Official VEKN Followers of Set Newsletter -- December 2003

FOLLOWERS OF SET NEWSLETTER Volume 3, Issue 9 December 2003 Author: Andrew 'Wes' Weston ========================================================== TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Fiction - A Christmas Esbat in Montreal Card Analysis - Ezekiel, Lord of Montreal Deck Construction - Sibyl's Tongue Module Contest Sign Off ========================================================== INTRODUCTION I had originally intended to use this newsletter to discuss table-balancing issues and how to deal with incompetent grand-predators/prey, but with the new Black Hand cards arriving not too long ago, I changed my mind. There is simply no room in this installment for all that I want to write about. So I will leave those subjects for a future installment of this newsletter. ========================================================== FICTION -- A Christmas Esbat in Montreal It is Montreal, the night of December 24th, 2003. Christmas Eve. In an abandoned warehouse in the worst part of town, dark figures gather. A fire in the centre of the large floor blazes freely, causing flickering shadows on the walls and what remains of the windows. Chained to pillars and old factory machinery, men and women are naked and gagged and frightened. At each of their feet lie old bath-tubs and large empty buckets. Angry punk music blares, lending to the general cacophany of cruel laughter and occasional scream. The police will not show up in this part of town. Not if they know what is good for them. In one corner, a massive and grotesque figure that seems to have several arms and legs more than it should wrestles with what appears to be a teenaged girl in a leather jacket. Oddly, the girl seems to be winning the fight as she pins the massive creature's head to the floor and beats it senseless with a lead pipe. Both appeared to be enjoying themselves, despite many bleeding wounds. In another corner of the warehouse, a bespectacled man in an immaculate three-piece suit lectures sitting figures on the history of their kind, while animated shadows on the wall behind him mirror his passion play exactly. He looks irritated by the deafening noises drowning him out, but the tenebrous shadow play on the walls compensate adequately. Elsewhere, several cloaked figures with deformed faces huddle together exchanging secrets, gossip and unpleasantries. The cloaks regrettably fail to conceal their faces -- faces that look disturbingly alien. One of them lovingly pets a large and mangy rat in its hands while it listens to its hideous associates. Another makes careful notes on a beat up old laptop computer. A young man wearing leather jeans and a wife-beater approaches the fire. The tattoos on his pale arms appear like veins ending in an obscured wing-like image on his back. He would look normal enough in many places, were it not for the odd reflection of the fire in his eyes like a cat's. Matched with the shit-eating grin on his face, he appears as if he were a daemonic Cheshire Cat. He begins to spin and dance to the music, circling around the fire, faster than should be physically possible. Suddenly, claws spring from his fingers and he lets out a supernatural howl as he leaps over the flames. He lands on his feet, completing the image of a cat. Applause and howls of appreciation encourage him to continue his macabre dance. Several other figures approach the fire now, leaping through and over the fire. One unfortunate individual trips and lands in the fire, to the apparent amusement of the others around him. He does not rise, but screams as he is burned. The others seem not to care and instead laugh and point as his body ignites and seconds later becomes ash. An old woman with dark complexion and coloured braids in her hair approaches one of the naked mortals bound to a pillar. She lets out a loud prayer to Legba or Caine... or possibly both. Nobody understands a word of what she says, but cheer her on as she reaches inside her robes, and pulls first a large decorative knife and then a small black snake. She kisses the snake and then casually slices the throat of the naked victim before her. Blood pours out of the poor soul's throat, filling the rusty bath-tub. She kisses bloody lips to the victim's throat and then moves on to the next unlucky supplicant. When the ritual is complete, another prayer to... Baron Samedi? Baby Jesus? The crowd neither hears nor cares. They each grab dixie cups, ornate goblets and tupperware cups. They dip into the bath-tub, toasting each other and then imbibing the blood of the victims. Later that night, a contingent will finish the party by heading to the barrens. Several homeless will find themselves buried alive in a park, and several of those will find themselves rising from the grave, bloosthirsty and not a little insane. Just before the sun rises they will all head back to the catacombs beneath the Cathedral. But until then... It's Christmas time in Montreal and the Sabbat rule the night. ========================================================== CARD ANALYSIS -- Ezekiel, Lord of Montreal Ezekiel, Lord of Montreal: 6/6 Follower of Set: PRE SER obf pot Sabbat Group 3 Black Hand And with the Black Hand expansion, we finally get our very first Serpent of the Light (more or less). For those who are not aware, the Serpents of the Light are vampires of the Setite bloodline, but who are members of the Sabbat. They are not typically created as Followers of Set, but rather embraced into the Sabbat with completely different beliefs and practices. For example, the Serpents do not worship Sutekh/Set. Rather, they consider him to be an abomination, which is basically how the Sabbat view all of the Antedilluveans. They also tend towards voodoo rituals, which is how their Serpentis often manifests itself. Serpents of the Light often perform the role of priests in Sabbat packs. Even so, they are fairly rare in the Sabbat, most Serpents are hunted down by the main Setite clan and vice versa. Both consider the other to be an apostasy. Ezekiel appears in the Montreal by Night sourcebook for Vampire: the Masquerade (which was written, strangely enough, by *actual Canadians*). Although I really like the MbN book, I always found Ezekiel to be a bit of an oddball. How is it that a vampire embraced only a few years before the book takes place is not only a Black Hand operative, but leader of a prominent Black Hand pack, and also a contender for the Archbishopric of Montreal? Talk about your over-achievers! In any case, back to reality. As a vampire, Ezekiel is a welcome addition to our clan (despite his blasphemous sect-ties). Having both [PRE] and [SER] at superior gives him many options, and also fills a hole that the Setites have always had. His inferior [obf] is a drawback, but not a serious one and certainly nothing to complain about in a 6-capacity vampire. He has inferior [pot] which allows him to play Typhonic Beast, making him one of only 11 vampires who can do so without extra cards. Curiously, no vampires at the time of this writing are able to play the superior version of Typhonic Beast without assistance from skill cards or equipment. Potence also gives Ezekiel access to Disarm, which has suddenly become a lot more common of late. It is now a relatively simple matter for a vampire with [SER] to do more damage at close range than his opponent, so being able to commit the coup de grace with a Disarm is very useful. Follow up the torporing with a diablerie by Samat Ramal-Ra or Amam the Devourer and your opponents will be devastated. To make the deal even sweeter, Ezekiel is a member of the Black Hand. This gives him access to 18 special cards in the Black Hand expansion that he comes with. There is no real need to concentrate on this angle, but it is tempting. Cards like Ministry give Ezekiel, and by extension the Followers of Set, access to reliable intercept. Being able to intercept has always been a problem for Setites. Unlike most Setites, Ezekiel is also a little hardier at surviving combats. He has access to Skin of Adder, can use the aforementioned Typhonic Beast.and also has access to Corporal Reservoir. Suffice to say, Ezekiel may not need to rely on Majesty like every other Setite does. If you want to play this angle up, you could even play with Mark of Damnations and Heart of Darkness to make him an absolute tank (at least until someone PTO's him from cross-table *sigh*). Ezekiel has already become the star vampire in a new deck of mine, which I have unfortunately not yet had the chance to try out. But I suspect he will be getting a lot of mileage with me. ========================================================== DECK CONSTRUCTION -- Sibyl's Tongue Module 3 Roger Farnsworth [4 !Malkavian, Black Hand, OBF aus] 6 Cloak the Gathering (Roger can also provide cover for his friends in a pinch) 4 Sibyl's Tongue (Cost 0-3) 2 Art of Memory (To avoid discarding the Sibyl's Tongue) 2 Swallowed by the Night (Doubles as combat defense) 1 Remover (Gives Roger another role, as needed) 1 Sargon Fragment (To fish back the STs or other cards, as needed) This module would require 3 crypt and 16 library card spaces. While this sounds like a lot of space, it should also be remembered that this will provide the ability to free up space in the deck that you would otherwise devote to extra copies of other cards. So rather than seeing this as 16 card spaces wasted, look at it as 74 card spaces that just became a lot more negotiable :) It would obviously work best in a deck that was already focusing on [OBF] as a discipline, but should be able to complement decks that do not. The Cloaks could provide stealth to any deck that might need it. You never know when you might need to stealth a Ventrue's bleed or make sure your rush hits the intended target. However, I think this module will help vote decks the most. Vote decks often suffer from redundancy in that they almost always have similar vote cards to every other vote deck (unles focusing on say, Anathema). Most vote decks for example inlcude at least 4-8 Kine Resources Contested, making them a large chunk of the 14-20 or so vote cards in total that such decks usually field. With this module, you could include vote cards that you don't normally include many of, since they would have more potential for use. That one copy of Snipe Hunt that you were afraid to include in case you didn't face any weenies becomes a card that could potentially be played again and again if needed. It goes from being a prayer card to a card that you can play at your leisure to devastate your weenie opponent. Other examples abound. Depending on the type of deck you are playing, and the type of decks you are facing, other cards may help with this module: --Cards that can only be played once per game (Giant's Blood, Reins of Power) --Obscure prayer cards (Dismemberment of Osiris, Daemonic Possession) --More diverse defense (Delaying Tactics, Deflection, Majesty, etc) --Reinforcements (To keep Sibyl's Tongue costs down) --Unique cards (No need to include multiples anymore) This kind of deck would necessarily be very 'toolboxy', but that need not be a bad thing. The problem with toolboxy decks is that they often do not have the right card at the right time. This strategy ensures that you have what you need at exactly the right time. While the Remover card is not necessary to the module itself, I feel that it will complement Roger well. If you have what you need in hand, instead of fishing for cards, tap your prey's vampire or other essential cards. It gives Roger a secondary role for very little cost. The first action that should be taken is to retrieve the Sargon Fragment from your library (unless it is already in your hand) and equip it, preferrably on Roger. Now you have access to any of your cards that are not already in-play. You can use the Sargon Fragment to either pull the Sibyl's Tongues out of your ash heap to keep their costs down, or to pull back cards from your ash-heap as required. Note that this action does not have inherent stealth, so you may want to make sure you have transient stealth available before you try. As you can see, Roger is fairly fragile, unless you have a plan for combat. I have not tried this yet, and truthfully, I only own three Sibyl's Tongues. But I believe the basic idea behind this is sound. It may require more stealth or other tweaking before making a tight fit in any deck. If anyone else tries this out, I would appreciate you letting me know how well it worked out for you and what changes you made. ========================================================== CONTEST I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10. What number am I thinking of? The winner will receive my entire collection of V:tES cards. I will even pay for shipping. One guess per person please. ========================================================== SIGN OFF I hope you have enjoyed this most recent installment of the Followers of Set newsletter. As always, questions and comments are appreciated. Cheers, WES

Wes wrote: >========================================================== >CONTEST >I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10. What number am >I thinking of? >The winner will receive my entire collection of V:tES cards. >I will even pay for shipping. >One guess per person please. >========================================================== Is the number pie? If I win I will donate the cards to Wes Weston. Jay

"Jay Kristoff" <j...@columbus.rr.com> wrote > Wes wrote: > > >========================================================== > >CONTEST > > >I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10. What number am >I thinking of? > > >The winner will receive my entire collection of V:tES cards. > >I will even pay for shipping. > > >One guess per person please. > > >========================================================== > > Is the number pie? Goddammit!!! And on the first guess too! > If I win I will donate the cards to Wes Weston. *phew* Well, that's a relief then. But I still have to go through the hassle of mailing them all to myself. That's going to cost me a fortune... *sigh*. Cheers, WES

Wes wrote: > "Jay Kristoff" <j...@columbus.rr.com> wrote >>Wes wrote: >>>I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10. What number am >I thinking >> > of? > >>>The winner will receive my entire collection of V:tES cards. >>>I will even pay for shipping. >> >>>One guess per person please. >> >>>========================================================== >> >>Is the number pie? > > [Rats]!!! And on the first guess too! My guess would have been pi. (Was your number apple or pumpkin?) :-) -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

i was going to guess e, and keep all the cards except for 2.303 copies of Regaining the Upper Hand, which i would have donated to The Poor. Ah well. Nice NL, Wes! -- Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote > >> > >>>========================================================== > >> > >>Is the number pie? > > > > [Rats]!!! And on the first guess too! > > My guess would have been pi. > > (Was your number apple or pumpkin?) > > :-) It was Boston Cream actually, but you're too late already. Jay already won. Besides, you should have more V:tES cards than god does, Scott. What do you need all of mine for? :) "Yeah Steve, this is LSJ. I've run out of Week of Nightmares and Call the Great Beast. Can you print me up another dozen of each? Thanks!" Cheers, WES P.S. Sorry about the swearing. I noticed that you censored me up there in the quote heheheh.

LSJ wrote: >My guess would have been pi. >(Was your number apple or pumpkin?) >:-) Pumpkin I guess. My previous posts displays both the advantages and drawbacks of me posting after a long night of rock n' roll. Jay - DJ Pieface?

>I have not tried this yet, and truthfully, I only own three Sibyl's >Tongues. But I believe the basic idea behind this is sound. It may >require more stealth or other tweaking before making a tight fit in any >deck. If anyone else tries this out, I would appreciate you letting me >know how well it worked out for you and what changes you made. I had a problem with not reliably drawing a Sibyl's Tongue early enough for it to serve its purpose in a deck I worked on. Went from 6 to 7 in a 90 card deck, still not reliable, especially drawing the second one quickly. Thing is that you get diminishing returns not just from playing them but over time as time causes you to see more of the cards you would be searching out. Anyway, I've become *increasingly* interested in ST for reasons that your module touches on. That's neat. BTW, the increasing cost doesn't seem to matter much.

"Curevei" <cur...@aol.commetal> wrote > > I had a problem with not reliably drawing a Sibyl's Tongue early enough for it > to serve its purpose in a deck I worked on. Went from 6 to 7 in a 90 card > deck, still not reliable, especially drawing the second one quickly. Thing is > that you get diminishing returns not just from playing them but over time as > time causes you to see more of the cards you would be searching out. Interesting. Thank you for sharing your results. Were you using ST by itself or in tandem with Sargon Fragment? How close was your module to the one I suggested in the newsletter? Also, what kind of deck did you add this to? > Anyway, I've become *increasingly* interested in ST for reasons that your > module touches on. That's neat. Cool. Which reasons? All or some? :) I've seen mechanics similar to Syphilis Tongue in other CCGs and it is usually a *very* strong effect. Can't see how this game would be any different, except perhaps that decks tend to be bigger I think. Also, the rarity and clan restriction of ST makes it a lot less universal. But then, that was the point of treating it as a module. > BTW, the increasing cost doesn't seem to matter much. Yeah, it's pretty easy to manage the cost from the looks of it. If you only own two copies, you're never going to pay more than 1 blood to use one of them anyway... So do you think leaving them in your ash-heap is not a problem? Oh, and thank you for reading the newsletter and not jumping right to the quiz. Next time, my quiz is going to be a "reading comprehension exam" so I can be sure people actually read the whole thing :) Cheers, WES

Always looking forward to the FoS newsletter, thank you. The card reuse angle looks interesting, with the art of memory it could be really good. Very focused decks would rather shift in more cards of the ones they focus on, but I agree that toolboxy decks could benefit alot from it (although 16 cards is on the heavy side). Ezekiel is like the long lost son come home for the Setites, and predict that his biggest problem will be contesting, since I can hardly imagine a FoS deck that doesn't field him (ok, I can if I try hard). I'm pretty pleased with the Typhonic Beast, and after playing a not-so-good deck (yet) with it, I definitely think the setup required to play it on superior is worth it. That extra press makes alot of difference and makes up for lacking maneuvers, opponent dodging and other annoyances when you want to catch someone. Sure, other cards do it better, but then you have to spread out your combat cards more and add the risk of hand jams. Using Disarm is another good approach. I'm less satisfied with the Consignment to Duat, and there have already been plenty discussion of it in this forum. Suffice to say that I think it should have been a +1 stealth action. Oh, and I think you are thinking of the number 1, since we are talking about the Followers of Set, which are naturally superior. -Zargar

>Were you using ST by itself or in tandem with Sargon Fragment? How close >was your module to the one I suggested in the newsletter? Also, what >kind of deck did you add this to? By itself. While I haven't spent much time thinking about using it with Sargon, it doesn't seem like it makes ST that much better. The time spent trying to replay a ST will tend to work against the benefit of it*. Spent more time thinking about using Pochtli to recurse the ST and something else. Wasn't much of a module as it was for a !Malk deck. Mostly standard !Malk stealth bleed using ST mostly to "fix" the early game. * Relying on ST has the problem that it's not a terribly efficient card. Have to take the action and discard a card from hand and maybe having such problems as drawing as a replacement the card you named or not being able to play a master until your next turn. So, what's the benefit? While it may be inefficient over the short term, it has potential for making one's deck more efficient over the course of the game. >> Anyway, I've become *increasingly* interested in ST for reasons that >your >> module touches on. That's neat. > >Cool. Which reasons? All or some? :) In general, because you can splash for it. We ran through quite a few ideas for ST while I was working on my article. Have such deck ideas written down as Purge/Sibyl and "eat the world"/Sibyl. >I've seen mechanics similar to Syphilis Tongue in other CCGs and it is >usually a *very* strong effect. Can't see how this game would be any >different, except perhaps that decks tend to be bigger I think. Also, >the rarity and clan restriction of ST makes it a lot less universal. But >then, that was the point of treating it as a module. Searching is the most powerful crossCCG effect there is. Difference I can see with V:TES is that the cards are individually very weak relative to other CCGs and that it's fairly easy to customize your deck to get what you need most of the time due to NCL. Sure, there are a variety of decks that could use searching to become better, but they aren't necessarily any better than decks that are highly redundant or whatever. I doubt the rarity is much of an issue. The set is small and it's a R2. I suppose that, if people didn't buy much because the set was small, not going to be ungodly numbers floating around. But, some have gone cheap on eBay and three boxes will probably cover what you need for one deck. The clan requirement will certainly cut down on its use. What's good about that is that it encourages people to splash the clan (new archetypes) or to not just play group 3 Malks when playing their disciplines. >> BTW, the increasing cost doesn't seem to matter much. > >Yeah, it's pretty easy to manage the cost from the looks of it. If you >only own two copies, you're never going to pay more than 1 blood to use >one of them anyway... > >So do you think leaving them in your ash-heap is not a problem? Greatest problem I had was drawing two early when the deck would get the most benefit from them without devoting way too many slots to the card. I think one game I payed 3 blood for one to get a Blood Doll! as I had all of the other permanents in play using the earlier ones. It was a sweep or die situation where never drawing a Blood Doll or Minion Tap killed me. >Oh, and thank you for reading the newsletter and not jumping right to >the quiz. Next time, my quiz is going to be a "reading comprehension >exam" so I can be sure people actually read the whole thing Why would I jump to the quiz? I usually try to read every newsgroup post yet have been marking the quiz threads read today as I find them pointless and endless. Did skip the fiction as I always do unless it's extremely brief. Seems like, based on comments they make, that the newsletter editors wonder too much whether people read them. I think quite a few people read them. Often, it's just a lack of the need to argue over something that prevents any/more discussion. Nothing much controversial or debatable about what a new vampire's disciplines enable or most editors' decks, for instance. Could always complain about how FoS lack OBF/PRE ...

"Zargar" <zar...@hotmail.com> wrote > Always looking forward to the FoS newsletter, thank you. No, thank you! :) > The card > reuse angle looks interesting, with the art of memory it could be > really good. Yeah, that's probably a good way to play ST. If you are using AoM to keep the useful card that you dug up using ST however, such as the Snipe Hunt example from my newsletter, then that could be pretty powerful. I think I'd probably rather not rely on AoM for keeping my STs out of the ash-heap, but I guess that option is there also. The problem with Art of Memory is that it requires a Black Hand vampire. Of course, the module gives you one, but you'd probably be limited to using that for ST or maybe Cloaks only. Still, may be an agle to experiment with. > Very focused decks would rather shift in more cards of > the ones they focus on, but I agree that toolboxy decks could benefit > alot from it (although 16 cards is on the heavy side). Well, it's 16 card-slots less in your deck, that's true... but it could also mean 16 more uses of a card that you only have 1 of. Ok, probably not that many, but it will make a toolboxy deck more versatile and deadly, which is the effect I was looking for. After all, cards like Snipe Hunt or Thrones Crumble are only really useless if you aren't in the situation that calls for them. If you are at a point when they would be usable, then those cards are great. Like *all* cards. Obviously a card like Deflection has more *potential usage* than a card like Toreador's Bane. A focused deck is not going to bother with the Toreador's Bane (or whatever) because they can just include 10 Majesty and cycle fairly easily. But a deck that has the *option* to use Snipe Hunt (or whatever) can just pull it out when needed, and depending on how they are playing the angle, they might be able to *re-use* it. It does require a setup, this is true... but if it works, the reward is invaluable. It basically turns a "prayer card" into a sure thing. That can't be bad. > Ezekiel is like the long lost son come home for the Setites, Well, he is still "lost" since he belongs to the heathen Sabbat, but I get your meaning :) > and > predict that his biggest problem will be contesting, since I can > hardly imagine a FoS deck that doesn't field him (ok, I can if I try > hard). With 699 vampires now available, how often do you even see contesting anymore? I very occasionally do... but it seems to happen more often after a new set comes out. People will use Ezekiel because he's new (and good) but I suspect after a few months you won't have to worry about this as much. When I played my Ezekiel deck this past weekend, my predator was also a FoS deck, and we didn't contest any vampires (which was obvious from the start after comparing his focus and mine). The vampires that are obviously popular like Arika or Beast are more of a problem. During the last Ann Arbor tournament I attended, David Oros and myself were contesting Arika and/or Leandro for most of our two games. It destroyed my game competely, but he ended up winning the tourney so I think that he was more prepared for this. Or else I suck. Take your pick. But generally, I don't really give contestation much consideration when I design decks. > I'm pretty pleased with the Typhonic Beast, and after playing a > not-so-good deck (yet) with it, I definitely think the setup required > to play it on superior is worth it. I built a deck that uses Ezekiel and SER vampires who are given POT via Hand of Conrad and the Eye of Hazimel. It did not work all that well, but with a little bit of reworking I think it will be pretty strong. Furthermore, it was a lot of *fun*... which is a good thing. > That extra press makes alot of > difference and makes up for lacking maneuvers, opponent dodging and > other annoyances when you want to catch someone. You also get a press from Immortal Grapple of course, which is potentially *more* useful since you are probably relying on IG as an anti-S:CE card anyway. > Sure, other cards do > it better, but then you have to spread out your combat cards more and > add the risk of hand jams. Which other cards do it better in your opinion? Horrid Form is very similar of course, but much easier to escape from I think. I think the POT angle makes all the difference with Typhonic Beast myself. Basically, because of Immortal Grapple and Disarm. That's a three card combo that will devastate any vampire that is not playing some kind of prevention or maneuvers. Add Traps and Taste of Vitae and it gets ugly fast. > Using Disarm is another good approach. Although my deck did not do all that great, Disarm was played about three times. Ezekiel was tearing off arms left, right and centre. However, note that the primary use of Disarm is to send a vampire to torpor. The other ability of Disarm is usually useless as you are preventing their hand strikes with Typhonic Beast anyway. But if they're going to torpor from Disarm, that's fine and all... but what if they're going to torpor *empty* because they were in three rounds of combat with Typhnoic Ezekiel? That's even better. Therefore, it might be better to use a few Pulled Fangs also. Plus Amam can use PF also, and he's a must in any FoS deck that sends vampires to torpor. Just a thought... > I'm less satisfied with the Consignment to Duat, and there have > already been plenty discussion of it in this forum. Suffice to say > that I think it should have been a +1 stealth action. I used it in the above deck, either with stealth to make sure it got through or without stealth as an alternative "enter combat card". As you can see, it does tend to get blocked... because it is *nasty*. I think it's fine as is. I did originally misread the card however. I thought the removal condition was if the *target* gets into combat, but it's actually the *acting vampire*. This creates some problems for a deck like mine that is *trying* to get into combat as it doesn't tend to last very long. On the other hand, if your opponent's are trying to get into combat with Ezekiel in order to burn a CoD (as was the case on Sunday)... well... that means one less Bum's Rush that *you* need to play to enter combat. Let them come to you! :) And I think in general that most decks are not able to choose who they get into combat with, so the CoD is harder to burn than it looks. A dedicated combat deck is able to do this of course... in fact it is the whole point of a combat deck. But if they are not playing Haven Uncovered, you might at least have some say in who they will be fighting. You could simply *not* block actions with that vampire, or period. In fact, I find myself rarely blocking with a FoS deck anyway so this is not much of a problem. Anyway, I think CoD is a great card. It just requires a bit of a plan (as most good cards do). > Oh, and I think you are thinking of the number 1, since we are talking > about the Followers of Set, which are naturally superior. That goes without saying. The only reason people play other clans is because they get bored of winning all the time with the Setites. I mean, it gets really really boring winning all the time doesn't it? *sigh* Sometimes when I am playing Setites I will just *let* other people win, just so they can feel that their pathetic non-Setite clans are actually worth playing. Besides, it keeps people from contesting all my Setites :) Cheers, WES

"Curevei" <cur...@aol.commetal> wrote > > By itself. While I haven't spent much time thinking about using it with > Sargon, it doesn't seem like it makes ST that much better. The time spent > trying to replay a ST will tend to work against the benefit of it*. Spent more > time thinking about using Pochtli to recurse the ST and something else. Wasn't > much of a module as it was for a !Malk deck. Mostly standard !Malk stealth > bleed using ST mostly to "fix" the early game. Yeah, I actually didn't think that a standard S&B deck would benefit as much from Sybil's Tongue. Except possibly if the prey tried the age-old strategy of *not blocking* (which has never worked for me). If your prey stops blocking, causing your hand to jam on stealth cards, you could use a ST to fish for Kindred Spirits and then dump a stealth card when you put the KS in your hand. But other than that, most of the cards a standard S&B deck would use would be easily cyclable and not worth fishing for. I would think so anyway-- I don't play a lot of S&B. > * Relying on ST has the problem that it's not a terribly efficient card. Have > to take the action and discard a card from hand and maybe having such problems > as drawing as a replacement the card you named or not being able to play a > master until your next turn. True. > So, what's the benefit? While it may be > inefficient over the short term, it has potential for making one's deck more > efficient over the course of the game. From your experience then, how many ST would be ideal in most decks? > In general, because you can splash for it. We ran through quite a few ideas > for ST while I was working on my article. Article? > Have such deck ideas written down as > Purge/Sibyl and "eat the world"/Sibyl. Do you mean using it with Baltimore Purge because of a lack of BPs? By the second example, are you referring to a deck such as the semi-popular Tariq/Tyler decks? Which cards would you go fishing for? Having never played or faced this kind of deck, I don't see the advantage. Is it hard to cycle? As I mentioned in the newsletter, I see the strongest use for this card might be a vote deck. In fact, I'm thinking of making a Daughters-based deck that fishes for the right vote and then keeps playing them using Echo of Harmonies. You could also fish for the Praxis Seizures/Crusades or other permanent vote enhancers to give you a head start. But theoretically, it could help many decks. Any deck that has room for the module I guess. > Searching is the most powerful crossCCG effect there is. Don't know if I'd go that far, but it is definitely strong. The "I WIN" type cards are more powerful I think, though you could always go fishing for those too I guess :) I've actually been very interested lately in comparing the game mechanics and card mechanics of different CCGs. It seems a lot of them use similar themes and ideas. Sometimes this is simply logical because of the nature of all CCG game mechanics, ie tapping and drawing cards. Other times, this is probably just plagiarism, but I don't really care about that. Sibyl's Tongue is almost exactly like several cards in Netrunner for example. There are other cards in Netrunner that I've been thinking could be applied to V:tES, or vice versa. If it improves the game(s) for the better... hell, why not? In fact, I sometimes wonder if there are some ideal and universal CCG mechanics or card ideas that would enhance most games, like "fishing" or "milling" or what-have-you. Maybe eventually, someone will design the ultimate, Platonic ideal form of CCG and we'll all just play that instead? Until then, V:tES is probably the closest. But I digress :) > Difference I can see > with V:TES is that the cards are individually very weak relative to other CCGs > and that it's fairly easy to customize your deck to get what you need most of > the time due to NCL. But NCL works best with an unlimited supply of cards, which none of us have. I think a player with fewer rare cards might do better with a ST than someone who is able to play 9 Baltimore Purges. Those people that still play with 4CL (and there are still many I think) would probably benefit from this card much more so. Of course, they would benefit much more from *playing the game as it was intended* :) I agree with you about the relative power-scale of individual V:tES cards for the most part, at least from what I have seen of other games. Because we don't have an "I WIN" card, the utility of fishing becomes less obvious. But it's for those *situational* advantages that I envision the most use. Like I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, a card like Snipe Hunt becomes far more useful with the ability to play only one in your deck and fish for it at your convenience. It's those cards that usually never make it into a deck in the first place, of which there are *many*, that I want to use this for. > Sure, there are a variety of decks that could use > searching to become better, but they aren't necessarily any better than decks > that are highly redundant or whatever. Probably true. > I doubt the rarity is much of an issue. The set is small and it's a R2. Yeah, depends how many you need though. I currently own three from opening one box of Black Hand boosters. I would like a few more though. > I > suppose that, if people didn't buy much because the set was small, not going to > be ungodly numbers floating around. But, some have gone cheap on eBay and > three boxes will probably cover what you need for one deck. I'm not sure how many boxes most people buy per set. From the looks of the Michigan card list and the conversations I have had with others elsewhere, the average purchase is probably 1-2 boxes of boosters maybe? Plenty of casual players who are buying individual boosters still. In any case, the new guy that has only bought a Malkavian Antitribu starter and a few boosters would benefit immensely more from a Sybil's Tongue than someone who owns all the cards in the world. > The clan > requirement will certainly cut down on its use. Yeah, I think giving it to the !Malks was appropriate. If I am correct in my assumption that the S&B archetype will find it less ueseful than other types of decks, than the power of Sybil's Tongue is kept to a minimum. It might encourage !Malk players to play with other kinds of decks than just S&B. Which would be a good thing IMHO. A !Malk S&B deck would have no need to fish for a Kindred Spirits in their deck since they already have 30 or so. But a !Malk combat deck could fish for a unique weapon to use in tandem with Disguised Weapon or something. Thus it would help the *interesting* decks function better, which can't be bad. > Why would I jump to the quiz? Up until your initial reply, nobody else had commented on anything *but* the quiz. I do appreciate you reading the rest... thanks! > I usually try to read every newsgroup post yet > have been marking the quiz threads read today as I find them pointless and > endless. Yeah, people have gone quiz-crazy the past few days heheh. > Did skip the fiction as I always do unless it's extremely brief. Yeah, I think most people are the same. However, that's the part I have the most fun writing. I understand that this forum is intended for discussing the cards and strategies and such, and the fiction really doesn't interest most people. It's pretty much Off-Topic for many people. But whatever... I enjoy writing it. Hopefully some people enjoy reading it. I'm not offended if people skip the fiction. > Seems like, based on comments they make, that the newsletter editors wonder too > much whether people read them. I think quite a few people read them. Often, > it's just a lack of the need to argue over something that prevents any/more > discussion. This could be true. I think something like the Sybil's Tongue module idea is worthy of comment though it is not necessarily controversial. The fact that you instead went out and *tried it* gives more props to me than just commenting on the newsgroup. So that's cool. > Nothing much controversial or debatable about what a new vampire's > disciplines enable or most editors' decks, for instance. Yeah. Like you I read all of the newsletters. But the one part I always skip is the decklists. The fact that some newsletters have traditionally *only* been decklists makes for some very quick reading... > Could always complain > about how FoS lack OBF/PRE ... I don't see this as much of a problem. Qufur and Sarrasine both have [OBF PRE] at 7 capacity. That's fine. Intisar has it at 8 capacity. A younger vampire, perhaps 5 or 6 cap with [OBF PRE ser] would not be unwelcome though... Cheers, WES

> I've seen mechanics similar to Syphilis Tongue in other CCGs and it is > usually a *very* strong effect. VTES has some huge differences over other CCGs. Larger library for one, which you mention. The absence of restricted cards or a card limit also affects ST's utility. In MTG, the fish-the-library mechanic is huge, because so many cards are restricted to one per deck, and all others (outside of the basic lands), are restricted to four per deck. Without those restrictions, ST isn't quite so huge because if you build a deck that needs that one specific card, you just put more copies of that card in the deck instead of ST. That's a luxury you don't have in MTG (where this mechanic wins tournaments regularly). Fanboy

> Yeah, I actually didn't think that a standard S&B deck would benefit as > much from Sybil's Tongue. Except possibly if the prey tried the age-old > strategy of *not blocking* (which has never worked for me). If your prey > stops blocking, causing your hand to jam on stealth cards, you could use > a ST to fish for Kindred Spirits and then dump a stealth card when you > put the KS in your hand. > > But other than that, most of the cards a standard S&B deck would use > would be easily cyclable and not worth fishing for. I would think so > anyway-- I don't play a lot of S&B. For this example, if I was the S&B deck, I would probably use Sybil's Tongue grab a Dreams of the Sphinx to turbo-charge my bleeds for the next few turns. I think, in a way, you are selling your module short. It's not really 16 cards to do 1 job... most of the cards are generically useful, and simply *may* help with the ST job. I mean what deck couldn't do with the occasional Cloak or a Sargon Fragment? On that basis, I would be tempted, if I used the module, to replace stuff like the Remover with more generic cards, such as Blood Doll. The point to this being that Roger's secondary role could just as easily be use as a hunt/bloater, and the Blood Doll is useful even if you don't draw up Roger. Similarly, Art of Memory might be better as a couple of Reinforcements. I guess this depends on stuff like whether Roger is your only chance of a BH vampire. With these tweaks, the Roger-only cards (presuming a deck with other obf vampires) are only the ST's themselves, so you are less screwed if you don't derw Roger. 3 Roger Farnsworth [4 !Malkavian, Black Hand, OBF aus] 6 Cloak the Gathering (Roger can also provide cover for his friends in a pinch) 4 Sibyl's Tongue (Cost 0-3) 2 Art of Memory ==> 2 Reinforcements? 2 Swallowed by the Night (Doubles as combat defense) 1 Remover ==> 1 Blood Doll [ quoted text not captured ]

"Hollowboy" <icantbelievehollow...@hotmail.com> wrote > > For this example, if I was the S&B deck, I would probably use Sybil's > Tongue grab a Dreams of the Sphinx to turbo-charge my bleeds for the > next few turns. Yeah, that's more sensible really. It would cycle the hand better than drawing one Kindred Spirits would. > I think, in a way, you are selling your module short. It's not really > 16 cards to do 1 job... most of the cards are generically useful, and > simply *may* help with the ST job. I mean what deck couldn't do with > the occasional Cloak or a Sargon Fragment? I dunno. Has anyone other than Curevei actually tried the module yet? Or something similar? It will be a while before I can test-drive it unfortunately... > On that basis, I would be tempted, if I used the module, to replace > stuff like the Remover with more generic cards, such as Blood Doll. Well, I was sort of assuming that the deck would have cards like that anyway. But having a token pool-hunter isn't such a bad idea, true. He's also a little fragile so it may be a good idea to give him a Deer Rifle or IR Goggles as a limited but permanent combat defense. I suspect he will be blocked and/or rushed once people figure out what he's doing. May as well make it harder to nail him. > The point to this being that Roger's secondary role could just as > easily be use as a hunt/bloater, and the Blood Doll is useful even if > you don't draw up Roger. Sure thing. It would be interesting to create other ST modules using different vampires. Perhaps an AUS !Malk for a Telepathic Misdirection focus? Many clans could benefit from a bit of intercept/deflection ability. Replace the Cloaks and Sargon angle with TM. Idalia is a 4-cap with AUS and a special that could assist with the DR/IRGoggles idea I mention above. Quira and Dolphin Black are expensive at 6-capacity, but both have OBF/AUS if you wanted to make a more robust Cloak/TM module. But then it would start looking more like an actual !Malkavian deck... :) (Oh wait, we have 3 Roger Farnsworth. By some reckonings this *is* a !Malkavian deck! :) > Similarly, Art of Memory might be better as a > couple of Reinforcements. I guess this depends on stuff like whether > Roger is your only chance of a BH vampire. This will all depend on what the non-module "host" of the deck is, I think. A Giovanni focus will have certain options available that a FoS deck would not. A votey deck could rely on Reinforcements etc. Obviously, the module is just a generic idea that needs to be custom-fitted to its host. Let me know if you have any luck with it, ok? Cheers, WES

>From your experience then, how many ST would be ideal in most decks? Not sure, but I'd think 10 or less with possibly no lower boundary as a random Sibyl's Tongue "one-of" becomes a random whatever you want that's left in your library. If I wanted one or more to come up early, of course, someone else could pop out the probability numbers for trying to get that to happen. >> Have such deck ideas written down as >> Purge/Sibyl and "eat the world"/Sibyl. > >Do you mean using it with Baltimore Purge because of a lack of BPs? No, though I'm not denying the possible benefit of it for searching out cards you wish you owned more copies of. Using it with Purge because Purge decks lend themselves to combos and searching facilitates combos. ST may result in a !Malk Purge archetype to go along with the other half dozen or so that have been mentioned previously. Or, could just module ST into another Purge archetype. >By the second example, are you referring to a deck such as the >semi-popular Tariq/Tyler decks? Which cards would you go fishing for? >Having never played or faced this kind of deck, I don't see the >advantage. Is it hard to cycle? Not necessarily good ideas we wrote down (though we shot down quite a few others as not being any better than playing a good deck). The Artemis, Muaziz, Tariz eat the world deck idea uses Artemis mainly to search out a copy of Path of Death and the Soul as needed. I'm not really into convoluted combo decks, but the person I was discussing with is. >As I mentioned in the newsletter, I see the strongest use for this card >might be a vote deck. In fact, I'm thinking of making a Daughters-based >deck that fishes for the right vote and then keeps playing them using >Echo of Harmonies. You could also fish for the Praxis Seizures/Crusades >or other permanent vote enhancers to give you a head start. 'k. It would be funny with DoC to get your one-of title gainers to stick on the appropriate Daughters. Certainly seems like searching out various one-of votes is a way to go since there's many a vote you would want only one of. Main problem is whether it's really any better than running a tighter vote deck. >But theoretically, it could help many decks. Any deck that has room for >the module I guess. It should be interesting to see which decks actually gain a benefit from substituting "normal" stuff for a searching module/theme. >> Searching is the most powerful crossCCG effect there is. > >Don't know if I'd go that far, but it is definitely strong. The "I WIN" >type cards are more powerful I think, though you could always go fishing >for those too I guess :) How many "I win" cards exist in CCGs? How many don't suck? Most of Magic's suck, though searching for Battle of Wits was good. >I've actually been very interested lately in comparing the game >mechanics and card mechanics of different CCGs. It seems a lot of them >use similar themes and ideas. Sometimes this is simply logical because >of the nature of all CCG game mechanics, ie tapping and drawing cards. >Other times, this is probably just plagiarism, but I don't really care >about that. > >Sibyl's Tongue is almost exactly like several cards in Netrunner for >example. We called it Demonic Tutor as soon as we saw it. Not as good, but that's a good thing. >There are other cards in Netrunner that I've been thinking could be >applied to V:tES, or vice versa. If it improves the game(s) for the >better... hell, why not? Sure. I often talked about ripping off Magic and whoever else when trying to come up with new mechanics for CCGs. Some mechanics don't translate well and some blow, but there are some really neat ones that suit other games. I don't think a lot of Magic's will translate well to this game, though. Bounce, for instance, would be way too obnoxious in a game where certain permanents are terribly important. BTW, not to give Magic too much credit, it's not like Magic hasn't ripped off mechanics from other games - Mindslaver is virtually Mental Domination and, to hardly any surprise, has proved to be broken. >In fact, I sometimes wonder if there are some ideal and universal CCG >mechanics or card ideas that would enhance most games, like "fishing" or >"milling" or what-have-you. Maybe eventually, someone will design the >ultimate, Platonic ideal form of CCG and we'll all just play that >instead? Until then, V:tES is probably the closest. But I digress :) V:TES is the best multiplayer CCG because it deals with the gang up on the leader problem to a much better degree than other games. Two-player and multiplayer have very different needs to be good. Then, people have different desires in their CCGs. Milling, BTW, is a ridiculously bad mechanic that CCG designers love, as far as I can tell, only because it seems elegant. >> Difference I can see >> with V:TES is that the cards are individually very weak relative to >other CCGs >> and that it's fairly easy to customize your deck to get what you need >most of >> the time due to NCL. > >But NCL works best with an unlimited supply of cards, which none of us >have. I think a player with fewer rare cards might do better with a ST >than someone who is able to play 9 Baltimore Purges. I don't know. I build decks based on whether I have the cards or think I can get them. I don't really think about building decks I don't have the cards for (playtesting is different, of course). >I agree with you about the relative power-scale of individual V:tES >cards for the most part, at least from what I have seen of other games. >Because we don't have an "I WIN" card, the utility of fishing becomes >less obvious. > >But it's for those *situational* advantages that I envision the most >use. Like I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, a card like Snipe Hunt >becomes far more useful with the ability to play only one in your deck >and fish for it at your convenience. It's those cards that usually never >make it into a deck in the first place, of which there are *many*, that >I want to use this for. I don't necessarily see this. Situational cards that aren't that good are still not that good. Every "I can search this out when I need it and only play it because of this" card could just be a good card or a card that doesn't need to be searched out (i.e. extra copy or whatever). Admittedly, I've put Jackal in Muricia's Call decks just because I could search it. But, then, I never bothered getting it. >> The clan >> requirement will certainly cut down on its use. > >Yeah, I think giving it to the !Malks was appropriate. If I am correct >in my assumption that the S&B archetype will find it less ueseful than >other types of decks, than the power of Sybil's Tongue is kept to a >minimum. It might encourage !Malk players to play with other kinds of >decks than just S&B. Which would be a good thing IMHO. Yup, after I gave up on !Malk prison decks, I got quite bored with them. Ironic I suppose, then, that I had a recent preBH deck built around EMP which momentarily amused me. >This could be true. I think something like the Sybil's Tongue module >idea is worthy of comment though it is not necessarily controversial. >The fact that you instead went out and *tried it* gives more props to me >than just commenting on the newsgroup. So that's cool. To clarify something, I haven't tried plugging in a ST module to a deck. I've been considering deck ideas built around trying to abuse ST. The deck I tested may not have come close to that, but it was trying to feature ST rather than splash it. Though, from an outside perspective, it might have been equivalent to plugging in a module. >> Nothing much controversial or debatable about what a new vampire's >> disciplines enable or most editors' decks, for instance. > >Yeah. Like you I read all of the newsletters. But the one part I always >skip is the decklists. The fact that some newsletters have traditionally >*only* been decklists makes for some very quick reading... Why do you skip the decklists? I mean, a lot of them don't interest me once I skim through them (for whatever reason), but it's a lot like looking at the various other newsgroup posted decklists for me. Is it because they are posted without intent of judgment or consideration of modification?

"Curevei" <cur...@aol.commetal> wrote > > >Do you mean using it with Baltimore Purge because of a lack of BPs? > > No, though I'm not denying the possible benefit of it for searching out cards > you wish you owned more copies of. Using it with Purge because Purge decks > lend themselves to combos and searching facilitates combos. You think? I see most BP decks as being relatively combo-light. Get out Etrius, Purge at high stealth, rescue with Chantry. It's almost boring actually. I've seen less effective use of BP with Rachel Brandywine and Madness Network, but this is more of a timing issue than something that would be solved by searching (I think... from what I have seen). > >By the second example, are you referring to a deck such as the > >semi-popular Tariq/Tyler decks? Which cards would you go fishing for? > >Having never played or faced this kind of deck, I don't see the > >advantage. Is it hard to cycle? > > Not necessarily good ideas we wrote down (though we shot down quite a few > others as not being any better than playing a good deck). The Artemis, Muaziz, > Tariz eat the world deck idea uses Artemis mainly to search out a copy of Path > of Death and the Soul as needed. I'm not really into convoluted combo decks, > but the person I was discussing with is. Not sure how strong that would be really. Forgive me for asking again, but what "article" are you referring to? I don't recall you editing any of the newsletters... or do you? > 'k. It would be funny with DoC to get your one-of title gainers to stick on > the appropriate Daughters. Certainly seems like searching out various one-of > votes is a way to go since there's many a vote you would want only one of. Also the fact that the DoC are spread out in terms of sects. (Very tempted to do a really bad pun on "sex" here... but I'll resist that urge :) So you find a Praxis Seizure for Angela and a Crusade for Muse, and finally a Fee Stake for Gael. May be a little wonky, but it has potential I think. > Main problem is whether it's really any better than running a tighter vote > deck. Well, I've tried DoC focused vote, with some success... but the problem was always permanent votes. So I'm not sure this is less "tight" really. The fun thing with the ST idea though is that you could include say 2 KRC (as opposed to 8) and then chain them with lots of Echo of Harmonies. So a deck that may appear unfocused becomes very focused when played. And again, you could do the same thing with Snipe Hunt or whatever was strategic at the time. I think having the option to include more than the standard vote module is itself a major boon to deck design. I play a lot of vote decks, but I only ever seem to use maybe a 1/4 of the different vote cards I own. I'd like to see that ratio improved somewhat. It would make the game much more interesting. I absolutely loved David Oros' use of Might of the Camarilla a few months ago. It was a brilliant use of a card nobody uses. Instead, all we ever see is KRC and ConAg... *yaaaaawn*. I guess I will try to put a DoC/Sybil's Tongue deck together and post it. Might take me a few weeks though. <snip Magic references> (Don't play M:tG so I can't really comment on any of the cards you mentioned.) > Two-player and multiplayer have very different needs to be good. Then, people > have different desires in their CCGs. I'm actually surprised nobody has designed a solitaire CCG. It's not as dumb as it sounds. I toyed around with this idea once myself a few years ago. The other thing I would like to see in a CCG is one that is not based on some major licence. I mean, do we really need more Middle Earth games, or more Star Wars games, or more Buffy the Vampire Slayer games? How about something original? Very few of the CCGs seem to be original. Off the top of my head, we have: --Galactic Empires (remember that? :) --Shadowfist (I believe a RPG may have spawned from it though?) --Magic of course --Mage Knight (not a CCG, but similar) --Maybe a few others Most other games seem to be based on an RPG or TV Show or whatever. One part of me doesn't care about that since the theme is less meaningful than the mechanics, but another part of me resents it. I'm sure I'm not alone in this regard. But now I am getting way off-topic again. > Milling, BTW, is a ridiculously bad mechanic that CCG designers love, as far as > I can tell, only because it seems elegant. Yeah, I'm not defending it as a mechanic--I was just trying to think of common CCG mechanics. I agree that it is a fairly useless mechanic for the most part. > I don't necessarily see this. Situational cards that aren't that good are > still not that good. Every "I can search this out when I need it and only play > it because of this" card could just be a good card or a card that doesn't need > to be searched out (i.e. extra copy or whatever). Admittedly, I've put Jackal > in Muricia's Call decks just because I could search it. But, then, I never > bothered getting it. Well... how about a deck that uses unique weapons or allies? Let's say we absolutely need to get Kali's Fang out to make our deck work. Our options are: --include multiple copies of Kali's Fang, and then discard the extras as you draw them --wait for your one copy to come up --include a card like Vast Wealth/Sybil's Tongue to search for the one copy you have (or own) I think the most efficient option in a situation like that is to "go fishing". VW/ST become placeholders basically. So yeah, in a sense, playing with say 10 Kali's Fangs is not demonstrably better than playing with 5 Vast Wealth and 5 Kali's Fangs. But instead you could play with 3 Vast Wealth, 2 Sybil's Tongue, 1 Kali's Fang, 1 Ancestor's Talisman, 1 Sengir Dagger, 1 Ivory Bow, and 1 Femur of Toomler. Your deck becomes more diverse and more cyclable by virtue of being able to fish for what you need. Of course, the above deck would probably also *suck*, other than as an illustration. It's not going to work for all kinds of decks obviously, but there are definitely some that could use it. A [THA] deck has better options with Magic of the Smith. An Ivan Krenyenko deck has built-in options etc. > To clarify something, I haven't tried plugging in a ST module to a deck. I've > been considering deck ideas built around trying to abuse ST. The deck I tested > may not have come close to that, but it was trying to feature ST rather than > splash it. Though, from an outside perspective, it might have been equivalent > to plugging in a module. No, I understood that. It seems to me that part of the problem is that Sybil's Tongue is not all that abusable. In fact, I think the splash method is probably a better way to use it than as a feature. That's why I think there is probably an ideal number to put in most decks. Of course, this is still all based on conjecture since I have still not actually played with ST. > Why do you skip the decklists? Well, I think "skim" is probably a better word to use. I usually look to see which cards appear the most, giving me a good idea of what the deck is trying to do. If the core idea is a good one, I'll occasionally take it and try to build my own version of it. I do often take the TWDs and tweak them a bit for local or JOL games. But they're usually heavily Wes-ified before hitting the table. Often they barely resemble the original deck at all. When I do play a TWD it's not because I want to win (though I do) but because I want to see how certain cards work together. Often because I *can't see* how they could work so well together. For example, I took a major-Euro-tourney-winning Ventrue/Salubri deck that used Anathema and Vitae Block and rebuilt it for some casual games. I just couldn't see how it could win *anything*, though it was a really interesting idea. The deck performed way better than I expected though and was lots of fun to boot. But usually I want to play my own decks, so looking at someone else's really doesn't do anything for me. As is obvious from my newsletters, I am much more interested in discussing strategies or card mechanics than I am tweaking decks. Though I do occasionally post some of my own if I think they are original, interesting and possibly competitive (such as the recent POT/SER and PRO/SER decks I posted). > I mean, a lot of them don't interest me once I > skim through them (for whatever reason), but it's a lot like looking at the > various other newsgroup posted decklists for me. Yeah, I usually skip/skim those too :) > Is it because they are posted > without intent of judgment or consideration of modification? People still comment on them I've noticed. Nah, it's just not my thing I guess. This game, and CCGs in general, are fun for me because I can design my *own* decks. I can appreciate the artistry in someone else's design, or want to know how it ticks, but ultimately I want to make my own. I am the same way with Chess. I am a fairly good Chess player, but can't stand the "book openings". Much rather play by ear. Also, this newsgroup often gets very cluttered with stuff and I have no time to read all of it. While most of it is on topic, a lot of it is not particularly interesting to me. Especially lately for some reason... Cheers, WES

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message news:<bs8rr...@enews3.newsguy.com>... > The other thing I would like to see in a CCG is one that is not based on > some major licence. I mean, do we really need more Middle Earth games, > or more Star Wars games, or more Buffy the Vampire Slayer games? How > about something original? Very few of the CCGs seem to be original. Off > the top of my head, we have: > > --Galactic Empires (remember that? :) > --Shadowfist (I believe a RPG may have spawned from it though?) > --Magic of course > --Mage Knight (not a CCG, but similar) > --Maybe a few others > > Most other games seem to be based on an RPG or TV Show or whatever. One > part of me doesn't care about that since the theme is less meaningful > than the mechanics, but another part of me resents it. I'm sure I'm not > alone in this regard. Heresy was a great game...I think. It looked gorgeous, and the rules seemed okay, but I could never find anyone to play it with. >:( In any case, it wasn't based on anything else, though if I remember correctly, the company that published it was going to also put out an RPG based in the same cosmology if the CCG did well. It didn't, so the RPG never happened, as far as I know. Forgive my ignorance (and just email me if you want to get this thread back on-topic), but how the hell would a solitaire CCG work? Kushiel

>> No, though I'm not denying the possible benefit of it for searching >out cards >> you wish you owned more copies of. Using it with Purge because Purge >decks >> lend themselves to combos and searching facilitates combos. > >You think? I see most BP decks as being relatively combo-light. Get out >Etrius, Purge at high stealth, rescue with Chantry. It's almost boring >actually. I've seen less effective use of BP with Rachel Brandywine and >Madness Network, but this is more of a timing issue than something that >would be solved by searching (I think... from what I have seen). Maybe just a difference in what's being called a combo. Etrius needs his Chantry, how many copies do you want to play of the latter to make sure you get it? Lasombra versions often want a Fortitude for Moncada to go with the Renewed Vigor. Three card combo, nevermind having a Freak Drive to do RV and BP in the same turn. Want to play the Graverobbing the turn the Purge goes off. Etc. >Forgive me for asking again, but what "article" are you referring to? I >don't recall you editing any of the newsletters... or do you? Scrye 68, which should be out sometime in January, I guess. Hard to tell when they hit the streets as my subscriptions seem to show up randomly. >> Main problem is whether it's really any better than running a tighter >vote >> deck. > >Well, I've tried DoC focused vote, with some success... but the problem >was always permanent votes. So I'm not sure this is less "tight" really. I'd agree about the desire for permanent votes. Is it more complicated to add a !Malk and whatever or to have Angela and Gael become Barons? To play Into the Fire and run just Crusades? I don't know. The right !Malk, as I think you said at some point, also offers bouncing capability for added value. >I play a lot of vote decks, but I only ever seem to use maybe a 1/4 of >the different vote cards I own. I'd like to see that ratio improved >somewhat. It would make the game much more interesting. I absolutely >loved David Oros' use of Might of the Camarilla a few months ago. It was >a brilliant use of a card nobody uses. Instead, all we ever see is KRC >and ConAg... *yaaaaawn*. Did David's deck build around it, though? I've built a deck ... er ... two decks around Regaining the Upper Hand, which I would never play otherwise and, you know, it's almost like never playing them when you do play with them. >I'm actually surprised nobody has designed a solitaire CCG. It's not as >dumb as it sounds. I toyed around with this idea once myself a few years >ago. There are some that are playable solitaire. Tomb Raider and Ani-Mayhem? were suited to it. The reason designers don't care, though, is that the collectible nature goes with the "I acquire power cards to wreck you" philosophy. And, it's how fascinating to spend time building decks for solitaire play? Computer/video game will likely be more satisfying, right? >The other thing I would like to see in a CCG is one that is not based on >some major licence. I mean, do we really need more Middle Earth games, >or more Star Wars games, or more Buffy the Vampire Slayer games? How >about something original? Very few of the CCGs seem to be original. Off >the top of my head, we have: > >--Galactic Empires (remember that? :) >--Shadowfist (I believe a RPG may have spawned from it though?) >--Magic of course >--Mage Knight (not a CCG, but similar) >--Maybe a few others Actually a fair number - L5R, 7th Sea, Magi-Nation, Ultimate Combat!, Tempest of the Gods, etc. The industry has a problem. The problem is that any one CCG is such an investment that it's difficult to get people into a new one. Even so, the industry keeps putting out a bunch of new CCGs each year. Any of those that catch on contribute to further constricting possible player bases. Got into discussions with industry people about license v. no license. I think that no license has greater potential long run. But, long run isn't necessarily money and a couple industry people have told me only a license will get you shelf space and, thus, your only chance of survival. What side does the evidence come down on? Not sure it's clear. On the one hand, companies play it safe and mostly do license, so it's hard to know whether nonlicense will make it. On the other, such games as Ophidian 2350 have come out recently and aren't dead yet. >Most other games seem to be based on an RPG or TV Show or whatever. One >part of me doesn't care about that since the theme is less meaningful >than the mechanics, but another part of me resents it. I'm sure I'm not >alone in this regard. Well, part of my argument goes that a license limits your market even as it gives you a customer base as lots of people don't care about or actively dislike the source material; licenses are polarizing. Depends upon the goal. I'd hope to have an "all time" CCG, while companies often go for a "this makes us money while we come up with the next product" philosophy. >But now I am getting way off-topic again. Does it matter? How many people are paying attention anymore? [ quoted text not captured ] Okay, but using this illustration, wouldn't the Ancestor's Talisman be better as something else? Some of the rest are close substitutes for Kali's. If you say Kali's is a good card (for this deck), then the others should be as well. I can see an increase in diversification, but there are so many choices for good cards (in any given CCG) that it's still questionable to run not good cards that are highly situational. For instance, I might run more in the way of weenie screwage when I've got searching, but I'd just run an Anarchist Uprising or something rather than ever run a Snipe Hunt. We could be essentially agreeing, just disagreeing about the details as to what constitutes good enough.

"kushiel" <thisi_s...@yahoo.com> wrote > > Heresy was a great game...I think. It looked gorgeous, and the rules seemed > okay, but I could never find anyone to play it with. Yeah, I remember having maybe two boosters from that game and being really impressed with the artwork. They were over-sized cards, right? I had forgotten all about this game, honestly. I used to buy a starter or a few boosters from most of the new CCGs, just to see how the mechanics looked and to get a feel for how fun the game was. Most of these games I never actually played. Many I have still not even read the instructions heheh. In fact, I am wonering if I should try selling some of this stuff on eBay or whatever. I mean, how often am I going to play the Shadowrun CCG these days? Or Overpower? I've felt the same urge recently with CCGWorkshop by the way. All these old obscure games (unfortunately no Heresy yet) for me to try out, and I don't even have to buy boosters to do it! Games I wanted to play but never did, like Dune and Shadowfist are on there. So I've been downloading the image files for all of these games. So now space that would have been boxes of cards in my closet are now gigs of my hard-drive :) > >:( In any case, it > wasn't based on anything else, though if I remember correctly, the company > that published it was going to also put out an RPG based in the same > cosmology if the CCG did well. It didn't, so the RPG never happened, as far > as I know. Not sure, but this does ring a bell. > Forgive my ignorance (and just email me if you want to get this thread back > on-topic), but how the hell would a solitaire CCG work? Well, to be honest, I'm not sure how much I want to go into the actual game mechanics of it, for various reasons. But I will give you an idea of the kind of game I was thinking of. Basically, the game would be both solitaire *and* two-player. But I stopped tweaking this before I got the chance to try playtesting with more than just... well... me :) Think along the lines of those old adventure gamebooks like Deathtrap Dungeon and Lone Wolf... something like that, but in a card format. The complexity/difficulty of each deck would be chosen, ie *constructed* by the player, and in fact that was part of the fun. At one point I did have about 200 hand-made cards printed up, and it worked remarkably well. But like most of my projects, I abandoned it when some other project struck my fancy. I think the new project was a redhead named Leah if I recall correctly :) As far as the "collectible" aspect, I didn't really give it a lot of thought. Basically I was more interested in designing a fun game, and in that I did succeed. I could care less about the marketability of it, though perhaps it had some merits in that department also. I don't really know for sure. It was entertaining enough for me, moreso in the designing than in the playing, but whether it would appeal to CCG people in general, I could not say. Look at regular playing card games. People still play Poker and Euchre (sp?) a lot, and when they can't find opponents they play any number of varieties of Solitaire. Usually the Microsoft variety heheh. The same logic might hold for CCGs. Sure, I like playing *with* people, if I can find them. But I don't mind a good solo game also. Curevei compares this to computer games, and I think that's an accurate comparison. I think most people who would be interested in CCGs would probably rather play a solitaire computer game than a solitaire CCG, but then people are not always going to me near a pc or have a laptop with them. Going on a long plane ride, bring your cards. Going camping, bring your cards. Stuck in a prison cell, have someone smuggle in your cards. Anyway, that's about all that I'm willing to say about the game that I designed at this point. But I hope that answers your questions. Cheers, WES

"Curevei" <cur...@aol.commetal> wrote > > Maybe just a difference in what's being called a combo. Etrius needs his > Chantry, how many copies do you want to play of the latter to make sure you get > it? Lasombra versions often want a Fortitude for Moncada to go with the > Renewed Vigor. Three card combo, nevermind having a Freak Drive to do RV and > BP in the same turn. Want to play the Graverobbing the turn the Purge goes > off. Etc. So I guess it's back to the question of whether "fishing" is any better than multiple copies. Is timing more important than good cardflow in general? Only experimentation will tell I suppose... > Scrye 68, which should be out sometime in January, I guess. Hard to tell when > they hit the streets as my subscriptions seem to show up randomly. Cool. I didn't realize you wrote for Scrye. I used to buy that mag religiously back when CCGs were new, but have not bought one (or seen one) for years now. I'll try to pick up a copy of #68 when it's out. Do they feature a lot of V:tES articles? I remember part of the reason I stopped buying it was that it seemed to always focus on Magic, which I did not play. And also, the articles for the game I did play were obviously written by people who *did not play* the games they were writing about. Kind of like that early Jyhad book. These newsletters that some of us write are actually pretty damn good compared to a lot of the crap that was put out back then. At least we have some idea of what we are talking about. But judging from your normal calibre of discussion, I look forward to what you have to say in that article. Maybe I've indirectly contributed something to it in this thread... > I'd agree about the desire for permanent votes. Is it more complicated to add > a !Malk and whatever or to have Angela and Gael become Barons? To play Into > the Fire and run just Crusades? I don't know. The right !Malk, as I think you > said at some point, also offers bouncing capability for added value. With this it is definitely a timing issue. I need vote control *soon* so that my deck will function. If someone else has vote control, my deck is useless. So whether you're searching for Crusades or Fee Stakes doesn't really matter so long as you find *something*... and fast. With a !Malk module though, you could even give the !Malk in question a Cardinal Benediction or a Crusade right off the bat. > Did David's deck build around (Might of the Camarilla), though? Yeah, here it is: http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k3fomaa > I've built a deck ... er ... two > decks around Regaining the Upper Hand, which I would never play otherwise and, > you know, it's almost like never playing them when you do play with them. It's hard building decks using anything more obscure than RtUH. Aside from the occasional Anathema or Honor the Elder deck maybe, you hardly ever see anything that doesn't *focus* on KRC exclusively. Makes sense really, as KRC gets you the ousts... but it is kinda boring. > There are some that are playable solitaire. Tomb Raider and Ani-Mayhem? were > suited to it. The reason designers don't care, though, is that the collectible > nature goes with the "I acquire power cards to wreck you" philosophy. And, > it's how fascinating to spend time building decks for solitaire play? > Computer/video game will likely be more satisfying, right? Probably right. Read my response to Kushiel elsewhere in this thread. > Actually a fair number - L5R, 7th Sea, Aren't those both based on RPGs? I'm pretty sure I've seen books for them. I think they're based in the same world or something. > Magi-Nation, That's true. This seems to be one of the most popular games on CCG Workshop. Is it any good? > Ultimate Combat!, Hahaha... I remember that one. I want to play that game solitaire and beat myself up. > Tempest > of the Gods, etc. Never heard of this. There are more, I know. There was one based on the American Civil War I recall... Dixie I think it was called? I suppose we can agree that the Civil War is not a licensed property, though maybe this will change soon with all the ridiculous TRIPS laws, frivolous lawsuits etc :) > The industry has a problem. The problem is that any one CCG > is such an investment that it's difficult to get people into a new one. Even > so, the industry keeps putting out a bunch of new CCGs each year. Any of those > that catch on contribute to further constricting possible player bases. Are we still getting a lot of new ones? I've not been keeping track lately. It'd be interesting to see a chart showing how many new CCGs have come out each year and how many went away or lost support each year. Honestly, I am so out of the gaming loop right now that I have no idea. I would have thought that V:tES was one of the few active games out there. At least compared to the halcyon days of yore. I was looking for a website the other day that I had been to in the past. It had several paragraphs of reviews for every CCG out there. Couldn't find it again unfortunately. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a lot of general CCG sites out there. Any time I go googling, all I find are online stores trying to sell me old stock. Shame really... the history of CCGs is fairly interesting to me. Anyone know of any good sites for this kind of thing? It's also interesting to me that Magic is still up there in popularity. I mean, it's an ok game I guess, from the few times I have played it. But it's certainly not much better than a lot of other CCGs. It seems to be popular based on its being the *first* of its kind, rather than the best. Maybe the same could be said for D&D in the RPG realm. On the other hand, it seems that Mage Knight has been eclipsed by Hero Clix, which is actually a much better game, and also a "licensed" game... interesting. > Got into discussions with industry people about license v. no license. I think > that no license has greater potential long run. Why would this be? Because the world is more dynamic and not defined wit hin the constraints of an established universe? > But, long run isn't > necessarily money and a couple industry people have told me only a license will > get you shelf space and, thus, your only chance of survival. That seems logical. Still sucks though. > What side does > the evidence come down on? Not sure it's clear. On the one hand, companies > play it safe and mostly do license, so it's hard to know whether nonlicense > will make it. On the other, such games as Ophidian 2350 have come out recently > and aren't dead yet. Don't know anything about that one. > Well, part of my argument goes that a license limits your market even as it > gives you a customer base as lots of people don't care about or actively > dislike the source material; licenses are polarizing. Yeah, I can see that. Oddly, I got into V:tES *before* I got into the RPG it was based on. And in fact I was not all that interested in RPGs at that time. But V:tES got me interested in the World of Darkness, so in a sense the license thing worked. But I imagine with most V:tES players, the opposite is more likely -- RPG leads to CCG. And heaven help those whose introduction to the World of Darkness was Kindred: the Embraced. > Depends upon the goal. > I'd hope to have an "all time" CCG, while companies often go for a "this makes > us money while we come up with the next product" philosophy. Unlike many people, I don't think I'd be terribly upset if V:tES stopped getting new cards. As long as we always have players to play with, I'm happy. > Okay, but using this illustration, wouldn't the Ancestor's Talisman be better > as something else? Of course... Ancestor's Talisman is shite. I was just showing that you could diversify your deck somewhat and not have to rely on having multiple copies of *one card*. Saves on discards, and opens up new strategies. > We could be essentially agreeing, just disagreeing about the details as > to what constitutes good enough. Yeah, I wasn't really paying attention to good or bad for that deck snippet. I don't even think Kali's Fang is all that great really. Cheers, WES

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message news:<bsbg4...@enews3.newsguy.com>... > I've felt the same urge recently with CCGWorkshop by the way. All these > old obscure games (unfortunately no Heresy yet) for me to try out, and I > don't even have to buy boosters to do it! Games I wanted to play but > never did, like Dune and Shadowfist are on there. So I've been > downloading the image files for all of these games. So now space that > would have been boxes of cards in my closet are now gigs of my > hard-drive :) What's CCGWorkshop? > Think along the lines of those old adventure gamebooks like Deathtrap > Dungeon and Lone Wolf... something like that, but in a card format. The > complexity/difficulty of each deck would be chosen, ie *constructed* by > the player, and in fact that was part of the fun. > > Anyway, that's about all that I'm willing to say about the game that I > designed at this point. But I hope that answers your questions. Sure does. Actually, this reminded me of an old solo game that I'd designed WAY back when I had fallen in love with both Splatterhouse and Alone in the Dark (video games) and read a review of Dark Cults (an old non-collectible card game I'm still looking for a copy of) and tried to sorta combine them. My game used a deck of cards to make the layout of the board as your intrepid and inevitably doomed character tried to escape from whatever module I'd dreamed up the day before. It didn't work very well - I don't recall anyone ever actually getting out alive. I was just getting into Lovecraft at the time, though, so maybe that had something to do with it... Anyway, thanks for resurrecting that memory, Wes, and giving me something to work on over the holidays. :) And in case I haven't mentioned it before, good job with the Setite newsletters. Kushiel

On 24 Dec 2003 07:17:09 -0800, thisi_s...@yahoo.com (kushiel) wrote: >What's CCGWorkshop? http://www.ccgworkshop.com/ CCG Workshop is a company that started out adapting Collectible Card Games (CCGs) for online play. Our core technology is the gEngine, a Win32 application which can be used to play any game against multiple opponents over the Internet. CCG Workshop has also developed an descriptive language called gML, which is derived from XML. A game described in gML is fed into the gEngine and transforms the gEngine into a client of that game. Lastly is gNet, the java-based network backbone that allows everyone to play card games across the Internet. CCG Workshop is adapting, through license, permission (or self-direction when necessary) collectible and non-collectible card games, dice games, tile games, board games, and miniature games. Have you ever had an idea for a expandable card ? Publish it through CCG Workshop! You can develop your game to run on the gatlingEngine using CCG Workshop's gatlingDevKit. CCG Workshop is a place where you can play card games, participate in forums, discuss rules, create mods and variants of your favorite games so they play the way you want them to, and actually have thousands of people to play them against!

"kushiel" <thisi_s...@yahoo.com> wrote > > What's CCGWorkshop? See The Lasombra's reply for more info. > > Anyway, that's about all that I'm willing to say about the game that I > > designed at this point. But I hope that answers your questions. > > Sure does. > Actually, this reminded me of an old solo game that I'd designed WAY back > when I had fallen in love with both Splatterhouse and Alone in the Dark > (video games) and read a review of Dark Cults (an old non-collectible card > game I'm still looking for a copy of) and tried to sorta combine them. My > game used a deck of cards to make the layout of the board as your intrepid > and inevitably doomed character tried to escape from whatever module I'd > dreamed up the day before. It didn't work very well - I don't recall anyone > ever actually getting out alive. I was just getting into Lovecraft at the > time, though, so maybe that had something to do with it... Yeah, Lovecraft is fun. If you are still into that kind of thing, you should check out Clark Ashton Smith. Well, my game was more of a spy/assassin theme, but the mechanics may be very similar to yours from the sound of it. Found some stuff on Dark Cults BTW... looks like you could easily make your own. http://www.darkcults.homestead.com/ > Anyway, thanks for resurrecting that memory, Wes, and giving me something to > work on over the holidays. :) And in case I haven't mentioned it before, > good job with the Setite newsletters. Thanks! Just so you know, some of the games on CCG Workshop are also made by members. I'm not sure how difficult it is to program a game for CCGW nor for that matter do I really know anything about the technical innards of CCGW. But if you are going to start re-tweaking your game anyway, you may want to investigate that as a way to test it etc. It seems a lot of the people active on CCGW are programmer types and one or more may be willing to help. Cheers, WES

>Do they feature a lot of V:tES articles? Scrye has an article fairly often. Two articles in one issue is pretty rare. No articles is possible. InQuest doesn't often have anything. Occasionally Goudie has a deck article. >I remember part of the reason I stopped buying it was that it seemed to >always focus on Magic, which I did not play. And also, the articles for >the game I did play were obviously written by people who *did not play* >the games they were writing about. Kind of like that early Jyhad book. Used to laugh fairly often at articles, especially deck articles people did. Not necessarily a bad thing as a lot of articles aren't terribly useful to people even when accurate. Some mistakes are still bizarre, but I can see how others are more likely to creep in after making some myself. >> Actually a fair number - L5R, 7th Sea, > >Aren't those both based on RPGs? I'm pretty sure I've seen books for >them. I think they're based in the same world or something. Why would I consider a CCG tied in with a RPG as a licensed game (even if it's technically true)? Makes almost anything licensed to do that. >> Magi-Nation, > >That's true. This seems to be one of the most popular games on CCG >Workshop. Is it any good? I don't know. My not trying it out even after it got good reviews proved that I do care about things other mechanics - I hate the art style. >> The industry has a problem. The problem is that any one CCG >> is such an investment that it's difficult to get people into a new >one. Even >> so, the industry keeps putting out a bunch of new CCGs each year. Any >of those >> that catch on contribute to further constricting possible player >bases. > >Are we still getting a lot of new ones? I've not been keeping track >lately. Too lazy to look at the precise numbers for recent years. Figure about 10 new CCGs every year. >Honestly, I am so out of the gaming loop right now that I have no idea. >I would have thought that V:tES was one of the few active games out >there. At least compared to the halcyon days of yore. Occasionally will make a mag's top 10 sellers list, though that doesn't necessarily mean much. My guess is that, at any given time, it's around the 15th most popular CCG. >I was looking for a website the other day that I had been to in the >past. It had several paragraphs of reviews for every CCG out there. >Couldn't find it again unfortunately. In fact, there doesn't seem to be >a lot of general CCG sites out there. Any time I go googling, all I find >are online stores trying to sell me old stock. Shame really... the >history of CCGs is fairly interesting to me. Anyone know of any good >sites for this kind of thing? The best use of the Scrye "codex", which you should be able to find in stores that sell a lot of CCGs, is the info on all of the various CCGs you've never played. It was amusing, for instance, how they didn't rate Kult because it was too disgusting for the reviewer. Description made me want to go out and get some cards. >It's also interesting to me that Magic is still up there in popularity. >I mean, it's an ok game I guess, from the few times I have played it. >But it's certainly not much better than a lot of other CCGs. It seems to >be popular based on its being the *first* of its kind, rather than the >best. It's a flawed CCG. But, it's become increasingly clear why it's so popular. It's one of the few CCGs that has great limited play. Limited play is important because it gives the perception that the playing field is level while giving something to do for people who don't want to invest in the game. Even without great limited play, it caters to a wide range of players. It's an extremely intuitive CCG (if maybe not game). The basics of the game are quite simple, while for the hardcore player, it's also the most complicated CCG. It's done the best job of solving the mechanics bloat problem that all CCGs that continuously expand end up facing. It only really pales next to better CCGs. A) there aren't that many better designed CCGs (though, there could be). B) you may realize this too late to opt for something else. C) you may not find players for a better designed CCG. >Maybe the same could be said for D&D in the RPG realm. I'm sure it's gotten an enormous boost from being the first kid on the block. I'm more annoyed by D20's dominance than Magic's, actually. I realized I hate level-based systems, systems where you track all sorts of nonintuitive numbers, and systems with wide variance in die rolls. >On the >other hand, it seems that Mage Knight has been eclipsed by Hero Clix, >which is actually a much better game, and also a "licensed" game... >interesting. I'd guess that HeroClix has advantages in that it feels more fun and because it's harder to play superheroes with another gaming medium. SH RPGs don't do badly, but they are lacking in some way in capturing the comicbook feel, while SH CCGs have historically sucked. >> Got into discussions with industry people about license v. no license. >I think >> that no license has greater potential long run. > >Why would this be? Because the world is more dynamic and not defined wit >hin the constraints of an established universe? First Star Wars CCG - they ran out of screen shots. Babylon 5 CCG - they ran out of screen shots for a race that could have used more characters. Have to try to come up with appropriately thematic mechanics (though, there is also plenty of room); probably better way to put this is that you have mechanics that aren't appropriate but that you really want to use. Can't change the story. I see L5R as being much more flawed than Magic, but I also rank it as the coolest CCG in existence, so I understand why it has done so well. It's great that V:TES has gone done the road of being able to affect the storyline. Also, rather than tell one story or be limited to what-ifs for that one story, you can tell many stories with your own background. You can change things that don't work after the fact without causing your player base to meltdown. Now, I did just read a CCG article on design where the author made the argument that constraints stimulate creativity. But, there's constraints and there's constraints. BTW, this was by a Magic designer. ... "The government! They support Santa." "Fine. Then how does he get into homes when no one has chimneys?" "He has like mad lockpicking skills! He can open anything!" (Don't underestimate Santa!!) "How does he get to all the homes in the world in one night?" "He's fast! He's just insanely fast! Like mach 100!" ...

"Curevei" <cur...@aol.commetal> wrote > > >> Actually a fair number - L5R, 7th Sea, > > > >Aren't those both based on RPGs? I'm pretty sure I've seen books for > >them. I think they're based in the same world or something. > > Why would I consider a CCG tied in with a RPG as a licensed game (even if it's > technically true)? Makes almost anything licensed to do that. What I meant was that the CCG was (I assume) based on the RPG license, ie the RPG came first. Just like V:tES was based on V:tM. Doesn't really matter. Also, I'm sure some of these games come out at the same time as other products nowadays. I believe Dot/Hack or whatever was released simultaneously with a console game and some anime DVDs. Saturation marketing, which is probably effective. And also a sure sign that it probably sucks as a CCG *shrug*. The LOTR CCG came out at the exact same time as the Fellowship of the Ring film. I know people who seem to like the CCG, but to my mind it seemed more like runaway merchandising/promotion than anything. Watch the movie, buy the KFC bucket o' chicken, play the CCG. Not the stuff of which good games are made. Call me crazy, but I just don't see a boardroom full of corporate "suits" designing a good game period. > I don't know. My not trying it out even after it got good reviews proved that > I do care about things other mechanics - I hate the art style. I'm with you there. I don't see the appeal of the "manga" art style. I have been exposed to literally dozens of popular Anime movies and Manga comic books and to this day the only ones that have impressed me at all have been Akira and Princess Mononoke, and *not* because of the artwork. Those movies actually had a sense of narrative. Ah well, not important. > Too lazy to look at the precise numbers for recent years. Figure about 10 new > CCGs every year. I would think that it has been dropping in recent years though... I used to know a lot more about this when we had a game store here, but up until recently we haven't had any. Hell, I've been buying my V:tES through either the Michigan boys or through an over-priced local sports card store. But we now have a new gamestore, run by some good friends of mine, so I imagine this will all come back to me :) > Occasionally will make a mag's top 10 sellers list, though that doesn't > necessarily mean much. My guess is that, at any given time, it's around the > 15th most popular CCG. I imagine a lot of the top 10 CCGs are the flash-in-the-pan type games that nobody will even remember after a few years. Like that Pokewot game. What was that all about? And V:tES is also one of the more *consistent* games, I should think. How many other CCGs even have their own newsgroup? Our average age is way above the norm, which probably equates to a higher income and perhaps more intelligent play (myself excepted on both counts). LSJ, if you're listening (and I know you are because I haven't cussed yet).. pat yourself on the back for making this game so awesome! > It was amusing, for instance, how they didn't rate Kult because it was > too disgusting for the reviewer. Description made me want to go out and get > some cards. Maybe the Kult people paid him to say that? :) > A) there aren't that many better designed CCGs (though, there could be). > B) you may realize this too late to opt for something else. C) you may not > find players for a better designed CCG. I'll take whatever is behind curtain C. That has always been my problem with V:tES... finding people to play with. I have always loved the game, but this area seems to be more into RPGs or something. And the regular crew of V:tES players seems to have moved on to greener pastures lately. All with good reasons mind you, but it still sucks for those of us who want to play. > >Maybe the same could be said for D&D in the RPG realm. > > I'm sure it's gotten an enormous boost from being the first kid on the block. > I'm more annoyed by D20's dominance than Magic's, actually. I realized I hate > level-based systems, systems where you track all sorts of nonintuitive numbers, > and systems with wide variance in die rolls. Yeah, I don't see the appeal of D20. To me, the White Wolf system *far* surpasses it. In fact, so do the themes of White Wolf games. I am really really bored of the high fantasy thing. > I'd guess that HeroClix has advantages in that it feels more fun and because > it's harder to play superheroes with another gaming medium. SH RPGs don't do > badly, but they are lacking in some way in capturing the comicbook feel, while > SH CCGs have historically sucked. Let's see... Overpower did kind of suck, yeah. Wildstorms I am not sure about, but it does seem to have a small following on CCGW. Didn't try the X-Men one (though I grew up on Chris Claremont X-Men). I figured the CCG was intended to promote the movie, ie that cross-market-promotional-over-saturation garbage I complained about earlier. Not sure if there are/were any other SH CCGs. > First Star Wars CCG - they ran out of screen shots. Babylon 5 CCG - they ran > out of screen shots for a race that could have used more characters. I see what you mean. They must have saved a lot of money by using screenshots. I've never really liked screenshots for CCGs. There's something more... honest... about using artwork. > I see L5R as being much more flawed than Magic, but I > also rank it as the coolest CCG in existence, so I understand why it has done > so well. I've been meaning to try this one. (And not to sound like a broken record, but L5R has just entered the "alpha" phase on CCG Workshop.) > Now, I did just read a CCG article on design where the author made the argument > that constraints stimulate creativity. But, there's constraints and there's > constraints. BTW, this was by a Magic designer. I kind of see constraints and creativity as being opposites w.r.t. creativity, but ok. No constraints at all would make for a bad CCG. Too many constraints would also make for a bad CCG. I think that there is a finite limit to how many new and interesting concepts you can come up with in any given CCG before you start repeating yourself and/or destroying the game. On the one hand, I see this as a positive thing, in the interests of reaching that ideal "Platonic form" CCG that I half-jokingly mentioned before. But when you add too much of the profit-making element (which I think is avoidable) then things start to go downhill creativity-wise IMHO. The "collectable" aspect ruins the creative aspect. A "boardroom-designer" is not going to know when to stop. Or that they *should* stop. Thus are all CCGs sown with the seeds of their own destruction, again IMHO. For example, the Netrunner CCG I have been playing lately on CCG Workshop. That game has not had any expansions for years and in fact only ever had two sets total (base + Proteus). But I have *all* the cards I need, and in any amount I need, because of the nature of CCG Workshop. All my cards are essentially proxies, and thus rarity means nothing. A similar case could be made for JOL I suppose, though everyone I know who plays JOL is also an avid V:tES player in real life. But yeah, although it would be nice to see a few new Netrunner cards, the fact that there aren't any has not made the game any worse. It's not exactly the platonic form, but it's close enough that a lot of players are satisfied. Had the game kept being produced, with WOTC pushing more and more expansions until the game suffered for it... well, you see where I am going. Cheers, WES

> > Actually a fair number - L5R, 7th Sea, > > Aren't those both based on RPGs? I'm pretty sure I've seen books for > them. I think they're based in the same world or something. Both games entered development simultaneously as an RPG and a CCG. In both cases, the CCG released several months prior to the RPG. Fanboy