Awake With Evening Freshness and Fast Reaction

Ankha wrote:

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Even without turning them into Reflex cards (which, while possible, isn't necessary), a simple keyword like "Wake" on them, with an explanation in the rulebook, would be melt people's brains a lot, lot less.

This is the way to go. There's a few things to sort, such as whether use "wake" as a verb (for non-reaction cards such as Aye or Gracetius), and if this the case, whether the keyword is used as a verb and a keyword on reaction cards.

Why is it that when I suggest adding a keyword to the game, everyone gets up in arms on how it's a bad idea, but when someone else does it...

I am for adding the keyword "Wake" to cards that have the effect of allowing a vampire to act as if untapped. We do it already, might as well make it official.

direwolf wrote:

Ankha wrote:

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Even without turning them into Reflex cards (which, while possible, isn't necessary), a simple keyword like "Wake" on them, with an explanation in the rulebook, would be melt people's brains a lot, lot less.

This is the way to go. There's a few things to sort, such as whether use "wake" as a verb (for non-reaction cards such as Aye or Gracetius), and if this the case, whether the keyword is used as a verb and a keyword on reaction cards.

Why is it that when I suggest adding a keyword to the game, everyone gets up in arms on how it's a bad idea, but when someone else does it...

I am for adding the keyword "Wake" to cards that have the effect of allowing a vampire to act as if untapped. We do it already, might as well make it official.

man, way to steal my thunder, direwolf.

i had actually been slowly piecing together a post over the course of the day that really let my inner hyperbolic pedant out to play. it included a delightful rant that used this post to warn everyone of the dangers of possibly adding a keyword to the game, and you beat me to it you rapscallion.



Goofball pedantry aside, I am one thousand percent for standardizing wording templates. I don't know how many cards out there have Wake like effects other than Wake with Evening's freshness, Forced Awakening, Aye, and on the Qui Vive. Ubiquitous as though they are, i'm hesitant to lead the charge and advocate for yet another mechanic that will go undersupported in the future. How many different variations on the theme are there that would justify a keyword with a rule, no matter how simple?

and while we're on the subject, why don't we add a keyword in for the phrase "After playing this card, you cannot play another action modifier to further increase the bleed for this action." surely that would also see some use, too?

I don't know if anyone else plays Warhammer 40,000, but a few editions ago they added in "Universal Special Rules" to the main rulebook. at first they were doled out singly and sparingly (eg: "This model has the Fearless USR"). Eventually Universal Special Rules tended to show up in a "Like this, but different" format (eg: "this model has the 'Indomitable' rule, and has the "Feel No Pain" USR, but on a 4+ instead of a 5+").

If we're going to take certain common phrases, standardize them, and represent them with keywords, wonderful. I'm all for it, but there's also a few inherent traps with that as well.

direwolf wrote:

Why is it that when I suggest adding a keyword to the game, everyone gets up in arms on how it's a bad idea, but when someone else does it...

It depends on the nature of the keyword or rule term.

If a keyword is used regularly, it's probably fine. Things like "stealth" and "bleed" and "unique" are fine. When we had a small number of regularly-seen titles, they were generally fine - though now we have a lot of them, some players do trip over themselves as to exactly what a Magaji or Regent is or means.

If a keyword or rules term is much more rarely seen, but has a mountain of subtlety behind it, things become problematic. Paralyse probably falls into that category - it was way too subtle for too little benefit on too few cards. Vulnerability is quite corner case, but way less subtle and also gets away with it for another reason.

Keywords that go on cards that are rarely seen and subtle and other people have to care about them are problematic. Gun basically doesn't mean anything until you play a card requiring a gun. When you play such a card (e.g. ammo, Suppressing Fire), I can read the card and it tells me what it does. Similarly, location doesn't mean a lot without card text. "Trophy", however, would be a borderline case, as might "Red List" - I might very rarely see a Red List vampire played, but when I do, there's this whole rush-y thing that I can do, and Trophies are similarly a bit weird. We got rid of the cardless contested city rush, which was probably simpler than the Red List implementation. So when you use lesser known keywords that you have to care about, there's rarely a problem - but when other people have to remember exactly how they work, it's less workable. That's partly why Vulnerability as a keyword is actually not too bad - yes, the term turns up on your card, but it's activated by the term on my card, so I probably know what Cold Iron on my poker means, or at least there's a strong clue that I might need to pay attention when something Cold Iron comes into contact with something with Cold Iron Vulnerability.


The issue with Wake cards is another one again, which is basically: we already have a keyword (or, rather, a key phrase), we're just not openly acknowledging it. The cards say "can play reaction cards as if untapped". What they actually mean is "magic happens here". The suggestion is simply to formalize something that is already going on - that this phrase implies several magical rules exceptions - and make it more obvious.

TL:DR Keywords aren't trivial, even if adding "Wake" to the lexicon seems trivial.

The whole point of keywords is to make it easier to create other cards to interact with them.

Adding the keyword "Wake" in this case, would make it so the design of future cards could include phrases such as "cancel a Wake card as it is played" or "remove a Wake card from the game" or "vampires may not play Wake cards during this action" etc.

There are in general very few uses of some keywords. Look at "Investment." Aside from the cards that are investments, there is one vampire (two if you count advanced versions separate) and one library card that utilize investments directly.

Having a keyword for bleed modifiers would shorten the wording on many cards, as well as the examples presented above under "Wake." Having a keyword for Voter Captivation would simplify making cards alternative to Voter Captivation that are exclusive. (There was a whole thread about that one, look it up )

jamesatzephyr wrote:

The issue with Wake cards is another one again, which is basically: we already have a keyword (or, rather, a key phrase), we're just not openly acknowledging it. The cards say "can play reaction cards as if untapped". What they actually mean is "magic happens here". The suggestion is simply to formalize something that is already going on - that this phrase implies several magical rules exceptions - and make it more obvious.

Care to elaborate on the specific magicks? Of the last half dozen people I've taught how to play, the biggest hurdle with Wake with Evening's Freshness is that Wake doesn't actually untap the vampire.