Transfers (rule change idea)

Ankha wrote:

4 small vampires can take 4 actions and/or block 4 times. 1 large vampire can only do it once.

That's why the utility of large vampires is often heavily skewed towards those who can multi-act well.(*) This has long been a significant problem for the game, as it means that there are a bunch of fairly large vampires who don't happen to have a good multi-acting option, or another similar way of making themselves better. Making weenies "useless", however, won't suddenly make an unplayable 8 cap vampire into gold, because Arika and Queen Anne still team up to be terrifying (now on turn 2) throwing out bleeds, votes, Mind Rapes, Voter Caps etc., while the unplayable 8 cap is still unplayable. Yes, there is a card cost to this, but in most decks, most of the time, that's not a huge issue - running out of cards is rare.

That's why improving the lot of 'bad' big vampires is a better option. They currently can't compete against weenies or good big vampires. They still won't be able to compete against good big vampires.

Multi-acting is a potent option, and so it might be worth looking around and seeing whether there are key discipline combinations (or clans, or sects, or traits) it might be worth giving an untap to. It doesn't have to be that. It might be to make one action better or multi-functional. It might be to give them access to bloat of some kind (so they sort-of cost less than their printed cost) - vampires like Nikolaus Vermeulen or Saqqaf are good to learn from here. Taking blocking, it might be to give them access to 'free' block attempts - tech that means a currently poor vampire gets to block twice before tapping, or gets some benefit for blocking?

You obviously want to make sure that any such improvements don't help the already great decks significantly, which requires careful thought, design and playtesting. There are ways of accomplishing this, whether with a sledgehammer or more subtly. e.g. you can find dual discipline combinations that support some bad vampires, while not being available to many good vampires, and similar with clan/sect tech; you can have explicit "Cannot be played if you play Freak Drive" text or you can do something that means it doesn't combo with other cards; you make a card that is good but not quite at the top of the power curve, so the great deck continues playing Freak Drive (because it's better) and the currently bad vampire plays the weaker-but-still-good alternative, elevating her from lining the hamster cage to maybe within sight of some regular final table spots.


(*) Obviously, this is not the only way for big vampires to be good. But it is a very common one.