ReVamping VTES?

ruiza97 wrote:

Aren't all these suggestions doable in your own playgroup? If you want to use pencil/paper to track your own pool, what is stopping you?

The answers to those questions are so obvious that I'm guessing your questions must have been rhetorical in nature to express your annoyance at my suggestions. All I'm doing here is pointing out the flaws I've noted in my experience with this game, which can and probably will differ than others' experiences. One of my experiences is that the amount of counters is a problem. If you've had a different experience with counters, that's great, but your response here does not really convey that. Instead, it comes across as an uncalled for and snobby rebuke for my suggesting anything is wrong with your beloved stupid game about vampires.

@BenPeal

My initial impression of VTES was curiosity. After dropping MTG I was hunting for another card-game, and interested in making my own, so I was looking for inspiration and most of what I saw amounted to 'like Magic but different'. VTES was one of the few games I found that stood out as significantly different, with the multiplayer focus, the political aspect, and the emphasis on vampires as characters with personality in their own right (and not just 'monsters / creatures / units' like so many card games) and the setting as being our world and not a generic fantasy universe. The amount of symbols (the disciplines) was unlike anything else I had seen too. It was definitely a learning curve, but it was VTES that caused me to learn more about the WoD and CoD.

I understand the 'too many counters' issue, and my immediate thought is to do what FFG does and just print counters or tokens that people can punch out of a perforated card-board that comes with the product, and have some counters represent 1, 3, or 5 pool. Not an original idea to be sure, but honestly I was as fascinated by the counters as by the vampires themselves. I think Mark Rosewater (Lead Designer on MTG) said something about how even people who are not familiar with board and card games are attracted to the tactile aspect. The feel of cards in hand, rolling dice, or having a pool of glass beads is important for getting players hooked into the game, just as important as the artwork / graphic design and even setting / story flavor. That said, the idea of making a spiritual successor to VTES that relied less on having tons of counters has me problem solving now...

Personally I think the biggest issues facing a revival / renewed interest in VTES or a spiritual successor to VTES (and WW, more generally) is just one of marketing / advertising / presentation. Vampire has always had a particular style and flavor, and at one point in time (as I understand it) even enticed non-RPG players to try it out (apparently a number of females 1st RPG was Vampire?) I think new blood can be drawn to the game if it's graphics / art were improved and it presented itself right, and maybe simplified some things. I don't want Vampire to become True Blood / Vampire Diaries / Twilight by any means, but there is an audience there who could / should be converted to the WoD / CoD.

And most of my suggestions / critique of VTES, as outlined in the OP, were based on reading about the gameplay, reading comments and critiques, and watching people play.

P.S. Do you have a link to the 5 player starter product you created? I'd be interested in seeing that, as I can't find it on DriveThruCards.

@ GreyB:

See, I'm the opposite. I want a game strictly about Vampires.

@ livesbyproxy:
I recall coming into vtes from a Vtm background and scratching my head over the bloodlines clans and disciplines from buying my first starter deck. I knew of most of them, but what we're harbingers and samedi, I thought those were just capadoccians(which I knew of mostly from the vtm redemption pc game, having no experience with DA vampire). I j we gargoyles, but WtH was a pander, a kiasyd, a true brujah? This was way before I started actually playing vtes, and then my problems and confusion many years later included laibon oddness. And of course which old cards were group 1 or 2, with no numbering, but I eventually figured out the ones with an expansion symbol were group 2.

Now, my question is, would it feel less daunting with more mystery at the end of the road so to speak if when you started investigating vtes there was a simpler side presented, removing bloodlines, laibon, and thier disciplines, and focusing on 13 clans, the antitribbu and more importantly, just the regular disciplines limiting the tzimitsce, assamites, ravnos, Gangrel, giovanni,tremere, malk,lasombra, and setites to the only clans with "oddball" disciplines?
If I'm losing you, auspex, Celerity, animalism, fortitude,dominate, potence, presence, obfuscate, are the normal staple skills that cross all clans and bloodlines.
From those you have in clan skills of ventrue, Nosferatu, toreador, brujah, and all thier antitribbu counterparts. Now, the other 9 of 13 clans have 1 discipline that's stuck to that clan, and 2 disciplines that are one of the more universal ones.

If you came into the game knowing there were 3 levels to learning, and it was like MtG back in the late 90s, with "beginner, advanced, experienced" labels, would it feel as daunting?

I believe we can make the whole learning curve easier by limiting the amount if nonsense you need to go to get started.
8 clans, easily squishable into a 5 clan starter by both Nos one, or even removing!nos. Then merge brujah and torries, then merge !torries with ! ventrue and it all gets less crazy and more trackable.

Advanced add rest of thirteen clans, final level bloodline and laibon.

Would that have been easier?

Counters do not need to cover cards at all. I stack pool in 4 stack lots, in a rectangle, to the top left of my play area. Each vamp/minion has vertical stacks of beads and cards next to it. Those are the cards and counters on that minion.
Easy to see, simple to manage, works well. No need to change. Maybe I am being somewhat conservative here, but I honestly never saw the "problems" these guys describe as problems at all. I like having different shiny ccounters for different decks (good old pog caps for brujah or ranged decks, cos you can stack them and flick them off at the target. especiall nice for assamite!) or tiny skulls for Gio, or little dragons for Tzimmy, etc. The fact that it takes a while to play? Well, yes, how else do you develop a strategy. That, imho, is the missing part of all PvP 2 player games. very little strategy space.

So from someone who has been playing since the start, I don't think there is much need to change anything. It is the complex, intricate, WELL DESIGNED space this games cards and rules exist in that make it such an interesting and fun thing.

If you wanna revamp something, get rid of imb-ew-d