ReVamping VTES?

@Lonkka:

I go by many aliases but "elotar" isn't one of them. I also don't mean any harm to VTES or the VEKN, I'm just bouncing ideas around. I don't see how any of those minor rules I critiqued would damage the game if they were simplified or removed.

I am tickled you think me anything more than a neonate though.

Edit: P.S. I haven't played VTES before, but I'm looking into getting some cards via EBAY. Don't go outbidding me!

Edit: P.S. I haven't played VTES before, but I'm looking into getting some cards via EBAY. Don't go outbidding me!

Still can't overstate the importance and coolness and awesomeness and freedom and everything that comes through printing proxies.

But physical cards are cool too.

All right, I'm going to start attempting writing on this subject now. Talking about revamping VTES is a huge undertaking and there will likely be lots of walls of text in the future. I might start a blog or something to keep my ideas ordered.

First, the reasons why I think VTES is in need of reboot/rewrite, or a completely new version of the game. These two reasons are independent of each other, which is important to note.

1.) Cleaning up the card rulings and design errors. While VTES may be a great game at the core, it carries a massive amount of unnecessary baggage in the form of bad design and unnecessarily complex rulings, which usually stem from badly written cards. This has troubled me tremendously since I started playing few years back. I'm a problem-solver at heart. When I see issues, I want to fix them.

I feel that the issues with the cards are so numerous, that simply using errata to fix them would be too much. It would just create too much confusion. So rewriting cards from scratch with a new version of the game could be one solution.

2.) Making VTES more popular. I'm sure everyone (even) here can agree that the more players VTES has, the better. However, bringing more players to the game is easier said than done.

Issues I think negatively affect the popularity:
- Its not sold at your local game store (yes, its a dead game)
- The artwork and cards look woefully outdated
- Its difficult to get real versions of the cards, you have to go to Ebay for the most part. I personally feel that having real cardboard versions of the cards is important. I hate playing with proxies. Its a collectible card game after all.

As others have pointed out elsewhere, VTES shares remarkable similarities with modern tabletop games. The number of players is similar and you need more than 4-5 players for a meaningful game.

I think that creating a "starting core set" of the game with 5-8 preconstructed decks (preferably with revised artwork), packaging them into a tabletop game-sized box along with a big bag of blood counters, cool-looking edge, colourful and instructive rulebook etc might be a good way to make VTES more known. It would say the number of players on the cover so people wouldn't have wrong expectations. After all, most people expect two-player game when you mention "card game" to them. They expect multiplayer game when you say "tabletop game".

Advertise this starting box to your local game store, and see what happens. This sort of thing feels like something that could be a kickstarter campaign, even though I believe White wolf is against such.

Now a separate issue is whether this should be combined with rewriting cards/rules. Thats a different but worthwhile discussion. I do feel that VTES might benefit from having a two-player version of the game, but it seems that this is impossible to achieve without rewriting the game completely.

Lönkka wrote:

Elotar, is that you?

Not for a single moment buying that you are a neonate who actually hasn't played VTES. I'm extremely suspicious on this kind of attempt to hide your true identity (whoever you might be) while advocating fundamental changes to the system that works well and one that has several times been selected as the (one of the) top CCGs.

a.) Admins can see through most common impersonation attempts by taking a look at posters IP-address.

b.) I consider your post to be unrelated to the topic and poor taste(like most of your posts, tbh). LivesbyProxys posts appear constructive in nature so I don't see why you feel the need to police him. Whether he is new or old is irrelevant, he has the same right to post on these forums as any other. If you don't like the topic, don't read it.

Bloodartist wrote:

* First, the reasons why I think VTES is in need of reboot/rewrite, or a completely new version of the game. These two reasons are independent of each other, which is important to note.

* 1.) Cleaning up the card rulings and design errors.

* I think that creating a "starting core set" of the game with 5-8 preconstructed decks (preferably with revised artwork), packaging them into a tabletop game-sized box along with a big bag of blood counters,

Very interesting. I'm curious, why do you note that the two reasons are independent of each other? They seem linked to me.

Also very curious to know what aspects of VTES you consider to be design errors. I have my own list, but I'm looking forward to your thoughts. It is known that I would support a new version of the game that featured cleaner cards and some simplified or cleaned up mechanics.

A real "big box" product would go a long way, but I have to mention: If we must have a lot of counters, then I think it imperative that "taking from the blood bank" and assorted bloat cards / strategies be kept to a minimum. The game is, at its heart, about diminishing resources and collapsing game state, no?

Bloodartist wrote:

1.) Cleaning up the card rulings and design errors. While VTES may be a great game at the core, it carries a massive amount of unnecessary baggage in the form of bad design and unnecessarily complex rulings, which usually stem from badly written cards. This has troubled me tremendously since I started playing few years back. I'm a problem-solver at heart. When I see issues, I want to fix them.

I feel that the issues with the cards are so numerous, that simply using errata to fix them would be too much. It would just create too much confusion. So rewriting cards from scratch with a new version of the game could be one solution.

Unification and rewriting of all the cards and what they do has already been done by Vincent and Pascal quite some time ago.

AFAIK, the only thing that is keeping this implemented is getting the game back in print.

IMO, now that proxies are allowed I see little reason why the changes shouldn't be applied right now.