Thomas Colthurst
United States
Massachusetts
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I started work on Barons (then called "Barons!") in 2004. I remember coming home one night after having played several games of _San Juan_ and thinking that the "pay with cards from your hand" mechanic was great, but too many of the cards -- I'm looking at you, Guild Hall -- were improperly balanced.
I think I spent a grand total of five minutes writing down new card ideas and errata for old cards before realizing that if I was going to go through the effort, I might as well design a completely new game, filled with things that I liked. Such as multiple colors of cards, as in _Magic: The Gathering_. And "geography (aka relative card placement) matters", like in _Settlers of Catan_ or _VS System_.
In short order the core rules of the game came together: each player starting with one land of each color, the three phases of the turn, winning by building a church then a cathedral, and most of all taxation, which is really the heart of the game.
What changed between then and now are the cards, only a handful of which have survived untouched. Churches and Cathedral used to be different cards, and were initially only found in the blue deck! Unsurprisingly, players who went into blue early won a lot back then ... And before there were Knights, half of the yellow deck was Army cards, which cost R and had only the Knight's attack ability.
Playtesting, which started in 2005, got rid of the worst blunders (I hope). I signed with Cambridge Game Factory in 2007 and then the changes for a while came in waves. First, every card needed to become a three or six per deck for printing reasons; singleton cards like my beloved Spring / Summer / Autumn / Winter Tournament cycle had to be eliminated or merged. Then, buildings had to be improved (or cost reduced), lest the boring strategy of just playing a land every turn prove too successful. Then, Knights replaced Armies, which let me resurrect some of the card abilities pruned in the first wave. Then, making sure all of the "gateway cards" (which lure a player into a second color) were attractive. And then lots more card tweaking and lots and lots of playtesting.
And through it all, Stables made people's head hurt. But in a good way.
The main thing I learnt from the process was that balancing the cards in this sort of game is a tremendous amount of work. Huge props are due to the many fine folks who playtested Barons over and over and to Rob Seater, the tireless developer whose improving touch can be found on almost every card.
And if in the end you find some of the cards still somewhat improperly balanced, I hope you at least find them somewhat inspiring as well.
Have fun!
-Thomas Colthurst
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Jeremiah Lee
United States
Ypsilanti
Michigan
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Why'd the ! get dropped from the name?
How long was it from original idea until your first playable prototype?
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Thomas Colthurst
United States
Massachusetts
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Final version of the name was chosen by the publisher. In my heart, it is still called "Barons!".
I made the first playable prototype in late 2004, so maybe 4-5 months from the original idea. It wasn't very playable, though -- the cards were 2 inch by inch squares cut out of heavy colored paper stock, with just the name of the card on one side. They were hard to shuffle and you had to look up what each card did from a print-out. It did make it easy to rapidly change card abilities, though.
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Chris Cieslik
United States
Boston
Massachusetts
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I'm house-ruling in the exclamation point.
"7.1.4: When saying the name of the game, it must be done in an enthusiastic and exuberant way. Failure to do so results in a forfeit."
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