Fool

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Fool
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Fate
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Nocturne
Illustrator(s)	Claus Stephan
Card text
If you aren't the player with Lost in the Woods, take it, take 3 Boons, and receive the Boons in any order. Heirloom: Lucky Coin

Fool is an Action-Fate card from Nocturne. Playing it causes you to take Lost in the Woods (if you don't already have it), and receive the top three Boons in any order. It has an Heirloom, Lucky Coin.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If you have Lost in the Woods, playing Fool does nothing.
• If you do not have Lost in the Woods, you take it - even from another player, if another player has it - and also take 3 Boons and receive them in the order you choose (discarding them when receiving them, or in Clean-up as appropriate).
• You do not need to pick the full order in advance - pick one to resolve, then after resolving it pick another to resolve.
• The player with Lost in the Woods (if any) can optionally discard a card to receive a Boon, at the start of each of their turns.
• In games using Fool, replace one of your starting Coppers with a Lucky Coin.

Strategy

Synergies

• Tunnel can be discarded with Lost in the Woods to gain a Gold in addition to the Boon.
• Village Green can be discarded with Lost in the Woods and still played, essentially getting the Boon for free.
• Faithful Hound can be discarded each turn to receive the Boon from Lost in the Woods while retaining a 5-card starting hand.
• Certain Ways that allow Fool to be played with minor benefits when you have Lost in the Woods.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Notes	Release	Date
		If you aren't the player with Lost in the Woods, take it, take 3 Boons, and receive the Boons in any order.   Heirloom: Lucky Coin	Digital version doesn't have yellow Heirloom banner	Nocturne	November 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text
Dutch	Dwaas
French	Benêt			Si vous n'avez pas Perdu dans les bois, prenez-le, prenez 3 Aubaines et appliquez-les dans l'ordre de votre choix.   Patrimoine : Porte-bonheur
German	Narr			Wenn du nicht Im Wald verirrt hast, erhalte es, erhalte 3 Gaben und empfange sie in beliebiger Reihenfolge.   Erbstück: Glückstaler	(2017)
Japanese	愚者 (pron. gusha)			森の迷子でない場合、森の迷子と3つの祝福を得て、好きな順番で祝福を受ける。(家宝: 幸運の銅貨)
Russian	Глупец (pron. glupyets)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Who’s that schlemiel that’s always getting lost in the woods? It’s today’s bonus preview, Fool.

That’s where Fool comes in. If you already have Lost in the Woods, Fool does nothing. He’s lost in the woods, don’t you know! Maybe you can at least discard him for a Boon. Anyway. If you don’t have Lost in the Woods, then Fool goes on a little adventure. He bumbles around, getting three random Boons that you can receive in any order. For instance, if you drew the Boons that Donald X. previewed today (The Sea's Gift, The Sun's Gift, and The Swamp's Gift), you might choose to first gain a Will-o’-Wisp, then look at the top 4 cards of your deck and discard/reorder them, then draw whichever one you put back on top! Not bad for a card. Then you take Lost in the Woods, and your Fools are useless until somebody else plays one. At least you get that bonus every turn.

—LastFootnote, Nocturne Bonus Preview #3: Fool

Secret History

One of the first cards in the set, just after starting work on it as its own set. At first it gave you the next three Boons in any order. Then when it was a choice of three, it gave you all three. Then it was back to three random ones. But this basic functionality, get three Boons, was there for a while and did not really change much.

But wait. One game I was in was so very slow, because it was all casual players who bought up Fools, and we had a Throne and they Throned it and turns took forever. And I vowed that day to stop Fool from being Throned. I tried various things, including bonuses if you Throned it but which weren't getting Boons. In the end though I decided maybe I could pair it with Lucky Coin and the Silvers you gained would slow down how often you played Fool enough to avoid problems.

But wait. While testing recommended sets, Matt had a game that was awful, that had Fool and Golem. And I remembered, man, didn't I vow something here? I sprang into action trying a pile of different versions of Fool, various ways to stop it from being Throned. One version had a card the Fools went on, and Lucky Coin brought them back. This was a funny thing because anyone told how this worked would immediately say "oh that doesn't work, you'll lose track of which Fools are yours." It always worked perfectly; you just have yours face you. Everyone has their own chair you see. Anyway that was one of the versions. And Dave Goldthorpe suggested, instead there could be one card that moved around, he called it Foolish, and that card stopped you from playing Fools. And Destry Miller said, what if that card gave you a benefit while you had it? And I made it Lost in the Woods, with a discard clause so that you could discard a dead Fool to it, and a Boon because that's what you came here for right, you bought Fool to get Boons. And they all lived happily ever after.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Nocturne

Donald X.'s thoughts on Fool being ranked low

I'm glad this is down here, where everyone can think, yeah, it must not be very good, no need to buy that slow card.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, $3 Cost Card Rankings Bottom Half

Retrospective

If there were plenty of time I might keep messing with it, because some people really enjoyed getting 3 boons, and with plenty of time I'd get to see if the good version was still too slow. Probably I would try one-shots more. That's totally "playtesters who love Fool will hate this" but seems the most promising direction for actually doing a "get 3 boons" card that I personally could live with. I certainly wouldn't do Lost in the Woods. And if I got to redo Nocturne, I wouldn't do States either - they're a complication on top of a complication. Though we did enjoy them when playtesting.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Renaissance rulebook is up

Why is Fool slow?

The problem is that for casual players, those people the set was supposed to be for, it grinds the game to a halt. Three boons is fun and too much. We had bad games with e.g. Throne / Fool and the card was just too precious to certain playtesters, so I kept trying to fix it so I could tolerate it. If I had to work on it more it would be a one-shot, which was unacceptable but man would be much better. But, I didn't need "Get 3 boons." [Lost in the Woods and Lucky Coin] are both trying to reduce the problem of how slow "3 boons" is, and they just don't go far enough.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2020