LSJ: Auction cards and sequencing

At one the of championship games at Origins, my prey played Hostile Takeover. I wanted to call Kevin over to figure how we're supposed to handle bidding, because the card doesn't tell you what to do. Everyone else seemed to think that it was open bidding, and we didn't call Kevin over. This strikes me as problematic in two ways. First, the card doesn't tell you what to do, especially if you are not a native English speaker, and you don't know what "bid" means. Aside from 4 stupid cards, it is not a VTES term, and game design should aim towards avoiding unnecessary pieces of vocabulary that might cause confusion. Second, if the auction really is open, then you are playing slapjack, not VTES. My view, though others disagree, is that Hostile Takeover and Temptation of Greater Power are both terrible cards anyway, as they tend to make you lose more often than they make you win (this was certainly the case when Rehlow played it in the NC game I'm referring to). I would honestly recommend banning the damn things or revising the 1998 ruling that trumps normal VTES sequencing. Here is the text for Hostile Takeover. The text of ToGP and Extremis Boon is similarly vague, while Malkavian Time Auction actually has sequencing instructions in the text: "Choose a vampire with capacity of 6 or less. Each Methuselah bids pool for control of that vampire. The highest bid goes to the vampire's controller; that bidder then takes control of the vampire. If the controller wins, half the winning bid (rounded up) goes to the blood bank." Jesse

cthulukitty wrote: > At one the of championship games at Origins, my prey played Hostile > Takeover. I wanted to call Kevin over to figure how we're supposed to > handle bidding, because the card doesn't tell you what to do. Everyone > else seemed to think that it was open bidding, and we didn't call > Kevin over. Corrct. http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/013b71234a2760f4 > This strikes me as problematic in two ways. First, the > card doesn't tell you what to do, especially if you are not a native > English speaker, and you don't know what "bid" means. Ability to read English is assumed in this game, by its nature. Yes, that can be a problem for players who don't know English. > Aside from 4 > stupid cards, it is not a VTES term, and game design should aim > towards avoiding unnecessary pieces of vocabulary that might cause > confusion. Second, if the auction really is open, then you are playing > slapjack, not VTES. Regular voting is also open. It works fine.

LSJ responded: >>Everyone else seemed to think that it was open bidding, and we didn't call > > Kevin over. > > Corrct.http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/013b... That ruling is from 1999. That was a long time ago, and I hoped it would be revisited. > Ability to read English is assumed in this game, by its nature. > Yes, that can be a problem for players who don't know English. Your attitude on this matter is extremely condescending. One can easily play VTES knowing only words like "block, bleed, vote", mathematical operation such as + and -, and the international number system. Fairly few cards cause much problem of interpretation given those words. "Bid" appears on only 4 cards in the game, 2 of which are never played by anyone. The other 2 are seldom played, but everyone now and then someone picks up the crack pipe. In the case of the game at the NC, I wanted to call a judge, but I ultimately didn't care because the effect of the card hurt my prey (who played it to begin with). Also, I sure as hell speak English, and those cards tell me to do a thing without telling me how to do it. There are many different kinds of auction bidding, as you must know from board gaming, and the cards in question give you no clue whatsoever which to use. One would think from standard VTES rules that it is sequenced bidding, as Matt Morgan thought when I brought this up on the #vtes IRC channel. If Matt Morgan gets a rule wrong, there must be something wrong with it. > Regular voting is also open. > It works fine. When player X casts votes, it does not in any way impact player Y's ability to do so. When player X casts a bid, it does prevent other players from casting the same or lesser bids. It does not work fine in VTES, because it follows slapjack sequencing, not VTES sequencing. Even if it "works fine", as in the rules do not a splode, it temporarily changes the play of the game from "you have the impulse, take your time to make an informed decision" to "hurry up and bid before someone beats you to it." This is a problem, even if you don't think so. Jesse

cthulukitty wrote: > Your attitude on this matter is extremely condescending. Not at all. Your point was that "bid" could be problematic, since there is no special definition of it given in-game. The observation that adequately responds to that point is that the standard English definition of "bid" is being used, and hence it falls to the same fate as "left" or "more" or "odd" or "repay". All of which is covered under the observation that English is assumed unless otherwise stated.

On Jul 2, 2:47 pm, cthulukitty <jcrossnicker...@gmail.com> wrote: > At one the of championship games at Origins, my prey played Hostile > Takeover. I wanted to call Kevin over to figure how we're supposed to > handle bidding, because the card doesn't tell you what to do. Everyone > else seemed to think that it was open bidding, and we didn't call > Kevin over. This strikes me as problematic in two ways. First, the > card doesn't tell you what to do, especially if you are not a native > English speaker, and you don't know what "bid" means. Aside from 4 > stupid cards, it is not a VTES term, and game design should aim > towards avoiding unnecessary pieces of vocabulary that might cause > confusion. Second, if the auction really is open, then you are playing > slapjack, not VTES. My view, though others disagree, is that Hostile > Takeover and Temptation of Greater Power are both terrible cards > anyway, as they tend to make you lose more often than they make you > win (this was certainly the case when Rehlow played it in the NC game > I'm referring to). I would honestly recommend banning the damn things > or revising the 1998 ruling that trumps normal VTES sequencing. > Yeah, it went badly for me that time. My experience with Hostile Takeover and Temptation of Greater Power is that more often then not they work out wonderfully for me. I screwed up the bidding and playing (tactically) of this card though. I mostly use them on my predator, that way I am almost always happy with the result - 1) my predator wins the bid and loses some pool, probably has to play a little more defensively now, 2) someone else wins the bid and my predator has one less minion to take actions against me and is a better pool sack. I foolishly auctioned my prey's only vampire Catherine du Boise, because I was also playing Ventrue, G4/5 Law Firm to his G2/3 Stealthy Ventrue. I really wanted Flournoy or Xian to win the bid. When it looked like you would win the bid with all your obfuscate behind me and Catherine having obf I overracted and decided you could not win her. Turns out, she would have bled for a lot less than I paid for her, at least for how much of the game I managed to stay in. I knew I took some big risks dropping low in pool that game, but after making it to within 30 minutes of time the game before and then still dying without a VP I decided to play aggressive instead of conservative this game. I had the cards in the deck to pull out of the spot I put myself in. Would I have gotten more than my 1 VP from Buerger with new prey Flournoy in front of me and you as predator? Probably not, but I didn't feel like playing for an hour and half for another 0 VP game. Later, ~Rehlow

[ quoted text not captured ] I knew that I wasn't going to pay any reasonable amount of pool for her, because I was playing a wall that needed its pool for other uses (the Mark Vs ain't cheap!), and that having that minion was not going to improve my situation much. > Later, > ~Rehlow -John Flournoy

"Rehlow" wrote in message >Yeah, it went badly for me that time. My experience with Hostile >Takeover and Temptation of Greater Power is that more often then not >they work out wonderfully for me. I totally agree. They are effective hand grenade/atom bombs when played well. I think I've only seen them misfire a handful of times... most of the time they are an unblockable, undeflectable master phase bleed for 4+ and in the case of ToGP, often a VP in one card. Easy to use with a bit of thought/luck, powerful and could get you a VP, what's not to like? Bizarre.