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[Tejayes]

Like Assassin, this card name shows up very frequently in fan card ideas. In most cases, it's basically the opposite of Ill-Gotten Gains, which is an expensive, weak Treasure that Curses your opponents.

In other words, most Blood Money cards carry these traits:

• A Treasure, usually at least as powerful as Gold.
• Rarely costing more than $3.
• Either causes its player to gain at least one Curse or is a Curse card itself.

The main issue with making Blood Money a Curse-type is that it likely makes the card gainable via Cursing Attacks. Fan card creators have tried to circumvent this by either renaming the type or shoehorning it into a Victory card. Or, you know, by gaining a Curse whenever this is played.

Now, it's your turn. What does your ideal Blood Money card look like? Is it a Treasure like most cards with similar names, or do you dare try making it an Action card? Does it hurt your score for big financial gains, or does it do something entirely different? Does it deal with Curses at all?

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

Since it's still good for acquiring Treasures and Actions, this would likely be too strong at cheaper costs.

If you want to know, blood money is often another word for "restitution", paid to the family of a victim by the murderer, slave owner, or whatever-they-did-er after the victim has already passed away. In that sense, here's how I envision a Blood Money card:

BLOOD MONEY
$3 - Treasure
When you play this, reveal your hand. The player to your left chooses a card for you to trash from your hand.
-
This card is worth $ equal to half the cost of the trashed card (rounded up).

Not the best idea, to be sure, but it'll hopefully help get the ball rolling.

With all that said, Card That Name!

[Tables]

Blood Money
$5 - treasure
+$3
---
When you buy a card with this in play, gain a card costing $0.

A slight twist on my submission to the treasure card design contest. That one was interesting, but was far too strong when cursers are around and meh otherwise. Now, this is stronger in general. A gold that generates coppers, that's pretty bad, but it has some obvious (and some less obvious) combos: Bridge or Highway can obviously take advantage, but many decks that like coppers, or like gaining, could also benefit. Still, better be careful, in BM games it's probably worse than Cache.

[Tejayes]

Blood Money
$5 - action
+$3
---
When you buy a card with this in play, gain a card costing $0.

A slight twist on my submission to the treasure card design contest. That one was interesting, but was far too strong when cursers are around and meh otherwise. Now, this is stronger in general. A gold that generates coppers, that's pretty bad, but it has some obvious (and some less obvious) combos: Bridge or Highway can obviously take advantage, but many decks that like coppers, or like gaining, could also benefit. Still, better be careful, in BM games it's probably worse than Cache.

Is this supposed to be a Treasure? Because you have it listed as an Action.

[Sakako]

Is this supposed to be a Treasure? Because you have it listed as an Action.

Seems like it works as an Action, since Action cards usually stay in play until the end of the turn. Anyway, here's mine:

Blood Money
$4
Treasure
Worth $2

Choose one: +$2, and gain a Curse, putting it on top of your deck; or +$1, and gain a Curse.

[Jack Rudd]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

[AJD]

Is this supposed to be a Treasure? Because you have it listed as an Action.

Seems like it works as an Action, since Action cards usually stay in play until the end of the turn. Anyway, here's mine:

Blood Money
$4
Treasure
Worth $2

Choose one: +$2, and gain a Curse, putting it on top of your deck; or +$1, and gain a Curse.

This has the problem that a lot of Blood Moneys do, which is that it's overpowered after the Curses run out.

[rinkworks]

My spiel on this idea is that it can't be balanced if the penalty is a one-time penalty.  So if it's a card that's worth -1 VP, that's a one-time penalty.  You lose a point, and thereafter it's a Gold equivalent.  It doesn't scale right, because different boards and indeed different playthroughs of the same board, vary SO wildly in terms of how much a single VP is worth.  It's not just a matter of "sometimes it's strong, sometimes it's weak," it's a matter of "usually it's overpowered or underpowered and only rarely just right by accident."

On the other hand, if the penalty is continuing, you can achieve some sort of rough parallel between the amount of benefit you get vs. the amount of drawback.  Buy an Embassy early, or buy one late -- either way, your opponents get the benefit of a Silver a roughly proportional amount of the time.  There's still room for strategy, because you can observe that buying an Embassy when you have a fat deck and your opponent has a slow deck will skew the balance in your favor.

Similarly, the penalties of Bishop, Vault, and Council Room all apply each time you play the card, not a flat penalty at the outset.  And again you can use strategy to swing the scales in your favor, like using Bishop after your opponent has already trashed down, or using Council Rooms when you might draw a Militia to play afterwards.

So the flat VP hit on Blood Money doesn't work.  Gaining a Curse when you gain Blood Money might, because the Curse in your deck will be a continuing detriment, but the fact that the Curses can run out so easily is problematic.

I really believe the best incarnation of the idea is Cache.  It's Coppers, not Curses, which are dramatically less likely to run out.  And the balance is better than most Blood Money fan cards, too, which overdiscount the card.  For two Coppers you only get a $1 discount on Gold.  That $5-$6 threshold is so important, though, that's all the discount you need.  And you can still pull off fancy tricks like using Watchtower to trash the Coppers, Trader to turn them into Silvers, and playing Big Money or an alt-VP rush where the Coppers aren't so bad.

Directly penalizing the score is, I think, a lot less interesting.  It skips over interfering with the machine you use to get points and just manipulates the points directly instead.  Yawn.  The heart of the game is the deck, not the scoreboard.  Nonetheless, I think a score-manipulating Blood Money ought to be doable if the penalty happens on-play, in keeping with the principles of balance I started this post talking about.  "When you play this, gain a Curse token."  A Curse token would be like a VP token but worth -1 point instead of 1.  Something along those lines can probably work.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Nonetheless, I think a score-manipulating Blood Money ought to be doable if the penalty happens on-play, in keeping with the principles of balance I started this post talking about.  "When you play this, gain a Curse token."  A Curse token would be like a VP token but worth -1 point instead of 1.  Something along those lines can probably work.

You could also just have it give each other player a VP chip, and not need to create new components.

[werothegreat]

Blood Money - Treasure-Duration - $5

+2 Buys
$5

When you play this, reveal cards from the top of your deck until revealing one costing $3 or more.  If you find one, trash it, discard the other revealed cards, and trash this.  If you do not find one, at the start of your next turn, discard down to three cards in hand.

[Tables]

Blood Money
$5 - action
+$3
---
When you buy a card with this in play, gain a card costing $0.

A slight twist on my submission to the treasure card design contest. That one was interesting, but was far too strong when cursers are around and meh otherwise. Now, this is stronger in general. A gold that generates coppers, that's pretty bad, but it has some obvious (and some less obvious) combos: Bridge or Highway can obviously take advantage, but many decks that like coppers, or like gaining, could also benefit. Still, better be careful, in BM games it's probably worse than Cache.

Is this supposed to be a Treasure? Because you have it listed as an Action.

Derp. Yes, I was thinking 'what if someone was crazy enough to make action Blood Money' and thus typed action ¬_¬. Terminal gold for $5 needs no penalty. Probably needs a small bonus if anything.

[One Armed Man]

That makes Tables Blood Money one of the forms of Count!

[AJD]

I was thinking 'what if someone was crazy enough to make action Blood Money'

...It would be Death Cart?

[Tables]

Hm, yes, I suppose that's one.

OAM: No, not really. It's a treasure for a start, and even if it weren't, this activates on buy, not on play... do you realise how huge a thing that is? And even excluding THAT as well, it looks for a $0... also huge.

[LastFootnote]

Nonetheless, I think a score-manipulating Blood Money ought to be doable if the penalty happens on-play, in keeping with the principles of balance I started this post talking about.  "When you play this, gain a Curse token."  A Curse token would be like a VP token but worth -1 point instead of 1.  Something along those lines can probably work.

You could also just have it give each other player a VP chip, and not need to create new components.

I wish I could give this more '+1's. Brilliant! This is what I want to see for one of the Prosperity cards in the Treasure Chest expansion: a powerful card that gives opponents VP chips when played. That's two of Prosperity's themes right there. Seems perfect!

[eHalcyon]

Derp. Yes, I was thinking 'what if someone was crazy enough to make action Blood Money' and thus typed action ¬_¬. Terminal gold for $5 needs no penalty. Probably needs a small bonus if anything.

I disagree.  I believe Mandarin is a good example of a terminal Gold with penalty.  The topdeck can sometimes be helpful, but it is generally considered a penalty (contrast with Courtyard, which has draw to make the topdeck actually useful; compare with Count, where topdecking is one of the three penalty choices).  Harvest is another one, with the drawback being unreliability (though it CAN hit $4 sometimes too).

[Tejayes]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

You mean like Horn of Plenty, Border Village, etc.? That was the entire point of the wording change -- to prevent players who play this version of Blood Money to acquire Victory cards in ANY manner.

[Tables]

Derp. Yes, I was thinking 'what if someone was crazy enough to make action Blood Money' and thus typed action ¬_¬. Terminal gold for $5 needs no penalty. Probably needs a small bonus if anything.

I disagree.  I believe Mandarin is a good example of a terminal Gold with penalty.  The topdeck can sometimes be helpful, but it is generally considered a penalty (contrast with Courtyard, which has draw to make the topdeck actually useful; compare with Count, where topdecking is one of the three penalty choices).  Harvest is another one, with the drawback being unreliability (though it CAN hit $4 sometimes too).

The single topdecking is a slight penalty, but it comes with a bonus on-buy effect, and on the whole, it's considered a weak $5. Count again, slight penalty, but it more than makes up for it with diversity of effect. And Harvest being unreliable is possibly a good thing, sure it averages probably just under $3 (but barely), but being able to hit $4 sometimes is a really good thing. Like, often you're gunning for Provinces, so hitting $7 or $6 doesn't matter (possibly even $5-7 being basically the same), so if you have $4+Harvest, that randomness is a good thing. Of course that's not always the case but eh. Oh, and Harvest is also considered one of the weaker $5's.

[Jack Rudd]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

You mean like Horn of Plenty, Border Village, etc.? That was the entire point of the wording change -- to prevent players who play this version of Blood Money to acquire Victory cards in ANY manner.

I was actually thinking Swindler. I play Village, Black Market (playing a Blood Money), Swindler. I hit your Colony. What happens?

[WheresMyElephant]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

You mean like Horn of Plenty, Border Village, etc.? That was the entire point of the wording change -- to prevent players who play this version of Blood Money to acquire Victory cards in ANY manner.

In that case why not something like "While this is in play, when you would gain a Victory card, trash it instead/gain a Curse instead?" It seems confusing and awkward to just come out and say "When you would gain a Victory card, don't," but either of these should get the job done, and the former might even set up a few interesting edge cases as a bonus.

[Tejayes]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

You mean like Horn of Plenty, Border Village, etc.? That was the entire point of the wording change -- to prevent players who play this version of Blood Money to acquire Victory cards in ANY manner.

I was actually thinking Swindler. I play Village, Black Market (playing a Blood Money), Swindler. I hit your Colony. What happens?

I gain a Colony back. The wording states "While this is in play, YOU may not gain Victory cards." It says nothing about your opponents who don't have this version of Blood Money in play.

[Sakako]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

You mean like Horn of Plenty, Border Village, etc.? That was the entire point of the wording change -- to prevent players who play this version of Blood Money to acquire Victory cards in ANY manner.

In that case why not something like "While this is in play, when you would gain a Victory card, trash it instead/gain a Curse instead?" It seems confusing and awkward to just come out and say "When you would gain a Victory card, don't," but either of these should get the job done, and the former might even set up a few interesting edge cases as a bonus.

What about something like "While this is in play, when you would gain a Victory card, instead gain a card costing no more than it that is not a Victory card"?

[WheresMyElephant]

^^^ Seems unneccessarily wordy for what will almost always be the same end result, especially in the Buy phase where this card would be played. I guess if you REALLY wanted to get rid of a HoP you could try to gain a Duchy and turn it into Silver? Otherwise you would just buy/gain the card you wanted in the first place. I mean if you could turn Count's "Gain a Duchy" into "gain any $5 card" then that might be neat, but there's nothing like that here as far as I can see.

Edit: Also LastFootnote is right: these combos look like fun, why are we doing this?

[LastFootnote]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

You mean like Horn of Plenty, Border Village, etc.? That was the entire point of the wording change -- to prevent players who play this version of Blood Money to acquire Victory cards in ANY manner.

I really like this idea, even though it's pretty similar to Quarry. That being said, it should definitely be 'buy' instead of 'gain'. It's a Treasure card anyway, and the number of situations in which you'd be gaining a Victory card without buying it during your Buy phase is small. In fact, it's so small that it's not worth the terrible rules interactions that 'you may not gain' would cause. Why in the world would you want to insert terrible rules interactions just to eliminate cool combos with Horn of Plenty and Border Village? Makes no sense.

[Tejayes]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

You mean like Horn of Plenty, Border Village, etc.? That was the entire point of the wording change -- to prevent players who play this version of Blood Money to acquire Victory cards in ANY manner.

I really like this idea, even though it's pretty similar to Quarry. That being said, it should definitely be 'buy' instead of 'gain'. It's a Treasure card anyway, and the number of situations in which you'd be gaining a Victory card without buying it during your Buy phase is small. In fact, it's so small that it's not worth the terrible rules interactions that 'you may not gain' would cause. Why in the world would you want to insert terrible rules interactions just to eliminate cool combos with Horn of Plenty and Border Village? Makes no sense.

What terrible rules interactions? Other than HoP, BV, and the aforementioned Swindler interaction that isn't a Swindler interaction?

[LastFootnote]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

You mean like Horn of Plenty, Border Village, etc.? That was the entire point of the wording change -- to prevent players who play this version of Blood Money to acquire Victory cards in ANY manner.

I really like this idea, even though it's pretty similar to Quarry. That being said, it should definitely be 'buy' instead of 'gain'. It's a Treasure card anyway, and the number of situations in which you'd be gaining a Victory card without buying it during your Buy phase is small. In fact, it's so small that it's not worth the terrible rules interactions that 'you may not gain' would cause. Why in the world would you want to insert terrible rules interactions just to eliminate cool combos with Horn of Plenty and Border Village? Makes no sense.

What terrible rules interactions? Other than HoP, BV, and the aforementioned Swindler interaction that isn't a Swindler interaction?

The problem with 'you may not gain' is that there are cards effects that tell you to gain things. The rules do not cover what would happen when these two effects conflict. 'You may not buy' is fine, because no card forces you to buy things. There are tons of other threads in this forum where people list examples of why 'you may not gain' is bad, and I'm not going to waste time dredging them up for you.

Here's my question for you: why are you so stuck on using 'you may not gain'?

[eHalcyon]

Derp. Yes, I was thinking 'what if someone was crazy enough to make action Blood Money' and thus typed action ¬_¬. Terminal gold for $5 needs no penalty. Probably needs a small bonus if anything.

I disagree.  I believe Mandarin is a good example of a terminal Gold with penalty.  The topdeck can sometimes be helpful, but it is generally considered a penalty (contrast with Courtyard, which has draw to make the topdeck actually useful; compare with Count, where topdecking is one of the three penalty choices).  Harvest is another one, with the drawback being unreliability (though it CAN hit $4 sometimes too).

The single topdecking is a slight penalty, but it comes with a bonus on-buy effect, and on the whole, it's considered a weak $5. Count again, slight penalty, but it more than makes up for it with diversity of effect. And Harvest being unreliable is possibly a good thing, sure it averages probably just under $3 (but barely), but being able to hit $4 sometimes is a really good thing. Like, often you're gunning for Provinces, so hitting $7 or $6 doesn't matter (possibly even $5-7 being basically the same), so if you have $4+Harvest, that randomness is a good thing. Of course that's not always the case but eh. Oh, and Harvest is also considered one of the weaker $5's.

Sure.  But I think that suggests that a plain terminal +$3 would be a strong $5, and giving it a bonus would probably bump it up to $6.  Depends on the bonus though.

[Lhurgoyf]

We do have an example of a "you can't" rule in an existing Dominion card:
Contraband
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
+1 Buy
When you play this, the player to your left names a card. You can’t buy that card this turn.

So Tejayes' BLOOD MONEY would be worded:

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you can't gain Victory cards.

I do see, that there is a difference between those two:
- "You can't buy" means, you don't have the option, you have to choose somthing else.
- "You can't gain" means, you just can't gain it, and if you would, defaulting into not gaining anything.

With this out of my way: here is my take on the Blood Money card:

BLOOD MONEY
$5 ($4) - Treasure
Worth $3 ($4)
(When you play this) Every other player gains a Silver putting it into their hand (onto their draw pile?).

This would mean (outside of Colony games where Silver is bad) a real penalty that keeps on giving. A free Silver to start your turn with is very strong, so I might change the numbers to price $4 Worth $3 or price $5 Worth $4 or just let them get to topdeck it.

[Tejayes]

Here's an idea that hurts VP acquisition without Cursing...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
While this is in play, you may not gain Victory cards.

This needs to be "you may not buy Victory cards". Otherwise it has rules clashes with a number of cards.

You mean like Horn of Plenty, Border Village, etc.? That was the entire point of the wording change -- to prevent players who play this version of Blood Money to acquire Victory cards in ANY manner.

I really like this idea, even though it's pretty similar to Quarry. That being said, it should definitely be 'buy' instead of 'gain'. It's a Treasure card anyway, and the number of situations in which you'd be gaining a Victory card without buying it during your Buy phase is small. In fact, it's so small that it's not worth the terrible rules interactions that 'you may not gain' would cause. Why in the world would you want to insert terrible rules interactions just to eliminate cool combos with Horn of Plenty and Border Village? Makes no sense.

What terrible rules interactions? Other than HoP, BV, and the aforementioned Swindler interaction that isn't a Swindler interaction?

The problem with 'you may not gain' is that there are cards effects that tell you to gain things. The rules do not cover what would happen when these two effects conflict. 'You may not buy' is fine, because no card forces you to buy things. There are tons of other threads in this forum where people list examples of why 'you may not gain' is bad, and I'm not going to waste time dredging them up for you.

Here's my question for you: why are you so stuck on using 'you may not gain'?

Because I have yet to see any legitimate reason against it. Your "tons of other threads" excuse is a classic ploy by people who claim something, yet resort to a vague existence of evidence without actually providing any. Find a thread discussing said issue, post a link, and your point will be made. I'll do some searching myself.

The only instances where the "you may not gain" will become an issue other than HoP, BV, etc. is, as Jack Rudd brought up, with Black Market. Assuming you play this version of Blood Money when you play Black Market, and even then, there are rare cards that force you to gain Victory cards. And in all of those circumstances, the playing of Blood Money first will negate any forced gains, such as with Baron.

Lhurgoyf's wording, I'll admit, is better...

[Schneau]

I'm bored of the "can't gain" discussion that we've had before, so instead, I will quote rinkworks:

And you can still pull off fancy tricks like ... playing Big Money ...

So fancy!

[Jack Rudd]

Rinkworks's post on why you need to be very careful when using "can't".

[Tables]

Sure.  But I think that suggests that a plain terminal +$3 would be a strong $5, and giving it a bonus would probably bump it up to $6.  Depends on the bonus though.

I don't think so. The +$3's with something else we currently have are, as I just said, pretty much barely negative overall, and they're pretty mediocre $5's. A flat +$3 isn't really that much better, so it'd probably still be a below average $5. I think this has been discussed before, and people tend to think a $5 cost, +$3 would be balanced at $5. Balanced though covers a large range, and I think adding some bonus would leave it still okay as a $5, although strong.

[LastFootnote]

Because I have yet to see any legitimate reason against it. Your "tons of other threads" excuse is a classic ploy by people who claim something, yet resort to a vague existence of evidence without actually providing any.

Hee hee! My laziness is a "classic ploy". I like that!

Really it's just that this conversation has already been done to death in this very forum and I'm sick of having it.

Rinkworks's post on why you need to be very careful when using "can't".

Thanks a lot for finding this.

[Tejayes]

Rinkworks's post on why you need to be very careful when using "can't".

Thanks, Jack Rudd.

Even though I think the "while this is in play" clause would take precedence over all of the forced-Victory-gain edge cases out there, rinkworks made excellent points as usual. And I suppose that HoP, BV, etc. themselves are pretty edge-case-y already...

Very well, that version of Blood Money is now...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
$3
-
While this is in play, you cannot buy Victory cards.

[Tejayes]

Because I have yet to see any legitimate reason against it. Your "tons of other threads" excuse is a classic ploy by people who claim something, yet resort to a vague existence of evidence without actually providing any.

Hee hee! My laziness is a "classic ploy". I like that!

Really it's just that this conversation has already been done to death in this very forum and I'm sick of having it.

I can understand your frustration about the topic. Please understand my frustration with people who consistently make claims along the lines of "Many published articles agree with me" or "You can find this in any 'reputable' collection", then refuse to provide any actual examples because, in the end, they don't exist. I have put up with this way too much in my lifetime. Since your example did exist, please accept my apologies.

[petrie911]

Using the "Blood Money gives other players something good" interpretation...

Blood Money
$4 Action
+1 Buy
+$3
Each other player draws a card.

I think this would be balanced.  As Governor and Council Room have taught us, giving each other player an extra card can be quite dangerous.

Also, with the buy vs gain thing, it's also about consistency.  Talisman, Hoard, and Contraband care about you buying things while they're in play, while no treasure cares about you gaining things while it's in play.

[AJD]

no treasure cares about you gaining things while it's in play.

Royal Seal, actually.

[petrie911]

Really?  Hmm, I'd say that it should only care about buys, but Royal Seal hardly needs to be made worse.

[Saucery]

I feel like cache and death cart (and contraband) already cover the big $ with penalty space, so heres some other ideas, centered around trashing/restitution.

Blood Money
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
--
You cannot buy this unless you reveal an action card from your hand. When you buy this, trash an action card from your hand.

Blood Money
$4 - Treasure-Reaction
Worth $1
You may trash a card from your hand.
--
When a player trashes a card costing $3 or more, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, place this on top of your deck and gain a silver, putting it into your hand.

Blood Money
$5 - Action-Attack
Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest. If any player trashes a card this way, gain a spoils, putting it into your hand.

For the first one, I don't know if having an action in hand (meaning you have to buy an action, draw it, then hit $5 without playing it) is a strong enough penalty, but its basic idea of requiring to trash actions somehow to get blood money. The second only barely self-synergizes, and is mainly something to look at in DA/swindler/saboteur games, following the restitution theme. The third, i think its kinda similar to rogue and some other DA cards, but i'll throw the idea out there in terms of what blood money could potentially be.

[Archetype]

Blood Money
$4 - Treasure-Reaction
Worth $1
You may trash a card from your hand.
--
When a player trashes a card costing $3 or more, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, place this on top of your deck and gain a silver, putting it into your hand.

Blood Money
$5 - Action-Attack
Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest. If any player trashes a card this way, gain a spoils, putting it into your hand.

These seem... a lot different from what I usually think Blood Money is.

[Tejayes]

I feel like cache and death cart (and contraband) already cover the big $ with penalty space, so heres some other ideas, centered around trashing/restitution.

Blood Money
$5 - Treasure
Worth $3
--
You cannot buy this unless you reveal an action card from your hand. When you buy this, trash an action card from your hand.

Blood Money
$4 - Treasure-Reaction
Worth $1
You may trash a card from your hand.
--
When a player trashes a card costing $3 or more, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, place this on top of your deck and gain a silver, putting it into your hand.

Blood Money
$5 - Action-Attack
Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest. If any player trashes a card this way, gain a spoils, putting it into your hand.

Blood Money A (Sacrifice an Action to buy) is a little steep of a price, considering that Actions are rarely worth trashing, especially to get $1 off of the price of a Gold. Also, it's easier to gain this through Remodel and the like.

Blood Money B is a little weird for the name, but it kind of works. Get junked? Your restitution is a Copper that can trash it. Get Saboteured? Instant Silver, AND you get this back in your next turn (assuming it doesn't fall prey to the same attack).

At first, I compared Blood Money C to Dame Sylvia (and really, the rest of the Knights). Then, I realized that the Spoils won't be gained on every play. That probably keeps this from being too strong.

[Saucery]

Come to think of it, the 3rd has the damage/restitution effects aligned rather than reversed. A card which is compensation for loss would more likely be a reaction.

Blood Money
$3 - Action-Reaction
+$2
When another player plays an attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, gain a spoils.

Don't have an interesting way to limit the effect, but there's a baseline...

Or how about, Blood Money is a type of spoils gained when people attack you/you trash things?

[jamespotter]

Blood Money
$6*-Treasure
+$4
+1 buy
Trash a card from your hand costing $3 or more, or reveal a hand with no cards costing $3 or more and gain a curse.
When you buy this card, you may trash a treasure card costing $2 or more from play. If you do, this card costs $2.

I think this card fixes the "Too powerful when you run out of curses" problem, without being absolutely devastating to the user. The buy can be used to help it feed itself. I also added several things that prevent a first turn buy...it's just too good as an opening.

[werothegreat]

So... no comments on my idea?

[Archetype]

Blood Money - Treasure-Duration - $5

+2 Buys
$5

When you play this, reveal cards from the top of your deck until revealing one costing $3 or more.  If you find one, trash it, discard the other revealed cards, and trash this.  If you do not find one, at the start of your next turn, discard down to three cards in hand.

It's pretty kooky, and kinda hard to see how good it is. I just think this card has a lot of moving parts with them not really being related to each other.

5$ for 5$ and 2 Buys...I think I still like Death Cart better.

[Sakako]

So... no comments on my idea?

I don't have any comments on mine either. :3

[Tables]

Blood Money - Treasure-Duration - $5

+2 Buys
$5

When you play this, reveal cards from the top of your deck until revealing one costing $3 or more.  If you find one, trash it, discard the other revealed cards, and trash this.  If you do not find one, at the start of your next turn, discard down to three cards in hand.

I think the penalty will be extremely swingy. My Blood Money trashes my Silvers, yours destroys two Provinces. But that's not necessarily a bad thing; it's self-inflicted and some cards need to have higher variance to make things more interesting. I don't know if the whole discarding if you don't find one clause is really that necessary, in most games it won't come into effect beyond the second shuffle, although it would make this card a killer combo in Highway games (maybe Bridge, but that's a bit harder methinks). I think the simplified version which is just 'When you play this, reveal cards from your deck until revealing one costing $3 or more. Trash that card and discard the other revealed cards' would work okay. Possibly has to remove one buy to balance it, perhaps both, but it simplifies the card somewhat.

[eHalcyon]

Sure.  But I think that suggests that a plain terminal +$3 would be a strong $5, and giving it a bonus would probably bump it up to $6.  Depends on the bonus though.

I don't think so. The +$3's with something else we currently have are, as I just said, pretty much barely negative overall, and they're pretty mediocre $5's. A flat +$3 isn't really that much better, so it'd probably still be a below average $5. I think this has been discussed before, and people tend to think a $5 cost, +$3 would be balanced at $5. Balanced though covers a large range, and I think adding some bonus would leave it still okay as a $5, although strong.

Really?  I thought consensus was that a plain terminal gold was too good for $5.  Maybe I should look for those old discussions and review.

[loppo]

Nonetheless, I think a score-manipulating Blood Money ought to be doable if the penalty happens on-play, in keeping with the principles of balance I started this post talking about.  "When you play this, gain a Curse token."  A Curse token would be like a VP token but worth -1 point instead of 1.  Something along those lines can probably work.

You could also just have it give each other player a VP chip, and not need to create new components.

I wish I could give this more '+1's. Brilliant! This is what I want to see for one of the Prosperity cards in the Treasure Chest expansion: a powerful card that gives opponents VP chips when played. That's two of Prosperity's themes right there. Seems perfect!

BRIBE
$3 - Treasure
Worth $3
-
When you play this each other player gets 1VP.

sorry if this if off topic, but the moment read that, that came up in my head. You get a gold for the price of a silver, but if you want to use it, you have to bribe your opponents

[Qvist]

Rinkworks's post on why you need to be very careful when using "can't".

Thanks, Jack Rudd.

Even though I think the "while this is in play" clause would take precedence over all of the forced-Victory-gain edge cases out there, rinkworks made excellent points as usual. And I suppose that HoP, BV, etc. themselves are pretty edge-case-y already...

Very well, that version of Blood Money is now...

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
$3
-
While this is in play, you cannot buy Victory cards.

That basically very similar to Quarry.
It's a Gold if you want to buy Action cards and if you buy Victory cards it's a Copper instead of "you can't". Yeah, it's not the same because of the cost reduction of Quarry, but still too similar to make it interesting. Also, this should basically cost $4.

[Davio]

Blood Money - $5
Treasure

$2
------------
When you play this, discard a Copper from your hand.
If you do: +$2. If you don't: Gain a Curse.

I don't know if this is the best implementation of the idea, but the idea is to have players "pay" for their Blood Money and if they can't, suffer some consequences. The "gain a Curse" clause can be easily replaced. Having it discard Coppers makes it so it doesn't stack very well. I mean, a hand of BM, BM, C, C, X will net you a Province, same as 2G+2C, but a hand of 3BM, X, X won't do you much good.

We currently don't have non-stackable Treasures; in fact we have Bank and Fool's Gold which are the opposite. Thoughts?

[vintermann]

Blood money needs to involve silver somehow, in my opinion. Ideally thirty, but I know that's overkill.

Blood Money - $4
Treasure-Victory

1 Coin. Gain a silver to hand. At the end of game, this card is worth -1VP for every three silvers you have in your deck.

---

When you trash this, gain a curse.

[AJD]

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
$3
-
While this is in play, you cannot buy Victory cards.

That basically very similar to Quarry.
It's a Gold if you want to buy Action cards and if you buy Victory cards it's a Copper instead of "you can't". Yeah, it's not the same because of the cost reduction of Quarry, but still too similar to make it interesting. Also, this should basically cost $4.

On the other hand, you can use this to buy actual Gold, which you can't (usefully) do with Quarry; that might justify a higher price.

[SirPeebles]

BLOOD MONEY
$5 - Treasure
$3
-
While this is in play, you cannot buy Victory cards.

That basically very similar to Quarry.
It's a Gold if you want to buy Action cards and if you buy Victory cards it's a Copper instead of "you can't". Yeah, it's not the same because of the cost reduction of Quarry, but still too similar to make it interesting. Also, this should basically cost $4.

On the other hand, you can use this to buy actual Gold, which you can't (usefully) do with Quarry; that might justify a higher price.

Indeed.  Contraband is another card along these lines.  It's pretty much a no-go when it comes to Provinces at the end, but it can help you buy golds (although golds themselves are a common block earlier in the game).  But then, probably contraband's best use is when there are several different cheap engine pieces you want, and the +buy allows you to get several at once while a single piece being blocked this turn isn't so crippling.

One big difference, though.  With both Contraband and Quarry, while you can't get that Province there is fair chance that you can at least full back on a Duchy, which can make all the difference in the end game.  In fact, Contraband will sometimes allow you to pick up two Duchies as your fall back.  This Blood Money won't even let you pick up an estate.

[eHalcyon]

Blood Money - $5
Treasure

$2
------------
When you play this, discard a Copper from your hand.
If you do: +$2. If you don't: Gain a Curse.

I don't know if this is the best implementation of the idea, but the idea is to have players "pay" for their Blood Money and if they can't, suffer some consequences. The "gain a Curse" clause can be easily replaced. Having it discard Coppers makes it so it doesn't stack very well. I mean, a hand of BM, BM, C, C, X will net you a Province, same as 2G+2C, but a hand of 3BM, X, X won't do you much good.

We currently don't have non-stackable Treasures; in fact we have Bank and Fool's Gold which are the opposite. Thoughts?

I think I like this implementation.  There is a slight accountability issue in that the self-Cutpurse is not optional but there isn't a "or reveal a hand without" clause.  I think it should remain mandatory.

Contraband is an example of a Treasure that you wouldn't want to stack.

[One Armed Man]

Blood Money
$5 - Action-Attack
Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest. If any player trashes a card this way, gain a spoils, putting it into your hand.

Spoils-to-hand is very similar to +$3. I don't think it would be worth pulling the whole Spoils pile out for.

[Sakako]

Is this supposed to be a Treasure? Because you have it listed as an Action.

Seems like it works as an Action, since Action cards usually stay in play until the end of the turn. Anyway, here's mine:

Blood Money
$4
Treasure
Worth $2

Choose one: +$2, and gain a Curse, putting it on top of your deck; or +$1, and gain a Curse.

This has the problem that a lot of Blood Moneys do, which is that it's overpowered after the Curses run out.

Alright, how's this for fixing:

Self-Nerfing Blood Money
$4
Worth $1

Choose one:
Gain a curse, putting it on top of your deck. If you do, +$3; or
Gain a curse, putting it into your hand. If you do, +$1.

[NoMoreFun]

Blood Money:
Cost: 4
Worth $0
When you play this, you may gain a curse, putting it in your hand
You may put a curse from your hand on top of your deck. If you do +$4