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[Axe Knight]

I'd love to see the final two turns of the championship game of the World Series of Dominion. 

[danshep]

A $6 victory card worth 1 VP for each silver in your deck might be interesting - though that might be a little too powerful, as putting 10 silvers in your deck and spamming those would be a bit much.

A $6 worth 1 VP for every 2 silver seems a little weak next to fairgrounds (I'd normally rather have 15 different cards than 12 silvers), but a silver heavy hand would have no problem buying them all up quickly either.

There's scope for a VP card based on the number of treasures in your deck - A fairgrounds-like 'worth 2VP for every 5 treasures' would encourage silver collecting without focusing on silver directly.

[grep]

The card I thought about earlier today that would be interesting is something like
Graveyard
Cost $4(?)
Victory
Worth 1 VP for every curse in your deck.

And it should be combo'd with some anti-chapel card like:

Black Mass
Cost $2
Action
+$4. Gain a curse

[Axe Knight]

A $6 victory card worth 1 VP for each silver in your deck might be interesting - though that might be a little too powerful, as putting 10 silvers in your deck and spamming those would be a bit much.

A $6 worth 1 VP for every 2 silver seems a little weak next to fairgrounds (I'd normally rather have 15 different cards than 12 silvers), but a silver heavy hand would have no problem buying them all up quickly either.

There's scope for a VP card based on the number of treasures in your deck - A fairgrounds-like 'worth 2VP for every 5 treasures' would encourage silver collecting without focusing on silver directly.

I was thinking something like:

Silver Service $4

1VP

Worth 1 additional VP for every 3 Silver in your deck. 

[Taco Lobster]

Nice.  Love the idea of a reaction card that trashes the attack.  It should probably self trash or give the opponent some type of bonus as well - otherwise, it's hard to imagine attacks being viable at all if it is on the board.

Donald X. has repeatedly stated that he will never create a Reaction like this, and I think he's right in feeling this way.

Out of curiosity, what's the reasoning?  It seems no worse than swindler or saboteur, but moves what is an annoying and frustrating ability from offense to defense.  Such a card could even be fairly weak and designed to appeal to new players. 

[rrenaud]

Out of curiosity, what's the reasoning?  It seems no worse than swindler or saboteur, but moves what is an annoying and frustrating ability from offense to defense.  Such a card could even be fairly weak and designed to appeal to new players. 

I can't find the quote (Google fails me ).  But the basic idea is it completely makes attack cards worthless.  You'd be insane to play a strong attack with such a reaction in place.  To be fair, I am pretty sure Richard Garfield (designer of Magic) suggested it to him as well.

[Taco Lobster]

Out of curiosity, what's the reasoning?  It seems no worse than swindler or saboteur, but moves what is an annoying and frustrating ability from offense to defense.  Such a card could even be fairly weak and designed to appeal to new players. 

I can't find the quote (Google fails me ).  But the basic idea is it completely makes attack cards worthless.  You'd be insane to play a strong attack with such a reaction in place.  To be fair, I am pretty sure Richard Garfield (designer of Magic) suggested it to him as well.

I don't know that I agree with that still.  If the card was strictly "reveal from hand when attacked, attack is trashed" that'd definitely be too much.  But if it had some compensation to the opponent (+$2 would actually be an interesting one given that it's the opponents turn and they can buy something), it seems like it could be viable.  Bad players would force opponents to trash attacks, but good players could capitalize on the compensation.  And/Or, it could let the attack resolve prior to being trashed.  There seems to be a lot of potential design space that would appeal to players who hate attack cards.

[theory]

There are lots of problems outside just strategical impact.  People hate getting their stuff trashed.  It leads to AP as people hesitate over whether or not to play their attacks.  Kingmaking can happen if you choose not to trigger it on some people.

The point isn't that "reactions that trash attacks are bad", it's you shouldn't make a Reaction card that makes attackers really hesitate about playing their attacks out of fear of it backfiring, not just having no effect.

[rrenaud]

I tend to not like arguments from authority.  But if you really want to make an argument against Donald on Dominion game design for something that he dismisses as an obviously bad idea in retrospect, you've got a very tall mountain to climb.  How about you play test it and come back with some data?

[Taco Lobster]

I agree that playtesting is the only way to really perform an informed analysis about a card being balanced/good.  But, as a thought experiment, I don't see anything that's been said about this type of card that isn't already in the game.

People don't like having their cards trashed: Saboteur and swindler exist.

People don't like having their attacks blocked/made worthless:  Moat and lighthouse exist.

Kingmaking:  Happens frequently in multi-player through the nature of the end-game conditions.

AP:  This will be an issue with most cards, but is mitigated by the nature of Dominion's 10 kingdom card structure. 

This doesn't seem like the case of the famed +2 Buy card, which would be extremely good in some decks and do nothing in most decks.  There seem to be a large number of levers and dials that could be manipulated to make such a card balanced without making it a complete attack neutralizer.

I'd even go so far as to say it should be made as a bad-ish card, ala moat, which is typically avoided by advanced players but embraced by beginners.

I'm curious as to what separates this hypothetical card from the existing trash the opponents cards/absolute no-attack reaction cards/etc.  I don't claim to be an expert on game design, but I love reading about it and learning more (I'm a big fan of Mark Rosewater's making magic column even though I haven't played the game much in over a decade).  The answer might be as simple as "Donald thinks interaction is good and that Dominion should favor attacks" or "Unlike attack cards, which encourage playing your cards, a defensive card like this would lead to less (inter)-action because it would be such an effective counter to attack cards and mostly just sit in your hand."

[grep]

People don't like trashing. Probably we need a devastating attack that requires trashing by the player. Something like

Dark Plague (I wanted to call it Nuclear Bomb, but this name does not fit well to medieval settings)
Cost 7$
Action
Trash this card. All other players trash cards from their hands until they have no more than 3 cards.

(It is supposed that when you play Dark Plague, the average card cost of the opponents is higher than 3.5)

[theory]

This is Donald X.'s reasoning:

As I usually tell people who want to show me cards, the obvious ideas are obvious to me too, and I had a big head start. For example Richard Garfield suggested 3 cards while he was playtesting Seaside. One was already in a set and has survived; one was already in a set but currently isn't in one although I have an idea for fixing it up. The third card was the reaction that reflects the attack, which I had had suggested so many times that I had already written up an essay on why it doesn't work.

* * *

The problem with defenses that attack is that, in 4-player games, there's a 1-to-3 ratio that goes the wrong way relative to the buying decision.

Let's consider 3 cards:

- Point Eater. An attack that makes each other player lose 1 point. There's no Curse card involved; we'll track these points on a scoring track. I'm doing this to keep the analysis simple.
- Revenge. When another player plays an attack card, reveal this to make them lose 1 point. It doesn't stop the attack. It only works for you once per attack, one way or another.
- Moat. As-is.

I am just considering 4-player games here, which is where the problem is at its worst.

I play Point Eater. Each other player is down a point. Or, from my perspective, I'm up a point.

You Moat my Point Eater. For you, that's worth a point - you were going to lose a point, but now you don't. For me, that's -1/3 points. I make two out of three opponents lose a point, which is roughly 2/3 of a point of a benefit. It's rough because, who knows, maybe two of the players suck and I only care about the other one; if that one Moats I break even and if they don't I'm up a point. But in general, it's not like that; I am more or less still up 2/3 of a point when just one player Moats. So again: The person who decided to buy Moat makes a point here - they would have been down a point but are not - and the person who decided to buy Point Eater is still up 2/3 of a point after the Moat. Both cards still reward their players for buying them.

You Revenge my Point Eater. For you, that's worth 1/3 of a point - one out of your three opponents lost a point. For me, the entire benefit of my attack is gone - I break even rather than being up a point. The person who decided to buy Revenge just got 1/3 of a point of benefit; the person who bought Point Eater got nothing. Revenge is a weak investment and Point Eater is horrible. Of course if this means no-one buys Point Eaters then Revenge is useless.

See, it's this 1-to-3 ratio. In the wrong direction.

We could make Revenge three times as powerful - the attacker loses 3 points. Then playing Revenge is worth a point, like playing Moat. Being on the receiving end means losing 2 points net. Attacking is really unattractive in this situation, while defending is just as good as it is with Moat. It's even worse if, as in this example, Revenge is cumulative. Everyone else Revenges and you end up down 8 points. If everyone had Moated, you would have broken even.

Or, we could make Revenge one third as powerful - the attacker loses 1/3 of a point. Then being on the receiving end is just like having your attack Moated - you are back to getting 2/3 of a point for your attack. Playing Revenge is pointless though - you are only up 1/9 of a point. You could make the rest of the card good enough that this was playable, but you would completely ignore the defensive part when deciding whether or not to buy this.

So that's the deal. You can't fix the problem by tweaking the cost of Revenge; you still have the bad ratio. The one thing you can do is change the ratio; for example, Revenge could make every opponent lose a point whenever any opponent attacked. Then it's an attack that your opponents have to enable. Which is not necessarily out of the question, but isn't super sexy.

[Taco Lobster]

Interesting.  Thanks theory, I appreciate you digging that up for me. 

[Yariv]

I would like to point out that not all reactions are moat, some already should make you hesitate about some attacks (not the curse givers, but other attacks).
Watchtower makes swindler very problematic (early, in late game it's problematic in any case).
Secret Chamber is very powerful against Swindler, Saboteur, Thief, Pirate Ship, Fortune Teller and Jester.
Horse Traders makes the attack of minion an actual gain for your opponent.

There are several more cards that are likely to cause hand-size reducing to be counter-productive (Menagerie, Library, Watchtower). So the problem should not be a reaction that makes avoiding the attack better than playing it.

[nemryn]

I would like to point out that not all reactions are moat, some already should make you hesitate about some attacks (not the curse givers, but other attacks).
Watchtower makes swindler very problematic (early, in late game it's problematic in any case).
Secret Chamber is very powerful against Swindler, Saboteur, Thief, Pirate Ship, Fortune Teller and Jester.
Horse Traders makes the attack of minion an actual gain for your opponent.

There are several more cards that are likely to cause hand-size reducing to be counter-productive (Menagerie, Library, Watchtower). So the problem should not be a reaction that makes avoiding the attack better than playing it.

There's a difference between a Reaction that makes things better for the victim of the attack and one that makes things worse for the person playing the attack. The cards you mentioned all still have a chance of misfiring (maybe Secret Chamber doesn't give you two Victory cards to feed to the Thief, for example), and the other players are still hit with the full Attack, so you still come out ahead.

And for Horse Traders vs. Minion: first, Minion is powerful enough that maybe it needs to be a little risky to play it. And second, much of the time you're not even using Minion for the attack; you're using it for the +$2, or to cycle your own hand. That's enough of an incentive to play it anyway, even if it benefits other players as well.

Actually, that's an interesting question for Donald X: Did he ever try Minion without the Attack aspect? Just as '+1 Action. Choose one: +$2; or discard your hand and +4 Cards.'

[Axe Knight]

Actually, that's an interesting question for Donald X: Did he ever try Minion without the Attack aspect? Just as '+1 Action. Choose one: +$2; or discard your hand and +4 Cards.'

Per his secret history of Intrigue,

"Minion: The original version of this was a "choose one" card with three messy abilities. It was too messy and also too narrow, and so left. Later on I was looking for an attack to replace another attack that hadn't worked out, and thought of this. Originally the "discard, draw 4" ability only worked on yourself, but it seemed like it would make a cute attack if it hit everybody. The problem was that it was still too narrow - you would not always have a combo that made that exciting enough. The solution, proposed by Chris West, was to have the card be a combo with itself. You can play a couple copies for +$2, and then play one to get a fresh hand. For simplicity there is no 3rd ability.

During development I had some games where it was clear that this card was too annoying. The "discard, draw 4" ability had no "5 or more cards" clause. So you would sometimes draw your whole deck... and also make everyone else draw their whole deck. So you'd make everyone else shuffle on each of your turns. As an attack it gets no worse if it just hits everyone else once, and it's way less annoying. We tested both and went with the less annoying version."

[Arya Stark]

the auto on iso to match me with players who can play fast for multi player games 

[drg]

Something to break up the opponents action chains, whether it's a sort of duration attack or reaction.  That would take a lot of boards to a new level.
Like... 'while this is in play other players can play no more than x actions on their turn' or 'reveal this card when your opponent has already played x actions and they can no longer play actions this turn'.

[theory]

And for Horse Traders vs. Minion: first, Minion is powerful enough that maybe it needs to be a little risky to play it. And second, much of the time you're not even using Minion for the attack; you're using it for the +$2, or to cycle your own hand. That's enough of an incentive to play it anyway, even if it benefits other players as well.

Actually, that's an interesting question for Donald X: Did he ever try Minion without the Attack aspect? Just as '+1 Action. Choose one: +$2; or discard your hand and +4 Cards.'

Minion is one of those cards that suffers from our 2p bias. It is a lot worse if you can't get 5-10 of them.

[Scott Pilgrim]

I would like to see more Potion and Duration cards. I liked the concepts those introduced to the game and hope to see them developed better in future expansions - specifically an expansion of Alchemy.

[painted_cow]

Pro tour!

Honestly, i really would like such big tournaments but it wont happen soon. The problem is, why should players be invited? Of course its advertising for others, but they cant buy new product like in Magic that this advertising would make much sense. Everybody who knows about it will have the expansions anyway. Not to mention the "little" (compared to Magic) number of players actually playing the game.

So far in Germany they try a National Championship, but the tournament mode is in my opinion really retarded so far (4player-multiplayer, only 1 or 2 expansions per setup, determining winners from the sum of all points over all rounds etc.)

[Lenoxus]

I do have a feeling that some "cares-about-having-silver" card is coming. The weird option on trusty steed, some comments Donald X. made in the recent secret history about cards that were scrapped, Bureaucrat, Explorer (when do you NOT want to reveal the province? Why is it "may"), and a couple other things.

Regarding Explorer: even without a "Yay Silver" card, I can think of a few odd situations where it's better for Explorer to give you Silver than Gold, mainly having to do with their different costs.

For example, say your VP is 8 less than the leader's, and your hand is Village, Explorer, Province, Forge, and a Curse. You play Village, drawing a Tactician. You play Explorer for Silver, then Forge your Tactician, Silver, and Curse into the last remaining Province, winning the game. You wouldn't have been able to do that with Gold. (I imagine there could be a simpler example involving Upgrade or Expand.)

However, even apart from that, it's important for the card to have that text for absolute clarity, so that there's no confusion for when you don't have a Province in hand; it would also take more words. (It's the same way with Reactions and a few other cards as well.)

[Fuu]

Another expansion that uses potions. This might make them less annoying/niche. I read a suggestion somewhere for an expansion like this but with a more kind of black magic feel than Alchemy has, e.g. 'Necromancy', which revolves around interactions with the trash pile.

There could be cards like:

Mausoleum: +1VP per 5 cards in the trash pile

Necromancer: you may immediately buy a card from the trash pile / gain a card from the trash pile costing up to n (put it in your hand?)

etc.

[Personman]

Better interface on isotropic.

I really liked one on german page, it made games somewhat faster and more enjoyable.

Aah!

Nice.  Love the idea of a reaction card that trashes the attack.

Aaah!

I would like to see more Potion [...] cards.

Another expansion that uses potions.

AAAAAH!

*whimper* you guys have scary desires. Donald (and Doug), can you make these things not happen please?

(Please note that the above portion of this post is meant in good fun and expresses opinions that I acknowledge to be mine alone and not claims of objective fact)

Explorer (when do you NOT want to reveal the province? Why is it "may")

The real reason it's 'may' is the same reason Throne Room should be -- your opponent shouldn't have to trust you that you don't have a Province in hand if you don't reveal one. In general, forced actions conditional on private information are a big nono in (physical) game design.

[nemryn]

Explorer (when do you NOT want to reveal the province? Why is it "may")

The real reason it's 'may' is the same reason Throne Room should be -- your opponent shouldn't have to trust you that you don't have a Province in hand if you don't reveal one. In general, forced actions conditional on private information are a big nono in (physical) game design.

On the other hand, Bureaucrat and Cutpurse.