Anarch cards inspired by Vampire the Requiem

Hello!
Here are some anarch cards inspired by Vampire the Requiem.
I was mainly concerned trying to transform ideas I found cool in table top game to VtES format, so I don't know if there is any compelling game need for any of them. Power level wise I tried to make them good enough that I would atleast include them in my own trick decks.


In VtM anarchs were mainly bomb tossing anti-establishment hooligans, something I found pretty boring. In VtR they got changed to something much more interesting. Kindred of Carthian Movement are political activist who, while they oppose the traditional neo-feodalism of kindred are actually trying to find viable alternatives to govern themselves instead rule by strongest.

Carthians follow social experiments, that are basically mortal forms of goverment that have been modified to better fit the undead monsters they are. Most of them fail horribly, but Carthians are not going to give up. After all they've got all the eternity to experiment and get it right.

In VtES I've simply loved anarchs, and way over half of all my decks have some sort of anarch angle to them. So I just had to try and transform some of those fancy VtR ideas to cards for VtES.

First some social experiments. These two both boost anarch voting power,
but other experiments could do somethig else, say communism might allow
a free untap after action to move equipment between anarchs.
First one is global and affects whole table, the second one presents a more tightknit community and only affects metuselah that plays it.
I have templated these after blackhand's wachtower cards.

Name: Social experiment direct democracy
Type: Action

+1 stealt action. Requires a baron.
Social experiment. Put this card in play. Each ready anarch get's one vote during political actions called by anarch vampire.
Anarch titles are worth one less vote. Burn this card if another social experiment enters play.

Flavor text: "Yes, we disagree a lot, but this way every one will be equally unhappy" Dominique, President (Baron) of Decratic domain of Paris.



Name: Social experiment meritocracy
Type: Action

+1 stealth action. Requires a baron
Social experiment. Put this card in play.
When an anarch you control succesfully performs a D action against your prey or
succesfully block a D action directed at you, put a merit counter on that anarch.
An anarch with three or more merit counters is considered a baron for purposes of playing cards.
During refenrendum anarch vampires may burn x merit counters to gain x votes.
Burn this card and all merit counters if another social experiment enters play.

Flavor text: "Why should we listen to you? Go out there and prove your worth it!" Louis Fortier, Ventrue anarch.
Art directions: a score board with some names and numbers next to them.



Then two Carthian social traditions that just beg to be turned VtES cards.


Name: The drumming out!
Type: Political action

Requires a ready anarch.
Choose an anach vampire. Successful referendum means the chosen anarch burns one blood and loses anarch status. In this referendum each anarch has one extra vote.

Flavor text: Get out of here! We don't need slackers.
Feel free to apply for citizenship again, when you think your ready to pull your share.
-Jeremy Macneil, Brujah Anarch

Art directions: A vampire running towards a door trough a gauntlet formed by other anarchs in domain, some of which are banging hub caps and other 'musical' instruments.



Name: The chain
Type: action

Requires a ready anarch. +1 stealth
If this action is successful, move one equipment, retainer or blood from each of your ready anarchs to one your other ready anarchs.

Whisker wrote:

Name: Social experiment direct democracy

I'd make a couple of minor tweaks (nothing exciting) to the card text, so it reads:

Overall, I quite like it. It doesn't stack (unlike the Legacy of Pander concerns of old), and can't easily be used to kickstart a deck in a horrific way since it requires a baron to start with.

Whisker wrote:

Name: Social experiment meritocracy
+1 stealth action. Requires a baron
Social experiment. Put this card in play.
When an anarch you control succesfully performs a D action against your prey or
succesfully block a D action directed at you, put a merit counter on that anarch.
An anarch with three or more merit counters is considered a baron for purposes of playing cards.
During refenrendum anarch vampires may burn x merit counters to gain x votes.
Burn this card and all merit counters if another social experiment enters play.

Couple of tweaks:

1) I'd probably reword the "for purposes of playing cards" text more along the lines of existing cards. Something more like: "If an anarch has three or more merit counters, he or she (and his or her controller) may play cards as if he or she was a Baron" type wording. That means it works in the same way and follows the same rulings.

2) For clarity, I'd probably tweak the text to "an action directed at you (or something you control)". Actions directed at something you control are also directed at you, but it's usually clearer this way.

Whisker wrote:

Name: The drumming out!
Type: Political action

Requires a ready anarch.
Choose an anach vampire. Successful referendum means the chosen anarch burns one blood and loses anarch status. In this referendum each anarch has one extra vote.

Like most hosers, in the general case, this wouldn't likely be exciting. People wouldn't be popping it in decks just in case.

However, there is the specific case of Anarch Revolt and I'd be concerned about re-invigorating that deck style using politics. Since it (Anarch Revolt) doesn't affect people who have an Anarch vampire, you can potentially try to block people from taking the default "go anarch" action, or rush their vampires - but then you have a trickier balance defending the Anarch Revolts from burn action referendums. So it's not currently a strong deck type (having, pre-errata, been wildly table-destroying). If you can now do more of the work with politics, it makes the card flow a lot easier and less volatile, and de-anarching your prey's vampire can be the equivalent of a bleed for X, where X is the number of Anarch Revolts already in play.

I'd definitely want to see a couple of players with experience of this sort of deck given time to screw it as hard as possible during a playtest, at least, to see how well/how badly it works.

Whisker wrote:

Name: The chain
Type: action

Requires a ready anarch. +1 stealth
If this action is successful, move one equipment, retainer or blood from each of your ready anarchs to one your other ready anarchs.

Not terrible, but not clear it offers much over Heidelberg (which sees a lot of use) or Rave (which doesn't). Clearly, it's a little different and could be used, say, to top up this acting vampire with blood, 'hunting' from your other anarchs, but I'm not 100% sure this is compelling. Maybe, though - I mean, you could use one a 2 cap Anarch (or even an in-play Anarch Convert) to take an action to move blood from various of your Anarchs to your fattie Anarch, giving him a 'free' hunt action. (Your fattie would presumably have to move one back to someone, but that's not a super huge issue - he could be coming out ahead two or three blood.)

From the non-blood-gain aspects, in general, though, people generally prefer to put equipment and retainers on the right vampires in the first place. Alternatively, people sometimes use something like the Darby Dance, where a Leather Jacket means that each vampire involved in a chain of equipment sharing untaps and it's easy to share things a bit more freely - a vampire with a chunk of equipment can pass it all out, which is hard here (a vampire can only give away one piece).

The Chain looks a lot more like Redistribution, which can be quite useful in a Blood Bro deck.

Otherwise, these didn't seem to be particularly broken (which is a good thing to see). I did immediately think of Anarch Revolt, but also thought it could be interesting to try. I would expect it to suffer the usual problems of a deck that spams a single vote heavily (i.e. Delaying Tactics wastes a turn for all intents and purposes).

i actually think requiem is a more fitting setting than masquerade for V:tes. your ideas are workable and interesting. good job.

I like the ideas !

But, it would have to be strongly playtested.

I mean e. g., democraty is a non burnable card and it has a VERY strong synergie with death star type of deck.

I mean, you could now do it with any clan you want for potentially game breacking combo (I don't know ? what could be done with that and madness network ?)

And even without playing death star, you could do a breed and boon wih any clan.

Shamelessly pumping my own thread.
Here's another social experiment, see first post for detail about the background. Lots of text, and could probably use some rewording

Name: Social experiment, communism of blood
Type: Action
+1 stealth action. Requires a baron
Social experiment. Put this card in play.
Anarch vampires can play cards requiring a clan as if they were of a clan of any ready anarch. A methuselah controlling at least one ready anarch can play cards requiring a clan as if they controlled any ready anach in play. Anarch vampires can take +1 stealth D action to transfer equipment with any other ready anarch vampire.

Flavor text: “We don’t care about old fashioned clan territories here. You’re welcome to hunt in the zoo, and if I need muscle I can recruit some gangs without having to go through those Brujah. Hey, that’s a nifty phone you have there. You can have it back when I no longer need it” -Calvin Cleaver, Gangrel anarch