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[ta56636]

3.  Name: Band of Outcasts
Type: Action
Text: +$3 Buy an action card costing at least 2$ immediately, putting it into your hand. Play it, then return it to the supply.
Cost: $4

Originality: 5/10 It feels like Black market with a purchase in the middle of your turn the primary difference is playing the purchased card.
Playtestedness: 3/10 This needs a Buy. Without it the opportunity cost, at the end of the game, is too great unless all the $3 or less supply piles are empty. What happens when you can’t afford an Action, you keep the $3? In a game without a $2 or $3 +$3 is a bit strong for $4. In a normal game you still end up getting a $3 value out of the card for the price of $4
Opinion: 5/10 I see the potential in this concept but you have to tinker with it a lot more.
Total 5.5/10

Don't take this the wrong way, but:
- purchases made in the action phase don't count as your buy.  (to quote Black Market "A card bought during the Action phase does not count as a card bought in your Buy phase")
- It's main difference is that you use the action card only once, making it nothing like Black Market (although you could easily argue that it's too much like Band of Misfits - which eHalcyon (?) does much more convincingly)

It's hard to point this out without sounding grumpy - just perhaps be sure of what you're saying 

Have fun with the rest of the competition 

[soulnet]

@Dominion_contest: Small question: I assume you are giving one of the scores for the final round also. Are the scores given here going to stick or are you going to rethink them based on the playtesting? I would argue strongly in favor of the latter.

[popsofctown]

The reason I swapped away from "When you play this, if you played this from your hand, trash it." for Halfpenny is that you can actually immediately play it from the trash pile after the trigger, making it a cheap Silver.  The cleanup delay is necessary to prevent reuse, not too unlike the cleanup delay on scheme is necessary to prevent action reuse.

[Dominion_Contests]

@Dominion_contest: Small question: I assume you are giving one of the scores for the final round also. Are the scores given here going to stick or are you going to rethink them based on the playtesting? I would argue strongly in favor of the latter.

The 10 best scoring cards will be judged by the other 3 Dominion players and my re-rating will only be used as a tie breaker.

[popsofctown]

Hopefully you transcribe some of your family members' comments.  Forums have a natural dearth of input from the sort of people that don't visit forums.  If it isn't too great a burden.

Most interesting interaction I see for trying a pair side by side is Titan and Relay Rider.  Kind of like a Mountebank/Counting House thing going on there.  On the whole, though, none of the top ten look like they are dying to hang out with eachother and should mostly get tested with official cards, as planned.

[Nic]

The reason I swapped away from "When you play this, if you played this from your hand, trash it." for Halfpenny is that you can actually immediately play it from the trash pile after the trigger, making it a cheap Silver.  The cleanup delay is necessary to prevent reuse, not too unlike the cleanup delay on scheme is necessary to prevent action reuse.

Well, in Halfpenny/Masterpiece games, you could shorten it quite a bit. "Setup: Choose a player to go first. That player wins the game." Is there really not meant to be any limit on the number you can take per turn?

[popsofctown]

The reason I swapped away from "When you play this, if you played this from your hand, trash it." for Halfpenny is that you can actually immediately play it from the trash pile after the trigger, making it a cheap Silver.  The cleanup delay is necessary to prevent reuse, not too unlike the cleanup delay on scheme is necessary to prevent action reuse.

Well, in Halfpenny/Masterpiece games, you could shorten it quite a bit. "Setup: Choose a player to go first. That player wins the game."

This rubbed me the wrong way, and yet I could not think of a pithy argument that would demonstrate why you were wrong.

So I spent the last two hours on the floor of my room playing a Solitaire game against myself.  I forced Halfpenny, Masterpiece, and Highway to be available, and allowed the other seven to be randomly selected from Base, Dark Ages, Hinterlands, and Seaside.  The shelter roll came up Estates, Al opened 4/3, and Bo opened 5/2, which I'm not entirely sure was the best outcome for Bo.

The board was Highway, Festival, Pillage, Margrave, Mystic, Wandering Minstrel, Marauder, Gardens, Masterpiece, Halfpenny.  Al spent all the Halfpennies he could on Masterpiece turn 1, as you suggested, but could not piledrive the Provinces in a sufficiently timely manner with Margrave Big Money.  Bo persevered in spite of rough luck, his 5/2 Margrave missed the reshuffle, among other things, although Bo and Al started getting similar luck after the early phase.

The reason it took 2 hours is because I logged all the moves by hand.  I can transcribe them later if you want to see, although I am too tired to do so now.

I feel with a minimal amount of restriction on the kingdom I was able to find a board that had a healthy Masterpiece-Halfpenny interaction, so even if lots of them don't work out that well, it's at least not a no-brainer all the time for player one, and I don't think it is more of a detractor 5/2 Witch, which doesn't even require a card combo.

[popsofctown]

Although I didn't test it, I don't think Al would have been better off using the Masterpiece Silvers to transition to a Highway mirror either, in that hipster JoaT kind of style.  The early silvers slowed down his cycling but caused him to hit 6, 7, or 8$ frequently, but he couldn't rapidly incorporate +buy into the mix, so his bulk didn't really give him any more power to pick up engine parts than Bo had.  Bo only needed to draw 4$ in any particular hand to do roughly as good a job collecting engine parts as Al's turn 3 8$ hand did.

[Dominion_Contests]

Hopefully you transcribe some of your family members' comments.  Forums have a natural dearth of input from the sort of people that don't visit forums.  If it isn't too great a burden.

That's the plan. No guarantees on how detailed it will be though.

[eHalcyon]

Hmm, I just realized that Halfpenny actually introduces a lot of first player advantage.  Even in a 2p game, p1 gets first crack at +$4 on their turn.  But those cards are self-trashing so it's not a huge hit.  Opening 5/2 means you could open with a Platinum.  First player could also open Goons (potentially taking more Halfpennies than necessary, in order to prevent p2 from using them).  Yes it comes with a cost of 4 junky cards, but those cards are self-trashing.  A fix might be to limit how many Halfpennies you can use from the trash per turn.

[Nic]

I still really like the card (despite my prejudice against global rule changes), and I do appreciate you playtesting this. Just bear in mind that every extra player at the table would put two more Silvers into the first player's deck. Even without Masterpiece, a particularly vindictive player1 could grab the entire pile and buy a gold, just to prevent all the other players from having as good of an opening split as he did. If Vault or Secret Chamber is on the board, he never even has to give them up, and the game is unchanged for the other 1/2/3 players. Even if player1's statistical advantage is no more than '5/2 split on Mountebank/Chapel', that's still bad and it also makes the game less fun for everyone.

Just a thought; if you really don't want to cap the number of Halfpennies per turn you can swipe, why not have them start out in people's decks rather than as a shared resource? All it would take is changing the type to Treasure-Shelter, and then deciding whether they replace Coppers or other Shelters. As the game progresses, it'll converge to "free money smoothing on every turn, 40% of the turns" but now player1 has just as much money in hand as everyone else when the game starts. There's still problems with that; if player1 needs to drop one or two of his Haypennies in order to hit $3, then player2 is swimming in cash. But at least that's exactly the same as any other bad split, just with a higher variance.   

[popsofctown]

I still really like the card (despite my prejudice against global rule changes), and I do appreciate you playtesting this. Just bear in mind that every extra player at the table would put two more Silvers into the first player's deck.

It also puts two more Halfpennies into the first players deck, and provides two more players that can punish the slow cycling with attack cards.

Even without Masterpiece, a particularly vindictive player1 could grab the entire pile and buy a gold, just to prevent all the other players from having as good of an opening split as he did.

Uh.. if I draw 5/2 and open Rabble-Halfpenny, I am not even going to the slightest bit jealous of your "Cache"-Oracle opening.
Gaining a gold and six self trashing coppers your first turn is not that great.  Cache is not 5$ quality on most boards, and on the boards where it is, you wouldn't even want the coppers to be self-trashing.

If Vault or Secret Chamber is on the board, he never even has to give them up, and the game is unchanged for the other 1/2/3 players. Even if player1's statistical advantage is no more than '5/2 split on Mountebank/Chapel', that's still bad and it also makes the game less fun for everyone.

So every turn you don't have Vault in hand, you're going to treat the Halfpennies as curses?
And you're going to buy Secret Chamber?
And lastly, you're not entirely correct, because you can still purchase Halfpennies.  Terminal+Halfpenny is a good 5/2 opening, and has the result of adding another Halfpenny to the "ecosystem".

Even if player1's statistical advantage is no more than '5/2 split on Mountebank/Chapel', that's still bad and it also makes the game less fun for everyone.

Well, KC-Goons-Masquerade makes the game less fun for everyone, but Donald has said he wouldn't add a safety sentence to Masquerade even if given the chance, iirc.  It's kind of the same attitude I have here.  It's a weakness but it's not something I feel comes up often enough and generates enough advantage/unfunness that it merits reformatting the card.

[popsofctown]

Hmm, I just realized that Halfpenny actually introduces a lot of first player advantage.  Even in a 2p game, p1 gets first crack at +$4 on their turn.  But those cards are self-trashing so it's not a huge hit.  Opening 5/2 means you could open with a Platinum.

If it's a colony game, if player 1 draws 5/2 and not 2/5, 3/4, or 4/3, yes, he can do that.
There's even more conditionalism here though, player 1 needs to draw the platinum in a 9$ hand to sustain his advantage.  If he's successful in that, then I agree, he is probably going to crush hardcore.  If he doesn't though, I think he has a considerable chance of losing anyway.  No one will be impressed by an early Province, you're probably buying a 5$ action of the same cost that the players with silvers are buying.  But the other players get to see their actions sooner, so I think it's winnable in the engine fest that is a colony game.

  First player could also open Goons (potentially taking more Halfpennies than necessary, in order to prevent p2 from using them).  Yes it comes with a cost of 4 junky cards, but those cards are self-trashing.  A fix might be to limit how many Halfpennies you can use from the trash per turn.

Militia is a 4$ card.  An early Goons doesn't stack, so the VP aspect is negligible.  Yes, sometimes Goons is the only attack on the board, and it's really good to get it early, and-there's-no-trashing-and-I'mma-embargo-goons but you're making lots of implicit assumptions about the board when you say that gaining a Goons and 4 temp coppers is gg.  There's some other necessary elements

[eHalcyon]

Hmm, I just realized that Halfpenny actually introduces a lot of first player advantage.  Even in a 2p game, p1 gets first crack at +$4 on their turn.  But those cards are self-trashing so it's not a huge hit.  Opening 5/2 means you could open with a Platinum.

If it's a colony game, if player 1 draws 5/2 and not 2/5, 3/4, or 4/3, yes, he can do that.
There's even more conditionalism here though, player 1 needs to draw the platinum in a 9$ hand to sustain his advantage.  If he's successful in that, then I agree, he is probably going to crush hardcore.  If he doesn't though, I think he has a considerable chance of losing anyway.  No one will be impressed by an early Province, you're probably buying a 5$ action of the same cost that the players with silvers are buying.  But the other players get to see their actions sooner, so I think it's winnable in the engine fest that is a colony game.

  First player could also open Goons (potentially taking more Halfpennies than necessary, in order to prevent p2 from using them).  Yes it comes with a cost of 4 junky cards, but those cards are self-trashing.  A fix might be to limit how many Halfpennies you can use from the trash per turn.

Militia is a 4$ card.  An early Goons doesn't stack, so the VP aspect is negligible.  Yes, sometimes Goons is the only attack on the board, and it's really good to get it early, and-there's-no-trashing-and-I'mma-embargo-goons but you're making lots of implicit assumptions about the board when you say that gaining a Goons and 4 temp coppers is gg.  There's some other necessary elements

For the Platinum thing, yeah there are conditions, but that just makes it swingy.  As for your further conditions -- drawing another $9 hand is actually not that crazy, considering you also added 4 Halfpennies to your deck.  So yeah, p1 could very well buy a second Platinum very quickly.  But even if he doesn't, I think he is still ahead of the game.  He doesn't need to grab an early Province -- he can take Gold or various $5+ cards.  The players with Silver instead have a greater chance of missing out on $5s, let alone bigger cards.  I think you are undervaluing Platinum, or overestimating the damage caused by self-trashing Coppers.

The point on Goons vs. Militia is fair, but with Goons you are still getting +1 or +2VP when you play it, and that can matter.  Militia is a $4 card, but it hurts less BECAUSE of that price -- it's accessible to everyone at the start.  If I get a Militia and you aren't allowed to get one, there are plenty of boards where that can hurt a lot.

[popsofctown]

I'm saying that Player 1 has to get a second platinum between the first and second reshuffle for the game to be unwinnable for his opponents.  If he doesn't get it that soon but still gets it early, he still has an edge, dominance, even, but the game isn't mathematically unwinnable like Mint/FG with no villages/+buy or something.


You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right?  For a glitch that happens in 1% of your games to warrant scrapping a card, a strong edge for player 1 isn't enough for me to be upset.  The glitch needs to summon the tentacled demon god of Fluxx itself from the floor, eliciting the screams of horrified children as it devours all the cards and pelts fleeing players in the back with miniature hotels and houses and cars full of pink and blue peg people.

Then, I might be upset, maybe, but if we just played 99 jolly games with Halfpenny I might feel like it was worth it.

[eHalcyon]

I'm saying that Player 1 has to get a second platinum between the first and second reshuffle for the game to be unwinnable for his opponents.  If he doesn't get it that soon but still gets it early, he still has an edge, dominance, even, but the game isn't mathematically unwinnable like Mint/FG with no villages/+buy or something.


You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right?  For a glitch that happens in 1% of your games to warrant scrapping a card, a strong edge for player 1 isn't enough for me to be upset.  The glitch needs to summon the tentacled demon god of Fluxx itself from the floor, eliciting the screams of horrified children as it devours all the cards and pelts fleeing players in the back with miniature hotels and houses and cars full of pink and blue peg people.

Then, I might be upset, maybe, but if we just played 99 jolly games with Halfpenny I might feel like it was worth it.

Eh?  The chance of opening 5/2 as p1 isn't that small, is it?  And unless you've changed the card, it happens in 2p games as well.  The setup rule I read said 2 per player.  With that setup rule and 3 players, 5/2 opening isn't even necessary.

[scott_pilgrim]

I'm saying that Player 1 has to get a second platinum between the first and second reshuffle for the game to be unwinnable for his opponents.  If he doesn't get it that soon but still gets it early, he still has an edge, dominance, even, but the game isn't mathematically unwinnable like Mint/FG with no villages/+buy or something.


You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right?  For a glitch that happens in 1% of your games to warrant scrapping a card, a strong edge for player 1 isn't enough for me to be upset.  The glitch needs to summon the tentacled demon god of Fluxx itself from the floor, eliciting the screams of horrified children as it devours all the cards and pelts fleeing players in the back with miniature hotels and houses and cars full of pink and blue peg people.

Then, I might be upset, maybe, but if we just played 99 jolly games with Halfpenny I might feel like it was worth it.

Let's say it's a three-player game, so there are six halfpennies in the trash.  The only way I can not open platinum as first player is if I draw $2 in my first hand, so there's an 11/12 chance I hit $9 T1, denying the other players six halfpennies.  T2 I probably get a Silver but let's just say I get nothing T2.  We're talking about getting a second Platinum before the second shuffle, so that gives us T3-T5 to deal with.  As long as Platinum doesn't collide with Estate, we hit $9.  There's a 2/17 chance you don't draw your Platinum at all during T3-T5 (if it's at the bottom and misses the re-shuffle).  Otherwise, on the hand during T3-T5 in which you have a Platinum, there should be a 13C4/16C4 chance that you draw 4 coppers with it.  This gives us:
(11/12)*(15/17)*(13C4/16C4)=31.77% of Colony games where this happens.

I don't know where you got 1.04%.  I wouldn't be surprised if I did that wrong, but I would be surprised if it's not in the 10%-50% range.  (I'm not sure about multiplying 15/17 by 13C4/16C4, but at least it should give a rough estimate right?)  It's probably better if you buy Silver T2 (which you can most of the time), and/or there are more than 3 players.

[popsofctown]

I'm saying that Player 1 has to get a second platinum between the first and second reshuffle for the game to be unwinnable for his opponents.  If he doesn't get it that soon but still gets it early, he still has an edge, dominance, even, but the game isn't mathematically unwinnable like Mint/FG with no villages/+buy or something.


You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right?  For a glitch that happens in 1% of your games to warrant scrapping a card, a strong edge for player 1 isn't enough for me to be upset.  The glitch needs to summon the tentacled demon god of Fluxx itself from the floor, eliciting the screams of horrified children as it devours all the cards and pelts fleeing players in the back with miniature hotels and houses and cars full of pink and blue peg people.

Then, I might be upset, maybe, but if we just played 99 jolly games with Halfpenny I might feel like it was worth it.

Eh?  The chance of opening 5/2 as p1 isn't that small, is it?  And unless you've changed the card, it happens in 2p games as well.  The setup rule I read said 2 per player.  With that setup rule and 3 players, 5/2 opening isn't even necessary.

Er, right, 1.04% chance of happening in a game with 2 players. 
8.3% chance of 5/2, 12% chance of platina.

I'm skeptical about 6 Halfpennies and a platinum destroying dominion as we know it.  My goodness, this is the same forum where I can't convince anyone that maybe Copper/Ghost ship is an ok opening sometimes.  I lose from both sides on copper.

[Archetype]

Woah, I'm in 3rd place? That rocks!

I do like Halfpenny though.

[eHalcyon]

I'm saying that Player 1 has to get a second platinum between the first and second reshuffle for the game to be unwinnable for his opponents.  If he doesn't get it that soon but still gets it early, he still has an edge, dominance, even, but the game isn't mathematically unwinnable like Mint/FG with no villages/+buy or something.


You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right?  For a glitch that happens in 1% of your games to warrant scrapping a card, a strong edge for player 1 isn't enough for me to be upset.  The glitch needs to summon the tentacled demon god of Fluxx itself from the floor, eliciting the screams of horrified children as it devours all the cards and pelts fleeing players in the back with miniature hotels and houses and cars full of pink and blue peg people.

Then, I might be upset, maybe, but if we just played 99 jolly games with Halfpenny I might feel like it was worth it.

Eh?  The chance of opening 5/2 as p1 isn't that small, is it?  And unless you've changed the card, it happens in 2p games as well.  The setup rule I read said 2 per player.  With that setup rule and 3 players, 5/2 opening isn't even necessary.

Er, right, 1.04% chance of happening in a game with 2 players. 
8.3% chance of 5/2, 12% chance of platina.

I'm skeptical about 6 Halfpennies and a platinum destroying dominion as we know it.  My goodness, this is the same forum where I can't convince anyone that maybe Copper/Ghost ship is an ok opening sometimes.  I lose from both sides on copper.

If they were actually Coppers it would be different.  Self-trashing really softens the blow though.  And opening Platinum is pretty powerful man, especially if only one player can do it.

[Nic]

vv

I'm saying that Player 1 has to get a second platinum between the first and second reshuffle for the game to be unwinnable for his opponents.  If he doesn't get it that soon but still gets it early, he still has an edge, dominance, even, but the game isn't mathematically unwinnable like Mint/FG with no villages/+buy or something.

You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right? 

Eh?  The chance of opening 5/2 as p1 isn't that small, is it?  And unless you've changed the card, it happens in 2p games as well.  The setup rule I read said 2 per player.  With that setup rule and 3 players, 5/2 opening isn't even necessary.

I'm pretty sure he's talking about the probability of getting two Platinums before the other players can catch up, not the probability of getting the first one.

You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right?  For a glitch that happens in 1% of your games to warrant scrapping a card, a strong edge for player 1 isn't enough for me to be upset.  The glitch needs to summon the tentacled demon god of Fluxx itself from the floor, eliciting the screams of horrified children as it devours all the cards and pelts fleeing players in the back with miniature hotels and houses and cars full of pink and blue peg people.

Then, I might be upset, maybe, but if we just played 99 jolly games with Halfpenny I might feel like it was worth it.

Now that I have to think on it, I think I would disagree even without the platinum problem. It's still privileging player 1 and giving him the option to take choices away from other players, at a temporary detriment to himself. DXV had a very similar problem, when the game could end on Duchies as well as Provinces. It didn't benefit a player to piledrive Duchies, because then everyone else would join in and the game would be decided by the luck of your next three/four hands, rather than strategy. He didn't think it would be a problem, because who would make the game less fun for all players if it didn't improve his probability of winning? Turns out that had to be tweaked a bit before publication.

Also, who the hell is proposing to scrap the card? We've all said it was good, and you stand to gain a Governor out of it. All we said was that if it opened with the words "Twice per turn, . . ." there wouldn't be any possibility of breaking the opening turn. If you could just tell us why you don't want a cap rather than being so dramatic when somebody suggests one, then we might understand your position better.

[popsofctown]

vv

I'm saying that Player 1 has to get a second platinum between the first and second reshuffle for the game to be unwinnable for his opponents.  If he doesn't get it that soon but still gets it early, he still has an edge, dominance, even, but the game isn't mathematically unwinnable like Mint/FG with no villages/+buy or something.

You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right? 

Eh?  The chance of opening 5/2 as p1 isn't that small, is it?  And unless you've changed the card, it happens in 2p games as well.  The setup rule I read said 2 per player.  With that setup rule and 3 players, 5/2 opening isn't even necessary.

I'm pretty sure he's talking about the probability of getting two Platinums before the other players can catch up, not the probability of getting the first one.

Neither, it's the probability of player one drawing 5/2 (not 2/5) compounded with the probability the game includes Prosperity.

You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right?  For a glitch that happens in 1% of your games to warrant scrapping a card, a strong edge for player 1 isn't enough for me to be upset.  The glitch needs to summon the tentacled demon god of Fluxx itself from the floor, eliciting the screams of horrified children as it devours all the cards and pelts fleeing players in the back with miniature hotels and houses and cars full of pink and blue peg people.

Then, I might be upset, maybe, but if we just played 99 jolly games with Halfpenny I might feel like it was worth it.

Now that I have to think on it, I think I would disagree even without the platinum problem. It's still privileging player 1 and giving him the option to take choices away from other players, at a temporary detriment to himself. DXV had a very similar problem, when the game could end on Duchies as well as Provinces. It didn't benefit a player to piledrive Duchies, because then everyone else would join in and the game would be decided by the luck of your next three/four hands, rather than strategy. He didn't think it would be a problem, because who would make the game less fun for all players if it didn't improve his probability of winning? Turns out that had to be tweaked a bit before publication.

I haven't read that secret history, so you will need to explain to me why people rush Duchies and make the game less fun for all players to make your point I think.

Also, who the hell is proposing to scrap the card? We've all said it was good, and you stand to gain a Governor out of it. All we said was that if it opened with the words "Twice per turn, . . ." there wouldn't be any possibility of breaking the opening turn. If you could just tell us why you don't want a cap rather than being so dramatic when somebody suggests one, then we might understand your position better.

I use the term "scrapping" because "Twice per turn" sends things down one level of elegance, and I just really hate that.  I love cards like Torturer that naturally keep themselves under control, but never put a limit that seems artificial.  We have stuff like Outpost that can't get by without it, but I have a soft spot for that kind of simplicity.  The shelter rework maintains much of the elegance, and I prefer it to "twice per turn", although there's all sorts of overhead and whatnot going on with going that route.

I have a lot more respect for a complaint along the lines of, "let's change it so that player one doesn't get tempted to play keepaway in three player when a dead-draw terminal is in play", because that affects a broad number of games, like, at least 3%, probably more like 20, I'm not sure.  "Dude, change your card, in 1.04% of 2 player games player 1 can gain a Platinum after taking on just 4 Loans" is a pretty frustrating criticism. This is a game where we tolerate the 40% of the time Familiar ends the game on turn 3 because the other 60% of the time is interesting. 

[popsofctown]

I'm saying that Player 1 has to get a second platinum between the first and second reshuffle for the game to be unwinnable for his opponents.  If he doesn't get it that soon but still gets it early, he still has an edge, dominance, even, but the game isn't mathematically unwinnable like Mint/FG with no villages/+buy or something.


You do realize you are complaining about something that happens in 1.04% of 3-4 player games right?  For a glitch that happens in 1% of your games to warrant scrapping a card, a strong edge for player 1 isn't enough for me to be upset.  The glitch needs to summon the tentacled demon god of Fluxx itself from the floor, eliciting the screams of horrified children as it devours all the cards and pelts fleeing players in the back with miniature hotels and houses and cars full of pink and blue peg people.

Then, I might be upset, maybe, but if we just played 99 jolly games with Halfpenny I might feel like it was worth it.

Let's say it's a three-player game, so there are six halfpennies in the trash.  The only way I can not open platinum as first player is if I draw $2 in my first hand, so there's an 11/12 chance I hit $9 T1, denying the other players six halfpennies.  T2 I probably get a Silver but let's just say I get nothing T2.  We're talking about getting a second Platinum before the second shuffle, so that gives us T3-T5 to deal with.  As long as Platinum doesn't collide with Estate, we hit $9.  There's a 2/17 chance you don't draw your Platinum at all during T3-T5 (if it's at the bottom and misses the re-shuffle).  Otherwise, on the hand during T3-T5 in which you have a Platinum, there should be a 13C4/16C4 chance that you draw 4 coppers with it.  This gives us:
(11/12)*(15/17)*(13C4/16C4)=31.77% of Colony games where this happens.

I don't know where you got 1.04%.  I wouldn't be surprised if I did that wrong, but I would be surprised if it's not in the 10%-50% range.  (I'm not sure about multiplying 15/17 by 13C4/16C4, but at least it should give a rough estimate right?)  It's probably better if you buy Silver T2 (which you can most of the time), and/or there are more than 3 players.

1% specifically applies to 2 player, and I made a mental mistep when I said it had anything to do with 3 player.

[eHalcyon]

I have a lot more respect for a complaint along the lines of, "let's change it so that player one doesn't get tempted to play keepaway in three player when a dead-draw terminal is in play", because that affects a broad number of games, like, at least 3%, probably more like 20, I'm not sure.  "Dude, change your card, in 1.04% of 2 player games player 1 can gain a Platinum after taking on just 4 Loans" is a pretty frustrating criticism. This is a game where we tolerate the 40% of the time Familiar ends the game on turn 3 because the other 60% of the time is interesting.

Dude, you are way too sensitive here.  "4 Loans" isn't even an accurate comparison, geez.  And the percentage argument is pretty weak.  So what if the times that it comes up are a little rare?  If it's broken, it's broken. 

Now if you argue that it isn't broken, that's a different matter.  Maybe it isn't.  But it seems to me that being the only one able to get a t1 Platinum gives a player an immense advantage, and that's all down to luck.  4 self-trashing Coppers is a small price to pay as it only slows down that player by 1 turn (that's all you need for those 4 Halfpennies to disappear).  Even accounting for that, you gain the Platinum extremely early AND you have a decent chance at additional Plats or other good cards.  It gets worse with 3p or more because it's even more likely p1 gets the early Plat, and a second one soon after that.  6 self-trashing Coppers again only slows you down by about 1 turn, which is totally worth it for an early Platinum or two.

If you don't think it gives p1 a big advantage, then explain why.  Rarity of occurrence isn't a good answer.

But seriously, you seem to be taking things way too personally here.  These are criticisms of cards, not you.  And it's not even a criticism of the overall concept -- just a specific quirk of the implementation.  What's the issue?  Maybe it seems like you're getting more criticism than anyone else?  Well for one thing, I tend to default to a critical position, sorry.  But if you seem to be getting an undue share of criticism, consider that you also posted way more cards here than anyone else.  And finally, keep in mind that receiving even negative feedback is a pretty good thing.  It means the concept was interesting enough to get a response.  You're a cool guy pops, and you have interesting ideas.  No need to be so snippy.

[Nic]

I haven't read that secret history, so you will need to explain to me why people rush Duchies and make the game less fun for all players to make your point I think.

No problem: I found it in Secret History of the Dominion Cards.

Province: As mentioned in the BGN article, we changed this from 5 VP to 6 VP during development, as part of the fix to the Duchy rush. The Duchy rush was, you buy nothing but Silver and Duchies. At the time the game ended when any Victory pile ran out. If one person went for the Duchy rush you could beat them, but if two people did, you had to join them. My friends found this strategy, but it didn't seem like a problem. It was a boring strategy, so the only reason to play it was if you thought it would win for you. It wouldn't though; it would win for someone at random, since we would all follow suit. You could make the game suck but that's it. So we never did it.

Well would you believe, being able to make the game suck is not so hot. Furthermore, if you're a new player, the Duchy rush may elevate your chance of winning from zero to even. So it was in fact a problem. An anonymous playtester realized this, Valerie and Dale raised the alarm, and in the end, Province changed from 5 VP to 6 VP and the end condition changed from "any empty victory pile" (the end condition we were using at the time, but not the original one, which was "any empty pile") to the one you know. We tried ideas that Valerie or Dale came up with, but in the end happened to go with something that I suggested (which is why I didn't count this when I mentioned Thief as the only card they changed). These two changes were easily the most important changes during development.

Even if you've studied the effects of this card on deck cycling and found that it's an adequate penalty for player1's greed in every non-platinum case, why should you believe that anyone else who plays a Halfpenny game knows this too? I used to buy Scout all the time, just for the filtering. Even if player1 is only hurting himself by playing keep-away, he still has the ability to make the game less fun for everyone.   

I have a lot more respect for a complaint along the lines of, "let's change it so that player one doesn't get tempted to play keepaway in three player when a dead-draw terminal is in play", because that affects a broad number of games, like, at least 3%, probably more like 20, I'm not sure.  "Dude, change your card, in 1.04% of 2 player games player 1 can gain a Platinum after taking on just 4 Loans" is a pretty frustrating criticism. This is a game where we tolerate the 40% of the time Familiar ends the game on turn 3 because the other 60% of the time is interesting.

Now that I'm looking at that 1.04% figure, it seems cherry-picked. Not only is it a lot higher in 3 or 4-player games, it's a whole lot higher if you're playing with people who don't own every expansion. People who really like Prosperity might even just flip a coin to decide if it's a Colony or Province game. If you choose the lowest possible figure out of all those choices, it isn't going to be representative. I'm guessing the 40% figure is the probability that only one player buys a Familiar on turn 3? I'm pretty skeptical that that player is guaranteed the win, or would even come close to the advantage that turn1 Platinum gives you. Would 'don't have this in the same game as Platinum' be a more elegant clause than what you see on cards like Outpost, Fool's Gold or Crossroads? Probably only 1% of boards would support an infinite Outpost chain, and setting up such a chain wouldn't confer any advantage, since buying victory cards would increase the chance of breaking the chain.