Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Is there any interest in reviving a discussion about the possibility of including the option for a mulligan in Redemption? (The last discussion was from 3 years ago.)

FWIW, I would be in favor of an optional once-per-game mulligan of the initial draw without limitations or penalties.

Funny how this was brought up just now. I was thinking about it myself.

Another idea is when you take a mulligan any Lost Souls you drew stay in play.

This is how I would like mulligan to work.

If there is a Mulligan, I think that there should be 3 components:

1 - All LSs that were drawn stay in play
2 - The redraw would be the number of cards minus 1 so that it couldn't go on indefinitely
3 - The hand must be revealed to the other players

I'm not 100% committed to the 3rd point, but I want there to be enough disadvantage that people don't just do it all the time in multiplayer, but at the same time I don't want to go minus 2 on the redraw because that seems to harsh to a RLK that gets a terrible draw.

I think there needs to be a penalty that is severe enough that people would not do it unless their hand was really that bad. I would vote that the player would need to reveal their hand and remove one of those cards from the game. Or, better yet, have each opponent remove one of the cards from the game. 

Follow-up question:  A majority of the posts seem to support the idea of a mulligan with the caveat that there needs to be a penalty associated with it (e.g., initial lost souls must stay in play). Why do the folks who posted feel that some sort of penalty is necessary?

Here is where I am coming from on this: I currently play Android Netrunner (in addition to Redemption). In that game after the initial draw each player is allowed to look at their hand and decide if they want to mulligan. If they decide to do so they shuffle their hand in and redraw a new hand with whatever they draw off the mulligan as their final hand (i.e., you can only mulligan once). In reading the various on-line forums associated with the game, mulligan abuse is not a topic that I ever see arise (which meshes in with my much more limited experience). The possibility of redrawing a worse hand and getting stuck with it is a self-limiting feature of the rule.

I understand that MtG has penalties for a mulligan and Pokemon has both a limitation (no basic in hand) and a penalty associated with it. Is Redemption closer (in spirit of play or whatever) to MtG and Pokemon than it is to Netrunner?

In 2010 when the last conversation took place, I can understand why penalties were required. The power of having a first turn Mayhem (and playing first) would have made people chuck otherwise perfectly good (or even exceptional) hands in an attempt to get Mayhem at the start, so the risk of drawing a worse hand would note serve as an adequate limitation against mulligan abuse. Are there any cards or strategies like this today that you could see someone abusing the mulligan rule for?

I agree with Matt. I think that if a mulligan system were introduced, then penalties would be unnecessary. If people could only do it once, then the only reason they would likely do it is if they drew LSs and no ways to block rescues, or no ways to make rescues either. Sure, we don't want people "abusing" the mulligan, but I think most people would also say Redemption is more fun when people don't have to give LSs away.

I would agree with all of Chris' rule proposals except for the drawing only 7.

I think drawing 7 would be the minimum penalty for a mulligan. I could see leaving or shuffling Lost Souls going either way.

Kirk

The point of having a penalty for a Mulligan is to keep people from having an average draw and trying to get just a little bit better. I firmly believe there should be some sort of cost associated with that.

If your deck has an "average" draw then you should feel ok to play with it as is, otherwise you built the deck poorly. An attempt to get a better than average draw with a deck that needs a good draw would have a higher chance of having a bad draw and even a well designed deck would have at least an equal chance of being a worse then average draw.

I think drawing 7 would be the minimum penalty for a mulligan. I could see leaving or shuffling Lost Souls going either way.

Kirk

If we shuffle LS and only draw 7 replacement playing 56 and attempting to get soul drought will become optional.

I agree, which is why I agree with Chris' rules for mulligans (except the draw 7) to leave all drawn LSs in play before the mulligan.

Oops! You wrote that you agreed with Matt, and I thought he was suggesting no penalties. Sorry. 

I think a single mulligan rule doesn't need any kind of penalty (and shuffling all souls, or all but one, would be fine). MtG has even recently started allowing 1 free mulligan before starting to decrease the redraw by 1 (for certain types, at least). If multiple mulligans are allowed, then a similarly decreasing redraw should be sufficient, though I could see for adding a rule that all but one of any LSs drawn get shuffled back in with the hand thereby to keep an additional, possibly increasing, "cost" for subsequent mulligans.

Shuffling all except one lost soul would be a good compromise but I would add that the opponent gets to choose which lost soul stays out if multiple are drawn.

How about this:

You reveal your original hand, shuffle that and all but one lost soul (opponent's choice) into the deck, and draw 7.

You can't abuse it to start with no lost souls and your opponent gets a preview of what's in your deck (and why you chose to mulligan).