Keywords and eliminating redundancy

This has bothered me for a while.

For some reason, VTES cards say redundant stuff like "Bleed at +2 bleed." and "Hunt at +2 hunt." Why? Seems unnecessarilyy redundant. I think this can be simplified and save on card space.

Behold my brand new innovative patented design:

Intimidation.
Bleed (+1).
Bleed (+2).





We can also have keywords like:

Restricted. (A minion can only have one of [cardname] or [cardtype].)
Trivial. (If this is the first trivial action this minion has performed this turn, this minion untaps if successful.)

Leather Jacket
Restricted. Trivial.
The bearer of Leather Jacket can burn it to prevent all damage from the opposing minion's strike.

Let's modernize VTES please. Discuss.

P.S. Titles are also keywords.

LivesByProxy wrote:

Let's modernize VTES please. Discuss.

saving text space on cards only really benefits cards that are arguably too wordy for their effects. *squints at Calling the Beast* The idea has merit, though the implementation of such may be trickier than you think.

For some reason, VTES cards say redundant stuff like "Bleed at +2 bleed." and "Hunt at +2 hunt."

but these aren't redundant? Bleed and Hunt are types of Actions and also (confusingly) values that can be modified. As Ankha brings up, Stealth is the other big thing during an action that can be modified. so this format describes the type of action being taken, with any additional modifiers. To me this is really more of an argument that the value these actions look at for their effects could possibly have their names changed to prevent confusion.

self wrote:

To me this is really more of an argument that the value these actions look at for their effects could possibly have their names changed to prevent confusion.

Confusion which is instantly re-introduced when you remember that old cards aren't being removed from the face of the earth. Every single time people suggest changing terminology to be less confusing, you have to factor in that you've just made it a ton more confusing for anyone learning the game - they need to learn old terminology, and new terminology.

This isn't Hearthstone. Changing terminology doesn't instantly rewrite every card in existence.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

self wrote:

To me this is really more of an argument that the value these actions look at for their effects could possibly have their names changed to prevent confusion.

Confusion which is instantly re-introduced when you remember that old cards aren't being removed from the face of the earth. Every single time people suggest changing terminology to be less confusing, you have to factor in that you've just made it a ton more confusing for anyone learning the game - they need to learn old terminology, and new terminology.

This isn't Hearthstone. Changing terminology doesn't instantly rewrite every card in existence.

I agree with the idea that one really needs to take into account the history of terminology in VTES when eliminating redundancy, saving space, and reducing complexity. If decades' worth of cards refer to both bleed actions and bleed amounts, then the best thing to do is simply ensure the rulebook makes it clear there are different meanings of the word "bleed" so that it's understood that this word has two meanings.

That said, there are much, much better ways to clarify things than updating the rulebook, such as making new terminology to replace the "redundant" terminology. But this would require starting the game from scratch and eliminating those decades' worth of cards with the redundant terminology. Unless this happens, bleed is just going to have to have two meanings and hunt is going to have to have two meanings.

"Hunt" recently being clarified to have a second meaning (+hunt) for consistency with +bleed is a good thing, because it made the usage of "hunt" consistent with usage of "bleed" in VTES in a minimally painless way. Consistency is the best we can aim for with the current game.

yet we still see questions about how a Bleed action can be successful, yet the bleed be unsuccessful, which is also confusing. Cards have been retconned throughout the history of the game: Immortal Grapple was given the Grapple keyword. Most recently Wake was added to several cards to describe that effect.

it's really a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation: leave confusing things in the game, or clarify them going forward but have things be confusing when compared to previous printings of the cards. This tells me that availability of cards is super important. And with the overwhelming bulk of the cardset difficult to obtain for new players as it currently is, I agree that it'd probably be unwise to replace the terminology. If we had a steady supply of reprints and new cards available to allow new players to buy the new cards, that might possibly make the situation different enough to merit it.

When I was getting into V:tes with a new group of friends back in 2002, we all bought the newer cards, despite knowing that we could buy jyhad collections for cheap. We bought the new cards because we knew they had updated card text and didn't want to confuse ourselves with the old cards. Anecdotes aren't data, though, so other people's mileage may vary.

@LivesByProxy

Restricted. (A minion can only have one of [cardname] or [cardtype].

There are 62 cards that use the phrase "A minion can..." or "A minion may..." in their text. A fair portion of them are effectively "A minion may/can have only one this card attached" conditions. But some of them have other restrictions like Havens or Vehicles, or a restriction as to how many per turn/combat/round of combat the card can be played. It's also interesting to note that most combat cards that attach themselves to a minion, are put on the opposing minion rather than the one playing the card.

so the problem with adding a 'restricted' keyword would be figuring out where to use it such that it would be most effective. if we only look at cards that attach themselves to minions AND are 1 per minion specific to that card (as opposed to Havens and Vehicles), we're left with approximately 28 cards. I'm not sure that would be enough to justify adding that kind of terminology.