After many years of experience, are you able to detect joke questions as soon as you read them?
I basically never catch them. Having asked so many questions, can you distinguish the joke answers? I mean it's all so impossible. Any communication has the message sent and the message received and that's one message too many. I always think of that Dinosaur Comics comic.
https://qwantz.com/index.php?comic=168How has your sleep schedule evolved over the years?
Once I didn't need to get up for a job, there was a big period there where it would slip a little each day, I'd stay up later and later until I finally had to pull an all-dayer and get back around to waking up in the morning. And I mean there's some joy there, seeing the world at all the different times. Though there are a lot of advantages to being awake when other people are. These days this doesn't happen though; periodically something will make me wake up early, and otherwise I mostly get up at a somewhat normal time for not having a job.
What do you and your irl playtesters talk about while playing games, and what % of it is laughing at / disagreeing with something that an online playtester said in discord (most likely me)?
Well we don't talk about you. Online playtesters might come up post-game, "oh LF loves this card" or whatever. My games try to be super-involving, so there isn't a lot of downtime during a game. Some of my games have that downtime though, e.g. Dominion, and then you know, we talk about stuff like anyone. Things going on in people's lives. Entertainment.
Among your online playtesters, who writes your favorite playtest reports?
I like thorough reports. Wordiness and details. I want external playtesters who speak their minds. I mean otherwise I don't know what's going on. I do also want people to have insights, but if they say enough, maybe I can have the insights. You were a bonanza there. LastFootnote was the leader for a while.
How do you feel about playtesters programming their own version of games you’re working on, for private playtesting purposes (like how Ben King did this for some Dominion expansions)?
Well it's great.
What Dominion rulings were you surprised to learn were controversial and commonly asked?
Actual example for me: I could’ve told you before release that Ferryman/Acolyte would be divisive (and last I checked, playtester JNails hates that ruling and thinks it should be changed). I did not anticipate “are Joust’s rewards a pile” to be on that level (sure some playtesters asked that before, but).
I can see wondering if Rewards are a pile. I'm not actually sure what the Ferryman / Acolyte question is. Is it, can Acolyte get an Augur? That would go back to, what exactly is the rule for gaining outside of the supply. We want the default to be supply only; you can't Workshop stuff not in the game, and we don't want to have to say that on Workshop. We also want e.g. "gain a Horse" to not need more text to let you know you really can get one, when anyone playing will be sure they can get a Horse. And "gain a Duchy" can't gain a non-supply Duchy, one you left out because you only had two players. That all seems intuitive, so the tricky case is gaining by type. You know that "gain a Loot" works, and of course that's the same thing as the Horse case, except it's a type. And it's all covered in the rulebook, what "gain a Loot" means and how you shuffle the Loots. Augurs don't anticipate this. Augurs are a pile, so they work fine with Ferryman; you get an Acolyte, it says "gain an Augur," and there's no Loot-like exception there.
I can see the argument that it should be defined differently. But it can't just be e.g. "gaining has to be of cards being used this game," unless you want Workshops gaining Ghosts and things. And you know, those non-supply piles were made with the idea that Workshops couldn't get them.
The most common question back when was Throne / Feast. Questions that get sent to RGG tend to be any random thing, e.g. recently "we don't understand Charm."
I don't think "surprise" plays into it. Sometimes people don't like a ruling. Man sometimes they convince me. Ultimately real issues go back to areas that aren't perfect, like Duration tracking; when it's say that I worded a card poorly, well it causes problems but you know, there's no controversy, we all agree, we all wish the card had a better wording, and maybe someday it will get one.
Other than the damn chat scrolling bug, what are the best and worst parts of being in spec chat?
For me the spec chat is the whole point of hanging out watching a Dominion game. I'm happy to talk about the game or talk about other things. The best and worst parts, man. It's all about the people, and let's not play that game.