Pay

A small number of cards tell the player to spend an amount of coins () already produced, in order to get a certain bonus out of them other than their normal use in buying things, and usually outside the Buy phase, when coins are typically spent. Cards having a pay effect are:

• Storyteller, from the Adventures expansion — provides a draw effect
• Pageant, from the Renaissance expansion — lets the player convert coin produced in a turn into saveable Coffers
• Capital City, from the Allies expansion — gives an optional extra draw effect

Trivia

Paying coins

Originally Prosperity tried out paying as a sub-theme, although the specific cards didn't work out. Other sets avoided it to let Prosperity have it, although later I had Black Market and an Alchemy (large version) card that let you buy a card to hand (revived and then fixed as Artificer).

Also, originally there was no Buy phase, and buying meant being able to play Treasures. This is why Black Market has a messed-up phrasing that assumes you can play Treasures.

Black Market confuses some people, though again part of that is just a bad phrasing. Also you need extra text to allow Treasures to be played. After Black Market I decided I would just do "discard a card" or "discard a Treasure" in place of "pay ," depending on how generous I was feeling.

"Pay to draw" started out in Prosperity; the card as I had it seemed crazy and I didn't try to fix it up. Stables does it, in a version that only lets you pay once. Then in Adventures I tried "discard Silvers for +2 Cards per," which seemed promising for a bit, and then somehow convinced myself to go for playing treasures and spending again.

So, it was initially a thing, but for the most part I personally find "discard some cards/Treasures" to be simpler and close enough.

Paying has tracking issues, but often you can turn the spent sideways. And there's doing it in the Buy phase.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

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