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[rinkworks]

Lots of discussion here about proposed "good" cards that have a -VP penalty and arguments about why these are broken cards.  The arguments basically boil down to them unbalancing a game with trashing, because they let you reap the benefits of the card and trash them before you incur the penalty.

How about this?

Something
$6 - Action
+3 Cards, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1.
When you play this card, gain a Curse token.  At the end of the game, each Curse token is worth -1 VP.

Now not only is the penalty unavoidable -- once you gain a Curse token, you can't get rid of it -- but the damage escalates as you reap the benefits of the card.

Keep in mind, this specific card is not necessarily balanced, but let's think about it anyway.  It's essentially a Market with Super Laboratory powers, which will be good in singles or spammed.  As a single, the penalty may or may not be worth incurring on any given turn.  On the other hand, spamming them might be the fastest way to get to double-Province turns and then sustain that momentum even as your deck greens.  But if you incur an inescapable -5 VP (or so) every time you do it (especially if you don't reach $16 on any given attempt), it may or may not be the best strategy on the board.

[minced]

It would actually be very interesting to see a card like this one in three/four player curse games, where one province actually *is* enough to win. You play your deal with the devil in endgame, get a single province, win by a single point.

[play2draw]

Yeah, this seems like the only way to have a vp penalty card (unless you have the player gain a curse. But once those curses run out in a game with easy trashing...). There is a fan expansion using this concept on BGG, but I think too many of the cards are either too gimmicky or depend on more than one card in the set being in the supply. I like the idea of making the +curse cards easily spammable. If you're too afraid to play the card, it might as well be a curse in your deck.

[rinkworks]

So I did some playtesting on this, and not only does the mechanic seem to work well, but -- somewhat to my surprise -- the card I suggested, which I named Valkyrie, seems to work, too.  Appropriately, sometimes it's the thing to do, and sometimes it isn't.  If you're on a board where you can set up a deck that draws itself every turn (i.e., Hunting Party, Laboratory) without incurring curse tokens, it's probably a huge mistake to use it -- unless you can get it running a whole lot faster.  If you can capture a sufficient lead, you're probably all set, because the +3 Cards keep the deck more resilient as it greens than, say, a Laboratory engine.  But by and large, Valkyrie is a mistake in such kingdoms, as the curses just prove too much of a deficit to overcome.

However, it works very well in kingdoms with limited action chain alternatives.  I've tried spamming them, and I've tried using small numbers strategically.  Both seem to be viable strategies sometimes.  Spamming seems to carry considerably more risk, as you'd expect.  I can't tell yet, but it seems like strategic uses of the card performs a little better than spamming them, but I suppose it depends on the situation.

I also tried another such card, this one not yet tested quite as much:

Chimera
$6
+2 Cards, +2 Actions, +$2.  When you play this, gain a curse token.

Similarly, this works best in kingdoms without an alternate source of extra actions.  It's also even more important than with Valkyrie to make the decision about using them sparingly or spammingly.  Without another source of +Buy, extra money is wasted; with +Buy in the mix, it's a powerhouse.  But it still probably loses to sufficiently powerful curse-free-token alternatives, if any.  Even if not, there are still interesting decisions to make about how many to buy, what to flesh the rest of your deck out with, and when to actually play the ones you draw in your hand.  (And if you don't play them, as play2draw points out, there's a cost to that, too.)

The interesting thing to me about these cards is you really do have to think before playing them.  Whereas playing Markets and Laboratories are no-brainers -- it's rare that automatically and unthinkingly playing those cards is a mistake (or a very big one if so) -- but with these cards, you really have to think about whether you have any alternatives to playing them, or if earning what they give you is going to mean buying better engine/VP cards or just supplying extra cash beyond what you can use.

So, to sum up, I really like the flavor this idea adds to the game.

[Young Nick]

I think the concept looks great. I've also wondered about cards that couldn't be trashed. Say (off the top of my head)
Cursed Market - 3
+1 card
+$1
+1 Buy
+1 Action
-2VP
-----
You cannot trash this card. If this card would be trashed for any reason, place it in its owner's discard pile.

I know this seems a little complicated for Dominion. It definitely feels more like a M:tG card to me in some senses. I wonder how this type of card would play out, though.

edit: grammar

[rinkworks]

Forbidding trashing is an improvement, but I dunno.  I think the problem of any one-time VP penalty for a card like this is roughly the same problem as trying to compensate for the first-turn advantage with a one-time VP penalty (or bonus, depending on how you look at it), which has been discussed here before too.  In some set-ups, the VP penalty is a pittance, scarcely correcting the problem at all.  In others, it grossly overcompensates.

That problem isn't as bad in a kingdom card, since you can always choose to buy it or not -- and let's face it, (almost) every kingdom card is a great buy in some kingdoms and a poor one in others.  Still, a strong card with a one-time VP penalty probably isn't doing what you want it to do often enough, which is to be a difficult choice most of the time, instead of a trivial choice (one way or the other) most of the time.  For example, on a board with heavy trashing and no alternate source of +Buys, opening double Cursed Markets is probably a no-brainer:  by opening with them, you get to play them more often over the course of the game; ditto with heavy trashing (you can't trash Cursed Market, but by slimming your deck, you can play them more often).  Mid-game with cursing attacks, Gardens, and/or Goons, and no trashing, and it's a no-brainer to avoid them.

This is what got me thinking about putting the penalty on the use of the card, rather than on the purchase of it.  Then it's a play-by-play decision instead of an often easy one-time buy decision.

[rogerclee]

You cannot trash this card. If this card would be trashed for any reason, place it in its owner's discard pile.

1) Masquerade/Ambassador
2) If it was more expensive, this could potentially become a big issue with trash-for-benefit cards, especially apprentice/expand.

[Young Nick]

I agree with the OP's point here about usage. I don't think that either option is right or wrong. I could see an even more powerful card that gives out -1VP tokens in addition to having negative VP's attached to the card.

In response to the most recent post, yes, Masquerade and Ambassador do avoid the no-trashing aspect of the card. I would (as a game designer) be willing to let that slide. However, the second point is moot. How exactly does it become a big issue? Even if it makes the card somewhat weaker as a result, that is just a part of the card.

[Thisisnotasmile]

It doesn't make it weaker. It makes it much much stronger. "I'll trash my Cursed Market for +3 cards and I'll keep my Cursed Market because it can't be trashed so I can do it again next turn."

[Young Nick]

I was thinking that because you could not trash it, it could not be the target for something like Salvager or Apprentice. I guess the way it is worded, it does not behave like that, but that was the goal in designing it, at least.

[tlloyd]

How about this?

Something
$6 - Action
+3 Cards, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1.
When you play this card, gain a Curse token.  At the end of the game, each Curse token is worth -1 VP.

Now not only is the penalty unavoidable -- once you gain a Curse token, you can't get rid of it -- but the damage escalates as you reap the benefits of the card.

How about this?

Something
$6 - Action
+1 Card, +1 Action
"You may gain -1VP; if you do, +2 Cards, +1 Buy, +$1"

This way the penalty is attached to using the card in its strong form, but you can also play the card in its weak form without penalty.

[play2draw]

I would almost prefer to not have any "you may" on it. I think it would make buying the card too much of a no-brainer. 

[sherwinpr]

Other than for perhaps thematic reasons, negative VP (curse) tokens are unnecessary; you could just give every other player the appropriate number of VP tokens.  Unless I'm missing something, or some future card lets you "spend" VP tokens for some benefit, it should be functionally equivalent.

[minced]

A -1 VP malus may seem to suck, but it really doesn't. Keep in mind that any card gets used only 2-3 times in a thick deck, especially late game cards like gold. So a -1 VP malus in exchange for a card that nearly guarantees a province when used is, effectively, a negative duchy, which is moot unless you're tied for provinces - a 5-3 split gives a 12-point score gap.

What would balance a powerful card you want to spam? I'd say gaining a curse - or even an estate or copper - is actually much worse than a -1 VP malus would be, because it can prevent you from buying a province on a later turn. Trashing several curses is much harder than trashing a single ubercard with a VP penalty, especially in games where deck-drawing is poor.

Here's a card from an expansion I'm working on with precisely this penalty:

Workhouse
---
+$1
+1 buy
Gain a card of cost at most 0. All cards cost $2 less this turn.
---
Action (5)

Each turn you play this card, you gain a copper. It's not to be taken lightly, even though it's more powerful than bridge.

[Jack Rudd]

Workhouse
---
+$1
+1 buy
Gain a card of cost at most 0. All cards cost $2 less this turn.
---
Action (5)

Each turn you play this card, you gain a copper. It's not to be taken lightly, even though it's more powerful than bridge.

And then someone goes King's Court - King's Court - Workhouse - Workhouse - Workhouse and gains a Copper, two Estates, a Duchy, two Provinces and three Colonies, and then uses his Buys to empty the rest of the Province and Colony piles.

[Thisisnotasmile]

King's Court - King's Court - Bridge - Bridge - Bridge has a similar effect, is cheaper -- and most important of all -- actually exists.

[rinkworks]

A -1 VP malus may seem to suck, but it really doesn't. Keep in mind that any card gets used only 2-3 times in a thick deck, especially late game cards like gold.

I'm not sure which proposed cards you're talking about here, but I've playtested the two I proposed, and they're really not THAT strong.  Both need support to "virtually guarantee" a Province, which takes time to build up, which means that a player playing without these cards might already be buying Provinces without the penalty.  If not, then the question is not whether "probable Province in exchange for -1 VP" is a good trade or not (obviously it is) but whether the -1 VP card gave you a sufficient lead in Province-buying power to compensate.

The other point I'd contend is that they only get used 2-3 times.  On the contrary, both my cards tend to produce (and work best within) decks that draw themselves every turn or two,  which means that you're possibly playing them every single turn in the end game.  In my playtests, blindly playing them every time is frequently (though not always) suicide.  I've racked up -20 VP playing with them indiscriminately, and range anywhere from around -2 to -10 VP in more sensible games.  Sure, on any individual play that makes a Province possible, it's worth it, but sometimes you've got a Province already and wonder if you can rack up a Duchy too.  And sometimes you still fall short of the Province mark.  Sometimes you're trying to draw into your other engine cards, which might yield a double-Province turn but nothing at all if it fails.

Lastly, I'd say that IF you're playing in a fat, clogged deck that can't draw itself, you're also playing in exactly the type of deck that CANNOT guarantee a Province just by playing it, because the cards it's liable to draw will be junk.  And even if it does, that penalty can still be decisive:  If someone plays Valkyrie and jumps from $7 to $8 to afford a Province, maybe he still loses to an opponent who managed to pull that off with a Bazaar instead.

[minced]

A -1 VP malus may seem to suck, but it really doesn't. Keep in mind that any card gets used only 2-3 times in a thick deck, especially late game cards like gold.

I'm not sure which proposed cards you're talking about here, but I've playtested the two I proposed, and they're really not THAT strong.  Both need support to "virtually guarantee" a Province, which takes time to build up, which means that a player playing without these cards might already be buying Provinces without the penalty.  If not, then the question is not whether "probable Province in exchange for -1 VP" is a good trade or not (obviously it is) but whether the -1 VP card gave you a sufficient lead in Province-buying power to compensate.

The other point I'd contend is that they only get used 2-3 times.  On the contrary, both my cards tend to produce (and work best within) decks that draw themselves every turn or two,  which means that you're possibly playing them every single turn in the end game.  In my playtests, blindly playing them every time is frequently (though not always) suicide.  I've racked up -20 VP playing with them indiscriminately, and range anywhere from around -2 to -10 VP in more sensible games.  Sure, on any individual play that makes a Province possible, it's worth it, but sometimes you've got a Province already and wonder if you can rack up a Duchy too.  And sometimes you still fall short of the Province mark.  Sometimes you're trying to draw into your other engine cards, which might yield a double-Province turn but nothing at all if it fails.

Lastly, I'd say that IF you're playing in a fat, clogged deck that can't draw itself, you're also playing in exactly the type of deck that CANNOT guarantee a Province just by playing it, because the cards it's liable to draw will be junk.  And even if it does, that penalty can still be decisive:  If someone plays Valkyrie and jumps from $7 to $8 to afford a Province, maybe he still loses to an opponent who managed to pull that off with a Bazaar instead.

That's really interesting news. Have you playtested the cards with an optional penalty (say, card acts as a cantrip if you don't want to use its uber-ability), or at a cheaper pricepoint? With the news you just shared, it sounds like the +3 cards, +1 action might be more tempting at $5.

[play2draw]

Well, if your deck gets too clogged, you can always play...

Venturer - $6
+1 action
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal three that are actions or treasures. Put two of the three cards in your hand and discard the other revealed cards. Gain a curse token.

[rinkworks]

That's really interesting news.

I reported some playtesting results in my August 14, 2011, 11:25:04 am post farther up this page.

Have you playtested the cards with an optional penalty (say, card acts as a cantrip if you don't want to use its uber-ability), or at a cheaper pricepoint? With the news you just shared, it sounds like the +3 cards, +1 action might be more tempting at $5.

I haven't tested an optional version, no.  I would think that would take some of the strategy out of the card, as it makes buying it less of a conundrum.  It still preserves the on-play strategy, but I'm not sure what gameplay value it adds in exchange for what it takes away.

Anyway, the Valkyrie card, as I proposed it at the start of this thread, feels like it's on the strong side of reasonable at $6, but if you or anyone else wants to experiment with it, I'd be curious to hear other opinions.  Thing is, I can playtest a lot and feel confident about a card for myself, but other players will have other strategies and playing styles that might turn up a weakness in the card I'll never find on my own.

[mith]

(unless you have the player gain a curse. But once those curses run out in a game with easy trashing...)

...if you do, +2 Cards, +1 Buy, +$1"

This way the penalty is attached to using the card in its strong form, but you can also play the card in its weak form without penalty.

Combining these ideas, you could have a card like:

[Benefit]
Gain a Curse. If you do, [Extra Benefit].

[roriconfan]

As I proposed in my own topic, just go for curse tokens instead of curse cards.

[guided]

"Gain a Curse. If you do," is actually another tenable mechanic. Possibly even more interesting than the curse token mechanic, though if you're not careful such cards might end up being too good in combination with Watchtower.

[AJD]

How about "you may gain a Curse; if you do..."? Or would people then just be even more inclined to save them up for the endgame than they would with "gain a curse; if you do..."?

[roriconfan]

This optional cursing makes many mundane versions of cards from the core game even more expensive. The forced curse token I proposed is making them cheaper AND doesn't render the mundane cards useless.