What make VtES hard to learn

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

The fact is that in the CRR there is an "End of Round" and "End of Combat" step and that based on the comparable card (Coordinate Attacks) they actually don't have identical wording. Coordinate Attacks has the same text as the old version of Psyche (at the end of combat). The easiest ruling (and without needing errata) would have been to make Coordinate Attacks and Psyche be played in combat "at the end".

Again, you need to update your card text:

Coordinate Attacks
[san] Only usable at the end of a round if the minion opposing the Blood Brother you control is still ready and combat is about to end. After this round, this Blood Brother taps and enters combat with the opposing minion. The first round of combat, the opposing minion cannot play any strike cards.

[SAN] As [san] above, and this Blood Brother gets an optional maneuver on the first round of combat.

Rarity: BL:C2 LoB:C

I also used a 'credible' source for the text. Secret Library. Apparently there are discrepancies about the text.

Credible yes, but as others have pointed out in this thread — in need of updating.

The current card texts are available here:

www.vekn.net/index.php/card-lists

Or directly:

www.vekn.net/images/stories/downloads/cardlist.txt

There's no point blindly ignoring that the card text has changed — you're just adding to the confusion.

When I have demoed the game I found that people get the basic mechanics by the end of the first game. As long as they look at their hand when deciding what they want to do and understand what the symbols mean, they can basically follow along.

Learning the more complex interactions in the game, which can even just be remembering to account for some card someone might play. That may require an extensive knowledge of the cards that exist (and there are many). If you keep and open mind and understand the various abilities that exist (block fails, unblockable actions, re-starting combat, etc), then you can slowly associate those with disciplines and specific cards eventually.

New players could play with a more limited collection of cards (theirs and their opponents) to begin with, then open up to the broader VTES card base when ready if that helps.

I was looking through someone's direct-to-player L5R box recently. It was beautifully made and had these sweet plastic dividers with art on them to separate cards. In all there was 20 dividers: 9 for the clans +1 for the unaligned, and another 10 for each of the other card types (which do have keyword distinctions within, but generally isn't as immediately obvious like disciplines).

I got to thinking how many dividers it'd take for my VTES collection to do the same. I got somewhere around 92 dividers. Possibly I could consolidate, but clans alone, ignoring imbued creeds, still leave 35 dividers alone. This revelation was impressive and made me proud to be a VTES player. It's an agglutinating CCG.

Here, I'll share my breakdown!:

Clans - 7 original Camarilla +1 for Caitiff, 4 original Independents, 9 original Sabbat (7 of which are antitribu) +1 for Pander, 10 Bloodlines, 4 Laibon, and Abomination. If you consolidated Antitribru + Pander with their counterpart that still is at 27. And then there's 7 Creeds.

There's 28 disciplines, plus two un-disciplines (looks like the real thing, but none of the caffeine!) - Jyhad big 10, Indie 4, Sabbat 3, Bloodlines 10, Abombwe, + Maleficia and Striga (the un-colas). And then there's the Imbued 7 Virtues.

10 Primary card types (to sort the discipline-less stuff) +2 Imbued (Conviction + Power). I guess you could mix all the disciplines in a singular, oh so very large division, but well... yeah, no. Perhaps subdividers!

And since all together it's so close, might as well find space for Sect cards. That's 3 + Anarch.

So all together it's enough dividers for a max size VTES deck! Please oh please don't get rid of all this legacy stuff. It's the little things that stuck upon the game, like Katamari Damacy, that makes it awesome. In fact, we should add KotE, because explosions!

Azel wrote:

It's the little things that stuck upon the game, like Katamari Damacy, that makes it awesome.

Spot On.

and kudos for the Katamari reference