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[spineflu]

I think it'd be good to have a comprehensive curated list of fan-made mechanics; I'm going to use this post as sort of a Table of Contents and attempt to map some sort of ontology/categorization onto them. The categorization isn't going to be exclusive - if something uses a mat and counters, it'll be in both lists, etc.

This thread should be considered a perpetual work in progress - if you have a new mechanic, or find one I missed, reply here or DM me and I'll get it included at my earliest convenience obviously like a wiki would be better for this but a dominion fan card wiki is beyond the scope of my wallet and/or attention span, so it's a thread

Involving Counters/Tracks
This is anything involving a place for coin tokens, or anything involving a separate track that something moves on

• • Asper's Fame (type) / Feats
• • Asper & Co0kieL0rd's Seasons
• • Gazbag's Ice Tokens + Freeze keyword
• • spineflu's Harlequin + Harlequin Track
• • Tables et al's Wonder

Involving Mats & Coin tokens
This is anything involving mats like the official ones for Exile, Coffers, Tavern Mat, etc.

• • VioletCLM's Mutineers
• • scolapasta's Worshippers
• • LostFootnote's Trade Tokens

Involving Other Card Components
New landscapes, new things with a side deck a la Boons or Hexes, or things that add a new supply pile like Looters or Young Witch, or things that add a new non-supply pile like Spoils etc.

• • Aquila's –1 Action state
• • Aquila's Prospects
• • Aquila's Tasks
• • Asper's Spells + Spellcaster (type)
• • LastFootnote & Asper's Edicts
• • Rush_Clasic's Dreams
• • Something_Smart's Perks + Favor (type)
• • spineflu's Trinkets
• • Supernova888's Tools
• • Tables et al's Wonder
• • The Alchemist's Smog
• • Aquila's Resources & Gatherer (type)
• • Aquila's Acts

Involving Other Non-card Components
This is anything involving other components (boards, dice, etc)

• • Asper & Co0kieL0rd's Seasons
• • spineflu's Harlequin + Harlequin Track

Mechanics that change over the course of the game
This is mechanics that explicitly change over the course of the game - official cards that would belong here are Pirate Ship, Miser, Travellers, etc - strategy related changes, like action density or comparative value of green (how it's low value early, while trying to get your engine running but high value later, when trying to keep up for the end of game) don't belong here

• • Asper's Fame (type) / Feats
• • Asper & Co0kieL0rd's Seasons
• • spineflu's Harlequin + Harlequin Track
• • emtzalex's Conditions, a sort of global journey token
• • VioletCLM's Project cards
• • Gazbag, VioletCLM, & Asper's Adaptive Cards

Mechanics that fundamentally alter rules of the game
Official mechanics that do this are Landmarks and Night cards

• • Aquila's Tasks - VP mini objective cards
• • Asper's Edicts - landscape rule changes
• • Asper's Team cards - multiplayer co-op cards
• • Rush_Clasic's Dreams - mini objective cards
• • Supernova888's Tools - makes playing certain cards compulsory

Mechanics that change how existing things interact
New non-frivoulous types, etc

• • Aquila's Kin

New Phases
Phases beyond the AB(N)C

• • Neirai the Forgiven's Trap cards
• • Tejayes/mathdude/spineflu's Dawn/Morning phase+cards

Alternative Money / Alternate Costs
A new, different currency to try to wrangle. Debt and Potions would both go here, as would how Peddler changes costs, Grand Market has restrictions, etc.

• • Aquila's Card-cost cards

Not Otherwise Classified
A mechanic included here probably suggests a new category is needed

[spineflu]

Rules:

• Fame cards: A minor mechanic about cards that get better if the player fulfilled certain "Feats" tracked on a board (Also cog icon).

(...)


Feats
Cards with the "Fame" type get stronger the more "Feats" a player has achieved during the game.

Feats are tracked with a Feat Mat during the game.
 The Level 1 Feats are: (A) „Have $2 or more left at the end of your Buy phase“, (B) „Gain a Fame card“, and (C)„Gain a Gold“.
 Like in a tree, A & B branch into a Level 2 Feat: „Gain a Duchy“. B & C together branch into the Level 2 Feat „Have an empty deck and discard pile at the start of the buy Phase“.
These two together branch into the Level 3 Feat „Gain a Province“.

Feats can only be done in ascending order.
If you do what a Level 1 Feat says, cover it with a token.
For Level 2 and 3 Feats, you can only place your token if, at the time you do what it says, you already have a token at a lower level Feat that branches into it.

If you do what a Feat says before you can reach it, you must do it again later to place your token.

Examples

Headhunter
$2
Action – Fame
+1 Action; Look at the top X cards of your deck, with X being the number of Feats you accomplished. Put one in your hand and discard the rest.


Curiosity Shop
$4
Action – Fame
Discard up to 4 cards. Gain a card costing up to $X, where X is the sum of the number of cards you discarded and Feats you accomplished.


Impostor
$4
Action – Fame
+1 Buy; +1 Card per Feat you accomplished. Discard half as many cards as you drew.


Inquisitor
$5
Action – Attack – Fame
+3 Cards; Each player who accomplished fewer Feats than you gains a Curse.


Adventure-Seeker
$5
Action – Fame
+1 Buy, +$1 per Feat you accomplished.


Hall of Fame
$6
Victory – Fame
Worth 1 VP per Feat you accomplished.

(...)

[GendoIkari]

Alternative Money
A new, different currency to try to wrangle

Gunpowder!

[spineflu]

Rules:

• Spellcasters: Cards that allow you to "cast" Spells that you previously bought. (Wand icon)

Spellcasters & Spells
When a card with the Spellcaster type is in the supply, 3 Spells are chosen at random and put next to the Supply.
Spells are effects similar to Events, which never go into your deck, but which you can buy in your buy phase.
Each player gets 5 Spell Tokens in their color.
When you buy a Spell, you put one of your tokens on the Spell you bought. That Spell is now "prepared".
The only way to actually perform what a Spell does is when a Spellcaster card tells you to „cast a Spell“. By casting a Spell, you do what it says, then remove your token from the Spell. Naturally, you can have up to five Spells prepared.

Spellcaster Examples:

Trickster
$2
Action – Spellcaster
+2 Actions; You may cast a Spell.


Magician
$3
Action – Spellcaster
+1 Buy; You may cast a Spell.
-
While this is in play, Spells cost $1 less, but not less than $0.


Shaman
$3
Action – Spellcaster
+2 Cards; You may cast a Spell. If you do: +1 Card.


Stone Circle
$3
Victory – Spellcaster
Worth 2 VP.
-
When you gain this, you may cast a Spell.


Summoner
$4
Action – Spellcaster
Discard any number of cards. You may prepare a Spell costing up to $1 per card discarded. You may cast a Spell.


Grimoire
$4
Treasure – Spellcaster
+$1, +1 Buy; When you play this, you may cast a Spell. You may discard a card, for +$1.


Sorcerer
$5
Action – Spellcaster
+3 Cards, +1 Buy; You may cast a Spell.


Wizard
$5
Action – Spellcaster
+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1; You may cast a Spell.

Spell Examples:

Esprit
$1
Spell
+3 Buys


Purity
$2
Spell
Trash any number of cards from your hand.


Wisdom
$2
Spell
+2 Cards


Dexterity
$3
Spell
Gain a card costing up to $5.


Harm
$3
Spell
Gain a Silver. Each other player gains a Curse.


Wealth
$4
Spell
+$3


Glory
$8
Spell
Gain a Province.

[spineflu]

Rules

So probably if these work out I will put them in Enterprise, but they seem like they should be in their own thread, at least at first.

I'm trying to make some cards that change the rules in Dominion in minor ways, much like twists in Nefarious. Like Events, they'd be landscape cards. But you don't buy them; they're just always active for everybody. Basically they're like the bottom half of Duchess or a lot of the cards in Fragasnap's Greed expansion. Ideally they're things that either wouldn't work as Events, or at least wouldn't work nearly as well if they were Events. It's possible that Donald will do stuff like this one day, but probably that day is pretty far off if it ever arrives at all.

As much as possible I'm sticking to optional bonuses for these cards, so that you're not cheating if you forget them. It's easy to forget stuff like "Silver costs $1 less this game" for the purposes of Remodel, etc. I'm not totally ruling things like that out, but for now I'm shying away from them.

Apologies that none of these have been tested yet. I'm posting them here partly to get a general reaction (you like/dislike the idea) and also so others can point out if some of these have game-ruining combinations with existing cards (e.g. Fortress). Of course I'm also happy to discuss individual Edicts.

• Edicts: Sideways cards that introduce straight-up rules changes. These predate Projects, by the way.

Examples
Edicts
Edicts are straight-up rules changes. They can never be bought or added to anyone's deck, and are basically a broader variant of Landmarks.

Expansion
Edict
At the start of your turn, you may take your -$1 Token, to get +1 Action.


Appeasement
Edict
When another player plays an Attack card, you may discard an Estate from your hand, to be unaffected by it.


Diplomacy
Edict
At the start of your turn, you may discard 2 cards, for +1 Card.


Exile
Edict
When you gain a Curse, set it aside and gain a Copper.


Gigantism
Edict
Setup: Use 3 additional Kingdom card piles.


Trade Agreement
Edict
When you shuffle your deck during the game, you may gain a Silver and shuffle it in.


Imperialism
Edict
Setup: If it isn't already there, add the Platinum pile to the Supply.


Inflation
Edict
Cards can never cost less than $3.


Monarchy
Edict
Once per turn, when you play an Action card, you may set it aside here to play it again. Trash it at the start of your cleanup phase.


Reformation
Edict
Setup: Add a Province to the Supply per player.


Simplicity
Edict
Setup: Each player gets +5 Villagers


Tyranny
Edict
When you gain a Treasure card, take your -$1 Token.


Supervision
Edict
Setup: Before drawing starting cards, all players may look through their deck and put its cards in any order.


Banishment
Edict
When you buy a Victory card, trash a cheaper Victory card from the Supply.


Urbanisation
Edict
Setup: Each player replaces one of their starting Estates (or a Shelter of their choice) with a Copper.

Charity: Edict
At the start of your Buy phase, you may reveal a hand with no Treasures. If you did, gain a Gold, putting it into your hand.

Commerce: Edict
When you shuffle during your Clean-up phase, you may add a Silver from the Supply to your deck (shuffling it in).

Coordination: Edict
At the start of each of your turns: +1 Action

Industry: Edict
Once per turn, when you play an Action card, you may draw 3 cards instead of following its instructions.

Prudence: Edict
At the start of Clean-up, you may put any number of cards from your hand on top of your deck.

Tyranny: Edict
Once per turn, after you resolve a non-Duration Action card, if it's still in play, you may play it again. If you did, trash it.

[spineflu]

Rules

• Seasons (created by Co0kieL0rd and me): Cards that change over the course of the game. (Hourglass icon)

Seasons
Season cards were created as a project together with the user C0okyL0rd.
They change as the game progresses.
When one or more Season cards are in the Supply, use the Season mat. The Season Mat has 20 spaces on it that go in a circle, and shows the 4 Seasons.
A token is used to track the current time of year, starting the game on space 1, the first of Spring. After each full round (that is, after the last player in turn order took their turn) the token is moved forward one space.
After each 5 turns a new Season begins. Summer starts with turn 6, Fall with turn 11, and Winter with 16. After turn 20 it is Spring again, and so on.
Season cards check the current Season and do different things depending on it.

Examples

Sojourner
2
Action – Season
+2 Actions; Trash this. In Spring: +$2; In Summer: Trash up to 2 cards from your hand.; In Fall: +2 Cards; In Winter: Gain two Estates.


Bailiff
3
Action – Season
In Spring and Summer: Trash up to 3 cards from your hand. In Fall and Winter: Gain a Copper and a card costing up to $5.


Snow Witch
3
Action – Attack – Season
+2 Cards; You may put a card from your hand onto your deck. In Fall and Winter: Each other player gains a Curse to their hand.


Student
3
Action – Season
+1 Action; You may put the following token on the Student pile (when you play a Student, you first get the respective boni): In Spring: +1 Action token; In Summer: +1 Card token; In Fall: +1 Buy token; In Winter: +$1 token


Barbarian
4
Action – Attack – Season
+2$; Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand chooses one they must...; In Spring and Winter: ...put onto their deck; In Summer and Fall: ...discard.


Timberland
4
Victory – Season
Worth 2 VP
-
When you gain this: In Spring: +3 VP; In Summer: +2 VP; In Fall: +1 VP


Sanitarium
4
Action – Season
+2 Actions; Draw cards until you have 5 in hand.
When you gain this in Spring, you may trash a card from your hand.


Lumberman
4
Action – Season
+1 Buy; Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal 2 Treasure cards. Put them in your hand and discard the rest.
-
When Fall begins, put all cards remaining in the Lumberman pile into the trash.


Peltmonger
4
Action – Season
Gain a Silver to your hand. In Winter: You may gain another Silver to your hand.


Ball Room
5
Action – Season
In Spring and Summer: Gain an Action card costing less than this and play it. In Fall and Winter: You may play an Action card from your hand twice.


Fjord Village
5
Action – Season
+1 Card, +2 Actions, +1 Buy
-
When you discard this from play in Fall and Winter, put it onto your deck.


Cottage
5*
Action – Season
+2 Cards, +1 Action
-
This card costs $1 less in Fall and $2 less in Winter, but not less than $0.


Plantation
5
Action – Season
+3 Cards; In Summer and Winter: +1 Card
-
When you gain this, you may move the Season tracking token back by one space.


Restore
5
Action – Season
+1 Action; Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to...; In Spring and Fall: $2; In Summer: $3; In Winter: $1; ...more than the trashed card.

[spineflu]

Rules:

• Team Dominion: Cards created for a Dominion variant that has players team up against each other. (Shaking hands icon)

Team cards
These cards are intended for team play. The assumed rules of Team Dominion are that each player plays a deck of their own as usual, just that, at the end, the scores of team members are added up and divided by the number of team members. Unequally sized teams are fine. Team cards allow team members to help each other.

Examples:

Steeple
2
Action – Team
Draw cards until you have 6 in hand. Each of your team partners may trash a card from their hand.


Conman
3
Action – Team
Either you or one of your team partners gains a Copper, your choice. Either you or one of your team partners gains a non-Victory card costing up to $6, your choice.


Fisherman
3
Action – Reaction – Team
+1 Card, +1 Action; One of your team partners may discard a card for you to get +$1.
-
At the start of one of a team partner's buy phase, you may discard this, for them to get +$1.


Merchant Quarter
4
Action – Team
+1 Card, +2 Actions; Choose one of your team partners to gain a Silver.


Stilt Village
4
Action – Duration – Team
+1 Card, +2 Actions; At the start of your next turn: +1 Action; At the start of their next turn, each of your team partners gets +1 Action.


Study
4
Action – Team
+1 Card, +1 Action; Choose one of your team partners to draw a card.


Sponsor
5
Action – Team
+$3; You may reveal a non-Victory card from your hand and pass it to one of your team partners.


Salesman
5
Action – Team
+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1; You may put this into of a team partners' discard pile.

[spineflu]

Rules

The idea is called the Perk deck. Cards that use the Perk deck have the Favor type.

Perks are pretty much a cross between Boons and Artifacts. Like Artifacts, there is one copy of each, and once taken by a player they are held by that player and provide a permanent effect until another player takes them away. When a player is instructed to take a Perk, they may choose to either draw a random one from the deck, or steal one from any other player.

Examples

And the Favor cards:

[spineflu]

Original Post

Dominion Antiquities also introduces Trap cards, which are a type of card that is shuffled into the other kingdom card piles when setting up the game (using the above rules,) and are automatically gained by the player who flips them face up from a face-down pile.

Boulder Trap: The Boulder Trap is a Trap card and follows the rules of a Trap card (see Additional Rules for Dominion Antiquities, above.) A Boulder Trap is worth -1 Victory Point at the end of the game, like a Curse. When you discard Boulder Trap, you may have the player to your left gain it; it goes from your hand into their discard pile. You cannot simply choose to discard it; something has to let you or make you discard it. This ability functions whether you discard Boulder Trap on your own turn (such as due to Archaeologist) or on someone else’s (such as due to Inspector.) It functions if Boulder Trap is discarded from your hand (such as due to Inscription) or from your deck (such as due to Gamepiece.) This ability does not function if Boulder Trap is put into your discard pile without being discarded, such as when you buy a card, when you gain a card directly (such as with Collector,) when your deck is put into your discard pile, such as with Stronghold, or with Possession from Dominion: Alchemy, when trashed cards are returned to you at the end of turn. The key thing to look for is a card actually telling you to “discard” cards. It does, however, function during Clean-up, when you normally discard all of your played and unplayed cards. Also, when you gain Boulder Trap, if you gained it from the Supply (by flipping it face up from a Supply pile) you gain a Silver. The Silver comes from the supply and goes onto the top of your deck. You do not gain the Silver if you gain Boulder Trap from the trash, or another player causes you to gain it from their hand.

[spineflu]

Trinket:

Trinket • $1* • Treasure
You may pay $1 to return this to its pile.
-
While this is in play, cards cost $1 less.
(This is not in the Supply

This didn't change from contest 78; the image is the first toy lego made (like, actually; it's a photo, not art). There's 30 copies, and it's not in the supply (kind of like Spoils or Horses). You put it on the table when a card mentions it.

Example cards that use Trinkets:

Benefactor • @3$5+ • Action
+2 Buys
+$2
-
When you buy this, you may overpay. For each $1 you overpay, each other player gains a Trinket to the top of their deck.

Super-woodcutter that can wreck another player's turn if you go in hard on the overpay, especially in kingdoms that are debt/potion-y.  This card hasn't been tested.

Stevedore • $5 • Action - Duration
You may gain a Trinket. Until your next turn, the first time each other player gets +Buys, they get +Cards instead.
At the start of your next turn, +1 Buy and cards cost $1 less that turn.

Grifter • $5 • Action - Attack
+$2
Each other player may discard a Trinket. If they don't, they gain a Trinket and a Copper

Mountebank variant. This has been tested. It's strong.

[spineflu]

and then for shits and giggles made a second track for it.


It's essentially a branching traveller, but everyones traveller simultaneously. Some of the options are intentionally less good than others, so that if one person goes hard on Harlequins, other players can steer it away from being Too Good.

You'll probably need to click (and probably zoom/pan/open in new window?) to be able to read those. The starting space of the track is in the center - they're laid out to print on a 22"x22" board (which'd quadfold to fit in the dominion box). It'd ship with one Harlequin meeple to move around.

I uh didn't bother typing out the space options in bbcode because dear god plz no and does anyone even read this? lazy. There's some novel attack ideas in there that haven't really been done yet but otherwise should be pretty vanilla.

[spineflu]

Rules

Dreams

Dreams are a new landscape card. You can include one to use much like you would a Project, Way, Event, etc. They all have abilities that trigger at the end of each player's Night phase (or at the start of the Clean-Up phase), rewarding that player for accomplishing some goal during their turn. They happen automatically if a player accomplished the criteria for them.

Examples

Dream of Flying
Dream
At the end of your Night phase, if you have 3 or more cards in hand: Set aside a card from your hand. At the start of your next turn, put it into your hand.

Dream of Being Lost
Dream
At the end of your Night phase, if you have any unused actions: You may put an Action card from your discard pile on top of your deck.

Dream of Wealth
Dream
At the end of your Night phase, if you have any unused buys: +1 Coffers.

Dream of Death's Ferryman
Dream
At the end of your Night phase, if you have 2 or more Silvers in play: You may gain a Silver.

Secret History

I was mulling around with the idea of cards that want you to achieve some mini-goal within the game. I like how the different landscape cards make you care about deck construction in different ways. I went for the simplest idea: just reward players for doing something specific. They wanted to work as close to the end of turn as possible, but not necessarily mess with clean-up. Thankfully, we have this neat Night phase that's been around for a few years. That's where the idea originated for theming these cards as Dreams: what you do during the day impacts how you dream at night. They aren't the most innovative ideas, but I like the overall feel of them. I'd say they're closest to Landmarks, just without the VP focus. (Another reason I avoided making VP related Dreams.) I went for well-established recurring dreams and tried to make something sensible out of each. If people like them, I might try making the whole deck.

[spineflu]

Rules

Card costs
Instead of or as well as a coin symbol, some of these cards have a card back where the cost is. It means that instead of or as well as $, your cards are involved in the cost. They could in theory be from anywhere so long as you own them, but in this set each cost comes from hand since it's more of an actual expense. Below the line, there will be a description of the cost.
You might think of Animal Fair having the option of an Action in hand as a cost. It's an option, card costs are not.

For abilities that care about costs: this is another different kind of cost to join Potion and Debt. You can't remodel a $ cost card into a [ ] or $[ ] cost or vice versa, or [ ] into Debt or Potion costs. Each differently described card cost is also incomparable, no matter how much $, Debt or Potion is with them and even though some might be distinctly easier to pay than others. So you can't remodel a [ ] into a differently described [ ], but you could remodel [ ] into $1[ ] or $2[ ] if the described cost on each card is identical.

Examples

Campsite - Action, [ ] cost.
+1 Card
+2 Actions
-
[ ]: To buy this, reveal and discard 2 Victories.

Well here we have it, both Villages come first alphabetically. This one sets itself apart by being a card cost; have 2 Victories in hand, which you need to discard, to afford it. Campers need green space.
+: When you get a dud hand filled with green, you don't mind picking up an extra Village. It's useful, but doesn't improve deck power by itself so it's not easy mode.
-: it may be too easy to get.

Colliery - Action, $6[ ] cost.
+1 Buy
Take Exhausted. If you do, + $1 per Action you have in play.
-
[ ]: To buy this, trash 2 copies of a card costing $3 or more from your hand.

Coal mines fuelled the factories, with an infamous amount of manpower. Here's the first card using Exhausted; it's effectively a double Action, one card that uses two Actions on play. If you play it and already have Exhausted (that'd be by Thrones or by playing it at the Buy phase), you just get a Buy. Played 'properly' it can give impressive payload, but can be hard to play well in multiples.
There's a dual cost too. You need both $6 and two cards costing $3+ to Treasure Map to afford this.
+: powerful payload strategy that can possibly exist and be balanced with a big card cost and Exhausted.
-: the cost may be a bit extreme as is.

Steam Engine - Action, [ ] cost.
+1 Action
Do this up to 3 times: take Exhausted. If you do, you may play an Action from your hand twice.
-
[ ]: To buy this, trash a Gold from your hand.

The first steam engines could be attached to several different machines. That's what you can do here, Throne up to 3 of your Action cards for an extra Action each time. It's just like going Throne Room - play, Throne Room - play, Throne Room - play, only you need the one Throne card not 3. This powerful effect is expensive though, and you get it in two stages: first get a Gold, then cash it in for a shiny new steam engine.
+: it's an elegant and thematic effect.
-: could easily be too strong, or swingy; you really don't want to draw this dead!

Wastelands - Victory, [ ] cost.
4VP
-
[ ]: To buy this, trash 3 Actions and/or Treasures from your hand.
When this pile empties, it counts as 2 toward game end.

The more wasteland you own, the implication is the more productive your factories are. It rewards having few useful cards in your deck at game end, and has an on-gain that helps achieve this.
+: it makes a new way to win the game that takes strategy and skill. Opening it is bad most of the time, but can be done sometimes.
-: the VP could scale with the number of non-Victories in the deck (which it used to), so it's more defined as alt VP.

Spinning Jenny - Action Treasure, $5 cost.
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
If it's your Buy phase, then for the rest of the turn, cards with no [ ] cost in the Supply have one that reads, "to buy this, discard 2 cards".

An invention that improved spinning threads to weave into fabrics, and this spins cards through your deck quickly. It can be terminal Action +3 Cards +1 Buy, which already exists and is useful, or it can be a Treasure for non-terminal Buy phase draw. If you do the latter, you'll have to discard cards to buy stuff so you can't use it all.
+: It gets you thinking resourcefully about your cards, and it's an Action Treasure which is also nice in the set.
-: Discarding 2 cards might be too harsh, but at 1 it's a bit too good in big money decks.

[spineflu]

Rules

-1 Action: Exhausted

Exhausted - State
When you next have unused Actions (Actions, not Action cards) during your Action Phase, immediately return this and -1 Action.

Villagers make getting +1 Action much easier. So here's the opposite, -1 Action; just like the -$1 token but for Actions. After you take Exhausted, whenever you next have 1 or more Actions left during your Action phase, you immediately lose one and return this, whether you're in the middle of resolving an Action or not. If you end your Action phase still having Exhausted, it will stay over to next turn, and be returned right at the start to take away your starting Action. You could spend a Villager at any time during your Action phase to return this at any time; this can be quite important to pay off Exhausted at turn start to enable the Action phase. And you're only allowed one Exhausted at a time, for simplicity and balance reasons.

Examples:

Colliery - Action, $6[ ] cost.
+1 Buy
Take Exhausted. If you do, + $1 per Action you have in play.
-
[ ]: To buy this, trash 2 copies of a card costing $3 or more from your hand.

Coal mines fuelled the factories, with an infamous amount of manpower. Here's the first card using Exhausted; it's effectively a double Action, one card that uses two Actions on play. If you play it and already have Exhausted (that'd be by Thrones or by playing it at the Buy phase), you just get a Buy. Played 'properly' it can give impressive payload, but can be hard to play well in multiples.
There's a dual cost too. You need both $6 and two cards costing $3+ to Treasure Map to afford this.
+: powerful payload strategy that can possibly exist and be balanced with a big card cost and Exhausted.
-: the cost may be a bit extreme as is.

Glassworks - Action, $2 cost.
+ $2
You may take Exhausted. If you do, +1 Coffers.
-
When you gain this, you may spend any amount of your $. +1 Villager per $1 you spent.

Glassworks range widely in size, from small domestic businesses to industrial scale. Bigger establishments come with more workforce. Overpay for Villagers on a cheap card, quite simple, only you can Workshop-gain it during your turn and it'll work too. The on-play effect can let you turn an extra Action into a Coffers. So it can in effect let you convert your Villagers info Coffers and vice versa.
+: Simple and effective, hopefully.
-: + $2 +Coffers could be too much for a $2 to give, especially if opened with.

Revolters - Action Attack, $4 cost.
+ $2
Each other player may take Exhausted or lose a Villager. Those who do neither gain a Curse.
-
When you gain this, each player (including you) gets +1 Villager.

They've been worked too hard in awful conditions, and they want your opponents' workers to agree with them. An Attack that tries to take an Action away from the opponents. Forcibly doing this would be imbalanced, so they can instead have a crow for their troubles.
+: it adds a new decision for players to think about.
-: it's a shame that this is basically a curser, that trashing and the Curses emptying make the -1 Action part trivial.

Steam Engine - Action, [ ] cost.
+1 Action
Do this up to 3 times: take Exhausted. If you do, you may play an Action from your hand twice.
-
[ ]: To buy this, trash a Gold from your hand.

The first steam engines could be attached to several different machines. That's what you can do here, Throne up to 3 of your Action cards for an extra Action each time. It's just like going Throne Room - play, Throne Room - play, Throne Room - play, only you need the one Throne card not 3. This powerful effect is expensive though, and you get it in two stages: first get a Gold, then cash it in for a shiny new steam engine.
+: it's an elegant and thematic effect.
-: could easily be too strong, or swingy; you really don't want to draw this dead!

Textile Mill - Action, $5 cost.
+3 Cards
You may take Exhausted. If you do, +2 Cards.

A big place needing lots of people, quickly spinning cards through the deck. Yes, I decided to make both textile industry things draw. This gives you a choice on how much you draw. If you want more, you'll use an extra Action for it. There are times you want less.
+: one of the simplest things to do with Exhausted, and it's effective. It could take on an Artifact too, as an alternative Exhausted option.
-: could either be weak overall or too good with big money.

[spineflu]

Rules

Prospects
Just like Projects, they're effects you buy once and then put a cube on. But unlike Projects, they are one-offs that happen straight away rather than effects that last for the rest of the game. So the cubes are used to track that you have bought the Prospect and can't get it again.
In other words, they're all like Seize the Day, but the rules require the cube to track buying them.

Examples

Commission - Prospect, $2 cost.
+1 Buy
Return to your Action phase. Replay the last Action you played this turn that's still in play twice. (Put your cube on it, then on this when it leaves play.)

A single KC when you need it most.
+: it's simple, yet using it isn't always easy.
-: wordy.

Conscription - Prospect, $1 cost.
+1 Buy
Choose one: discard your hand, +1 Villager per card discarded; or +$1 per Villager you have.

Resource conversion to time optimally. Change your Villagers into economy once, so hoarding them can be a strategy. Or if there are no Villagers cards, you can change your hand into Villagers.
+: more new strategies is good.
-: some people may want to try using this twice?

Consumerism - Prospect, $0+ cost.
+5 Buys
You may overpay for this by $2 so non-Victory cards cost $2 less for the turn, or by $4 for all cards.

A big load of free buys with an optional Princess effect to pay for. Use for essential early purchases or build to a massive $ mega turn.
+: lets big spikes of $ by design or by accident always work out.
-: it will take a lot for the Victory cost reduction to be meaningful. $3 overpay may be more realistic.

Demonstration - Prospect, $0 cost.
+1 Buy
Each player (including you) discards their hand and draws the same number of cards. Return to your Action phase.

There are times a change of hand would be just right for you, and there are times when you know the opponents have a good turn. Choose how and when to use this best.
+: a one-time attack suits competitive players whilst not degenerating the game too heavily.
-: there are times when everyone has a good or bad hand, and this isn't advantageous then. Choosing who discards would help avoid this but also be too political.

Dividends - Prospect, $0 cost.
+1 Buy
If you have the same number of Actions and Treasures in play, +1 Coffers and +1 Villager per 1 of each type.

Count the number of times each type appears across the cards in play (Crown will be one for both), then if they're the same you get a Coffers and Villager for every Action (consequently every Treasure too) you have in play. Free tokens you might work to getting or take whenever it's convenient.
+: There are lots of ways this set and Renaissance can get the same number of each type in play, making hopefully compelling replayability.
-: could alternatively feel mundane, if one never works for lots of them.

Imports - Prospect, $4 cost.
Gain a card from the trash.
-
Setup: add an extra kingdom pile to the trash.

You can either gain a single copy of a unique card for $4, or if there's other trashing (really, tfb) you can regain a trashed Province for $4.
+: unrestricted gain from the trash is safe on a Prospect, and the added pile can be interesting.
-: it might be mundane too often.

Manufacture - Prospect, $2 cost.
+1 Buy
Choose one to gain: a card costing up to $4; a copy of a card you have in play; or a Duchy.

A cheap acquisition, because you make it yourself. It has a distinct early game option in gaining a $4 for $2, a late game boost in VP, and a middle game boost in gaining a copy of a good card you have in play.
+: it's an elegant way to get 3 different uses on the same card.
-: the late option in a Duchy might be comparatively weak.

Migration - Prospect, $1 cost.
+1 Buy
Trash an Action from your hand to put your deck and discard pile into your hand. Return to your Action phase.

Put your whole deck into hand at once, at the cost of an Action card. Time it when you have the right Action to lose and there's enough stuff in the deck.
+: A new means of card movement opens up new strategies.
-: maybe too cheap or swingy, if the Action to trash comes too late.

Prediction - Prospect, $2 cost.
+1 Buy
Put any number of cards you have in play that would be discarded this turn onto your deck.

Replay stuff next turn. When do you really need to do this?
+: an effective one-off.
-: it should work? Maybe it's a bit uninteresting.

Progress - Prospect, $2 cost.
+1 Buy
Take half the tokens on this (round up) as Coffers, the rest as Villagers.
-
When a card costing $4 or more is gained, add a token to this.

A passive accumulation of tokens that players have to time taking. When do you need them, can you take them away from opponents when they really need them, can you try waiting for more?
+: lots of strategy to consider.
-: can be hard to remember adding a token each time.

Stocks - Prospect, $1+ cost.
You may overpay for this. +1 Coffers per $1 overpaid.

Save some of your money from a turn for later.
+: overpay for Coffers can be achieved on a one-off.
-: timing may be trivial, that you always do it on a $3/4 or 4/3 start to get $5s.

Takeover - Prospect, [ ] cost.
Gain a Victory card.
-
[ ]: To buy this, reveal and discard 2 Actions.

One of your Provinces/Colonies this game is quite cheap. When will you get it?
+: simple.
-: possibly just a boring speedup to the game? Or it rewards bad play?

Conclusions
And that's the end. I hope you've enjoyed looking through these as much as I enjoyed making them. Maybe you've seen a mistake or flaw somewhere, in which case don't be afraid to tell. No design can be called perfect or final without criticism, and part of the thrill of the design process is identifying and making gradual improvements.

[spineflu]

Wonders are a new kind of Horizontal card that can be built. They tend to be very expensive (think 15+ coins), but unlike regular cards you do not have to pay in one go. Instead everyone has their own supply towards building the wonder, and you can use a buy to put any amount of money towards the wonder. Once someone has spent equal to the wonder cost, they build it and gain its benefits for the remainder of the game. Everyone else who had partially built it gets compensation, probably Coin Tokens equal to half of what they had spent.

As for Wonder effects... I didn't dream up any. I expect they would be worth some reasonable number of VPs, as well as some permanent ongoing benefit that's likely stronger than a typical project. So for example, maybe something like a double Bridge effect (cards cost $2 less on your turn, but not less than $0). Or something like "at the start of each turn, +1 card, you may discard any number of cards, then draw that many." Basically, strong effects that might be worth investing into and racing to complete, strong enough that you have a chance to catch up once you complete them but also not so strong that you can just instant-win by completing them.

Mimicking the Civilization wonders behavior, there might be a Builder mat per player. This version does not consume Buys on building, not sure if it should.

At the Buy stage, you may pay any number of $ to put that amount of Coffers on your Builder mat. When you have the number of Coffers on the Builder mat greater or equal to the cost of a Wonder, you may discard all the Coffers from there and take the Wonder.
When some other player takes a Wonder, you may discard all the Coffers from your Builder mat to gain a card costing in $ up to the number of Coffers discarded.

You guys have presented interesting ideas! I’d like to have a crack at this as well, mish-mashing just about everything here. Plus, drawing some heavy inspiration from Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization and even tossing a little bit of Sid Meier’s Civilization in there.

What if Wonders were buildable by all players as some kind of long-time project on a Landscape card in the Supply? Some have suggested that already. The Wonder would have multiple stages to be built and everyone could contribute, using a Buy during their Buy phase. If so, they’d put a wooden cube on the next build step of the Wonder. And oh, of course, no more than 2 Wonders per game, as usual !

There would need to be some compensation for contributing. Wonders would grant you a little something for building a step. Once completed, the Wonder will give an additional bonus to whoever built the most steps for that Wonder. It could even be multiple players in case of a tie. Therefore, those who invested the most in that Wonder reap the bigger benefits, as opposed to having the last contributor run away with the whole deal by building that last step out of shuffle luck.

Finally, building a Wonder seems like a no-brainer. And even a little too easy. What if there was an additional Supply pile akin to Potions in games using Wonders? I thought of builders and they would cost . You cannot build a Wonder step unless you have a Builder in play. So building a Wonder step would require a Builder, a Buy and the step’s cost. Kind of like, again, buying a Potion Kingdom card. This would require further investments for those who want to partake in the construction of a Wonder. And would require better deck control because of those stop Builder cards.

To illustrate this crazy idea, here are some mock-ups of Wonders:







And a Builder could look like this:



Wonders could have a backside with “4+ players” written on it. There could be more build steps on these so that they’d scale better in crazy 6-player games for instance.

Sanctum • Wonder • Most steps at end of game: 4VP • $3 per step, 4 steps (2-3 player); $3 per step, 6 steps (4-6 player)

Build a step: Discard a Build card and pay the cost of a step.

On Completion, most steps built: Put your deck and discard pile into your hand and trash any number of cards from your hand, then discard your hand;

All others, +2 Coffers / step

What's a build card? Glad you asked:

Build cards are an additional supply pile costing between $3 and $5. It works like Young Witch where it adds a pile to the Supply, rather than like Obelisk, which chooses a pile from the Supply.

Wonder concept was originally made by Tables here and was left pretty open ended. I branched off of X-tra's concept of it with a couple modifications: 1 - steps all cost the same. This makes it so you don't have to care which side you start on for filling in cubes and simplifies what the cost of a step is; 2 - getting rid of the potion-esque builder cards in favor of an additional pile that you just have to discard a card from. I kept the concept that building a step does not cost a Buy (unless the wonder would specify it costs a buy).

The most steps rewards are given to everyone who has the most steps done (so ties, they both get the event-y bonus and the VP).
The VP is given at the end of the game regardless of whether the wonder is completed - if six players all added one step, it's a wash, everyone gets 4VP.

Let me know what's unclear with this, i think i covered everything. IRL printing, i'd do the wonder card front+back printing, so on one side it's 4 spaces, the other, 6 (you can tell which side is which down by the art byline). As far as marking who built what, I'd suggest supplying (6) 8mm cubes in each color, each player gets a color. For reference, that's Terraforming Mars sized cubes, not Dominion's Project sized cubes (which are 10mm)

Update: change the "most steps" text to be clearer, it's roughly the same as Donate (except it happens during the turn due to space constraints); did not update the images because time constraints

[spineflu]

Rules

So I'm working on a fan expansion to Dominion, and I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while: What if a card was automatically played from your hand whenever it was in it? Enter "Tools," a separate type of card I'm testing out. The official rules for Tools as they stand now are as follows (and major thanks to crlundy for helping me find a good wording for this!):

Tools have different backs to regular cards. At the start of your turn, or directly after playing a card, you must play any Tools from your hand. This does not cost an Action; if you have multiple tools in your hand, you may play them in any order. Tools (except for Cursed Antique and Broken Sword) are regular Kingdom cards that exist in the Supply like any other card. Tools are their own type of card.

Examples

What follows are all my ideas for Tools, with brief comments on each below. I haven't playtested any of them yet, but would love to get feedback on them to see if there are any glaring issues before I start doing so. Thanks for reading!!





Armor: Tries to be its own Jack-of-All-Trades and help against certain attacks. It trashes from discard so it can also trash any tools you don't want (since they're almost never in your hand long enough to be interacted with).
Axe: A forced remodel that doesn't cost an Action, nor does it lower your handsize further with the trash.
Bag of Holding: A Workshop that doesn't disrupt your flow.
Bow and Arrow: I wanted to make another card that interacts with the discard; I ended up with (I think) a stronger Harbinger.
Compass: My poster-child for the risk/reward idea behind Tools. Don't know if the cycling is powerful enough to make it cost more, but the fact that it's mandatory feels like it could ruin your day enough to be lower.
Moccasins: I wanted more card-draw cards, but card draw that takes up no resources seems powerful. So here's a true-blue Smithy, you're just always forced to play it. I'd like to believe the cases where you get to use it for free balance out the ones where it kills your Action potential, but I'm SO willing to be convinced that it needs to be spruced up. Maybe +4 Cards?
Rations: A village that can never be drawn dead.
Spellbook: A band of misfits that makes playing cheaper cards even more appealing by making them actionless.
Sword: +2 Cards by itself seemed too boring at $6. Being forced to discard I think is more strategic, and this makes use of Fugitive's text on a true-blue Kingdom card.
Telescope: Combining the flavor of Navigator and Lookout. Might be too strong.
Wagon: A way to get that elusive +Buy, and in some circumstances an extra card when you would have drawn an Action dead.
Battalion & Broken Sword: The +3 Cards is there to prevent a slog. Broken Sword feels a little oppressive, but it can never be worse than a Militia; I don't know if its persistence would slow everything down too much.
Charlatan & Cursed Antique: A curser that keeps on giving. Note that the trashing a card from play means you can trash a Cursed Antique, so there's no board where you're stuck with them forever.

Again, any feedback is greatly appreciated, and as a reminder, none of these are playtested, just ideas until I get a sense they're worthy enough to bring to the game table. Thanks again for humoring me and reading all of this!!

[spineflu]

Rules

Smog:
Wow all this industrial activity is really clogging up the place. The more you use the high powered cards, the more you pollute your deck. This self-trashing junk is just slightly less harsh as a curse, if you can clear it away in time. Without another trashing card you'll always have one left over. Pile structured as 10*number of players, so 20 in a two-player game. I like what it adds thematically to the expansion to be replacing Curses, a medieval fear, with something more modern but just as deadly. 

Examples

Factory:
The next advancement on Laboratory, this "power card of epic proportions that probably shouldn't exist at any cost" isn't balanced at $8 on its own, so I made it gain a junk card, the more you use it the more you get, (see below). The junk card could use some work to make it balanced. My goal is for it to be about as effective city quarter.

Steel Foundry:
A Smithy or Blacksmith on steroids, this terminal draw is a great way to use up actions. Two more cards than Blacksmith, without the copper drawback and with +$1, but discards an action or treasure from your hand and gains smog as downside.


Metropolis:
And lastly the pièce de résistance: metropolis. From lowly hamlet, to village, to city, then metropolis. +2 cards like a leveled up city, and +3 actions like bustling village, but with some VP to justify purchasing it late. A metropolitan area is practically a duchy anyway. The vanilla bonuses are worth around $6-7, and VP nets to 3 with Smog, so up to $10.


Power Plant:
Burn a card as fuel in the power plant to give you more cards to keep your engine going, turning it into smog. If you accidentally draw a card dead, you can save it for next turn. Must trash first so slightly weaker than a Masquerade in that regard, and also weakened by needing to gain a smog.


Locomotion:
Progress comes at a cost to everyone, involved or not. Move your deck along with this card, but watch as you get junk in everyone's face, including yours! This card is a self-curser with an option to remove them later. Notice it only gains Smog but can trash either Curse card.

[spineflu]

Rules

Tasks, quests you can try to complete during the game
Add a quest board to the game, in which the kingdom's locals post up requests for players to complete for a reward. They're landscape cards that you keep in a deck by themselves, shuffle, then draw 3 out at random for the game. This group will count as 1 of the 2 landscapes recommended for games.  Each player also gets 3 tokens of some kind (let's call them Accomplish tokens) in their colour. Each Task has an Objective and a Reward. During the game, in a similar manner to using a Reaction effect, a player may interrupt game flow and declare they have completed the Objective on one of the Tasks, prove it to the other players if necessary, then put one of their Accomplish tokens on the Task card and get the Reward straight away. A Task can only be accomplished once. A player does not have to immediately declare a Task is accomplished the first time they can do so; there are cases for waiting until a later time, and accountability issues are avoided.
So, how these affect the game: whilst the Kin cards call for analysis at the start to determine the best combos, the Tasks can have a bearing on the route players take their decks through during the game, to have them think ahead.

[...]

Conclusions
The Tasks are very much a work in progress. They're not very well designed for all random games (not necessarily a bad thing) and the rewards are likely not balanced. 3 seems like a sensible number to comprehend each game, but nothing says you can't do more or less.

Examples

Appease - Task
Objective: have 2 Duchies in your hand, revealed.
Reward: +4VP

Bring 2 Duchies together in peace. This may affect when you would normally get Duchies, as effectively bringing them up to 5VP each can be worth it.
+: A good way to make Duchies more relevant more often, and help deviate gameplay away from typical Province rush.
-: hard to find specific bad points with this one...

Build - Task
Objective: gain 4 cards on your turn.
Reward: +3VP; at the start of each of your turns, +1 Card.

Project effects can work as rewards, the Accomplish token serving the same purpose as the Project cube. Can you gain a big load of cards at once this game?
+: There are several different possible ways to complete this, to be a different experience each game.
-: it depends entirely on +buys or gainers being in the kingdom.

Demolish - Task
Objective: trash 4 cards on your turn.
Reward: +4VP, gain a Gold.

Can you trash a big load of cards at once this game?
+: There are several different possible ways to complete this, to be a different experience each game.
-: it depends entirely on a trasher being in the kingdom.

Explore - Task
Objective: have 8 differently named cards in play.
Reward: +5VP

The Horn of Plenty experience without the kingdom Treasure being there. How will the kingdom let you do it?
+: Some games will call for a variety strategy, a nice thing to let randomness decide.
-: sometimes impossible. Maybe not that fun. Investigate below might be enough of variety.

Gather - Task
Objective: produce $15 or more.
Reward: +1 Buy, +3VP

How easily can you get a big spike of money this game?
+: Always possible yet can take very different paths to get to.
-: if a double Province route is possible you'll probably go down it anyway.

Impress - Task
Objective: complete 2 other Tasks on the same turn.
Reward: +5VP, gain a Chief.

Extra points if you can complete the 2 other Tasks drawn together. You may want to wait declaring accomplishment for one so you can do this.
+: A simple extra twist to add.
-: how often will it be doable?

Investigate - Task
Objective: have a hand of 5 or more cards with no copies in it, revealed.
Reward: +3VP

Get a big enough hand of all different cards.
+: Always possible.
-: can be quite hard to remember.

[spineflu]

The Kin type, making part of the kingdom a Tribe
The core mechanic, giving the set its name. Some of the cards are Kin type. You choose one or two of these for a game; when you do, 2 random other non-Victory kingdom piles also get the Kin type, and the sideways Kin Markers go under them like the Bane card to show this, to effectively turn part of the kingdom into a Tribe. All in a unique turquoise so everything's easy to see. The original Kins will interact with them in some way, to make synergies that will be good or bad depending on what the rest of the Tribe is.
Not much change to gameplay, but extra dimensions to think about and more things to analyse. What kind of strategy does the Tribe make? How effective will it be? Are normally strong cards actually strong in this game?

Conclusions
Nothing stops you from playing with 3 or more of the original Kin cards, just too many can lead to analysis paralysis and too much going on. Having 2 opens up a fun interaction between them, just enough, or one can be influential on its own. I've tried to cover a wide variety of different relationships with them; one thing that's somewhat missing is one that completely supports other Kins. I'm working on it. At the least I hope I've got across the feel for compelling diversity and replayability I get with the Kin mechanic. But I have struggled with sound execution of it; maybe some of the ideas here still use it poorly. You be judge.

Examples:

Original Kins

Banner - Victory Kin, $5 cost.
Worth 1VP per 3 Kins in your deck (round down)

It makes an alt VP strategy that will be different each game. The more collectable the other Kins are, the better it is.
+: one of the first simple ideas that clicked, it feels safe yet compelling.
-: hard to conclude balance.

Festival Grounds - Action Kin, $2 cost.
+2 Actions
+1 Buy
-
In games using this, when you gain a 3rd differently named Kin on your turn, you may gain a Chief.

Chief - Action Kin, $0* cost.
Draw until you have 6. cards in hand.
Gain an Estate to your hand for +2VP.
For every 3 cards you have in hand (round down), + $1.
(This is not in the Supply.)

If you can get three different Kins in the same turn, you win the respect of the Chief, a free payload card that plays a little differently in different decks. How hard will he be to get, what kind of deck would be made, and is it all worth it?
+: all the analysis involved here is great.
-: perhaps Chief is too strong, and the $ effect should probably go first so it's more a case of $ or draw.

Legend - Treasure Kin, $4 cost.
+1 Buy
When you play this, choose one: gain a Kin; or trash a Kin you have in hand or in play, for + $1 per $1 it costs.
-
In games using this, when you gain a Kin, each other player gets +1VP.

Every Kin you get leaves a permanent mark against your score, yet whilst you might look for Kin free strategies this can make them still options. Getting Kins no matter how expensive can be a breeze if you so desire, or you can Salvage them non-terminally. Failing all else this can self trash for a spike of $4.
+: This supports dabbling a little into the Kins, which the bottom part implies.
-: no real testing yet, could be imbalanced.

Mead Hall - Action Command Kin, $5 cost.
Trash this. If you do, set aside two Kins from the Supply that aren't Victories, Durations or Commands. Play them in either order, leaving them set aside. Return them to the Supply at Clean-up.

Fuse two Kins into one powerful one-shot card, including Treasures or Nights. Double up one of them, or form some amazing combo.
+: it has the feeling of being great fun sometimes.
-: some combos could be broken? And of course in some games this can do nothing.

Pillar - Action Kin, $4 cost.
Trash a card from your hand. +1VP for one type it has, and +2VP for each extra type.
-
In games using this, one empty Kin pile does not count toward the 3 for game end.

A more curious one. Trash the right targets to get the most points from this. Kin counts as a type, so will give more points. To prolong the game a bit and make this more viable, you can safely empty one Kin pile; this can have its own effects on the game even if Pillar is ignored.
+: the two effects relate but not too closely; heavily implying pile emptying isn't good.
-: is the top balanced, or should it give just 1VP per type? Is it too weird, being an Action doing nothing but VP and making slow play?

Piper - Action Reaction Kin, $5 cost.
+2 Cards
You may play an Action Kin from your hand.
-
Directly after resolving an Action Kin, you may play this from your hand.

Make an engine by playing chains of Kins.
+: simple yet compelling.
-: maybe too strong in some cases. There's no real negative side to it unlike the other Kins, so it's less about analysis, so it feels kinda misfit.

Reassign - Night Kin, $4 cost.
You may trash a Kin you have in play, to gain a Kin costing up to $3 more than it.
You may move your Ally token onto a non-Victory, non-Kin Supply pile of your choice. (During your turns, cards from that pile are also Kins.)

The Ally token lets you choose a pile that counts as Kin type just for you, which sometimes will be very desirable with a second Kin card. Reassign itself lets you quite freely exchange kins around, so you can make good upgrade paths; but note that the trash happens before the token can be moved, so there's a limit to the flexibility.
+: this hopefully opens up a new compelling area of remodeling, and the Ally token a new strategic concept.
-: The upgrade could be too strong even if narrow. Nights are in the set almost entirely because of this; is there a better effect than the upgrade that could be used?

Rivals - Action Attack Kin, $3* cost.
+2 Cards
Each other player may reveal a Kin other than Rivals from their hand. Those who don't take Taunted, or if they already have it turn it over to Twice Taunted.
-
In games using this, Kins cost $1 more.

Taunted - State
When you next play an Action that has +Card, +Action, +Buy or +$ amounts in its instructions, choose one to reduce by 1, resolve it, then return this.
Twice Taunted - the same, but instead of returning it flip it over to Taunted.

Their presence makes the Tribe more expensive so generally worse (this basically costs $4, a sensible price unlike the others), and the worse they are the better this is. Its Attack will more likely land, weakening the next Action vanilla they get; two stacks, using a two-sided State for each player. Taunted reduces a number in the next Action's instructions, so Hireling would be made useless, and because you choose a number then resolve, Pawn is a counter to it.
+: it achieves the intended purpose of making Kins that are bad in a kingdom relevant.
-: How easy is it to remember the Kins cost $1 more? Is Taunted foolproof?

Travelling Merchant - Action Kin, $4 cost.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+ $1
This turn, cards cost $1 more if you have a Kin other than Travelling Merchant in play.
-
When you gain this, if you have any Kins in play, trash it.

You have a choice: either use these Peddlers, or use the other Kins. These only cost $4, but you can't gain them at all if you have one in play.
+: A simple but interesting matter to analyse in the game.
-: the bottom part could make this pretty bad, yet if it wasn't there it would probably be too good.

[spineflu]

Rules

Ice Tokens
A number of cards in the set involve setting aside cards and putting a number of Ice tokens on them, referred to as "freezing" them. At the start of your turn you remove 1 Ice token from each card you own that is frozen with Ice tokens on it and when the last token is removed you put the card into your discard pile.

Also, what happens to frozen cards when the game ends? Do you gain them or lose them?

Set aside cards are still considered part of your deck, so you keep them.
[/quote]
Examples

Snow Hag

This was one of the first and most obvious concepts - a cheap Witch but the Curses are delayed. This means that the junk will take longer to enter the opponents deck, but if the game ends before all the tokens are removed then your opponent won't have a chance to trash the curse, which could be interesting.
Edit: Changed from 3 to 6 tokens.

Yeti

This one needs to fixed up, but the concept is there.

Frost Spirit

Originally a cantrip, now changed to +2 cards. The cantrip version was far too efficient as an early game thinner and a late game Province setter asider. Hopefully making it terminal makes it harder to keep on top of icing things, we'll have to see. Masquerade is a crazy card, so I wouldn't be surprised if this follows suit. Province setting aside probably needs to be fixed, but it kind of needs to be able to set aside Estates so might be an ugly fix, unfortunately.

Crystal Ball

A Contrabandy thing, it delays your good cards and topdecks the Victories, ouch! Needs a new name now...

Nomad

A simple +Buy card with Ice tokens, referencing Nomad Camp.

Frigid Village

Replacement foe Mountain Village and pretty much the same concept. I know that Lost City for $2 seems crazy good, but Encampment does it and these take a year to enter your deck.

Glacier

I'm still keen on a Victory that starts off frozen, but no more Coffers so I have these variations. Any thoughts?

Igloo:

 I'm not sure about this one, it's seemed okay in playtest games but it still feels off for some reason. What do people think?

more to come later but i gotta tap out for the day.

[LibraryAdventurer]

I think it'd be good to have a comprehensive list of fan-made mechanics; I'm going to use this post as sort of a Table of Contents and attempt to map some sort of ontology/categorization onto them. The categorization isn't going to be exclusive - if something uses a mat and counters, it'll be in both lists, etc.

This thread should be considered a perpetual work in progress - if you have a new mechanic, or find one I missed, reply here or DM me and I'll get it included at my earliest convenience

This is a good idea, but I doubt you'd want to try to make it really comprehensive. (Would you even want to include Gunpowder?)
You can add LastFootnote's Trade tokens: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2114.0
For the record, LastFootnote was also the first to do Edicts, but Asper made several of his own and I think Asper's post about them got more attention (or maybe people have forgotten LF's edicts because Asper's post was more recent).

Feel free to add the Preserve type and special ruins from my expansion (link in my sig), although I doubt other people will want to use them.
EDIT: Also, don't forget VioletCLM's Mutineers.

[D782802859]

A completely unabridged list would likely become unwieldly and that's if you don't include mechanics that are functionally identical or extremely similar.

[spineflu]

A completely unabridged list would likely become unwieldly and that's if you don't include mechanics that are functionally identical or extremely similar.

yeah i'm going to kinda combine similar mechanics

[GendoIkari]

How do alternate card costs work with things likes Remodel?

[spineflu]

How do alternate card costs work with things likes Remodel?

sounds like a good thing to ask Aquila in the thread they're introduced in

[Aquila]

How do alternate card costs work with things likes Remodel?

sounds like a good thing to ask Aquila in the thread they're introduced in

My bad, I didn't add the description to the first post on my thread. Copy this to the card cost section spineflu:

For abilities that care about costs: this is another different kind of cost to join Potion and Debt. You can't remodel a $ cost card into a [ ] or $[ ] cost or vice versa, or [ ] into Debt or Potion costs. Each differently described card cost is also incomparable, no matter how much $, Debt or Potion is with them and even though some might be distinctly easier to pay than others. So you can't remodel a [ ] into a differently described [ ], but you could remodel [ ] into $1[ ] or $2[ ] if the described cost on each card is identical.

Thanks for doing this btw, a useful resource!
(I half thought of adding to the guide I wrote. I may link to this thread there.)

Edit: rewrote the rules to read clearer and incorporate remodelling correctly.

[Violet CLM]

I had this thread some years back, before "Project" became a real kind of card-shaped thing. In retrospect...

When you buy a Project card, you have a choice: either you gain the card as usual, or you add one of your Project tokens to that card's supply pile.

...the game would probably be more fun if you did both, not either.

Adaptive cards is another good thread.

[spineflu]

I'm working on a new fan-made expansion, and I'm adding "Dawn" cards (a new card type, as far as I know - maybe somewhere hidden in this forum, someone has used it before, but I haven't seen it as I'm rather new).  It is meant to partly mirror the "Night" card mechanic.  Night cards are great, in that they are never drawn dead - night happens at the end of turn, and you can play as many as you want (they don't require +Actions).  Many night cards interact to what happened during your turn (see Monastery, Devil's Workshop, Crypt, Raider).  A number of others set up your next hand(s), as durations (see Guardian, Ghost Town, Cobbler, Den of Sin).  Their drawback is that they take up space in your hand, affecting what you are able to buy "this" turn (in that they could have been a silver or an Action card to be used this turn before your Buy Phase), usually at the cost of another minor benefit (gain cheaper card, sift, etc.) or by setting up your next hand.

Dawn cards introduce a new phase.  First, any "start of turn" effects happen, then you enter your Dawn Phase, where you play Dawn cards**, then you move to your Action Phase and continue as usual.  But Dawn cards are usually only useful if you have them in your initial (usually 5-card) hand - unless they are a multi-Type card (e.g. Dawn-Action, Dawn-Treasure, Dawn-Night - see Werewolf), or unless something allows you to return to your Dawn Phase.  Because they aren't usually useful if drawn during your turn, they can offer slightly more powerful effects at a cheaper cost, since there is a risk that they will be a dead card.  Rather than reacting to what happened during your turn like Night cards, Dawn cards could possibly set up or affect your current turn in some way.  They can affect how cards are played, give extra power to some things, increase your ability to buy things, or a number of other possible effects, probably for the current turn - I recognize many action cards do these types of things already, but limiting the play of them to the beginning of turn can allow more powerful effects.  You could also consider something like the Ways mechanic in general, or specifically the Way of the Chameleon, likely as a below-the-line effect.

** I have not yet decided which way I want to mirror the Night cards' ability to play all Night cards - I'm still deciding between mirroring exactly, and allowing unlimited Dawn cards to be played during the Dawn Phase, or mirroring the opposite, and allowing only 1 single Dawn card to be played per turn.  Obviously the choice between these two could affect the cost of the card, and whether people want to buy many copies of it or just one.  For this contest, with your submission, please state whether it is intended to be played with a rule of 1 Dawn card per turn, or unlimited Dawn cards per turn allowed.

Dawn cards inherently have the equivalent of +1 Action on them, since they let you play the card, then still let you start your Action Phase with 1 Action.  So any +1 Action on a Dawn card is effectively a village variant.

Here are a couple very simple ideas, though these have not been tested yet for balance and cost (your submissions do not need to be this simple):

(to be used with only 1 Dawn card per turn)

Testing Ground
Type: Dawn
Cost: $3
+2 Cards
+1 Action

It is a very cheap lab (in reality, a lost city, since it's effectively +2 Actions).  But you can't spam-buy them.  They work well with deck-inspector cards that can check the top cards in your deck and leave some there.  They don't work well with discard-sifters, or any type of draw cards, as you could draw this card dead.  But playing with 1-per-turn, you likely wouldn't open with 2 of these on a 4/3 split, since the chances of them colliding is much greater than usual (if you drawn neither on turn 3, you're guaranteed to get both on turn 4, since they will either draw together or one will draw the other... if you draw only 1 on turn 3, you have 2/7 chance of drawing the other dead).
Note that this card could probably be played with unlimited Dawn cards per turn if it cost $4 (a cheap lab - great if you start your hand with it, or draw another with itself, dead card if drawn otherwise).

Morning Cards

Nocturne gave us the Night, a new phase with cards to be played after the Buy phase. Now, I introduce its logical opposite, the Morning phase. This phase takes place before the Action phase, but after any Duration effects take place. This means that you must have the Morning card in your hand at the start of your turn (or through a Duration draw effect) if you wish to play it. That will make playing these cards more difficult, so I tried to make the effects rather powerful as a result.

Much like Night cards, Morning cards require no Actions or other resources to play. Their main effect is to make certain effects throughout the rest of your turn more powerful. For the most part, these empowering effects will activate when you play the Morning card itself.

EDIT: In order to make them less swingy and less dead-when-drawn-during-turn, Morning cards now have a universal effect in which when you discard a Morning card from your hand during your Cleanup phase, you may reveal it and put it on top of your deck. I won't add this to the card text because then the cards would be too wordy. As long as it's a Morning card, you can do this.

Card Examples:

Mudlarks
Morning - $2
--
You may trash a card from your hand.
-
While this is in play, whenever you trash a card, +1 Card.

"Mudlark" is a slang term for garbage man, and as this was the best "old timey" artwork I could find for anything similar, I went with it. Anyway, the mudlarks take a little of your garbage, which they can use for their own benefit. If you have more garbage later, they'll swing by again.

Telescope
Morning - $3
--
Look at the top 4 cards of your deck. Put one back and discard the rest.
-
While this is in play, whenever you discard a card from your hand or your deck, you may put it on top of your deck.

(Oops, I should have said "Other than during Cleanup" for the in-play effect. Pretend it's there)
Your trusty Telescope can see what's coming in or going out and help you prepare for it accordingly. I worry it's too much like Cartographer for its price, but as it's only playable in the Morning and doesn't allow you to chain them as well as Carto (plus you're forced to keep at least one card), I kept it at $3.

Clock Tower
Morning - $4
--
+1 Action
-
While this is in play, whenever you have at least two Actions remaining after playing a card, draw up to five cards in hand.

(Oops again, this should say "before your Buy phase" so that it's not completely busted. Also, the draw-up-to-5 takes place after resolving the effects of the card.)
The bell in the Clock Tower rings early in the morning, waking up the eager townsfolk to get them to work. By itself, it's effectively a Village. The Kingdom will also need the right cards to keep your Actions high and hand-size low enough, but if that happens, the Clock Tower will become a vital engine component.

Fishmonger
Morning - $5
--
+1 Buy
+$1
-
While this is in play, whenever you play an Action card with +$ amounts in its text, +$1.

Similar to his kith the Herbalist, the gone-but-not-forgotten Woodcutter, etc., the Fishmonger gives his highness an extra Buy and some money through his wares. However, this fellow's fishy fare is known to energize the Kingdom's other money-makers. Peddler variants especially will use the fish to become stinking rich. *sniff sniff* Or maybe they're just stinking...

Mushroom Hunt
Morning - $6
--
Gain a Gold to your hand.
-
While this is in play, whenever you gain a Victory card, you may gain a Treasure costing less than it.

One experienced at the art of the Mushroom Hunt can easily find a delicacy worth its weight in Gold right away. Plus, the more land she is able to hunt on, the more tasty treasures she can accrue. Of course, she also knows when not to hunt, as to not pick up anything poisonous (like a Copper).

Morning Cards
Morning cards are kingdom cards. They can be thought of as temporary projects or artifacts that affect everyone simultaneously.

Morning cards are a Kingdom card; they're playable in your Morning Phase, which happens after the start of your turn but before your Action Phase.
You may play as many Morning cards as you like.

There can only be one Morning card in play at a time.
When a new Morning card is played, any in-play Morning cards are discarded and stop doing things. Morning cards are assumed to have "While this is in play:" at the top of their text.

Morning cards stay in play until a new Morning card is played (or they're trashed with something exotic like Bonfire).

The in-play Morning card affects all players, but still is "in play" only in one player's area - that player may have slightly better effects from it.

(N E W) At the start of a player's cleanup phase, they may reveal a Morning card from their hand, set it aside, and add it to their hand before drawing new cards (so if one is drawn during the Action phase, its playable on the next turn); that player will still have 5 cards in hand after drawing (or more, if they have other bonuses like The River's Gift). This can only be done with one Morning card, so if you draw two or more, you'll have to choose which you do this with.

The player who is referred to as "you"/"your" is the player who played the Morning card. When a Morning card says "Now and at the start of each player's turn", only player who played it gets the "Now" benefit, not each player. The person who played the Morning card still gets the benefits of the "Each player" portion - it's not "each other player".

Each pile of Morning cards has four distinct cards in it; in a 2 player game, use two of each (8 total to the pile); otherwise use three of each (12 total to the pile, like Victory cards). The piles are mixed/shuffled, and all but the top card are kept face-down (like Knights).

Each pile of Morning cards has a group type (similar to how Knights does) - this is just to help you keep them separate from each-others piles.

Design notes:

• Morning cards should be affordable for the opening
• Morning cards should never be an Attack or Attack-like.
• Morning cards with drastic effects should probably be an optional/"you may" card
• Morning cards should always follow the 4 distinct cards per pile schema
• Morning cards should always affect everyone
• The "Extra Custom" color for Morning cards on the shard of honor card generator is 1.35, 1.35, 0.95 / 0.5, 0, 0.05 / 0.7, 0.7, 0.35 / 1.55, 0.8, 0.5.

I've mocked up exactly one card because this is a long post as-is, but here's three Morning card piles - Sunrise, Cityfolk, and Weather

Dawn Chorus • $3 • Morning - Sunrise
Now and at the start of each players turn, they get +1 Card
Now and at the start of your turn, +1 Action

Dew • $3 • Morning - Sunrise
Now and at the start of each players turn, +$1
Now and at the start of your turn, +1 Buy

Rooster • $3 • Morning - Sunrise
Now and at the start of each players turn, they may discard a card for +1 Card.
Now and at the start of your turn, if the card you discard for this costs $5 or more, +$1

Sunrise • $3 • Morning - Sunrise
Now and at the start of each players turn, +1 Action
Now and at the start of your turn, +1 Buy

reflections on the mechanic:

You've got a pile of Dawn cards, 10 deep, and they're good. You want the entire pile in your hand. Hands are only 5 cards; if that Dawn card doesn't at the very least replace itself, you're in trouble.
If you can only play one of them AND they don't replace themselves (+1 Card when played from the hand), collision of 3+ Dawn cards is the equivalent of getting hit with a Militia (you're down two cards for that turn).
It needs to replace itself when played from the hand, and to justify them being a pile, they need to be non-terminal.

On top of this, if there's no "set aside-to-play-next-turn" mechanism, running into them midway through your Action phase means you've junked yourself, which either means the effect of them needs to be minimal (to not give lucky draws the game), or Big (to risk junking yourself). The former, why would you buy it? The latter, I don't know that that amount of variance is conducive to Dominion as a game - if you want a random winner, play the coin flip game. 

The only way this card type justifies its existence is as minigames - if it just gives vanilla bonuses unconditionally, why isn't it an action card? or treasure? or whatever. It should give a small task you need to complete to get a reward.

[spineflu]

Conditions

Conditions are a brand new type of card-shaped object with a landscape orientation. Conditions are two-sided. I haven't completely settled on how to determine which side starts face up. For now, and for the purpose of the contest, the first side listed (i.e. Easy Living, Warm, Rainy) starts face up. Unlike Artifacts or States, Conditions are never taken or held by a specific player. Rather, they remain in the center of the table, are flipped to the same side for all players, and thus affect all players the same. I have created three, two-sided Conditions for my "Summertime" fan expansion.

Easy Living/Hard Times:

Warm/Cool:

Rainy/Dry:

Conditions can be flipped by the operation of cards or card-shaped objects. Some cards resolve differently depending on which side of a Condition is face up. For example:

Vanilla Orchard - $4
Action - Conditional
+1 Card
+1 Action
If it's Warm and Rainy: +1 Card
If it's Warm and Dry: +1 Action
If it's Cool and Rainy: +$1
If it's Cool and Dry: +1 Buy
Flip Warm/Cool or Rainy/Dry.

Cards like Vanilla Orchard that require a Condition to work should have the type "Conditional" so players can know to use the proper Condition in the game, and to look to it to resolve the card. At segura's brilliant suggestion, I changed the wording from "If Rainy is face up..." to "If it's Rainy..." While this creates slightly awkward wording for "Easy Living" and "Hard Times," I think it's worth it for the simplicity, and the "Conditional" type indicates what is meant.

If you want to see more, you can look at my whole Summertime expansion, which makes fairly extensive use of the mechanic.

[spineflu]

Rules:

Mutineers may be spent during your Action phase at any time when you might spend an action instead, i.e. when no cards are currently resolving. Spending a Mutineer discards a card from your hand. At the end of the game, each unspent Mutineer is worth -1VP.

Examples:

(a b c)

[spineflu]

Worshippers are a new type of token that you can "spend" during your Clean up phase:

The latest version of the rules (and mat) I had posted is this:

At the start of your Clean-up phase, you may remove tokens from this to trash a card from your hand or one you have in play for each token removed.

and a simple Chapel variant:

Apse Chapel - Action - $2
+2 Worshippers.

Pre Contest Discussion:
• I'm still overall happy with this design - the main thing I was unsure of when I first posted was whether allowing to trash cards from either hand or in play was too strong. For Apse Chapel, I hopefully balanced it out enough by only taking 2 tokens per play. (this design was originally for a contest entitled "Make me skip chapel!".)

• you can see some more of the cards I came up for it, in various states of completion, in the scolapasta's cards thread

• I am planning on cleaning up (pun intended) the rules / mat wording a little to:

At the start of your Clean-up phase, you may remove tokens from this. For each removed token, trash a card that you would discard this turn.

It borrows some wording from Improve, helps tracking (now, you can't trash Duration cards that would stay in play) and removes some words by making the trashing mandatory (since that shouldn't really affect gameplay). Does this work better?

[spineflu]

The set also introduces Trade tokens, which you usually get when you gain a card and can use to boost that card when you play it.

The number of stars after each card name indicates how much testing the card has gotten. More black stars = more testing. Generally if a card has a bunch of stars, I'm happy with it or I would have scrapped it by now. Cards with more white stars need much more testing before I can make a judgment.

Jubilee: Action, $2  ★★★★☆
+2 Actions
+$2
You may pay a Trade token. If you don't, set this aside, and return it to the Supply at the start of Clean-up.
When you gain this, take a Trade token.

Convoy: Action, $3  ★★☆☆☆
+3 Cards
Discard a card. You may pay a Trade token, to play this again.
When you gain this, take a Trade token.

Tinker: Action, $3  ★★★☆☆
+$1
Trash 2 cards from your hand. You may pay a Trade token, to gain a card costing up to their total cost.
When you gain this, take a Trade token.

Stockpile: Treasure, $4  ★★★☆☆
Worth $1
When you play this, you may pay a Trade token, to gain a copy of a card you have in play. Otherwise, take a Trade token.

Terrace: Action, $4  ★★★★☆
+1 Card
+2 Actions
You may pay a Trade token, to discard your hand and draw 5 Cards.
When you gain this, take a Trade token.

Vendor: Action, $5  ★★☆☆☆
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Look through your discard pile. You may pay a token, to put a card from it into your hand.
When you gain this, take a Trade token.

Barter: Action, $5  ★★★☆☆
+1 Action
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $2 more than it. You may pay a Trade token to put the gained card into your hand.
When you buy this, take a Trade token per Silver you have in play.

[spineflu]

Rules

This mechanic probably has some preexisting name on these forums somewhere, but I searched for "level" (the most intuitively associated word) and all I found was a bunch of talk about rankings on online Dominion games and a topic about borrowing City's interest in the number of spent supply piles. (Since then, Poacher has also arrived on the scene.) In any case, I was thinking about Adventures earlier and its use of +1 Card, +1 Action, etc. tokens to make supply piles better, but only for individual players. Those tokens are all pretty generic because they have to be, but what if you could tailor the tokens to specific supply piles? So I whipped up a few quick illustrations of that idea.

Project cards are works in progress. The archetypal Project card starts out weak but can be made strong by repeatedly investing in it. When you buy a Project card, you have a choice: either you gain the card as usual, or you add one of your Project tokens to that card's supply pile. (This still counts as buying a card for the purposes of e.g. Merchant Guild or Contraband.) The number of Project tokens each player has on a given supply pile is referred to as that player's level of that pile; each supply pile therefore starts out at level 0. There is no hard limit on how many Project tokens a player can have, in total or on any given supply pile, though specific cards may stop accruing benefits after specific levels.

Examples

Redecorate is a Remodel that starts out almost useless (although the "you may" wording means it can at least kill coppers) but can be built up to an Expand or beyond.
Entourage spends a while burdening you with junk (its on-buy effect is triggered when you put a Project token on it) before letting you gain it two at a time, or better.
Boom Town gradually becomes a village or better, but also helps you with anything you may be specializing in.
Initiate is cheap but mostly useless until level 4, when it becomes a bargain Market with potential to grow even further. May be worth gaining before leveling.
Arsonist allows you to mess with whatever cards your opponents have been leveling.
Sellsword is less effective than Militia but gains drawing abilities if other players compete with you for it.
College is a drawer that wants you to buy expensive cards before you start playing it.
Caravansary needs at least one token on it before you start, but then carries money indefinitely into the future until you finally want it.
Sunken City, like Encampment, disappears after you use it, but the moment you place a token somewhere you've got any number of sunken cities back in your deck again.
Ore is as straightforward a project card as it gets, a criminally overexpensive Copper that can be made better than Gold.
Smeltery turns coins into coin tokens, but only if you invest in it first.
Tithe gives you a lot of money in short order, but slows down the moment you get too greedy with it.
Memorial is a pricier Gold that turns into a cheaper Province.
Ramparts is a self-contained bidding war.

edit: fixed Ramparts link

[spineflu]

Rules

This is an idea for a new type of card I came up with when I was thinking about how Intrigue's themes can expanded upon. Adaptive cards!
Adaptive cards are cards that give you two options- but you have to choose the option you want at the start of the game and that is locked in for the duration of the game. Here's an example:

[...]I'm not sure the two choices need to have their own individual names... if nothing else, keeping the names consistent across Adaptive cards (α/β?) would make it easier to design the double-sided tokens.

I also wonder whether making every player decide their choice for every card at the start of the game might cause too much startup time. Another option would be to have each player only decide their choice for any given card the first time they gain/play it. That also at least somewhat alleviates the last-player-advantage potential that could come with some cards.

I also think that it would be more simple if the card effect was decided on when you gain it. In fact, what if you could alter the effect every time you gain one, changing the card mid-game? Here's an idea:

Cloister, 4$, Action
+1 Action
If your Cloister token is face up, trash up to two cards from your hand. Otherwise, +1 Card, +1 Action
---
When you gain this, either put your Cloister token face up or down (it starts face up).

My only issue with this is that something like this will usually behave a bit similar to a Seasons card (link), because people will change it depending on game phase. On the other hand, it doesn't need a Season mat and has player-relative timing. That's really cool.

My reason to argue for the ability to change the card mid-game is mostly based on the assumption that it'll be hard to make effects that are so similar in power that different players will pick different abilities. And if they don't pick different abilities, it loses a big part of what makes it interesting. Of course you can't enforce different picks, either, as that'd be unfair. Maybe it's not as bad and people will pick different options often enough... You could help this by making the effects interact with each other, of course, e.g. by making one a trasher and one a Curser and similar things:

Rebel, 5$, Action - Attack - Looter
+3 Cards
If your Rebel token is face up: Each other player gains a Ruins.
Otherwise: Trash up to 3 cards from your hand.
---
At the start of the game, put your Rebel Token on any side.

Examples

Harbour Town
$6 Action-Adaptive
+1 Card
+2 Actions
If you chose...
Import: You may gain a card costing up to $4.
Export: Discard any number of cards. +$1 per card discarded.

So after sorting out other setup rules and drawing opening hands starting with 1st player each player chooses either import or export and Harbour Town has that effect for that player. This could be tracked with double sided tokens showing which option each player chooses if necessary.
A couple of other ideas:

Aristocrat
$3 Action-Adaptive
Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. If you chose...
Greed: Put all revealed Treasures into your hand.
Generosity: Put all revealed Actions into your hand.
Put the rest back in any order.

Automaton
$4 Action-Adaptive-Attack
+$2
If you chose...
Might: Each other player reveals their hand and gains a Curse if they have no duplicates.
Magic: Each other player reveals the top card of their deck and gains a Curse if it costs from $3-£6.

This could also be the perfect use case for that split card design I made

[spineflu]

Resources and Gatherers
So Resources, that's a rather generic term. They look like this:

Fruit - Action Resource, $2 cost.
You may play an Action card that costs more than this from your hand. Then, +2 Cards.

Ore - Action Resource, $2 cost.
+1 Action
+  $2

Refuge - Action Resource, $2 cost.
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Discard a card.

Water Source - Action Resource, $2 cost.
+1 Card
+1 Action
If you have exactly 5 cards in hand, trash one of them.

Wood - Action Resource, $2 cost.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy

These are a take on the 'good Ruins' idea. Like Ruins:

• There are 10 copies of each, shuffled at the start of each game and only the top one is visible.
• There is a type that adds them to the game and has the extra setup rules attached to it; namely, the Gatherer type. Yes maybe confusing with Gathering type, but thematically correct.
• There is one each for Cards, Actions, Buys and $, and one that trashes as opposed to Survivors sifting.

Unlike Ruins:

• All 50 are used in every game.
• When you want to buy a Resource, you look at the top 2 Resources and choose one of them. If it's the second one down, put the top one at the bottom of the pile. Since you're putting effort in to use a Buy, you get this bonus then. When you're instructed to gain one, you just take whatever's on top.

So here's one way randomness is involved in the set.
The Resources have also shaped the way the rest of the set is designed.

• There is only one $2 cost kingdom pile.
• There is at least one other when-buy effect (that is necessary over when-gain).

THE CARDS INDIVIDUALLY
I explain each of them, then give my positives (+) and negatives (-) on its design, then give its history.

Resources

As you seek to expand your kingdom into barren desert regions, you must depend on whatever resources the environment bestows you. Whilst players may not have to depend on them as much as in real life, every vanilla engine component is available in every game with a Gatherer, but they come in a random order, and sometimes the crucial one will be hotly contested and sought after!
+: They create random and replayable games. They do not make a good deck by themselves, but rather support the kingdom cards.
-: Ore is risky costing $2, although it is the only stop card. Opening Water Source could be too big an advantage for whoever happens to get them. The same issue as Donald had with Horses could arise, that a large number of gained Resources makes lengthens play too much.
History: Fruit had draw to 5 cards on it for quite a while, with varying forms; may discard a card first, discard any number, put a card back on the deck for +1 Action, +1 Card before everything, then 2 Cards. Then I saw how it was making the Resources too independent and changed it to the current weak lab.
Ore was initially +1 Action + $1, if you had a Gatherer in play + $1; a bit boring. Then + $2, if a Gatherer or another Resource in play +1 Action; independence again and awkward. So now plain Action Silver.
Water Source started off checking for a 4-card hand; I said independence was an issue, didn't I?
Refuge and Wood basically haven't ever changed.
I also tried $3 cost variants briefly, but that was too useful and centralising.
Flavour wise, they were first called Trinkets, and they were Codex, Jewellery, Garment, Tool and Crate, respectively. Like things you could find when razing a settlement. Too much of that in Dominion already, so I thought again, landed at Resources, and from there the whole desert theme developed.

Display Case - Treasure Gatherer, $5 cost.
+1 Buy
+ $1 per differently named Resource you have in play.

As your armies ventured through the foreign lands, they sent back artifacts and memorabilia so your citizens could see them at museums and private collections. This tries to make a mini game of collecting all the different Resources. Build a deck that plays them all, and this pays handsomely.
+: It can be fun to play.
-: very likely too strong at present with how easy it is to power up.
History: it started as a terminal Action at $3, which was too awkward. Then I tried non-terminal at $4, still awkward, so went to Treasure, then testing showed it should be more expensive so up to $5.

Expedition Camp - Action Duration Gatherer, $4 cost.
If this is the first Expedition Camp you've played this turn and the previous turn wasn't yours, take another turn after this one, and you draw 5 fewer cards for your next hand.
At the start of that turn, you may trash this to gain 3 Resources to your hand.

Send a team of explorers out on a Mission, who may return with secured Resources. It's an outpost variant that ordinarily gives you a bonus turn with no hand at all, but you can trash it for a random hand of Resources. Whilst only the first one played grants the bonus turn, other Camps played with it can be trashed for an additional 3 Resources.
+: It has multiple functions and it can be exciting.
-: maybe annoying in its randomness, or a little too strong for $4.
History: this is where Resources had their start. I had the idea of an Outpost variant with random hand a while ago, using a deck of special cards, I kept it in reserve until I thought of other things for that deck to do, then remembered it when deciding to do this set. It basically hasn't changed, I just fiddled with its wording.

 

Provisioner - Action Reserve Gatherer, $5 cost.
Gain a card costing up to $5 onto your deck, then gain a Resource onto your deck. Put this on your Tavern mat.
-
During your turn, whenever you have any unused Actions, you may discard this from your Tavern mat for -1 Action.

The provisioner can access local supplies and things much greater, just don't ask how. You get two cards on your deck, a card up to $5 paired with a Resource. For balance, you need two Actions to use it repeatedly, otherwise it stays on your Tavern mat. Maybe you're finished with using it anyway.
+: It calls for adaptability to the top Resource, and the Tavern mat setback adds some neat functionality to the set.
-: it can nearly get away without the the Tavern mat bit, so this might be a little on the weak side.
History: it started as just the top part, but then it seemed to be deciding a few games of one player opened with it, so now I'm trying it out like this.

Ravage - Action Attack Gatherer, $5 cost.
+ $3
Each other player discards a non-Victory card costing $3 or more from their hand (or reveals they can't) if there are any Resources in the Supply. Those who do gain a Resource to their hand.

You tear through rival territory, rendering it a deserted waste until it recovers. In the short term, a good card in your opponents' hands is downgraded to a Resource, whilst in the long term, their deck may be slightly weakened by Resource 'junk' or strengthened. What they choose to discard may be influenced by the Resource they'll get. They go round the table in play order doing this, and if the Resources empty out part way round, the next players don't have to discard.
+: it's a different way to utilise Resources. The Attack can be interesting and even fun to play against.
-: there's the potential to devastate a good hand, and the potential to save a bad one; overall, this might be too swingy and not work.
History: the attack hasn't changed, but the vanilla bonus was +3 Cards for a time, which felt a little on the strong side.

Forage - Act Gatherer
Gain a Resource.

Roam the desert in search of necessities. When the right Resource is on top, you can prioritise an Action on gaining it. Resources are also made available on the opening turns.
+: Simple and effective.
-: maybe too much of an acceleration to the game? I doubt it.
History: it just clicked when thinking of Acts one day, nothing else to say.

[spineflu]

Acts
These are landscape cards triggered by spending an Action (Action, not Action card). When you do this, move the Act card into your play area as if it were a portrait Action card; only it is not a card in play, just a tracking indicator. When they would be discarded from play, return them to the middle of the table where they were before, so other players may use it on their turn.

Differences from Ways:

• An Action is spent, not an Action card. So they can be used in the opening turns.
• The overall power level is thus a bit weaker.
• They can only be used once per turn.
• Design space advantages include independence on what's in your hand and effects broken on an Action card.
• You can use two of them in a game.

Accommodate - Act
+1 Action
Choose one: put an Action card from your hand on your Tavern mat; or play an Action card from your Tavern mat.

This opens up your Tavern mat to offering hospitality to all your Actions. Once per turn, you can choose to put an Action you have out of the way, or play an Action you earlier saved at a good time.
+: It opens up more functionality to Actions, enabling more different strategies and combos. And as an Act, it's safe from Adventures token abuse.
-: the way it saves terminal collisions could make it boring.
History: I tried it as a Way, but weird broken stuff could happen. Then a cantrip Action, but that was unreliable.

Assess - Act
+1 Action
Look at the top card of your deck; discard it or put it back.

Look at the road ahead and evaluate the situation. How many times have you wished you knew what the top card of your deck was? This gives you an answer. But again, only once per turn, so time carefully.
+: it's a simple but desirable effect to have.
-: maybe it's just a mundane simplification of the game, and maybe it shouldn't give you the option to discard.
History: this is pretty much the first thing I thought of when deciding to do Acts. At first it just looked, no discarding option, but then I thought I could make it more relevant more often adding it.

Declare - Act Duration
Name a type. Until the end of your next turn, when any player gains a card with that type, they get +1VP.

Players get to declare what type of card is the preference to gain for a round of turns. This is an Act Duration, so it follows the movement rules of a played Action Duration card. You spend an Action, move it to the top row of your play area where Durations go, then starting next turn you move it down, then at that turn's Clean-up you move it back to the middle of the table. So the advantage of you spending an Action on this global effect is getting 2 turns of it, and you're aiming to get ahead on VP by making the right declarations.
+: It's an interactive way to get ahead on points, so it should be engaging play.
-: Players have to remember the declared type. It may also cause mirror play. Naming Resource might be too influential and game-shaping sometimes.
History: it stems from Donald's Secret History! There was an Event outtake from Adventures that rewarded Golds for gaining cards with the named type. I felt how it could be compelling, and saw how it could work on an Act by involving the user's immediate turn.

Delegate - Act
Set aside any number of Actions with the same name from your hand, then play them in any order.

Organise a group of Actions to work together on an assignment. Wait for a good number of copies to be in hand, then play them all at once, to effectively get a varying number of +Actions.
+: the effect really benefits from being on an Act for reliability.
-: it's just free Actions, so likely simplistic and boring.
History: I saw the effect tried on an Action card more than once, then realised it could work on an Act and there we are. One of the first ones.

Descend - Act
+2 Cards
Each other player gets +1VP.

A physical descent down a mountain, or a moral descent in order to get ahead? Once per turn you can choose to play a free Smithy at the cost of a VP.
+: simple but effective, a bit like a +Cards variant of Desperation.
-: giving a VP might be too little a penalty, and actually gaining a Curse like Desperation might be more balanced. Or the opening becomes too wild and +1 Card (maybe with +Action) would tone things down there.
History: One of the first Acts. When I twigged how weak they would have to be, I saw that self-inflicted penalties could open the design space up and then this was obvious.

Dig - Act
Gain a non-Victory card from the trash. If it costs $2 or less, + $1.

People bury their treasure in the desert. You can dig around to claim it as yours. If there's something good in the trash, you can use an Action to take it in a pinch.
+: An often weak ability that is sometimes amazing, it's the kind of thing Acts like.
-: it's sometimes doing nothing, but at least as a landscape it's easy to replace.
History: it started as Way of the Vulture, exactly the same but a Way. I preferred it as an Act because it's once per turn so the infinite VP and other tfb loops are more restricted.

Forage - Act Gatherer
Gain a Resource.

Roam the desert in search of necessities. When the right Resource is on top, you can prioritise an Action on gaining it. Resources are also made available on the opening turns.
+: Simple and effective.
-: maybe too much of an acceleration to the game? I doubt it.
History: it just clicked when thinking of Acts one day, nothing else to say.

Hire - Act Attack
Discard a Treasure. If you do, each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a card.

With a bit of spare cash, get a local mercenary to do some dirty work on your opponents. This is an Attack, so using it is 'playing an Attack card' for all concerned Reactions and Durations, even if it isn't a card in play.
+: it adds an interactive spin to the game.
-: Player 1 starts $5/$2, and gets Hire on turn 2, against player 2 with $2/$5... It's rare, but potentially game-deciding.
History: All of the Acts are very new, and this one came after Declare being an Act Duration; what other types could I give to Acts to make the whole rule simpler to understand?

Offer - Act
Choose a card in the Supply costing up to $4. The player to your left may gain it. If they do, +2VP.

If you can read the player to your left well, offer them something they want without compromising the whole game to them. Make your 2VP count.
+: It captures the moment where reading and tracking your opponents is a key part of winning the game.
-: are experienced players ever going to find this a challenge? Would enabling offers to all players be fine, or would that create politics? A consolation bonus upon declined offers would help too.
History: as I was playing with Resources, it felt like a nice idea to make offering a Resource to opponents be a thing. Sometimes one shows up that you don't need but they do.

[naitchman]

I just wanted to note that I had done a mechanic contest in the weekly design contest about a year ago, and there were some pretty cool submissions (some of them are already in the atlas). Here's the link

Here's a short list of the mechanics submitted
2 sided events by grep
Morning Cards by Spineflu
2 sided events by Majiponi
Single Cards by NoMoreFun
Armor by 4est
Reload by mandioca15
Workers by D782802859
Rules by grrgrrgrr (similar to edicts)
Jewelry by scolapasta
Strength by X-tra
Equipment by [TP] Inferno
Card Costs by Aquila
Mount Cards by Gazbag
Threat Cards by Fragasnap
Roundabout Cards by Snowyowl
Enchantments by Something_Smart
Leaders by Kudasai

[Mahowrath]

Does Subdeck/Aquatic make it onto the atlas? Happy to transcribe examples from http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.0

[emtzalex]

I know this thread was not meant to be comprehensive, but given that we have an ongoing Fan Card Mechanics Contest, I wanted to collect more of these mechanics, even if only for my own use. So I have been trawling through the past several pages of Variants and Fan Cards posts, looking for any fan mechanics. I can't say 100% I didn't miss any, but I think I have got most (if not all) of them, going back to about the beginning of 2020.

Here is my list of fan mechanics not currently in the Atlas (and which have not been featured in a Fan Card Mechanics contest):

Luxury cards and the Wealth type (from DunnoItAll's Dominion: Middle Ages) -- Luxury cards are an additional Supply pile that gets added when a Kingdom pile has the Wealth type; they stay in play and give a vanilla bonus at the start of each turn.

Gems and Gemstones (by DunnoItAll) -- Gemstones are player-specific landscapes that function as a kind of modified Coffers mat, the tokens on which can be returned for a different amount of $ depending on some external condition. Gems are the tokens.

Setting aside a Kingdom pile as a non-Supply card (from Something_Smart's Roots expansion) -- the cards are gained by an Action or Event, which also modifies how it gets played (see Judge, Pioneer, Construct, Witchcraft).

Double-face cards (by Carline) -- these cards are set aside at the beginning of the game, and are played using either a card (Guildmaster) or Way (Way of the Beast)

Harms (from Something_Smart's Rivalries) -- piles of Junk cards that do harm to a player during Clean-up (in games using them, players must reveal their hand during Clean-up)

Currency (from Jupaoqq's Dominion: Dynasty) -- Coins that can only be used to buy a specific type of card (i.e. ActionCurrency, TreasureCurrency, and VictoryCurrency)

Monsters (by Marpharos) -- a harmful landscape in the middle of a split pile that are "defeated" using Raiders, a resources handed out by the top card in the pile (which has the new "Adventurer" type); when the Monster is killed, a Reward is given to the players based upon their participation in defeating the monster

Heritage cards (in DunnoItAll's Dominion: Subterfuge) -- DunnoItAll doesn't really explain how these work; given that each Heritage card accompaies a Kingdom card with the Heritage listed like an Heirloom, I presume it works like an Heirloom, but replaces an Estate instead of a Copper (though I would appreciate DunnoItAll correcting me if I am wrong).

Money Bags (by herw)--cards with an a bonus on-play effect that requires putting basic Treasure cards from your hand under them as a form of payment

Adventurer Cards (from Udzu's Dominion: Swords & Sorcery) -- "a sort of cross between Heirlooms and Reserve cards," each of these is included when a certain card is in the Kingdom; they start on a player's Adventurer's mat, and stay there until thery are called by meeting some condition. They are then discarded, and become part of a player's deck. They are modified by Equipment landscapes.

Missions (from Udzu's Dominion: Swords & Sorcery) -- Objectives that, when completed, give the player a bonus

Janus cards (by emtzalex) -- two-sided cards (they have one face, but one is right-side up and the other is upside down), which, when played, give one effect to the player playing it, and the other effect to each other player.

Equipment cards (by gambit05) -- Like Heirlooms, these are added to the game based on the presence of certain Kingdom cards; they start out of the game on "stand by" mode, and enter the game when "Equipped" by a player meeting certain criteria. A subset of these have a "Cabinet" type, which go onto your Cabinet mat and enhace the play of other cards while there (see Kingsman). This is an update of an earlier post, which also had Morale cards.

Henchmen + Underlings + Jobs (by spineflu) -- Henchmen are tokens that go on a Henchmen mat, and which are given by cards with the "Underling" type. In games with an Underling card, a Job (or maybe more than one) is added to the game. During a player's Action phase, they may pay 1 Action and 1 Henchman token to play the Job.

Carts (by gambit05) -- Cart is a non-Suppy Action card that gives +2 Actions, +$2, +1 Card per empty pile.

Territories (by scott_pilgrim) -- landscapes that give Project-like bonuses, but which can only be held by one player at a time; in order to take it away, another player must pay more than the current holder paid the previous time

Allies (by MrHiTech) -- "Allies are a sideways card type. They go in your sideways deck, and start in the supply. When you buy an Ally, it goes in front of you, like an Artifact, and you benefit from it while it’s in front of you. Another player can buy an Ally from in front of you, and then they put it in front of them. There is only one copy of each Ally."

Buy type (from X-tra's Odyssey) -- Cards with the Buy type can't be "obtained in any way outside of your Buy phase."

[X-tra]

Yikes. My entries here are from a time where I wasn't very skilled at making fan stuff for Dominion. These gameplay mechanics of mine were largely untested. They do not play good and have a very uuuuh unpolished feel, if you will. But, I have learned from them since then. The Strength mechanic, for instance, while it doesn't play nice at all, I have been able to repurpose with another idea I have yet to post on these forums. Because that's kind of the difference between then and now: I test stuff thoroughly now to filter out bad ideas. 

Still, I appreciate the compilation you guys are making here. It's good to have it all documented in one place, if only to secure ideas to not be lost over time.

[spineflu]

Still, I appreciate the compilation you guys are making here. It's good to have it all documented in one place, if only to secure ideas to not be lost over time.

honeslty it'd be done better as a wiki - forum threads aren't condusive to this type of organization. I wish I had more time in the day / energy in my waking life to tidy this up a bit, add in more things.

[X-tra]

honeslty it'd be done better as a wiki - forum threads aren't condusive to this type of organization. I wish I had more time in the day / energy in my waking life to tidy this up a bit, add in more things.

Might not be a bad idea at all. The Wiki is actually currently in the process of being entirely revamped after all (I even participated in writing new strategical blurbs for outdated pages). Most of the discussion is happening on Discord. While the prime focus for the time being is to re-do card by card pages (they really needed a major cleanup), I'll still drop a couple of words to the good folks there about this idea. It's Dominion related after all. I think this atlas has a right to be documented on the official Wiki.

[spineflu]

honeslty it'd be done better as a wiki - forum threads aren't condusive to this type of organization. I wish I had more time in the day / energy in my waking life to tidy this up a bit, add in more things.

Might not be a bad idea at all. The Wiki is actually currently in the process of being entirely revamped after all (I even participated in writing new strategical blurbs for outdated pages). Most of the discussion is happening on Discord. While the prime focus for the time being is to re-do card by card pages (they really needed a major cleanup), I'll still drop a couple of words to the good folks there about this idea. It's Dominion related after all. I think this atlas has a right to be documented on the official Wiki.

When I last talked to wero about it, he wanted me to keep it all to one page, which is why the fan card creation guide is the longest page on the wiki.

[DunnoItAll]

Yikes. My entries here are from a time where I wasn't very skilled at making fan stuff for Dominion. These gameplay mechanics of mine were largely untested. They do not play good and have a very uuuuh unpolished feel, if you will. But, I have learned from them since then. The Strength mechanic, for instance, while it doesn't play nice at all, I have been able to repurpose with another idea I have yet to post on these forums. Because that's kind of the difference between then and now: I test stuff thoroughly now to filter out bad ideas. 

Still, I appreciate the compilation you guys are making here. It's good to have it all documented in one place, if only to secure ideas to not be lost over time.

Yeah same here.  Honestly, Luxury cards need to be stricken from this list and everyone's memory.  Gems/Gemstones could possibly be made to work (I think I finally had something almost workable near the end), and Heritage cards are indeed just Heirlooms for Estates.

Spells/Spellcasters could be added to this list (though some credit should be given to LittleFish and LibraryAdventurer for the concept):

from here: https://dominion-fantasy.weebly.com/

"Spellcasters
 There are 10 cards in this expansion that enable the Spells pile to be included.  Spell cards are not in the Supply. Spells can be played as Action cards or as Spell cards. Their effect is the same, but if it is played as a Spell, it costs 1 "mana" to play (instead of costing an Action). Mana is tracked by mana tokens; one mana token can be gained any time you have $2 or more remaining at the end of your turn. You cannot gain more than 1 mana per turn in this way."

[spineflu]

Yikes. My entries here are from a time where I wasn't very skilled at making fan stuff for Dominion. These gameplay mechanics of mine were largely untested. They do not play good and have a very uuuuh unpolished feel, if you will. But, I have learned from them since then. The Strength mechanic, for instance, while it doesn't play nice at all, I have been able to repurpose with another idea I have yet to post on these forums. Because that's kind of the difference between then and now: I test stuff thoroughly now to filter out bad ideas. 

Still, I appreciate the compilation you guys are making here. It's good to have it all documented in one place, if only to secure ideas to not be lost over time.

Yeah same here.  Honestly, Luxury cards need to be stricken from this list and everyone's memory.  Gems/Gemstones could possibly be made to work (I think I finally had something almost workable near the end), and Heritage cards are indeed just Heirlooms for Estates.

Spells/Spellcasters could be added to this list (though some credit should be given to LittleFish and LibraryAdventurer for the concept):

honestly i think stuff that didnt work that is sufficiently outside the norm should be on the list (especially if you want to write up a little secret history style blurb on what's busted with it)- it lets others know what does/doesn't work, and why, and maybe they can tweak it into functionality like we've seen with some of the stuff in the fan mechanic contests.

[emtzalex]

So I had an idea the other day for a new type of card: Activation. I even wrote a quick blurb:

These cards say “Activation” on the bottom line, i.e. "Action – Activation.” In addition to any effects these cards have when played or while in play, an Activation card has another effect that you can use by spending an Action. During your Action phase, instead of spending an Action to play an Action card from your hand, you may spend an Action to get the activation effect of an Activation card you already have in play.

Activation cards in play that have not yet been activated are not discarded during your Clean-up phase. They stay in play until activated and are discarded from play during the Clean-up phase of that turn.

Activation cards can only be activated once per time they are played. Once activated, they cannot be activated again until they have been removed from play and played again. Even if another card plays a single Activation card more than once, the activation effect can only be used once before the Activation card leaves play. Hence, if an Activation card is played twice by Throne Room, the Throne Room will be discarded from play normally during the Clean-up phase of that turn, whether or not the card it played has been activated.

In order to keep track of which Activation cards have been activated and which ones haven’t, when you play an Activation card from your hand, turn it 90° to the right. When you activate an Activation card, turn it right-side up. During your Clean-up phase, remember to only discard cards from play which are right-side up.

Here are some examples of Activation cards:

Patron
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $2
While this is in play, when another player plays an Attack card, +1 Card then discard a card.
When you activate this, +$4.


Hidden Passage
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $3
+2 Actions.
When you activate this, discard any number of cards. +$1 per card discarded.


Balcony
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action.
When you activate this, you may play an Action card from your hand twice.


Boomtown
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. +2 Actions. +1 Buy.
When you activate this, discard a card.

In other news, I've been trying to come up with a good Activation Attack. The challenge is that, ideally, the attack effect should be blockable with Moat, etc. So I'd rather not do a card where the attack itself is on the Activation portion. Here's an idea that uses an ancillary Activation card (because I'm a big proponent of Attack cards using ancillary cards).

Cannoneer
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $4
+1 Action. Activate all your deactivated Cannons. For each one, each other player trashes the top card of his deck and gains a cheaper card that shares a type with it. If he didn't, he gains a Curse.
When you gain this, gain a Cannon.

Cannon
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $0*
+2 Cards.
When you activate this, +1 Card. (This is not in the Supply.)

Maybe a bit wordy. Still, seems promising as a mechanic.

New iteration of Cannoneer:

Catapult
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $4
When you play or activate this: +2 Cards.
When you gain this, you may gain an Engineer from the Engineer pile.

Engineer
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $0*
Activate all your dormant Catapults. For each one, each other player trashes the top card of his deck and gains a cheaper card that shares a type with it. If he didn't, he gains a Curse. (This is not in the Supply.)

In other news, here are some ideas I had for other Activation cards. I haven't yet given these as much thought as the ones in the OP, so feedback would be great.

Sawmill
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $3
+1 Buy. +$2.
------------------------------------------------------------
When you activate this, +1 Action per Sawmill you have in play.

Citadel
Types: Action – Activation
Cost: $6
When you activate this, look through your discard pile. Set aside up to 3 Action cards from it and play them in any order.

[BryGuy]

Cursed card type. These cards provide negative Victory Points. Cards that would be considered a Cursed type include:
* Dominion's Curse
* mxdata's Idle Hands
* emtzalex's Evil Eye
* Carline's Swamp
* Carline's Spell
* The Alchemist's Smog
For practicality, some of these examples would be printed once and used to represent the entire Curse pile, while others may just be their own pile.


Pass card type. These cards stay in play like Durations. After a players turn, they are passed to the right, which is not considered gaining. They may have an effect to incentivize passing. They may provide different benefits from Owner and Other Players. A colored token (from Adventures) can be placed upon them to track ownership. Like durations any effect occurs before the turn. When passed to Owner the card is discarded. Pass is a mechanic that can temper a powerful card by removing it from the owner's use for Other Player quantity of turns.