck in a "forever 5 hand" loop.

[jonaskoelker]

This could end up better than Grand Market for one player and a Navigator Bureacratty thing for another!

Here are some ideas to make it less swingy:

1. When you discard it from play, if you have 3 boons set aside, the player to your left picks a boon; you discard that boon.

That's very wordy, though, and the card is already full of text. No more Saboteur squint-o-vision plz

2. Have a shared pool of set-aside boons (maybe 4 or 5 instead of 3). When you play Offering, you may discard one of them. When you discard (or maybe that should be play) Offering, you may add one if the limit hasn't been reached. [Maybe the discard option should only be there if the pool is full.]

The benefits are symmetrical, which is very different from the posted Offering. It fixes the "You got Swamp and Flame while I'm stuck with the lousy ones" problem. In case of a non-mirrored strategy, it lets you steer the pool towards what uniquely favors your strategy (but your opponent gets to do the same to you).

It also doesn't dry up the Boons deck, so it interacts with Druid and other booners less b0rkenly.

If "look at the top card of your deck, you may discard it" and "draw cards until you have 5 cards in hand" were things, this could be a Jack of all Boons

[faust]

This could end up better than Grand Market for one player and a Navigator Bureacratty thing for another!

It's still only one card and probably less swingy than Magic Lamp.

[Gazbag]

This could end up better than Grand Market for one player and a Navigator Bureacratty thing for another!

It's still only one card and probably less swingy than Magic Lamp.

I'm not sure, this has the potential to be the best card in one player's deck and an actively bad card for the other. Sure it's just one card, but it's a card that you get for free and are basically forced into using, we've all seen how much faster Goat makes games and how Cursed Gold can slow things down - imagine if one player had Goat and the other CG, I imagine this can have a similar impact if the Boons fall a certain way. More importantly though there is much less skill involved with this than with Lamp. I still think it's a fun card for it's intended audience though!

[Asper]

On first reading I thought you had no way to determine which Boon you get, and already prepared a speech in my head about how this is basically a random player power; how I feel those are generally unbalanceable in Dominion, at least if they are random, exclusive and lingering. Then I saw that they aren't entirely random though, but more akin to Black Market's reveal, but of course the decision of how many Black Markets to get and how to incorporate them into one's strategy is lacking here, and unlike Black Market, which may or may not have cards with redundant main functionalities, this one here is fully exclusive - although probably the trashing one is often the only one where it matters.

Did you consider a version where all Boons are returned after receiving them? The lingering exclusiveness irks me more than the randomness, but I feel if either one is lost, it would be fine even for serious players. If it's for fun only, I see no real problem; One could consider leaving out the Flame's Gift, but that's about it.