Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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This is an idea that’s been rolling around in my head for a while. And though it is not yet ready to be played, it’s at least ready to be discussed. Since every expansion so far has added a new Deck to the game (Tech, Rewards, Hazards), I wondered what other kind of deck could be added.
My working name for it is the Purchase Deck. It consists of more-or-less regular cards, such as you'd find in the regular deck, but better. These cards are *only* available through Lucre purchase. They are never considered part of your hand and are not subject to compensation or any effects of other powers (except for specific powers that might come with this expansion that specifically can affect Purchased cards) or Artifacts like Plague and Finder (though they may still be cancelled by Card Zap and the like). This is why they’re especially valuable - they come with “built in” protection from loss. You may give them to other players as part of a deal. You keep them to the side of your hand, and can play them as appropriate to their type (Encounter card, Artifact, Reinforcement, etc.).
The main idea here is that Lucre would have to either be in very limited supply, or these cards would have to be very expensive. My original thought on this was a Lucre system in which Purchase Deck cards are the *only* thing you can buy with Lucre. And a player's Lucre supply/income would be such that he won't be able to buy more than maybe 3-5 Purchase cards for the whole game, if that many.
The reasons these cards are so expensive are (1) that they’re really good, obviously, and (2) they have a built-in guarantee of protection - you know in advance that you won’t be spending your hard-earned Lucre only to have the card taken away in compensation or by the Barbarian or Trader or a Cosmic Quake, etc.
Part of the reason and inspiration behind this idea was to avoid what I call the "Lucre Equalization Problem" - If Lucre can be used to buy ships out of the warp, cards from the deck, plusses to attack totals, etc., then all the powers start to blend together a little. Powers that get plenty of cards (Mutant, Miser, Mimic, Mercenary, etc.) will spend their Lucre on other things. Powers that get more ships out of the warp (Spiff, Sniveler, Sting, Symbiote, etc.) will spend their Lucre on other things. Powers that get higher attack totals (Virus, Warrior, Warpish, Xenophile, etc.) will spend their Lucre on other things. As a result, all the powers will get some of everything, making them less unique - they all start to become the same as none of them have much of an advantage over any of the others any longer. They all wind up getting extra cards, more ships out of the warp, and higher attack totals.
With the Purchase Deck, players are very limited in how much they can buy, and they can’t count on buying the specific cards they need to make them like other powers, because they can’t just keep getting more and more Purchase cards.
(I'm splitting this into multiple posts because it seems like that might be helpful for some reason.)
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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The cards this deck consists of
I figure about the same size as the Reward Deck (32 cards), with a distribution something like this:
Attacks (10):
16
18
20
21
22
24
25
30
33
36
Negotiates (new and different Crooked Deals) (4):
N (+2 cards of compensation; Deals normal) "Have Pity!"
N (compensation normal; On a failed deal, you lose 2 fewer ships, opponent loses 2 more ships) An Offer You Can't Refuse
N (+1 card of compensation; On a failed deal, you lose 3 fewer ships, opponent loses normal amount) Take It or Leave It
N (+1 card of compensation; On a failed deal, you lose normal amount, opponent loses 3 more ships) Upper Hand
Morph (1):
M
Reinforcements (6):
+5 +5 +5
+6
+7
+10
Kickers (5):
x2 x2 x2
x3 x3
Artifacts (6)
Cosmic Zap
Card Zap
Keeper (When you draw a new hand, play this card and place all your non-encounter cards to the side, draw your new hand, and then take all the set aside cards back into your hand)
Warp Break (Play during any Regroup phase - Retrieve all your ships from the warp to your colonies.)
Rebirth (Play during any Regroup phase - Re-establish a home colony by moving some ships from other colonies.)
Timegash (Play between encounters - Have an encounter as if starting your turn. Afterward, play resumes from where it left off.)
No negative Attack Cards, no x0 Kickers.
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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All this led me to whole new thoughts about Lucre: What if a new Lucre system completely scrapped the idea of buying all the traditional stuff that previous systems allowed? IOW, you *can’t* buy your ships out of the warp with Lucre, and you *can’t* buy cards from the deck with Lucre, and you *can’t* bump up your Attack total with Lucre, etc. The *only* things you can buy with Lucre are completely new things, such as cards from a completely new deck. This would also help to avoid the Lucre Equalization Problem.
And perhaps instead of getting a regular Lucre income (fixed, or based on number of home colonies, or based on specific Lucre-generating “asteroid colonies”), maybe one of these:
* You get *no* Lucre income at all. You have X Lucre to start the game, and that’s it. Once you’ve spent it all, it’s gone.
* You only get Lucre for specific actions and conditions, that either:
don’t directly help you win (like eliminating a foreign colony in your system by a regular encounter), and/or
are something bad that happens to you (like losing your power), and/or
are fairly difficult to achieve, (like successfully defending a home colony with no allies against multiple allies) and/or
some really unlikely thing that might happen randomly (like drawing a new hand of cards with no more than one encounter card in it).
Some other examples might be:
- if you forgo a second encounter.
- if you have to discard non-encounter cards when you have to draw a new hand as a result of being out of encounter cards (not as a result of Hand Zap or a voluntary effect such as Invader).
- if a Cosmic Zap or Card Zap is played against you.
There would probably be only a few of these - not as many as I’ve listed here.
* You start the game with no Lucre at all, and only get it via some rare means (such as the ones mentioned above). So you’ll only get a little bit of Lucre over the course of the game.
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If there's only one thing to spend Lucre on and the things you buy with it are magically immune to all manner of loss before use (compensation, Plague, Finder, alien powers, drawing a new hand, etc), then what incentive is there to not immediately spend all Lucre I happen to have at any time on as many of these cards as I can afford? Putting too many things up for sale runs into the Lucre Equalization Problem, certainly, but putting only one thing up for sale makes Lucre cease to meaningfully be a currency. The whole point of a currency is that you can spend it on different things at different times; but here, there's only one thing to buy and when you buy it is irrelevant, so 1 Lucre is no longer a unit of money, it's exactly 1/Xth of a Purchase card and nothing else.
EDIT: It's also important to be careful to define how this interacts with various powers. For example, what if the Clone tries to pick up a Purchase Attack after playing it? Does it actually go into the hand? Does it return to the magic untouchable out-of-hand area where these cards normally reside? Is it not considered a legal target? And then there's making sure the game remains balanced. If Clone is able to recycle these cards, then the presence of an extra deck of cards that is 1/3 high Attacks for it to buy from makes it much more likely to get something good to reuse and therefore much stronger - while the Tripler sees this as a deck composed of 1/3 weak Attacks and becomes even less interesting to play than it ever was. We also don't want to limit design space unnecessarily; for example, getting Lucre for losing your alien power makes it impossible to use this alongside Bill's brilliant new Gith, which can easily lose and regain its power over and over again. And the new Crooked Deals seem likely to lead to questions like "Are two cards both named Negotiate (Crooked Deal) considered matching cards for effects like The Claw?" - and I shudder to imagine a deck containing both "Negotiate (I double the ships you lose if you fail to deal with me)" and multiple Kicker x3's.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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In the past few days on facebook, Peter Olotka has made it pretty clear that there will never be Lucre in this edition of the game. Because it was "not well received" in previous editions, FFG doesn't want it and Peter & Bill agree.
The "fan designed" thing is thus working on a series of aliens that each have their own mini-commerce engine using various other components as money: ships, cards, whatever each alien wants to use. (This approach will not offer true economic interchange, of course, because the units of currency will vary and no alien power can "send" ships or cards to other players' alien sheets.) Anyway, this is the new plan for a Cosmic economy.
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Jack Reda
United States
Herndon
Virginia
Guess the games in my uberbadge!
My favorite game is Cosmic Encounter.
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I think it's still worth trying to develop a lucre system that CAN be well received. The original system had problems- Mayfair tried to address them and created new problems.
I already know that a fun and easy system can be done, because I've played with 2 that do that. One is a little like what Phil is talking about- we had a very finite number of lucre to start and made it hard to get more (though we used it for three different things- ships, cards from the cosmic deck, and adding points to the totals). The other system we now use exclusively is the asteroid one, which I think works great. Additionally, we have a lucre reward deck that we either use instead of the regular one, or mix part of each reward deck together. You don't buy cards from it (it's still a normal reward deck in that regard), but the cards let you use lucre in unique ways that no one else can. I love it, and I'm not alone.
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Andy Leber
Canada
Orillia
ON
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*I have no experience with previous Lucre
Re: Phil's ideas...
I like the new decks composition. I particularly like the warp break. I don't know if that's something that has existed in the past (I'm only familiar with FFG).
I don't think I like the idea of a set amount of lucre to start with. Just knowing I have X amount of "free" cards available to me is a little boring. To clarify, I don't mind starting with some lucre, but I don't think that should be the end of it.
I like the idea of getting something for successfully defending your own planet, since you don't currently gain any real reward (besides preventing your opponent from blah blah...)
It would make for a decent alternative as a defensive ally too... I'm always in favor for defensive ally incentives.
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Gerald Katz
United States
New York
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Bill Martinson wrote: In the past few days on facebook, Peter Olotka has made it pretty clear that there will never be Lucre in this edition of the game. Because it was "not well received" in previous editions, FFG doesn't want it and Peter & Bill agree.
The "fan designed" thing is thus working on a series of aliens that each have their own mini-commerce engine using various other components as money: ships, cards, whatever each alien wants to use. (This approach will not offer true economic interchange, of course, because the units of currency will vary and no alien power can "send" ships or cards to other players' alien sheets.) Anyway, this is the new plan for a Cosmic economy.
Phooey.
I liked Lucre. I'll just have to settle using it when playing at Matt's parties. Oh well.
Don't forget to tip the Butler!
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Ken H.
United States
Amherst
Ohio
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In the eighties, we used lucre for almost every game, and enjoyed it. It didn't even seem like an expansion -- it was just part of the game. So, I'm sad there will be no official lucre expansion.
However, a fan made lucre expansion is something I might be interested in.
I don't like the idea of having only one thing to buy, for the reasons Roberta mentioned. An economic system needs multiple ins and outs, or else it's just Tech with a different cost mechanism.
The idea of cards that don't go in your hand is okay (though Tech-ish). However, given the patchwork nature of the rules and alien texts, I could foresee it being a nightmare to implement.
I like having lucre income based on number of home colonies. There needs to be a stronger incentive to reclaim those planets. Under the current rules, even regaining your power isn't always enough reward to forego the opportunity for a new foreign colony. I wouldn't want to have no income at all. I think allowing a lucre bonus for actually reclaiming a home colony is a great idea.
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Andy Leber
Canada
Orillia
ON
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salty53 wrote: If there's only one thing to spend Lucre on and the things you buy with it are magically immune to all manner of loss before use (compensation, Plague, Finder, alien powers, drawing a new hand, etc), then what incentive is there to not immediately spend all Lucre I happen to have at any time on as many of these cards as I can afford? Putting too many things up for sale runs into the Lucre Equalization Problem, certainly, but putting only one thing up for sale makes Lucre cease to meaningfully be a currency. The whole point of a currency is that you can spend it on different things at different times; but here, there's only one thing to buy and when you buy it is irrelevant, so 1 Lucre is no longer a unit of money, it's exactly 1/Xth of a Purchase card and nothing else.
I get what you're saying, which is why I don't like the "everyone has 9 lucre for the game, and cards cost 3" mentality.
But if you have a good deck, and need to earn each card, I think it can still be an interesting mechanic. I don't see an issue with Lucre being a 1/Xth of a card purchase being an issue, personally.
If you wanted to make it more interesting, you could always do something like having 3 cards face up at any given time, in position 1, 2 and 3. They could cost 1, 2 and 3 lucre respectively. Then as they get bought, the cards shift down.
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Adam McLean
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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The Warp wrote: I think it's still worth trying to develop a lucre system that CAN be well received. The original system had problems- Mayfair tried to address them and created new problems.
I think it's also possible to make a Lucre system that has a wide appeal ... as of now, there are several floating out there that have been popular within their respective groups, but that's normal. What that does tell me is that players, maybe not all of them, do want a Lucre system of some sort (as Lucre threads often generate 100+ responses), even if the versions of what they use now may be just a shell of a system (or the framework for one) ... it at least sets the groundwork for continued ideas. Eventually, something might stick, although if FFG isn't interested in an official release, there is no stopping anyone from a print and play version.
Avoiding the "equalization", I think, is important as you don't want to overshadow the alien powers, but Lucre as a sub-mechanic, if done well, can be enjoyable and strategic. I also like aliens that use normal game components as currency (as Bill mentioned the focus being on that instead of a seperate game currency), but I don't think there is a reason we can't have both.
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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In my experience, most people who played with the Eon edition at some point would like to see Lucre back. Those who came to the game more recently just look puzzled when I try to explain Lucre to them. Lucre has a pithy concept, but not a pithy application, unlike the Hazards, Rewards, and Team Cosmic. I think that is part of why FFG isn't interested.
While I'm not happy to hear that Kevin and FFG won't give Lucre their best shot, at least we know it's ours to homebrew in various ways. Crowdsourcing it may yet change Kevin's mind, sometime around Expansion #7, right? That's just being optimistic, maybe overly so.
Anyway, Phil, I like your idea, but only if it's bolted onto a more expansive Lucre system. You could start testing it within the old Lucre rules by making draws from the new deck cost 50-100% more than the Cosmic deck, and then tweak from there.
Someday I hope to actually get to test my own Lucre homebrew, which is sitting in my CE box untouched.  (Usually teaching new people, and playtesting has focused on aliens from the fanspansion thingy.)
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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oatesatm wrote: Eventually, something might stick, although if FFG isn't interested in an official release, there is no stopping anyone from a print and play version.
Agreed. And Lucre is one of the very easiest things to print and play, because all you need are poker chips and a few paragraphs of well-written rules.
oatesatm wrote: I also like aliens that use normal game components as currency (as Bill mentioned the focus being on that instead of a seperate game currency), but I don't think there is a reason we can't have both.
The downside to that is having aliens that could have worked within the common money system, but don't. The old Assessor could easily have been a Lucre alien but wasn't. Ironically, it could have been a good Lucre alien that actually would have been worth playing.
Kobold Curry Chef wrote: Lucre has a pithy concept, but not a pithy application, unlike the Hazards, Rewards, and Team Cosmic.
Lucre was pithier in Eon than in Mayfair, and I would argue it was a simpler concept than tech or hazards (both of which are poorly defined and require more actual rules that what we find on the rulesheets).
But your point is well taken. Personally I would reather see a Lucre system that is even more streamlined than Eon's original, if that's possible. One idea I've been playing around with is to have only one or two ways of spending the money, but make them so flexible that it feels like a hundred ways to spend money. I have a rough implementation for this, but will post it to a new thread so as not to fork this one.
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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Thank you everyone for your replies! Lots of good points there.
salty53 wrote: If there's only one thing to spend Lucre on and the things you buy with it are magically immune to all manner of loss before use (compensation, Plague, Finder, alien powers, drawing a new hand, etc), then what incentive is there to not immediately spend all Lucre I happen to have at any time on as many of these cards as I can afford?
Two reasons:
1. There isn't necessarily only one thing you can buy with Lucre. That was just my original thought. More importantly, it's just that you can't buy the usual cards, plusses, and ships for equalization. However, there would also be Lucre-related powers. Some of these might provide unique services for Lucre (like Hurtz, Lloyd, Force), others would have abilities to do something bad to you unless you pay them off with Lucre (like Butler, Extortionist, Assessor). So even if the Purchase Deck is the only thing the basic game system provides you to spend Lucre on, there will still be other things provided by other powers.
2. You may mot be able to spend Lucre willy-nilly. There could be restrictions such as:
a. You can only spend Lucre at the start of your turn, or when you win an encounter, or when you successfully make a deal, or some other condition.
b. You can only buy one Purchase Card per turn/encounter/etc.
Quote: It's also important to be careful to define how this interacts with various powers. For example, what if the Clone tries to pick up a Purchase Attack after playing it? ... the Tripler sees this as a deck composed of 1/3 weak Attacks and becomes even less interesting to play than it ever was.
Good catch! Let me clarify my intent. There are (at least) two general issues here:
1. How do powers interact with Purchase Cards themselves?
2. How do powers interact with the *values* of Purchase Cards?
For 1, my intent is quite simple: They don't at all. The Clone cannot clone a Purchase Card. The Filch cannot filch his opponent's Purchase Card. The Vulch cannot pick up a Purchase Card Artifact. The Deuce cannot play a Purchase Card as his second card. The Cavalry cannot use a Purchase Card with his power. The The Claw cannot use a Purchase Card as his claw. And so forth. Just like the Trader, Barbarian, Ethic, Hacker, etc. can't take another player's Purchase Cards.
For 2, it's a bit more difficult, and I don't have a ready answer. The simplest answer would be that Purchase Cards can never be modified by power effects, so Tripler wouldn't divide these cards by three. But that also means Mirror can't reverse the digits, and Graviton can't narrow them to one digit, and Warhawk can't play the N's as M's, or turn his opponent's Purchase N's into 00's, and so forth. This is OK, but it does take away a bit of the usefulness of these powers. And of course, it doesn't stop the Virus from multiplying his card by his ships, because he's not actually modifying the card's value. What to do? I don't know yet.
A few possible solutions come to mind:
1. Easiest (but a bit unfortunate) would be to just say, "Don't use Tripler or Anti-Matter in a game with the Purchase Deck."
2. A rather clumsy solution would be to have some special exception for Tripler and Anti-Matter (and any other power that has no use for high Attack cards).
3. Do as I've said above, and don't let Purchase Cards be modified ever.
4. When you buy a Purchase Card, you draw multiple cards, look at them, and choose one, putting the rest on the bottom of the Purchase Deck (or maybe reshuffling the Purchase Deck). This way, players who don't want high Attacks, will most likely be able to get something else that they do want.
5. Use Holmes108's idea of a face-up array of Purchase Cards available, so that Tripler and Anti-Matter (and everyone else) always know they're getting something useful to them.
6. Don't have Attack Cards in the Purchase Deck at all. It's really only the Attack Cards that cause any problem (as far as I can tell so far). Artifacts are useful to anyone. Kickers are useful even to Anti-Matter because they can be played with the negative attacks from the Reward Deck, or with N's. Reinforcements are useful to everyone since they can be played on either side. A Morph is useful to anyone. So maybe don't even bother putting Attack Cards in the Purchase Deck. More on this later.
Quote: And the new Crooked Deals seem likely to lead to questions like "Are two cards both named Negotiate (Crooked Deal) considered matching cards for effects like The Claw?"
Negotiates can't be used for the Claw anyway. And for similar effects each different N is a different specific card - an "N Crooked Deal" is a different card from a regular N, just like an Attack 08 is different from an Attack 09. And different Crooked Deal cards are also different.
Quote: and I shudder to imagine a deck containing both "Negotiate (I double the ships you lose if you fail to deal with me)" and multiple Kicker x3's.
One, shit happens in this game, and sometimes, even shit as bad as this. Amoeba could ooze lots of ships into an encounter, have an Attack 40 at the ready, only to have his opponent play the Wild Loser. In a 5 or more player game, the Saboteur could put his traps on all of the Zombie's home planets, and if the Zombie doesn't have a foreign colony, and tries to return home, he sets of a chain reaction, losing his power and likely about 12 of his ships.
Two, the three-extra-ships-lost Crooked Deal could be written to specify the three extra are *after* any kicker is applied (which would mean this card with a x3 Kicker would cause 12 ships to be lost on a failed deal - only three more than is currently possible).
Three, due to the rarity of Purchase Cards, it's unlikely that a player will have both that specific Crooked Deal card *and* a x3 Kicker.
Four, the specific cards that will be in the Purchase Deck are not anywhere close to being finalized.
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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Bill Martinson wrote: In the past few days on facebook, Peter Olotka has made it pretty clear that there will never be Lucre in this edition of the game. Because it was "not well received" in previous editions, FFG doesn't want it and Peter & Bill agree.
Sounds like a cop-out to me. It didn't work once, so let's not try again.
The Warp wrote: I think it's still worth trying to develop a lucre system that CAN be well received. The original system had problems- Mayfair tried to address them and created new problems.
IMO, Mayfair's Lucre system, while still flawed, was a vast improvement over Eon's, which proves that the system can be improved, and may even be made really good. IMO, Mayfair's system itself did not introduce any new problems other than exacerbating the existing Lucre Equalization Problem. Though they did introduce two new lousy powers: the Gnome and the Entrepreneur, both of which are fixable. In fact, all of the previously existing Lucre powers are likely fixable. On this very website, we've even seen fixes for the Force, possibly the most broken Lucre power of all.
Holmes108 wrote: I like the new decks composition. I particularly like the warp break. I don't know if that's something that has existed in the past (I'm only familiar with FFG).
Yes. All the Artifacts I included above were in the Eon and Mayfair editions.
Rubric wrote: The idea of cards that don't go in your hand is okay (though Tech-ish). However, given the patchwork nature of the rules and alien texts, I could foresee it being a nightmare to implement.
How so? If they're never affected by powers, there's nothing complicated about it. They're completely separate.
Oh, I just remembered one other thing that I forgot to mention earlier: The question of "Can you take a second encounter when you have an Encounter Card that's a Purchase Card, but you don't have one in your hand?" Or for that matter, are you required to draw a new hand at the start of your turn or when you become defensive player when you don't have any encounter cards in your hand, but you do have one or more Purchased encounter cards?
We had a long discussion about this issue with regard to the Miser - if he has encounter cards in his hoard, but not in his regular hand, is he considered to be out of encounter cards for the purpose of having a second encounter or having to draw a new hand?
My preferred answer to this, for both the Miser's hoard and for Purchase cards, is that any encounter cards you have access to can be counted as not being out of encounter cards, even if they aren't in your regular hand.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Phil Fleischmann wrote: Two, the three-extra-ships-lost Crooked Deal could be written to specify the three extra are *after* any kicker is applied
I assume you are using "Crooked Deal" as a placeholder for now. Every card in the game needs a unique title, if only a conceptual one that blends portions of the card type, title, and subtitle.
For example, technically the alien power sheet and flare card for Zombie are both the same, yet we need to be able to say "Zombie flare" as its de facto title in order to distinguish between the two.
I don't think we want awkward de facto titles like (for example) "the Negotiate (Crooked Deal) that adds 2 ships" and "the Negotiate (Crooked Deal) that doubles ships". Much better to have Negotiate (Crooked Deal) and, say, Negotiate (Double Jeopardy) (or whatever).
Usually, two cards with the exact same title and different effects eventually leads to trouble, with no real upside.
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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Holmes108 wrote: If you wanted to make it more interesting, you could always do something like having 3 cards face up at any given time, in position 1, 2 and 3. They could cost 1, 2 and 3 lucre respectively. Then as they get bought, the cards shift down.
Great idea! Although if Lucre is rare and hard to get, and Purchase Cards are particularly expensive, a range of 1-3 is too much of a difference. It would never be worth it to pay three times as much for a Purchase Card as someone else pays. But no problem! It's easy to fix, just let the price start a bit higher (which is also useful for fine-tuning the precise value of other things). The three (or more) Purchase Cards available can be given prices of, say, 5, 6, and 7 Lucre, so there's still a difference, but not so big a difference that it's never worth paying the higher price.
And of course, one of the obvious Lucre powers would be the ability to buy Purchase Cards for much cheaper, like maybe 2, 3, and 4, or something like that.
Bill Martinson wrote: oatesatm wrote: I also like aliens that use normal game components as currency (as Bill mentioned the focus being on that instead of a seperate game currency), but I don't think there is a reason we can't have both. The downside to that is having aliens that could have worked within the common money system, but don't. The old Assessor could easily have been a Lucre alien but wasn't. Ironically, it could have been a good Lucre alien that actually would have been worth playing.
Mayfair's version of Assessor *was* a Lucre power. And it worked well. It was still annoying, but after all, tax collectors are *supposed* to be annoying.
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And while we're brainstorming, I also refer you to Crazy Phil's Lucre Store - His Prices are Cosmic! for more ideas of things that have been done, and could be done with Lucre. I have edited that list to indicate which are the Eon, Mayfair, and unpublished ideas.
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Andy Leber
Canada
Orillia
ON
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Bill Martinson wrote:
Usually, two cards with the exact same title and different effects eventually leads to trouble, with no real upside.
As an aside, but on a somewhat related note, This is also why I've never liked the Plague card. It's neat in theory, but can lead to confusion, particularly with expansions. I kind of wish it just stuck with a handful of specific card types, and stopped there, instead of opening up to a bunch of new possible card types. ie, it should just say "...and must discard one card of each of the following types, if possible: Attack, Negotiate, Flare, Artifact"... period.
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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Bill Martinson wrote: Phil Fleischmann wrote: Two, the three-extra-ships-lost Crooked Deal could be written to specify the three extra are *after* any kicker is applied I assume you are using "Crooked Deal" as a placeholder for now. Every card in the game needs a unique title, if only a conceptual one that blends portions of the card type, title, and subtitle.
Right. That's an important point. Yes, those "Crooked Deal" N's should be considered placeholder names. I think I'm going to edit that post and add names to them now.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Holmes108 wrote: As an aside, but on a somewhat related note, This is also why I've never liked the Plague card. It's neat in theory, but can lead to confusion, particularly with expansions. I kind of wish it just stuck with a handful of specific card types, and stopped there, instead of opening up to a bunch of new possible card types. ie, it should just say "...and must discard one card of each of the following types, if possible: Attack, Negotiate, Flare, Artifact"... period.
And I feel exactly the opposite. The original Plague listed only the three card types that existed in the original game. Then, when expansion set 4 came out, you were instructed to write "PLUS ONE FLARE" in permanent marker on your card. How ugly.
I think "one card of each type" is elegant, and adapts to new material perfectly. As more card types are added, the interaction continues to grow and evolve and get more interesting. Plus, ironically, this method is actually easier for me: I don't have to read through its text and try to match up the requirements, one at a time, with what's in my hand; all I have to do is discard one card of each type ... piece of cake!
The real culprit here is FFG's stupidly inconsistent card layouts that confuse everybody about what the heck a card type is. Had they done this correctly, it would have been so simple that none would ever have questioned it. Instead, we have some cards that don't have their type written anywhere on the card and others that make it look like "encounter card" is a card type. That's just flat-out incompetent game design, and it's confusing a whole new generation of players.
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Andy Leber
Canada
Orillia
ON
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Bill Martinson wrote: Then, when expansion set 4 came out, you were instructed to write "PLUS ONE FLARE" in permanent marker on your card. How ugly.
 You're kidding right? I'm going to assume you're kidding. (I don't think you're kidding).
Bill Martinson wrote:
The real culprit here is FFG's stupidly inconsistent card layouts that confuse everybody about what the heck a card type is. Had they done this correctly, it would have been so simple that none would ever have questioned it. Instead, we have some cards that don't have their type written anywhere on the card and others that make it look like "encounter card" is a card type. That's just flat-out incompetent game design, and it's confusing a whole new generation of players.
Actually, yes, you're right. This is my problem. If there was a consistent, accurate heading that stated the card type, it would be super easy, and I'd have no problem with it. "Encounter Card" was the first example I noticed when dealing with the Plague. So having the actual artifact specify Negotiate made no sense to me.
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Ken H.
United States
Amherst
Ohio
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Phil Fleischmann wrote: Rubric wrote: The idea of cards that don't go in your hand is okay (though Tech-ish). However, given the patchwork nature of the rules and alien texts, I could foresee it being a nightmare to implement. How so? If they're never affected by powers, there's nothing complicated about it. They're completely separate.
But you're understating it. There are many ways that powers interact with cards -- it's not just taking the card away. There are countless different degrees of direct or indirect interaction. You'd need a very general rule subject to ambiguity, and probably still need lots of corner cases.
A few examples:
Can Mind look at it?
Can Oracle make you play it first?
Can Sorcerer switch it?
Can Calculator equalize it?
Can Chronos force you to replay it?
Can Magician pick it?
Can Warhawk morph it?
Can Ethic make you feel guilty for playing it?
Can Seeker ask about it?
Can Visionary force it?
And what about beneficial interactions:
Can Philanthropist give it to you?
Can Citadel use it for defense?
Can Cryo store it?
Does Genius count it?
Also, there is the consideration of what if you WANT to discard it? I know you define them as "good" cards, but of course good is not universal in this game. Somebody will want to get rid of one sooner or later.
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Ken H.
United States
Amherst
Ohio
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Holmes108 wrote: Bill Martinson wrote: Then, when expansion set 4 came out, you were instructed to write "PLUS ONE FLARE" in permanent marker on your card. How ugly.
You're kidding right? I'm going to assume you're kidding. (I don't think you're kidding).
We added "Lose 2 lucre" to the Plague also (although it was not actually written on the card).
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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I understand Bill's frustration about card types, but it should be noted that the rulebook actually clearly defines it. Sure, they could have been more consistent in card layout, but you can't say they didn't get very specific in the rules.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Kobold Curry Chef wrote: the rulebook actually clearly defines it. Sure, they could have been more consistent in card layout, but you can't say they didn't get very specific in the rules.
Which makes it all the more baffling why they wanted the cards to appear to contradict the rules.
But honestly, this is too rhetorical because it's not really all that baffling; the answer is pretty obvious. In my experience, the art department tends to see consistency and logic as adversarial to their artistic integrity. They want to maximize what they feel looks best, regardless of the consequences for the product's learning curve or playability, and there comes a point where reason is no longer your ally. So it's very easy to imagine that this came about because an artist or the art director did not want to "spoil the template" by having to build in a place to hold the encounter-card attribute.
A few times I had to sit there and watch a counter-productive decision be approved as final because (at least in our case) the art director outranked the design team ... as if the product were somehow artwork first and a game second. (On the other hand, once I actually canceled a game component because the artist refused to make an adjustment. Didn't discuss it with the art department, just removed it from the configuration and substituted something else we had in reserve. His work did not make it into print but he got to retain his artistic integrity.)
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