Fawning

Fawning
Info
Type	Trait
Set	Plunder
Illustrator(s)	Brian Brinlee
Trait text
When you gain a Province, gain a Fawning card.

Fawning is a Trait from Plunder. A card that has this trait gains you a free copy of itself whenever you gain a Province.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• This is mandatory.

Strategy

Fawning has several key properties. It is unavoidable, it does nothing until the endgame, and its effect is stronger on the player who is buying the most provinces, who is usually (but not always) winning. The presence of a fawning card creates pressure to construct your deck to accomodate (ideally to benefit from) the influx of new cards. If the fawning card is beneficial to a deck, it tends to give more momentum to the player who is already leading, thus rewarding a fast strategy, whereas if it is harmful, it will tend to reward a slower strategy by slowing down the player who is in the lead.

Often the fawning card is a terminal action, which makes it advantageous to build a deck with an excess of +Action by the time you buy a province. Even if the card is a non-terminal action, its presence can be problematic for big money strategies that rely on terminal draw, although some cards, such as Library, have some resilience to this issue. Because traits are only attached to Kingdom cards, it is less likely that the fawning card will be a treasure, but if it is a treasure, this can actually be better for big money strategies than engines which would be clogged by the presence of the money. Yet another way to deal with and benefit from fawning cards is if the fawning card is high-value and can be fed to some trash-for-benefit card. Usually engine strategies are more likely to benefit from the fawning card.

On some boards, the fawning card is a nuisance that all players are forced to deal with, for example, when it is attached to an undesireable terminal action or stop card. In this scenario, the endgame is slightly prolonged, which rewards decks that have excess buying power, drawing power, and sifters.

Fawning also has varying effects based on how thinned your deck is. An undesireable fawning card is more of a problem in a thinned deck, whereas a desireable one is more beneficial. The presence of a fawning card will have less effect either way in the absence of trashers, especially in games when gainers or +Buy leads to unusually-large deck size.

In a few cases, such as with alt-VP strategies, either card- or token-based, there will be an option to avoid buying provinces entirely, and thus avoid triggering fawning. The presence of fawning can thus tip the balance either towards or away from an alt-VP strategy, based on whether the fawning card harms or benefits a province-buying strategy.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		When you gain a Province, gain a Fawning card.	Plunder	December 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
German	Aufdringlich			Wenn du eine Provinz nimmst, nimm eine Aufdringliche Karte.

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Fawning means Province comes with a Fawning card. It's not optional, which is sometimes fun.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, * Plunder Previews #2: Durations & Traits *

Secret History

The first idea was, when you gain a card costing $2+ more than the Fawning card, you gained a Fawning card. That quickly turned into, it comes with Province. It was optional, but it seemed clearly more fun to make it mandatory.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Plunder