Would You Support/Play a New Game based in WoD w/VTES Roots?

I strongly oppose the T2 idea as well, it's a big no.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

i still oppose the type 2 idea for vtes at all, because we don't print nearly as much wallpaper as mtg. the cards that haven't been reprinted in sets since lets say LoB are very few, and just reprinting the damn things would make new players feel less overwhelmed if we had a base set with most reprints of relevant cards. i can't ever see a new player being able to easily round up neutral guards or sense deps, unless they get reprinted. but we have staple cards out the wazoo, and new players really only need to know what those do to enjoy the game. cards like legacy of pander warrant an explanation as soon as they hit the table, but other old cards being unknown to new players isn't really that relevant. I have to explain how masochism works to all sorts of players, because nobody uses it.
i think per large set, 100 ish cards (not counting hunting grounds and birthday cards) are actually often-used cards, and things like majesty and govern overlap quite often. having a large base set in the future would more than make the cards new players would need obtainable, it would familiarize them with almost everything thats relevant. even if limited use things like adaptability were only in precons, drawing in new players wouldn't really be that hard if they could find the cards. in the time it takes a new mtg player to memorize whats in t2, a vtes player probably has a handle on every card that you see on a regular basis. our learning curve for the game as a whole is alot longer, thats always been our weakness.

Well, whether it is type 2, a hybrid type 2, or simply reprinting relevant cards this all matters quite little now as the ability to do so is not there. Could the VEKN issue cards that did virtually the same things? Yes, but it would also piss in a lot of people's Wheaties who earned and bought the cards to begin with. So either way I don't see any of those things happening.

I will say the typical type 2 format like the one Magic the Gathering employs, also creates a persistent arms race if you wish to stay relevant and competitive in the tournament scene. Wizards of the Coast didn't have the furious pace back in the day like they do now. It was slightly easier to keep up with. In today's world you are better off playing draft, commander/edh casually, or not at all unless you don't mind dropping a lot of money into the game (that isn't terribly balanced). Granted, one advantage MtG has is the number of players. This grants a lot of secondary markets as well as many people to trade with. The local scenes provide an applicable way to trade for most cards. You still have to spend money on cards you want to keep/trade, but probably at the rate of $600 or less a year. For some people that isn't much for a hobby.

And now back to VTES. VTES doesn't employ a type 2 system which is all fine and dandy when sets are evenly distributed, reprinted, good starters made, and so forth. Which for the most part I found to be atrocious. I am also the type of person who wants to try a various amount of decks and be competitive as well. This forces me to have additional cards and thus I sought out a lot of cards on secondary markets. And I spent quite a bit of money collecting such cards and invested a lot of time researching the cards through various databases. At this point it is very hard in most local stores to find any VTES. Don't expect stores to cary games that aren't officially supported and/or have significantly dropped off in sales (which was the case in many places US side at least). To tell a new player that there is a decent catalog of cards both old and newer that are hard to access or needed to be acquired on websites like ebay isn't a very good recipe to attract new players. You can spin it however you want by saying it only takes commons, different playgroups have a pool of community cards, etc., but you would be kidding yourself in thinking there aren't decent hurdles and challenges.

And for the record having someone keep up in arms race for MtG is aggressive and depressing for your wallet. Having most every card legal and hard to access at this point beyond ebay isn't much better of a solution. And while VTES was alive things could have been done better to keep things up from reprints, distribution of sets, starters, etc. Once things got better such at HttB starters it was already well into the game's overall history and too late for such things to have an even greater impact.

At this point the VTES fan base is stuck with what is out there and any new cards via VEKN will be just that. You do what you can with what you have. And there is no better example than the one VTES is in now.

Other than that VTES would have to be renewed or there would have to be a new take on the game employing the World of Darkness (which both are unlikely, while the latter would be more of something entirely new or a replacement).

With RoddimusPrime’s response, as well as mine and others in this thread, it seems to me like 3 topics have come into play:

1) Would you support/Play a new card game based in Wod w/VTES Roots?

2) What’s your opinion on what a VTES reboot should be like and/or include

3) Is there a way to affect current VTES gameplay to make it more accessible to new comers

Here are my 2 cents in regards to the above.

1) Absolutely! I’ll try almost anything new once and see what it’s like!

2) LCG format with a “Type 2” rotation with digital singles being purchasable, downloadable for cut out and usable in tournaments.

3) Some ideas that I’ve been tossing around in my head are pushing variant play for groups and tournaments so that new players can invest in less stock and still enjoy a majority of the feel of VTES. For that, I think trying to do game store tournys that are 3 player with some varients would be good.

Also, another idea I’ve had is a communal deck with a preset but randomized crypt people pull from. The idea being either a group can pool their cards or Mr. suitcase can roll up with what’s needed and drop down all the cards, then everyone else just shows up and pulls up a chair and plays.

Here is the idea that I’ve been kicking around: It’s an all cam crypt and here is the formula I have so far…
A 12 vamp crypt with:
Brujah 3 = Presence
Gangrel 3 = Protean
Nosferatu 3 = Obfuscate

Toreador 4 = Auspex
Tremere 4 = Thamaturgy
Ventrue 4 = Fortitude

Gangrel 5 = Animalism
Malkavian 5 = Dominate
Nosferatu 5 = Potence

Toreador 6 = Celereity
Tremere 6 = Auspex
Ventrue 6 = Dominate

So an example is that each person would have a crypt with one 3 gen brujah that has presence and then anything else at random, a 3 gen gangrel with protean and then anything else at random, etc… up till a 6th gen venture with dominate and anything else at random. That way, the clans, gen, and core disciplines are all pre-chosen but the side disciplines and abilities as well as what vampires land in what crypt, and also the order of what you draw from the crypt are random. Also maybe try some form of crypt mullegen rule so people aren’t crippled because of the randomness (which would detract MAJOR from repeat play).

Then main library is core cam stuff with maybe 7% masters and 25% of that 7% are disciplines (maybe more). 25% to 35% are discipline cards, and the rest are all generic (probably no clan specific cards). Also trying to keep out over-wordy cards and extra completed cards so as new players can just jump into the game and hopefully the randomness will keep it interesting and new for everyone.

I think the above, as *supplemental* and not as a replacement, would go a ways to help attract new players to game that is already kind of hard to get into as a newbie.

Let me know what you think!

gymim wrote:

Let me know what you think!

www.thelasombra.com/variants/Communal_Deck_by_gymim.htm

Seems to have some similarity to:

Meej's Big Deck variant , though more structured.

Most of the common deck formats seem to be designed to supplement the player's original deck.

Jazzbeaux had also proposed a ' Cube Draft ' format that is somewhat similar.

www.thelasombra.com/variants.htm

RoddimusPrime wrote:

At this point the VTES fan base is stuck with what is out there and any new cards via VEKN will be just that.

The VTES players (aka "fan base") don't have that big a problem since the number of different cards printed so far is currently 2136 library cards and 1370 crypt cards.

That is quite a few to tinker with for years to come.


And I've also heard that there is a spanking new PDF distributed expansion on the works too so we are due in for even more VTES goodies...


For me the glass is still half full!

Also, another idea I’ve had is a communal deck with a preset but randomized crypt people pull from. The idea being either a group can pool their cards or Mr. suitcase can roll up with what’s needed and drop down all the cards, then everyone else just shows up and pulls up a chair and plays.

Let me know what you think!

I've been thinking along similar lines, but a bit more extreme.

My goals for a variant/entirely new game were:
use existing cards
no one gets ousted, everyone plays to the end
only one person needs to have cards, everyone plays with those

Where I got to was something vaguely like Thunderstone/Dominion. Each player is playing against 'the game' rather than each other directly, but then whoever scores highest wins. Piles of library cards out in front to draft a card from each turn. a crypt and a library per player. you get one action per action card/vampire pair you draw. It's early stages, but I am kind of excited by it.