Ellison Humboldt and Matteus, flesh sculptor

I am interested in the rule for 2 cards on this topic. I think I know the answer but I'm not 100% sure.

Name: CrimethInc.

Cardtype: Action Modifier
Discipline: Protean/Quietus/Thaumaturgy
Requires an anarch. Play after resolving a successful action that requires an anarch or makes this vampire an anarch.
[pro] Unlock this anarch.
[qui] Unlock another ready anarch.
[tha] Put this card in play. During your minion phase, you may burn a pool to unlock a ready anarch you control.

Discipline [tha] "During your minion phase, you may burn a pool" If I understand the effect well, it can be applied once,right?


Name: Kateline Nadasdy

Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Toreador
Group: 4
Capacity: 7
Discipline: AUS CEL PRE
Camarilla: During a political action, Kateline may burn 1 blood to force a non-acting vampire to abstain.

I think she work same as Maris,she can burn more blood to force more vampires to abstain,right?

beslin wrote:

I am interested in the rule for 2 cards on this topic. I think I know the answer but I'm not 100% sure.

Name: CrimethInc.

Cardtype: Action Modifier
Discipline: Protean/Quietus/Thaumaturgy
Requires an anarch. Play after resolving a successful action that requires an anarch or makes this vampire an anarch.
[pro] Unlock this anarch.
[qui] Unlock another ready anarch.
[tha] Put this card in play. During your minion phase, you may burn a pool to unlock a ready anarch you control.

Discipline [tha] "During your minion phase, you may burn a pool" If I understand the effect well, it can be applied once,right?


Name: Kateline Nadasdy

Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Toreador
Group: 4
Capacity: 7
Discipline: AUS CEL PRE
Camarilla: During a political action, Kateline may burn 1 blood to force a non-acting vampire to abstain.

I think she work same as Maris,she can burn more blood to force more vampires to abstain,right?

Both are once per. The key word is DURING. Any time you see DURING, it means once per turn/phase/combat/action.

self wrote:

im at work and don't have time to scour the rulebook, but could a template be established to something like[/i] "once per untap phase" with the notation that these cards refer to your phases, and will specify other Methuselah's phases if applicable?

Replacing one templated but potentially misread wording for cards and replacing it with an entirely different templated but potentially misread wording seems... unproductive.

If you can find the bit of the rulebook that says "During X, do Y" and understand it, you can find the bit of the rulebook that says "once per untap phase" doesn't actually mean "once per untap phase". For people who don't find either, changing the wording would be pointless.

Ankha wrote:

I don't know if "once per" would be applicable or not, and if the result would be clearer.

I can say however that "During your untap phase" is extremely ambiguous in more ways than one.

Firstly, there are an infinite amount of moments that happen during an untap phase. Ordering of events that happen during a phase is sometimes important, and when a trigger happens automatically, questions often rise about the ordering in which automatic triggers happen in relation to activated abilities made by player.

In comparison, Magic the gathering uses wording "at the beginning of phase X, this happens". With this wording, the timing of automatic triggers is not uncertain. First these things happen, then players can do things. If multiple automatic triggers happen, the player who controls them chooses the order. While VTES ruling for these is similar, this is not immediately obvious from the wording, which is my main criticism.

Secondly, The current ruling that you can only use an ability of the form "During phase X, you may do this" only once per phase/turn is in my opinion extremely unintuitive, and does not logically follow from the wording. I don't think a single person would realize this without having in-depth knowledge of the rulebook. You are basically forced to know the rule in the rulebook. This is not good design. Logical way would be have unlimited uses unless its specifically denied.

Design which invites misinterpretations is poor design.

I don't think a single person would realize this without having in-depth knowledge of the rulebook. You are basically forced to know the rule in the rulebook. This is not good design. Logical way would be have unlimited uses unless its specifically denied.

We've had terms like 'elegance' floating around recently, and while I have my opinions about the discussion around them, I have to agree with this one.

Elegance of rules writing and applying enough information to a rules text interpreted by people, players, on the go, is not computer language or coding. Rules should work as such, yes, but the principles of user centered design are important.

For example, we still regularly get to discuss how 'canceling' card effects work in this game.

It's in the rulebook, but it wouldn't be that much more difficult to write it as "burned as played" to the cards. Maybe add (with no effect) if needed. It's basically what happens, isn't it? The card is often considered played. Cancelling as a word implies something else.

A similar example from Netrunner:

Whenever you expose a card or access cards and do not steal or trash any of them, place 1 virus counter on Aumakua.

For those who don't know the game, Archives is a place where you can access cards whenever. There might or might not be cards in there. Technically there is a phase in the game during a run, where you access cards. That, as it turned out, does not check if there are cards to access. We played the card for the first weeks so that you could counter the card by avoiding placing cards for access in the archives. The ruling is, that you always get the counters, because you go through the phase of accessing.

They could've written a few more words to the card to make it so much more simpler and easier to play without having to dive into the rulebook. User centered design.

Of course there's a lot less room for text in VtES crypt cards. And we don't want to clutter the cards with text. But yeah. It's not a completely valid response, that "it's in the rulebook, there is no problem!"

Even if it's not a problem per se doesn't mean it couldn't be made easier for the user.

Sadly I don't have a better suggestion to this particular wording.