"Quick" Rules for VTES

My wife used to play a ton of VTES and I've been looking for an excuse to start. As it recently came "back into print" with BC's quality precons, we're trying to get our active, avid gamer group into it.

The challenge is that VTES is not a simple game pick up, so I put together a quick guide for them (which also helped me cement my understanding of the rules). My goal was to create something a new player could read in 10-15 minutes, and then be able to start with a reasonable idea of what's going on.

In case this guide sounds useful to you, dear Kindred, you may find it here:
docs.google.com/document/d/1fOjpVbZoJyKes791ecvbv2kIbY9KJR51NRAfVFvdAGY/edit?usp=sharing

Please feel free to share any feedback - or more importantly - let me know if I got anything wrong.

I'll add that we had a successful 5 player game Monday w/ 3 VP to Lasombra...

!Tremere took out the !Toreador, but crashed against the Tzimisce auspex wall. Lasombra took out the !Malkavian stealth bleeders and voted itself a kill against the !Tremere, before bleeding out the Tzimisce.


*based on suggestions from more experienced players, I added a !Malkavian Kindred Spirits deck as a 5th "precon.

Here's an example for a !Ventrue "5th" deck to use: vtesinformationhighway.wordpress.com/2019/02/14/the-missing-link-ventrue-starter-deck/#more-640

May be nice to simply put it in rotation with the extra !Malk deck that you made to give folks more variety.

Great suggestion, thanks!

Confusing blood and pool is a very common newbie mistake (and a totally understandable one, unless you go to the trouble of using physically different beads for each). I think that the language you use in this guide is only going to exacerbate this; you seem to think that "pool" is a container used to hold the resource of "blood," rather than a resource in itself. It's not, so don't write "blood in their pool" or "drain their pool of blood" or other variations thereof. Just write "pool."

Like...for instance, you get the two confused in the third paragraph. You don't gain six blood for an oust...

And: "Actions may cost blood per the card (look for a blood drop icon with a #). This may be paid from the acting minion, or from the Methuselah’s pool." Nope. Pool costs are paid with pool, and blood costs with blood; you can't pay for one kind of cost with the other resource type.

Also, stick to the terms in the game. You don't HIRE retainers, you EMPLOY them

When this great work will be perfect I will translate it in Italian.

If making this nice document as a general advice for beginning players do notice that it has been made only for the Sabbat in mind. So Camarilla, Laibon and Anarch titles are missing from the votes table.