A Layout Change

Non-existant user wrote:

Who said anything about removing the sect from the text?

vekn.net/forum/30-expansion-sets-a-card-ideas/50894-a-layout-change#50898

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

I'd be thinking maybe we'd do away with the "bold text" on vampires and make it symbolic.

Mael wrote:

But it's much easier to read a word than it is to remember what each icon stands for, and there's already too many icons and symbols in the game.

But it is also easier to match to icons together: Look this library card has and this vamp also has — she can use the card. It's also part of the reason the cards have artwork (so they're easily identified). If more icons were to be added, you would still keep the text.

Is the problem the shear number of potential icons?

+ Bleed
+ Stealth
+ Intercept
+ Strength
+ Votes

Anarch
Advanced
Aggravated
Black Hand
Flight *
Sterile
Scarce
Infernal
Seraph
Red List

Archbishop
Bishop
Cardinal
Inner Circle
Justicar
Magaji
Primogen
Prince
Priscus
Regent

Ally
Imbued
Independent
Camarilla
Sabbat
Laibon

And that would add to:

30 Discipline Symbols (60 if Inf + sup)
7 Virtues
7 Creeds
39? clans

Tariq advanced may be the noisiest vamp with 4 icons:

Sabbat, Red List, Black Hand, Independent

But inner circles would have 3:

Sect, Title, +bleed

All in all a lot of noise, but it doesn't look too bad:

I really like this idea, but i'd be surprised to see it get much traction as there's a number of hurdles to jump. i remember all of the criticism my idea to just move all the keywords to the bold text part of the card.

the biggest one in my mind is deciding which keywords (or concepts) deserve to have a symbol? I know slippery slope arguments are dumb, but where do you draw the line? also, introducing symbols instead of actual words means more back-end legwork designing a symbol for a new concept, and you have to tell your playerbase what this new symbol means and possibly errata old cards. if we examine how common some of these keywords are, we'd get a good idea at just how useful they'd be.

I'd advocate for moving to icon based Sect. I'd also advocate for truncating how Justicar and Inner Circle are printed on the cards. We know that they're unique clan titles and will contest because of the rulebook. the others? eh, not so much. I don't think much real estate will be salvaged by moving the other keywords to icons because most of them are uncommon at best.

Ke. wrote:

Tariq advanced may be the noisiest vamp with 4 icons:

Sabbat, Red List, Black Hand, Independent

All in all a lot of noise, but it doesn't look too bad:

Advanced Tariq is Sabbat, Black Hand, and Red list. Merged Tariq is only independent. to me, this illustrates why making all the keywords icons can lead to messy situations.

Ke. wrote:

But inner circles would have 3:

Sect, Title, +bleed

with the +bleed, how would you handle +3 bleed? or -1 bleed?

self wrote:

with the +bleed, how would you handle +3 bleed? or -1 bleed?

Card text. The + Bleed icon would only indicate that the vampire bleeds for more than one.

As I said, if such icons were to be introduced then they would supplement the card text — not necessarily replace it.

self wrote:

Advanced Tariq is Sabbat, Black Hand, and Red list. Merged Tariq is only independent. to me, this illustrates why making all the keywords icons can lead to messy situations.

Actually, merged Tariq is Independent, Black Hand Red List.

But your point stands.