ReVamping VTES?

@ Self Biased:

Thank you for the welcome.

Admittedly, I have never played VTES, I want to but availability of cards, combined with their presentation (graphics), and the learning curve, and the decline(?) of WW and relative obscurity of VTM or VTR makes it a challenge to get players together.

This is compounded by the fact that *no one* in my local area has even heard of VTM, VTR, or VTES outside of the old grey-beards who own the local gaming store.

I've been fascinated by VTES (and Masquerade and Requiem) for a long time now, since 2010, but only recently have I found resources like Amaranth (and the VTES Checklist site that went down a few months ago.) Never-the-less, my lack of having played VTES doesn't mean I lack for appreciating the game. I do find it sad that it is nearly impossible to find gameplay footage or examples - most of the sites are outdated and links are broken. The videos on YouTube are low-quality visually and aurally.

Regardless, I want VTES, or rather a spiritual successor to VTES, (and I want Vampire to succeed and become a force in popular culture once more) but I don't want it to be like MTG. As I get older, I grow to dislike MTG more and more (for reasons I won't get into), and I despise the clones of MTG more. In reference to the combat, I was only pointing out how simplifying it and the timing windows would make the game more approachable, possibly even stealing some of the MTG players away.

I actually really like the unique status of vampires once they're in play, and the contesting their loyalty feature. I understand that star vampire decks are a thing, but I have to ask, "is it a bug or a feature?" Did Richard Garfield and the other creators intend or foresee player's putting 12 copies of Nergal into their crypt? IDK but maybe the advantages of the "one-of rule" would be greater than the loss of star vampire crypts.

I also really like the "no copy limit on library cards".

I would be curious to know what you think should be streamlined or changed or tweaked, as that was the goal of the post, to drive discussion in that direction.

For the record, I would also change the win condition in hopes of speeding up the game. I would have players try to get to X Victory Points, maybe 4 or 5? Then I would have the Edge grant 1 VP if you managed to keep it a full round. Such a rules to the WinCon would allow designers to print cards that also grant VP, like a vampire who granted 1 VP as long as he was controlled (likely a high cap titled vamp) or a master card that had some condition to fulfill and then permanently counted as +1 VP. Maybe players automatically had +1 VP for having 20+ pool? IDK, I think it opens up a unique design space.

LivesByProxy wrote:

I would be curious to know what you think should be streamlined or changed or tweaked, as that was the goal of the post, to drive discussion in that direction.

Shifting the focus to two-player play would solve a lot of issues you bring up (getting only 1 other player to play, speed up the game, streamline timing windows/learning curve). The only problem I see with two-player VTES is the inherent CCG approach to deck building; two players showing up with randomly constructed decks mostly leads to lopsided (and therefore not fun) games. But, if one were to take the existing card pool, build two decks that will interact well, and play the game with those two decks, two-player VTES is viable. And there are certainly plenty of cards around to build many pairs of decks for optimal interaction.

People don't give two-player games enough credit. It's not the same as multiplayer, but it's still very fun to play.

So.....

I would strongly encourage you to play some vtes before asking some of the questions/making suggestion.
To answer one question: crypt manipulation matters very little once you're set up, so most minion actions aren't focused on it. However, some strong abilities use the uncontrolled region as a resource.

Anyway, a spiritual successor should be separate and based on CoD(nWoD) where a cross splat 10 dot supernatural trait is already in place for source and all factions can be played. Also, super important, it wouldn't be vtes on any level, as it would be completely separate.

Vtes is multiplayer and plays kind of like a board game. Card availability is fixable by return to print, which is being worked on, but cards aren't unobtainable. Think entry cost to MTG. To be viable in standard (as far as I know this is still the range) you have to drop at least $100-$250.
Eternal formats, let's ignore buying the power 9 and look at legacy: fish, counter top goyf stuff, goblin variants you need sac lands($25?x4), real dual lands($40ishx4?) And some Staples (goyf is around$100 now? ) No idea on vindicate, pernicious deed, meddling mage, confidant, etc.
Compare to Magi nation and it's $50 for booster boxes enough to make all core set decks, even though the games long out of print, and it's staggering.

So, considering vtes has vamps and staple cards for 2,4, sometimes 10 for $1, and only freak drive doesn't have cheaper alternatives and it's $5, I don't see this barrier compared to other games.

Where are you located?
I can't argue against it sucking if your area has no WoD fans and wanting to play a 4-5 player card game.

I do recommend connecting with players and playing some. Once you get over the learning curve, it's phenomenal, and nothing compares in terms of strategy and fun.

”ReverendRevolver” wrote:

I would strongly encourage you to play some vtes before asking some of the questions/making suggestions.

I was going to mention this. Things that may seem like a huge deal academically might only come up rarely. Having practical, first-hand knowledge of how the game works and flows is super important. As a prime example: your mention of Crypt manipulation not appearing to be a thing. Games tend to last 14-16 turns [citation needed] and most of your vampires that you’ll use in the game get influenced out in the first 3-5 turns. Because you might not have minions out you’ll probably have a hard time playing cards from your hand, which in turn affects how many cards you draw. Crypt manipulation using cards in the deck would really only be useful for a few turns, and have rapidly diminishing returns once you had minions out. But, come to think of it there is crypt manipulation in a sense: when you build your deck, you select your vampires and how many of each are going in your crypt. I usually do 2-3 copies of 5-6 different vampires I want to use. So I’m hoping to draw at least 3 different ones in my initial uncontrolled region.

I’ve made several posts about what I’d like to see changed, you can go read them for more in-depth thoughts. The TL;DR of it is that Vampire: The Eternal Struggle has some legacy holdovers from its source material from Vampire: The Masquerade. Anti-truibu clans for the Sabbat could probably be folded into their Camarilla counterparts in V:tes without it being game-breaking. Not every clan has its own unique discipline (as an aside, this is one of the things that Requiem got right, along with the way it has 4-5 sects that have a different relationship to each other than the usual Sabbat/Cam boogeyman syndrome. And honestly, in a lot of ways Requiem fits V:tes much better as a setting than Masquerade does, but I digress), which makes it hard to tell a Toreador with Potence apart from a Brujah with Auspex by mechanics alone. V:tes also had several expansions that added mechanics like Red List & Trophies, Black Hand, the research area, and Imbued, but most of these outside of Black Hand weren’t supported in later expansions. The biggest hurdle to some of these issues is that in order to fix them it’d require a massive errata and reprinting, and would surely alienate older players as much as it would confuse players who are new to the game.

I’m the person responsible for creating the proxy demo decks. Eventually I hope to add another set to them covering the other major Independent clans and the two Sabbat-only clans. From there, the long-term plan is to generate the same high quality proxies for most, if not all of the game. The caveat is that Amaranth already does this but doesn’t use the official layout. It’s probably easier to just use those proxies rather than wait for me to give the treatment to the full set of 5,000 cards.

I should be done with my planned revamp of the Demo Decks in a few days, though. If you were inclined to print them out and use them, I’d wait until the update gets posted.

There’s several V:tes facebook groups that can help you connect with players. If you’re anywhere in the northeast US, I know of several groups that you could potentially join.

Also, If you haven’t downloaded it yet, Lackey CCG offers a V:tes plugin for online play. I haven’t tried it with Discord, but allegedly it interfaces with Skype so you can talk to your oponnents.

self wrote:

Crypt manipulation using cards in the deck would really only be useful for a few turns, and have rapidly diminishing returns once you had minions out.

Excellent post, except for this utterly insane piece of a fairy tale. Have you played against a Proper Shalmath multiact or Al Mun ally deck? I will play anything from 5-7 copies in a deck built entirely around the idea of recursion. Almost every other card is at a 1 or 2 card limit. Most of them are actually unplayable by anyone in the deck, and quite a few are the buts of eternal vtes jokes.

"So, you need Clan Impersona...." "Oh shut up, those never work."
But it works, and it works well, by manipulating the crypt. Shalmath silliness needs over 100 vampires in the crypt, but could get away with 45. There are some seriously silly tricks to be played, and I packed them all into one deck.

Best turn ever with the Shalmath deck? Full initial setup complete. Shalmath and The Unnamed, both have perfectionist, Heart of the City and Homunculus. I went from about 4 pool and just 2 minions, to shalmath, unnnamed, harza, high top, a 2 cap malk, Remnant and Carlton. While gaining 10 pool. All from the start of my 6th turn till the end of my 7th turn. Then ousted in the end of my preys turn, and did it in my new preys turn again

The power of 5 Summon Histories in a row, with a mad wall with a 2 cept barrier dropping in front of you is painful. But to then see your prey gain pool like a glass truck colliding with a bus of haemophiliacs is unsettling, to say the least. And if you are the pred, it just pings you for 6, on every single players turn.

Blooded wrote:

Have you played against a Proper Shalmath multiact or Al Mun ally deck?

I haven't, no. it sounds wondrous and horrifying to behold, though.