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[ftl]

Yes, the original announced date was March. However, it was delayed, and they said they were "Adding something" to it, so it may have some secret something besides the base cards.

[jonts26]

In Intrigue, and in all other currently published expansions, the treasures still all look the same color.

It is said that sometime in the near future we will be getting the opportunity to buy a mini-expansion with just the basic cards (copper, silver, gold, platinum, potion, estate, duchy, province, colony) but with art. But that isn't out yet.

It isn't out? I thought I heard someone say it was going to come out in March.

Aww and you believed them? Adorable.

[yudantaiteki]

Pawn is the worst of the lot, sure, but still not insurmountable.  I found it useful to introduce Pawn in a Gardens game; the two synergize well (giving +Buy and giving you something cheap to load up on that doesn't clog your deck) and help reduce the AP Pawn usually entails (because in a Gardens game, your choices are usually simplified).  It's also useful to introduce alongside Conspirator, as there it's clear how Pawns are usually used as a "means to an end" rather than an end unto themselves.  (All this said, I would definitely make Pawn one of the last Intrigue cards introduced to the new players.)

Oh, I HATE Pawn. Espically with KC...
And Plays a King's Court
... and plays a Pawn
... and can't choose which option
... and causes me to rage quit after the ten minute turn

I played a game with Pawn, Hamlet, and KC.  I wanted to kill myself by the end of the game.

[WanderingWinder]

In Intrigue, and in all other currently published expansions, the treasures still all look the same color.

It is said that sometime in the near future we will be getting the opportunity to buy a mini-expansion with just the basic cards (copper, silver, gold, platinum, potion, estate, duchy, province, colony) but with art. But that isn't out yet.

It isn't out? I thought I heard someone say it was going to come out in March.

Aww and you believed them? Adorable.

I believe that they believed. I also believe that when they believe, they're quite liable to be wrong.
Somehow, I DO think we'll get the next set at GenCon though.

[yudantaiteki]

I'll try blank cards next time.  Three at least. 

Another possible handicap is to skip a turn for each game you've won (and then subtract one turn you skip when you come in last).  I'm not sure whether skipping turns or having blank cards is preferable in terms of (a) actually handicapping yourself, and (b) affecting the overall game the least.

I like the "progressive" handicaps the best because the novices can still have a sense of accomplishment, and the handicap disappears on its own if the novices get better.

I especially think that any sort of handicap is better than intentionally not playing well; especially depending on the players.  (However re:handicaps, I absolutely agree with what has been said on past threads that you should not give positive handicaps to the newer players, like replacing their coppers with silver or their estates with duchies.  This just teaches them to play the game wrong.)

[popsofctown]

Unfortunately any kind of handicap will warp the game at least a little bit.  I've been using progressive blanks; my family is less impressed with Militia than they should be.

[yudantaiteki]

Hmm, that's a good point -- I wonder if skipping turns would have less of an effect, then.

[shMerker]

I don't really get why you don't just take a straight VP handicap. It doesn't encourage any particular strategy like trashing or engining through blank cards and it pretty much works the same way on any board. Plus it helps subtly point to how the idea of the game is to grab the biggest piece of the pie that the green cards make up since the impact of the handicap is not that you have to manipulate your deck more cleverly but that you have to get a bigger piece than you normally would to win. The exact value of the handicap is going to depend on the perceived disparity of skill But you could just do that progressively like with the blank cards.

Granted I haven't tried this. Everyone I've taught the game to has been cool about just losing to a stronger player at first so it's never come up.

[yudantaiteki]

My main problem with the VP bonus is that it's just too transparent -- if you win 43-40 but you had a 6 VP bonus handicap, it's obvious that you "actually" lost by 3 points.  With the skipped turns or blank cards it's much less clear what would have happened without the handicap.

It does depend on the players, though; some people are less bothered by losing over and over again than others are.

[popsofctown]

Yeah, that's my issue with the VP handicap as well. 

I might try skipping turns.  Or buying copper either or both of turn 1 and turn 2.

[Davio]

You can just use a couple of stacks, not 10.

If you use simple cards like Market, Lab, Woodcutter and Spy then there's no real way to go wrong. A single Woodcutter in this case is always better than Silver and Markets and Labs are definitely better than Silver. Spy is a so so card.

[Kuildeous]

You can just use a couple of stacks, not 10.

If you use simple cards like Market, Lab, Woodcutter and Spy then there's no real way to go wrong. A single Woodcutter in this case is always better than Silver and Markets and Labs are definitely better than Silver. Spy is a so so card.

Spy is a pretty good introductory attack. It's not as frustrating as a Militia, since a Spy doesn't really force you to take a bad hand. It just allows you to keep the bad hand while subtly screwing up your good hands. It's not as nasty as Militia's 2 cards. So, it's less frustrating for new players, but it provides a glimpse into the power of deck-inspection attacks. Players will remember when that Gold has been flipped over. Players will also learn the power of examining their own decks and improving their next hand.

Spy is a lackluster card, but it's a neat card for newbies. It provides choice and won't frustrate them as badly as Militia or Witch would.

[cored]

I had no problem getting my parents into Dominion with just base.  I figure next time I visit I'll bring intrigue.

We played random sets, keeping the cards out for a game or two the first couple games so they could get the mechanics down without learning a bunch of new cards.  I also recommend some of the set-ups described in the base rules on the last page.  They seemed to like that, and the kingdoms were pretty balanced that way.

The only thing they didn't like was Chancellor, but who can blame them?

[popsofctown]

My mom doesn't like any cards that refer to "Curses", which makes me pretty sad because it's a fun mechanic.  She says they seem too evil to her.

[Octo]

Overall, my experience has just been not to try too hard to guide new players experience. Sure, don't pick a chapel/mountebank layout and don't just hammer the power strats yourself, but much of the fun of Dominion is figuring stuff out for yourself and trying the cards out. If they're not into trying the different cards and thinking about which cards will work together (however successful they are at that) then the chances are they're just probably not going to like dominion. I wouldn't worry about people only buying money because jeez, nobody figures that out, they just see all the cool cards and buy them loads.

Just observing them for a couple games and not playing yourself is definitely a good plan I think, just get a beer/cup of tea and sort of "commentate" on the game as it goes along - it always a little intimidating or frustrating or just a bit weird knowing that the other person you're playing knows exactly what's going on, and getting advice from a competitor ("yeah, you should get a gold, that's the right move") is odd, but not so much from an observer.

The starting set is, frankly (and in some ways unfortunately), the ideal set to start things with I'm afraid. It presents some nice choices with some slightly more advanced cards (remodel and mine - ok they're not advanced as such, but it takes everyone a couple of plays of them to be comfortable), yet at the same time it doesn't give away all that dominion has to offer. The slow reveal new mechanics was one of the best things about dominion, and I think just having access to all of it on Isotropic can spoil that a bit. However, I have to be wary of my own advice there and not try too hard to guide people's experience, just let them explore. I think also heavy Isotropic players should consider that for some reason it's just different in real life - there's less clarity and more fumbling, more chatting, more distractions etc and the game flows slightly differently.

Overall, I reckon the worst thing you can do is power-crush them into the dirt, and probably second is to lecture them too hard on what's good and what's not, forgetting you had your own learning curve.

PS - whoever mentioned masquerade is dead right - that's a great early game card as it keeps everyone involved and engaged. Also, cursing cards are often not popular at all. It's fun to curse, but even for players like me who've played loads it can be pretty draining when the game drags out as you feel a bit powerless due to heavy cursing. Almost everyone I play with breathes a sigh of relief when heavy cursing/thief-tastic/militia-goon game has finished. It's ok now and then, just not all the time, and even less so for new players.

[eHalcyon]

My mom doesn't like any cards that refer to "Curses", which makes me pretty sad because it's a fun mechanic.  She says they seem too evil to her.

Call them "Drats" or "Dangnabbits" instead.

[popsofctown]

Unfortunately Curses is printed on the card.

Thanks for the advices. 

[dondon151]

Spy is a pretty good introductory attack... So, it's less frustrating for new players, but it provides a glimpse into the power of deck-inspection attacks. Players will remember when that Gold has been flipped over. Players will also learn the power of examining their own decks and improving their next hand.

The drawback to introducing Spy to newbies as an attack is that they come to overestimate it significantly. They'll pick it up without hesitation because it's more expensive than Silver and it doesn't actively hurt their own deck by being a cantrip, but you can't build an economy with Spies and the attack is unreliable, if not mildly frustrating when you keep getting hit (because chances are, you're going to draw that Gold into your hand some time, even if there are legions of Spies running amok).

Spy is a card that I almost never pick up unless I have no other options, and it still causes me to facepalm every now and then when a relatively newer player picks it up on turns 3 and 4 with $4 when there are power $5s on the board - pretty much anything that gives +$ (or a village if the $5s are terminal) is better. The worst part is that if one picks up Spies, he's more likely to hit $4 on future turns due to the lack of an economy, which will encourage him to pick up even more Spies, and so on.

[popsofctown]

I think those vices are virtues.  Spy teaches you that cantrips that don't help enough are bad, faster than Village does (because Village is so powerful later)

[dondon151]

I think those vices are virtues.  Spy teaches you that cantrips that don't help enough are bad, faster than Village does (because Village is so powerful later)

I disagree. The mistaken notion that Spy is unilaterally better than Silver because $4 > $3 is really difficult to beat out of new players, especially since they'll chalk up their losses to the fact that they're simply losing to a better player.

My point in the first place was that new players tend to overestimate Spy's power because a) it doesn't actively hurt most decks as a deck component and b) players will remember those times where it flipped over a Gold or a Council Room but not those times where they play 4 of them and keep an Estate for all 4 plays. It's (arguably) harder to dispel a belief vested in overestimation than in underestimation because, for example, if an opponent takes Witch too lightly, it only takes a few times getting crushed by Curses to be dispelled of that impression, whereas if he overestimates Spy, it's not immediately obvious that if Spies are Silvers, then they would have yielded Golds or Provinces instead of Spies and more Spies.

To be fair, in my play group, it took us a long while for all of us to get past the Village Idiot phase, and that was only really because I eventually learned about BM and Chapel strategies and started crushing everyone with them.

[popsofctown]

I used to be a control player at MTG.  It took a long, long time to start passing up all the zero mana cantrips >_<