More political actions like Dramatic Upheaval?

LivesByProxy wrote:

jamesatzephyr wrote:

You're creating political cards and then only talking about bleed actions. Either you're being completely and utterly disingenuous, or you understand literally nothing about V:TES. Why would a political deck be in any way hampered by the directability of bleed actions, when a political deck can play political actions that work cross-table? Does the fact that bleeds target my prey stop my Legacy of Pander vote deck hitting its predator with KRC and taking the VP for the oust? Does the fact that bleeds target my prey stop my Prince deck throwing Parity Shift and ConAg at my predator and taking the VP for the oust?

No, nothing stops that.

So my predator gets his actual predator trying to take him out, and his fake predator (me) doing that too.

It would seem that the problem you have against those cards (my hypothetical card ideas, which no one ever said were perfect) is a function of KRC et al. The ability to burn pool via political cards is, IMO, pretty lame and not what political cards should be about.

But... I don't have a problem with those cards. Why? Because Dramatic Upheaval and your cards don't exist in the game. KRC works just fine as it is, and doesn't cause problems. Your card would cause problems - which we know, because the rest of us are paying attention to the fact that sniping VPs caused massive problems in the past. which you are handwaving away because you literally don't understand V:TES - so... let's not introduce your card, eh?

Additionally, if you don't think that political actions should be about what they've been about for the last 24 years - KRC, ConAg, Parity Shift are all in the base Jyhad set - you are playing the wrong game. This is like sitting down with a deck of Magic and saying that those silly colours and land cards shouldn't be what the game is about. Do you sit down with a chess board and rewrite who knights move, because jumping over pieces is pretty lame and not what chess should be about? You are playing the wrong game. V:TES is not the game you want it to be. Votes can cause damage. That's how the game works. You are playing the wrong game.

LivesByProxy wrote:

Maybe I am crazy, but when I think of what a political deck should be, I think of passing 'laws' that slowly strangle and cripple your prey & predator's ability to function, trapping them in so much red-tape.

What you describe doesn't sound at all fun. In the end, this is still a game and people are supposed to enjoy playing it.

(ps. I admit I was wrong suggesting the card "at the gates" some time ago... It shouldn't be printed. Its a bad idea for the same reasons. )

James, I plainly stated the point of those cards was not sniping VP, but being defensive options: 'I need to switch places with someone to avoid being ousted.' (Dramatic Upheaval), 'I need to get my predator off my back' (The Tides Turn), 'I need to stop that one player from taking out his prey who only has 2 pool left' (What Tangled Webs...). Granted, these ideas aren't perfect. The desired result is not the one we would get (as you and the others state, they'd lead to sniping VP, and the meta being warped around OP political decks, and I agree that is bad.) I never said sniping VP was a good thing or desirable thing. I never said my designs were perfect.

My issue isn't even with KRC or Parity Shift and 'pool burn' political actions. My issue is 2-fold: that when people say 'Political deck' or 'Political win-con' they really mean 'my KRC deck' and that the game has too many weak pool burn political cards that are rightly called 'wall-paper'. I think that we need more interesting, unique, cool political effects. Apparently Dramatic Upheaval is not the kind of effect we need, fine. The ideas I proposed would have consequences I didn't foresee, and would therefore need serious changes or not to be printed, that's fine too. Maybe I don't understand VTES as well as I would like, I admit I haven't been playing the game for 20+ years, nor do I have any tournament experience. I still think cool political cards that are not wall-paper, are not 'give-vamp-a-title', and are not 'like-KRC-but-worse' would be desirable and good for the game.

Also, about Magic and what Magic was and should be: the game was initially about casting spells that did stuff. Even though Creatures were considered 'spells', early Magic was about Sorceries, Instants, Enchantments, and Artifacts. The Creatures were drastically underpowered 95% of the time, comparatively. Eventually, WotC realized that Creature-to-Creature interaction was more exciting and a better selling point than the other card types, and has been increasing the power-level of Creatures for the past decade. Which is evident when you look at the different formats. Standard and Modern (tournaments featuring cards from the past 3 years and the past decade, respectively) are much more Creature focused, while the Legacy and Vintage formats (which feature all cards from the earliest days of Magic) are much more Sorcery, Instant, Enchantment, & Artifact focused.

BloodArtist, I mean Political Cards that 'tax' players in some regard. Android:Netrunner is largely based around how the Corp taxes the Runner. The Runner is never strictly denied options, but the Corp makes the Runner really work for their win. The Runner has to make tough decisions and similar cards already exist in VTES. Do you 'waste' an action to burn that Political Card that is taxing you? Or do you pay the tax, ignoring it for now, to focus on developing your board and ousting your prey?

Emergency Police State
Political Action
Choose three or more Methuselah's in the game. Successful referendum means this card is put into play. While this card is in play, each of the chosen Methuselahs has -1 transfer during their Influence Phase. Any Methuselah can burn this card by spending 1 transfer and 1 pool during their Influence Phase. Burn this card after six Influence Phases.

I think that your problem is with the game mechanics itself. You see, simplifying, the game have few mechanics: burn blood/pool, gain blood/pool, bleed, enter combat and block/stealth, and influence vampires/recruit minions, plus esotheric things such as prey, predator, positioning and round order.
If we know that changing the prey/predator is bad, changing table position is bad, and round order us already affected by reversal of fortune, we would be relegated to regular non-political effects, such as burning pool, minions or entering combat, or creating a whole "new" mechanic, like briksmanship or agaitas ability, and, in the end, whenever you create a deck, you have to define a win condition, and unless you create a new one, that would mean burning pool.

Now, again, the problem here is that to win, you have to burn pool. Either your political actions burn pool (ergo KRC-likes) or only do shenanigans because you are not a pure political deck and have another win condition (like bleed or combat). Either way you cannot go much further without having to create a new mechanic.

I don't know, you could add a "steal vp" mechanic, but that would devolve into "I play krc plus this broken thing".

There are quite a few political actions already but only very few of them ever see play.

Something to be learned perhaps?

Lönkka wrote:

There are quite a few political actions already but only very few of them ever see play.

Something to be learned perhaps?

For sure.

I'd imagine a rare few would say that new, powerful political actions that shake up the rules/balance/flow of the table wouldn't be welcome. Especially those that don't deal with pool/numbers directly. My Kin Against the World, Banishment and 1st Tradition are good examples of unique, powerful effects.

The thing is you'll have to stretch the limits of what has already been done, and be very creative with the design.

Kudos to OP for trying, so there's that, but these particular effects are not welcome or good for the game. That much has already been said. New cards would require bold, new ways of thinking though. There's only so much that can be done with KRC+ effects (Reckless, Conservative Agitation, you get the idea).

Just my 2 cents though.