Dominion

Alright, conquest fans... before you get too excited about moving your troops and fortifications all over a rolling landscape filled with rocky moors and dark fens, it is important to point out that Dominion is a card game. All that other stuff? Well, you'll just have to imagine it all as you flip cards, build your deck, and rile your opponents.

The good news is that Dominion, when played properly, can be an absolute joy. The cards support the milieu and the rules are fairly straightforward.

But let me dial back your enthusiasm once more: this is one of those "expandable" card games-- not a collecting game, but a game that has given rise to expansion sets. Whenever I see that, I imagine that either the game mechancics are broken in some way, are incomplete, or that the creators are just trying to capitalize on a past glory (i.e. it's more of the same.) Thankfully, this game is published by a company with exceedingly high standards.

The basic set comes with quite a large number of decks to draw from, each deck being of the same power card with the same rules associated with it. To play a game, the players all agree on a subset of these decks. Rio Grande Games suggests a number of different deck sets to simulate different situations (war, trade, historical, fantasy) and those all have a very consistent "story" to them. I tried a several of these compositions and they all felt as though I was "playing" my hand-- in one, which I enjoyed immensely, I played as something akin to a miserly bank manager... with an assassin in tow!

Once you deviate much from the suggested deck sets, the entire surface story starts to break down. You can't simply through together different decks randomly and hope to have a truly emergent game experience. Some cards just don't work well with others, while others just feel odd because they don't feel right within the context of the other cards.

As soon as I feel the cold hard armature of the underlying game mechanics, you've lost me; my eyes just glaze over. I'm like one of Harlow's monkeys clinging to the terry cloth.

In much the same way a Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master takes the time to compose their dungeons and characters, so to should a host take the time to fashion and interesting set of decks to simulate a particular situation or challenge. Over time, such a deck might evolve and remain interesting for a long time to come.

The Review

The Game Mechanics

In short, Dominion allows a player to compose their own probability curves on how often they'll draw particular cards in their deck-- this is the fundament of the game: very simple, very elegant. If you can get a friend to struggle through a few hands, they'll pick up the rules quickly. You might be able to get this going as a party game, but the milieu isn't likely to appeal to mainstream folks. One could imagine these same mechanics supporting other milieus, however, such as sports or some sort of dramatic story.

Aside from the individual cards, of which there are very many, the only thing you'll find within a Dominion box is air. That being said, the cards are quite beautiful, consistent in their graphic design, and fairly easy to read and understand. Almost all the rules for the game are printed on the cards and, as tedious as this may sound, the game mechanics rely very heavily on managing a lot of shifting rules in your head. The game also relies on shuffling your hand almost constantly, which can be very difficult for people unaccustomed to such things. Personally, I found it to be a big distraction and, when shuffling, I missed out on enjoying the turns of the other players.

The Play

As I noted previously, the play feels quite slick and sensible when the individual decks chosen for the game seem to be consistent in tone and story with all the others. As soon as the story breaks down (such as in a poorly chosen set of decks), the suspension of disbelief is lost and the players quickly realize their playing probability curves rather than attacking one another's forts, casting spells, or hiring mercenaries.

Final Notes

I strongly encourage people to heed the rule book's advice and play with professionally-designed deck compositions that support a meta-game or story-- especially if they're introducing newbies to the game. Once everyone's got a handle on that, play-testing home-grown deck compositions can be fun in and of itself. Buy this game!