Crypt card redesign

BenPeal wrote:

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

I'm not adverse to a fixed size for the text area — however I think it should be tested and compared before being decided on. I'll see if I can put together some comparisons. IIRC in early testing it performed far worse than dynamic.

BenPeal wrote:

Sect, Title, and Group go in the black text box.

I think it's important to keep the sect where it is. It's familiar to current players and it solves a design problem — what to do when the vampire has no text. This applies to the clan also. By including both you ensure there is always content for the black and white areas and as a bonus, including the clan name also helps new players learn the clans. So take this random vampire for example:



This vampire has no text asides from "Camarilla", including the clan name ensures a constant design across all crypt cards.

BenPeal wrote:

To give you all some insight into how insane the current, official crypt text templating rules are.

It's important to note the system leverages the card text completely — it does not rewrite it. So the rules you mention still apply when writing card text.

All that then happens is that it can either highlight or extract certain values.

For example here's what it does with Yazid:



It's extracted the +1 bleed and added to to the back box. It's then realised that there's no other text after the colon, so it's replaced the colon with a stop and not bolded the text (bold everything is pointless). Here's it just leveraging the raw text:




Note, I've iconified the group number so it's not so prominent and takes up less space.

I think we can apply a clear rule as to what appears prominent in the black area: Permanent effects that affect game state.

So not traits or keywords, only effects that are active and impact game play. These currently are:

+bleed
+strength
+intercept
+stealth,
+handsize

So Saulot looks like this now:



And here's the Capuchin:



The goal here wasn't throw out all the rules and start from scratch. It was to evolve the current design in a manner that helped new players, did not alienate current players and leveraged the existing artwork. Effectively allowing the design to be used with the current card set without causing too much confusion.

This was similar with library cards; an evolutionary design — not revolutionary (more on library cards later).

BenPeal wrote:

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.

This is easily solved! The Design Team can just create a bunch of cards that require all the things.

And so on.

Everything can now make sense, and no-one could possibly object.

Ke. wrote:

And here's the Capuchin:

Clan name in text looks bad.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

This is easily solved! The Design Team can just create a bunch of cards that require all the things.
....
Everything can now make sense, and no-one could possibly object.

On a somewhat more serious note, this is a problem with deciding what goes in bold based on what other cards require now, because it can change.

The "Rough and Tumble" expansion, pencilled in for 2021, might decide that some big vampires are a bit useless, and so hand out an ability usable by vampires with +1 strength. Or built-in aggravated hand damage.

Or you might create a card that requires a sterile vampire (which is mostly an anti-keyword - pretty much every use of it is "non-sterile" that I can think of).

You can also get into fun situations where you create a brand new ability, but haven't yet decided on whether you want it to require anything. In 2019, Bobby the Brujah gets created with a special ability that's never been thought of before. Bold or not bold?

Ke. wrote:

I think it's important to keep the sect where it is. It's familiar to current players and it solves a design problem — what to do when the vampire has no text. This applies to the clan also. By including both you ensure there is always content for the black and white areas and as a bonus, including the clan name also helps new players learn the clans. So take this random vampire for example:

This vampire has no text asides from "Camarilla", including the clan name ensures a constant design across all crypt cards.

There are other way to solve that design problem. As I've said many times, flavor text could be added to vampire in this situation.
As for the location of the sect, until now, it has always been the first information readable on a vampire. So if you want to be familiar with current player, I think you should place it in the black box since it's the first thing player will read.

Ke. wrote:

Note, I've iconified the group number so it's not so prominent and takes up less space.

For me, it's a step back. We are still having deckbuilding information in the same area as gameplay information. And now we don't even have the ease of comprehension we had when it was written fully.

Idea : what if group were written (fully) between the vampire name and it's clan icon ?

Ke. wrote:

I think we can apply a clear rule as to what appears prominent in the black area: Permanent effects that affect game state.

So not traits or keywords, only effects that are active and impact game play. These currently are:

+bleed
+strength
+intercept
+stealth,
+handsize

So Saulot looks like this now:

Don't want to be rude or anything, but for me, your rule is not clear at all...
What are permanents effects ? Why is "+X strength" more permanent than "+X strength against Y" ?

Besides, your realization contradict your rule. Why is clan in the black area ? For me, a clan is not more permanent than "Scarce" or even a sect.


Could you please make a try where black box is only for keyword. And everything else goes to the white box ?