The Short Multiple Lives of Negative Action Cards

Negative or shared action cards are a concept I tried a couple of times with A Taste for the King. The idea was that rather than helping the current player survive, the cards would either hinder them or hinder the group. I was hoping this would add more interaction between players but they mainly served to slow the game down and were fairly complicated to play. In this post I will go through each of the cards, what I hoped they would do and why they were scrapped. As mentioned in a previous post, I am considering adding a global modifiers deck as an expansion mechanic. This is where I think a shared/negative effect on all players (such as declaring a specific dish as spoiled or out of stock or declaring each player may score 1 extra dish from a course this round) could work but, again, as I described in that post, this hinges on if I can make the expansion viable both from a production/cost point of view and if it actually improves gameplay.

The cards are listed alphabetically but I will explain where they came in development history in their descriptions.

Appeasement

Appeasment was a second generation negative action card. I wanted this to be a card that is to be avoided at all costs as it drastically reduces your chances of winning and could easily push one or more players into a win. The problem with this card is it gets much more devastating the more players you play with and essentially can ruin your chances very early on. It didn’t feel right limiting to x players to make it more balanced and in playtests certain people (sorry Heather) kept getting hit by this card on subsequent turns which really hampered their chances of winning.

Backlog

Backlog was a first generation shared/negative action card. It was thought up as a quick response to some feedback where players asked for more action cards and more interaction. The idea would be that you can end your turn, stealing the first 3 cards from your next opponent. I never actually tested this card as I didn’t like the complexity and I thought it would just add confusion to the game, though I liked the idea on paper. It was more of a demo piece to get an idea of it people thought this kind of interaction could work.

Delayed Dose

Delayed Dose was a first generation card. While it was “tested”, I don’t recall it ever actually being triggered. I quite like this card but overall it just serves to slow the game down, forcing every player to discard a dish if they have it. With the bingo-style cards this requires each player to just check if they even have it before removing it.

Scare Tactics

Scare Tactics was a first generation card that actually got some testing! The idea was to give the current player control over everyone else, forcing them to suffer a loss as well but with strategic play they could perhaps walk away without the loss, say by choosing a course they hadn’t scored yet, or one where they knew it would hurt others but that they could score this turn if they didn’t die. Again, I like this card but it does rather slow the game down as it pushes most players away from the win.

Special Platter

This was a second generation card. It was designed to give the player the option of an immediate score boost, allowing them to score 3 extra dishes but forcing them to take the next two hands and play them, thus increasing the risk of drawing a poison or second poison and losing the rest of the table. I liked this on paper but again it wasn’t ever tested as it felt a little messy, requiring deck refresh if there weren’t enough cards and it wasn’t clear to me if they should be allowed to discard cards or not. On top of this, now, with the increased number of poisons it almost guarantees that a player will be forced out of the game. While this certainly plays to the push your luck aspect of the game, it just doesn’t feel right.

Spoiled

This card was a second generation card and was a partial refinement of Scare Tactics. Instead of having the interaction be between the whole table, slowing the game down, the idea was that two players would interact. The second gains a dish as a thank you for saving the current player from a poisoned dish… even though in reality, the end effect is that the current player just loses a dish. I liked this card but due to balancing, once the majority of the negative cards were rejected, there wasn’t really room for this one in the card count. Once the count increased, it just didn’t feel like a good fit with the rest of the action cards any more.

There are two cards in the game at time of writing that you could consider shared. Diplomatic Gift and Favour’s Fortune. I’ve discussed these briefly in a previous post. Favour’s Fortune is designed to give the player a hint of what’s in the deck, allowing them to see the next two cards they discard but as a trade off, a player that they choose will score those cards if they are able. I think this is a nice trade off between seeing what you’ve lost and aiding one or more players in reaching their goal. My main concern is whether to keep this for a single hand or the next two discards across your entire turn. I hope this card stays in the game til the end.

Diplomatic Gift on the other hand is a little more complicated and in testing so far has only been successfully triggered once. Granted this is a very limited set of testing so far but I think it has come out as the very first card, thus not triggering about 4 out of 5 times that it has appeared. I suspect this card will need some tweaking, either to make it optional any time in the turn or to simplify it somewhat so it doesn’t feel so bad when it doesn’t trigger. I am considering replacing this card with something else, as discussed in the previous post on Secret Message.

Overall, while I like the idea of negative actions they just serve to slow the game down, but I do feel that cards like the two new ones, Diplomatic Gift and Favour’s Fortune offer an interesting in between, offering a benefit in exchange for a potential negative (allowing other players to score or interact with your turn in some way).

If you would like to play test the game in its current state, feel free to join the official Drentsoft Games Discord server or hit me up during a Twitch stream and we can test it. In fact bring some friends and we can try to break it with as many people as possible!

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