Crocodile Temple vs oust

kschaefer wrote:

The referendum of a political action is part of the action just was the bleed is part of an action. The action must be successful for the bleed amount to be applied or the referendum to proceed. At that point the bleed or the referendum has its own effects determined by the action and its own success and failure conditions. They are exactly parallel.

This is not a full accounting, but enough to illustrate my point:

Lock to begin an action.
Blocked -> action fails.
Not blocked -> action succeeds. (For example, you will now be eligible to play FD at inferior after resolving the effect.)
Evaluate the effects of the action:
--For bleeds, that is the bleed amount plus any other effect, such as locking vampires, gaining pool, gaining blood, etc.
--For PAs, that is the declaration of terms, followed by voting.
Determine the success of the effect:
--For bleeds, it is successful if the bleed amount > 0.
--For PAs, it is successful if yeas > nays.
Action ends.

I'm not disputing anything you wrote in your post. I'm saying that the concept of a successful bleed being different than a successful bleed action may be difficult for one to understand because the rulebook does a bad job explaining these concepts. The rulebook (or detailed play summary) should explain things as clearly as you do here.

So I think it's fair to say we agree that:
- we understand how the rules work
- we think there are pieces of that can be confusing and should be reworded or eliminated altogether

Now to a possible solution - bleeds for 0 and political actions with failing referendums (and hunt actions with 0 blood gained?) will be considered failed actions.
For these actions to be successful extra "conditions" must be met, because they have extra "steps".
That way, the whole thing is put into the big resolution of the action.
I know there will be consequences, but are they that damaging to the game, mechanically?

Please discuss.

Brum wrote:

Now to a possible solution - bleeds for 0 and political actions with failing referendums (and hunt actions with 0 blood gained?) will be considered failed actions.

Why is adding extra conditions _less_ confusing? Action reaches resolution unblocked = successful action, on every action type. As has been demonstrated by the Caitiff change (and numerous rules changes before that, say Archbishop/Prince contestation being odd before)), fewer special cases has been seen as the right way forward.

What if I want the referendum to fail? Mike Ooi (I'm 99% sure, it has his fingerprints) put together a hilarious bloodgain module involving Traditionalist (a Trifle) some years back. Call a referendum to burn your own location - or any other trivial referendum - and an action with a 2 cap gives a blood to everyone voting it down.

Should we determine if a combat is successful, such as if the opponent ends combat or escapes unharmed? Why not? If we're going to put things into the big resolution of the action, you don't get a much bigger resolution than combat!

If I'm immune to an action you take against me, is that action successful? For example, when Deep Song is successful, the target may be found to be immune to Frenzy cards, and yes you can play Deep Song to start with. [LSJ 20091004]

If one target of an action is immune, but others are not, is that action successful if it reaches resolution? (For example, not realising that I am immune to Frenzy cards but selecting me when playing Bloodlust - perfectly legal, as per the Deep Song ruling.)

Actions that fizzle are currently successful, such as finding a lack of a suitable target. Why are they successful? Because they reached resolution unblocked. Are they now unsuccessful?

Brum wrote:

That way, the whole thing is put into the big resolution of the action.
I know there will be consequences, but are they that damaging to the game, mechanically?

Adding random additional complexity to arbitrary actions for no actual gain is bad for the game, yes.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

I'm not disputing anything you wrote in your post. I'm saying that the concept of a successful bleed being different than a successful bleed action may be difficult for one to understand because the rulebook does a bad job explaining these concepts.

Brum wrote:

So I think it's fair to say we agree that:
- we understand how the rules work
- we think there are pieces of that can be confusing and should be reworded or eliminated altogether.

conceptually, things work really well regarding actions being successful based on whether or not they're blocked, as Jamesatzephyr so thoroughly points out. It's also easier to separate a referendum from the political action because different words are used to describe the two things. call the action "drain" or "siphon" or "exsanguinate" it doesn't really matter, just use different words to do it. Seriously, how did that get past QA all these years?

Non-existant user wrote:

Let's have two things happen at the same time, but be slightly different, but call them the same thing.

the concept is fine. All that needs to happen is that one word needs to change. For my part, I think the action should stay Bleed and call the "modifier" drain. Then this whole silliness goes away.

Brum wrote:

So I think it's fair to say we agree that:
- we understand how the rules work
- we think there are pieces of that can be confusing and should be reworded or eliminated altogether

I don't necessarily agree with that second part. I do think the ruleboook should be reworded for clarity, but not reworded to change any game mechanics.

Now to a possible solution - bleeds for 0 and political actions with failing referendums (and hunt actions with 0 blood gained?) will be considered failed actions.
For these actions to be successful extra "conditions" must be met, because they have extra "steps".
That way, the whole thing is put into the big resolution of the action.
I know there will be consequences, but are they that damaging to the game, mechanically?

Please discuss.

I think your proposed change is the equivalent of razing a house because it has a burned out light bulb inside.

I'm convinced the language used in the game is the reason why it is difficult for some people to distinguish a successful bleed from a successful action. There are action cards that say " Bleed." There are no action cards that say "Hunt" or "Referendum" without any extra clarification. For those latter two, we have cards that say "Hunt action" and "Political action," respectively. So, it's easy for one to understand that a vampire "hunts" during a "hunt action" and that a "referendum" happens during "political action." For bleeding, we only have one word used for both: " Bleed." During " Bleed" you "bleed" your opponent. There are actually two different concepts going on here: the former referring to the entire action (or "bleed action" if you will) and the latter referring only to the removal of the target's pool counters. Thus, the language used for bleeds is not as clear as the language used for hunts and referendums. This is the problem.

For me the fix is simple: clarify the two "bleed" concepts in the rulebook more clearly, and include "Bleed action" on cards that currently say " Bleed."

self wrote:

the concept is fine. All that needs to happen is that one word needs to change. For my part, I think the action should stay Bleed and call the "modifier" drain. Then this whole silliness goes away.

The one thing V:TES really, really doesn't need is even more vocabulary for players to learn. Plus, there are tens of thousands of cards out there saying "bleed" on them. So players have to learn both sets of vocabulary, and nothing is simplified. Is this card talking about a successful bleed or a successful drain or a successful action? This is not at all helpful, to anyone.