Card: Internal Affairs

See, Pascal's point about "target" is quite valid. Your card actually can't be created as written without rejiggering the entire way targets "work" in VTES.

That's why I had an alternate proposal. There are only a handful that you want to capture which aren't captured by my wording, and some of those are pretty nice cards to be sure. In fact, part of the choosing is what makes them powerful.

Pullen seems to be saying that making it easy to lock other sects out of the voting will make vote push even more powerful, and I think he's right. But, Internal Affairs suffers from the same drawback as Closed Session and Private Audience: You might lock out voting allies just as easily as enemies. Still an interesting idea.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

It currently captures things like:
Con Boon
Praxis Siezure: XXX
Crusade: XXX
XXX Justicar
Archon
Alastor
Templar
Inquisitor
Firebrand
Snipe Hunt
Political Flux
Hiding in the Open
Dogs of War
National Guard Support

Basically those political actions that, on their own, don't interact much with other players but may have big impacts to other players (e.g. National Guard Support, First Trad).

@Pullen
I'm not sure where you get the idea that this will be able to increase the strength of Bloat Decks. Most of those decks bloating via votes do it through Voter Cap and damaging their prey (e.g. KRCs) and these damaging votes would be excluded from this Action Modifier.

The current definition of "target" as used in actions can be directly transported into referendums with no real effort.

When you declare an action, you must declare the target of that action. If that action chooses anything controlled by another Methuselah (e.g. a card under their control, in torpor/hospital, in hand, in their uncontrolled region or their pool or the player/Meth directly) 'targets' that Methuselah.

By extension, you can easily determine that a Methuselah (directly or indirectly) is being targeted in terms of a referendum. That is, you are declaring in the terms of the referendum a card under a Methuselah's control, in torpor/hospital, in hand, in the uncontrolled region, a Methuselah's pool or the Methuselah directly then the terms of the referendum target another Methuselah. Also by extension, if you are targeting yourself only the terms of the referendum are undirected and not 'targeting' a Methuselah.

So, in response to Pascals questions, I directly responded to his three and then listed as many political actions as I could find that would be those that 'target' another Methuselah as part of their terms.

Or you just word it similar to Yoruba Shrine.

That's quite messy.

Think of it this way: A Methuselah with no minions would be 'targetted' by Domain Challenge / Anarchist Uprising? How does that make any sense?
A Methuselah with no vampire and no uncontrolled area would be 'targetted' by Honor the Elders? what about a Methuselah with 1 uncontrolled vampire? Would he only become 'targetted' when the referendum succeeds?

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Not usable on a political action that targets another Methuselah, their cards or their pool.

Target is the wrong term to use. For example, if we now say that Banishment 'targets' a vampire, then that vampire can use Chanjelin Ward to fail the action (currently not possible [LSJ 20011219] ), Secure Haven grants immunity to being chosen, and so on.

So, that wording is a bad avenue to go down.


However, it's reasonably easy to get something close to the effect you want:

@James:
I am not attempting to change political actions into directed actions. I am attempting to say that " Actions are actions that target something (and indirectly target a Methuselah that controls the targeted something) and within the terms of a referendum you often must target, by choosing, something (and indirectly the Methuselah controlling that chosen thing)."

I don't mind rewording it so that it instead read "Must be played after terms are declared but before any votes are cast. Only playable if the terms of this referendum do not target another Methuselah or any card not controlled by you."

So I am suggesting that "target" should now be independent of an action; so actions would target something (e.g.s Bleeds target a Methuselah, Deflection changes the target of that action. Bum's Rush is a action targeting a minion of a Methuselah.) At any rate, Political Actions resolve into Referendums/Referenda (and those Referendums/Referenda then have their own resolution based on their terms) so a Political Action is undirected since all it does is establish the Referendum.

Chanjelin Ward vs Banishment would not be affected since it is an undirected action (Political Action) where the terms of the referendum target a Kiasyd with Chanjelin Ward. LSJ20011219 would still hold. The action is undirected and cannot be 'failed' by Chanjelin Ward, the Terms of the Referendum target the Kiasyd and not the action itself. Ditto for Secure Haven, the action does not target them (it created a referendum) but the Terms of the Referendum do.

So I am not attempting to extend "targets of actions" but to take the obvious definition of target (e.g. something aimed for or chosen to be subject to something) which is currently only defined in relation to actions and apply it to the TERMS of a REFERENDUM.


@Pascal:
It's actually really easy. Far less mess than you seem to believe. Here are some simple definitions.

Target: The target of an action or referendum is the card/s or player/s which would be subject to the resolution of the current action or referendum. Choosing a target as part of a referendum does not make a Political Action a directed action.

Directed Actions: Actions which target a card/s controlled by another player or another player directly (e.g. bleed actions).

"Each Methuselah" becomes equivalent to "Target every Methuselah".
The REFERENDUM'S terms state that the Methuselah is chosen (and is therefore the target) and the EFFECT of that referendum involves XYZ.

So in the case of Domain Challenge:
The target of the referendum of Domain Challenge is every player. The effect of the referendum is to make them burn 1 pool for every tapped minion.

Domain Challenge
Type: Political Action
Successful referendum means each Methuselah burns 1 pool for each tapped minion he or she controls.

Ditto for Anarchist Uprising
Anarchist Uprising
Type: Political Action
Successful referendum means each Methuselah burns 1 pool for each minion he or she controls.

Honor the Elders:
The 'terms' of Honor the Elders is to give 1 blood to all vampires ready and uncontrolled of capacity 8 or more.

1. The Methuselah with no vampires able to meet the criteria of Honor the Elders (e.g. no vamps >7 ready or uncontrolled) then that Methuselah would NOT be targeted by Honor the Elders. None of their cards have been chosen by Honor the Elders.
2. Any Methuselah that does have at least 1 vampire that meets the terms of Honor the Elders, then that Methuselah is targeted because one or more of their vampires is targeted by the terms of Honor the Elders.

Honor the Elders
Type: Political Action
Successful referendum means each ready vampire with capacity of 8 or more gains 1 blood from the blood bank, and each vampire with capacity of 8 or more in any uncontrolled region gains 1 blood from the blood bank.