Please can we change the vampire contesting rule?

Lönkka wrote:

I rather like the idea jamesatzephyr has presented.

Same here. It retains the flavor of two methuselahs (players) struggling to control said vampire. That they get turns to using it with the cost of 1 pool per turn is much less punishing than the current rules. I like it!

A great example of why current contesting rules need adjusting, happened in a recent tournament here. Basically one player travelled a great distance to participate in the tournament. Another player was a new(?) player who had been talking about participating in a VTES tournament a long time, and was loaned a deck.

Both of these decks were Stanislava with identical crypt.

Both of these players sat as my grand predator and predator on the first round. Because of the contest, I got largely freeroll to 2,5 VP and a spot in the final table through little merit of my own. Of course I still ousted my preys by myself, but having zero pressure on my back was a huge boon.

Thanks to less helpful RNG, they sat at same table during second round too. Talk about VTES kicking these players in the nuts; both a new player and a player who probably struggles to get playtime without long travel distances. Oh so you wanna play VTES? Have fun! I wonder how many years will go before we see Romeo in a VTES tournament again..

I hope this example makes people consider the negatives of current contesting rules..

It is not even about winning or losing. The current contesting rules randomly prevent people from playing, and that is just terrible game design. Keep the pool cost for contesting if you want to, but let people play with the minions they built their decks around.

The flipping idea seems a bit complicated, and its effect is not uniform because one can use the contested vampire for acting, but not reacting. Playing with card texts is a non-starter: Seeds of Corruption got banned precisely because they could not get that effect to work. I would suggest to keep it simple: pay a pool at untap per contested card or they burn, but the card remains in play while contested. If you really need to tie that to the fluff, just think of one the vampires as an impostor. VtM is full of it and VTES has at least 2 high-profile examples.

Keep the pool cost for contesting if you want to, but let people play with the minions they built their decks around.

The following statement is to br read with a trigger-warning, but:

Actually, do NOT let people play the decks they want.

I dont want to play with the Unnamed against four other Unnameds.

Its true in vtes that some vampires glaringly outshine others. Uniqueness is also super thematic and a major reason we're still getting roleplayers to join our vtes tables locally.

Contesting forces variety. Its not nice. But life and vampire isnt nice.

Do NOT let people play what they want. Take it with a grain of salt, of course, but thats definitely my take on this.

I liked the idea of getting a refund when you yield best.