by Idaho11
tobyjason wrote:
1. The player losing the Intrigue challenge DECIDES which card(s) to discard. This would make the loss much easier to take in many cases, while adding a potentially interesting decision in place of a crapshoot.
And makes Intrigue challenges almost useless. This would so ridiculously depower them that it wouldn't generally be worth launching one.
2 (a & b). For each card lost, the player losing the Intrigue challenge presents 2 cards to the victor
Slightly better, but still a relatively toothless effect.
3. The player losing the Intrigue challenge selects 1 card to "protect" (so long as at least 1 card is left unprotected), then discards a card randomly from her remaining hand. This would hew closest to the rules-as-written while taking the sharpest edge off the loss (and, again, creating space for an interesting decision).
Moving in the right direction, but still decreases the power of it significantly.
Any of these options would make Intrigue slightly less powerful, while not really affecting its role in the game's structure.
You're underestimating how much these options take the tooth out of Intrigue challenges, while adding a lot of time into each turn. And also:
Any of these options would give players an at least occasionally interesting (even agonizing) decision to make.
You're not really introducing new decisions, and those decisions will be significantly less agonizing. If you know from 1-X of your cards are safe, that's a lot easier to decide to let that challenge through. When the cost is variable and unknown, it's a lot more agonizing to decide whether you should defend against an Intrigue challenge or not.
Your later options also will introduce wonky interactions with 2+ claim plots, or with claim manipulation, while altering the power of those effects. And trying to resolve those issues are going to create even more issues and more wonky interactions.