If You Had a Time Machine

A friend of mine recently said he’d like to get in to DTR, but there are too many sets, and he hopes one day there’s a new Core set/reset. I don’t know how likely I really think that is, but it reminded me of my interview with Richard Carter (Note: Shameless Plug), in which we briefly touched on what the base set might be like if it were made again today.

This is a long way of saying, this thread is for things you would change about the base set!

  • Add the two other factions!
  • Two homes per faction!
  • Replace faction kings with the new ones?
  • Proliferate the Shaman Skill in to another faction (Rich had thrown out MCC/Entrepreneurs as a possibility back when I interviewed him).
  • Replace Unprepared. I actually really like Unprepared for the “Boot opposing attached cards, blank attached cards and character”, but Booting the Dude and giving them a bullet penalty too? Could probably be scaled back. You could also convince me that the value could come down to still be usable in some spell combat decks, but not succeed on every spell. I humbly submit “Long Night, Early Mornin’” as a card title. :slightly_smiling_face:
  • Blood Curse feels slightly too good, or other spell types need a poster child like this.
  • Goodbye Yagn’s!
  • Goodbye Legendary Holster!
  • Early clubs (the base set and beyond) in general feel too weak or situational to me. When I look at the current card pool sometimes it seems like while there are a volume of cards on value, the number of “viable” cards on value in clubs is quite small.
2 Likes

I agree with a lot of what you’ve said here. Below is only my own opinion.

  1. drop Kung fu as is. It’s not necessarily super fun, but it leads to opportunities for a turn to just “feel bad” while you watch your opponent do 15 things in a row. KF would need to be very different.

  2. We’ve learned a LOT about economy balance. The old game was TOO easy to make money, the new game was TOO stingy and has only recently caught up to feeling “just right” to me. This led to lots of expensive cards that no one has ever played or considered.

  3. There are several dudes from the starter that were just too expensive. Just like economy, there are dudes that weren’t valued appropriately and have been lost to the ether as a result. Good abilities, but absurd prices.

  4. Outfits shouldn’t make money. That’s a personal one for me, but Outfits are +3 consistently for a reason. When you make one effectively hit +4 or even +5, that can become an issue. I think MCC is a different kind of card (there is some risk there) so I’m not as gung ho about discounts as I am about +4. It isn’t the same. Discounts require you to take advantage of something to get them each turn. +1 GR for something easy to do, doesnt.

I’m sure there is more rolling around in the back of my head, but that’s what I’ve got here on lunch break.

2 Likes

…Probably difficulty 8, cost 5 ghost rock, and grant consecutive noon actions, but this time around, bear the Experimental keyword with some dire consequence?..

4 Likes

There are about a dozen or so cards or card roots that probably shouldn’t exist.

In terms of overall game philosophy i think that a lot of minor rules and rules variations could be streamlined so that new players would be able to focus on the bigger picture rather than the small micro management of the different factions.

This has always been a struggle. to keep the rules as clean as possible, but not completely break something that was already in place from the previous publisher.