Community Errata Request

Strategy
1

Community,
Recent posts by the Brave New Regulators of Doomtown, Pinebox Entertainment, have declared themselves aligned with community input as regards many things. Among these, the priority for maintaining the health of both casual and competitive play. And among their toolkit for fixing problems, but perhaps a last resort (short of a ban, which I hope never happens), is the issuing of errata after significant playtest by their dedicated team.

So, I thought I’d put together a thread to post potential candidates for Errata which folks are free to “like” if they think a card presents such a case as to potentially warrant action on the developer side o’ things. If you have a card you’d like to make a case for, please post as well.

List of recent PBE errata, currently completed:
Auto-Revolver (must be in shootout)
Rico Rodegain (0 influence)
Undertaker (must come from in play)

List of potential PBE errata, currently “on the table”:
Hot Lead Flyin’ (?)
Worldly Desires (?)

…

When making a case for a card, it is important to make a few Considerations that are an integral part of the process of changing text in a casual and competitive card game.

  1. Power
  2. Intent
  3. NPE (Negative Play Experiences)
  4. History of Previous Errata (if any)
  5. Textual Challenges

Power
Perhaps you think a card is “overpowered” or “underpowered” in that the mechanical benefits it provides in the game doesn’t appropriately match the costs or drawbacks involved in it’s use. A good example of this was the recent errata Rico Rodegain. Prior to the errata, he was a character with one of the best cost-to-stat ratios in the game (3 cost for 1 Influence) who also had one of the most powerful Grifter abilities in the game. Now, he only has the latter.

Intent
Perhaps you think a card has a disconnect between the role the Theme (or “flavor”) plays in the game and the actual Mechanics of the card. A good example of this is represented by the recent errata to Auto-Revolver. Prior to the errata, this card’s trait enhanced the shootout capability of dudes adjacent and further from the gadget’s possessor, despite the Theme of the card being a one-handed gun and not some ornate cannon.

NPE
Perhaps you think a card goes above and beyond reasonable rock-paper-scissor dynamics of playing the game and creates a disproportionate amount of scenarios in which a certain card’s contribution to game interactions causes an unacceptable amount of frustration. Although this category likely has a lot of overlap with Power, I still think it’s worth considering and speaking to separately in it’s own right.

History of Previous Errata
Some cards have already received errata. And of these, some have already received physical re-prints bearing the errata’d text. As such, any card that has such a history must be very carefully treaded around. “Zig-zagging” on a card creates additional confusion, and so any card with such a history already has a strong case against it, meaning any argument for making another errata must account for this in sufficient measure.

Textual Challenges
This category involves actually doing the errata. Some cards will simply be challenging to errata because of what is physically (space) and linguistically (text) impeding the process towards finding a compromise across the other categories. Maybe finding the right balance of Power requires amending the length of a sentence of card text to longer than is feasible. Maybe finding the best Intent involves some nuance between the rules which isn’t immediately clear (resulting in adding another layer of confusion). In short, this category represents the difficulty of moving a theoretical errata into an actual phraseology that could be printed onto a physical card.

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Without further ado, I’d like to present my first request for errata for a card, providing my reasons as they relate to the Considerations above:

4 Likes
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Unprepared
T of clubs
0 cost
“Shootout: Choose a dude. Boot that dude and their attached cards. That dude gets -1 bullets and cannot use their abilities. Their attached cards lose all traits, abilities, and bullet bonuses.”

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I realize that Unprepared has a complicated History of Previous Errata, and that is a strike against the case I’d like to make here, but, the main reason I feel this card stands out as a candidate for errata is primarily because of it’s Power. With each new expansion, the power of this card grows, because every new hearts card (gadget, spell, goods) can be single-handedly shut down by it, in mass, with a single shootout play which costs nothing, can be executed from any board state, and whose positional implications last until sundown.

Secondly, I think Unprepared, in it’s current state, exercises a force on “the meta” (or, the pool of potential cards and decks players consider in a certain locale) that creates Negative Play Experiences at the site of deck construction. As a single play of this card can shut down a skilled dude who has managed to attach a few special cards, decks whose plan is to build up for a couple turns (using skills and hearts cards) before coming out to play can see all of that effort too easily invalidated, rendering the prospects of running “tower” or “voltron” decks riskier than I feel is fair.

Don’t get me wrong, I think cards that “force” players to “spread out” their resources are good for the game. But I also feel that Unprepared goes too far. For what it does - booting a dude, blocking abilities, minusing bullets, booting and blanking all attached cards - I feel as though the person playing it should have to “earn” it somehow or else get a lesser effect. And this arguement will lead me to make a case for Intent: The player playing this card doesn’t even have to catch their opponent “unprepared” - there are no mechanical requirements for playing the card at all! Examples of this could include: winning lowball, having more unbooted dudes at the location, or having a higher grit. This makes the card incredibly difficult to play around.

Finally, I do not think this card presents any major Textual Challenges. There is plenty of space in the card text box, and any new proposed language I feel could accurately and clearly capture the Theme and Mechanics of the card.

3 Likes
3

Okay, I’m game:

Kidnappin’ 7 Clubs Action • Cost 0
Noon Job, Boot: Mark a dude. Your posse must have more total bullets than the marked dude. Raise the bounty of each dude in your posse by 1. If successful, discard the mark.

Kidnappin’ was questioned and found to act very strangely when used strangely. You can target your own dudes, even dudes kidnappin’ themselves! You can intentionally form an illegal posse. If your posse does not have more bullets than the marked dude the job fails before it can be contested, however, since a job posse was formed, they all go home booted. This creates game plays where you kidnap one of your own dudes with a zero bullet dude just to move them home. Very interestingly, they ruled that the bounty will still be applied to the posse. This is abusable when you have something to gain by increasing a dudes bounty such as Desolation row, and half of Sloans dudes.

I cannot believe kidnappin’ was intended to be used as a means of moving your dudes home, or used as a means of increasing multiple dudes bounties by 1 for free. Because of Desolation Row, it puts a restriction on game design, since releasing cheap zero upkeep dudes only strengthens a NPE deck that wins when your dudes have failed to kidnap each other often enough.

Recommendation. Errata the card to;

Kidnappin’
Noon Job, Boot: Mark an opposing dude who has less bullets than your posse. Raise the bounty of each dude in your posse by 1. If successful, discard the mark.

7 Likes
4

I strongly disagree with the idea of “fixing” Unprepared on the basis that it is realistically the only card that allows any deck to put up a fight against spells and Gadgets. Gadgets are slower, they have A Slight Modification to counter Unprepared, and any truly competitive Gadget deck will run 4 of both to stave off opponents and their other effects. Spells are much faster to get going and impossible to get rid of without Unprepared, and there are no counters to their shootout effects other than Unprepared and A Slight Modification.

Change Unprepared and you have effectively handed over the competitive play environment to consist largely of spells and Gadgets.

1 Like
5

Good points all round regarding Gadgets and Spells - once in play, they get to be used (generally) once-a-day each, compared to just-once with Action cards. That said, I disagree that any change to Unprepared would hand over the competitive play environment to Spells/Gadgets - I feel the “fix” would be to make the player playing it earn it somehow. The (continued) brilliance of design excels in making most effects either limited in scope or earned.

Gadgets and Spells must typically build up a few turns first before getting involved in conflict. So, my suggestion would be to allow the Unprepared player to earn playing the card in a way where they can leverage this. Three such general categories with specific examples:

Positioning
*You must boot a dude
*You must have more dudes present
*You must have more unbooted dudes present

Structure
*You must win lowball
*You must succeed on a pull

Statistics
You must have higher grit
You must have higher value

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I think a fair iteration which utilizes the above ideas and builds on a Theme at 10’s (of position mattering) goes something like:

Unprepared
“Choose a dude. Boot that dude, who gets -1 bullets and cannot use their abilities. For each unbooted dude you have at this location that exceeds the number of unbooted dudes your opponent has at this location, you may boot one card attached to that dude, which lose all abilities, bullet modifiers, and traits.”

Or really clean with the Advantage by Positioning language (http://community.gomorragazette.com/t/advantage-by-positioning/1550):

Unprepared
“Choose a dude. Boot that dude, who gets -1 bullets and cannot use their abilities. For each advantage you have, you may boot one card attached to that dude, which lose all abilities, bullet modifiers, and traits.”

Cheers.

6

Mugging can help against spells/gadgets by booting (and then if successful, acing) up to two spells/goods.

3 Likes
7

I don’t buy that for a second, particularly if you print new cards intended to address the issue in a less oppressive manner. Unprepared is far and away one of the most oppressive Actions (and cards in general) in the game. It is waaaaaaaay too good at what it does, and it does everything.

4 Likes
8

Something like “Choose a dude in your posse and a dude in the opposing posse. Either boot the opposing dude and give them -1 bullets, or boot x cards attached to the opposing dude, where x is your dude’s bullet rating”?

Alternatively, keep the effect as is but give it a ghost rock cost. I’d agree that it could use some toning down but I wouldn’t go overboard with it.

1 Like
9

When I was on playtest I advocated banning unprepared alongside the release of two distinct (less powered) versions of it.

Unprepared A: Action, 0 cost. Shootout: Choose a dude, boot all cards attached to that dude, and give that dude -1 bullets.

Unprepared B: Action, 0 cost. Shootout: Choose a dude, boot the dude, and all cards attached to the dude provide no bonuses until after the shootout.

(Wording can obviously be improved, but the gist is there for both). Both address tower dudes, and are usefull enough in general. One hits Spells hard (A), and the other hits weapons / gadgets hard (B), but neither is so strong as to be the universally best answer to all shootout builds.

1 Like
10

Mugging is incredibly well balanced: a card that has a powerful effect (boot first and ace later) paired with a significant drawback (posse goes home booted).

What about:

Unprepared
“Shootout: Choose a dude. Boot that dude. If they were already booted, or you are the winner, boot all their attachments. The dude and their booted attachments lose all abilities, bullet modifiers, and traits.”

1 Like
11

As someone who played gadgets well before “A Slight Modification” came out, Unprepared was the bane of my existence.

The worst part was that it was useful outside of hitting dudes with attachments…giving a dude -1 bullet and booting them meant the card was never dead against anyone.

12

Yup. If unprepared was not universally useful, it would be a better answer card. As it is, it’s a hugely powerful effect even if your opponent has no attachments. Booting and blanking all attachments jsut makes it insane.

1 Like
13

I can confirm Unprepared is on our watch list. Looking for community feedback on this: What’s your thoughts on Unprepared targeting only one attachment?

3 Likes
14

To clarify:

Identical in all other ways to current function, except booting only a single attachment?

Or:

“Choose a dude. Boot that dude and up to one of their attached cards. That dude gets –1 bullets and cannot use their abilities. The attached card loses all traits, abilities, and bullet bonuses.”

1 Like
15

That change would still be really useful (it could hit the nastiest attachment), while letting super dudes be a bit more viable.

1 Like
16

My vote is smack between “one attachment” and “all attachments.” One way to do this would be to compromise with either a fixed number (like “up to two” for Mugging) or a variable number (like “all but one per printed bullet rating”). But I don’t really like that either. What I would like to see is a marriage between Mechanics and Theme. You should have to actually catch your opponent “Unprepared” in order to play the card. Three examples:

…

Unprepared
“Shootout: Choose a dude. Boot that dude and one of their attachments (if any). If the dude was already booted, boot all of their attachments. The dude and their booted attachments lose all abilities, bullet bonuses, and traits.”

Works best if you catch your quarry booted!

Unprepared
“Shootout: Choose a dude. Boot that dude, who get’s -1 bullets and cannot use their abilities. If played as the first shootout play, you may boot all of that dude’s attachments, which lose all abilities, bullet modifiers, and traits.”

Works best if you wake up earlier than your quarry!

Unprepared
“Shootout: Choose a dude. Boot that dude, who gets -1 bullets. For each dude in your posse that exceeds the number of dudes in their posse, you may boot one of that dude’s attachments, which loses all abilities, bullet modifiers, and traits.”

Works best if you outnumber your quarry!

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That said, if the above proposals don’t have general appeal, I could get behind a single attachment…

17

Still strong, less ubiquitous maybe? I think I’d have to try it out some. It certainly tones it down.

1 Like
18

A little more complicated than I like, but interesting.

The first one is honestly the one I like best out of all of those.

The last one I like the least, because it again punishes solo gunslingers (like the good Sister) and I’d rather not see that stifled.

19

I think Paralysis Mark deserves another look. Here is the old and new text for reference.

…

Paralysis Mark
(Old version)
“Noon Hex X, Boot: X is the value of a dude at this or an adjacent location. Boot the dude.”

Paralysis Mark
(Errata version)
“Noon Hex X, Boot: X is the value of a dude at this location. Boot the dude.”

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I belive the old version was far too strong - booting dudes at unearned locations (home or townsquare) risk-free (from adjacent position). But I also believe the errata version (which hasn’t been physically printed yet!) is too weak. I think a fair Power for this card should address the original problem it presented (risk-free booting) while also preserving some of it ability to control earned locations (deeds). Here is my suggested text, which is as close text-wise (and perhaps Intent-wise) to the original than it’s current errata:

Paralysis Mark
(proposed errata)
“Noon Hex X, Boot: X is the value of a dude at this location or an adjacent deed. Boot the dude.”

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The biggest problem with the card was being able to “safely” boot dudes who hadn’t committed themselves to a location, violating a fundamental axiom of the game: the meaningful choice of whether and when to contest deeds. When a dude contests a deed, they commit to it by sacrificing positional relationship relative to the board, making it more difficult to contest yet other deeds. This is the opportunity cost that the movement rules enforce. Dudes who choose to stay at home retain the potential to make positional decisions later in the game - and dudes in the townsquare retain this potential similarly, but accept a modicum of risk in order to exert a greater presence over the board.

Paralysis Mark broke this fundamental dynamic, and was perhaps the primary single-card offender of creating NPE. This was evidenced by tournament turnout. And was the reason that the errata was so heavy-handed. And so, while I support the concept of errata of the original card, I feel that the implementation of it effectively removed an archetype from the game - and that this is bad for the biodiversity of the game as a whole.

With my proposed errata, the following dynamics would exist:

  1. Paralysis Mark remains a tool for contesting deeds
  2. Paralysis Mark cannot exert control over townsquare without risk
  3. Paralysis Mark cannot exert control over opposing homes without risk

In short, what my proposed language does is retain the first dynamic without giving up the other two. I feel this is a nice sweet spot for the card that the game as a whole has evolved to be able to accommodate (with the printing of more movement effects, counters to booting effects, and challenges to dudes with attached cards).

5 Likes