City Struggles, a whole new way of playing V:TES

City Struggles

These rule ideas are presented to simulate the political battles within a specific city. <London> is used throughout but could be replaced by any chosen city. This idea focuses on the Camarilla. I’ve got ideas to combine inter-sect battles with this (decks in the table for Sabbat / Camarilla / Infernal etc.) but I’d like some feedback first

The decks could also be customized for each city. Think a <London> city struggle deck could be quite different from say a <New York> city deck maybe with some personalised <London> location cards which could be stoled by D actions. Plenty of options!

Rules:
• Tradition cards may not be played by non <London> prince or primogen (Will of the council allows primogen to play tradition cards). Justicars must burn an additional blood to play tradition cards.
• <London> locations may be tapped to gain one additional vote
• Non <London> locations which grant votes, grant one fewer vote
• Non <London> titles are worth one less vote
• Vampires with non <London> titles must burn a blood to cast votes in a referendum
• When a vampire becomes a prince or primogen of <London> they gain a concealed agenda card. That card is burned if the vampire does not hold a <London> title, it is considered out of play if the vampire’s only <London> title is currently being contested.

The game will require 8 concealed agenda cards, 1 prince of London card and 7 primogen cards (Ventrue, Brujah, Toreador, Malkavian, Tremere, Nosferatu and Outcast). These cards remain uncontrolled in the middle of the table and move to (and from) vampires as <London> titles are gained or lost.

e.g.
Nosferatu Primogen
Type: <London> title
Requires: Nosferatu
Unique <London> title worth 1 vote.

Plus copies for Ventrue, Brujah, Toreador, Malkavian, Tremere primogen

Also...

Outcast Primogen
Type: <London> title
Requires: Camarilla vampire with capacity above 7 who is not Ventrue, Brujah, Toreador, Malkavian, Tremere, Nosferatue or Caitiff.
Unique <London> title worth 1 vote.

Prince of London
Type: <London> title
Unique <London> title worth 2 votes.

Concealed Agenda
Type: Special
Place a vote counter on this card after a referendum if there are less than two vote counters on this card and this vampire did not attempt to cast votes. This vampire may burn X vote counters from this card during a referendum to gain X votes.

The game also uses a Camarilla deck which carries the same rules as the imperator deck in the 2009 ‘Rise of the Imperator’ storyline event: www.vekn.net/index.php/storyline-events/official-storyline-events

...which will be required to include a number of ‘Clan Representative’ cards (see below) as well as multiple ‘Praxis Seizure:London’ , traditions and vote cards, also quite a few ‘Will of the Council’.

Clan Representative
Type: Action
Requires: Primogen or non-titled Camarilla vampire
Cost: free
+1 stealth action
The acting vampire may sieze an uncontrolled <London> primogen title, contest a controlled <London>primogen title with a vampire who is not older or sieze (D action) a controlled <London> primogen title from a vampire in torpor. Untap the minion at the end of the action if they already hold a primogen title. The acting vampire must meet the requirements of the primogen title. Only vampires of the same clan as the acting minion may block this action.

Thoughts?

The stuff looks very interesting. One word of advice, don't make it too complex. While you might be well acquainted with the rules, the (casual) players might be easily overwhelmed when there are too may new cards and rules.

Also for inspiration/reference:

The Melbourne VTES playgroup put together the What Lies Beneath storyline, which also featured the control of different city locations.

• Rules & pictures on vtesone
• Rules on VEKN.net

And we had some league rules which sect will control the city of Gelsenkirchen in 2010:

• Powerstruggle Gelsenkirchen

Thanks, I'll have a read

Also I think you right about being careful with complexity. Trying this out I envisage not using any vamps that start with votes at all.

I introduced concealed agenda to give the non presence clans some needed clout but when playing with newbies maybe I'll just give them the presence type decks instead.

www.thelasombra.com/variants/CityStruggles.htm

Why would you play it with newbies?
What about this variant would make the game more appealing to them?

Because there aren't enough players near me to test this with. Though I've got quite a fair few friends familiar with V:TM who I can convince to play every now and then.

For them this might be more familiar (war in one city) whilst I get to try out new things. Plus I'd really like to see more balanced political games mixed with bleed/bruise rather than one player with vote lock who does nothing but vote.

My own impression was that it was HIGHLY complex with duplicated penalties. Make the outside votes either cost 1 blood to use (the harsher penalty) or be worth 1 less vote (the lower penalty).

The Clan-Primogen cards could be replaced by a single card that would work across all of them.

<City> Primogen
Only one vampire per clan may hold this title. If two vampires attempt to hold this title for the same clan, it is contested (as per the usual contest rules). The vampire with this card is a Primogen.

I have a similar idea in the background, with a central deck and the idea of locations. I've basically created locations around the city that would be possible seats of power (i.e. they give special text) and that also favour certain clans (i.e. the night club strip renowned for drugs benefits Setites more than other clans). Player can then attempt to seize control of those locations during the game.