Talk:Dveck Builder deck

Is this deck supposed to be expanded upon? --JakeTheWolfie (talk) 21:31, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

It sure is. Any thoughts on the current system? I'm having second thoughts. I want players buying cards more than just hoarding slabs and going for Victory points, so the incentive needs to be for buying actual Dvorak cards. Victory points therefore need to be hard to obtain just through materials. I could cut Slabs, or I might cut Gold entirely and move Victory Points into the main deck. Or do I even want Victory Points?--ChippyYYZ (talk) 23:27, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

How would you expect this deck to be expanded to include things and actions? Would this deck be an expansion of the IDD, or it a standalone thing? Here's an idea:

Red and Blue coins can be spent to buy their respective cards, Actions and things. Gold coins are used to further upgrade these things into another "power level", while also being used to buy more powerful cards to begin with. Scrap Victory points in Materials. "Power levels" describe how powerful a card is. By default, it's at 0 unless it can be bought with Gold coins. There's no real cap to a power level of a card, but if the card is discarded or destroyed, it loses all power levels (Unless it was bought using Gold coins) --JakeTheWolfie (talk) 00:10, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think of this as an expansion of Infinite Dvorak, since the cards there don't have costs balanced to their usefulness. I am imagining the card designs will look very similar, and I will probably import a bunch of my own Infinite Dvorak cards, adjusted slightly to fit this game's mechanics. Cards with effects that scale with upgrading Power Levels sounds like it presents some design challenges, do you have any examples? I do like the idea of Gold as prestige currency for higher-tier cards though.--ChippyYYZ (talk) 01:06, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

P1

Golden Cannon

Thing

Cost: 3 Blue, 2 Gold
Action: Lose one power level on this Thing to destroy another Thing.

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It has a shimmering shine to it.

P0

Special Delivery

Action

Cost: 1 Red
Gain 1 of each type of coin per material you have. +1 for each Power level this has.

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Special Delivery for you!

--JakeTheWolfie (talk) 01:31, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

One element from Dominion that I'd like to preserve is that Victory cards aren't good. You need them to win in the end, but they're dead cards during actual play, thereby reigning in the "winning" player. Since currency is split into red and blue, I think it's fair to give gold some marginal use as a medium for currency exchange, and just maybe even as access to another tier of items (perhaps Gold-tier cards have a separate deck and shop), but Gold can't be strong enough during play that it becomes both an end and a means. It should weigh you down more than it moves you forward. Having cards you can dump gold into for better effects makes it too valuable.--ChippyYYZ (talk) 17:42, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I overlooked the phrase "Scrap Victory points in Materials", so my previous comment is mostly invalid. This does however raise the question of how to win the game.
If we keep VP but remove it from gold, I see two options: (1) Leave it up to the main deck cards. This can lead to the Infinite Dvorak problem of having too many or too few (or zero) win conditions depending on what cards end up in the deck (like Infinite Dvorak, I expect the deck for any given game to contain only a subset of a large list of cards). Since the "Balancedness" of main deck cards is highly variable, it may not be as good a place to put VP as (2) in a rule that exists outside the cards, something like Dominion's Landmarks[1]. My current thought is "Whenever a player empties their deck, they gain 1 VP for every 5ish non-Material cards they have bought." This incentivizes buying cards, playing cards, and drawing cards (better known as "playing Dvorak") as much as possible, which is exactly what I want players to be doing in this game, while leaving open an important niche for Bars and Slabs as your hand fills up with too many actual cards to keep running on single shards (Materials have no per-turn limit so they cycle faster than real cards, emptying your deck faster so you can score).
(3) Replacing Victory Points hoarded for yourself with Damage inflicted on opponents is an option, if one that risks distancing the game somewhat from traditional Dvorak mechanics (and brings us closer to Star Realms than Dominion). Haven't thought much about this, not sure if it's ideal for 3+ players.
As for Gold as currency for higher-tier cards, I'm thinking the Prestige Deck can be a separate list from the main deck, and maybe cards that can earn VP have to be prestige cards. I also like the idea of the prestige deck being more carefully designed than the anything-goes main deck, perhaps constructed by selecting one or more "booster packs" of cards designed as a group (meaning they could break the "Cards should not refer to other cards" guideline). Not committed to this idea though.--ChippyYYZ (talk) 03:47, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

3/2

Golden Cannon

Thing

This enters play with 1 charge.
Spend 1 Gold: This gains a charge.
Action and spend 1 charge: Destroy another target Thing.

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Alternatively:
When this enters play, gain 1 Gold Coin.
Action and pay 1 Gold: Destroy another target Thing.

1

Special Delivery

Action

You may spend any amount of Gold. Gain 1 Coin of each color for each Material you control, plus 1 for each Gold spent.

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This card might be undercosted.

Rather than add Power Levels as another game mechanic, it can be approximated with either charge counters (counters are like Tokens that aren't Things) or just spending gold. Any thoughts on the design direction, or on how to color prestige cards?--ChippyYYZ (talk) 07:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

A Power level was intended to "upgrade" the card. For example, you could have a card that becomes a lot more powerful if upgraded 3 times. --JakeTheWolfie (talk) 02:08, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Would that be "While this Thing has 3 or more charges, you may...", or do you mean that it upgrades into a literal different card?--ChippyYYZ (talk) 04:41, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

"While this Thing has 3 or more charges, you may..." --JakeTheWolfie (talk) 20:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

When using actions that require some resource to be used, why not use the resource needed instead of "Action and pay X" --JakeTheWolfie (talk) 21:09, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Because if it doesn't say "Action" then it isn't recognizable as an action. If you just want a shorter way to say "Action and pay X:", you might want a way that doesn't leave out "Thing and pay X:" or "Action, Thing, and pay X:". Some sample abbreviations: "Act, 1 Blue:" for actions, "Th, 1 Gold:" for thing abilities, "Act+Th, 1 Red, 1 Blue:" for Action and Thing abilities, and finally "1 Blue:" for an ability that costs a blue coin but otherwise does not cost you one of your plays for the turn.--ChippyYYZ (talk) 01:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC)