This is such a cool concept! I love the idea of these little guys running around trying to squash bad press while throwing up their own propaganda. I like that you get to reveal your propaganda cards to take actions but can also spend a regular card to take the action again. I like that you have some control over what cards you'll get with the Justice Served card. It's hard to tell how critical it is to get that card though. I could imagine it being pretty rough if someone is holding onto the cards you need, but they might be tempted to use them to get the cool actions.

The cards and art is of course fantastic! The bearcats on the board range from innocently playful to threatening and have great emotion. I also love the cards that feel like newspaper clippings that they are spreading to make themselves appear in a better light. The theme is just so strong, amazing work!

My brothers and I spent about 3 to 4 days really diving into your project after reading that article! We were totally impressed with everything you shared—from the visuals to the concept and press theme, it truly was inspiring. It looks like this project is still in development, but it's very promising and has a lot of potential. We’d love to share a few tips and suggestions with you because we're genuinely excited about your product!

🛠 Setup.

In the 3rd step, it mentions that you draw five cards into your hand.  I believe you can easily identify the keyword right away that these cards are referred to as "Propaganda cards." To me, the phrase "into your hand" feels a bit misleading since it seems redundant when compared to the original factions from the Leder game.

🎲 I’m left wondering whether the "Press die" is similar to the lord of hundreds. Some faces of the die that don’t have species look quite innovative!

🔍 Counterfeit. 

 Which clearing are we matching?  Is it the spent one, the revealed one, or both? Since your score actions don't affect the map, I'm a bit skeptical about the "matching clearing" concept. Perhaps the both option is the best way to go!

🃏 I’m not sure if we understand this part correctly, but it appears possible to pay with as many cards as you want to replay a "Counterfeit" multiple times?

❓ Does "Counterfeit" assist you with the starting cards?

📜 As I mentioned earlier, which card do you spend? Is it a normal card or a "Propaganda card"?

✨ That said, I’d like to emphasize again how much we’re looking forward to your finished work, especially when you design the backs of the cards. 🖌️ Your drawing is really impressive! 🎨

I'm amazed at how you create so much depth in a faction with such a simple, streamlined player board! 

The theme of the Bearcats is great and the deckbuilding fueled by your opponents' decisions is such a unique idea, that's really cool. Do I understand this correctly, the more propaganda cards other players discard to your draw pile, the longer you have access to your revealed propaganda cards for counterfeit, as they remain revealed in between turns? 

I love the concept of counterfeiting, using the shared deck cards to repeat actions from your own deck, that's a very interesting link between the two of them. I was thinking, what if counterfeiting gives you access to the top action of the card (the one that is usually reserved for other players) - that way you still have access to the weaker action while propaganda cards are revealed, but you kinda want them back in the deck to regain the stronger action. Which would give your opponents agency to delay reshuffling by discarding their propaganda cards? Just a thought... 

Anyway, really good job on that faction, I could totally see myself playing and enjoying these guys.

Not to mention the art, which is as always amazing. Huge compliments on that. My favourite is the whimsical look of the French artist draw pile dude (and I love the draw-draw pun, that's a superb joke right there!). And the meeple is top-notch, that looks so official! 

Love the artwork, and the free cardboard that's hostile to everybody is very cool!

I was wondering about their draw power and how the Bearcats get any cards from the shared deck. They draw three per turn, plus one per bulletin, but only from their own propaganda deck. Is there any way for them to get cards from the shared deck into their hands? It seems as though they will never draw standard cards, and so will also be unable to craft items or cards from the standard deck, as they won't draw them (outside of the Bearcat Justice card I guess).

That also makes me wonder what the purpose of bulletins is. If they never draw anything to craft, they aren't useful as crafting pieces. They are great to increase draw power (since it seems the bearcats basically take one action per card they start their turn with) but seem potentially very punishing to lose as they could banish a necessary action from the game.

I love the idea of deck building, but since a good deck in most deckbuilding games is consistent and gives the actions needed reliably every turn, keeping the Bearcat deck small (or matching your draw limit rather) seems most advantageous. However, the swarm deck will only grow over time as other players discard their propaganda cards, and you as the Bearcat player have no way to control which cards are removed from it, short of the bearcat justice, something they may not even draw consistently to begin with. Then you may not draw it on the same round that you play a card you want to remove from play! Then there's the random chance of losing this vital card to a destroyed bulletin! Since it seems to be both the only way to control their own deck building and the only way they can get any cards from the shared deck, it seems like an incredibly valuable card that won't be able to be used often enough to give the deck the consistency it needs to be effective.

Having said all that, I love the idea here! The theme is unique, the separate deck and action mechanics are cool, and I love the deck builder idea as it's something we don't really have yet in Root! Also the bad press tokens are inspired and give the Bearcats another way to increase their scoring consistency. I think this is a very cool faction!

I love these guys! Very fun theming and the idea of mixing unique cards into the main deck is super cool. I also really like the idea of them building up a deck of actions throughout the game. Also your art is great!

I'm curious how much enemy factions will want to spend the propaganda cards given how much stronger it makes the Swarm deck for the Bearcats if they do? I might be off the mark on that though given the Riverfolk Company have something similar going on with their funds!

I am also little confused by some of the wording - I'm assuming the "action" of each propaganda card is the "Bearcat reveal this card to" section of each card but its a bit unclear as there's also the "Spend this card to" section. Perhaps it would have been clearer to label them "Bearcat Propaganda Actions" or something to that effect on the cards and faction board?

I also think "Shuffle your unsuited starting cards to form the Daily Swarm Draw Pile" in setup is a bit confusing as I thought it referred to your standard 3 cards you start with in Root regardless of faction but it actually means the "Propaganda cards labelled as Starter cards".

Very cool faction overall!

The idea of battling your own tokens away to prevent the other factions seeing the bad news is very cool! I am confused about the deck -  the propaganda cards are shuffled into the main deck so when it says draw propaganda cards in Evening, does this mean just draw from the deck or draw from the Daily Swarm draw pile? 

I'm not sure I've seen/understood everything (I really would have appreciated a pdf) but I'm not sure how propaganda carts ever end up in opponents hands or what the press is other than free cardboard for everyone. I really like the theming of a despot puppeteering everybody's moves, and cards (as a representative of influence), is definitely a smart way to tell that narrative.