Forgive me but I have not read all the comments made so far, so I may be repeating previous posts, but I have a few thoughts.
No need to apologize. Your thoughts are more than welcome.
- I originally thought the Equipment would start off on the Cabinet Mat and each player would have their own Mat, but unless I have missed something that Mat has not been discussed yet.
You are right, I haven’t introduced the Cabinet mat yet. I intend to show it in later parts of this thread. The idea was to start easy and introduce different parts of the concept “Equipment” step by step. What did I know. At the moment it looks like a mess.
- I find it completely reasonable to have "take" do a lot of heavy lifting with this mechanic. If need be you can define it, like Exile is explicitly defined, or leave it as is and just explain it as needed like "pass" with Masquerade.
I am amazed about the resistance I face against using the term “take” in the context of the set aside Equipment cards. As things are in the moment, I will likely replace it with “put this set-aside [name] into the discard pile”. It takes some more words, but that should be okay for most of the cards.
- I can see the destination of the card when you "take" it being a bit confusing, Exiled cards are discarded and cards on the Tavern Mat are called, and they have defined mechanics and rules on the destination of the card. As long as the rules are adequately defined I see no real issue with "take".
I think the default destination being the discard pile is natural, as that is also the default destination for cards that are gained or cards that are “released” from the Exile mat.
- The only thing I would suggest, and this is without knowing what the Cabinet Mat is all about, would be to have the Equipment cards start off on a Mat each person has, like the Exile and Tavern Mats but different so there is no collision with their mechanics. When you are taking an Equipment card, you are taking it from your (add name) Mat and adding it to your deck. If there are no ways for the card to go back to the Mat, then their is no reason to have "once per game" anywhere. You can also design cards that do end up back on that Mat allowing you to "take" it multiple times in a game. It may be superfluous to have a Mat for a single card most games, but players understand Mats and how they work for the most part.
Having an extra mat for the set-aside Equipment cards is an interesting idea that I haven’t thought about. However, in principle the difference between having such a mat or not is that the set-aside Equipment cards would have a piece of cardboard underneath. The Equipment cards got their own color (light blue), so it is not easy to forget about them when they are set aside somewhere next to the player’s playing area. I do not plan to have any Equipment cards that go back to the initial “set aside at the start of the game” status. Once they left this status by being “taken”, “equipped”, “put into discard” or whatever term or phrase will be used to describe this, they are part of the player’s active deck.
I have some Equipment cards (or ideas for them) that use the Cabinet mat the way you describe as a possibility for the “set-up mat”, i.e. they are put on the Cabinet mat, do something there, and then can leave the mat again under specific circumstances. However, as far as I can see it now, I will not present any of those, but rather only 2 or 3 Equipment sets that stay on the Cabinet mat once they are there.
A final thought on mats in general: I prefer to use as few mats as I can in real life games. We usually play only with the Tavern and Exile mats. Occasionally a Native Village mat or a Trade Route mat, but that doesn’t really happen often. We do not use Coffers/Villagers mats. I made some Villager tokens simply from paper pieces with an image of Villagers glued on cardboard. They are easily distinguishable from other tokens by color and shape. No need to mess with the Coffers/Villager double-mat or to use the coin tokens for Villagers.
Just a few thoughts for this awesome idea. Really like the designs you already have made and I look forward to what you will present later.
Many thanks, Xen3k for your thoughts and input! It is encouraging to hear (read) that you like my ideas. Your post is uplifting and just came in at the right moment!