Vampires entering play: triggered effects and contesting

I think this thread highlights the biggest problem in VTES.
Which is rather unintuitive rules/cards (obviously not all but there are plenty such around). If it causes this much problems to hardened veteran players, think how puzzled new players must be!



Also, BTW, I do not think jamesatzephyr. has been condescending or negative in any way but instead has once again devoted lots of time, effort and patience trying to clarify how and why the cards work as they do (not sure if he is playing the devil's advocate or not).

Thank you for this, I for one appreciate it a lot!

Lönkka wrote:

I think this thread highlights the biggest problem in VTES.
Which is rather unintuitive rules/cards (obviously not all but there are plenty such around). If it causes this much problems to hardened veteran players, think how puzzled new players must be!

If I'm not mistaken, every live tournament which I participated since start of summer here in Finland, had a ruling of some sort that turned out to be wrong in the aftermath (assuming James and Ankha are the authority, which I sometimes find questionable). I know I made one myself when Teemu asked me in Zillah's tears.

Rulebook is so poor, checking it while a game or tournament is ongoing is completely useless. If judges that have played the game for 10+ years can't make correct rulings, what hope do normal or new players have?

I hope Black Chantry is aware of the problem?

Mewcat wrote:

The rulebook explains how to play the game. It does not explain every single piece of card text that appears on every card, because in V:TES cards are free to create any effect they want.

Do you want a full copy of the rules for Rock-Paper-Scissors in the rulebook? That is necessary to understand Malkavian Game. Are you okay with not having the explanation for that in the rulebook? .

As I have campaigned before: the game needs a comprehensive rulebook FOR THE USE OF JUDGES.

Guide of how to play a game/basic rulebook and the comprehensive rulebook that answers every minute detail about the rules are two different things and we need both if we want to be a tournament game. Judges and whoever has a question could then use the comprehensive rules to figure out the solution, instead of pulling answers out of their ass that are frequently wrong. On the other hand, new players wouldn't be plagued by a massive rulebook since they don't need to read it.

Once again, I use the magic comprehensive rules from magic the gathering as an example of how to do things properly. The document has over 200 pages and answers every minute detail about the rules, keywords, and individual cards. If there existed a magic card that made you play rock-paper-scissors, then rules for rock-paper-scissors would be included in it. Nothing is left to interpretation if at all possible. I'm looking at that document in comparison and laughing at the inadequacy of the VTES rulebook. You seem so fixated on the idea that normal players and judges use the same rulebook.. Thats what we need for VTES.

ps. That VTES rules are unintuitive, illogical, crazy and stupid is a different matter worth discussing.

Lönkka wrote:

Also, BTW, I do not think jamesatzephyr. has been condescending or negative in any way but instead has once again devoted lots of time, effort and patience trying to clarify how and why the cards work as they do (not sure if he is playing the devil's advocate or not).

Thank you for this, I for one appreciate it a lot!

I agree, and although we were misunderstanding each other toward the end, an there are still some points I would disagree with, there were also some great points made by jamesatzephyr and the discussion was interesting and fun.

Ankha wrote:

I think we talked this out.
I'd like to point out that the Detailed Play Summary has never been exhaustive (and will never be), and that it is not a reference document (I do not, and don't want to, endorse it). It is provided as a courtesy. If it creates more trouble than it solves, I will delete it.

I'd also like to clarify that I was merely suggesting that the Detailed Play Summary at one time in the past was meant to be exhaustive, and failed to be so. I did not mean to suggest it ever was or currently is exhaustive.

The issues that pop up always seem to be specific card Interactions, which is why complaints seem to get made about a "rulebook" for the Rulebook.

The reasons making Vtes rules like the Comp MtG ones isn't as good as it seems are (for me, who went from mtg to vtes) these 2 big issues:
Vtes rulebook is already complex to the point of being daunting to new players. Me at age 8/9 got a relatively solid idea on tapping, mana, creatures, and attacking with a mtg rulebook . Me a few years later (with the base understanding from mtg, and 20ish other tcgs from the mid to late 90s) had a hard time grasping the vtes rulebook packed in my CE Malk starter.
Vtes isn't a game where you pick up and run with few questions. Magic was always supposed to be, then hit a reasonable sweet spot, then ALMOST did awesome, but at roughly the same time they removed mana burn made combat damage not use the stack for theme reasons instead of consistency, setting them back to pre 5th ed ness, and for monetary reasons made planeswalkers quite important to being able to win.
Vtes has been on a gradual slide toward balance, and if nothing else Consistency with rulings. But every card printed created potential new interactions, so consistency with timing became the way to roll by the time it stabilized.
This creates LOTS of things that would be in a companion rulebook thingy.
Which leads to my other issue:
If you highlight every line of every page of a textbook, all is highlighted, but nothing is important . Its an example I typically use describing things to my employees, but it works well with anything with many parts that are all important in some way.
Such a large daunting thing would be not the same as digging for rulings, but equally as painful.
So, an App, not unlike Amaranth in form, but with associated rulings, would speed up these things.
Or, if a volunteer wants to reorganize the current rulings in a manner, that could help too.


Worth noting:
James isn't required to respond to rules questions because he has no "official " position; he does so because he knows the answers, and appears inclined to assist people asking rules questions to get a speedy answer, often with examples and explanations.
His wording might make people mad when opinions conflict(I deliberately hope he shows up exposing critical flaws or hating cards I submit, because that's useful to me, even if I'm annoyed by the particulars its often because theres some sort of logic I cant easily trump in there somewhere) but you ask a question, he has an answer.
This thread was a consistency thing, there aren't deviations.
Unintuitive can be universally applied to only a few things, because it's not a quantitatively assignable thing.
X comes into play. That's a thing that happened when it was traveling to play from wherever. X is contested, thus doesn't get to do its stuff that isn't in the comes into play zone. Consistent with other stuff. Done.
I'd be pissed If i felt slighted by something in this, or its lack of making easy sense to me, because I'm human and often unpleasant. But that doesn't make it not the answer. If i questioned why it was that way, if anything else was that way, etc, cool. Answerable in quantitative ways. If we move into qualitative things(intuitive-ness), regardless of the PERCEPTION of it being quantitative in my mind, and or another person's mind, we end up arguing if Han or Greedo shot first like a bunch of asshats.(which is ironic, since that bloody question should have a quantitative answer)

So, if my qualitative analysis of the issues disagreed upon leads me to stating something needed to exist, I'm hung up on why I wouldn't start working on such a thing. I think a pothole in an ally needs fixed. My neighbor doesn't. I can insinuate and suggest to my neighbor all day, or I can just throw gravel in the thing myself if it's that important. Right? Or did I miss something?