card limits

IZZ...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (pete) writes: >Guess what. I play with a THREE card limit... Up - that knocks out the Tremere, too. > ...and I have fun every time. More power to you. But you're missing out on the best parts of Jyhad. >Unlike any other card game, Jyhad has a balance between its many facets >built right into the cards themselves. Yes indeedy. That's why you don't need limits. >Each discipline, clan, etc, has >its function, and when properly played, is niether more nor less power- >ful than any other. If you play Jyhad as per its design, which includes access to and use of arbitrary numbers of cards. If you throw in extraneous restriction, that's no longer necessarily true, as demonstrated by the Malk deck winning Gencon. >This balance is due in large part to the number of >"built in duplicates", or varied cards that have roughly the same >effect. There are many different cards that give stealth, or intercept, >or whatever. Your whatever list would be very short. The only others are Fortitude prevent damage and Dominate +bleed. Incidentally, you'll note that the need for multiple stealth and intercept comes from the fact that you can only use one of each modifier per action. So to make +5 stealth possible, you need 5 different stealth cards. >Those effects that can be achieved by only one specific >card are rarely needed more than three or four times in any game. BWAANH!!! Next contestant, please? There are many, many, unduplicated (and inadequately substitutable) cards DESPERATELY needed in quantity: Bewitching Oration: Try a non-prince vote deck without lots of these. Dodge: Ever wonder how people can survive the Gangrel without Fortitude? Telepathic Counter: Essential bleed defense for most Auspex decks. Deflection: Essential bleed defense for most Dominate decks. Dread Gaze: Essential vote defense for many Presence decks. Theft of Vitae: Unless your Tremere bring magazines to read for the first round :-) Flash: The only good way for Celerity to maneuver Movement of the mind: Essential for Tremere maneuver defenses. Fake Out: Essential for Nosferatu and Ally maneuver defenses. Form of the Ghost: Essential for Gangrel fighting guns. Computer Hacking: Essential for weenie bleed decks. Majesty: Essential for escaping combat with a multi-clan Presence deck. Camarilla Exemplary/Conservative Agitation: The core of almost any vote deck. Between the 2, you need 12-20 or the vote deck can't win. Camarilla Exemplary: Yes, there are ways to bleed besides stealth. Aching Beauty: A particularly nice version for Toreador. Cats' Guidance: Animalism defense. Cloak the Gathering: The only way to pass around stealth. Thrown Sewer Lid/ Thrown Gate. Yeah, sure you can run a pitch deck with only 6 strike cards. Boxed In/Dead End Alley: How do you think the Tremere get to the second round? Bum's Rush: The critical card for non-intercept combat decks. etc. (and this DOES go on, for a long time) You'll note that almost all of these cards are common. The fact that good decks work from stacks of common cards (and not $$$ rare substitutes) is the reason you don't need $$$ to play Jyhad (even in a roomful of Mr. Suitcases), which is one of it's great elements. >Each skill is strong inone aspect of the game, and weak in others. To >play protean for stealth (with a deck full of Earth Controls) is to >play protean ineffectively. Not necessarily. That would be an exotic use, but I imagine there's something to be done with it, and I'd like to see it. (Hmm. Gangrel/Ventrue Seductive Bleed - hey, you may have something there! Isn't it great to play a game where even relatively exotic concepts can make workable decks?) >If my deck features the dominate skill, I >have many cards that can modify my bleed, and I shouldn't need more than >four of any one of them. Yes, you can bleed adequately with Dominate (albeit with a very boring and predictable cardset). But when all bleed decks must have Dominate, the game gets pretty stereotyped. A great joy of Jyhad is that almost every clan or basic clan combination can bleed, vote, OR fight, and EVERY clan or clan combination can defend itself against all three strategies. Hence you don't see much of the Magic phenomena "Oh, you're playing a weenie deck. I don't have a chance against that". >Every skill has been given its fair share of >these "built in duplicates", and playing WITHOUT limits DEFEATS the >balance that is so fundamentally a part of Jyhad's design. Really? What are the Presence and Animalism duplicates? >A four card limit is not a problem. When the balance that >is part of Jyhad has been established, so many more options for style >of play will be open to you, and each will have an equal chance of >succeeding. Your games will become more interesting. You will build >decks you never dared before. You will have more FUN. Jyhad has three basic strategies - bleed, combat, and vote. Since bleed doesn't require cards but the others do, with tight card limits, bleed becomes the only strategy. Likewise, of the three bleed tactics, Stealth and Tap require cards, so only Bruise, with combat equipment (read guns, read slow) remains. While my group had 4-card limits, we were eventually forced to bar Malk decks (they always won, unless the whole table ganged up), and that's exactly what the game degenerated into - lots of slow Bruise and Bleed decks. By contrast, without limits, the game explodes into a kaleidoscopic variety of strategies and tactics. In my Strategies and Clans article I outlined 20 fundamentally different decks (none required lots of rares, natch). There are many more; I guesstimate just under 100 fundamentally different decks. Games go faster without limits, too. In terms of fun, you haven't played CCGs until you've played CCGs without card limits. Card limits detract so from deckbuilding, deck tweaking, and (in Jyhad) strategy that even games that are broken without limits (Magic) are still a hoot played without limits. When the game works without limits, you really get to see the real fun of a CCG - trading, playing, and deckbuilding, all extensively, in a varied and ever-changing environment. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

Guess what. I play with a THREE card limit... ...and I have fun every time. Unlike any other card game, Jyhad has a balance between its many facets built right into the cards themselves. Each discipline, clan, etc, has its function, and when properly played, is niether more nor less power- ful than any other. This balance is due in large part to the number of "built in duplicates", or varied cards that have roughly the same effect. There are many different cards that give stealth, or intercept, or whatever. Those effects that can be achieved by only one specific card are rarely needed more than three or four times in any game. Each skill is strong inone aspect of the game, and weak in others. To play protean for stealth (with a deck full of Earth Controls) is to play protean ineffectively. If my deck features the dominate skill, I have many cards that can modify my bleed, and I shouldn't need more than four of any one of them. Every skill has been given its fair share of these "built in duplicates", and playing WITHOUT limits DEFEATS the balance that is so fundamentally a part of Jyhad's design. Trust me. A four card limit is not a problem. When the balance that is part of Jyhad has been established, so many more options for style of play will be open to you, and each will have an equal chance of succeeding. Your games will become more interesting. You will build decks you never dared before. You will have more FUN. -p.

In article <410m91$n...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) writes: > >In terms of fun, you haven't played CCGs until you've played CCGs without >card limits. Card limits detract so from deckbuilding, deck tweaking, and >(in Jyhad) strategy that even games that are broken without limits (Magic) >are still a hoot played without limits. When the game works without >limits, you really get to see the real fun of a CCG - trading, playing, >and deckbuilding, all extensively, in a varied and ever-changing >environment. > > Thanks for the line by line commentary. Very useful. I didn't post that up to get anyone to agree with me. I was merely offering what I have learned from my experience. I genuinely enjoy the game of Jyhad with card limits, and I think many others would too. My post was to explain why and how it works for me. I have mentioned before in an unrelated post that I have constructed decks around the artwork alone. They have held their own. That would be impossible without limits. I have found that by limiting the amount of cards, the options for style, concept, and approach become limitless. Give it a try. I think many people, those people who like to explore the possibilties, will like it. If it's just gonna make you squirm and rant because you might lose, then forget it. -p.

IZZ...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (pete) writes: curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) writes: >> >>In terms of fun, you haven't played CCGs until you've played CCGs without >>card limits. >Thanks for the line by line commentary. Very useful. >I didn't post that up to get anyone to agree with me. I was merely >offering what I have learned from my experience. I genuinely enjoy >the game of Jyhad with card limits, and I think many others would too. >My post was to explain why and how it works for me. >I have mentioned before in an unrelated post that I have constructed >decks around the artwork alone. They have held their own. That would >be impossible without limits. I have found that by limiting the amount >of cards, the options for style, concept, and approach become limitless. Theme and concept decks can be very interesting and fun, and many cannot operate in a wild environment. However, 4-card doesn't reduce power enoughfor theme decks, it just shuts down any deck with a reliance on a small set of cards. I actually find that theme and concept decks end up drawing from a small set of cards, comparable to that of a 2-clan 1-discipline deck, and card limits are particularly painful to exactly that kind of deck. If I want serious theme decks, I find it necessary to play under "gentlevampire's agreement" to not play typical tuned decks. Restrictions like 4-card produce Jyhad variants, which can be interesting, but I prefer to change such restrictions frequently as most variants I've seen have optimal strategies which pop up after a few playings, making the variant, well, not very varied. My decks all have strong personalities and could usually be considered thematic. I consider it part of the pleasure to build theme decks that are also functioning play decks, and greatly enjoy my "Feeling a little Under the Weather" deck which is basically Tremere skulking about poising the blood supply, my Visionaries deck leading the Camarilla to freedom form the Methuseleh (except me, of course :-) or my Things that go Bump in the Night deck (which plays like it's made of a group of terrorists). These theme decks tend to demand large numbers of particular cards even more than my more powerful decks, which rarely use more than 8 of any card. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <4172vh$f...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) writes: >If I want serious theme decks, I find it necessary to play under >"gentlevampire's agreement" to not play typical tuned decks. Restrictions >like 4-card produce Jyhad variants, which can be interesting, but I prefer >to change such restrictions frequently as most variants I've seen have >optimal strategies which pop up after a few playings, making the variant, >well, not very varied. > >My decks all have strong personalities and could usually be considered >thematic. I consider it part of the pleasure to build theme decks that >are also functioning play decks, and greatly enjoy my "Feeling a little >Under the Weather" deck which is basically Tremere skulking about poising >the blood supply, my Visionaries deck leading the Camarilla to freedom >form the Methuseleh (except me, of course :-) or my Things that go Bump in >the Night deck (which plays like it's made of a group of terrorists). >These theme decks tend to demand large numbers of particular cards even >more than my more powerful decks, which rarely use more than 8 of any >card. > Hell, I like everything you've said here. Your decks sound particularly interesting- the kind of guy I'd like to play with. I'll have to own up now and admit to you all that my group often breaches our card limits house rule to allow an intriguing concept to reign. Like my forty card deck with ten chainsaws. Everybody got their own chainsaw, or two. It was my Chainsaw Army of the Night. Man, I LOVE this game. -p.

I would just like to say that I would rather have my deck be run into the ground by a creative, no limits deck than to defeat all the other crippled, 4-card-limit decks at the table. Jyhad doesn't need limits (except maybe on freak drive) because it, unlike Magic, is well-balanced. (Incidentally, if you ever play for ante, you may care more about losing than me. I make it a rule never to play for ante with anyone who hasn't been playing Jyhad with me for at least 5 years.) P.S. In case you're wondering, Santiago is my real middle name, it has nothing to do with the evil vampire in Interview with the Vampire. Santiago * Reporter: Mr. Ghandi, what do you think of e-mail: * western civilization? ia...@mail.utexas.edu * Ghandi: I think it would be a very good idea.

ia...@mail.utexas.edu (Santiago) wrote: >I would just like to say that I would rather have my deck be run into the >ground by a creative, no limits deck than to defeat all the other >crippled, 4-card-limit decks at the table. Jyhad doesn't need limits >(except maybe on freak drive) because it, unlike Magic, is well-balanced. >(Incidentally, if you ever play for ante, you may care more about losing >than me. I make it a rule never to play for ante with anyone who hasn't >been playing Jyhad with me for at least 5 years.) You believe in no limits eh? I can tell you that a deck with a limit on the amount of a single card is far more interesting than, say, a 20 majesty, 20 freak drive, 20 threats or conditioning deck. The more varied the cards are, the more creative a player must be, and the more enjoyable the game becomes. After all, the game is played for enjoyment, right? Obviously, the people playing must agree on a house limit (we play a limit of five). If none of you want to limit, then don't. I have played the game both ways and the limited version is better (in my perspective). Also, you actually might use some of the cards you paid for if you play with a limit; instead of just a small number of different cards. We also play that people can make the deck size whatever they wish (eighty seems to be about optimal) but the 5 card limit still applies. Makes for interesting games. Well that's my view. Hope we get some more discussion going (this newsgroup has been getting a little quiet lately). M Whitbread.

In article <41ovdn$9...@dingo.cc.uq.oz.au>, Michael Whitbread <mw...@earthsciences.uq.edu.au> writes: >ia...@mail.utexas.edu (Santiago) wrote: >>I would just like to say that I would rather have my deck be run into the >>ground by a creative, no limits deck than to defeat all the other >>crippled, 4-card-limit decks at the table. Jyhad doesn't need limits >>(except maybe on freak drive) because it, unlike Magic, is well-balanced. >>(Incidentally, if you ever play for ante, you may care more about losing >>than me. I make it a rule never to play for ante with anyone who hasn't >>been playing Jyhad with me for at least 5 years.) Been playing jyhad with you for at least 5 YEARS???!??? Where do you live, that Jyhad has been out for five years? I am going to move there tommorow..... [ quoted text not captured ] I agree with you in that a limit deck would be better than a 20 majesty 20 freak drive deck, but who wants to play a 20 majesty 20 freak drive deck? Sounds like you play with the wrong kind of people, if when you don't have a limit they immediately draw all the fun out of Jyhad with it. The best part about Jyhad is the intrigue and deception that goes on, and if everyone in your group wants to lose all that by playing with 20 freak drives and 20 majesties, then stop playing with them. Having no limits is much better, if you are playing with the right people. Just my opinion..... Jamie

Michael Whitbread <mw...@earthsciences.uq.edu.au> writes >ia...@mail.utexas.edu (Santiago) wrote: >>I would just like to say that I would rather have my deck be run into the >>ground by a creative, no limits deck than to defeat all the other >>crippled, 4-card-limit decks at the table. Jyhad doesn't need limits >>(except maybe on freak drive) because it, unlike Magic, is well-balanced. >>(Incidentally, if you ever play for ante, you may care more about losing >>than me. I make it a rule never to play for ante with anyone who hasn't >>been playing Jyhad with me for at least 5 years.) >You believe in no limits eh? I can tell you that a deck with a limit on the >amount of a single card is far more interesting than, say, a 20 majesty, 20 >freak drive, 20 threats or conditioning deck. Majesty and Freak Drive are both broken cards. They both must be fixed. But the existence of spoilers like Freak Drive has nothing to do with the appropriateness of limits on, say, Fake Out. >The more varied the cards are, >the more creative a player must be, and the more enjoyable the game becomes. No, in a combination-oriented game like Jyhad, players simply must be lucky or permanent-driven. There's no creativity in praying and hoping for a Bum's Rush in a deck that wasn't allowed to have enough. There's no creativity in using guns to do your fighting, either. >Also, you actually might use some of the >cards you paid for if you play with a limit; instead of just a small number of >different cards. You're not being very inventive with your decks. More than 2/3 of the common cards have been integral parts of at least one of my decks (i.e., it belongs there; it is not there as a second-rate substitute), and several of the rest I just haven't gotten around to. Many of my uncommons and rares cards have too. However, I will concede that playing without limits helps common-heavy decks and makes it substantially more difficult for players who've spent a lot of $$$ to exploit their advantage. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

Michael Whitbread <mw...@earthsciences.uq.edu.au> writes: >Algustas <cfr...@gladstone.uoregon.edu> wrote: (re 4-card) >> Well, the only deck to play (unless you have spent a fortune in >>rare cards) is Malkavian. (snip) you will kick the shi? out of 4 card limit >>decks that are not >>Malkavian. Your hand will flow just like a well designed Jyhad >>(non-limit) deck, and everyone else will be waiting for the right card. >>You will always have the right card.... >I muat disagree. Anyone can throw in some some bum's rushes, haven >uncovereds, >lot's of press cards of different types, malkavian dementia, a number of >combat >cards (potence is good if you are playing the right clan), vulnerability, >sport's bike, KRCG radio, Mr Winthrop etc; all they need to do is force a fight >and the stealth-bleeders are pounded into putty (they can't bleed if they are >constantly in torpor). You're mixing enter combat resources with fight combat resources. All the presses and undead strengths in the world will do you no good if you can't get into a fight. Indeed, they will jam your hand, causing a couple of rounds of inactivity as you clear then out with your 1 per turn discard. Permanent intercept alone won't save you from a Malk predator - it takes too long to get out. If you're not his initial prey, and you manage to get some out, your survival will depend on the timing of his Seduction cards. (Do people really enjoy having games determined by predictable luck issues?) BTW, without card limits Animalism becomes an intercept discipline which CAN adequately back a permanent-driven interception strategy, a typical example of the expansion of strategies from playing without card limits. Your only enter combat resources are 4 Bum's Rushes and 4 Havens. 1 Malk can still oust you, so you have to torporize at least 4 Malks. That requires, on average, that you go through half your deck in just a few turns (because that's all you'll have). Even real Jyhad decks, built fast and coherent, can't really manage that. Slow, permanent-heavy, 4-card decks don't have a chance. In addition, the Malk will sometimes survive the combat (with guns), Sudden a Haven Uncovered or simply pull some guys out of torpor. This will correspondly increase the need for enter combat. Even if your opponents lack rush defense, you need at least 12 rush cards for a reliable enter combat ability. If they have rush defense, you'll need more. >Go with the card limits! They make for interesting games. If you consider slow, luck-driven games in which decks are forced to minimalize personality "interesting", sure. But for that sort of game, War is cheaper. :-) Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

jams...@aol.com (JamStuart) wrote: >I agree with you in that a limit deck would be better than a 20 majesty 20 >freak drive deck, but who wants to play a 20 majesty 20 freak drive deck? >Sounds like you play with the wrong kind of people, if when you don't have >a limit they immediately draw all the fun out of Jyhad with it. The best >part about Jyhad is the intrigue and deception that goes on, and if >everyone in your group wants to lose all that by playing with 20 freak >drives and 20 majesties, then stop playing with them. Having no limits is >much better, if you are playing with the right people. > >Just my opinion..... > >Jamie > The 20 Freak drive etc deck was merely an example, but even with ten or so of a card type we found that things got a little predictable (and thus boring). Furthermore, if you have people around who are new to the game or can't afford to be mega card lords, then limiting makes the game a little fairer and thus more enjoyable by all. Regards, M Whitbread.

If people always play with the same boring decks, the solution is to try and convince them of playing a more 'fun' deck or else don't play with them anymore (that usually does the trick). Phi Michael Whitbread <mw...@earthsciences.uq.edu.au> wrote: !ia...@mail.utexas.edu (Santiago) wrote: !>I would just like to say that I would rather have my deck be run into the !>ground by a creative, no limits deck than to defeat all the other !>crippled, 4-card-limit decks at the table. Jyhad doesn't need limits !>(except maybe on freak drive) because it, unlike Magic, is well-balanced. !>(Incidentally, if you ever play for ante, you may care more about losing !>than me. I make it a rule never to play for ante with anyone who hasn't !>been playing Jyhad with me for at least 5 years.) !You believe in no limits eh? I can tell you that a deck with a limit on the !amount of a single card is far more interesting than, say, a 20 majesty, 20 !freak drive, 20 threats or conditioning deck. The more varied the cards are, !the more creative a player must be, and the more enjoyable the game becomes. !After all, the game is played for enjoyment, right? Obviously, the people !playing must agree on a house limit (we play a limit of five). If none of you !want to limit, then don't. I have played the game both ways and the limited !version is better (in my perspective). Also, you actually might use some of the !cards you paid for if you play with a limit; instead of just a small number of !different cards. We also play that people can make the deck size whatever they !wish (eighty seems to be about optimal) but the 5 card limit still applies. !Makes for interesting games. !Well that's my view. Hope we get some more discussion going (this newsgroup has !been getting a little quiet lately). !M Whitbread.

all good arguments for both limits and no limits I find that limits are extremely reatricting in what knds of decks people can play I have played a tight (almost degenerate) Malk S&B Deck as well as Weenie Political and Thaum and Intercept decks before but Then seating order determines play and there is no strategy or interest in the game. such one dimensional decks either fall apart after a burn through primary prey or go all the way and there is no interest in the game after 4 or so turns So few people play these decks and right now our group is branchning out into well balanced move through your hand cards. Stu -- This is the official account of the Let's Try This Player's, DramaTech's Own Improvisational Comedy Troupe. Performing random acts of spontaneity at MaTech We are dedicated to the discovery of theraputic humor through spontaneous characterization and organized Chaos. We do not underestimate uses of Duck Tape

Phi <baa...@cs.utwente.nl> wrote: >If people always play with the same boring decks, the solution is to >try and convince them of playing a more 'fun' deck or else don't play >with them anymore (that usually does the trick). Nah - even better, design a deck that's made to munch someone's same boring deck. They deserve what they get if they become predictable :) Alec -- Alec Habig, Indiana University High Energy Astrophysics aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu http://astrowww.astro.indiana.edu/personnel/ahabig/ Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns.

> > You believe in no limits eh? I can tell you that a deck with a limit on the > amount of a single card is far more interesting than, say, a 20 majesty, 20 > freak drive, 20 threats or conditioning deck. The more varied the cards are, > the more creative a player must be, and the more enjoyable the game becomes. While what you say about the creativity and innovation of a limited card deck is true, most ex/current M***c players try the 4 card limit. Generally, I find this too restrictive as in some tournaments I have played 8 player games. If I only have 4 of any card but I need enough resources to make it through 7 other methuselahs, I WILL run into problems. The 'other game' was meant to be two player, adapted to multiplayer, but most tournaments are still two players. 4 cards is great then (except for non Basic lands, but that's another debate 8*> ). For example, if I want to 'Stealth' my way through, oh, 4 of those 7 methuselah, I need about 20-30 stealth cards as I will probably need to be prepared for intercepts, poor shuffles, multiple succesful actions against each methuselah, and so on. There aren't that many cards giving the capability of stealth after narrowing down to only 4 of each and only those clans/disciplines you play. So what do I suggest? Well, most tournaments I've been in have used a 6 card rule which was fine, but in some exceptions (10 player games) it would be nice to be able to have 8 or so of good cards. It should be dependant on players. Maybe 2 players - 4 ea. 3-4 players - 5 ea. 5-6 players - 6 ea. 7-10 players - 8 ea. What do you think? There are enough cards in the deck to go around and enough different cards needed to make things interesting. Remember that in a 10 player game you can have 140 cards and will probably need/want 100-110. (plus vamps) Ric p.s. Another topic - Banned cards? WotC printed it, I can play it! If it's a spoiler/doesn't make things 'fair', WotC shouldn't print it. I was once with a group of M***c players in which I happened to be the only white player - 3 of the other 5 played black. I wanted to play Karma, they decided that rule changes would be done by 50%+1 voting and ruled against (banned) my Karma. I was not pleased. I mentioned pestilence .... it stayed. If you don't like the game the way it is, ask for a written, universal change from the rule makers or don't play what you don't like. "Umm, I've always felt that the rook, as the bodyguard was too weak. It should move diagonally too, like the queen..." Neat idea, interseting, but DON"T call it chess... and don't expect me to only play with you if I allow it.

Richard Rodd <oct...@freenet.mb.ca> wrote: > So what do I suggest? Well, most tournaments I've been in have >used a 6 card rule which was fine, but in some exceptions (10 player >games) it would be nice to be able to have 8 or so of good cards. It >should be dependant on players. Maybe > 2 players - 4 ea. > 3-4 players - 5 ea. > 5-6 players - 6 ea. > 7-10 players - 8 ea. An easier to remember alternative is a 10% rule - no more than 10% of you deck can be the same card. This automagically scales with player number. A better solution : fix the (few!) broken cards, and screw the limits. fix #1 : you can't toss political cards for extra votes on your own votes (this fixes KRC weenie vote decks). fix #2 : offensive untaps (things like majesty, freak drive) cost one extra blood. Pretty much every "abusive" deck that I've seen mentioned here falls into one of those two categories. Those two fixes are a much more elegant solution than a general card limit. 10 freak drives is getting abusive, while 10 bum's rushes is vital to a brujah deck. >p.s. Another topic - Banned cards? WotC printed it, I can play it! > If it's a spoiler/doesn't make things 'fair', WotC shouldn't >print it. I was once with a group of M***c players in which I happened >to be the only white player - 3 of the other 5 played black. I wanted to >play Karma, they decided that rule changes would be done by 50%+1 voting >and ruled against (banned) my Karma. I was not pleased. I mentioned >pestilence .... it stayed. What yo-yos. Karma etc. are there to make people think twice about playing a monocolor deck. Running up against them is the price you pay for the ability to keep your deck so tightly focused. Did they ban your White Knight, too? [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.95082...@winnie.freenet.mb.ca>, Richard Rodd <oct...@freenet.mb.ca> writes: > So what do I suggest? Well, most tournaments I've been in have >used a 6 card rule which was fine, but in some exceptions (10 player >games) it would be nice to be able to have 8 or so of good cards. It >should be dependant on players. Maybe > 2 players - 4 ea. > 3-4 players - 5 ea. > 5-6 players - 6 ea. > 7-10 players - 8 ea. > Just go with a "ten percent" limit. If you make a sixty card deck, you may have no more than six of any one card. An eighty card deck, the limit is , mmmmm, ....eight. This is a nice house rule that allows for a card limit that adapts to the size of the game. -p.

Didn't you Know Jyhad Has CArd limits its right in the instruction booklet you can only have 40 + 10 card's per player if you want to fill it all up with freak drives go right ahead!!

On 29 Aug 1995, Alec Habig wrote: > Richard Rodd <oct...@freenet.mb.ca> wrote: > > 2 players - 4 ea. > > 3-4 players - 5 ea. > > 5-6 players - 6 ea. > > 7-10 players - 8 ea. > > An easier to remember alternative is a 10% rule - no more than 10% of you deck > can be the same card. This automagically scales with player number. Would you round up, down, or off? > > A better solution : fix the (few!) broken cards, and screw the limits. > Hear here! ;-) > > >p.s. Another topic - Banned cards? WotC printed it, I can play it! > >I was once with a group of M***c players where I wanted to > >play Karma, they decided that rule changes would be done by 50%+1 > >voting and ruled against (banned) my Karma. > What yo-yos. Did they ban your White Knight, too? > I 'was' with agroup, I basically stopped playing with them that night. (I've played a few of the more sensible in a one on one basis, but never the group) Ric

Richard Rodd <oct...@freenet.mb.ca> wrote: >> An easier to remember alternative is a 10% rule - no more than 10% of you deck >> can be the same card. This automagically scales with player number. > > Would you round up, down, or off? The max# of cards in a Jyhad deck is always a multiple of 10, making for no fractions. Hmm. I'd be inclined to keep it a 10% of the max limit, even if someone had a smaller deck. Tiny deck sizes are not the advantage in Jyhad that they are in Mt$, so you tend to see more people playing with big libraries anyway. Alec [ quoted text not captured ]

Richard Rodd <oct...@freenet.mb.ca> wrote: >While what you say about the creativity and innovation of a limited card >deck is true, most ex/current M***c players try the 4 card limit. >Generally, I find this too restrictive as in some tournaments I have >played 8 player games. If I only have 4 of any card but I need enough >resources to make it through 7 other methuselahs, I WILL run into >problems. The 'other game' was meant to be two player, adapted to >multiplayer, but most tournaments are still two players. 4 cards is great >then (except for non Basic lands, but that's another debate 8*> ). > For example, if I want to 'Stealth' my way through, oh, 4 of >those 7 methuselah, I need about 20-30 stealth cards as I will probably >need to be prepared for intercepts, poor shuffles, multiple succesful >actions against each methuselah, and so on. There aren't that many cards >giving the capability of stealth after narrowing down to only 4 of each >and only those clans/disciplines you play. > So what do I suggest? Well, most tournaments I've been in have >used a 6 card rule which was fine, but in some exceptions (10 player >games) it would be nice to be able to have 8 or so of good cards. It >should be dependant on players. Maybe > 2 players - 4 ea. > 3-4 players - 5 ea. > 5-6 players - 6 ea. > 7-10 players - 8 ea. > > What do you think? There are enough cards in the deck to go >around and enough different cards needed to make things interesting. >Remember that in a 10 player game you can have 140 cards and will >probably need/want 100-110. (plus vamps) > Ric Not a bad idea. I must admit that I haven't played games where we have had more than 5 players, and I can see the difficulty involved with a 4 0r 5 card limited deck in larger games. I may indeed implement this idea in future games (we play a 5 card limit at the moment). Regards, M Whitbread

Well what you say does have some merit, but I have had enough success against malkavian decks to keep me happy. From other responses I have seen, the ten percent rule seems to be the most sensible compromise to the two extreme points of view. Regards, M Whitbread

Michael Whitbread <mw...@earthsciences.uq.edu.au> writes: [ quoted text not captured ] I think the 10% rule is the best possible limit However, I have several decks that use lots of Haven uncovereds/Bums Rushes and the like or Wakey's or Blood dolls for that matter I'll go ahead and tell you this one. One of each vamp with blood 3 or less LOTS of blood dolls/Effective Mgt. and KRC's and CA's and some computer hacking It needs better than 6 blood dolls and others in a 2 player game. and adding one per player is sort of ludicours. Maybe 20% in this case Anyhting beyond 20% is degenerate anyway not neccessarily usefule but degenerate (However I think these decks should be played and when seen Everyone else at the table should pummle them into submission BTW I played my last game in a 5 player game where I played a weenie KRC/CA deck I had lots of fun as everyone took great pains to only allow me to hurt their prey with my votes (my prey had intercept gun from hell deck so there was no chance I was going to get through him; So 10% may be bad for tournemaant play. I will not adopt 10% rules for my group Stu >Regards, >M Whitbread -- Stu Pieloch TLTT Players-Lord High And Mighty Potentate of the Known Universe DramaTech Theatre Improv Troupe http://photobooks.gatech.edu/~zync/lttp.html GE/T/S d++(--) H(-) s++:- g+(-) p2 au++ a- w+++(--) v++ C++ U N++ W---() M+ V-- po+++(---) t--- 5+++ G+++ B--- e++ u++ f+ r++ n--- y*

>Jyhad has built-in card limits, not need to staple external limits on as >well. >-- What built in limits are these? I see built in duplicates, which would favor the concept of card limits, but no built in limits. -p.

In article <1995090110...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>, [ quoted text not captured ] Well, since this has gone on for quit a while now, I hope you'll forgive me as I save myself some keystrokes: The short answer is: Unique cards, restrictions on playability of cards. (Action Mods/Reactions/Giant's Blood/Parity Shift/etc.) Curt (as usual) has thought this thing out far more than most, so here's his POV: From: curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad Subject: Re: Card Restrictions Date: 7 Jun 1995 22:24:56 -0400 Message-ID: <3r5n1o$6...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Jyhad is not Magic. In Magic you have multiple cards to permit functioning under card limits. In Jyhad, you have multiple + intercept and + stealth cards because you can only use one of each and they WOULD like it to be possible to get intercept or stealth above 1. Under card limits, this has the decidedly peculiar side effect of permitting intercept and stealth decks while the other fascinating uses of those disciplines get hosed. Magic was originally designed with the assumption that people would play in "universes" of less than 2000 cards. After all, what kind of nut case would spend hundreds of dollars to win a card game? Hence Magic was designed with the assumption that players would face loose card limits - not exactly 4, but unlimited numbers just wouldn't be available. When it became clear that some people would pay thousands to win, and have access to more or less unlimited numbers of any card, they slapped on a 4-card limit in a desperate attempt to simulate the limits they had expected. It took a lot of the flavor out, but they had to do something. It really didn't fix things, even - look at the length of the restricted list! Since about Arabian Nights, WotC has been trying to eliminate the need for card limits so the game can be played as intended. They haven't succeeded, but at least they are trying. By the time of the design of Jyhad, WotC KNEW that people were going to have lots of the cards. Jyhad was designed on the principle that people were going to have access to unlimited commons, and perhaps to unlimited uncommon and rares too. For Jyhad to work, you MUST have unlimited numbers of many essential cards - Bum's Rush, Deflections, Dodge, Undead Strength, Flash, Fake Out, Telepathic Counter, etc. Otherwise the defense/offense, vote/combat/bleed, and clan balances go poof. Yes, there are some problem cards, like Wake, 5th Tradition, and Majesty (which actually is one of the cards you need in quantity), but those have to be addressed on an individual basis. You don't fix a few problem cards by wrecking the whole game structire. The great tragedy of WotC's earlier mistake with Magic is this 4-card business. It would be excessive to punish WotC for that one mistake, especially given that they recognized it promptly and are trying to fix it. But that mistake is being used to punish the entire CCG industry. Every game that comes out, people want to put 4-card limits on - whether the limits are inadequate (Rage), irrelevant (INWO), or downright destructive (Jyhad). Almost every game is getting stuck with all the pains of card limits - differing effects on different cards, the tedium of card counting to ensure legality, the mindlessness of throwing in 4 of each necessary card, etc. After playing a good no-limits-needed game, believe me, card limits will drive you NUTS. In CCGs, as in underwear, one size does NOT fit all. ----- [Continuity break imposed by LSJ] ----- (Peter Gordon WILSMORE) writes: >Limiting cards is a really good idea otherwise you can get real nasty (and >impossible to stop) malkavian bleed decks (bleed, stealth, slealth, bleed, >stealth, slealth, bleed, stealth, slealth, bleed, stealth, slealth). You think 4 card is a problem for the Malkavians? Well, let's see what that actually does to the Malks: Sneak Cards: 4 Cloak the Gathering 4 Faceless Night 4 Lost in Crowds 4 Mask of 1000 Faces 4 Seduction 4 Spying Mission 4 Psychic Veil Bleed Cards 4 Bonding 4 Conditioning 4 Deflection 4 Computer Hacking 4 Govern the Unaligned 4 Kine Dominance 4 Threats 1 Pulse of the Canaille 4 Guns, 11 Masters 80 Cards total. Now, assuming each Veil gets used for 1 bleed and the Pulse gets used twice, he can get 58 points of bleed at a total of +36 Stealth, with 4 Seductions for that extra boost and 4 Deflections for some delightful little surprises. *Such* a hardship. (Of course, if he hasn't got $$$, he probably doesn't have 4 PV and 4 KD, but hey, why should we let people without $$$ have a shot at the big leagues by allowing them to use extras of the roughly equivalent Lost in Crowds plus Govern the Unaligned?) Mr. Malk can still easily clear the table, but at least you have the consolation of knowing that due to card limits, his deck has become completely, utterly predictable, with no options left for variety within the context of stealthy bleeds. Now let's look at what 4-card limits do to DEFENSES against our friendly neighborhood Malk. There are 3 main defenses against stealthy bleed: intercept, rush, and bounce. Now the interceptors don't really care about card limits any more than the Malks do, as there are umpty-umph + intercept cards. Tremere and combat Malkavians do just fine. Toreador theoretically could, except with all that intercept about they can't get out any guns and they no longer have any good way to hurt people. Now the bouncers (people using Deflection/ Telepathic Misdirection to bounce bleeds to their prey) used to cackle madly at the prospect of a Malkavian predator, who they just used to oust their prey. Hearing that Mr. Malk was building an "unbeatable" deck by cranking up the proportion of Conditionings merely increased the volume on their cackle. Nothing like your predator spending extra blood to bleed YOUR prey. Once again, the Malks and the Tremere are sitting pretty. Granted, with only 4 of each they no longer COMPLETELY hose the Sneak and Bleed decks, but they have intercept too, so they're still smiling. Mr. Ventrue, however, can only bounce 4 bleeds (no telepathics for HIM). His cackle dies in his throat. Quick, can he find another defense? Intercept - sorry, no intercept in his disciplines. Rush - sorry again, Fortitude is pretty lousy at doing damage. He's now helpless. Congratulation, card limits have claimed their first victim, as Ventrue degenerates from an outstanding anti-Malk deck to a very low speed bump. Toreador bleed bouncers get hosed too. Their remaining bounce card (Telepathic Misdirection) isn't even as good as Deflection, and the poor man's bleed bounce (Telepathic Counter) doesn't do much good when you can only have 4. They, too, have become speed bumps. At least they are high speed bumps as the combination of Auspicious intercept and Celeritous Dodges allows them to survive a long time. What about rushers? Rush is based on the principle that the best defense is a good offense. In rush, you play a combat god deck, with lots of cards for entering combat (Bum's Rush, Haven Uncovered, etc.) Typically a nasty Brujah rush doesn't care how many Bleed or Stealth cards a Malk predator has because he sends the Malks to torpor as fast as they get influenced out. Under 4-card, though, things change. With only 4 Bum's Rush and 4 Haven, Mr. Brujah can only get into combat 8 times (and the Havens can be Suddened). At most, he can get 2 players. Typically, he can't even get one, because with only 8 enter combat cards he's guaranteed a dry spell where he can't find an enter combat card and he's just going to get mowed down. It will only take one surviving Malk to do the job. Victim #3. Nosferatu and Gangrel lose rush for similar reasons. They have access to raven spies, at least, so if they are very lucky they will a) not start with a Malk predator, b) draw and play multiple Ravens and Sports Bikes, c) not get their one +2 interceptor socked with a Seduction and d) manage to have the right cards in hand to torporize multiple Malkavians. Not as long a shot as winning the lottery, but, still, 9 times out of 10, <thump> <thump> - more speed bumps. So what do we have? Malkavian stealthy bleed decks are reduced from being able to clear the table to - being able to clear the table slightly more slowly. Sniff. Meanwhile, 5 out of the 7 clans lose the (otherwise VERY effective) defenses against Malkavian stealth and bleed. Jeez, what more would they want? -- ----- L. Scott Johnson (lsc...@crl.com) | The opinions expressed are mine Graphics Specialist and Jyhad Rulemonger | and subject to card text

Michael Whitbread <mw...@earthsciences.uq.edu.au> writes: >Well what you say does have some merit, but I have had enough success against >malkavian decks to keep me happy. From other responses I have seen, the ten >percent rule seems to be the most sensible compromise to the two extreme points >of view. If the extremes are "right" and "wrong", I see no reason to compromise. Jyhad has built-in card limits, not need to staple external limits on as well. -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | These opinions are mine and http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson | are subject to card text. Graphics Specialist and Jyhad Rulemonger. |

pete <IZZ...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU> wrote: >>Jyhad has built-in card limits, not need to staple external limits on as >>well. >>-- >What built in limits are these? I see built in duplicates, which would >favor the concept of card limits, but no built in limits. Primarily that you have to do a lot of different things in Jyhad - pretty much any useful offensive activity requires 3 or more cards simultaneously - so every card is limited by the need for others. In addition, you have various defenses and your master cards. If you pile endless maneuvers into your pitch deck your enemies can respond by piling in combat ends, dodges, and stealth. The result is a very complicated set of tradeoffs. A big pile of any card is relatively easy to beat. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <427kqg$n...@crl.crl.com>, lsc...@crl.com (L. Scott Johnson) writes: <(description of really nasty and boring Malk S&B deck deleted)> Well, sure, you can design a deck like that.. But would it be much fun to play? Much of the argument against card limits has focused on how this one stupid, uncreative deck is unbeatable. But is it really any less creative than that 60 KRCs, 20 Praxis Seizures deck that won Origins? Or less fair than a Freak Drive/Threats/5th Tradition One-Turn-Win deck? I don't think these extremes are arguments for or against card limits. The best way to deal with these decks is simply to have a gentleman's agreement not to play them. At the place where I play (which had a 4 card limit for a long time, but is just now starting to have a limitless table) its tacitly agreed not to play stupid Malk decks (creative Malk decks, which have been played, are a different matter), and if someone shows up with one, the whole table gangs up on him. So in the debate about card-limits, lets see if we can lower the shrillness a little bit by not focusing so hard on the "Oh, yeah, if you (do/do not) play card limits, than how are you supposed to be beat _this_ stupid deck?" arguments. Let's try to focus instead on which decks are more fun and challenging to play when you are playing with mature opponents who like to make interesting decks. Just my 2 pool... EZ

Michael Whitbread <mw...@earthsciences.uq.edu.au> writes: > The 20 Freak drive etc deck was merely an example, but even with ten or so of >a card type we found that things got a little predictable (and thus boring). Jyhad is never predictable without limits. Even on those rare occaisions when you know what your predator will do the next round you have to worry what he'll do the time after that. If you let your guard or your planning down, a good player will catch you with your pants down. >Furthermore, if you have people around who are new to the game or can't afford >to be mega card lords, then limiting makes the game a little fairer and thus >more enjoyable by all. The cards you want large numbers of are almost all commons, and Jyhad commons are cheap (5 cents apiece and less, excepting only a few). Without limits, you can put together a really good deck for very little money. With limits, you can't do it just with commons and will have to pay for more uncommons and rares. I traded an entire playable deck to somebody once for just two rares. I even felt a little guilty about it, because by $ measurement I came out ahead. You can't do this under 4-card, and can't do it much under 6-card or 10%. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

ezgol...@aol.com (EZGoldmann) writes: re: a Malk S&B deck >Well, sure, you can design a deck like that.. But would it be much fun to >play? Much of the argument against card limits has focused on how this >one stupid, uncreative deck is unbeatable. But is it really any less >creative than that 60 KRCs, 20 Praxis Seizures deck that won Origins? Or >less fair than a Freak Drive/Threats/5th Tradition One-Turn-Win deck? I >don't think these extremes are arguments for or against card limits. The >best way to deal with these decks is simply to have a gentleman's >agreement not to play them. The KRC problem arises from misreading the rules, not from no card limits. Majestic Freaky bleed decks are obviously something that slipped through playtesting; the problem is with those card only. And, as I've said before (broken record alert) Malk decks are not stupid or unimaginative. They are a good, fundamental deck design, and are supposed to play an important part in the game (check Garfield's introduction to The Eternal Struggle). >So in the debate about card-limits, lets see if we can lower the >shrillness a little bit by not focusing so hard on the "Oh, yeah, if you >(do/do not) play card limits, than how are you supposed to be beat _this_ >stupid deck?" arguments. Let's try to focus instead on which decks are >more fun and challenging to play when you are playing with mature >opponents who like to make interesting decks. Well, I've already started that. I posted 20 different, interesting, and fully playable no-limit deck outlines in my strategies and clans article. I could do 30 more without much more thought (I've already seen them or planned them), although it does take a lot of typing :-) Can any of the 4-carders (or 10%-ers) do the same? If you can enforce gentleman's agreements against abusive decks, what reason would you have for any limits anyway? Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <42cg2v$l...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) writes: >ezgol...@aol.com (EZGoldmann) writes: > >re: a Malk S&B deck > >>[Gentlemans' agreement is the best way oto avoid abusive decks. >If you can enforce gentleman's agreements against abusive decks, what >reason would you have for any limits anyway? IMO, the place Magic went off track was in limiting or banning cards as abusive rather than combinations. Aside from the Mox/Lotus cards, cards are really ugly in combination, not alone. Time Vault should never have been banned. I just don't see many abusive combinations in Jyhad, and very few broken cards. The cards people seem to consider abusive are *common* cards, which generally get adequate testing by the WotC team. In short, I agree with >Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com). The problem is the rules interpretation, not the game. --\Tom Doehne doe...@cse.ogi.edu

Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of having a point value system for V:TES tournaments? While I think most of us agree that card limits are a bad thing (or at least, 4-card limits are bad), most of us also agree that there are certain problem cards in a limitless environment. Given that we are not going to go in and change existing cards to give them a cost, or increase their existing cost, does a point system seem a viable option? For example, maybe Majesty is worth 1 point, Freak Drive is worth 2 points, WWEF is worth 1 point, and a deck's point total is limited to 20% of the number of cards in it. Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of having a point value system >for V:TES tournaments? While I think most of us agree that card limits >are a bad thing (or at least, 4-card limits are bad), most of us also agree >that there are certain problem cards in a limitless environment. Given that >we are not going to go in and change existing cards to give them a cost, >or increase their existing cost, does a point system seem a viable option? >For example, maybe Majesty is worth 1 point, Freak Drive is worth 2 points, >WWEF is worth 1 point, and a deck's point total is limited to 20% of the >number of cards in it. Well, as everybody knows, I'd rather fix the cards. That said, a point system (limited to the genuinely problematic cards, of course) is better than leaving the cards unfixed and unlimited - and certainly far better than blanket limits. A point system will create a $$$ barrier of sorts - most decks will increase in power as the number of "point" cards in them go up. Hence you have to be able to afford at least one set of point cards. It doesn't seem like much, but Wakes kind of work like that now, and I've seen people quit because they couldn't afford the boxes for 9-10 Wakes (if I'm not playing with my fixes, I insist on 4-card for Wake because of that.) My point is not that this makes a point system infeasable, but simply that we have to consider the $$$ side effects. Also, since most of the problems are untaps, a point system effectively makes everybody play deck with a given % of untaps, which somewhat reduces the variety in the game. Do you have a specific scheme in mind, or are you interested in one? Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of having a point value system >for V:TES tournaments? While I think most of us agree that card limits >are a bad thing (or at least, 4-card limits are bad), most of us also agree >that there are certain problem cards in a limitless environment. Given that >we are not going to go in and change existing cards to give them a cost, >or increase their existing cost, does a point system seem a viable option? >For example, maybe Majesty is worth 1 point, Freak Drive is worth 2 points, >WWEF is worth 1 point, and a deck's point total is limited to 20% of the >number of cards in it. IMHO, the last thing Jyhad/V:tES needs is *more* deck construction rules. (Not that tournaments seem to pay any attention to official deck-building rules anyhow: 80-card max, whether 2 or 8 players; 4-card limts; etc.) These untap cards should carry an additional pool cost, perhaps. But stapling cumbersome and akward rules (similar to the reason the errata is not issued even when warranted) is a BadThing(tm). (In the case of Freak Drive, companion errata that 5th Tradition cannot name the acting vampire should probably also be issued). [ quoted text not captured ]

Thomas R Wylie (aa...@cats.ucsc.edu) wrote: : Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of having a point value system : for V:TES tournaments? I have not played in a Jyhad tournament ever, so anything I have to say will come from Theoretical and not Practical experience. That said:, I have two caveats about point systems: 1) The problem cards would never get fixed/removed/errataedin any future printings, because they have been 'fixed for tournaments' - and that's all that really counts, no? 2) If there were a point system, it might (only might) dissuade designers from continuing their so-far excellent job of balancing the cards. If an unbalanced/unbalancing card can simpoly be given a (higher) point-value, then it might be seen as a lesser evil than if the object is to create a no-limits _ever_ card game... : While I think most of us agree that card limits : are a bad thing (or at least, 4-card limits are bad), Yup. Yup. uh-huh. : most of us also agree : that there are certain problem cards in a limitless environment. The salient point here is that almost everyone agrees on _what_ these problem cards are, and at least half of them fall into the category of untap cards. : Given that : we are not going to go in and change existing cards to give them a cost, : or increase their existing cost, does a point system seem a viable option? Simple question: why is that a given? Whatever you do, you are going to have to disseminate this information well in advance to ensure that everyone can properly and legally create their deck. Also, based on the Magic experience, whatever you _do_ set down for tournament rules is eventually going to become the de facto rules for normal house play. How about this for a solution then: instead of a limited list, or its equivalent in a point-value system, simply issue a list of the card-fixes _for tournament purposes only_. This could include things like: - having WWEF cost 1 blood - Having Majesty cost 1 blood - Declaring that Theft of Vitae can only be used once per round - Stating that a Freak Driven vampire cannot perform the same _category_ of action again this round. Etc. You know as well as we do what the problem cards are, and probably know how they should be fixed. (If not, asl: We'll be only too happy to tell you. :-) This will have several beneficial effects: - The judges will not have to look over every single deck to ensure that they meet the point standards: a long and tiresome process which takes up much of the judges' and event's time. - Any sort of limits (and point-values count too) can be gotten around by cheating should the person be unscrupulous enough to sneak in cards and put them in after the count. - It still allows people to build whatever sort of deck they want, and the other players at the table can be called on to help enforce the Tournament Errata, as it is in their best interest. - The Tournament Errata would eventually become (in the manner described above) unofficially official, and the 'problem cards' would be fixed (of a sort) without ever having to take them out of print or re-issue them. I believe this to be at least as valid a solution as the points-value one, probably with better long-term effects for the game as a whole. I would love to hear a public response to this idea, even if only to tell me why it won't work and has already been rejected. : For example, maybe Majesty is worth 1 point, Freak Drive is worth 2 points, : WWEF is worth 1 point, and a deck's point total is limited to 20% of the : number of cards in it. I have never really tried the Majestic Bleed deck (not having enough Majesties for it), but isn't 20% Majesty about the right number? And not like this deck needs anything else that would be on the banned list... I doubt that this _particular_ point-value would be much of a solution at all. Shane H.W. Travis | Should we raise a generation of literate Americans, tra...@duke.usask.ca | very little of America as we know it would survive. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | --Richard Mitchell

CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >A point system will create a $$$ barrier of sorts - most decks will >increase in power as the number of "point" cards in them go up. Hence you >have to be able to afford at least one set of point cards. It doesn't >seem like much, but Wakes kind of work like that now, and I've seen people >quit because they couldn't afford the boxes for 9-10 Wakes (if I'm not >playing with my fixes, I insist on 4-card for Wake because of that.) My >point is not that this makes a point system infeasable, but simply that we >have to consider the $$$ side effects. Also, since most of the problems >are untaps, a point system effectively makes everybody play deck with a >given % of untaps, which somewhat reduces the variety in the game. Well, except that part of the point was that if we do the point system right, then unpointed decks will be able to compete even with decks using the full point total. In Magic, the point system tournament is designed to allow people to use older cards without the broken older cards breaking the tournaments. Here, the intention would be more to avoid card limits by limiting those cards that at least seem to break limitless tournaments. People *are* going to play with a certain percentage of untaps, or vote cards, regardless. That's because they're good cards; if they weren't good, why would we be pointing them? The idea of the point system is to prevent the cards that are too good from getting out of control. >Do you have a specific scheme in mind, or are you interested in one? It was just something that occured to me while skimming this thread last night, and it seems like it would be worth playing around with. I haven't yet given thought to just which cards to point, what points to give them, what to cap a deck's point value at, etc. [ quoted text not captured ]

Shane Travis <tra...@duke.usask.ca> wrote: >I have not played in a Jyhad tournament ever, so anything I have to say >will come from Theoretical and not Practical experience. That said:, I >have two caveats about point systems: >1) The problem cards would never get fixed/removed/errataedin any future >printings, because they have been 'fixed for tournaments' - and that's all >that really counts, no? Ah, no. It also counts for sealed environments, for example. If we do have to point a card, then that implies that the card is broken and overpowered, which means that we may want to remove it. Pointing a card does not give it immunity to future fixes. >2) If there were a point system, it might (only might) dissuade designers >from continuing their so-far excellent job of balancing the cards. If an >unbalanced/unbalancing card can simpoly be given a (higher) point-value, >then it might be seen as a lesser evil than if the object is to create a >no-limits _ever_ card game... No. The goal in Magic, for example, is to avoid printing cards that need to be restricted (or pointed). The same goal would be kept in mind in V:TES. We don't *like* saying "no, you can't play with those cards, or at least not all the copies you have", but in some cases it becomes necessary. Ideally a game wouldn't require any card limits or point system to keep it balanced; that's certainly what we're shooting for with Netrunner, for example. >: Given that >: we are not going to go in and change existing cards to give them a cost, >: or increase their existing cost, does a point system seem a viable option? >Simple question: why is that a given? We already decided a long time ago not to do this. We haven't done it for Magic since the alpha->beta switch, and don't plan on doing it in V:TES. >Whatever you do, you are going to have to disseminate this information >well in advance to ensure that everyone can properly and legally create >their deck. That's what we're doing with the Magic point system, and that's what we'd do here. >Also, based on the Magic experience, whatever you _do_ set >down for tournament rules is eventually going to become the de facto >rules for normal house play. That's probably true, which is exactly why we don't like to restrict or pont cards. If people generally only used tournament rules in tournaments, then it wouldn't be so bad. But because they tend to use those rules in private games as well, then by limiting or pointing cards, we are basically telling people they can't play with the cards they just bought, for completely arbitrary reasons. >How about this for a solution then: instead of a limited list, or its >equivalent in a point-value system, simply issue a list of the card-fixes >_for tournament purposes only_. This could include things like: > >- having WWEF cost 1 blood >- Having Majesty cost 1 blood >- Declaring that Theft of Vitae can only be used once per round >- Stating that a Freak Driven vampire cannot perform the same _category_ > of action again this round. Personally, I'm reluctant to do this. I suspect the V:TES team would be reluctant as well, but I haven't actually talked to them about it. And if you assume people would adopt card limits or points in private play, then it seems logical to assume that they would adopt tournament fixes in private play, and that would essentially violate the policy of not making this sort of change. >- The judges will not have to look over every single deck to ensure that > they meet the point standards: a long and tiresome process which takes up > much of the judges' and event's time. But players would have to remember every time they play a card that it's different. What is a judge supposed to do if a round finishes, and the players (who are new) had been forgetting to (for example) pay 1 blood to use Wake with Freshness? >- Any sort of limits (and point-values count too) can be gotten around by > cheating should the person be unscrupulous enough to sneak in cards > and put them in after the count. Well, yes, but we don't run into that problem in Magic very often, so I wouldn't expect to run into it in V:TES very often either, since if anything, it's less cutthroat (ha, ha) than Magic. >- It still allows people to build whatever sort of deck they want, and the > other players at the table can be called on to help enforce the Tournament > Errata, as it is in their best interest. It *might* be in their best interest. I fully expect at least some people to keep quiet about a tournament fix if it lets someone oust their predator, which they are not able to handle otherwise. Then they "remember" the fix later in the game, and the person who got ousted is pissed because they "shouldn't have been". >I believe this to be at least as valid a solution as the points-value one, >probably with better long-term effects for the game as a whole. I'll concede that it's a potential solution, but I don't think it's the best one. >: For example, maybe Majesty is worth 1 point, Freak Drive is worth 2 points, >: WWEF is worth 1 point, and a deck's point total is limited to 20% of the >: number of cards in it. >I have never really tried the Majestic Bleed deck (not having enough >Majesties for it), but isn't 20% Majesty about the right number? And >not like this deck needs anything else that would be on the banned list... >I doubt that this _particular_ point-value would be much of a solution at all. I was just pulling numbers out of a hat. Obviously the system would need tuning. [ quoted text not captured ]

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) wrote: >Shane Travis <tra...@duke.usask.ca> wrote: >>2) If there were a point system, it might (only might) dissuade designers >>from continuing their so-far excellent job of balancing the cards. If an >>unbalanced/unbalancing card can simpoly be given a (higher) point-value, >>then it might be seen as a lesser evil than if the object is to create a >>no-limits _ever_ card game... > >No. The goal in Magic, for example, is to avoid printing cards that need >to be restricted (or pointed). The same goal would be kept in mind in >V:TES. We don't *like* saying "no, you can't play with those cards, or at >least not all the copies you have", but in some cases it becomes necessary. >Ideally a game wouldn't require any card limits or point system to keep it >balanced; that's certainly what we're shooting for with Netrunner, for example. Peace Tom, WotC is already very close w/ Jyhad and making a few minor fixes to a handful of problem cards would eliminate the need for point systems/card limits/any other arbitrary deck cramming rules. >>: Given that >>: we are not going to go in and change existing cards to give them a cost, >>: or increase their existing cost, does a point system seem a viable option? >>Simple question: why is that a given? > >We already decided a long time ago not to do this. We haven't done it for >Magic since the alpha->beta switch, and don't plan on doing it in V:TES. You should (have) done it with VtES, that is: applied the fixes to the cards which need it (we all know what they are) and then said play the cards as the newest edition. Yes, you have to disseminate the information, but you are going to have to do that with point systems/card limits, so why not just fix the cards and be done with it? >>Also, based on the Magic experience, whatever you _do_ set >>down for tournament rules is eventually going to become the de facto >>rules for normal house play. > >That's probably true, which is exactly why we don't like to restrict >or pont cards. If people generally only used tournament rules in tournaments, >then it wouldn't be so bad. But because they tend to use those rules >in private games as well, then by limiting or pointing cards, we are basically >telling people they can't play with the cards they just bought, for >completely arbitrary reasons. If you fix the cards then you won't have to restrict them. >>How about this for a solution then: instead of a limited list, or its >>equivalent in a point-value system, simply issue a list of the card-fixes >>_for tournament purposes only_. This could include things like: >> >>- having WWEF cost 1 blood >>- Having Majesty cost 1 blood >>- Declaring that Theft of Vitae can only be used once per round >>- Stating that a Freak Driven vampire cannot perform the same _category_ >> of action again this round. > >Personally, I'm reluctant to do this. I suspect the V:TES team would be >reluctant as well, but I haven't actually talked to them about it. And >if you assume people would adopt card limits or points in private play, >then it seems logical to assume that they would adopt tournament fixes >in private play, and that would essentially violate the policy of not >making this sort of change. If the card is broken, it SHOULD be fixed. If this backwards way of doing it is the only way possible, then I'm all for it, but I'd rather the cards were officially fixed. >>- The judges will not have to look over every single deck to ensure that >> they meet the point standards: a long and tiresome process which takes up >> much of the judges' and event's time. > >But players would have to remember every time they play a card that it's >different. What is a judge supposed to do if a round finishes, and the players >(who are new) had been forgetting to (for example) pay 1 blood to use >Wake with Freshness? This would not be a problem any more than remembering the point value of/card limit on some particular card. I know people who can quote the Mt$ restricted list from memory. You'd probably do the same thing that you would if some other ruling was omitted/forgotten/skipped. I don't see this being a problem. >>- It still allows people to build whatever sort of deck they want, and the >> other players at the table can be called on to help enforce the Tournament >> Errata, as it is in their best interest. > >It *might* be in their best interest. I fully expect at least some people >to keep quiet about a tournament fix if it lets someone oust their predator, >which they are not able to handle otherwise. Then they "remember" the fix >later in the game, and the person who got ousted is pissed because they >"shouldn't have been". Cheating aside, I'd imagine that most of the people sitting at that table are going to be pretty familiar with the rules and restriction of tournament play and aren't going to let that player get away with it just because one of the players is ignorant about that one point. I also do not see this as a problem. >>I believe this to be at least as valid a solution as the points-value one, >>probably with better long-term effects for the game as a whole. > >I'll concede that it's a potential solution, but I don't think it's >the best one. No, the best one is to fix the cards. Nil carborundum illigitimi, James R. McClure Jr. The OS/2 Apostle <insert disclaimer here>

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >Well, except that part of the point was that if we do the point system >right, then unpointed decks will be able to compete even with decks using >the full point total. In Magic, the point system tournament is designed >to allow people to use older cards without the broken older cards breaking >the tournaments. Here, the intention would be more to avoid card limits >by limiting those cards that at least seem to break limitless tournaments. Incidently, I'm very happy to see that somebody at WotC is concerned with the "breaking" cards but doesn't want to wreck the game to fix them (e.g. blanket limits). What I was saying in my somewhat meandering reply is that, given the current card set, I don't think unpointed decks would have a good chance against maximum-point decks. The scary cards are very good cards, and most are useful in a broad variety of decks. There are relatively few deck designs which won't benefit substantially from putting in limit maximums of all relevant cards. >People *are* going to play with a certain percentage of untaps, or vote >cards, regardless. That's because they're good cards; if they weren't good, >why would we be pointing them? The idea of the point system is to prevent >the cards that are too good from getting out of control. Yes, if you restrict people to, say 10%-20% (or whatever) pointed cards, the decks won't be out of control. But they will still be substantially better than no point decks. Also, I very much doubt point systems will be good for KRC decks, unless you put points on every vote card, and that will have decidely weird effects. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) writes: . >You guys did a marvelous fix on fame, by adding the word "Unique" to it. >Do the same with untaps - "+1 blood cost". >Ditch the errata about pushing your own votes, play that as written (ie, you >can't do it). >Voila. No need for card limits. No need for extensive lists of what you can >and can't do while building your deck. Infinitely simpler than MtG tourny >rules. >So: two lines of changes (cancelling the errata doesn't count, since that was >extra in the first place), and I challenge my fellow readers to make an >"abusive" deck under those rules. Well, there's still 5th Tradition, Taste of Vitae, and Dragonsbreath Rounds, although decks built around those aren't as bad as KRC or endless untap decks. These are less abusive in that they don't completely shortcircuit the Jyhad defense structure, but they're still very nasty. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <42gch9$4...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: > >Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of having a point value system >for V:TES tournaments? While I think most of us agree that card limits >are a bad thing (or at least, 4-card limits are bad), most of us also agree >that there are certain problem cards in a limitless environment. Given that >we are not going to go in and change existing cards to give them a cost, >or increase their existing cost, does a point system seem a viable option? >For example, maybe Majesty is worth 1 point, Freak Drive is worth 2 points, >WWEF is worth 1 point, and a deck's point total is limited to 20% of the >number of cards in it. > Oh come on. Just limit all the damn cards and ignore the whining. The above idea is not what I would call a solution. Problem cards cease to become problem cards when cards limits are in effect. If you want to limit SOME cards, you should limit them all. Limiting only a few makes no sense. Almost any card can be abused. Either equal limits for all or no limits altogether.

Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: > >Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of having a point value system >for V:TES tournaments? I don't think it would work very well. 1) such a system is hard both to build a deck under and to verify that the players are following the rules. 2) Hard to balance. Look at any game where you can design your own widget, or build an army from points. Those are balancing nightmares, and only work after years of playtesting and revisions. 3) It links odd cards under the same limit. Majesty and WwEF are fundamentally different cards - why tie them together? An easier solution in the same vein - a "restricted" list of cards that you couldn't have more than 10% of your deck being. From a game play perspective, this is not nearly as satisfying as Shane's list of fixes, but fits in with the way you guys like to balance things. Consider : you have said that you don't like "errata"ing cards - for instance, making all untaps cost one extra blood. Why? Because it changes a rule of the game that's not obvious, especially to newcomers. My question : how is a way to limit the number of any particular card in a deck fundamentally different than this? That's a rule change too. You still need a list of cards and what's different about them (in this case, the rule change is that you can't have more than X in your deck). You guys did a marvelous fix on fame, by adding the word "Unique" to it. Do the same with untaps - "+1 blood cost". Ditch the errata about pushing your own votes, play that as written (ie, you can't do it). Viola. No need for card limits. No need for extensive lists of what you can and can't do while building your deck. Infinitely simpler than MtG tourny rules. So: two lines of changes (cancelling the errata doesn't count, since that was extra in the first place), and I challenge my fellow readers to make an "abusive" deck under those rules. Alec [ quoted text not captured ]

aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) wrote: >Ditch the errata about pushing your own votes, play that as written (ie, you >can't do it). this isn't as clear as you make it seem; many people (such as myself) still think that the written rules allow you to push your own votes. -- -chad

On 5 Sep 1995, James R. McClure Jr. wrote: > Peace Tom, > > WotC is already very close w/ Jyhad and making a few minor fixes to a handful of > problem cards would eliminate the need for point systems/card limits/any other > arbitrary deck cramming rules. > Hi James, I have to agree with you here. The real problem here is that WOC did a fantastic job of balancing the cards, except for a small handfull of problem cards. I would like to see the cards either fixed or eliminated, in the case of the latter hopefully replaced with similar cards that are balanced. The balance of Jyhad and the power of the common cards makes this the best card game on the market. I fear point values might well start it on a slippery slope towards mediocracy. Algustas *****Our spirit of enjoyment was stronger than our spirit of sacrifice. We wanted to have more than we wanted to give. We tried to spare effort, and met disaster.***** Marshal Henri Petain, May 1941

On Tue, 5 Sep 1995, pete wrote: > Oh come on. Just limit all the damn cards and ignore the whining. The > above idea is not what I would call a solution. Problem cards cease to > become problem cards when cards limits are in effect. If you want to > limit SOME cards, you should limit them all. Limiting only a few makes > no sense. Almost any card can be abused. Either equal limits for all > or no limits altogether. Hi Pete, Who is whining? If you only want to play with four of a given card, go ahead. You play a four card limit deck, and I'll play one of my decks. No whining out of me.... Algustas *****Yes! Life is a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death! Live!***** Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee, Auntie Mame, act II, scene IV.

[ quoted text not captured ] One has only to read the sentence in the rulebook about who can pitch (burn) additional Political Action cards during votes. "Any of the Other Methuselahs" is pretty clearly excluding the acting Methuselah. [ quoted text not captured ]

Alec Habig <aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu> wrote: >>Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of having a point value system >>for V:TES tournaments? >I don't think it would work very well. > >1) such a system is hard both to build a deck under and to verify that the > players are following the rules. That might turn out to be true. >2) Hard to balance. Look at any game where you can design your own widget, or > build an army from points. Those are balancing nightmares, and only work > after years of playtesting and revisions. Yet we seem to have done a reasonably good job of it on the first pass through the Magic cards. All it really needs is a proper understanding of the cards, and people willing to put the system through its paces. >3) It links odd cards under the same limit. Majesty and WwEF are > fundamentally different cards - why tie them together? For one thing, there are already cards that more or less meet this objection. Backways doesn't have anything in common with Aaron's Feeding Razor except that they're both unique, and therefore tied together by being limited in some sense. Also, we are talking tournaments here, which frequently have more or less arbitrary restrictions about what you can or can't do. >An easier solution in the same vein - a "restricted" list of cards that you >couldn't have more than 10% of your deck being. From a game play perspective, >this is not nearly as satisfying as Shane's list of fixes, but fits in with >the way you guys like to balance things. Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that we *like* to have a restricted list, but that solution would certainly be simpler. Whether it's a better solution I'm not sure of, and in fact I suspect it isn't, which is why I brought it up. >Consider : you have said that you don't like "errata"ing cards - for instance, >making all untaps cost one extra blood. Why? Because it changes a rule of the >game that's not obvious, especially to newcomers. My question : how is a way >to limit the number of any particular card in a deck fundamentally different >than this? That's a rule change too. You still need a list of cards and >what's different about them (in this case, the rule change is that you can't >have more than X in your deck). >You guys did a marvelous fix on fame, by adding the word "Unique" to it. Well, there's a difference between changing what a card does, and what is required to play that card in the first place. Also, there's a difference between issuing a list of rules for purposes of a tournament, and issuing actual changes to a card (or at least, we like to think so). Players are perfectly free to ignore the former as long as they aren't playing in a tournament, whereas we expect people to play by the latter. Issuing errata to a card is, quite simply, a more serious matter than issuing a rule for a tournament format. [ quoted text not captured ]

Algustas <cfr...@gladstone.uoregon.edu> writes: >On Tue, 5 Sep 1995, pete wrote: > >> Oh come on. Just limit all the damn cards and ignore the whining. The >> above idea is not what I would call a solution. Problem cards cease to >> become problem cards when cards limits are in effect. If you want to >> limit SOME cards, you should limit them all. Limiting only a few makes >> no sense. Almost any card can be abused. Either equal limits for all >> or no limits altogether. > >Hi Pete, > Who is whining? If you only want to play with four of a given >card, go ahead. You play a four card limit deck, and I'll play one of my >decks. No whining out of me.... ...nor me. This is cool... Fred

Three big points that I think are missed here, and what I think they mean: 1) Jyhad tourney rules have not become standard for Jyhad play. Just look at the huge number of people who play 4-card, for example, or people who think "the more the merrier" when tournament says you should have 5 people. Is it the case that there are very few "sanctioned," "official" Jyhad tourneys outside of Seattle/CA, and there will be more in the future? 2) Lots and lots of people play with a 4-card limit. Many of these people are absolute idiots, but they buy Jyhad cards. I've talked to one individual who isn't stupid, but he's sincerely worried that a Jyhad game without card limits will result in _more_ speed bump players, since they won't be able to resist putting in 20 of a "good" card and will always have a jammed hand. You can't argue with someone who thinks like that. I'm curious to know what percentage of players do play 4-card, but if it's as high as I think it is (I know of 4 groups, and all play that way,) it only makes sense to have some sort of sanctioned 4-card tourney format. A no-limit format could then adopt whatever rules it wanted with much less danger of them being "the rules." 3) Most Jyhad players hate Magic, and vice versa. Again, these are just my observations and I'm curious to see what others think. I can see why WotC is interested in having a consistant policy for all of it's card games re:fixes (modulus the card-back change issue,) but most people don't seem to care. "That's how we did it for Magic" is more likely to piss them off than anything else, in fact. I thought I read here months ago that WotC was planning on patching some cards in the new set and making the blanket statement "all cards are to be played as in their latest version." I really liked that. Real games work that way. You don't see people bitching that their 4-6 armour units got changed to be 4-5's in the second edition for game balance. In fact, a rule saying to play all units as written would seem like utter nonsense.

Thomas R Wylie (aa...@cats.ucsc.edu) wrote: : Well, there's a difference between changing what a card does, and what is : required to play that card in the first place. Also, there's a difference : between issuing a list of rules for purposes of a tournament, and issuing : actual changes to a card (or at least, we like to think so). Players are : perfectly free to ignore the former as long as they aren't playing in a : tournament, whereas we expect people to play by the latter. Issuing errata : to a card is, quite simply, a more serious matter than issuing a rule for : a tournament format. I hate to say it, but try to find someone to play non-tourney rules with you in MtG. Next to, if not totally, impossible. If tourney rules are released for VTES, they will become the standard to build decks by (most likely). Personally, I wish we didn't have to have tourney rules, or maybe have two types, limit and non-limit... heck call them Type II and Type I :). Since tournaments are usually local, the people running the tournament will be able to have it with the card limit their region is used to. This only becomes an issue at large events that attract people from far away from the tourney location, and in that case just run one of each type. I don't think that someone playing with limits should be thrown blindly into a non-limit enviro, and vice vs. Right now I'm in a 4 card limit group, and contrary to common opinion, Malk S/B decks are not super dominant. Part of this is the anti-Malk cards, and the fact that if everyone played them, picture the contesting. Also, people get tired of the same old things. In a 4 card tournament, to me it seems that whoever can come up with the best non-Malk deck will win... b/c all the Malk decks will be contesting each other (hopefully). I think I babbled of the subject... but basicly, if we have to have tournament rules, I hope that it is left to whoever is running the tourney to determine what sort of card limits will be used. This way, VTES won't turn into MtG, where it is impossible to play non-tourney. -- Charles T. Schwope | Every man is a spark in the darkness. By the aka CT | time he is noticed, he is gone forever, a ch...@fpah1.dseg.ti.com | retinal afterimage that fades, and is obscured c-sc...@ti.com | by newer, brighter lights.

As I previously mentioned, the written rules can be read so as to allow 1 vote max. per Meth. (in additional to any from vampires). So, you can't push if you're calling the vote with a vote card, and other Meth. can play only 1 vote each. This ruling has the advantage of being `fair' to the vote caller; he's not prevented from doing something that everyone else can be doing. In article <42ifea$j...@murrow.corp.sgi.com> Chad Ray McDaniel <ch...@sgi.com> writes: >aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) wrote: > > >>Ditch the errata about pushing your own votes, play that as written (ie, you >>can't do it). > > >this isn't as clear as you make it seem; many people (such as myself) still >think that the written rules allow you to push your own votes. -- "Live Life with Heart." Alan Kwan kw...@cs.cornell.edu

At ManaFest, a library consisting almost entirely of Conditioning, Fifth Tradition, Freak Drive, and Majesty managed to clear the entire table in one turn or nearly so every game. With Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, the increased blood cost might not do the trick. Having hosted Elysium, a weekly Jyhad club, for several monthes, I can testify that deck limits work and are acceptable to most players. In large enough games, the politics and contested Vampires weaken the obvious bleed decks, and it seems like a real game. Indeed, Jyhad seems to demand at least five players to enjoy the fullness of the game. Anton Dovydaitis an...@infoserv.com For Ishi Press inquiries, mail to `ish...@ishius.com'.

In article j...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU, aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: > > Alec Habig <aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu> wrote: > >>Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of having a point value system > >>for V:TES tournaments? > >I don't think it would work very well. > > > >3) It links odd cards under the same limit. Majesty and WwEF are > > fundamentally different cards - why tie them together? > > For one thing, there are already cards that more or less meet this objection. > Backways doesn't have anything in common with Aaron's Feeding Razor except > that they're both unique, and therefore tied together by being limited > in some sense. Also, we are talking tournaments here, which frequently > have more or less arbitrary restrictions about what you can or can't do. > No! The number of Backways I have in my deck is in no way effected by the number of Feeding Razors. Both our limited by uniqueness but are not connected. Now you are purposing to link all the proplem cards togeather and say you can only have X number of this list of cards. I'm not certain exactly what effect on the game will be but I can see you are creating a whole different set of trade offs that were not intended when the game was designed. > >Consider : you have said that you don't like "errata"ing cards - for instance, > >making all untaps cost one extra blood. Why? Because it changes a rule of the > >game that's not obvious, especially to newcomers. My question : how is a way > >to limit the number of any particular card in a deck fundamentally different > >than this? That's a rule change too. You still need a list of cards and > >what's different about them (in this case, the rule change is that you can't > >have more than X in your deck). > >You guys did a marvelous fix on fame, by adding the word "Unique" to it. > > Well, there's a difference between changing what a card does, and what is > required to play that card in the first place. Also, there's a difference > between issuing a list of rules for purposes of a tournament, and issuing > actual changes to a card (or at least, we like to think so). Players are > perfectly free to ignore the former as long as they aren't playing in a > tournament, whereas we expect people to play by the latter. Issuing errata > to a card is, quite simply, a more serious matter than issuing a rule for > a tournament format. > I don't understand this argument. If the rules need to be changed for tournament play, the the rules need to be changed! Actual changes are only more serious because it is more permanent. WOTC is changing the name, the card backs, and the basic rules of the game, wouldn't this be a good time to take care of the few problem cards? Players are not perfectly free to ignore tournamnet rules if that is what every one else is playing. Players are perfectly free to ignore card changes, make up there own rules, and pretty much do what ever they want if they can find other players to go along. Just my Opion, and only that for the moment. Steven Bauer

Owen Reynolds wrote: > I'm curious to know what percentage of players do play 4-card, but > if it's as high as I think it is (I know of 4 groups, and all play > that way,) it only makes sense to have some sort of sanctioned 4-card > tourney format. A no-limit format could then adopt whatever rules > it wanted with much less danger of them being "the rules." We keep card numbers free, but most players feel the game gets boring with too many cards of the same type in the deck (every game plays the same), so they impose a four card limit on themselves. If a card is felt essential for a deck, some people decide to put some cards of that type in. I also impose such limit on my decks, but I happen to deviate from it sometimes (if you are going to play with me next sunday: I have 6 Majesties in the deck I'll use then (really don't want combat)). > 3) Most Jyhad players hate Magic, and vice versa. Again, these are just > my observations and I'm curious to see what others think. In Delft, all Jyhad players play Magic as well. We think Jyhad is a better game, but Magic beats Jyhad all times when playing with just 2 players. -- Johan Meijdam jo...@pa.twi.tudelft.nl

ch...@fpah1.dseg.ti.com (Charles T. Schwope) writes: > I hate to say it, but try to find someone to play non-tourney rules >with you in MtG. Next to, if not totally, impossible. The reason this is true in Magic is because the rules that come with the game aren't play balanced. Players tend to want rules that don't make it obvious what the best strategy is so they look elsewhere. A number of Magic clubs or groups make their own deck construction rules but the easiest thing to do is to use another set of deck construction rules that WotC has blessed and anointed in some way: Duelist Convocation rules. If the rules in the game box (well, starter decks in this case) were reasonable, I very much doubt this would happen. Tournament rules decks would probably be mainly limited to players that were trying to test them for tourneys. > If tourney rules are released for VTES, they will become the standard >to build decks by (most likely). Um, the DC _DID_ release tourney rules for VTES (basically 60-80 card decks, no limits) and even WotC didn't use them at Gencon. Blackly humorous in a way but it does demonstrate my point. Rules get used when there's some attraction to them. The two main factors affecting which deck construction rules people use are: How do they contribute to play-balance? Do they make it difficult to find an invulnerable strategy? Or do you have to "trust" your opponent not to use an obvious strategy to have a decent game (when you don't use the same one)? How universally accepted are they? Who advocates them? Do they come with the game (best)? Or are they advocated by a respected nationwide or worldwide organization that advertises or even markets them (second best)? Are they some "player's standard" that seems "universally" accepted (this doesn't exist but I would think it would be third best)? Or are they just some rules your local play group thought up (least useful in this respect)? (One other factor involves the undesirability of using tournament rules in informal play, since some of the deck construction rules were conceived for tournaments for reasons that don't have anything to do with informal play, mainly time constraints.) The problem with Magic right now is that these two factors are working against one another. The most well-known rules are also the worst. On the other hand, a lot of local play groups probably have great deck construction rules but such rules are worthless outside of the group. So DC rules win by default. In Jyhad, DC rules aren't much different then the original rules. On the other hand, neither the DC nor the original rules address what seems to be a popular concern with limiting overpowered cards. If what was meant by the statement that was quoted above was: "If the DC comes out with rules that limit cards in some way (particularly overpowered ones) everyone will start using them.", I agree that they may become quite popular. This would be the Magic situation all over again where DC rules are perceived as better play-balanced than the game-box rules and thus get used more often. But that would be unfortunate because, like Magic, the issue of which deck construction players should use would never get settled. Ugh! I agree with with the people who say, "Let's just fix the overpowered cards." Fred

Anton Dovydaitis (an...@infoserv.com) wrote: : At ManaFest, a library consisting almost entirely of Conditioning, Fifth : Tradition, Freak Drive, and Majesty managed to clear the entire table : in one turn or nearly so every game. : With Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, the increased blood cost might not : do the trick. The 'fix' for Fifth Tradition is not to give it additional blood cost, but rather to add an additional stipulation that the acting Prince/Justicar may not give the blood to itself. This is not too restrictive if the card is being used properly, and fits the name of the card. (How can one be hospitable to oneself?) That would leave only the Giant's Blood as a way to fill up when empty, and it already has the built-in restriction that only one can be used, period, per game. With this fix, and one additional cost to Freak Drive and Majesty both (two cards that _everyone_ agrees are broken, and only differ in degree and how to fix them), that deck would have ousted maybe 1 Meth, tops, before running out of steam. Annoying for that Meth, perhaps, but not abusive when you consider that this guy is now meat. 1 victory point will not a winner make. [ quoted text not captured ]

Shane Travis(tra...@duke.usask.ca) wrote: > The 'fix' for Fifth Tradition is not to give it additional blood cost, > but rather to add an additional stipulation that the acting Prince/Justicar > may not give the blood to itself. This is not too restrictive if the > card is being used properly, and fits the name of the card. (How can one > be hospitable to oneself?) One is not necessarily being hospitable to oneself. As a Prince/Justicar, Kindred can _demand_ that they be treated in a way that they want by invoking the Fifth Tradition. (I'm not sure, as I do not have Vampire the Masquerade with me, but as far as I know, the Fifth Tradition basicly refers to this. If I find otherwise, I will update this post.) A possible fix: Alan Kwan(kw...@cs.cornell.edu) wrote: >So YOU know what (yet another) problem card is: 5th Tradition. > [snip] If you cut 5th Trad. to restoring >at most 4 blood, this will cut it to the same level as Superior >Restoration (since 5th Trad. cost 1) and `fix' this problem card. >(Freak causes 2, 5th Trad. restores 3, 2 cards for 1 blood, >hard to cheat with that ...) ...though I might be mroe generous than he is. @#$@#$@#$@#$@#$@#$ Adrian Sullivan GAT/CS/M/P/O/WS (The short sig.) @#$@#$@#$@#$@#$@#$

Time to pitch in my two cents, We quickly decided on a four card limit because our group had about three players who could build any deck they wanted and the rest had less than $50 retail worth of Jyhad cards. A four card limit kept people like me from playing with massive multiples of certain cards. I won the First Jyhad Tournament ever with a Ventrue/Toreador Vote Bleed Deck with a self imposed Four Card Limit. In the Second Ever Jyhad Tournament I had a self imposed four card limited Fortitude Combat Deck. The Person who won the Tournament had 1/2 of his deck Telepathic misdirection/Deflection, but I beat him in the one game we played. There are enough good cards to support a limit. I think a four card limit is too limiting now, I think the %10 limit is fair enough. I don't like playing card games where a player can use the key card in his deck again and again and again, In a play and replace environment it is too ill. Whats wrong with Majesty isn't just the untap, But even just the Strike:Combat Ends. If I can insure that my vampires will always be able to escape combat by putting 30: Strike combat ends in my deck That ruins the balence of the game. I also feel that once you get to the point where you can count on a card being in your hand every time you need it the game has lost the random feel of a card game. All I can say is people will find abuses of the cards and unless you limit the # of a single card in a tournament my Tremere Combat deck has no chance agains a two turn win freak drive deck, or whatever the next abusive combo is. -Jake On 6 Sep 1995, Owen Reynolds wrote: > Three big points that I think are missed here, and what I think > they mean: > > 1) Jyhad tourney rules have not become standard for Jyhad play. Just > look at the huge number of people who play 4-card, for example, or > people who think "the more the merrier" when tournament says you > should have 5 people. > Is it the case that there are very few "sanctioned," "official" > Jyhad tourneys outside of Seattle/CA, and there will be more in the > future? > > 2) Lots and lots of people play with a 4-card limit. Many of these > people are absolute idiots, but they buy Jyhad cards. I've talked to > one individual who isn't stupid, but he's sincerely worried that a > Jyhad game without card limits will result in _more_ speed bump > players, since they won't be able to resist putting in 20 of a "good" > card and will always have a jammed hand. You can't argue with someone > who thinks like that. > > I'm curious to know what percentage of players do play 4-card, but > if it's as high as I think it is (I know of 4 groups, and all play > that way,) it only makes sense to have some sort of sanctioned 4-card > tourney format. A no-limit format could then adopt whatever rules > it wanted with much less danger of them being "the rules." > > 3) Most Jyhad players hate Magic, and vice versa. Again, these are just > my observations and I'm curious to see what others think. > [ quoted text not captured ]

kv...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) writes: >the written rules can be read so as to allow 1 vote max >per Meth >[...] >other Meth can play only 1 voye each >[...} Hi Alan, I can't see how you can interpret the rules this way since they read "...Additional Political cards can be burned by any other Meth..." . >not prevented from doing something everybody else can be doing That's way in my opinion the rules errata say that also the vote caller can play additional cards (BTW, we have always played like that). It's also a good way to refresh your hand! :) Luca "Democritus" Consoli

jo...@pa.twi.tudelft.nl (Johan Meijdam) wrote: >Jyhad ia a better game but Magic beats Jyhad all times when playing with >just two players. Well, that's quite obvious to me, since I think that Jyahd was born as a multiplayer game which you can also play in 2, while Magic was born as a 2 players game which can also be played multi. BTW, I think JYahd is a better game any way you look at it! Luca "Democritus" Consoli

con...@imoax1.unimo.it (Luca Consoli) writes: >kv...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) writes: >>the written rules can be read so as to allow 1 vote max >>per Meth > I can't see how you can interpret the rules this way >since they read "...Additional Political cards can be burned by any other >Meth..." . I don't have them with me, but they essentially say, "Other Methuselahs may ALSO play extra vote cards for votes." The 'also' doesn't make any sense if you were describing some new thing that could be done during a vote. The sentence must really be saying, "In the same way the Meth calling the vote gained 1 vote from a vote card, other Meths may gain votes from tossing vote cards." It says "votes" instead of "vote" for grammatical reasons -- if 4 other Meths each play 1 vote card and each gain 1 vote, the other Meths have played vote cardS and gained voteS. The point not being that this is "correct," but that this is a reasonable way to interpret the meaning of that paragraph.

Just say no to card limits.

alsu...@students.wisc.edu (theCorrupter) writes: >One is not necessarily being hospitable to oneself. As a Prince/Justicar, >Kindred can _demand_ that they be treated in a way that they want by >invoking the Fifth Tradition. (I'm not sure, as I do not have Vampire the >Masquerade with me, but as far as I know, the Fifth Tradition basicly >refers to this. If I find otherwise, I will update this post.) From the role-playing game standpoint (V:tM) the 5th tradition is complete and utter nonsense. Princes keep refrigerators of blood just for emergencies, and in general will never go hungry. Any prince or justicar can spend 1 hour, tops, and be completely sated. Of course, many of them _enjoy_ taking longer. To try and make sense of it, you can describe blood on hand as ALL of your blood-obtaining resources, but then the way you spend blood in combat makes little sense, "wait here while I drain some zoo animals to power my celerity."

"Anton Dovydaitis" <an...@infoserv.com> writes: >In <42nrjh$r...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: > >> >With Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, the increased blood cost might not >> >do the trick. > >> You're absolutely right on that one; as long as you can Hospitality >> yourself, blood cost means little. Hence my recommended fix on the 5th is >> that you can't hospitality yourself. >Yes, but if you had TWO Justicars, they could just alternate. However, it's very hard to bring out, and keep out two Princes/Justicars. By the time you got two out, most decks should have a reasonable chance of stopping the 5ths, or ousting the Methuseleh. A vote or bleed deck would have an excellent chance of ousting by then, or shortly after. A rush deck could pound one of the Justicars. And an intercept deck obviously can stop the 5ths. I concede it's still a great card and potentially abusable. Alan's suggestion to cap the blood gain is more secure than mine. I do, however, think that my interpretation weakens the card enough that 5th tradition decks are controlled by the usual Jyhad decks, and it has the benefit of being a common interpretation of the card. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In <42l9vc$a...@saga.cs.cornell.edu>, kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > >Having hosted Elysium, a weekly Jyhad club, for several monthes, I can > >testify that deck limits work and are acceptable to most players. > > How many of your club people have played Jyhad without limit /and/ > `fixed' as suggested by some of the Net.Elders? One doesn't have a > longing for the real thing, unless one has tasted the real thing > (or at least visualized it :-( ) ... Alas, Elysium is no longer. The players didn't buy enough beer, so the bar that was hosting it gave us the boot. Remember, always support the merchant with dollars who supports your activity. There's no such thing as a free lunch. [ quoted text not captured ]

In <42nrjh$r...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: > > >With Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, the increased blood cost might not > >do the trick. > > You're absolutely right on that one; as long as you can Hospitality > yourself, blood cost means little. Hence my recommended fix on the 5th is > that you can't hospitality yourself. Yes, but if you had TWO Justicars, they could just alternate. > > >Having hosted Elysium, a weekly Jyhad club, for several monthes, I can > >testify that deck limits work and are acceptable to most players. > > Oh really? Why did my Malk deck stomp all over the whole table in the one > round under 4-card in your tournament? I didn't run that tournament myself, and in the monthes at Elysium almost everyone favored a four card limit, almost all games were played with such limits, and there were almost no complaints about said limits. [ quoted text not captured ]

:> Shane Travis(tra...@duke.usask.ca) wrote: :> The 'fix' for Fifth Tradition is not to give it additional blood cost, :> but rather to add an additional stipulation that the acting Prince/Justicar :> may not give the blood to itself. This is not too restrictive if the :> card is being used properly, and fits the name of the card. (How can one :> be hospitable to oneself?) This does not 'fix' fifth tradition it just slows it down until the player can get out two princes and play it on each other. Not a hard thing to do in the Ventrue, freak drive, majesty deck. By the way, how do you define the proper use of a card? Steven Bauer

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >Frederick Scott <fre...@anthrax.cisco.com> wrote: >>Um, the DC _DID_ release tourney rules for VTES (basically 60-80 card decks, >>no limits) and even WotC didn't use them at Gencon. Blackly humorous in a >>way but it does demonstrate my point. Rules get used when there's some >>attraction to them. > >So you're saying what, that we're going to undermind the "anointed" rules >every time we want to do something a little differently? Did the point >system that was used at GenCon undermine Type I and Type II? Just because >people in general seem to assume that they need to follow certain rules all >the time doesn't mean that we are under any such illusion. If we choose >to run a Magic tournament with 6-card limits, that does't mean that we don't >like or are thinking of changing the existing 4-card limits, just that we >want to do something different. Using card limits in the GenCon tournament >was just doing something different, to see how it turned out. A tournament >doesn't have to be labeled "experimental" in a program guide for us to play >around with the rules a little. Where do I start? My quoted comment above was not intended to criticize WotC for experimenting. (OK, I suppose the "blackly humorous" part was critical of something but it wasn't that.) I was simply pointing out to the fellow the WotC's Jyhad tournament rules had not become the standard to build decks by as he thought they would be. If you're referring to my criticism of the Gencon tournement in an earlier post, no, I do not thing you're undermining your own rules (DC or "game box") by running an experimental tournament. I simply believe it's not nice to change the tournament rules 10 minutes or even 2 days before the tournament. Player make plans, test decks, trade or buy the cards they need, don't want to bring their entire collection to the convention. If you're saying WotC never promised players a real DC Jyhad tournament in the Gencon program then, a) it sounded like some people certainly had that impression (their own fault?); and b) then I'm trying to suggest that it would be nicer to state what you're trying to do _ahead_ of time (like in the prereg program) so that players can make plans, test decks, trade or buy cards, etc. etc. for an experimental tournament _with_ 4-card limits. Do that and I have no problem with the concept of experimentation. I should add, though, that I don't see a lot of Jyhad tournaments, period. One only at Origins, with all those Magic tournaments. One only at Gencon? I suppose there could have been a bunch of them I didn't know about and I'm not hearing about in other parts of the country. If not, though, it seems to me that you might try "experimenting" around a bit more with your original DC rules. As far as the rest of the post you quoted, I was just trying to anaylyze why the selection of deck construction rules in Magic was problematic for players and how that compared to Jyhad's situation. Fred

Tom writes: >I suspect that a lot of the Jyhad players who "hate" Magic just burned out >on it for whatever reason, rather than thinking it's evil. In my group we think Magic is a markedly inferior game. This is not a representative survey. >I suspect a lot >of the Magic players who "hate" Jyhad dislike the fact that it's generally >not degenerate :) or just don't like group play. It would probably be >illuminating to get a sense of what someone with one of those opinions >thinks about other games in the industry. My impression is that most Magic players simply don't "get" Jyhad. (That's what a lot tell me). I think the fundamental reason is that Jyhad plays very differently from Magic - permanents are not very important, sitting around is discouraged, card use is completely different, interaction of cards and players is much more important, etc. I believe that a primary reason for 4-card limits is that it makes Jyhad like Magic, and not like Jyhad. People tolerate the confining and tedious deck construction, and the out-of-control Malk decks, to make Jyhad more like what they are familiar with. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

Tom writes: > A tournament >doesn't have to be labeled "experimental" in a program guide for us to play >around with the rules a little. It should be. A good tournament deck often involves a lot of planning and testing and it's not fair to change the rules on people as they walk in. The rules for any tournament should be publicly available well in advance. This holds for any game. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

Owen Reynolds <reyn...@cs.iastate.edu> wrote: > Three big points that I think are missed here, and what I think >they mean: >1) Jyhad tourney rules have not become standard for Jyhad play. Just >look at the huge number of people who play 4-card, for example, or >people who think "the more the merrier" when tournament says you >should have 5 people. Well, the 'should have 5 people' is more of a bracketing issue than anything else, so obviously people are going to ignore that in prviate play. How many people play Magic in swiss format, or single elimination, when at home? I do suspect that more people play with card limits out of habit, than because they tried no limits and decided it didn't work. > Is it the case that there are very few "sanctioned," "official" >Jyhad tourneys outside of Seattle/CA, and there will be more in the >future? We generally have one or more Jyhad tournaments whenever we have a presence at a convention. I don't know how many sanctioned Jyhad tournaments there are. >3) Most Jyhad players hate Magic, and vice versa. Again, these are just >my observations and I'm curious to see what others think. I suspect that a lot of the Jyhad players who "hate" Magic just burned out on it for whatever reason, rather than thinking it's evil. I suspect a lot of the Magic players who "hate" Jyhad dislike the fact that it's generally not degenerate :) or just don't like group play. It would probably be illuminating to get a sense of what someone with one of those opinions thinks about other games in the industry. > I can see why WotC is interested in having a consistant policy for >all of it's card games re:fixes (modulus the card-back change issue,) >but most people don't seem to care. "That's how we did it for Magic" >is more likely to piss them off than anything else, in fact. Well, "that's how we did it for Magic" is said largely because that's the only precedent we have. It is not true that everything that is good for Magic is good for Jyhad/VTES, or vice versa. But there are certain guidelines that we think are good to TCGs in general, and are applied to both Magic and J/V, as well as to Netrunner. But it can be difficult to explain to people exactly what's going on there, that we don't want to blindly do things just because they happened to work for Magic. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <42re50$1...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: >Using card limits in the GenCon tournament >was just doing something different, to see how it turned out. A tournament >doesn't have to be labeled "experimental" in a program guide for us to play >around with the rules a little. [long diatribe follows] I signed up for the officially sanctioned VTES tournament at GenCon. From the time that I signed up until the time that I actually sat down at a table (after signing in to the tournament), there were no card limits for deck-building. Note that this includes all of the time that I spent actually building my deck. In the following fifteen minutes, WotC introduced its four-card limit. Why? As an experiment, according to Tom. Now, I don't know how many of you have tried it, but if you build a deck with a four-card limit, and a deck without a per-card limit, they will often end up with different compositions. In fact, the deck you built with no limits may not even be legal in a limited environment. But never fear -- participants were given that fifteen minutes to redo their decks to meet this restriction. So that deck that you spent up to 3 months building and tuning under the published tournament rules for this officially sanctioned tournament, you should have no problem tuning down to some arbitrary set of restrictions chosen purely for experimental purposes. Unfortunately, I did not bring any cards other than my built (incorrectly, surprise, surprise) deck, so I couldn't tweak to meet the new requirements. There was another player who was generous (I'm being serious here) enough to offer me some additional commons from his stash if I wanted. But like I said, I had spent some time thinking about and organizing my deck in the months before GenCon, and I didn't think 15 minutes of tearing asunder and rebuilding was going to produce the same level of effectiveness. So I signed out and got my money back. Of course, now it was too late to join another game, since the WotC staff didn't actually get its collective act together until about 15 minutes after starting time to announce the deck-building restrictions (then giving another 15 minutes after that to tune). So I would disagree with Tom's assertion. Yes, saying "four-card limit" instead of "no limit" is not a major rules change, but it is a major deck-building change. In any tournament, the rules should be announced ahead of time if they are going to affect a player's preparation for that event. "Okay decathalon contestants, this Olympics we're going to replace the high jump with a water ski jump. Just a little change, we feel like experimenting with the format. Since you've trained so long on the other events, we'll give you the rest of the day to practice you skiing, and then run that event tomorrow. Good luck!" In a sanctioned tournament, the completely standard tournament rules should be followed. Otherwise, why bother having an official set of tournament rules in the first place? All of this is moot for me, of course, as I will not participate in another WotC-sponsored event. I have had several negative experiences with WotC convention staff (at other cons as well as GenCon 95) since they came to power after the release of Magic. It's just not worth it to me when I can be hanging out with polite game designers who don't f*ck with their product on a whim. (Note: nobody at GenCon was impolite; I had that run-in at DragonCon 94). Hunter -- J. Hunter Johnson jhun...@io.com (Illuminati Online) "Eventually, all school subjects at all grades will be taught with GURPS supplements." -- Moriah (Mike Sullivan)

Jake Holub <ja...@hooked.net> writes: >Time to pitch in my two cents, >We quickly decided on a four card limit because our group had about three >players who could build any deck they wanted and the rest had less than $50 >retail worth of Jyhad cards. That's what trading is for. Player A trades their Bum's Rushes for Player B's Deflections, and both are off and running with good anti-Malk defenses. >A four card limit kept people like me from >playing with massive multiples of certain cards. But it limited them as well. >I don't like playing card games where a >player can use the key card in his deck again and again and again, In a >play and replace environment it is too ill. I disagree. First, that's good for strategic thinking - you must plan and scheme and deal much harder when there is less luck about. Second, it's good for flavor - Don Cruez has superior Celerity and should ALWAYS be able to throw good Celerity cards, if he's in that kind of deck. He should be master of the wind all the time, not just on good days. >Whats wrong with Majesty >isn't just the untap, But even just the Strike:Combat Ends. If I can >insure that my vampires will always be able to escape combat by putting >30: Strike combat ends in my deck That ruins the balence of the game. S:CE and untaps are BOTH too good in the current set. S:CE is the more obvious problem, but untaps are more fundamental. S:CE seems incredibly gross, but one can counter a S:CE deck by playing a vote or bleed deck. Untaps are more subtle, but there's really no counter to untaps save untaps of your own. Of course, putting the two together in one card (Majesty and Earth Meld, in a sense Form of Mist and Obedience) makes one really gross card. >I also feel that once you get to the point where you can count on a card >being in your hand every time you need it the game has lost the random >feel of a card game. A) Even a Freaky bleed deck has a substantial luck element. B) In any case, I find other players more interesting opponents than luck of the draw. >All I can say is people will find abuses of the >cards and unless you limit the # of a single card in a tournament my >Tremere Combat deck has no chance agains a two turn win freak drive deck, >or whatever the next abusive combo is. Not so. Jyhad is very abuse-resistant. Cards have to be pretty outrageous to be abused. The cards people complain about are pretty outrageous. Incidentally, Tremere combat is one of the few decks which CAN take down a Majestic Freaky bleed deck. Intercept, Fast Reaction, Burst of Sunlight (obviously you have to be built for it; typical 2nd round nuke Tremere decks can't do that, of course). Ventrue have Fortitude, sure, but Freaky bleed decks have very few prevent damage cards because they cause serious hand jams. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

[ quoted text not captured ] First I would like to say trying to "role-play" a card game is only going to go so far. May I sugest Vampire: The Masquerade as a good role playing alternative to Jyhad. Now that's not to say that the "feel" of Jyhad is not important. The game mechanics need to be good or the game is no good. A card game is at it's heart a board game and not a role-playing game. The main purpose is to try to win, not to play a role. Now as for your comments Excerpt from "The Eternal Struggle(TM) A Players Guide of the JYHAD(TM)" "One important thing to remember about Jyhad(TM) is that the blood pool does not represent a vat of actual blood. Rather, it represents influence, resources, and the most precious commodity within the vampire community, status..." Therefore using blood to power cards in battle may represent expending some of your reasources. Now I know most of the combat cards seem to imply direct combat, but you can always get creative with the effects (maybe he throw that well aimed card at a store you were running drugs through and undermined your finacial and polotical clout) and I refer to my above comment on trying to aply to much role-playing to a card game. And by saying blood is status, you can say anything makes you gain or lose status. As for the fifth tradition: (also from TES) "Honor one another's domain. When thou comest to a foreign city, thou shall present thyself to the one who ruelth there. Without the word of acceptance, thou art nothing." So it is clear that is is not physical blood but status being gained. And the prince can grant this status to anyone, but he could also gain status by not granting it to someone important(IMO) Fix the rule, then explain it! I like can only perform once per turn. (Not on self does not stop tag teaming, freak driving princes) Explanation: If he is to hospitable (or inhospitable) it loses it's significance. Steven Bauer

In article 8105...@shazam.cs.iastate.edu, reyn...@cs.iastate.edu (Owen Reynolds) writes: [ quoted text not captured ] The exact wording from TES is: "Additional political cards can ALSO be used by any of the OTHER Methuselahs for votes." The use of also in this case only implies a different method of gaining votes not that the casting methuselah has this ability. I would also think that the use of other implies that the casting methuselah does not have this ability. From this senstance you can't tell how many additional cards can be used or how many votes each card gives you. A earlier sentence states one card one vote "A political card always provides one vote for the Methuselah playing it. I think a later sentence implies that each methuselah only get one vote: "In addition to the vote provided by the card played, you get the following extra votes for vampires under your control: ..." When I first read this I thought the card "played" was the card calling the vote, but if that is the case then the rules never state that any meth other than the acting meth get benefit from prince, primogen, justicar. I "played" means either used to call the vote or discarded for a vote then the rules are pretty specific(if some what cryptic) that you only get one vote per meth. Am I wrong? Can I get an official interpetation of what "played" means. I hope I havn't confussed anyone(except myself but that's given) Steve

Frederick Scott <fre...@anthrax.cisco.com> wrote: >Um, the DC _DID_ release tourney rules for VTES (basically 60-80 card decks, >no limits) and even WotC didn't use them at Gencon. Blackly humorous in a >way but it does demonstrate my point. Rules get used when there's some >attraction to them. So you're saying what, that we're going to undermind the "anointed" rules every time we want to do something a little differently? Did the point system that was used at GenCon undermine Type I and Type II? Just because people in general seem to assume that they need to follow certain rules all the time doesn't mean that we are under any such illusion. If we choose to run a Magic tournament with 6-card limits, that does't mean that we don't like or are thinking of changing the existing 4-card limits, just that we want to do something different. Using card limits in the GenCon tournament was just doing something different, to see how it turned out. A tournament doesn't have to be labeled "experimental" in a program guide for us to play around with the rules a little. [ quoted text not captured ]

Thomas R Wylie (aa...@cats.ucsc.edu) wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] I believe that people had a problem with GenCon b/c it was a "sactioned" WoTC tournament, and had not advertized ahead of time that it was with a 4 card limit. Therefore people assumed that the tourney rules for VTES would be used. (I wasn't there so I can't be sure about this, but seems logical.) I would feel the same way if someone holding a tourney told me there was a sactioned Type I MtG tourney, and then I showed up and was told ... "Oh, by the way we are using that new WoTC point system." At which point, the appropriate response is to walk out, and tell everyone else there to do the same (IMHO). -- Charles T. Schwope | Every man is a spark in the darkness. By the aka CT | time he is noticed, he is gone forever, a ch...@fpah1.dseg.ti.com | retinal afterimage that fades, and is obscured c-sc...@ti.com | by newer, brighter lights.

On 7 Sep 1995, Shane Travis wrote: > Anton Dovydaitis (an...@infoserv.com) wrote: > : At ManaFest, a library consisting almost entirely of Conditioning, Fifth > : Tradition, Freak Drive, and Majesty managed to clear the entire table > : in one turn or nearly so every game. > > : With Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, the increased blood cost might not > : do the trick. > > The 'fix' for Fifth Tradition is not to give it additional blood cost, > but rather to add an additional stipulation that the acting Prince/Justicar > may not give the blood to itself. This is not too restrictive if the > card is being used properly, and fits the name of the card. (How can one > be hospitable to oneself?) I thought this was already official. Have I missed a reversal or two? --------- Paul Schaaf sch...@u.washington.edu

sba...@cso.geg.mot.com (Steven Bauer) writes: >reyn...@cs.iastate.edu (Owen Reynolds) writes: >> From the role-playing game standpoint (V:tM) the 5th tradition is >> complete and utter nonsense. .... >> To try and make sense of it, you can describe blood on hand as >> ALL of your blood-obtaining resources, but then the way you spend blood >> in combat makes little sense, "wait here while I drain some zoo animals >> to power my celerity." >First I would like to say trying to "role-play" a card game is only going to >go so far. >May I sugest Vampire: The Masquerade as a good role playing alternative >to Jyhad. Everything I said was about V:tM. I guess I'm presenting myself as an "expert" on how things work in the role-playing game and claiming that it just can't be related. I'll do so for the "official" explaination you gave. >Excerpt from "The Eternal Struggle(TM) A Players Guide of the JYHAD(TM)" > "One important thing to remember about Jyhad(TM) is that the blood pool >does not represent a vat of actual blood. Rather, it represents influence, >resources, and the most precious commodity within the vampire community, >status..." This would mean that a vampire down to 1 blood has the same status as a Catiff -- i.e.: none. Generally, diablerizing a Catiff, or a Catiff who no one likes, isn't regarded as that big a deal. If blood really was status, Princes and Justicars would lose their votes when there blood level went to a certain level, and there'd be no blood hunt at all for a <1-2 capacity vampire being slain. Being made a Prince would _have_ to increase your capacity/status to at least 6, as well. Also, being beaten up does not make you lose status. T-Bird the Vampire has beaten the dog shit out of several vampires in public places after they pissed him off. _He_ generally loses status (although not much, since he's known to be a very violatile Brujah) and the beatee often gains status in the form of sympathy. Bum's Rush would then involve killing someone's herd, smashing their chop-shop, etc... and would be more like a Cryptic Mission (cause them to lose blood/status without them being able to do anything unless they intercept/stop you.) Combat is just too obviously combat, and all blood has to be considered to be "on hand." > As for the fifth tradition: (also from TES) > "Honor one another's domain. When thou comest to a foreign city, >thou shall present thyself to the one who ruelth there. >Without the word of acceptance, thou art nothing." >So it is clear that is is not physical blood but status being gained. And >the prince can grant this status to anyone, but he could also gain status by >not granting it to someone important(IMO) Still makes no sense. There's this Justicar who's been totally disgraced...she's had her financial empire destroyed, has been beaten up and held for a while somewhere, her own clan members have even elected a new Justicar. So, she flees to a new city and asks the Prince if it's OK for her to live there. He agrees, and she's once again an extremely important member of the vampire community. Doesn't sound right to me. The point I'm trying to make is that arguing for card-fixes based on how things work in the RPG is pretty pointless. For me, I'd have been just as happy if Jyhad was played with a secret empire of Ninjas. Still the same game.

In article <42opp0$s...@sirio.cineca.it> con...@imoax1.unimo.it (Luca Consoli) writes: > >kv...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) writes: > >>the written rules can be read so as to allow 1 vote max >>per Meth >>[...] >>other Meth can play only 1 vote each >>[...} >Hi Alan, > I can't see how you can interpret the rules this way >since they read "...Additional Political cards can be burned by any other >Meth..." . The sentence can be worded in no other way (ala WotC standards). If the rules say, "An additional Political card can also be used by any of the other Methselahs", then it'll be read as though only 1 Meth. can play 1 additional card, and we'll have timing problems as to who gets the right to play that card. If the original intention is as what I suspected (1 card each Meth.), the rules would appear exactly like what we have now (remembering WotC standards). >>not prevented from doing something everybody else can be doing >That's way in my opinion the rules errata say that also the vote caller >can play additional cards (BTW, we have always played like that). >It's also a good way to refresh your hand! :) It's /way/ too good a way to refresh your hand. (No smilie) -- "Live Life with Heart." Alan Kwan kw...@cs.cornell.edu

On 9 Sep 1995, CurtAdams wrote: > Jake Holub <ja...@hooked.net> writes: > > >Time to pitch in my two cents, > >We quickly decided on a four card limit because our group had about three > > >players who could build any deck they wanted and the rest had less than > $50 > >retail worth of Jyhad cards. > > That's what trading is for. Player A trades their Bum's Rushes for Player > B's Deflections, and both are off and running with good anti-Malk > defenses. In our group Malk Decks never florished. I had a solid combat deck that had little problem with a malk predator > >A four card limit kept people like me from > >playing with massive multiples of certain cards. > > But it limited them as well. > > >I don't like playing card games where a > >player can use the key card in his deck again and again and again, In a > >play and replace environment it is too ill. > > I disagree. First, that's good for strategic thinking - you must plan and > scheme and deal much harder when there is less luck about. Second, it's > good for flavor - Don Cruez has superior Celerity and should ALWAYS be > able to throw good Celerity cards, if he's in that kind of deck. He > should be master of the wind all the time, not just on good days. I disagree, I enjoy the strategic thinking of how best to use the cards I have, My Don Cruez can reserve his mastery of the wind for when he really needs it, but will still breeze around his opponents as inspiration takes him. I play cards to have every game be different. You are entitled to enjoy your style of play, but the game has more variety when a you enforce a limit of playing with at least 10 different cards. > >Whats wrong with Majesty > >isn't just the untap, But even just the Strike:Combat Ends. If I can > >insure that my vampires will always be able to escape combat by putting > >30: Strike combat ends in my deck That ruins the balence of the game. > > S:CE and untaps are BOTH too good in the current set. S:CE is the more > obvious problem, but untaps are more fundamental. S:CE seems incredibly > gross, but one can counter a S:CE deck by playing a vote or bleed deck. > Untaps are more subtle, but there's really no counter to untaps save > untaps of your own. Of course, putting the two together in one card > (Majesty and Earth Meld, in a sense Form of Mist and Obedience) makes one > really gross card. Playing a vote or bleed deck doesn't counter there strategy, unless you can vote yourself more blood then they can bleed you for each round > >I also feel that once you get to the point where you can count on a card > >being in your hand every time you need it the game has lost the random > >feel of a card game. > > A) Even a Freaky bleed deck has a substantial luck element. Oh my! bad luck in that deck is not clearing the table in the first round. I know that deck has been defeated but I would not say the luck element is substantial enough for tournament play. > B) In any case, I find other players more interesting opponents than luck > of the draw. > > >All I can say is people will find abuses of the > >cards and unless you limit the # of a single card in a tournament my > >Tremere Combat deck has no chance agains a two turn win freak drive deck, > > >or whatever the next abusive combo is. > > Not so. Jyhad is very abuse-resistant. Cards have to be pretty > outrageous to be abused. The cards people complain about are pretty > outrageous. I think that any card you can use than replace with the same card most of the time is abusive and until they give away all cards free, unfair in a tournement setting. > > Incidentally, Tremere combat is one of the few decks which CAN take down a > Majestic Freaky bleed deck. Intercept, Fast Reaction, Burst of Sunlight > (obviously you have to be built for it; typical 2nd round nuke Tremere > decks can't do that, of course). Ventrue have Fortitude, sure, but Freaky > bleed decks have very few prevent damage cards because they cause serious > hand jams. > > Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com) > > So you fuck your predetor up so his predetor with a freaky bleed deck can sweep the table. Try playing a game where every other player has a freaky bleed deck based around different princes justacars, and tell me what strategy wins you the game. I agree that It is mostly problem cards. But to me You lose most of the fun when you take out luck of the draw. -Jake

In article <Pine.OSF.3.91j.95091...@saul1.u.washington.edu>, [ quoted text not captured ] To date (11-SEP-95), there has been no errata/clarification issued for either the Fifth nor the Sixth traditions. The first through fourth Traditions have all been commented on in some official ruling. (The fourth was just to clear up the background problem). -- ----- L. Scott Johnson (lsc...@crl.com) | The opinions expressed are mine Graphics Specialist and Jyhad Rulemonger | and subject to card text

In article 8108...@shazam.cs.iastate.edu, reyn...@cs.iastate.edu (Owen Reynolds) > > <Large amount of stuff deleted> >The point I'm trying to make is that arguing for card-fixes based on > how things work in the RPG is pretty pointless. For me, I'd have been > just as happy if Jyhad was played with a secret empire of Ninjas. Still > the same game. I totaly agree. This was basically my point (from a sligtly different perspective) Steven

sba...@cso.geg.mot.com (Steven Bauer) wrote: >The exact wording from TES is: >"Additional political cards can ALSO be used by any of the OTHER Methuselahs >for votes." [...] >From this senstance you can't tell how many additional cards can be used That for sure. [...] >"In addition to the vote provided by the card played, you get the following >extra votes for vampires under your control: ..." >When I first read this I thought the card "played" was the card calling >the vote, but if that is the case then the rules never state that any meth >other than the acting meth get benefit from prince, pri= mogen, justicar. >"played" means either used to call the vote or discarded for a vote then the >rules are pretty specific(if some wh= at cryptic) that you only get one vote per >meth. The point is that the rules say "used" when referring to other meths; as a consequence I think that there is a mistake in the rules or, at least, that the word "played" is ill-defined (better, _not_ defined!), as Steve says. Logically all meths gain votes from their princes, etc. ; and that's why the DTR made the correction that also the meth calling the vote can use additional political cards (at least, in my opinion). Besides, I think that politics is one of the best features that Jyhad has and the possibility of using (or playing or whatever you want! :) ) more political cards gives much more flavour and surprise than not being able to do it. Luca "Democritus" Consoli Web page: http://imoax1.unimo.it/~consoli

curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: >"Anton Dovydaitis" <an...@infoserv.com> writes: > >>In <42nrjh$r...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: >> >>> Hence my recommended fix on the 5th is >>> that you can't hospitality yourself. >>Yes, but if you had TWO Justicars, they could just alternate. >However, it's very hard to bring out, and keep out two Princes/Justicars. Well, not so hard if you are playing a political deck with Praxis Seizure:* or *Justicar. In that case you can have even more than two out in not much time... I think the best solution (IMO) to the abuse of 5th tradition is to increase the blood cost (I could also say limit the card but I am on the "no limits" side :)) Luca "Democritus" Consoli

Thomas R Wylie (aa...@cats.ucsc.edu) wrote: : I suspect that a lot of the Jyhad players who "hate" Magic just burned out : on it for whatever reason, rather than thinking it's evil. I suspect a lot : of the Magic players who "hate" Jyhad dislike the fact that it's generally : not degenerate :) or just don't like group play. It would probably be : illuminating to get a sense of what someone with one of those opinions : thinks about other games in the industry. Most Magic players I have encountered are not diplomatic, crafty, wily, strategic, however you choose to describe it, to succeed in a multiplayer environment. (Cf. an excellent thread on *.magic.misc called "Group Game Stereotypes.") The harsh environment of the duel has trained them to obliterate their opponent with little regard to threats from their right or left; they understand little of politics, of deal-striking, of reneging on deals, and thus either self-destruct or act ill-advisedly when they try to play Jyhad. For example: would you invite someone who only enjoyed kickboxing to play Diplomacy with you and your friends? I don't think so. Thankfully, there are those who learn the subtleties of Jyhad -- but they usually give up Magic soon after. - Neil

In article 100...@get.hooked.net, Jake Holub <ja...@hooked.net> writes: > > > On 9 Sep 1995, CurtAdams wrote: > > > Jake Holub <ja...@hooked.net> writes: > > > > >Time to pitch in my two cents, > > >We quickly decided on a four card limit because our group had about three > > > > >players who could build any deck they wanted and the rest had less than > > $50 > > >retail worth of Jyhad cards. > > > > That's what trading is for. Player A trades their Bum's Rushes for Player > > B's Deflections, and both are off and running with good anti-Malk > > defenses. > > In our group Malk Decks never florished. I had a solid combat deck that > had little problem with a malk predator > Could you please post a combat deck that can beat a Malk Deck under four card limits, I think alot of people would like to see it. > > >A four card limit kept people like me from > > >playing with massive multiples of certain cards. > > > But it limited them as well. > > > > >I don't like playing card games where a > > >player can use the key card in his deck again and again and again, In a > > >play and replace environment it is too ill. > > > > I disagree. First, that's good for strategic thinking - you must plan and > > scheme and deal much harder when there is less luck about. Second, it's > > good for flavor - Don Cruez has superior Celerity and should ALWAYS be > > able to throw good Celerity cards, if he's in that kind of deck. He > > should be master of the wind all the time, not just on good days. > > I disagree, I enjoy the strategic thinking of how best to use the cards > I have, That's tatical not strategic. > My Don Cruez can reserve his mastery of the wind for when he > really needs it, but will still breeze around his opponents as > inspiration takes him. I play cards to have every game be different. You > are entitled to enjoy your style of play, but the game has more variety > when a you enforce a limit of playing with at least 10 different cards. > > > >Whats wrong with Majesty > > >isn't just the untap, But even just the Strike:Combat Ends. If I can > > >insure that my vampires will always be able to escape combat by putting > > >30: Strike combat ends in my deck That ruins the balence of the game. > > > > S:CE and untaps are BOTH too good in the current set. S:CE is the more > > obvious problem, but untaps are more fundamental. S:CE seems incredibly > > gross, but one can counter a S:CE deck by playing a vote or bleed deck. > > Untaps are more subtle, but there's really no counter to untaps save > > untaps of your own. Of course, putting the two together in one card > > (Majesty and Earth Meld, in a sense Form of Mist and Obedience) makes one > > really gross card. > > Playing a vote or bleed deck doesn't counter there strategy, unless you > can vote yourself more blood then they can bleed you for each round > S:CE hozes any strategy based on combat. If you are using a strategy not based on combat(Vote or Bleed) S:CE will not effect you(In fact you would prefere it because you don't have alot of combat card either). In other words you will be able to vote or bleed for more effect with a deck designed only to vote or bleed than with one based on avoid combat using S:CE. > > >I also feel that once you get to the point where you can count on a card > > >being in your hand every time you need it the game has lost the random > > >feel of a card game. > > > > A) Even a Freaky bleed deck has a substantial luck element. > > Oh my! bad luck in that deck is not clearing the table in the first > round. I know that deck has been defeated but I would not say the luck > element is substantial enough for tournament play. > > > B) In any case, I find other players more interesting opponents than luck > > of the draw. > > > > >All I can say is people will find abuses of the > > >cards and unless you limit the # of a single card in a tournament my > > >Tremere Combat deck has no chance agains a two turn win freak drive deck, > > > > >or whatever the next abusive combo is. > > > > Not so. Jyhad is very abuse-resistant. Cards have to be pretty > > outrageous to be abused. The cards people complain about are pretty > > outrageous. > > I think that any card you can use than replace with the same card most of > the time is abusive and until they give away all cards free, unfair in a > tournement setting. > Uhm, I am not sure of your logic here. Is it less abusive if I have four each of the rare cards and you don't? One of the great things about Jyhad(with out card limits) is that you can design a good deck with only common cards wich cost about $0.10 each, where as when you add card limits having all the rare cards can really gives you an edge. The size of your collection needed to put togeather a wining deck is less important than the amount of money it cost to build said deck, and winning decks under card limits are going to need rare cards where as without them you don't need very many rare cards. [ quoted text not captured ]

Jake Holub <ja...@hooked.net> writes: >On 9 Sep 1995, CurtAdams wrote: >> Jake Holub <ja...@hooked.net> writes: > >> >Time to pitch in my two cents, >> >We quickly decided on a four card limit because our group had about three > >> >players who could build any deck they wanted and the rest had less than >> $50 retail worth of Jyhad cards. > >> That's what trading is for. Player A trades their Bum's Rushes for Player >> B's Deflections, and both are off and running with good anti-Malk >> defenses. >In our group Malk Decks never florished. I had a solid combat deck that >had little problem with a malk predator If you don't have 4-card limits, such decks are eminently possible. Presumably that's what the guy with the Rushes would build. Malk decks do seem to be the major opponent in most new groups. >> >I don't like playing card games where a >> >player can use the key card in his deck again and again and again, In a >> >play and replace environment it is too ill. >> I disagree. First, that's good for strategic thinking - you must plan and >> scheme and deal much harder when there is less luck about. Second, it's >> good for flavor - Don Cruez has superior Celerity and should ALWAYS be >> able to throw good Celerity cards, if he's in that kind of deck. He >> should be master of the wind all the time, not just on good days. >I disagree, I enjoy the strategic thinking of how best to use the cards >I have, My Don Cruez can reserve his mastery of the wind for when he >really needs it, but will still breeze around his opponents as >inspiration takes him. With combat actions, he'll be inspired but the card absent if you have less than 10 in the deck. Strategy is sharpest when you opposition is people, not luck. This is why the classic strategy game - chess - has no luck at all. >I play cards to have every game be different. You >are entitled to enjoy your style of play, but the game has more variety >when a you enforce a limit of playing with at least 10 different cards. Actually lots of interesting and reasonable decks will need more than 10 of a card. Characterisitically, they are decks using card-based strikes, dodges, and presses, although there are some other cards one sometimes needs more than 10 of - Telepathic Counter in an Auspex non-intercept deck springs to mind. >> S:CE and untaps are BOTH too good in the current set. S:CE is the more >> obvious problem, but untaps are more fundamental. S:CE seems incredibly >> gross, but one can counter a S:CE deck by playing a vote or bleed deck. >> Untaps are more subtle, but there's really no counter to untaps save >> untaps of your own. Of course, putting the two together in one card >> (Majesty and Earth Meld, in a sense Form of Mist and Obedience) makes one >> really gross card. >Playing a vote or bleed deck doesn't counter there strategy, unless you >can vote yourself more blood then they can bleed you for each round S:CE doesn't add any to bleed and can potentially jam your hand. It's the untaps that let Majestic Bleed deliver lots of bleed each turn. >> A) Even a Freaky bleed deck has a substantial luck element. >Oh my! bad luck in that deck is not clearing the table in the first >round. I know that deck has been defeated but I would not say the luck >element is substantial enough for tournament play. I didn't say the luck element controls Freaky Bleed adequately. It doesn't. I'd be very disappointed if it did; I enjoy the fact that in Jyhad luck isn't necessary to slow or stop decks, unlike other game. I was pointing out that even for the most boring, repetitive, overpowered deck in the game, luck remains a substantial element. Luck would remain substantial if you only had two types of cards in your hand. Allowing unlimited ANYTHING won't eliminate it. (Well, all-vote decks could have no luck element, under the vote-pushing misrule). >I think that any card you can use than replace with the same card most of >the time is abusive and until they give away all cards free, unfair in a >tournement setting. That's a pretty broad definition of "abusive". Constantly available cards mimic skills - if you're a good martial artist, you're always a good martial artist. I gather you'd consider a Runequest character with 95% Dodge "abusive" because he will dodge any one normal attack that he's aware of. (RQ player prefer doubleteaming him or throwing a spell or whatever) Such a broad definition of "abusive" renders the word meaningless. >> Incidentally, Tremere combat is one of the few decks which CAN take down a >> Majestic Freaky bleed deck. Intercept, Fast Reaction, Burst of Sunlight Sorry folks, forgot you want Weather Control too. >So you fuck your predetor up so his predetor with a freaky bleed deck can >sweep the table. Actually if you're playing an anti-Freaky bleed deck like this a whole table of Freaky Bleeders can fall to your lightning bolts. >Try playing a game where every other player has a freaky >bleed deck based around different princes justacars, and tell me what >strategy wins you the game. I agree that It is mostly problem cards. But >to me You lose most of the fun when you take out luck of the draw. It's the power of the cards involved that causes the problem. A Freaky Bleed deck faces no less luck than, say, a Ventrue Fortitude Tap & Bleed (tap your prey out with invulnerable minions). Actually it faces somewhat more, because of the critical nature of the 5th Traditions and the hand jam problems. The problem is that a Freaky Bleed deck (Majesty-Freak Drive-Threats-5th Tradition) is 70-80% spoilers. (Threats is the only non-spoiler) Spoilers, well, spoil the game. Even 10% Freak Drives and 10% 5th Tradition make an incredible difference to the power of a deck. A Freaky Bleed deck just makes the problem particularly clear. BTW, you speak as if from experience. Has anybody besides me ever actually played a Freaky Bleed deck? (And no, I don't intend to play it again). Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

Consoli Luca <consoli> writes >curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: >>"Anton Dovydaitis" <an...@infoserv.com> writes: >>>curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: >> >>>> Hence my recommended fix on the 5th is >>>> that you can't hospitality yourself. >>>Yes, but if you had TWO Justicars, they could just alternate. >>However, it's very hard to bring out, and keep out two Princes/Justicars. >Well, not so hard if you are playing a political deck with Praxis Seizure:* >or *Justicar. In that case you can have even more than two out in not >much time... Yes, but then they're not getting so much from the 5ths Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article f...@saga.cs.cornell.edu, kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) writes: > In article <42opp0$s...@sirio.cineca.it> con...@imoax1.unimo.it (Luca Consoli) writes: > > > >kv...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) writes: > > > >>the written rules can be read so as to allow 1 vote max > >>per Meth > >>[...] > >>other Meth can play only 1 vote each > >>[...} > > >Hi Alan, > > I can't see how you can interpret the rules this way > >since they read "...Additional Political cards can be burned by any other > >Meth..." . > > > The sentence can be worded in no other way (ala WotC standards). > If the rules say, "An additional Political card can also be > used by any of the other Methselahs", then it'll be read as though > only 1 Meth. can play 1 additional card, and we'll have timing problems > as to who gets the right to play that card. > Sure it could, it could be worded clearly (or would that violate WotC standards) It could be worded something like: One Political Action can be burned by each of the other Meth in exchange for a vote. You can even add some redundent text to make it clear (No meth may turn in more than one card). Or if they wanted to write it the way the official rulings now stand something the could have said: Additional Political cards can be burned by any Meth in exchange for votes. There is no limit to the number of polotical cards that can be burned in this manner. They could just say what the mean, but that would make it harder to change what they mean later. [ quoted text not captured ]

I think the big separator between Magic and Jyhad is that a Magic duel only involves two people for 20 minutes, and a decent Jyhad game involves a commitment by at least five people for at least two hours. A bad Magic duel is over quickly, whereas one bad Jyhad player can spoil more than an hour of play. I find that good Jyhad games are much harder to find than an acceptable duel of Magic. [ quoted text not captured ]

Consoli Luca <consoli> writes: >curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: >>"Anton Dovydaitis" <an...@infoserv.com> writes: >> >>>In <42nrjh$r...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: >>> >>>> Hence my recommended fix on the 5th is >>>> that you can't hospitality yourself. >>>Yes, but if you had TWO Justicars, they could just alternate. >>However, it's very hard to bring out, and keep out two Princes/Justicars. > >Well, not so hard if you are playing a political deck with Praxis Seizure:* >or *Justicar. In that case you can have even more than two out in not much >time... >I think the best solution (IMO) to the abuse of 5th tradition is to increase >the blood cost (I could also say limit the card but I am on the "no limits" >side :)) Could you forbid that any single Prince/Justicar from taking this action (5th tradition) more than once/turn? That would prevent its use from becoming too degenerate in decks like the "Freaky Majestic Bleed" deck of Curt's. I think I'd also like to see untap cards like Freak Drive and Majesty limited to 1/use per player turn on any given Vampire as well. That would shake up the game somewhat but it would fix the cards pretty much and encourage more card mixture. Fred

> >Strategy is sharpest when you opposition is people, not luck. This is why >the classic strategy game - chess - has no luck at all. > I like chess without limits. Our house rules say you can put any number of pieces on any square you like when you set up the board. We've found that this opens up unlimited new possibilites for the game. -p.

>>I like chess without limits. Our house rules say you can put any number >>of pieces on any square you like when you set up the board. We've >>found that this opens up unlimited new possibilites for the game. > >Thats funny, we found the chess to be much more balanced with a limit >of only four of any one piece. That way people without the money to buy >very many pawns could compete with those who spent the cash >to buy 16 or 24 pawns. > The limits on chess pieces is just a carry-over from those dolts who play checkers. In that game, a limit on pieces is useful, but it has no place in the complicated and balanced world of chess. Checker players only play with what they're used to: limits. They obviously haven't even tried a game of chess without limits, since it would be impossible for anyone to try a limitless game and not love it. -p.

You guys are funny. ;) We've resorted to complex metaphors to do our bickering. At least it's more entertaining.

In article <1995091309...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU> IZZ...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (pete) writes: >> >>Strategy is sharpest when you opposition is people, not luck. This is why >>the classic strategy game - chess - has no luck at all. >> >I like chess without limits. Our house rules say you can put any number >of pieces on any square you like when you set up the board. We've >found that this opens up unlimited new possibilites for the game. Thats funny, we found the chess to be much more balanced with a limit of only four of any one piece. That way people without the money to buy very many pawns could compete with those who spent the cash to buy 16 or 24 pawns. --George

[ quoted text not captured ] You know, I went to Pacificon over the Labor Day weekend with a Fast Reaction-based (though without Thaum strikes) deck, composed mostly of commons and uncommons (1 rare), in the hope of getting in a game with a Majestic Bleed or Majestic Freaky Bleed deck. I was fairly sure I would be able to dust those strategies, though I was uncertain how well the deck would do against other (normal) strategies. I thought I might even be able to handle a KRC deck, though it would be dicey (would depend on library draws). Unfortunately, the only game I got into with non-sealed decks didn't have any Majestic Bleeders, so I don't know if I'm right about being able to handle them. I did oust two prey with the deck (7 player game) and was the next-to-last player in, so I'm pleased with the competitiveness of the deck in normal play (i.e. it's not a _strictly_ anti-Majestic deck). Maybe at next ManaFest... And multiple Majestic Bleeders wouldn't pose much of a problem. --- Eric Pettersen pe...@cgl.ucsf.edu (NeXTmail capable)

> If you find that too offensive, just play with four pawns next >time you play chess.... > Algustas I've given up on chess. There's just no industry support for all the loyal chess players. I'm gonna go back to checkers. I hear they're going to release a new checkers "chinese" expansion set. I hope it isn't delayed too long. -p.

Anton Dovydaitis (an...@infoserv.com) wrote: : I think the big separator between Magic and Jyhad is that a Magic duel : only involves two people for 20 minutes, and a decent Jyhad game involves : a commitment by at least five people for at least two hours. A bad Magic : duel is over quickly, whereas one bad Jyhad player can spoil more than : an hour of play. : I find that good Jyhad games are much harder to find than an acceptable : duel of Magic. Ah, but the enjoyment when you do find one far outstrips even the best duel. Sort of like finding a good game of Go...? - Neil -- nwbe...@unix.amherst.edu, lentus in umbra | nudus ara, sere nudus... in omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro

In article <fred_sDE...@netcom.com> fre...@netcom.com (Frederick Scott) writes: >Could you forbid that any single Prince/Justicar from taking this action >(5th tradition) more than once/turn? That would prevent its use from >becoming too degenerate in decks like the "Freaky Majestic Bleed" deck >of Curt's. > >I think I'd also like to see untap cards like Freak Drive and Majesty >limited to 1/use per player turn on any given Vampire as well. That >would shake up the game somewhat but it would fix the cards pretty much >and encourage more card mixture. We can do that, but 1. that is still an errata; 2. this prevents those decks from ousting the table in 1 turn, but decks filled with such "spoilers" remain incredibly powerful. Playing with a Freaky Bleed deck, even under your rule, is almost like playing the game with double pool and double transfers. [ quoted text not captured ]

>None of you understand! Checkers is a sad imitation of chess spelled >sideways. Checkers has wierd limits that some people apply to chess making >chess a limited checkers game. So, the only way to break down the >wall is to play chesskers which is checkers+chess spelled diagonally! See? >No? I'll try again. Chess is better because you lose coins every time >something bleeds you backwards, but you also lose dimes when you influence >a checker piece, or was the chess piece? > >Michael the Malkavian And other Kindred wonder why we'd rather slap a Nictuku than listen to these nutcakes for more than a minute? Frankly, if you're interested in a good game of chess, play with a few invisible pieces. Makes it interesting when you don't have the foggiest fuck of a clue what's checking your king, or where it's from. Of course, it also helps if you have a friend invisible behind your opponent, but that's another story. Horsebutt, Clan Nosferatu

Anton Dovydaitis (an...@infoserv.com) wrote: : I think the big separator between Magic and Jyhad is that a Magic duel : only involves two people for 20 minutes, and a decent Jyhad game involves : a commitment by at least five people for at least two hours. A bad Magic : duel is over quickly, whereas one bad Jyhad player can spoil more than : an hour of play. Jyhad is much more flexible. You want shorter game play? start out with less blood. You want easier game play? Play with easy rules. You want easy to get cards get all the commons (since most of them are the most usefull anyway). A 'bad' Jyhad player steal can hold up a fair fight. It really depends on their deck. : I find that good Jyhad games are much harder to find than an acceptable : duel of Magic. If you want REAL fast game play, try doom trooper. All of my friends and I got one starter and traded among each other and we can have games that last for 5 minutes to 45 minutes. : Anton Dovydaitis an...@infoserv.com : For Ishi Press inquiries, mail to `ish...@ishius.com'. C-ya, Michael Jeung

ia...@mail.utexas.edu (Santiago) writes: >red stuff inside of them. Any other interpretation is rather strange, as >damage in comabt causes you to lose blood, and you can't lose resources >from having someone shoot you. Really, Having to heal oneself does not require resources I like your healthcare approach. How do I ascribe to it? Stu >********************************************************************* >Santiago * If people were meant to go around naked, e-mail: * they'd be born that way. >ia...@mail.utexas.edu * -- Stu Pieloch TLTT Players-Lord High And Mighty Potentate of the Known Universe DramaTech Theatre Improv Troupe http://photobooks.gatech.edu/~zync/lttp.html GE/T/S d++(--) H(-) s++:- g+(-) p2 au++ a- w+++(--) v++ C++ U N++ W---() M+ V-- po+++(---) t--- 5+++ G+++ B--- e++ u++ f+ r++ n--- y*

nwbe...@news.amherst.edu (Neil Bernstein) writes: >Ah, but the enjoyment when you do find one far outstrips even the best duel. >Sort of like finding a good game of Go...? So are many Jyhad Players Go Players? I assume Anton is from ISHI's involvement in Go Translation to English and Equipment sale and apparently Neil is as well I know everyone in my group plays (poorly at best - ~20k) Stu >- Neil >-- >nwbe...@unix.amherst.edu, lentus in umbra | nudus ara, sere nudus... >in omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro [ quoted text not captured ]

In article j...@sirio.cineca.it, Consoli Luca <consoli> writes: > [Lots deleted]... Besides, I think that politics is one of the > best features that Jyhad has and the possibility of using (or playing or > whatever you want! :) ) more political cards gives much more flavour and > surprise than not being able to do it. > > Luca "Democritus" Consoli > Web page: http://imoax1.unimo.it/~consoli > The problem with the current rules (everyone play as many cards as you want) is that it makes it far to easy to get a vote passed without any sort of polotics. This is clearly not how polotics should work. A deck made up almost entirely of vote cards, in a game where she is the only vote deck can get almost any vote passed they want. This to me is to powerful. The vote cards are more powerful than other cards( for cards with no blood cost or disciplines required) because they have the inherent disadvantage that they have to pass. The official rules mess this up. Limiting the number of cards that can be turned in for votes to 1, greatly enhances the polotics of voting. It forces the acting meth to make promises and cut deals for those extra votes he needs. It also makes the wennie voting deck less powerful and gives voting a structure very similar to other actions. As for surprise and flavour, I think that the +vote mods and reactions can go along way to making the outcome of the vote less certain. Just my Opion, Steven

In article 1995091309...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU, IZZ...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (pete) writes: > I like chess without limits. Our house rules say you can put any number > of pieces on any square you like when you set up the board. We've > found that this opens up unlimited new possibilites for the game. > -p. I like the idea of no limits chess, but it has a few problems. The Queen is just to powerful, everyone puts in as many queens as they can afford. I think a four queen limit works well, but don't want to start slapping on arbitarty piece limits. The other problems is the rules are too vague. Is it legal to have no kings, the rules say any number and zero is a number... Steven :)

IZZ...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (pete) writes: >>Strategy is sharpest when you opposition is people, not luck. This is why >>the classic strategy game - chess - has no luck at all. >> >I like chess without limits. Our house rules say you can put any number >of pieces on any square you like when you set up the board. We've >found that this opens up unlimited new possibilites for the game. No it doesn't. Eventually everyone would figure out that by going first and using 31 Queens and a King, you'd always win. This doesn't make chess a bad game, in fact, it's pretty easy to learn the moves and I suggest you try a few games in between playing Magic. Part of the fun is that no matter what happens to you, you could have seen it coming 3 or 4 moves ago, and maybe next time you will. That's part of the reason some people like no-card-limit Jyhad. They like to see what their predator and prey's decks can do, and then think ahead a few turns to see what will likely happen. This "thinking ahead" thing is commonly called "strategy" and it's pretty fun once you get used to it.

In article <43497s$j...@sirio.cineca.it> Consoli Luca <consoli> writes: >Besides, I think that politics is one of the >best features that Jyhad has and the possibility of using (or playing or >whatever you want! :) ) more political cards gives much more flavour and >surprise than not being able to do it. Sure, that's why we have cards specifically dedicated for that purpose (it's called Surprise Influence - coincidence? There's also Bewitching Oration and Dread Gaze.) IMO it is not necessary to allow additional, unlimited vote pushing to "give flavour" to the game. IMO, allowing that is an abuse. Noticed that the Edge is not that significant on votes? The calling playing often have tons of extra votes to throw in, rendering the 1 vote from the Edge insignificant. If we limit Meth. votes to 1 vote each, not only do we have a stricter control of card flow (a GOOD thing in Jyhad), we also see the Edge vote come to have its significance. -- "Live Life with Heart." Alan Kwan kw...@cs.cornell.edu

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >Charles T. Schwope <ch...@fpah1.dseg.ti.com> wrote: >> I believe that people had a problem with GenCon b/c it was >>a "sactioned" WoTC tournament, and had not advertized ahead of time that >>it was with a 4 card limit. Therefore people assumed that the tourney >>rules for VTES would be used... >Fair enough. But the tournament was not actually sanctioned, despite >it having been written up as such in a couple of places. (There was a lot >of confusion from various sources that contributed to this.) So is the Jyhad/V:TES Game at Winnepeg's upcoming con going to be sanctioned? What rules will be used is the question I am asking here, never having seen the OFFICIAL V:TES Rules. Stu >Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for >aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc. [ quoted text not captured ]

>>I like chess without limits. Our house rules say you can put any number >>of pieces on any square you like when you set up the board. We've >>found that this opens up unlimited new possibilites for the game. > > No it doesn't. Eventually everyone would figure out that by going >first and using 31 Queens and a King, you'd always win. Well, that was sort of my point, howvever facetiously it was presented. -p. p.s.- a hearty handshake to the folks who contributed their wit to this silly little thread.

IZZ...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (pete) writes: >> If you find that too offensive, just play with four pawns next >>time you play chess.... >> Algustas > >I've given up on chess. There's just no industry support for all the >loyal chess players. I'm gonna go back to checkers. I hear they're >going to release a new checkers "chinese" expansion set. I hope it >isn't delayed too long. Didn't you hear?!? Platter-shaped checkers were deemed offensive to some obscure society located in the Himalyas. We hadn't heard of this before because no one had quite made it out that way to ask them until last March. It seems the Chinese expansion is slated to be released in some sort of sperical shape. But don't worry, both shapes will be allowed in tournaments, if they can ever figure out a set rules they can stick with... Fred

Charles T. Schwope <ch...@fpah1.dseg.ti.com> wrote: > I believe that people had a problem with GenCon b/c it was >a "sactioned" WoTC tournament, and had not advertized ahead of time that >it was with a 4 card limit. Therefore people assumed that the tourney >rules for VTES would be used... Fair enough. But the tournament was not actually sanctioned, despite it having been written up as such in a couple of places. (There was a lot of confusion from various sources that contributed to this.) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <43cl4g$g...@hel.cs.cornell.edu>, kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] A possible compromise: how about allowing unlimited vote pushing, **provided** each push by a given Methuselah uses a different card? J. Andrew Lipscomb <ew...@chattanooga.net, them...@delphi.com> PGP keys by request Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian.

Owen Reynolds <reyn...@cs.iastate.edu> wrote: >>Excerpt from "The Eternal Struggle(TM) A Players Guide of the JYHAD(TM)" >> "One important thing to remember about Jyhad(TM) is that the blood pool >>does not represent a vat of actual blood. Rather, it represents influence, >>resources, and the most precious commodity within the vampire community, >>status..." > This would mean that a vampire down to 1 blood has the same status as >a Catiff -- i.e.: none. Generally, diablerizing a Catiff, or a Catiff who >no one likes, isn't regarded as that big a deal. It helps to reread that excerpt: "...the blood *pool* does not represent a vat of actual blood..." You (the Methuselah) have a blood pool, but your vampires do not. They just have blood, and this actually does represent the blood that used to be pumping through some living thing. This is why Hunting Grounds work (why would having access to a slum gain you status?), why Steal Blood strikes work (in V:TM, Cauldron of Blood has nothing to do with social status), and so on. > The point I'm trying to make is that arguing for card-fixes based on >how things work in the RPG is pretty pointless. For me, I'd have been >just as happy if Jyhad was played with a secret empire of Ninjas. Still >the same game. Well, there's a fine line between basing the game on the RPG, and ignoring the RPG when it hurts the card game. In general we *do* want concepts that are obviously grounded in the RPG to mimic it (which is why Progeny and The Embrace have errata to have the new vampire's clan match its sire's), though we do not simply enslave ourselves to modeling the RPG faithfully. [ quoted text not captured ]

Inresponse to my earlier posting, Stuart J. Pieloch wrote: > ia...@mail.utexas.edu (Santiago) writes: > >red stuff inside of them. Any other interpretation is rather strange, as > >damage in comabt causes you to lose blood, and you can't lose resources > >from having someone shoot you. > > Really, Having to heal oneself does not require resources > I like your healthcare approach. > How do I ascribe to it? > Stu Us mortals tend to require hospitals and other such things when shot. Vampires, on the other hand, simply heal damage by expending blood they sucked from us. When they get low, they hunt. Not too complicated ;-) [ quoted text not captured ]

Seriously, my friends and I play chess from a point-based system with which you construct your army by buying pieces and purchasing motions for them, then applying logical operators to your kings, etc. (My favorite combo has two kings, two queens, a pole, and some really wierd ones.) However, none of us ever puts together an unstobbable army because its no fun. The same applies to Jyhad: Put together a really cool deck (the restrictions is called pool cost--all the neato cards cost a bunch, and you can't afford to use more than a few. I'm not suggesting a tournament point system as some people mentioned.), but don't create an unstoppable degenerate deck, cause it's no fun. :-[ ********************************************************************* Santiago * Paranoid men live longer. e-mail: * -- Lazarus Long ia...@mail.utexas.edu *

>ia...@mail.utexas.edu (Santiago) wrote: > > >big snip< > >> I'm not suggesting a tournament >>point system as some people mentioned.), but don't create an unstoppable >>degenerate deck, cause it's no fun. :-[ >> The problem is not "playing to win" or "making degenerate decks" or such. The problem is, (mostly) games are played and discussed because of their mathematical interest - i.e. most games are intractably complex. A game for which a degenerate, "unbeatable" deck exists arouses little mathematical interest, because the game can be considered solved. Such a game is no fun in the first place, not players who build "degenerate decks" making it no fun. You don't see tic-tac-toe being discussed in rec.games.abstract, because the game is solved. You don't see adults playing it too often, either (except playing with kids, and deliberately making non-optimal moves so that they lose sometimes). The game is solved, so induces little further mathematical interest. [ quoted text not captured ]

ia...@mail.utexas.edu (Santiago) wrote: >big snip< I'm not suggesting a tournament >point system as some people mentioned.), but don't create an unstoppable >degenerate deck, cause it's no fun. :-[ > >********************************************************************* Hey if winning is no fun for you, how about coming over to my house for some no-limit poker hands?? Really, what you suggest doesn't work because winning is everything to some people.

Blood Pool represents resources. A Methesuthela (sp) isn't some giant vampire with a vat of blood. It could be 1 pool is a) money b) energy c) blood d) political standings A) it could be money, for example buying .44 magnum and then having a irrelevent minion (one that doesn't appear as a card, messenger) give it to Ozmo at +1 stealth B) Cases when you use Misdirection or cards that do weird things. Meth. is using his/her power to make it happen C) For reviving vampires from the crypt, Also money could be used to entice a vampire to join. A Meth. bringing out the same copy is pretty much offering more oney or blood. D) I'm not sure. Is there a card that let's you spend pool for voting? A vamp's blood is different. They use it to heal themselves or use one of their abilities. Example: Ozmo get's blasted by a sawed off shotgun. Normally he'd die but he can use 3 blood to repair himself. Another Example: Ozmo loses the 3 blood from bleeding Example: Ozmo loses blood to condition himself to bleed big time. At least, that's what it looks like to me, Michael Jeung

David Wilson (IZZ...@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU) wrote: : >None of you understand! Checkers is a sad imitation of chess spelled [ quoted text not captured ] : > Let me add to this: I am very angry at the makers of chess who are attempting to change the pieces from red and blue to black and white. Or was that the other way around? Anyway, I'm pissed cause this might mean that the world is coming to an end. Or maybe that we'll all have to eat our corn backwards. Or maybe there is a slight possibility that we'll have to buy ANOTHER set of chess pieces! After all that hard work collecting bishops I'll have to get new pieces. I bet the Camarilla will get mad since they've been arguing about the chesskers pieces. : >Michael the Malkavian : And other Kindred wonder why we'd rather slap a Nictuku than listen : to these nutcakes for more than a minute? Nutcakes? That's nut and cakes. Gee, that's like a coffee cake. I guess that...wait OH NO! Coffee sounds like toffee which is shipped from China. In china they speak chinese. Chinese sounds like Japenese! Japan ships toffee across the pacific to Columbia. The capitol of Columbia is Argentina! OH NO! You're from Argentina! AAAAAAHAHHHHHHH! : Frankly, if you're interested in a good game of chess, play with : a few invisible pieces. Makes it interesting when you don't have the : foggiest fuck of a clue what's checking your king, or where it's from. : Of course, it also helps if you have a friend invisible behind your : opponent, but that's another story. That's fun. It's better if you have a piece that no one can see! Yes! That way you just sit down and say: I 1. But don't say it sideways or they'll learn the secret malkavian entree code to Trader Joes. : Horsebutt, Clan Nosferatu : Horsebutt, Clan Nosferatu Phew! Michael the Malkavian

mcev...@matrix.newpaltz.edu (joseph mcevoy) writes: >Guys, I'm looking for a price list on chess pieces. Specifically, I'm >looking for either a Queen or two bishops.. I'll be willing to <maybe> trade >a couple rooks or knights. The Queen is a spoiler. Sure, she's legal to play with the current set construction rules. But I hope you take her out when you play the newbies who can't get one very easily. >Oh, is there any more word on the "Chinese" expansion set? I heard >something about it being a stand-alone game.. Is this true? Who cares? I'm boycotting it. Fred

kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) writes: >The problem is not "playing to win" or "making degenerate decks" or such. >The problem is, (mostly) games are played and discussed because of >their mathematical interest - i.e. most games are intractably complex. >A game for which a degenerate, "unbeatable" deck exists arouses little >mathematical interest, because the game can be considered solved. >Such a game is no fun in the first place, not players who build >"degenerate decks" making it no fun. Thank you! You've said this so much better than I've ever been able to say it. Fred

I've got a question.. is the black and/or white bishop a unique piece? I tried to pull out a second white bishop about halfway through the game, and the guy I was playing against said I was contesting my own piece.. and I would have to sacrifice the pawn if I just wanted to bring the bishop into play.. This doesn't sound right.. Joseph.

pe...@scd.hp.com (Perry Jeung) writes: >What's a Freaky Bleed deck? My version is probably not the best one but With a Prince or Justicar Preferably with Superior Dominate Obfuscate and Fortitude? was it fortitude? Bleed - Govern the Unaligned pay a blood Stealth - Faceless night I like blocker stay tapped Conditioning pay a blood Freak Drivepay a blood untap Bleed a la Above (play it again sam) until you're out of blood on the vamp then 5th Tradition yourself - fill up freak again then continue to bleed In larger games I like to use CA's and KRC's Instead It's easier for me to get a Presence Voter captivation thing going with Freak drives to automatically replenish the vamp doing the vote calling. He sorta still needs to be a Justicar/Prince though for the clout. d [ quoted text not captured ]

pe...@scd.hp.com (Perry Jeung) writes: >What's a Freaky Bleed deck? Sorry, I'm sometimes overly fond of abbreviations and nicknames. A Freak Bleed deck consists of (basically) Freak Drive, Majesty, Threats, and 5th Traditions, wielded by Ventrue Princes and + bleeders (Democritus, who is both, is ideal). Every turn a vampire takes actions, he bleeds multiple times, using Majesty to untap when blocked and Freak Drive when not blocked, pitching Threats as necessary. When it runs out of blood, it 5th Traditions to get its blood back. Theoretically, it can clear a table the first turn it gets actions, although that seems fairly unlikely. It's a gruesomely and excessively good deck; only fairly specialized anti-Majesty defenses have a good chance against it. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

On 16 Sep 1995, Perry Jeung wrote: > D) I'm not sure. Is there a card that let's you spend pool for voting? Yes, Business Pressure. Action Modifier requiring Presence. Norm: "Any Methuselah can spend pool to the blood bank. For every 1 pool spent, a Methuselah gains 2 votes. Sup: "As above, but spending your pool gains you 3 votes." =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Red Baron <sno...@gate.net> - I may answer the phones for Disney - = = World, but I don't speak for them. = -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I think vampires' blood isn't real blood either. Because it's all metaphorical. After all, weapons aren't really that expensive (because they aren't really weapons.) And Day Operation would be blockable by allies (but it's not really during the day.) And so forth.

syl...@pitt.edu (Marius Pontmercy) writes: [ quoted text not captured ] The way I see it, vampire blood is more literal, though Methuselah pool is more figurative. Vampires spend their blood quite directly and very similarly to that of vampires in Masquerade. Likewise, they lose blood from getting slapped around. Pool is more metaphorical. A while ago, I would have agreed with you that it is sill thay a simple handgun would be so expensive. But I have since come up with a rationalle: The loss of pool represents the resources, string-pulling, and bribing required to acquire, do paperwork and licensing for, etc. to get said gun. While we're at it, I also have a rationalle for the fact that you have to wait for a stealth card to come up for your Nosferatu to get stealth (in the role-playing game he could "cloak" any time he felt like it): Simply, you don't have direct control over your vampires. Example: Dimple decides to burn the Rats. He does this because you, the Methuselah, have found those rats to be eating at your power base, and you are able to manipulate Dimple into torching the vermin. He believes he is toasting rodents for his own benefit, or maybe he is performing a seemingly unrelated task that will set a sequence of events in motion that will culminate in the destruction of the fuzzy horde. In any case, he doesn't realize that Roman Alexander has summoned the Army of Rats and is standing by to block anyone who steps on his turf. So why should Dimple use his Lost in Crowds power? Because you, Methuselah, have figured out a way to manipulate him into it. Maybe you manipulated someone else into taking a pot shot at him to encourage him to make himself less seen. Or maybe circumstances prevent you from coaxing him into vanishing (you don't have Lost in Crowds in your hand). Well, hope you all find this something to think about if you haven't already. -- Simeon ---------------------------- simeo...@bbs.fullcoll.edu

In article 21099521...@ehdup-l-13.rmt.net.pitt.edu, syl...@pitt.edu (Marius Pontmercy) writes: > I think vampires' blood isn't real blood either. Because it's all > metaphorical. After all, weapons aren't really that expensive (because > they aren't really weapons.) > And Day Operation would be blockable by allies (but it's not really during > the day.) > And so forth. I think thats being a little extreme. If the card don't represent some sort of events, then maybe we aren't ancient vampire manipulating trying to control world events to are own ends. Maybe we are just playing a card game. It`s to much to comprehend. Steven

I rather like the idea of a point value system for each card. However, this would mean that WotC or whoever would have to print out a point system that people could build V:TES tournament decks off of, yet still stay within the required number of cards by the number of people playing in the game. Sounds great, but who's gonna do it and will it set a standard? -greg zuvich > Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of having a point value system > for V:TES tournaments? While I think most of us agree that card limits > are a bad thing (or at least, 4-card limits are bad), most of us also agree > that there are certain problem cards in a limitless environment. Given that > we are not going to go in and change existing cards to give them a cost, > or increase their existing cost, does a point system seem a viable option? > For example, maybe Majesty is worth 1 point, Freak Drive is worth 2 points, > WWEF is worth 1 point, and a deck's point total is limited to 20% of the > number of cards in it. > > > Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for > aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc. > -- 邢 唷��

Could somebody send me a copy of the updated Tourny rules for Jyhad? Thank You Craig ct...@gis.net