Deck questions about decks for newbies

i can get a few kids in my house to play a game of vtes on occasion, but its difficult as they do not have the best time playing. I have a variety of precons that i've made, but even with that, it's super easy to tell that they feel its boring.

They are in their early teens and play magic, but vtes is layered down with a lot of rules and complexity.

Are there any deck ideas out there for a 4 person game, that is super streamlined? Im thinking about making decks with very few votes, and taking out complex combat cards.

Are there any deck lists with simplified decks out there? Small word count cards?

I just want a simple game where they feel they have a grasp of whats going on via a little less complexity.

Have you taken a look at Amaranth's quickstart decks?

amaranth.vtes.co.nz/#quickstart

They aim to keep clutter to a minimum.

I think taking out votes and combat cards is a mistake but I guess it depends on your group. I would say you should include more political cards and +vote cards in each deck to enable the political aspect to the game, as well as having a decent combat package with every deck. Why? Because the political aspect is something that involves all players, and gets them talking, which keeps things from being boring during other player's turns. If If you remove or greatly limit the political aspect, what are you left with? Players using stealth/intercept to interact with (bleed) their prey, which amounts to bean-counting, and watered-down combat that the other players have to sit through if blocks are declared?

Here is what I'm trying to do with my neonates and the decks I made for them:

* I try to include as many cheap Princes and Bishops or Priscus as I can in each crypt.
* I include a few reaction cards for +votes or that force vampires to abstain from voting.
* I try to include vampires whose specials interact with vampires of another clan.
* Make sure each combat package does things in a slightly different way if possible. For example, the Tremere have powerful 2nd round combat spells and Traps, while the Nosferatu want to Throw Sewer Lids and make a Quick Exit.
* Include a wide variety of cards where overlapping disciplines are concerned, i.e. the Toreador get Enchant Kindred for Presence, while the Ventrue get Legal Manipulations; the Toreador get Flash and Blur for Celerity, while the Brujah get Pursuit and Acrobatics; etc, just to show them variations on the same discipline.

But for your purposes, have you looked into SelfBiased's Demo Decks? There is also Brett Scho's Demo Decks which may give a good framework for you to build on.

You may also consider some house rules to speed up the initial influence phase of the game. Maybe move Influence Phase between Untap and Master and then have the Magic rule of 'creatures can't attack on the turn they're played'. I wouldn't mention all the transfers rules either, just call it 'Influence' and let them move as much pool as they want!

I Start to pass for the same problem, and this was a great ideia.

I will problally do some decks to show this...