A Layout Change

Next are specific icons for inherent +1 bleed, +1 strength and for each titles...

Honestly card text is clear enough, and, IMO, cards do not need to be clogged with more arabesques.

Lech wrote:

Yeah, it's so difficult to remember all FOUR (4) sects. Lets get rid of clan icons, too ....

As a new player, you're not faced with the incremental change of learning four new icons. You're faced with a blizzard of icons for everything from card type to clan to discipline/virtue. This is already a steep learning curve, and has often been a criticism made of V:TES. (The WW layout change made things a little better, in that you could more easily see some of the more intricate discipline icons rather than squinting. When they first came out, I was forever mistaking Mytherceria for Obeah and vice-versa.) There's a similar issue with keywords generally, and it's an issue lots of CCGs face. New players looking at a card often can't know what it does. This is one area where Magic (for example) has made some forward strides - though it's taken some steps backwards too.


Making the game more obscure is a step backwards for newbies, especially when the symbols themselves aren't terribly obvious unless you come from the WoD (and not all players do). Like, you can sort of remember why a gun = equipment, although that can confuse people too, with cards that look for guns. But why is an upside down, funny cross Camarilla? Why is a book independent?

Disciplines, it makes some in-game sense. They're often requirements on a lot of cards and - especially when you have multiple levels and multiple disciplines - having a visual shortcut makes a lot of sense. It's annoying, but having to write "Superior Mytherceria + Superior Obtenebration" on a dual-discipline card would probably be lots worse. But since we very rarely have cards that are like:

There's not so much of a pressing need on library cards.


If there's a hypothetical crypt card out there that is so full of text that it needs to drop the word "Laibon" or "Independent" to fit the text in alongside a long-winded special ability, and there's no way to shorten it and it's the best thing since bacon was invented, I'd rather break the design rules for that one card and make the text box a line bigger. Teeny tiny text on crypt cards is super annoying.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

As a new player, you're not faced with the incremental change of learning four new icons. You're faced with a blizzard of icons for everything from card type to clan to discipline/virtue. This is already a steep learning curve, and has often been a criticism made of V:TES.

On the other hand, each and every new game you are learning consists of lots of symbols. Just take a look at the newer LCGs. Board games, too, tend to have lots of symbols and icons on cards, and nobody objects.

I think new players are not intimidated by the number of icons/symbols in VTES, but by the sheer number of cards available and the endless possibilities they enable.

Clearer Layout, with less words for things that are "standard" is a good thing.

Im up in the air on this issue, but i would like it if "vanilla" vamps (having no special text) simply had sect affiliation and no "text box" obzcuring art.
On a similar note, ive suggested alternate art versions of some vamps for promos or prizes. Alt art with no text box and just text on the art could be neat.

Amenophobis wrote:

I think new players are not intimidated by the number of icons/symbols in VTES, but by the sheer number of cards available and the endless possibilities they enable.

No, seriously, V:TES has received tons of criticism over the years for its massive learning curve just to understand what a card does, what a blob means, what a keyword means. Not to memorize every card possibility in the game, just to understand what the card right in front of you means.

We are where we are, but sticking our heads in the sand and making the game more obscure does nothing to help that. See, for example, the (usually very helpful) step forward that was taken when cards name-check a symbol and display it, so you can symbol match. When players pick up old cards talking about Independent vampires (say, Reckless Agitation) and have no idea if that means Book, Upside Cross, or Spiky Haribo, that's a step backwards.

Who said anything about removing the sect from the text? If anything, it is rather the clan name that should be added (but we might have space issue with Toreador Antitribu...)

That being said, icons are more readable from afar or when looking at a card upside down or sideways. And that is a quite common situation in game with all the +1 stuff against X sect.

Rather than abstract icons, one could just use some fancy S, C, L and I. And once again, I would only use them on vampires that diverge from their clan's default, so that the very fact that there is an extra icon catches the eye.