The future of V:TES

I agree with Izaak here. Let me tell you of my experience with M:tG, plus my frustrations at embracing new V:TES players.

I played Magic more than a decade ago; I was there when Pro Tours started becoming really professional and card production went into overdrive. Competitive decks at every format often cost hundreds or thousands. Like some of us here, I quit because I couldn't keep up with the glut.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend pestered me into trying it out again. A nearby store held a Sealed Pack 3-round competition, where you'd get a random booster of 15 cards which you'd shuffle in 15 lands and played it. You didn't even get to see the cards before you started playing. If you won against an opponent (best out of 3), you'd get another pack and now you can use the cards to build a 40 card deck.

I've been playing V:TES for nearly 5 years now and had this disdain against V:TES's popular older brother. But I was blown away by how FUN and easy to pick up M:tG was. I was extremely rusty but after a few turns I re-understood the game.

From my M:tG newbie's perspective, Magic had clear and relatively straightforward rules, card text was easily understood, there were fun and flashy effects. Deck construction was easy even with the card pool of 3 boosters and a bunch of land. I felt empowered and even in games when I got crushed, I still felt I accomplished something. Sealed and Draft formats, plus those "fat packs" that others mentioned, make it extremely affordable for the casual player to buy in, and play.

Some folks talked about complexity in games and how V:TES is complex. I agree; I enjoy the challenge in V:TES compared to many other games. But this isn't a dichotomy. Why should V:TES not be easy to pick up? I've tried to introduce V:TES to my adult boardgaming friends but it was always frustrating. I've built newbie-friendly decks, I've summarized the rules into 1 letter-sized page, I've talked to them about the rich history of the game. Their experiences have been that V:TES is convoluted, resulting in slow games that are not fun. Or they make a mistake and get run over roughshod.

The points of this neonate's ramblings are these. If we want to keep V:TES alive, we need to both retain the vets and attract new players. Re-printing clutch cards like Deep Song or Dreams; and selling viable pre-con starters viable for immediate play are essential for now. Further down the line, if proper expansions are considered, a re-working of the card distribution in the boosters has to be done to reduce the whole buy 4-5 packs and only get 1 card for your deck problem.

But we really have to talk about re-doing the rules to make V:TES more fun. Note that i'm not saying that we should just simplify the game willy-nilly. There must be ways to let players, especially the new ones, get the sense of doing exciting stuff that matters in the game. I don't know how, and I'm even less sure if I've even made a persuasive case for it, but I love this V:TES and want to see it flourish, even if it means radically changing it.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

@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.

Ya know, if that's your response what I've been trying to explain in length then I have two words for you that I for once won't post here for the sake of saving someone some moderation work,

I'll just say that your posts makes no sense whatsoever in the given context of me explaining why Magic is actually easy to pick up and VTES isn't and that if anything, it was your English teacher that sucked at teaching you to read.

ShadowCat wrote:

Why should V:TES not be easy to pick up? I've tried to introduce V:TES to my adult boardgaming friends but it was always frustrating. I've built newbie-friendly decks, I've summarized the rules into 1 letter-sized page, I've talked to them about the rich history of the game.

A new game that would be easier to pick up than VtES and share a fair bit of its quality is possible. Radically altering VtES to try and fail to fill thoses goal seem foolish to me.

Some game are good despite being frustratingly hard to get an hold of. Diplomacy, and the lesser known Ora&Labora and Caelus are in that. They are not superior because of that, but there is no reason to try to make every game something extremely easy, fun, and rewarding to start.

Magic - 4 Land types...
VTES - 35 disciplines (including the imbued stuff) plus 2 sort of disciplines...

I don't even bother to put the clans and the max number of disciplines you will find in a vampire...

So, when you open a booster from MtG you will get cards that you actually can use... you have a great chance of getting something from each land type... when you open a booster from vtes is quite more complicated... you might get cards that the vampires in the pack can use or not...

Imagine a booster from 3rd... you open it and get 3 lasombras... but you only got cards with ani, tha or cel...

If you mix sets, like 3rd with FN, BL or HTTB then the thing is even more complicated... you can always mix stuff with MtG.

The problem here is math combinations, and VTES will never be MtG.

wesile wrote:

The problem here is math combinations, and VTES will never be MtG.

L5R is doing fine and had up to 14 clan (only 9 now IIRC). It's one of the factor, and it is far from being the whole deal.

Thats true, l5r does have a lot of combinations but still its not as many as VTES. Most actions/spells/kiho/reactions are general use and most clans can tend to use most cards so long as they fulfill some requirement (eg samurai, shugenja, monk etc.) VTES is a lot more complex in its combinations.