free the gargoyles - vote submission

Free the gargoyle
political action - worth 1 vote
+1 stealth
put this card in play. All gargoyles in game and in uncontrolled region lose slave status. Gargoyles cannot become slaves this game.

Reference: gargoyles requested their independance for a long time and some cities as paris officially freed them all.

game interest: to get rid of the slave status and to allow combination other than simply tupdogs...
I wondered to add a vote bonus for non actinggargoyle this referendum as gargoyle basically have nor voices nor presence.

snegiem wrote:

Free the gargoyle
political action - worth 1 vote
+1 stealth
put this card in play. All gargoyles in game and in uncontrolled region lose slave status. Gargoyles cannot become slaves this game.

One slight technical / bookkeeping annoyance: vampires in the uncontrolled region are unordered(*), so it's somewhat faffsome to track which of them you've emancipated if you go on to draw more. So it would be possible to get into annoying arguments about whether that vampire you brought into play was one of the two cards that were in your uncontrolled region to start with, or the one you've drawn since.

I would probably just simplify it and make it apply globally, or make it apply to vampires who come into play. Potentially, make it nullify the slave rule without actually removing the slave trait. So something like:

With, as you say, a possible for passing the vote, like extra votes if this vampire is a slave, for every slave you control etc.


While I think this is potentially better than many of the similar suggestions - which are often master cards - it still suffers somewhat from what happens if you can't draw it early. Are you still putting in a Tremere/!Tremere or three into your crypt because you might not draw this until turn five, turn six... - in which case, this isn't providing as much utility as it might? How many are you putting in the deck, and are the later ones complete dead weight?

You might consider giving it an alternative use. If the alternate use is very solid, you might choose to weaken the emancipation element slightly, perhaps only to vampires currently in play, or a certain number of vampires in play etc. Other than the fact that it's not been done before, there's nothing in theory stopping you having a combo card where the card is both political action and ordinary action, so you could do something like:

Tweak power levels to taste, obviously.


(*) [LSJ 20060506]

LSJ wrote:

> 1) Assuming a player has adequate space at the table, is there any rule on
> how the vampires in the uncontrolled region must be laid out?

No.

> Specifically, is placing 4 uncontrolled vampires in a 2x2 grid legally the
> same thing as placing all four of them in a row? (Assuming that all the
> vampires are clearly together in the uncontrolled region)

Yes.

> 2) Is there any prohibition against rearranging the order of vampires in
> the uncontrolled region during play? I am not aware of one, but doing so
> would be detrimental to a player watching specific card in the uncontrolled
> region with the intention of playing a Brainwash.

No.

Just wondering, how are gargoyles ever going to pass this vote? This is a genuine question, how would you pass this vote when playing purely Gargoyles?

I wondered to add a vote bonus for non actinggargoyle this referendum as gargoyle basically have nor voices nor presence.

Something like this is probably needed for this card design, something similar to Justicar votes, "each Gargoyle gets +1 vote in this referendum".

I'm just afraid you'd still need Tremere to pass this vote, kinda making the card redundant in the deck. It would just then be a failsafe for when your Tremere's are demolished.

Maybe another option would be the following:
Fee stake : paris
+ 1 stealth
Only usable by an anarch with capacity above 4.
This vampire becomes baron of paris. This could lead to a contested title.
As long as the baron of paris is ready and thzt his title is not contested, Gargoyles vampires are anarchs and lose any slave status.
any vampire may call a refendum as a +1 stealth action to make the acting vampire loses his title. In this refendum non anarch titles are worth 1 less vote and gargoyles get an additionnal voice.

snegiem wrote:

Maybe another option would be the following:
Fee stake : paris
+ 1 stealth
Only usable by an anarch with capacity above 4.
This vampire becomes baron of paris. This could lead to a contested title.
As long as the baron of paris is ready and thzt his title is not contested, Gargoyles vampires are anarchs and lose any slave status.
any vampire may call a refendum as a +1 stealth action to make the acting vampire loses his title. In this refendum non anarch titles are worth 1 less vote and gargoyles get an additionnal voice.

Potentially interesting, but:

- having to go anarch is a reasonably high cost

- unlike "normal" clans which can potentially benefit from being anarchs from many disciplines, the Gargoyles are getting Visceratika and the not-a-discipline Flight, which means they benefit less from anarchy.

- the burn clause is very harsh, given that Gargoyles are terrible voters (generally speaking). I would temper it quite a bit. If your predator is playing any politics at all, it's probably toast, and you have a lot of non- acting Gargoyles to deal with. Or you have to put in a lot of defence around it, which is likely to cost you quite a bit in terms of library space, hand space etc.


Technical notes:
- The "unless this title is contested..." text is redundant, because when the title is contested a Title card will go out of play with it.

- ...and the card should have the Title keyword, like other Fee Stakes.

- You probably want to clarify to which referendum the text "In this refendum non anarch titles are worth 1 less vote and gargoyles get an additionnal voice." applies. Is it the normal referendum, the burn referendum, or both?

Hmm how about:

Goji, guardian of Notre Dam
Capacity: 7
Group: 3
Disciplines:
Card text:
When Goji is ready, all your Gargoyles with capacity 2 or more can perform actions. Flight.