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[NoMoreFun]

Rouser
Action/Attack - $5

Each player (including you) reveals the top 4 cards of his deck, discards the actions and treasures costing $3 or more, and puts the other cards back in any order.
Each other player is affected by any attacks he discards this way as if you played them.
+4 cards

It can be an extremely powerful attack if you chain them, especially late game in a copper trashing environment, but that's very difficult to do because of the nature of its draw, and in most cases would be worse than rabble. The card would be great in 5/2 openings, especially with fool's gold, but eventually its draw power is going to be severely minimized, and you will curse the card's name. Speaking of curses though, if you opponents think they can make your drawing even worse by flooding you with junk, then they better watch out, since they can end up hurting themselves instead. If someone's making an engine with Rousers somehow, you can buy a single Rouser and severely hurt their next hand.

[One Armed Man]

If anybody pulls up Rouser, does only that player have to reveal the top 4 again!?

Also, "affected by Attack" isn't defined well. If Minion is pulled up, what happens? What about modal attacks like Torturer?

Overall, this seems too crazy in openings because of the +4 cards.

[NoMoreFun]

If anybody pulls up Rouser, does only that player have to reveal the top 4 again!?

Also, "affected by Attack" isn't defined well. If Minion is pulled up, what happens? What about modal attacks like Torturer?

Overall, this seems too crazy in openings because of the +4 cards.

To the first question, yes. The "attack" portion happens after the discarding and topdecking has already been finished.

For minion, it's "as if you played" the card, so you get to choose which of the 2 effects they get (and if you choose +$2, you get nothing, because only THEY are affected). Torturer is their choice, as usual. Nothing happens if a Mercenary is revealed, because you didn't trash 2 cards, but they are still cursed by young witch even though you didn't draw or discard (unless they reveal a bane).

+4 cards is great for an opener, but I wouldn't put this card's +4 cards much higher than envoys, even in the early game.

[zahlman]

Trying to make this more sane (and precise, though certainly changing it):

Each opponent reveals the top 4 cards of his deck, puts the revealed cards costing $2 or less, or $p, back onto the deck in any order, and discards the others. If he revealed an Attack card, he gains a Curse.

Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the revealed cards costing $2 or less, or $p, into your hand. Discard any remaining cards that are not Attacks. Play the remaining Attack cards in any order.

[NoMoreFun]

Interesting change zahlman, but I'm not sure I want this card to be a curser in games without one. The idea is to turn an opponents attacks directly against them. The new non attack effect means a strategy for winning would be to buy a lot of rousers and copper, giving you a semi terminal apothecary engine that also nukes everyone elses next hand; not sure that's what I want. $2 or P sounds a bit wonky though.

I'm still not sure what to make the non attack part, but I like the idea of some symmetry. Another idea would be to have everyone discard actions, which benefits you (since this is a terminal drawer), and hurts everyone else. I'm not a big fan of big money strategies though.

I would think that all the faq problems would be solved by having it be similarly defined to Moat and Lighthouse, just in reverse; you play a virtual copy of the card, but you are not affected by it, only the player who discarded the card is.

Therefore:
*You can trash their treasures with Thief and Noble Brigand, but you don't gain them after they go to the trash.
*With Pirate Ship and Minion, you can choose for either nothing to happen, or the attack portion of the card. If you choose the Pirate Ship attack and it hits, you still don't get any tokens on your pirate ship mat.
*You can't gain any cards with Jester, but you can make your opponent gain cards.
*You can block Young Witch and Mountebank attacks using the methods specified in their cards.
*Mercenary does nothing, because the card doesn't affect you, so you can't trash the 2 cards necessary to activate the attack.
*You can't start a cultist chain with someone else's virtual cultist.

Also in the card as it's written in the OP, the only attack that doesn't get activated by Rouser is Scrying Pool. I prefer the use of "discarded" since it definitively has the self attack in a separate timeframe to the initial Rabble style attack.

[LastFootnote]

I would think that all the faq problems would be solved by having it be similarly defined to Moat and Lighthouse, just in reverse; you play a virtual copy of the card, but you are not affected by it, only the player who discarded the card is.

Therefore:
*You can trash their treasures with Thief and Noble Brigand, but you don't gain them after they go to the trash.
*With Pirate Ship and Minion, you can choose for either nothing to happen, or the attack portion of the card. If you choose the Pirate Ship attack and it hits, you still don't get any tokens on your pirate ship mat.
*You can't gain any cards with Jester, but you can make your opponent gain cards.
*You can block Young Witch and Mountebank attacks using the methods specified in their cards.
*Mercenary does nothing, because the card doesn't affect you, so you can't trash the 2 cards necessary to activate the attack.
*You can't start a cultist chain with someone else's virtual cultist.

Man, that may seem simple to you, but trust me, it's confusing.

More importantly, I think this card is going to have the same issues as the oft-suggested Reaction that reflects attacks onto the attacker. What will happen is that people won't buy Attacks in order to avoid being hit hard by Rouser, and therefore nobody will buy Rouser either.

[NoMoreFun]

More importantly, I think this card is going to have the same issues as the oft-suggested Reaction that reflects attacks onto the attacker. What will happen is that people won't buy Attacks in order to avoid being hit hard by Rouser, and therefore nobody will buy Rouser either.

I thought the problem with that was that you could have the rug pulled out from under you during your own turn, making you cautious to play attacks. This doesn't have that problem. It does disincentivise gaining attacks, but no more than Moat or Lighthouse does. Think of it as an alternative to buying copies of the attacks your opponents are buying.

[ftl]

Make sure you take out the infinite loop!

(If an opponent has only four cards in their deck/discard, and each one is a Rouser. You play a rouser. What happens? )

[edit] even better - two are rousers, one is a Copper, one is a Swindler. Instantly deplete the copper, curse, and ruins piles in one play? You play the rouser, revealing Rouser, Rouser, Copper, Swindler. Rousers and swindlers get discarded, copper stays on top. You choose to cause the swindler effect first, trashing the copper and making them gain a copper, and then cause the rouser effect... [/edit]

Also, in a game where you can just trash your cheap cards, this is going to spend a lot of the game being "+4 cards, cost $5". Be careful.

[ftl]

More importantly, I think this card is going to have the same issues as the oft-suggested Reaction that reflects attacks onto the attacker. What will happen is that people won't buy Attacks in order to avoid being hit hard by Rouser, and therefore nobody will buy Rouser either.

I thought the problem with that was that you could have the rug pulled out from under you during your own turn, making you cautious to play attacks. This doesn't have that problem. It does disincentivise gaining attacks, but no more than Moat or Lighthouse does. Think of it as an alternative to buying copies of the attacks your opponents are buying.

Well, it makes it so that if you buy an attack, you could be worse off than if you hadn't bought it. Like, if everyone buys rousers and you just buy chapel and trash your starting cards, rouser is just cycling for you. But if you buy an attack... with multiple opponents playing rousers, suddenly it gets played AGAINST you more than you get to play it against the other people!

It's the same thing as with point eater/revenge. You playing Point Eater suddenly becomes a net negative for you because you lose points because of multiple reactions, same way that here, buying an attack can become a net negative because with two opponents playing Rousers, you'll get the attack played against you more often than you'll get to play it. 

[petrie911]

Isn't +4 cards way too good on this thing?  Its attack is already a really nasty version of Rabble, and +4 cards is by itself worth more than $5.

[zahlman]

Isn't +4 cards way too good on this thing?  Its attack is already a really nasty version of Rabble, and +4 cards is by itself worth more than $5.

It's intended to draw 4 *bad* cards, by first discarding some $3 and up cards. But this doesn't really work if you've trashed your bad cards - now it just cycles you even faster.

[NoMoreFun]

A new variant to address all the concerns in this topic:

Rouser
Action-Attack
Cost: $5
+$3
Each other player reveals the top card of his deck, then puts it in his hand. If it's an attack, he is affected by it as if you played it. Otherwise he gains a curse, putting it on top of his deck.

Now it encourages buying attacks instead of discouraging them; at least until the curses run out. The envoyesque draw is gone, but it's still a very strong bonus.

[LastFootnote]

A new variant to address all the concerns in this topic:

Rouser
Action-Attack
Cost: $5
+$3
Each other player reveals the top card of his deck, then puts it in his hand. If it's an attack, he is affected by it as if you played it. Otherwise he gains a curse, putting it on top of his deck.

Now it encourages buying attacks instead of discouraging them; at least until the curses run out. The envoyesque draw is gone, but it's still a very strong bonus.

What happens if he reveals Ambassador? Pirate Ship? Minion? I don't think this 'affected by it as if you had played it' wording can work.

[heron]

Here's my understanding:
Ambassador: You reveal a card, and that player gains a copy of that card.
Pirate Ship: You choose either nothing or attack his treasures.
Minion: You choose nothing or you and he discard and draw 4.

I think this card is too strong. I mean +$3 is pretty darn good. You can get +$3 on Count or Mandarin, but they have penalties to go along with it. This card has a strong attack to go along with it.

[One Armed Man]

Here's my understanding:
Ambassador: You reveal a card, and that player gains a copy of that card.
Pirate Ship: You choose either nothing or attack his treasures.
Minion: You choose nothing or you and he discard and draw 4.

I think this card is too strong. I mean +$3 is pretty darn good. You can get +$3 on Count or Mandarin, but they have penalties to go along with it. This card has a strong attack to go along with it.

The other players get to draw the revealed card. I think that makes up for the +$3 for 5, probably not the cursing, though. Still, the potential confusion of card effects might be reason enough not to print the card.

[NoMoreFun]

Here's my understanding:
Ambassador: You reveal a card, and that player gains a copy of that card.
Pirate Ship: You choose either nothing or attack his treasures.
Minion: You choose nothing or you and he discard and draw 4.

Correct, except you wouldn't discard and draw 4 with minion; only he does.

Also this attack has a penalty; each other player draws a card. It's a very powerful card, but the card draw is a strong penalty, and with no actions or draw you're less likely to be playing multiple copies in a turn while your opponents get larger hands to work with.

I was thinking of making it a ruins topdecking or normal curse gain, but I wanted it to be an attack where the best case scenario tended to be when it revealed one of your own attacks (especially something like Spy).

[NoMoreFun]

Also some other things;
*If there's a card costing between 3 and 6 in the trash, and he turns up a Rogue, nothing happens (no curse gain, no trashing)
*If he turns up a Knight, then trashes another Knight as a result of it, the Knight just put in his hand doesn't get trashed.

[eHalcyon]

Also some other things;
*If there's a card costing between 3 and 6 in the trash, and he turns up a Rogue, nothing happens (no curse gain, no trashing)
*If he turns up a Knight, then trashes another Knight as a result of it, the Knight just put in his hand doesn't get trashed.

Yeah, I just think there are too many specific cases like these that you have to deal with for this card to work.  It's just not intuitive.

[NoMoreFun]

Also some other things;
*If there's a card costing between 3 and 6 in the trash, and he turns up a Rogue, nothing happens (no curse gain, no trashing)
*If he turns up a Knight, then trashes another Knight as a result of it, the Knight just put in his hand doesn't get trashed.

Yeah, I just think there are too many specific cases like these that you have to deal with for this card to work.  It's just not intuitive.

Seems fairly intuitive to me. You play a virtual copy of the card, and any time the card asks you or any player but the one who revealed a card to take any kind of action (drawing, gaining, trashing etc.) you instead do nothing.

I think Ambassador is the only tricky case. If you think revealing a card from your hand constitutes doing something on the same level as drawing or gaining, then turning up an Ambassador results in nothing. I would prefer to have it work as stated in earlier posts though.

[heron]

Oh, whoops. Missed the putting stuff into hand; that's quite a penalty there.