Submission: Some ideas for Primogen cards

These are just my ideas of making primogens more interesting titles to play and include deck ideas dedicated to the idea of using primogen titles more effectively. These ideas are of course open for feedback and revision.

Name:Shadow Council
Cardtype: Action
Cost: NA
Capacity: NA
Discipline: NA
Clan: NA
+1 Stealth action. Requires a vampire with a primogen title. Unique. Put this card in play. All ready primogens controlled by any metuselah gain +1 vote in any referendum. If a referendum requires a prince, all ready primogens gain 1 additional vote. Any prince can burn this card as an political action that costs 2 blood.

World of Darkness reference: Primogens are far more important members in kindred society than they are in VtES nowdays and I think their role in politics should be reflected more clearly. This card is supposed to give a flavor of power struggle between primogens and princes.

How does this card address a compelling game need? Primogens are very weak in VtES as it is. I feel, that primogens should be made stronger and in my opinion cards that work for all primogens are in line with primogens working together to have an impact on vampire politics.

Name:Mandate of Camarilla
Cardtype: Action
Cost: 1 blood
Capacity: NA
Discipline: NA
Clan: NA
+1 Stealth action. Requires a vampire with a primogen title. Unique. Put this card in play with X counters where X is the amount of ready vampires with Camarilla title. During a bleed action any primogen may burn 1 counter to gain +1 bleed. Burn this card when this card has no counters.

World of Darkness reference: Primogens are far more important members in kindred society than they are in VtES nowdays and I think their role in politics should be reflected more clearly. This card is supposed to give a flavor of power the primogens wield in the kindred society.

How does this card address a compelling game need? Primogens are very weak in VtES as it is. I feel, that primogens should be made stronger and in my opinion cards that work for all primogens are in line with primogens working together to have an impact on vampire politics.

Name:First Among Equals
Cardtype: Political Action
Cost: 1 blood
Capacity: NA
Discipline: NA
Clan: NA
+1 Stealth action. Political action worth 1 vote. Requires a vampire with a primogen title. Unique. Choose a primogen. In this referendum non-primogen vampires can not cast votes or ballots. If any primogen does not vote "for", this referendum fails automatically. If this referendum is successful, put this card on the chosen primogen. The chosen primogen gains X additional votes where X is the amount of ready primogens controlled by all metuselahs.

World of Darkness reference: Primogens are far more important members in kindred society than they are in VtES nowdays and I think their role in politics should be reflected more clearly. This card is supposed to give a flavor of power the primogens wield in the kindred society. A primogen can be a force to be reckoned with if he or she wields the voice of all of the primogens in the city.

How does this card address a compelling game need? Primogens are very weak in VtES as it is. I feel, that primogens should be made stronger and in my opinion cards that work for all primogens are in line with primogens working together to have an impact on vampire politics

Name:City Council Meeting
Cardtype: Master
Cost: NA
Capacity: NA
Discipline: NA
Clan: NA
Master. Unique. Put this card in play. Requires a ready primogen controlled by this metuselah. This card may be tapped to give any primogen +2 votes during any referendum. This card may be tapped to draw a card and discard to hand size. This card may be tapped to discard a political action card from hand to gain 1 pool. During a discard phase, the first player in counter clockwise direction that controls a ready primogen gains control of this card. Burn this card if there is no ready primogen in play during discard phase.

World of Darkness reference: Primogens are far more important members in kindred society than they are in VtES nowdays and I think their role in politics should be reflected more clearly. This card is supposed to give a flavor of power the primogens wield in the kindred society. Primogens are as likely to work together as they are to scheme against each other and this card is all about primogens scheming in a meeting.

How does this card address a compelling game need? Primogens are very weak in VtES as it is. I feel, that primogens should be made stronger and in my opinion cards that work for all primogens are in line with primogens working together to have an impact on vampire politics

Jannu wrote:

Name:First Among Equals
Cardtype: Political Action
Cost: 1 blood
Capacity: NA
Discipline: NA
Clan: NA
+1 Stealth action. Political action worth 1 vote. Requires a vampire with a primogen title. Unique. Choose a primogen. In this referendum non-primogen vampires can not cast votes or ballots. If any primogen does not vote "for", this referendum fails automatically. If this referendum is successful, put this card on the chosen primogen. The chosen primogen gains X additional votes where X is the amount of ready primogens controlled by all metuselahs.

I'm struggling to find that much enthusiasm for this one. If you have out, say, three Primogen and you pass this, you now have 6 votes across all those vampires. Assuming you were playing some of the smaller Primogen that exist, would bringing out two Princes just be a lot, lot better, given you get access to Second Tradition, Parity Shift etc? You apparently want standing votes, so you're presumably playing politics - but if you're playing Camarilla politics and not playing the most powerful cards, it'd be like playing a Obf/Dom or Obf/Dem stealth-bleed deck and ditching your best bleed modifiers in favour of Laptops. You can do it, but why?

On the fails automatically clause, it's the same thought I have about City Council Meeting:

Jannu wrote:

Name:City Council Meeting
Cardtype: Master
Cost: NA
Capacity: NA
Discipline: NA
Clan: NA
Master. Unique. Put this card in play. Requires a ready primogen controlled by this metuselah. This card may be tapped to give any primogen +2 votes during any referendum. This card may be tapped to draw a card and discard to hand size. This card may be tapped to discard a political action card from hand to gain 1 pool. During a discard phase, the first player in counter clockwise direction that controls a ready primogen gains control of this card. Burn this card if there is no ready primogen in play during discard phase.

This is somewhat more interesting, but the fact that it cares about other people's primogen makes it risky. There are Primogen that make it into good decks because they're otherwise good or useful vampires, or have specific abilities etc. Obvious examples include Anvil, Masika, Victor Pelletier (who could go Primogen to screw with your deck), Carna, Bloody Mary and Gem Ghastly, sometimes Basilia and Wynn. Some of the weenier Primogen introduced in later sets are decent fodder for a number of decks who just happen to be Primogen too e.g. Emily Carson. Having a really random downside to the card makes them a lot less desirable.

Would I rather play something more reliable, like Dreams of the Sphinx for cycling or pool gain, The Barrens etc? Potentially, I think so.


I think where Primogen-boosting cards should go is something more like Mandate of the Camarilla - it doesn't just try to make them kinda okay voters who still lack the tools of better titles, it gives them something interesting and a bit different. You might have some political actions in a deck like that too, but the deck wouldn't feel like Yet Another Deck of KRC Without Princes, it'd have somewhat different incentives around getting titles out and bleeding too. It's that sort of direction I'd look at more - if I have a bunch of Primogen out, I can do something different to other decks.

You have fair points. Maybe First among equals could work with different effect like giving static bleed bonus? I was also thinking at first, that the card could give the vampire having the card an ability to use cards requiring disciplines that any ready primogen has. That could support decks playing primogens from different clans. In the end I scratched the idea because I thought it to be too situational in the end. Maybe it could have been better idea?

City Council Meeting was intended to be a card, that could be used like dreams of the sphinx while being somewhat different card. Unlike DotS, City Council Meeting will not burn after three uses and is likely to work only for the metuselah playing it. As such I think it could be a justified option for a deck using primogens. Maybe the card should not rotate. I was at first thinking that maybe it would be too powerful without a down side.

It's good to hear that you liked the idea in Mandate of Camarilla. At first I was thinking that should the card gain 2X counters from primogens instead of X? Would it be too good? I tried to be careful not to make overpowered cards.

I'll try to find some time to address the cards in more detail at one point, but I'd like to say that I hugely enjoy the fact that the cards mostly check the WHOLE table for Primogen, not just you. That's definitely how to make more interesting cards as a whole. VtES is really cut out for that kind of design.

Oh, and there's obviously plenty of clean up to do with the texts. I'll get into that once the effects get discussed a bit more.

The issue I have is standing votes are neat, but not amazing. Ventrue headquarters is good, but most of the time, it's a defense against your preys voter cap, or a way to move MaryAnne from empty to full without many modifiers.
There is nearly no vote deck that could be Primogen based and not be way more playable with presence. You pay similar amounts for princes, and I see no real benefit in additional votes, and quite little in bleed pump, since again, lots of access to disciplines for it with Primogen, excepting maybe the g1 Gangrel.
I submitted ways for Primogen to block, because I feel that id thematically sound and mechanically logical and needed.
Ways out of combat, block denial, bleed reduction, and maybe referendum cancelling feel appropriate and useful, I'm just not sold on vote pump.