Another (NEW) suggestion to handle constest

I opened a new topic, although I have seen that there is a similar one, I do not want this suggestion to be lost in the mass of comments.

Even if I am extremely against changing the core rule, because I think that the current rule is mostly in line with VTM, I understand that someone thinks that it is not good and should be reconsidered.

After a lot of thinking, the thing I could agree to, although not thematic (but not painful either), but because it won't change the existing game and strategy much, and at the same time provide that everyone plays the game, is the following:

At any time during the influence phase, if a vampire (or imbued) has at least as many blood counters as his capacity, the player can move that vampire face up to the ready region. If this will lead to a contest with another player(s), the player can decide to:

1. contests the vampire (normally, as it has so far according to the normal old rule, see 4.1. Contested Cards).
2. remove the vampire from the game, draw a new card from the crypt, and redistribute the blood of removed vampire capacity to his (one or more) uncontrolled minions (including the new one). However, the player can't redistribute the blood back to his pool. Undistributed blood goes to the blood bank.

Why a rule like this?

1. It won't break and bugging the game;
2. No new cards clarification is needed (Hardestadt, etc.);
3. Vampires remain unique, so there is no need to write special rules for them;
4. Contest can still be a strategy in the game;
5. It will allow players who have already invested too much blood to be able to reconstruct their game without wasting time.
6. Players will not be able to "cheat" with Govern or returning of blood to pool.
7. Star decks will still be risky to play. Especially those based entirely on single vampire (example Turbo).
8. Tabletalk is still possible and has not lost its meaning. Although it will be different, because the players now have more choices.
9. It is not necessary to test this rule (a lot), because it does not change the existing strategies, nor will it drastically change the choice of decks or the deckbuilding.
10. However, it will reduce the impact of the random factor that people complain about. And I see this "random factor problem" as the only serious thing about this whole mess.

Some interesting questions appeared on Facebook. It makes sense to me that they should be shown here as well.

-Why don’t you get some people together and test it al la igor style?
-First of all, I think that the test on Lackey is not good (I'll talk about that later). Secondly, I don't have time for real testing. More than random games are needed here, and my playgroup and I meet and play once a week, our free time is limited by work and family responsibilities, so we don't want to spend time on the testing. We want to have fun and relax.
I can say that my playgroup and I have been testing this for 15+ years. If the game hasn't progressed too much, if all the players agree, to make it more interesting we practiced an almost identical thing. We only contested when someone wanted to, or when other players did not allow this house rule to be applied. I believe that many playgroups practice the same. Also, I must say that contesting in our playgroup is rare.

-Forgive me if I misunderstand, but doesn't this give a strategic advantage to the player influencing the 2nd copy? He gets to make all the decisions and can reap the benefit. But the player with the initial copy remains completely subject to factors outside his control.
-Yes, it’s part of the strategy, as it has been so far, but now the 2nd player has a choice if he has gone too far with influence. The contest usually happened for this reason.

-Can you actually gain an advantage here eg ditch the crappy Zebulon you didn’t want to draw Gilbert Dwayne?
-Of course you can, but you certainly won't make a deck around it, so you won't plan things like this, but you'll take advantage of the situation if possible. Things like this also happened with the last change of the influence (over capacity) rules.

-Doing this sequentially could strip multiple copies of the contestable vampire, so could be paying zero to see 4.
-Yes, it can. A lot of star decks have more copies of the main vampire in the crypt, so it is possible that the next one in the crypt will be the same. With this rule, I want to avoid re-imposing the contest. This is the reason why there is no cost.

-I would add a 1-2 pool cost for using the option of redistributing the blood to other vampires in the crypt, and I wouldn't have the player draw another crypt card to replace it.
-Putting a pool cost can lead to a situation that already exists - a forced contest. I want to avoid re-imposing the contest, and if the vampire that opens is the last in the uncontrolled region, the drawn crypt card can be used to put the blood on it (not to lose it).

-Ok but you can still govern superior from a 7-cap in play to the younger vamp (let’s say it’s a 5-cap) and then move that 5 blood to a 10-cap in your uncontrolled, which you shouldn’t be able to do since Govern Blood is meant to only go on a younger vamp in uncontrolled.
-Good catch. The reason why I did look to avoid "to the same age or younger" is that some star decks have a younger vampire as a star, and the rest in the crypt are older. Contesting is already rare, and situations like this with Govern will happen even less often. I don’t think it’s a big problem, but it can be worked on. Some rewording is maybe needed, but that's why we're here.

-What about "Tomb of Rameses III"?

-I do not see a problem, the card has so far served to accelerate setup, and you can only benefit if you influence a big vampire. But maybe I missed something?

-What about testing on Lackey?
-I saw for myself that playing on Lackey is not the same as playing face to face. Communication is difficult, often only textual. Talking is reduced to a minimum, and there is no visual communication. I'm not talking about "visual cheating". But sometimes you can read on the player's face what he feels and what he would like to hear. This is very important when it comes to delicate situations like contesting. After a few games, without understanding why, I chose decks that require less communication and less interaction with other players.

I like that idea much better that the one that's now tested.
Although I would add a rule that you can only make such choice (A: keep the vampire to contest him or B remove it from play, draw a new crypt card...) if the vampire you're about to contest was moved into ready region (by transferring blood to uncontrolled region) since your last turn. That would end the problem with transferring on purpose to a vampire that is already in play just to make some extra transfer and take new card from crypt (Banishment, I know...).

I like the rule a lot, as it's an improvement over the current rules and more palatable than the proposed rule of playing with contested vamps.

What I would wish for it is to give both Methuselahs involved in a contest the same option rather than just letting the second transferring player make the sole decision that can result in a game-long contest.

That is, let any Methuslah yielding a contested vamp draw from the crypt and redistribute all blood counters from the contested vampire to their uncontrolled region. To preserve the nice timing of your rule as proposed, you could allow an additional option to yield as soon as you influence out the vamp, in which case the contest never occurs.

Just a suggestion, but in any case, I find the rule to be very much preferable to business as usual for vampire contests.

"-I would add a 1-2 pool cost for using the option of redistributing the blood to other vampires in the crypt, and I wouldn't have the player draw another crypt card to replace it.
-Putting a pool cost can lead to a situation that already exists - a forced contest. I want to avoid re-imposing the contest, and if the vampire that opens is the last in the uncontrolled region, the drawn crypt card can be used to put the blood on it (not to lose it)."

I'll reiterate this point I raised on the Facebook thread. There should be a pool cost. The ability to redistribute blood to other vampires, after other players have already revealed their decisions in the vampires that they influenced, IS VERY STRONG. With no pool cost, and with a replacement card drawn from the crypt, there is purely an advantageous situation and basically no disadvantages, and so the player will be expected to choose this option almost 100% of the time.

With a pool cost, both options can be made more balanced, and so the player may find it more beneficial in some situations to decide to contest as normal. This creates greater strategic depth in the game, rather than simplifying it.

Remember, the goal is not to give players a freebie to make sure that they NEVER contest vampires. The goal is to provide a reasonable alternative that doesn't affect other (non-contesting) players' experience as much as the usual contestation process, but it doesn't mean that the two (potentially) contesting players shouldn't be affected at all.

Way better than the BCP one being playtested right now!