Hi all, back from the long weekend! As I suspected, I wasn't able to post any, but have been following along and we have some great cards this week!
I've also had a plenty of time to think how I can improve
Coven.
Coven
Types: Event
Cost: $6
Move your Cursed token to an Action Supply pile with no other Cursed token on it. (When any player plays a card from that pile, they first gain a Curse.)
The feedback I've gotten so far really helped frame my thoughts (thanks!):
I just had an idea (you can take it or leave it). What if there was a single cursed token that was shared by all players. Buying the event would move it to the pile of your liking. This would mean in 4 player games it wouldn't get too crazy with 4 cursed tokens.
Also, it would appear you have a typo on the card (playa)
The immediate and obvious problem of Coven is how often it will push big-money strategies to the forefront, because one can always avoid Coven completely by having no Action cards. You could possibly have it move the Cursing token to a Supply pile costing at least $2 (to exclude Coppers).
I really liked Naitchman's method of posting several different versions, so I hope no one minds, but I'm going to post several different versions I've been considering. Since no one else has done an Adventures' "place token on a pile" Event, these will be a more varied; if that's an issue, let me know and I can move this to my dedicated thread.
The way I see it there are basically 4 general options here:
• Cursed token - curse a player when they play a card (Cursed Gold variant; the current version)
• Cursed token - curse a player when they buy or gain or a card (Embargo variant)
• Cursing token - curse other players when you buy or gain a card (Ill gotten gains variant)
• Cursing token - curse other players when you play a card (Witch variant)
One of the issues with the
Cursed token is the difference between 2 and 4 player games; ideally the token would only work on other players, which is fine in two player games, but not really fair in 4 (the first player to play a token on a pile affects 3 others players; the second player's token on the pile, only one - the first player). Like I said in my original post I got around that by affecting all players, but I don't love that. Also having 4 piles that are cursed is a lot.
naitchman's idea of a single Cursed token could work, but it'd be less on theme (since Adventure tokens are per player). I'm already having it be a little different in that the token's effect affect everyone.
The second issue is Fragasnap's point that big money gets pushed to the forefront. I think this can be helped by slowing down the cursing. So the first variant is that: only the first card you play is cursed. (another idea I had to slow it down is to use the Journey token to make it curse every other play; or even combine both, so it curses every other turn that you play the cursed card).
(Fragasnap's suggestion of moving the token to a Supply pile costing at least $2 is also good, but I still think might still be too much of a slog compared to just once per turn)
The second variant is the Embargo variant. Since embargo already exists, I tried making this different by being on gain. That, and the fact that you don't have to wait to place the token, of course, makes it stronger (though that is balanced some by only being Action Supply piles).
Overall, I am now leaning towards switching this to a
Cursing token. That seems to fit better with the "this token helps only you" theme of the other Adventures tokens.
Variant 3 is therefore the ill gotten gains variant. I made it on buy instead of on gain so I could price it low enough to buy early.
The last, the Witch variant, is obviously the strongest. If it worked always and you could convert any cantrip into a Familiar:
. Fortunately, it also can be slowed down to only once a turn. I decided to also weaken a little more by limiting to non attacks.
I do have one bonus variant - of the last type, but it's a little different by being one-shot. It also doesn't make the card into an Attack, so it can't be reacted to.
So if you've made it this far, thanks for bearing with all my thinking. Please let me know what you think - which one generally do you like best? I'll decide on one, make some final tweaks, if necessary, and update my original post before contest end.