Poll: Merge Antitribbu into base Clans?

VTES shouldn't even have anything to do with V5 until it has been out a few years. Jyhad didn't come around until V2 was starting. There is really no idea how well VtM V5 will do... they have already shown that they can't get their s**t together after the Chechnya screw up.

Talking these points is inevitable as post show & good to do, but changing VTES as much as talk is talking is not going to screw up the game. My opinion of course, but I am sure others feel the same as well. Those not reading the forums need say as well.

But getting rid of Sabbat because they aren't really in V5 is just outlandish in prospect. They still exist and unsure what may come eventually with the Sabbat if V5 survives. The books aren't out yet (for most part) so hold off on getting rid of a sect or combining cards. One or two voices on the forum does not speak for the many. mine, or the anti-sabbat crowd.

Played the game since '94, because of VtM. Played ever since with friends in home settings. Never did tourney play until last year, and I'm very quiet on forums, but this Poll touched a big nerve.

Rowdy

@Rowdy: I don't think anyone is suggesting we get rid of the Sabbat. ReverendRevolver was musing that such a hard reboot might get some new players, maybe, by simplifying things, but would not appeal to the existing fan-base at all.

And the poll is whether or not antitribu clans could just be folded into their clan. They would still retain the Sect status, but would no longer count as a separate clan for the purposes of card effects. For example, Patronage, rather than saying a Toreador Antitribu would say Sabbat Toreador instead.

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For my part, even though I would like to see some sort of spiritual successor or soft reboot to VTES (really I just want a card game about vampires) I don't think VTES should jump on the V5 ship. By all means, use some of the V5 material for inspiration, but tying this game so closely to the RPG is what made it so very niche in the first place. My expectation is that VTES will outlive VTM, just as it did before. And the great thing about VTES is that it offers so many storyline possibilities to play out:

• What if the Setites joined the Camarilla?
  
• What if the Brujah diablerized all the Tremere they could find and got Thaumaturgy?
  
• What if the Gangrel started mixing it up with Werewolves to get super Abominations?
  
• What if the Masquerade was truly broken but the kine, rather than exterminate the vampires, wanted to capture them to get their powers?

All of these different storylines or fantasies could be supported by printing cards that enabled them. That's what Black Chantry should do, IMO. You don't need official WW publications and books of WoD lore to think of interesting scenarios or directions the setting could take.

And wasn't it the case that WW said "these are the Final Nights, Gehenna is upon us" back in 2004 or whenever, only to offer a bunch of possibilities for how Gehenna plays out, only to say "this is canon, this is how it the worlds ends", only for VTES to ignore all that, only for WW - now resurrected - to say "No, it actually didn't happen like we said it did."

As we can see, some time pass and there are only 30 people who really care about this question.

Maybe it's not so important one?

ReverendRevolver wrote:

But that's not capitalizing on one ofthe attributes that defines Vtes: we dont rotate.
You say "reboot" "soft reset" and "spiritual successor" and I keep being confused; it's either a new game or we are forcing the whole card pool into nonexistence, except a new reedited group of them.
I would call that: releasing a new core set by canceling a game.

Yeah that's what I would call it too. There are some fundamental problems with the cards that have been created to the point where I would advocate for the removal of vast amounts of cards.

So what is good about the game? The core functions of the rules are really great: predator prey relationships, life as a resource, card replacing and the flow of your play-hand, politics (to a degree), the way the game captures the theme of Vampire so thoroughly. Hell, even combat is really cool even tho it needs some work.

That's the stuff worth keeping and makes up the core of the game. That's what draws people to it. Not their worn out copies of Govern from '94, or the KRC they've played 1000+ times in 24 years. People are reluctant to move on because there isn't a better option and they suffer from the sunken cost fallacy. If you create a reboot and make it in the LCG format that people are already buying into I suspect you can get a majority of player rollover and make an updated product that coincides with V5 so it has built in marketing. Plus it will appear to be new.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

I think the Intent is good, less clutter and easier new player acquisition. But new products and possibly a "compatibility patch" if you will, accomplish this and retain the card pool and player base.
If we ban imbued, we dont lose most of the playerbase and the game doesn't change.
If we remove Sabbat, Events, and Trifles, redesign all of combat and politics and stuff everything into 14 clans with no bloodlines then the players who aren't that attached to vtes get a new game, but most of the playerbase just sits and ignores everything made after 2018.

Here are a list of things I would remove or change without getting as granular as individual cards I would remove (that list is super long).

Multiple Master Phase Actions
Events (I don't hate the idea, but probably should just be master cards)
Easy/non-standardized Pool Gain
Easy/non-standardized blood gain
Amaranth/blood hunts/diablary
Multiple actions (2 should be most, maybe some cases 3 actions)
Contesting rules
Lack of standard card templating
Balancing large capacity vampires (Erlik is what a 10 cap should look like)
Clan Balance
Look at new method for political actions (currently it's either highly contested and interesting as part of the game or one player just passes votes that might as well be bleeds)
Combat speed and phases

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Anyway, what I want is the "kill it and rebuild " group to throw up thier take on what the proposed merger would/could do in fixing the problems they perceive with the game. I see a good game and want more out of it. James, who's right depressingly frequently, sees an idea that creates more problems than it could ever solve. What, on the topic at hand, could happen in they eyes of players actively opposed to just continuing and not canceling and restarting?

Quite simply, we need someone to make cards that make sense. We have a lot of LSJ worshipers, but he made a lot of really bad cards and a lot of cards that are poorly templated and inconsistent, as well as made bad inconsistent rulings about the game based on what was on his mind and not what is in the rule book or printed on the card.

A new base set would create a power floor and ceiling, would allow for a revisit of the basic rules, it would allow for a standard templating of cards, it would allow for the implementation of the new V5 universe without a shoehorn, it would draw in new and old players alike. These are the tip of the iceberg so to speak.

DJHedgehog wrote:

...quite reasonable stuff...

The problem of all such discussions is that here, obviously, we got community (actually just like dozen of people now) who are seriously dedicated to the preservation of the game - all others left long time ago. BC also consists of such people, so idea to reboot VtES, even if it got some merit in general, will not be very workable here.

I was trying to advocate compromise idea of gradually introducing small changes to slowly move the game to more generally playable state without losing continuity, but after several years of trying I'm losing all hope - the position of the general community is always "the game is fine", the extremely minor changes which are implemented are designed somewhere in the dark and just dropped in RTR announcement and usually met with outrage.

By now we got more tournaments from 11 month of 2018 than whole 2017, so it looks like there is some growth when the game is in print. If it's fine for BC and IP owners, than whenever. Maybe when my kids grow old the game will finally stop being overbloated disorganized mess. I see no way to speed this process.

DJHedgehog wrote:

Quite simply, we need someone to make cards that make sense. We have a lot of LSJ worshipers, but he made a lot of really bad cards and a lot of cards that are poorly templated and inconsistent, as well as made bad inconsistent rulings about the game based on what was on his mind and not what is in the rule book or printed on the card.

All of what you state above is what happens when someone with a scientific/mathematical mind acts as a game designer without any help. You also get rules like "impulse," wherein if the game was played to the letter of that mechanic, it would be such a bad idea that it is not really codified anywhere in the rules. "Start Combat. I don't have a card, you don't have a card. [Repeat 30 times]. Hands for 1, hands for 1. End combat."

VTES functions too much like a computer program, right down to the lead designer acting as the creator of the program and being the only person who really knows how it all should function, while everyone else looks on and goes "uh, what is this person thinking?" I read the rulebook, detailed play summary, card text, and rulings and think to myself, "whoever wrote this probably had a brilliant scientific mind, but they really, really needed an editor to clarify and communicate their ideas better."

Anyway, I agree that how rules and rulings were historically vetted in VTES definitely should change.