New Preview: Auto-da-fe

Auto-da-fe Political Action Requires a cardinal, regent or Inquisitor. Choose a vampire with capacity less than 8. Successful referendum means that vampire's controller burns X pool or burns that vampire, where X is the difference between 8 and that vampire's capacity. Besides the poor grammar on the requirements listing (Is capitalization all that hard? Isn't the Harvard Comma standard by now?), it's a most intriguing card. Interesting that it requires an Inquisitor. Perhaps I'll have to dust off that Yong-Sun Inquisitor deck I tried building a while ago. The capacity requirement and the burn X will help prevent this card from being used willy-nilly like PTO is. After all, there are times when burning the pool is worse than burning the Vampire. Combos nicely with Wormwood. -- - Gregory Stuart Pettigrew

Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: > The capacity requirement and the burn X will help prevent this card from being used willy-nilly like PTO Between this (which is a perfectly reasonable card) and The Eldest Command Undeath (also a perfectly reasonable card), it strikes me as very clear what the current design team considers a balanced plan for "Vote That Burns A Vampire". For the love of punk rock. Can't something be done to bring PTO in line with these two cards? Just throwing gas on to a fire... -Peter

Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: > Auto-da-fe > Political Action > Requires a cardinal, regent or Inquisitor. > Choose a vampire with capacity less than 8. Successful referendum means > that vampire's controller burns X pool or burns that vampire, where X > is the difference between 8 and that vampire's capacity. > > Besides the poor grammar on the requirements listing (Is capitalization > all that hard? Non-unique political titles are not capped. Inquisitor is. > Isn't the Harvard Comma standard by now?), No. In fact, the WW writer's guidelines specifies the omission of the serial comma as the standard for WW texts. Abomination Absimiliard's Army &c. Are there any VTES cards which use the serial comma? I use the serial comma myself, as a matter of course, but I am not blinded by that fact into thinking that my preference is the only correct one. > it's a most > intriguing card. Interesting that it requires an Inquisitor. Perhaps Intriguing use of the capital there.

LSJ wrote: > Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: > > Auto-da-fe > > Political Action > > Requires a cardinal, regent or Inquisitor. > > Choose a vampire with capacity less than 8. Successful referendum means > > that vampire's controller burns X pool or burns that vampire, where X > > is the difference between 8 and that vampire's capacity. > > > > Besides the poor grammar on the requirements listing (Is capitalization > > all that hard? > > Non-unique political titles are not capped. > Inquisitor is. > Isn't Regent a unique title, though? Witness1 -ItE

[ quoted text not captured ] I overstated. "Archbishop of London" is capped. "archbishop" is not. "regent" is not. See http://www.white-wolf.com/Games/Pages/GameWriter'sGuidelines.html for WW's guidelines.

LSJ wrote: > > Isn't the Harvard Comma standard by now?), > > No. > > In fact, the WW writer's guidelines specifies the omission of the > serial comma as the standard for WW texts. > I suppose I overspoke. I know it's AP practice to not use it, but its absence frequently leads to confusion under such circumstances. Not so here. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Lemme throw a little more with you on that. An errata putting PTO on a level comparable with those two cards, even if maybe slightly better, would be fine with me. Hopefully the next time that card is reprinted (like in the next Camarilla set) ? -- Orpheus Nearly made it to LSJ's Killfile !!

Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > In fact, the WW writer's guidelines specifies the omission of the > > serial comma as the standard for WW texts. > > I suppose I overspoke. I know it's AP practice to not use it, but its AP, NYT, UKT, Canadian Press, Cambridge University Press, &c. > absence frequently leads to confusion under such circumstances. Not so > here. For low values of "frequently", perhaps. The serial comma can also introduce abiguity. So it's up to the writer to notice when that happens (with or without the serial comma) and reconstruct the sentence to avoid it.

Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: > Auto-da-fe "Auto-da-fe? What's an auto-da-fe? It's what you oughn't-ta-do, but you do anyway!" -- "The Inquisition," from Mel Brooks' _History of the World, Part I_ Jason, who just felt the need.

> The serial comma can also introduce abiguity. For those who didn't quite follow the discussion, abiguity is a weird texan illness that happens when you regularly fall into a coma due to massive guilt deriving from abuse of newsgroup reading (hence its name, a contraction of "abuse" and "group-guilty" ). LSJ, please, tell us all about it ? Can I make it to your killfile now ? ;-) Or maybe you could answer my mails instead ? --------- Orpheus, getting there...

LSJ wrote: > See http://www.white-wolf.com/Games/Pages/GameWriter'sGuidelines.html > for WW's guidelines. The Harvard Comma was standard practice pre-CE, as was the capitalisation I complained about. Compare the various printings of Closed Session and Legacy of Power. Compare Reliquary: Akunanse Remains with Phased Motion Detector or Orb of Ulain to see that the Harvard Comma is still used today, albeit inconsistently. In general, I find it useful for game terms and keywords (like Prince, Archbishop, Ally, Black Hand, and Blood) to be capitalised, though I must admit it sometimes leads to overcapitalisation. As for the comma, it should definitely have been in PMD and OoU, though a case could be made that it adds little to Auto-da-fe. Speaking of style changes, I see now that Auto-da-fe has had "Political Card - Worth 1 vote" moved to a little "1 vote" tag under the Political Action icon and has lost the "Called by any foo at +1 stealth" in exchange for the standard "Requires foo" line. The lack of the +1 stelath reminder is no problem, as it brings Political Actions in line with Allies, Equipment, Powers, and Retainers. Has anyone noticed how non-title requiring votes are worded? Do they say that they require a vampire, or is that left solely in the rulebook? [ quoted text not captured ]

Gregory Stuart Pettigrew <gpett...@gmail.com> wrote: > Auto-da-fe > Political Action > Requires a cardinal, regent or Inquisitor. > Choose a vampire with capacity less than 8. Successful referendum means > that vampire's controller burns X pool or burns that vampire, where X > is the difference between 8 and that vampire's capacity. I'm surprised nobody mentioned the "new layout" for Political Actions. They got rid of the clunky bold text, and replaced it with the "1 VOTE" icon. I think that's pretty neat. Also, rumor has it that Regent counts as Cardinal for all purposes, so isn't it redundant to say "cardinal [or] regent"?

Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > See http://www.white-wolf.com/Games/Pages/GameWriter'sGuidelines.html > > for WW's guidelines. > > The Harvard Comma was standard practice pre-CE, as was the > capitalisation I complained about. Compare the various printings of > Closed Session and Legacy of Power. Compare Reliquary: Akunanse Remains > with Phased Motion Detector or Orb of Ulain to see that the Harvard > Comma is still used today, albeit inconsistently. It may have been used, but it has never been standard practice (for any of the WW sets, any way). As I said, my standard is different than the WW standard. So, naturally, for the texts I write, I sometimes slip and use the serial comma. And sometimes the slip gets by the editor. And there you go. Reliquary: Akunanse is such an example. I'll correct the official card list for that when the card list is updated for 3rd. The others currently show no serial comma in the official list. > In general, I find it useful for game terms and keywords (like Prince, > Archbishop, Ally, Black Hand, and Blood) to be capitalised, though I > must admit it sometimes leads to overcapitalisation. As for the comma, > it should definitely have been in PMD and OoU, though a case could be > made that it adds little to Auto-da-fe. There is no "definitely" for PMD or OoU -- there is no ambiguity or any other shortcoming to be rectified when the serial comma is omitted. The case is easly made that it adds nothing to PMD and OoU.

LSJ wrote: > Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: >> Auto-da-fe >> Political Action >> Requires a cardinal, regent or Inquisitor. >> Choose a vampire with capacity less than 8. Successful referendum means >> that vampire's controller burns X pool or burns that vampire, where X >> is the difference between 8 and that vampire's capacity. >> >> Besides the poor grammar on the requirements listing (Is capitalization >> all that hard? > > Non-unique political titles are not capped. > Inquisitor is. I thought R(r)egent was a unique title? From the spoilers I've seen around the place.... -- salem http://users.tpg.com.au/adsltqna/vtes/ (replace 'hotmail' with 'yahoo' to email)

Salem wrote: > LSJ wrote: >> Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: >>> Auto-da-fe >>> Political Action >>> Requires a cardinal, regent or Inquisitor. >>> Choose a vampire with capacity less than 8. Successful referendum means >>> that vampire's controller burns X pool or burns that vampire, where X >>> is the difference between 8 and that vampire's capacity. >>> >>> Besides the poor grammar on the requirements listing (Is capitalization >>> all that hard? >> >> Non-unique political titles are not capped. >> Inquisitor is. > > I thought R(r)egent was a unique title? From the spoilers I've seen > around the place.... OK, so maybe my news feed lag is beginning to annoy me, too, now. [ quoted text not captured ]

Gregory Stuart Pettigrew a écrit : > Auto-da-fe > Political Action > Requires a cardinal, regent or Inquisitor. > Choose a vampire with capacity less than 8. Successful referendum means > that vampire's controller burns X pool or burns that vampire, where X > is the difference between 8 and that vampire's capacity. > Just to be sure : Assuming inquisitor is not a title : Does Auto-da-fe counts as a vote requiring a title (in regards of cards such as Confusion of the eye) ? I would say "yes" because, well, one of the requirements is cardinal (even if that requirement is not mandatory)... I could say "no" because it can be called by a non-titled inquisitor... François

[ quoted text not captured ] If Inquisitor counts as a title, then yes, it requires a title. And nothing more. However, if Inquisitor is not a title, then it falls under the requires a title group, and under does not require a title group as it requires either a title or a "status"

[ quoted text not captured ] If played by a Cardinal or Regent, yes. If played by an Inquisitor (assuming it remains not a title), no. See also cards that require one of several Disciplines. [ quoted text not captured ]

Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: > François wrote: > > > Auto-da-fe > > > Political Action > > > Requires a cardinal, regent or Inquisitor. > > > > Assuming inquisitor is not a title : > > > > Does Auto-da-fe counts as a vote requiring a title (in regards of cards > > such as Confusion of the eye) ? > > If played by a Cardinal or Regent, yes. If played by an Inquisitor > (assuming it remains not a title), no. See also cards that require one > of several Disciplines. Correct. If played by a cardinal Inquisitor, then it's up to the player to decide which requirement he's using (and declare that when the card is played, as usual).