Fan Designed Cosmic Expansion Set Discussion

Bill Eberle: Artifact cards are not that common. Perhaps, you can bluff and will take a double hit if you are caught. Still too close to Gambler . . . need something else.

Zachery Gaskins: The mechanics conflict with Gambler is the sticking point. If we force it to commit its value before the opponent reveals, Oracle gets to remain useful, and Gambler can still bluff. The power would be in being able to “replay” anything that's in the discard pile (using's Jack's suggestion), which is similar to Clone but has the added protection of not being stealable from the hand, and to bury Artifacts.

Zachery Gaskins: Not many *official* powers get to play with the discard pile (except Fido, Vulch, and Filch who just wait just outside the figurative dumpster), so I'm liking Jack's suggestion more and more. Having Joker in the game would then give players pause as to whether they should play their “trump cards” too soon, which would then allow Joker to play them if he's got Artifacts.
Also, do we force Joker to draw a new hand if he has no Encounter cards, but does have an Artifact remaining? If he is zapped mid-Encounter, does this break things, or does the encounter/turn end without resolution (or does he auto-lose the encounter, maybe?) (1 thumb up)

Zachery Gaskins: More thoughts: If Pacifist gets 15 auto-wins, but Joker's cards are not guaranteed wins and he only has 11, perhaps we might extend his power use to more card types like the Super suggests (for example, there are 7 Reinforcements).
I briefly considered moving away from the Artifacts as the card type to play and letting Joker's power fire off when he reveals Negotiate (making his power now optional), but I think there's a hidden benefit (or perhaps burden) in letting him bury Artifacts.

Stephen Sloboda: How about you play an Encounter Card as normal, then USE the power to swap it with a “wild” Artifact Card just before it is revealed? I just don't like the split up of the two effects and the “take back” if you get zapped, which you inevitably will be.

Jefferson Krogh: To balance the "auto-win" aspect (and leaving Jack's suggestion aside for a moment), let the Cosmic Zapper decide what the value of the wild card is.

Jefferson Krogh: Tuning Jack's suggestion: ditch the “Joker reveals first” part, and have Joker's power be to exchange his revealed Artifact for any encounter card in the discard pile.

Jefferson Krogh: That also allows us to ditch all the verbiage about allowing Vulch and Filch to act normally, since now you're simply discarding the artifact and encounter card as usual. “Discard your revealed artifact and replace it with any encounter card from the discard pile.” Voila! (1 thumb up)

Zachery Gaskins: @Jefferson: Sort of like a limited Morph, in a sense. He would still have to reveal first when being confronted by Oracle or Gambler, and their powers would still work.

Jefferson Krogh: Exactly -- by removing this extra "reveals first" thing, then all the other powers can be themselves more easily.

Zachery Gaskins: Thought: replace the Super with “You may use any non-Encounter card (implication: Reinforcement, Flare, Rift) as a wild card.”

Zachery Gaskins: Are we committed to the Joker as the theme, or can we modify that to suit whatever mechanical changes that occur?

Jefferson Krogh: I like the name and the theme, myself. Whimsical is good in this game.

Christopher Aurel Oliveira: I think this power is a bit weak, compare to Pacifist. Pacifist is an auto win unless someone else plays an N, and there are MANY N's in the deck, but only like 6-10 Artifacts when rewards are used.

Jefferson Krogh: Joker has the effect of suppressing Attack card numbers. The other players at the table, knowing Joker's power, will need to think twice about playing that 40, knowing that it will someday come back to bite them. It's like Filch in that regard, but unlike Filch, you can't fish for that 40 out of Joker's hand with a Negotiate.

Bill Eberle: I agree Chris. Some of the comments above suggest ways to deal with this weakness.