ReVamping VTES?

Non-existant user wrote:

Would it help to have some other counting devices? Something like a wheel that goes up to 30 for pool, and flat rulers between 0 and 11 for vampires. Card design could even take the size of the ruler into account.

Counters might remain the best way to track swarm decks.

Counters that are numbered 1 to 11 to indicate blood on cards may work, plus 20 or so generic counters to indicate something non-numerical, like an anarch counter. That would allow only one counter on a card at any given time, plus occasionally 1 or 2 generic counters. You'd still need a lot of counters to have on hand, but most are left in the blood bank during the game. Pool can be tracked with pen and paper.

Aren't all these suggestions doable in your own playgroup? If you want to use pencil/paper to track your own pool, what is stopping you?

context is important. The discussion is about the process of making elements for a product released with modern commercial expectations.

BenPeal wrote:

...I'd definitely get rid of the counters.

Seeing a table with cards plus shiny beeds are what got me into VTES.
But yeah, it's overkill in VTES.

I'd still sign up for a new full WoD based minion card game, mummies vs wraiths vs vamps vs mages vs hunters vs werewolves etc. Does not have to be a 'revamp' of VTES at all.

(with beeds)

ruiza97 wrote:

Aren't all these suggestions doable in your own playgroup? If you want to use pencil/paper to track your own pool, what is stopping you?

Again, it potentially has an impact on card design. If designers know in advance how much space is needed to track blood, they can leave that space blank on vampire cards. Currently, it does not work for big caps because tokens take up the whole card.

In other games I know of:
-old school L5R had wheels to track honor (1 number per player, similar to pool.) Some editions had a cardboard wheel integrated to a card (not convenient for sleeving, plus the required rivet might damage other cards in a tight box.) They also sold nicer-looking big wheels embossed with clan logos.
-Warmachine has damage boxes printed on unit cards (similar to blood.) Players can sleeve the card and track damage with a dry-erase marker. I would not recommend it for vampires because blood tend to fluctuate a lot more and both ways, so I am not sure the card would remain readable for a whole game.