TEND Houserule
Hello all. My wife and I were very excited for TEND, but after a couple plays, personally I was very underwhelmed with its main innovation to the flip and write genre. The potential that the additional cards entering the task row had was very promising, but by only giving one round of warning, it didn't give the players enough time to strategize around them. At best, a savvy player might remember that a couple season 1 cards were in that deck, play into those conditions, and hope to see them twice more before the end of the game. On the other hand, another player might just get lucky and already meet the conditions of a season 2 card simply because it just worked with the strategy they were already doing. This makes TEND very unsatisfying to me and makes victories feel unearned. As such, here is my solution.
At game start, deal all players 4 Season 1, 4 Season 2, and 3 Season 3 task cards. These make up the players' hands. A player should look at all of their cards plus the season objectives to create an overall strategy. In the task row, simply place 1 copy of each basic blue Chop, Mine, Fish, Tend, and $2 task cards. There is no task deck (yet).
During the task phase a player must choose 2 tasks, and these tasks may be chosen from the row as usual OR they may play a task from their hand, placing the card into the task discard pile. A player may only play a card from their hand if it matches the season the game is currently in AND the player satisfies the condition for the bonus. When played from hand, a task card is only performed by the player who played it. Once a player(s) has added a card(s) to the task discard pile, during phase 3. Setup Phase, you must now discard the task row, draw cards from the task deck to fill the 5 spaces, if the deck runs out simply shuffle the discard pile to form the new draw deck. This means the card you played earlier will be able to be used again, but not only by you. All players may choose it as a normal task row task. Basic blue card tasks may be chosen twice in the same round, but season tasks may only be chosen once.
And that's it. The rest of the game plays as normal. I believe this gives a lot more player agency and strategy. This allows players to start planning for their powerful Season 2 and 3 cards from the beginning of the game, and it also introduces more player interaction as I might be tempted to play a card from my hand, but not if it's going to be amazing for my opponent's game!
Anyway, I personally will never play the game in any other way, and it turns a 6 game into an 8, imo. Let me know your mileage.