Hi,
a lot of people are releasing their fan cards here and although I'm not such a fan reading those posts, I found there a few really good ideas for cards.
Especially those big posts with a whole expansion are difficult to grasp at first sight for me.
So for myself I think I won't make my own expansion, but a few ideas are in my mind which I haven't read anywhere yet.
I hope to hear some feedback if those ideas are well-thought and like to inspire those fan-card-making guys with new ideas.
So, for clarification: All of my ideas are untested and only examples!
With the release of Hinterlands and now the publication of the secret history from Donald X. the most interesting card type in the past month for me is the reaction card.
With the release of the basic set I never ever thought of cards that could react to anything different than attacks.
I like Watchtower very much for "trashing on-gain" or "putting-on-deck on-gain". But now there is Tunnel that triggers to discarding.
So what are the basic actions? 1) Playing, 2) Drawing, 3) Discarding, 4) Buying, 5) Gaining, 6) Trashing, 7) Attacking ... anything else?
Basically to all of these actions there could be reaction cards.
1) I thought of a reaction card that you could reveal when playing a card.
But that would slow the speed of the game down I think. So maybe it works if it is limited to a specfic card type. But nothing useful came to my mind. Maybe someone has an idea?
2) Next would be drawing.
A card could have the reaction text "When you draw this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, + 1 card"
or "Meadow $4 Victory-Reaction // 2VP -- When you draw this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, discard it, + 2 cards"
A bit expensive victory card that can be useful in cycling cards like Embassy or Warehouse
or "Sentinel $2 Action-Reaction // +1 card, $1 -- When you draw this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, + 1 action"
Mostly useless unless you have cycling cards like Embassy or Warehouse so this is basically a cheap peddler. And it can trigger itself.
or "Purse $4 Treasure-Reaction // $2 -- When you draw this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, + 1 buy"
So this can be a Woodcutter without spending an action.
or "Upgraded Workshop $4 Action-Reaction // Gain a card costing up to 4$ -- When you draw this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, gain a card costing up to 4$"
This is a Workshop with the possibility to gain two cards up to $4 in one turn.
This are just basic examples that could be fun to play with. Of course you can expand this and make it more complicated and intriguing.
I just wanted to combine known formats with the reaction effect.
We just need the new rule that if the effects (+1 action, +1buy) are triggered by the opponents (e.g. Council Room) the gained bonus is kept in mind until your turn starts.
Or we define that these reactions can't be triggered by opponents. What do you think?
3) Next is discarding. We all know Tunnel, but what effects could also be possible? Just a few examples:
"Planchet $2 Treasure-Reaction // $1 -- When you discard this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, +$2."
This is an expensive copper, but can be a cheap silver if you have cycling cards or if you're attacked from cards like Militia. Or in combination with Vault it's in fact a gold.
"Small Mine $3 Action-Reaction // Trash up to 2 cards from your hand -- When you discard this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, trash a Treasure card from your hand. Gain a Treasure card costing up to 3 Coins more; put it into your hand."
This is a mine that can be triggered on discarding. I didn't know what could be the main effect so I decided to add a trash effect without benefit. So this can be a quite a good opener in some situations.
4) and 5) I combine gaining and buying because on-gain is the better effect of on-buy. Watchtower and Trader are the prototypes.
And we have the possibility to add trigger on your gain or on the gain of the opponents as shown on Fool's Gold.
So what about these?
"Bargainer $4 Reaction // When you or another player gains a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, discard this and gain a card costing less than it."
This may be a dead card, but can be very powerful. Your opponent gets a colony, you reveal Bargainer and get the last Province and win the game.
"Arch $4 Action-Reaction // +2 cards, +2 Buys -- When you buy a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a card costing $1 more."
Play Arch, buy 3 cards and reveal another Arch and get 3 cards costing $1 more each. So it's bridge-like. I don't know if it's priced right.
And what about this?
"Fraudster $5 Action-Reaction // + 1 Buy -- When you gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, discard this and return the gained card to the supply. Each other player gains a copy of it.
Is it too strong? Buy a curse with an extra buy, reveal Fraudster. Each player gets a curse. But 2 of the other 3 players have a Fraudster in hand too: Curse explosion (just like the Haggler explosion, Donald X wrote about)
Or another player plays Witch. You reveal Fraudster and the player who played Witch gets a Curse (and of course each other player 2 Curses in total).
Maybe I have to change it in "When you buy a card" but I don't know if it's still interesting.
6) On-Trash is interesting. Let's see.
"Doctor $4 Action-Reaction // Trash up to two cards. Get +$1 for each trashed card. -- When you would trash a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, discard this and put the trashed card aside. Put that to your discard pile in your clean-up phase"
This is my favourit card, I'd like to see. The trash effect itself is not that strong. But it is a good opener. But the on-trash-effect is interesting. It's like your possessing yourself. You get the profit from trashing but can keep the card if you want.
So you get for a trashed province from Bishop +4VP, +$8 from Salvager or +8 cards from Apprentice, but can keep the Province itself. Is it too strong? What price would be right?
I came up with Treasure-Reaction and Victory-Reaction too, but there is the problem if there's no card for trashing it is a dead card on the board.
For example "Borrowed Land $4 Victory-Reaction // 2VP -- When you trash this, +2VP tokens"
But it would be better a on-gain, on-draw or on-discard like
"Borrowed Land $4 Victory-Reaction // 2VP -- When you discard this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, trash this, +2VP tokens"
7) On-Attack is already done often. But there might be more possibilities.
"Hurdle $2 Action-Reaction // +2 Cards, When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, discard this, +3 cards."
So if an opponent plays a Militia-like card, reveal Hurdle, discard it, draw 3 cards and discard 2 cards from the attack, so you have still 5 cards. Or you gain a curse, but now you have 7 cards in hand.
Wow, what a long post. Thanks if you're still reading this. I'd like to hear some thoughts. Would that be good mechanisms? Would you like that in a future expansion?