Dominion > Variants and Fan Cards
Fan Card Mechanics Week 78: He Who Remains
emtzalex:
For Week 78, I'm using a mechanic that I came up with a while ago, but have gone back and forth about, not sure if it is worthy of being its own thing: Remain cards. Remain cards are similar to Duration cards (they even share the same orange color), but they operate differently enough (I think) to justify being their own mechanic.
Here are the rules for Remain cards:
* Remain cards are orange and may stay in play beyond the turn they are played.
* As part of their ability, Remain cards will put Remain tokens on themselves. They do this using a +Remain direction, with +X Remain putting X Remain tokens on a card. So, for example, if a card says "+2 Remain" it will put 2 Remain tokens on itself.
* Players do not discard Remain cards in Clean-up if they have any Remain tokens left on them. Instead, players remove one Remain token from each Remain card each Clean-up.
* Remain cards are not discarded the turn their final Remain token is removed; instead they will be discarded the following turn (unless additional Remain tokens are added).
* There may be other ways to add or remove Remain tokens from a Remain card.
* Unlike with Duration cards, everything a Remain card does on-play happens the turn it is played.
* Thus, if a card such as Throne Room plays a Remain card multiple times, that card does not stay in play until the player discards the Remain card, as there is no need to track the fact that the Remain card was played multiple times.
* Remain cards may have an effect on future turns using a below-the-line ability, but playing a Remain card multiple times will not multiply that ability (although doing so will put more Remain tokens on the card, which could strengthen the ability or extend the time it's working).
* I have made a few examples of Remain cards for the follow-up post.The task is simple:
Design a Remain card.
The Remain type is not by itself playable, so your Remain card will need at least one other type (presumably a playable type such as Action / Treasure / Night / Dawn / etc.). Your Remain card can have any other type as well (I don't think Remain - Duration would work, but I'm not banning it in case someone comes up with something creative I'm not anticipating). You are also free to include any other official or fan mechanics in the design and to use any additional cards/landscapes you want to support your card's design--and if you use a split pile or non-Supply card, you are allowed (but not required) to use multiple Remain cards.
My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:
* balance -- the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms);
* playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck;
* simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand;
* topicality -- the card uses the mechanic in an interesting way;The deadline for submissions will be 19:30 UTC / 2:30 p.m. Eastern/Forum time on Thursday, November 29, 2023. Please let me know if you have any questions.
emtzalex:
Examples:
--- Quote ---Deep Cellar • $2 • Action - Remain
+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard any number of cards for +1 Remain each.
While this is in play, at the start of your turn, +1 Card.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Remote Laboratory • $3 • Action - Remain
+2 Cards
+1 Action
+2 Remain
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Allied Village • $3 • Action - Remain
+2 Actions
Remove a Remain token from any number of Allied Villages you have in play for +1 Card each.
+4 Remain
--- End quote ---
These examples highlight some of my initial thoughts on how the mechanic could be used. Deep Cellar is a cantrip cellar variant that gives you back the cards slowly, one per turn. It uses the Remain tokens as a benefit, giving you +1 Card each turn it's still in play. Remote Laboratory is a Lab variant that is cheaper, but which you get to play far less often. It uses the Remain tokens as a negative, simply keeping the card out of your deck until the Remain tokens are all removed. Allied Village is a bit more complicated. A single copy of it would be terrible, as it's effectively a Necropolis that you don't get back for 4 turns (although with a Necropolis that's not a bad thing). However, the tokens on one copy are used to boost the play of other copies, which has the twin benefits of drawing more cards and making the other copies available sooner.
Are these necessary:
The main reason I've gone back and forth on these (and have hesitated to post about them) is that there's an obvious argument that this new type is not necessary: there is (probably) nothing a Remain card can do that a Duration card cannot. However, I think there are cases where wording a traditional Duration card to do what certain Remain card designs can would be so unwieldy as to make extremely impractical, if not impossible.
Looking at my examples, Deep Cellar (and cards like it) would not, by themselves, justify the mechanic. It could say "...Discard any number of cards and put a token here for each card discarded. While any remain, at the start of each of your turns, remove a token for +1 Card." This is (imo) only slightly simpler than that. On the other hand, it would be very difficult to design a Duration version of Remote Laboratory. It could say "At the start of your next two turns, do nothing" but that would be confusing, as the Duration rules say:
--- Quote ---Players do not discard Duration cards in Clean-up if they have something left to do; they stay in play until the Clean-up of the last turn that they do something.
--- End quote ---
Logically, doing nothing is not doing something, so it wouldn't be at all clear if it should remain in play. And Allied Village would require a huge block of text to explain how it should work.
Will(ow|iam):
Secret Lab
$4 Action - Remain
(purple/orange color scheme)
Pick a number; X refers to that number.
+X Remain
+X Cards
+1 Action
--
-3 VP if there are any remain tokens on this at the end of the game.
BryGuy:
. :)
--- Quote ---Tropical Village/Farm • Randomizer
This pile starts with as many copies of each card as players, but minimum three and maximum five. All copies of Tropical Village are on top. | Set-up: Add an additional Kingdom piles costing $2.
. :)
Tropical Village • $4 • Action - Remain
+1 Action
+1 Remain
Discard any card for +1 Remain each.
-
While this is in play, at the beginning of your Action phase, you may remove a token from here for +1 Action. When you gain a card costing $2, +1 Remain.
. :)
Tropical Farm • $5 • Action - Remain
+1 Action
+2 Remains
Discard any card for +1 Remain each.
-
While this is in play, at the beginning of your Action phase, you may remove a token from here for +1 Card. When you gain a card costing $3, +1 Remain.
--- End quote ---
. :)
This is interesting. There have definitely been cases in my card set where using this mechanic would operate better than Duration.
. :)
NoMoreFun:
City Square
Action/Remain - $4
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
At the end of your buy phase, +1 Remain per Action you have.
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