Wanting to try out a small variation in the rules, opinions wanted

So tomorrow I'm hoping to finally get a 5 (!or possibly 6!) player game at the local game shop. I'm trying to balance each of the decks for casual play, including in each some political actions in order to prevent players from getting bored during cross table turns, I'm tempted to give each minion 1 vote by default. Then scaling up the titled vampire's bonuses.

If I don't do this, only my Ventrue & Toreador decks will really be able to vote or participate in voting (having the most titled vampires), with my Brujah deck having only 1 Prince (Rake) and 2 Dread Gaze, my Malk stealth/bleed only having Lutz and Maris Streck (which is considerable) and my Gangrel/Nos having basically only primogen.

So what do you think? Should I give the untitled vamps 1 vote? And then give the Primogen 2, Princes 3, and so on and so forth. Help please.

VtES rules are very complicated, so I think it's a bad idea to confuse players more with invented rules.

Just design your crypts with some titled vampires instead of no titles at all. All within the rules and balanced.

Good luck with games!

LivesByProxy wrote:

So what do you think? Should I give the untitled vamps 1 vote? And then give the Primogen 2, Princes 3, and so on and so forth. Help please.

I'm not a fan of this tbh. It complicates things and doesn't truly achieve much, except play in the hands of horde decks. I also feel it somewhat goes against the flavor. The fluff is that voting takes place in the closed cabinets of the camarilla(and sabbat) high-and-mighty. Anarch converts don't get a say in it.

If there are no permanent votes on the table, you can still do political actions since the card has 1 vote in itself.. I just don't see this houserule achieving anything useful.

My crypt selection is fairly limited because I don't have a lot of cards. Obviously if it wasn't I wouldn't be concerned.

I just don't want to see players getting bored during other players' turns (like I've seen in my 4-player games), and since voting is something that all players can participate in (if they have votes) it would seem beneficial to give them votes to participate in the referendums called by other players.

None of my decks are Horde decks, weenie decks, or Anarch Convert decks. This is very basic and casual Camarilla / Sabbat vampires. Each deck has a few weapons, some votes, some stealth/intercept, some +bleeds, some cool actions, and a combat package. Each deck does focus on one aspect more than the others though, such as my Brujah being bruise-bleed.

I will play the regular game without this house rule and report back with player experiences and results tonight or tomorrow.

I'm new to this game myself, so others here can feel free to correct me.

But if people are getting bored during cross-table turns, that's because they're not grasping that what happens across the table will eventually affect them if they survive long enough for those players to become their predator/prey. The minute your grand-predator scarfs down your predator, he's your problem, and you're not going to be prepared for that if you're not paying attention.

Not to mention that cards exist that will redirect effects toward other players at the table (e.g., Telepathic Misdirection).

Now if your players aren't interested in the game, that's a very different problem and one that no amount of house rules are likely to solve. But if they just don't see the import of cross-table turns, it's easy enough to explain it to them.