Crypt card redesign

How about this:

Use the black text box and the white text box layout with a fixed size.

Sect, Title, and Group go in the black text box. (Clan only represented by icon in the upper left corner of the card.)

All other text goes in the white text box. ALL keywords and special terms in the white text box are bold.

I'm undecided on whether simple +something text should be bold. I understand and kinda agree with the desire to make those abilities more noticeable. However, I also like the idea of having a standard of highlighting text that is a requirement for playing other cards and/or refers to a special rule in the rulebook.

Could be a start ! B)

With more space in the black box, I think we should also indicates how many vote a title is worth. (Like it was done for Imperator.)

However, what about terms that are linked to a sect ? (Anarch or Black Hand)
Shouldn't all terms be in the same place ?

666Raziel wrote:

Could be a start ! B)

With more space in the black box, I think we should also indicates how many vote a title is worth. (Like it was done for Imperator.)

However, what about terms that are linked to a sect ? (Anarch or Black Hand)
Shouldn't all terms be in the same place ?

I suppose the most awkward case is "Independent. Anarch Baron of Stockholm Group 3". There likely isn't room in the text box to comfortably add "(2 votes)".

With regard to titled Anarchs, it's a bit odd to have Anarch and Independent in separate text boxes, but I can live with it for the sake of consistency in having all non-sect, non-title keywords and terms in the same place. Presently, this only matters in the case of Brunhilde Adv, but it would affect any new vampires who are Barons when unmerged.

Black Hand and Seraph are, oddly, not defined in the rules and are simply keywords. As such, they're technically not linked to the Sabbat sect and there's no requirement in the rules that a vampire be Sabbat to be Black Hand or even be Black Hand to be a Seraph. This is seen in Yazid Tamari, who when merged is Independent, Anarch, Black Hand, and Seraph.

www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?crypt=695
www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?crypt=1310

Ankha wrote:

BenPeal wrote:

I suppose the most awkward case is "Independent. Anarch Baron of Stockholm Group 3". There likely isn't room in the text box to comfortably add "(2 votes)".

If you stick to the rule you suggested, the black part should contain: "Independent. Baron of Stockholm" and the white part should contain "Anarch."

True, though 666Raziel proposed the idea of having Anarch (and Black Hand and Seraph) in the black text box due to sect association. I figured I'd show the worst-case example for that.

I'm not a big fan of dividing the text boxes as there isn't a good reason to do so. Is the sect more important than a "Seraph" trait? Both are used to play cards for instance. (This is also the case for Infernal that has its own rule, and that is a requirement for cards).

I think we're in agreement that traits/terms/keywords which are requirements for other cards should be bolded or otherwise indicated distinctly from regular card text. I also feel the same way for traits/terms/keywords which have their own special rules. However, if we kept the current before/after-colon templating and bolded every sect, title, keyword, term, trait, and attribute, we would frequently end up with crypt cards that have a long string of bolded text before the colon. The separate elements of this text would then lose their distinctiveness.

While the current crypt text templating system is asinine, it does show that we consider some terms to be more important than others. It seems clear that we need an additional level of priority/importance/distinction for certain terms in the text. Given that every vampire has a sect, and given that sects are requirements for titles, I'm inclined to think that the line for the proposed new level of distinction should be drawn there. The question would then be how to represent it on the card.

Also, I think that deckbuilding-related informations (such as grouping) should not appear at the same level as the play informations.
...
The group should be moved away from the cardtext.

Fair point, and I've grumbled about the size and prominence of expansion symbols despite their representing zero play information. I suppose I can similarly grumble about Group numbers.

Ankha wrote:

I'm not a big fan of dividing the text boxes as there isn't a good reason to do so. Is the sect more important than a "Seraph" trait? Both are used to play cards for instance. (This is also the case for Infernal that has its own rule, and that is a requirement for cards).

Well, in my opinion, there is a good objective reason to do it : part of the cardtext are keyword that have their own rules and and/or serve as requirement for other cards. The other part is just text specific to the card.

If you look at Android : Netrunner, they are doing the very same thing. The keyword (4) are separated from the rest of the cardtext (5).


As for the group, I think you are right. But I have no idea where to put that information.