How I would re-launch V:TES. (audience participation is encouraged)

Soooo much better without the frame! Forgive me while I wipe my droll off the screen

brettscho wrote:

I agree that Vampire contests almost never happen, but that doesn't mean we should allow a rule that ruins games in the rare cases that it does. Imagine a rule that at the beginning of every game, each player had to roll a 1000 sided die, and if it come up 1, you weren't allowed to play the game, but you were forced to sit there for 2 hours. That is an extreme example, but if that rule is bad, why is the vampire contest rule ok?

I don't disagree that's a terrible thing, but does that actually happen? I've heard a lot, A LOT of complaints that it could happen, but so far (and i could have totally missed this) but nobody has stepped up and said "I've seen this happen." or "This has happened to me." Maybe I should make a surveymonkey thing to get some data.

Ankha: Picking a nit, the pic is off-center. Believe me, I know it's hard to find the best way for some portraits.

also, I feel that the numbers in the orbs should be the same color:



edit: Vincent, if you could also email me the fonts for the numbers, that'd be awesome. I don't think I have them.

While vampire contest is very seldom in friendly games - usually you know what your firends are going to play and choose not to play the deck with same/ very similar crypt - it's quiete frequent in tournaments, especially in big ones like EC. I've seen this a lot of times and it happened to me at least few times.

Please excuse the formatting errors. I wasn't planning on spending my morning doing this, but I did.





I'm not sure if losing the real estate on the right hand side of the text box is worth what we gain by eliminating sect from the text of the card.

Coming back to the topic (How would I re-launch vtes).
When relaunching vtes I would keep in mind few things that are, IMO, vital to VTES and its community. Those are:
1. Keep compatibility with old cards.
Not with every one card (see below) but with substantial part of current card pool. This will make old players happy, keep their interest and will encourage players in torpor to come back to the game. It's very motivating to come back to the game if you can use some of your old cards. It was always one of the great advantages of playing vtes.
2. Streamline the rules.
To make VTES more accesible for new players we need to remove all those "one million rules that almost never see play", etc. KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach is top priority in game design. List of rules that I would remove/ change is below. This would cause some (actually a lot) of old cards to be illegal but it's almost a must if we want some fresh blood in our ranks.
3. Change release model.
Seems like CCG is no more good model of releasing a card game. LCG, print on demand or something along the lines seems much better suited for the market.
4. Refresh layout.
This may not be crucial but it's very welcome and would help in selling reprints to old players that would like to have their old cards in new, better layout. Full bleed cards are good example

Below is a list of rules that I would change/ remove. First few points are a must, later points concern some small changes or things that add something good to the game but are using added mechanics so could be dropped just to make things easier.

1. Remove hunters (imbued) and all related things. That was easy. The worst design in history of card games' expansions. Completely different set of rules. It's like separate game!
2. Remove Red list and Trophy mechanics. Too complicated!
3. Remove Research Area and Cold Iron Vulnerability Niche rules. Don't bring anything interesting to the game.
4. Remove Aye, Orun and Reflex. Extra mechanics, don't bring anything interesting to the game. Maybe even remove all Laibon - don't really suite WoD background.
5. Remove Slave rule. Too complicated, not needed.
6. Remove contesting vampires between players. Cause a lot of bad, frustrating games.
7. Make Prisci ordinary title (worth f.e. 2 votes). Remove Prisci subreferendum and ballots. Not needed, too complicated.
8. Make combat easier by reducing number of steps, making easier rules about burning vampires, things like rotschreck, etc.
9. Remove disciplines which are not disciplines (maleficia, striga)
10. Remove advanced vampire mechanics.
11. Remove trifle
12. Remove events.
13. Remove flight/ change it to trait like f.e. black hand.
14. Remove infernal, scarce, sterile, burn option, draft,
15. Remove anarchs or change their mechanics. Becoming anarch mechanics is bad and three way cards are used in different way than other cards. Much better way is to make it work like black hand (it's a trait that some minons have from the start. Some cards just require black hand).

[quote="self biased" post=75748I don't disagree that's a terrible thing, but does that actually happen? I've heard a lot, A LOT of complaints that it could happen, but so far (and i could have totally missed this) but nobody has stepped up and said "I've seen this happen." or "This has happened to me." Maybe I should make a surveymonkey thing to get some data.[/quote]
Two weeks ago I was playing an experimental malk/anti-malk ally + babble deck. My prey was a relatively new player playing mid-cap malks. His opening crypt contained two copies of two different vampires (Florentina Lengauer and Gem Ghastly). Because I got out Gem before he could, the game was half over before he could get out a second vampire. Had I played more aggressively, he would have barely been able to afford that second vampire.

A lot of my more fun decks focus on one or two key vampires who have the correct (non-standard) discipline spread (eg Nergal for his Aus in a Diabolic Lure deck, Gerald Windham for his For and stealth in a Skin Eaters deck, Conrad Adoula for playing every level on Hell-for-Leather, etc). Regardless of how effective these decks may be, I would never bring them to a tournament because of the contesting rule. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
So I see the contesting rule as stifling creativity in competitive play. Which I don't believe is the rules intent.

That's with the rule in the current environment. If the game relaunches (which is what we are discussing) it would be much worse.

If the game relaunches, old cards will either be legal or not.

Consider first the scenario where they are not legal. Everyone is selecting vampires from within the same pool of maybe about 50 cards. At any given table, if two players are playing the same clan and the other three are playing different clans, the two players are at a massive disadvantage from the start (see my anecdote about the game two weeks ago and imagine this being a regular occurrence).

Now consider the scenario where old cards are legal. Now only the new players are under this restriction because they can't readily get old cards for an alternate crypt but old players have an abundance of choices.

This is not same situation as an established game publishing a new expansion. The last time a base set was launched you could still easily get starters from four previous sets, and there was enough of an existing scene that after launch you could sit down at a table and would not be surprised if there was no deck using primarily the latest set.
The first of those statements is demonstrably untrue now. The second one we won't be able to judge until after a launch, but if it were to prove true then the relaunch would have to be viewed as having failed.

Anyway, that's the argument for getting rid of the contest rule for vampires.

For titles it's simpler. I don't think it adds anything to the game except a niche rule that's very rarely relevant and doesn't in any way improve the game. It doesn't actually detract from the game in the same way that the vampire contesting rule does. It is just one more rule for new players to have to learn and then forget about until the one game in a thousand where both Anson and Casion Reeds (for example) are on the same table.

For library cards; I agree that with the current cardbase the best answer to some cards sometimes is to contest them. I don't think any cards should exist in the game where this is true. And as I think the game should relaunch with a complete fresh slate, I think that cards of that variety should not be included in the new edition. If a card is so powerful that having two of them on the same table would ruin the game, then either make it easy to get rid of the card or review the cards design. If the game was to relaunch with the existing cardbase and the contest rule, I would be in favour of a severe errata to certain cards.