New Blog - Gaming with BS

I dig the reviews, few add ons:
Carfax Abby is the second best hunting ground in the game for a deck with several mid cap vamps, first being Papilion, which can be used with Abby if you run Barons. Both means 3 vamps get blood. Since the Owain anarch decks are probably going to regain popularity (you used to see them once or twice a year awhile ago) blood gain for anarch decks will be easy to come by. Seems solid.
Hackerspace theme feels like "we are siphoning funds and resources via Internet" and the one guy is soldering something. Its been awhile since IT stuff needed soldering or special components made via making it (commodore 64 game cloning setups to get around copyrighted stuff comes to mind from the 80s) but it fits anarch ideals. And is non unique, as mentioned.

Protection racket makes sense to me. Anarch theme is keeping cam off the backs of the masses. Stopping princes, primogen, etc from doing things makes more sense. And since anarch has the punk rock high school kid ideal of "f#$%k the establishment" anything they see related to the oppressors machinations needs stopped, the more proof the more it needs stopped.

I strongly agree with your view on theme and art. Old vtes had a very mid 90s alt/punk/metal feel. Fit well. Society has migrated from this, so anarch are where the vibe fits best, along with brujah and some antitribbu. Also daughters, but you get the idea. I like there being a reason for it being a "thing" again.

Sorry that this article is late - I spent the weekend at a local gaming convention demoing the game, and passing out business cards to the many people who dropped by to reminisce about the good old days of Jyhad. Don't know yet if anything will come of it, but maybe one or two new embraces will stick around. In the meantime, enjoy my latest article about the Nosferatu Antitribu!

Clans at the Bottom: Nosferatu Antitribu

I've finally finished my initial demo deck series! Come and check out my demo deck for Clan Tremere.

Demo Deck Series - Clan Tremere

How about adding to the list on vtesone.wordpress.com and the blog roll on extrala.blogspot.com?

It would also be nice if VEKN had it's own list of VTES blogs and other sites that didn't just include a bunch of dead links. I mean the link page hasn't existed since the site broke, but before that I did a clean sweep of each and every link for my beginner section - almost all of them either no longer exist, or they haven't been updated in years. The former should be booted, the later should be moved to an "Inactive site" category (in my humble opinion).

I really like your blog (and the one from Ralph). The Nosf Anti post has inspired me. I see potential in the DM Enticement card.

Me too. Just built a 90 card deck with 6 of them. I'm looking froward to testing it! Keep up the good work Brett!

The recent VEKN poll inspired me to write up a short perspective on the future of the game that people might find interesting. I hope you enjoy, and please comment - what do you think about the future? Is a simple reprint (currently the favored option in the poll) really the best for the long term viability and health of our game, or should we be pressing for something more?

Discussing the Furture of VTES

Last one is good, but I think - wrong.

No offense

I'll explain:

Obviously reboot of the game with simplified rules, reduced card pool and two player focus will be much more accesible. But I don't really think that this accesibility will transform into grouth of playerbase.

Why?

Becouse market by now are overcrouded with accesible two-player CCG and any effort to compete with them is totally pointless even if the game really will be much better. And VtES, really, got nothing interesting to provide in two player format.

Deep cardpool, multiplayer dynamics and long history with all sort of oddities are the main props of our game. If we lose them then there'll be nothing left to invite new players too.

More clear rules and, maybe, some 3-players variant will be usefull, obviously cards must be made available again.

I'm not sure your assessment mirrors the successes of Fantasy Flights LCGs. I'm not saying that any card game will be that successful, but they keep bringing out new games, and they all sell well. They might not stick around forever (see warhammer invasion), but they do extremely well despite the saturation of the market. FFG even just bought L5R, so they expect to be making even more LCGs. Rumor had it that they were interested in a multiplayer WoD LCG with some very familiar mechanics, which I think could have been very interesting.