Fan Designed Cosmic Expansion Set Discussion

Peter Olotka:My view is that we should compare alien A to alien B to see if there is some unresolved conflict when they are in the same game and to be sure that the powers are not too similar. Our alien compare process will vet new content. If the additional standard of..“I would rather be alien A than alien B because A is more powerful at a certain thing”..we would have to start purging existing aliens. I am not disputing the analysis, simply stating that it is OK. Decisions about micro-tweeking powers to “balance” them often wind up with an extra paragraph of complexity which serve no real game purpose. If in play testing an alien feels wrong, then that's the time to QUASH it or adjust it. We should send aliens in to BETA with the simplest rule set - and see what happens.

James Albright: I like v02, I hope I get a chance to playtest it but the wild flare might need some changes. If Grifter is in the game, then one good thing about the Wild flare is you can't keep giving main players the same card (e.g., agreeing to ally with one main player and keep giving them the 40) because Grifter will remove it from the game at some point, but this is also problematic because the flare is “any phase,” so the flare can grab the 40 before Grifter can touch it.

Also, it says “any player,” so you could give the 40 to yourself - perhaps it should say “ally only” or “not main player” instead. It's cool that since you have to discard an encounter card first, you can use it against your opponent, so they might discard an 08 and you give a 00.

The second part of the wild says “may.” This allows you to abuse the card by just using it on yourself continuously to discard encounter cards without giving yourself anything back, so you can actually use it to get a new hand quicker.

Bill Eberle: Re: the Wild power, we agree. It was flawed. Peter and I discussed GRIFTER this morning and decided
1) simpler is better and
2) stranger is better. We think v03 (posted today) is a good Beta Test candidate.