The future of V:TES

I've got a MtG Judge for a friend (and I know his soul needs saving but he's enjoying his sins too much)... he openly admits to be competitive in MtG you need a deck built on rares. It might take him a little to put it so openly, but that aspect of MtG has not changed and will not while MtG's design model places greater raw power on cards with increased rarity.
VTES has not really been like that. Increased rarity usually means increased specialist roles or greater opportunity costs. So stop tossing around that little straw-man.

Nowhere in my post am I saying that you can get competitive in MtG cheap. Nowhere.

What I'm saying is that MtG is *significantly easier* to pick up than VTES ever was and that with a relatively small investment you get to play a multitude of reasonably good decks. As such, someone can enter a store, spend $100, sit down for 15 minutes with a vet and play a fun game.

Compare this to VTES, where a starterdeck dislay investment (comparable to 2 fat packs and ~10 extra boosters) will get you maybe 3 playable decks. Boosters are completely useless for "improving your deck" because there are too many disciplines and clans. I can't advice someone "ye just get a Brujah starter and mix in 4-5 booster packs and you get to play a few decks to get the hang of the game" because the 4-5 boosters are basically dead cards.

Also, most big pro-tour winning decks can be ordered, card-for-card, online for between $40 and $125, so it's not like you need to spends thousands of dollars to win games. You could set aside $1000 a year (less than $100 per months, which is pretty reasonable for a hobby) and be among the top competitors as far as your deck goes.

I realize that VTES is probably cheaper to maintain and be competitive in, but that assumes people are getting involved in VTES in the first place, which is not happening on a large scale and hasn't been in years.

@Izaak: If you have a solution other than "rewrite VTES" on how to do that... I'm sure there a plenty of Princes who would be interested to read those ideas. If your ideas are basically "you all suck" then I don't think much else you write beyond that will get listened to.

If you don't think your Prince is doing enough of a job to expand the playgroup or keep it alive, then step up and put your deeds behind your words and help out your local Prince. If you don't have a local Prince, then step up and do the job and show us all how it is done better.

edminister wrote:

Another thing is the music quotes on the original Jyhad cards... I am assuming that was a legal issue when it was changed, if it wasn't bring it back.

Legal issue indeed.
AFAIK no one bothered to ask the copyright owners if their material could be used in the quotes and for what compensation.

Which is kinda bad, eh... ?

ICL wrote:

but how about a Camarilla set that actually expands library cards for Camarilla decks to a significant degree? For those who read my blog, they might remember my noting just how few Camarilla allies there are in the game. Also, Primogen cards, Camarilla sect requiring cards that have nothing to do with titles or clans, etc. The argument that the Camarilla has always been plenty powerful just doesn't wash.

I've been bitching about this for ages.
Compared to, say, Sabbat or Black hand, there seems to be precious few and mostly wallpaper cards that are available for general member of Camarilla.

IIRC the need for new Camarilla cards has most often been countered with four words: Party Shift + 2nd Tradition.

Sure extremely powerful cards but rather limiting dontcha think?

More importantly, people should understand that VtES does not try to be the most popular game in the world. I am very happy to play large public game like, say, Diablo III, and I am very happy to play elitist game that appeal to very precises tastes of mine like VtES and complex boardgames.

I also fully believe that VtES will fade each year a tiny bit more into obscurity. It happen to most (all ?) games and we are here to enjoy the hobby now, not to fight the windmill that VtES is an eternal game that should be transmitted to our sons and daugthers.

Soonerborn wrote:

All us old 'Mr Suitcases' aren't interested in buying reprints anyway. Two of the local longtime players were dissappointed by the prospect of buying printed cards again, they were looking forward to the (free) PDF. Probably won't buy the new set (and certainly won't buy reprinted cards).

Just out of curiosity, are these same guys who didn't buy KoT when it was available? And who started yelling afoul when the set sold out and prices of the new and powerful cards began rising?

If you reprint the whole sets, from jyhad to HTTB everybody will be happy.