Why Errata

On VTES-L, Rmtc...@AOL.COM wrote: > > >>"Flack, Robert G (IndSys, SalemVA)" wrote: > >> > >> Let me introduce myself. I'm Bob "Argi" Flack; a > >> Netrunner player and VTES dabbler. I'm the former Chair > >> of the Top Runners' Conference (the NR equivalent of > >> the Vampire: Elder Kindred Network). I'm currently > >> serving on a TRC committee that is deciding on a new > >> play format for NR. > > > >[Mike Bohlmann, MAIP responded] > >Nice to meet you. > > Welcome to the party. My name is Dave "the Romantic" > > >> Why errata to fix cards? Why not restrictions or card limits? > >> What do you see as the benefits and disadvantages of errata? > > > >It eliminates cards that can have huge effects on the > >game and thus require their use or specific preparations > >to counter while still allowing them to be played. > > That's the intention, yes. And the effect, yes. > >> Is there a dissatisfied group within the V:EKN that > >> dislikes errata? Or was errata just the obvious answer? Quick point: the V:EKN is neither responsible for, nor the exclsive audience of the errata. You may be using "V:EKN" when you mean "V:TES players", I think. > >Easy answer: You can please some of the people some of > >the time, but you can't please all the people all the time. > > But I think to clarify further, some people feel you can > have too little errata, some feel you can have too much. I think everyone feels this way - it's just a matter of deciding where that line is to be drawn. > >> The more detail you can give me the better! I am a > >> true novice and know little of your organization and > >> details of serious play, so forgive me for any obvious > >> questions I've asked. > > > >Before June of 1998, tournament decks focused around a > >few very powerful cards were pretty prevalent. If you > >weren't specifically prepared for them, you were dead meat. > > And this is where things become a little more complicated. > When Mike speaks of the game "Before June of 1998", he's > referring to what would be known as the pre7/7 days. He's actually referring to the pre-6/28 days, but OK. > On July 7, of last year Vtes was changed dramatically. > Those who issued errata before then were known as the > Rules Team. They were a collection of appointees from > Wizards of the Coast who returned rulings occasionally on > what was to be changed for tournament play. Many rightly > complained of their lack of responsiveness to the players > opinions and demands. > Just before July, L. Scott Johnson was appointed with the > sole power of issuing errata. When he issued the "7/7" > errata there was a flurry of debate from all sides. > Without going into the heavier details, many of us (like > myself) disagreed with the many of those (like Mike) who > felt the overall good of the errata justified it's > extensive technical nature and theory. While it was built on solid theory and technical details, it was not any different from errata that the previous RT had issued. Players who didn't care about the theory had the same stuff they always had: new errata (with the removal of some old errata). > We felt, frankly, blindsided. LSJ is perhaps the greatest > patriot of the game, to be sure, and has a keen > understanding of the game mechanics. > But we felt he went overboard when rewriting the cards and > the basic rules of the game. The previous RT had rewritten cards and basic rules of the game. The 7/7 was not new in that regard. > Since then, many of us (known as integritists -- for > prefering to keep the original integrity of the game > intact with only minor changes) dropped off. And many of > "them" (known as theorists -- for preferring to rewrite > cards and rules to create the best possible balance in the > game) flourished in the new theorist-based errata. Note to Robert Flak: these "known as" terms are not standard - indeed I have never heard them before. And they are misleading. The RT also attempts to preserve the original integrity of the game - witness the removal of the (D)-symbol-as-modifier errata and the return to the original power level for aggravated damage. The RT does not "prefer" to rewrite cards and rules for the best possible balance. The RT rewrites cards and rules to 1) reduce the power of overpowered cards and 2) preserve the integrity of the game as it was designed ("original intent"). Even so, not all errata that would serve these puposes are issued - other considerations are minimizing complexity of the cards/game and minimizing the volume of the errata. If balance-theory were the end-all then cards like Concealed Weapon would have been errataed. Perhaps "minimalists" would be a better term for what you call "integritists" - preferring a minimal set of errata over balance or design integrity. > You can look up most of this debate in dejanews.com going all > the way back to 7/7. There's more than enough debate on > errata and how we examined it as a community. > > By the way, I'm not trying to spark another debate. I > just thought I'd throw in the other side to give a better > perspective. Most integritists no longer monitor what's > happening with Vtes anymore. I myself was told indirectly > about this posting before I responded to it. That may explain why I never heard that term. -- LSJ (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and DCI (tournament) rules: http://www.wizards.com/VTES/VTES_Rules.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

Rmtc...@AOL.COM wrote: > [multiple attribution lines deleted by RmtcDave] > >> >> Why errata to fix cards? Why not restrictions or card limits? > >> >> What do you see as the benefits and disadvantages of errata? > >> > > >> >It eliminates cards that can have huge effects on the > >> >game and thus require their use or specific preparations > >> >to counter while still allowing them to be played. > >> > >> That's the intention, yes. > > > >And the effect, yes. > > Actually, no. One could easily compile a list of > commonly used cards in Vtes that many would complain are > too powerful and/or too versatile. That was the problem > before, that remains a problem today, regardless of the > new errata. Actually, yes. It *did* eliminate cards that had a huge effect on the game so as to require their use or their counter. Which was the statement. If you have to switch the topic (to cards that "many" would say are "too versatile") just to disagree with me, there isn't much point in this conversation. > >> On July 7, of last year Vtes was changed dramatically. > >> Those who issued errata before then were known as the > >> Rules Team. They were a collection of appointees from > >> Wizards of the Coast who returned rulings occasionally on > >> what was to be changed for tournament play. Many rightly > >> complained of their lack of responsiveness to the players > >> opinions and demands. > >> Just before July, L. Scott Johnson was appointed with the > >> sole power of issuing errata. When he issued the "7/7" > >> errata there was a flurry of debate from all sides. > >> Without going into the heavier details, many of us (like > >> myself) disagreed with the many of those (like Mike) who > >> felt the overall good of the errata justified it's > >> extensive technical nature and theory. > > > >While it was built on solid theory and technical details, it > >was not any different from errata that the previous RT had > >issued. Players who didn't care about the theory had the same > >stuff they always had: new errata (with the removal of some > >old errata). > > With respect, LSJ, that's quite a bold assertion. Beyond > the modification to cards issued in the 7/7 errata, there > were two other methods never employed before. No errata > before it rewrote cards in their entirety creating an > entirely different net effect to the card. Oh? Torn Signpost is written to give a strike option, but had been errataed to give a strength bonus. Anyhow, it's just a difference of degree, not of nature. > No rulings before it changed the elements in the rulebook > for the sole purpose of "balance" and "original intent" > instead of clarification or technical revision. Oh? The original rulebook didn't prohibit a vampire from having two titles. > >> We felt, frankly, blindsided. LSJ is perhaps the greatest > >> patriot of the game, to be sure, and has a keen > >> understanding of the game mechanics. > >> But we felt he went overboard when rewriting the cards and > >> the basic rules of the game. > > > >The previous RT had rewritten cards and basic rules of the game. > >The 7/7 was not new in that regard. > > To further expand on the previous point, no changes in the > previous rulings ever replaced the text of a card in it's > entirety like 7/7 did with ToRIII, RtI, and Mind Rape. > There wasn't just a "limiting" of their power by adding > or subtracting lines, there was literally a complete > rewriting of the cards. I'm not aware of a single errata > that has ever done that before. Again, try Torn Signpost. Again, it's just an issue of degree. > In regard to the rulebook changes, there has never been a > ruling in which the Rules Team decided to "reinstitute" > older rules from the Jyhad version of the game because they > felt it was more attractive. Correct. Attractivenes is not an attribute used for rulings. You statement is true of both the original RT and the current RT (and all RTs in between). [snip] > >The RT also attempts to preserve the original integrity of the > >game - witness the removal of the (D)-symbol-as-modifier errata > >and the return to the original power level for aggravated damage. > > Yet again another distinction needs to be made. The rules > you describe as returning are being changed from "Vampire: > The Eternal Struggle" to the older, out of print version, > "Jyhad". The resulting errata effectively combines the two > rulebooks into a hybrid third book. Many of us asked, "Why > rewrite the current rulebook if it wasn't broken?" Both Jyhad and V:TES are "out of print" as far as I know. The rules were rewritten - not into a hybrid, but into a new set of rules. The new set incorporates some elements of the original rules for balance and design integrity. > >The RT does not "prefer" to rewrite cards and rules for the best > >possible balance. The RT rewrites cards and rules to 1) reduce > >the power of overpowered cards and > > To reduce the circular nature of this argument, lets make > a simple point clear. There are cards within the game > that a obvious majority can agree on limiting. The problem > so many of us have is with the method of "rewriting" cards > and changing rules as opposed to cosmetic changes that would > limit their power while keeping the majority effect of the > card in place. > An excellent example would be Return to Innocence. With a > simple amendment, the bleed of this card could have been > reduced by half, require more blood, or have another line > added that in some way would bring a futher disadvantage. > Any of these changes could have been acheived with a single > line of errata. Many different fixes were examined. No suitable "cosmetic" change was found, so a more drastic change was used. That proved unteneble, so to card was banned. > The current errata requires a completely new > text with an effect that requires a new tracking on time, > placement of the card in play, and a number of new > considerations for the effect -- which, incidentally, is > now no longer a bleed as well. ?! RtI was still a bleed, clearly. (Errataed) card text was expicit in that regard. > I think everyone can agree that cards such as RtI needed > a revision. But many us preferred a revision over a rewrite. So would the RT. But a revision that was suitable to the purpose was not found. > >2) preserve the integrity of > >the game as it was designed ("original intent"). > > Particularly with the above example, I fail to understand > how you interpret "the game as it was designed". RtI was errataed for the first reason (balance), not the second. > If you are also insisting that the original Jyhad rulebook > is what we should be using instead of the current one... > why not just "errata" that as well instead of combining the > two? Why did they package a Vtes rulebook that strays from > the "original intent" as you see it? In an attempt to "simplify" the game. WotC has said so. And because time constraints prevented them from the proper level of QA in that release. > > Even so, not > >all errata that would serve these puposes are issued - other > >considerations are minimizing complexity of the cards/game and > >minimizing the volume of the errata. > > ?!?!?! I agree with these two considerations. > Particularly since the rewriting of cards creates a > much larger complexity to the errata and the game. ? Errata doesn't increase the complexity of errata. Complex errata is complex in and of itself. Simple errata is not made complex by the mere presence of other errata. [snip] > Now that I have your attention, LSJ, I'd like to ask you > the same question I asked you several times last summer. > I not only sent you two emails regarding this question, I > posted two treads in Dejanews (Under "New Idea" and > "Errata II"), and asked you directly on the Vtes-L forum > as well. But you hadn't responded to any of the above. > > 8/2/98: > L. Scott Johnson, if I could demonstrate that the majority > of those opposed to your latest errata could agree on an > "alternate" system of errata, would you support it's use > for DCI Tournament Sanctioning? I did not respond because the question is meaningless (a "majority" of an unknown quantity cannot be known) and is clearly a baiting question. In general, though, the DCI does not support "alternate" rules of this kind. I have approached them on the subject before. So the question of my support is moot. [ quoted text not captured ]