Tourney rules ruin Jyhad

[rant on] Is it me or is the DC smoking very large crack rocks? They are doing some kind of very hard drugs, methinks. What were they thinking when they came up with these tournament rules? Sigh... >1. Vampire: The Eternal Struggle tournament decks may be built using >cards from the Jyhad and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle card sets. If you >choose to use cards from both sets, between forty and sixty percent of >your library should be from the Jyhad set. If you use cards from both >sets, read the rules on marked decks (Section 5). Ok, so if the only VTES cards I have in my deck are from Dark Soveriegns, will that be considered marking my deck? I'd hazard a "yes" on that one. Also, in order to get 40% (minimum) of my deck to be from VTES, I'd have to play a Dark Soveriegns clan with Dark Soveriegns disciplines. Whoops. Guess they did screw over Jyhad players after all. >2. The crypt must contain a minimum of 12 (twelve) vampire cards. The >crypt can be made up of vampires from the Jyhad or Vampire: The Eternal >Struggle card sets, but not both. There is no maximum on the number of >vampires that can be in your crypt. The library can contain a minimum of >60 (sixty) cards and maximum of 80 (eighty) cards total. Nixes that "mixed decks will be allowed in tournaments" proclamation by WoTC. And if there are 4-5 players per table, what happened to the built in deck limitations? I'd say there could be 40-90 cards per deck. I can sort of see the upper limit of 80, since it would be a pain to take 10 cards out of your deck every time you switched from a 5 player game to a 4 player game, but where in hell did they get that lower limit of 60? As far as I can tell, the lower limit is 40, with an *optional* 10 cards for every additional player in the game. Hmmmmmmm. >3. The Restricted List: > >No more than 2 (two) of each of the cards on the Restricted List (by card >title) is allowed in a Vampire: The Eternal Struggle tournament deck. If >more than 2 (two) of any individual card from the Restricted List is found >in a player's deck, that will be interpreted by the Judge as a Declaration >of Forfeiture. The Restricted List may be modified by the Director of the >Duelists' Convocation as necessary. Did they just pull the number 2 right our of their collective asses? >Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Restricted List > >% Ancilla Empowerment >% Conservative Agitation >% Domain Challenge >% Earth Meld >% Fifth Tradition: Hospitality >% Form of Mist >% Freak Drive >% Kine Resources Contested >% Majesty >% Parity Shift >% Sabbat Threat Guess that TOTALLY screws political decks. Sure, it stops weenie political decks cold, but it also eliminates any kind of legit political deck, given that one of their main defenses, Majesty, is limited, and also 6 (SIX!!!!!!!!!!!) vote cards. It's almost as if the DC is saying, "OK, you can have a vote deck, but only happy friendly vote decks that everyone loves." Um, no. This also totally screws protean stealth-and-tap decks with the restriction of Form of Mist and Earth Meld, and presence bleed decks with the restriction of Majesty. Looks like Malk S&B and combat decks are about the only options now... what BRILLIANCE! I won't even touch Freak Drive and Fifth Tradition, which could be fixed by card errata. >4. The Banned List: > >The Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Banned List > >% Cunctator Motion >% High Stakes >% Rowan Ring >% Monocle of Clarity >% Stake These almost make sense, since parlyze is kinda not in VTES, but you know, I think people can deal with paralyze. We're not brain-dead morons. I guess that screws my friend Todd's paralyze-amaranth deck. Sorry, Todd. >(The Wooden Stake card from Vampire: The Eternal Struggle is permissible.) Oh, boy. Thanks millions. I can't be the only one who is completely baffled by these rules. What happened? I sure as hell am not going to be playing in any tournaments, ever. Nor will I be constructing any tournament legal decks. Of the three I have right now, I think only my Tremere Fortitude deck passes muster. My weenie Presence-Dominate-Obfuscate deck is illegal (too many Majesties) as is my Protean-Fortitude-Dominate combat/stealth/untap deck (too many Earth Melds and Form of Mists, and if I had more Freak Drives, too many of those as well) I think this is a good time to tell my friends (some of whom play with a four-card limit) that now is a good time to get reeeeeal mad. And maybe to ditch their four-cards, 'cause WoTC is obviously completely insane. [rant off] Judy -- "As you know, I am a Jew, so I am going back to my vault where I control the media." -- Jon Lovitz, 1995 MTV Movie Awards *** jcoo...@eng.umd.edu * http://www.wam.umd.edu/~jcookson ***

jcoo...@Glue.umd.edu (Judith Cookson Grunberger) writes: >>1. Vampire: The Eternal Struggle tournament decks may be built using >>cards from the Jyhad and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle card sets. If you >>choose to use cards from both sets, between forty and sixty percent of >>your library should be from the Jyhad set. If you use cards from both >>sets, read the rules on marked decks (Section 5). >Ok, so if the only VTES cards I have in my deck are from Dark Soveriegns, >will that be considered marking my deck? I'd hazard a "yes" on that one. >Also, in order to get 40% (minimum) of my deck to be from VTES, I'd have >to play a Dark Soveriegns clan with Dark Soveriegns disciplines. Whoops. >Guess they did screw over Jyhad players after all. Defense of WotC (an unusual position for me :-): Or you could simply play with an all-Jyhad deck. If you want to play a DS clan, then you could reasonably come up with a 60-40 mix. If you don't want to play a DS clan, use only Jyhad cards. >Nixes that "mixed decks will be allowed in tournaments" proclamation by >WoTC. And if there are 4-5 players per table, what happened to the built >in deck limitations? I'd say there could be 40-90 cards per deck. I can >sort of see the upper limit of 80, since it would be a pain to take 10 >cards out of your deck every time you switched from a 5 player game to a >4 player game, but where in hell did they get that lower limit of 60? >As far as I can tell, the lower limit is 40, with an *optional* 10 cards >for every additional player in the game. Hmmmmmmm. More defending: Sixty to put a further crimp in degenerate decks, same as the 60-card limit in MtG. The basic (home version) game has a minimum of forty, because you only have to defend against your friends (in most cases). >>3. The Restricted List: >> >>No more than 2 (two) of each of the cards on the Restricted List (by card >>title) is allowed in a Vampire: The Eternal Struggle tournament deck. If >>more than 2 (two) of any individual card from the Restricted List is found >>in a player's deck, that will be interpreted by the Judge as a Declaration >>of Forfeiture. The Restricted List may be modified by the Director of the >>Duelists' Convocation as necessary. >Did they just pull the number 2 right our of their collective asses? Temporary insanity defense :-) It's their solution to their created problem of vote-pushing. This way, they can still use the vote pushing mis-rule without having every tourney trampled by a KRC deck (until the expansions collectively come up with 25-30 "direct damage" votes, which will effectively circumvent the 2-card restriction). >>Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Restricted List >> >>% Ancilla Empowerment >>% Conservative Agitation >>% Domain Challenge >>% Earth Meld >>% Fifth Tradition: Hospitality >>% Form of Mist >>% Freak Drive >>% Kine Resources Contested >>% Majesty >>% Parity Shift >>% Sabbat Threat >Guess that TOTALLY screws political decks. Sure, it stops weenie >political decks cold, but it also eliminates any kind of legit political >deck, given that one of their main defenses, Majesty, is limited, and >also 6 (SIX!!!!!!!!!!!) vote cards. It's almost as if the DC is saying, >"OK, you can have a vote deck, but only happy friendly vote decks that >everyone loves." Um, no. Right. But it beats saying "We were wrong about this vote-pushing thing". This way, they're still "right" >I won't even touch Freak Drive and Fifth Tradition, which could be fixed >by card errata. Or rules errata denying the "same action" by a minion on the same turn (for freak drive, at any rate). -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | These opinions are mine and http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson | are subject to card text. Graphics Specialist and V:tES Rulemonger. |

My suggestion would be to just run your own tournaments at cons, use a set of rules that true Jyhad players deem reasonable, and screw the Duelist Convocation. Who the hell are THEY anyway? Just a bunch stuck on Mt$. Their rules ruin the game. So don't use 'em. And don't run a tournament that does use 'em.

I might suggest that now would be an excellent time for US to come up with a Useable, sensible JYHAD Tournement Rules list with all the appropriate fixes we aggre on. I.E. Card restirctions - NO Ante - NO Vote Pushing - one card for one vote for each Meth including the calling vote (I'll probably get flamed for that one - feel free) 5th Tradition - not on self Majesty/Freak/FoM/EM- one extra blood, maybe, I don't like it..help.please Cards = -40+10*# Sleaves allowed/or a shoe for mixed decks.maybe. . I'm sure there are others, but that's the idea. The 5 player round is GOOD IMHO The points/scoring is good. the no ante I like for tourneys (you can't really ante the cards in your deck now can you?) So why don't we get a definite list out. Just an idea for tourneys that I might be running. Cause I will play with more than 2 KRC's or Majesties Hell, I play with 3 or 4 in a non vote deck. just for the first turn vote surprise if I get a caitiff out or a vamp before my prey can block That strategy is a luck based surprise that has helped in the past but is not broken in any wway I can think of. Their fix however. That is nonsensical Stu -- Stu Pieloch TLTT Players-Lord High And Mighty Potentate of the Known Universe DramaTech Theatre Improv Troupe http://photobooks.gatech.edu/~zync/lttp.html GE/T/S d++(--) H(-) s++:- g+(-) p2 au++ a- w+++(--) v++ C++ U N++ W---() M+ V-- po+++(---) t--- 5+++ G+++ B--- e++ u++ f+ r++ n--- y*

I'd like to see us come up with a set of Tournament rules. They may only be 'house' rules, but the Internet is a very big house. Better that than a) put up with a set of very broken tournament rules or b) boycott tournaments, which generate a lot of interest in the game. (Or at least, they did for Magic). I see some of the old hands starting to hold their noses and play V:TES. I'd much rather see widespread adoption of the very sensible fixes proposed on house rules here. I'm not going to hold my nose (didn't with Magic, either. I quit playing.) -- Tom Doehne doe...@cse.ogi.edu

jcoo...@Glue.umd.edu (Judith Cookson Grunberger) wrote: >[rant on] >>1. Vampire: The Eternal Struggle tournament decks may be built using >>cards from the Jyhad and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle card sets. If you >>choose to use cards from both sets, between forty and sixty percent of >>your library should be from the Jyhad set. If you use cards from both >>sets, read the rules on marked decks (Section 5). > >Ok, so if the only VTES cards I have in my deck are from Dark Soveriegns, >will that be considered marking my deck? I'd hazard a "yes" on that one. >Also, in order to get 40% (minimum) of my deck to be from VTES, I'd have >to play a Dark Soveriegns clan with Dark Soveriegns disciplines. Whoops. >Guess they did screw over Jyhad players after all. [Cassandra mode on] Peace Judith, I warned you. This effectively prohibits players with large Jyhad collections from playing Giovanni/Ravnos (or doing anything else involving a limited amount of either card set) in tournament situations. So much for "mixed decks don't matter." >>2. The crypt must contain a minimum of 12 (twelve) vampire cards. The >>crypt can be made up of vampires from the Jyhad or Vampire: The Eternal >>Struggle card sets, but not both. There is no maximum on the number of >>vampires that can be in your crypt. The library can contain a minimum of >>60 (sixty) cards and maximum of 80 (eighty) cards total. > >Nixes that "mixed decks will be allowed in tournaments" proclamation by >WoTC. And if there are 4-5 players per table, what happened to the built >in deck limitations? I'd say there could be 40-90 cards per deck. I can >sort of see the upper limit of 80, since it would be a pain to take 10 >cards out of your deck every time you switched from a 5 player game to a >4 player game, but where in hell did they get that lower limit of 60? >As far as I can tell, the lower limit is 40, with an *optional* 10 cards >for every additional player in the game. Hmmmmmmm. Again, I warned you. WotC is effectively saying, "You older players have to go out and buy almost a new collection of VtES cards to be able to play in tourneys." It isn't like Mt$ where the established players can trade older cards to newer players to get new cards. The 40% limit effectively prohibits trading between Jyhad and VtES players. 60 is just a holdover from Mt$. >>3. The Restricted List: >> >>No more than 2 (two) of each of the cards on the Restricted List (by card >>title) is allowed in a Vampire: The Eternal Struggle tournament deck. If >>more than 2 (two) of any individual card from the Restricted List is found >>in a player's deck, that will be interpreted by the Judge as a Declaration >>of Forfeiture. The Restricted List may be modified by the Director of the >>Duelists' Convocation as necessary. > >Did they just pull the number 2 right our of their collective asses? Yep, though I'm surprised it wasn't FOUR. >>Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Restricted List >> >>% Ancilla Empowerment >>% Conservative Agitation >>% Domain Challenge >>% Earth Meld >>% Fifth Tradition: Hospitality >>% Form of Mist >>% Freak Drive >>% Kine Resources Contested >>% Majesty >>% Parity Shift >>% Sabbat Threat > >Guess that TOTALLY screws political decks. Sure, it stops weenie >political decks cold, but it also eliminates any kind of legit political >deck, given that one of their main defenses, Majesty, is limited, and >also 6 (SIX!!!!!!!!!!!) vote cards. It's almost as if the DC is saying, >"OK, you can have a vote deck, but only happy friendly vote decks that >everyone loves." Um, no. Yes, it KIAs political decks. Given the scoring system (ousting is EVERYTHING), combat decks are out (you'll never score enough points with a combat deck in one hour fourty minutes rounds). All hail S&B! >This also totally screws protean stealth-and-tap decks with the >restriction of Form of Mist and Earth Meld, and presence bleed decks with >the restriction of Majesty. Looks like Malk S&B and combat decks are about >the only options now... what BRILLIANCE! As someone who thinks S:CE is too powerful, I find the two card limit (what a Mt$ phrase) very distasteful. They should have gone with 10%. >I can't be the only one who is completely baffled by these rules. What >happened? I sure as hell am not going to be playing in any tournaments, I'm not at all baffled. WotC has shown that in the past they'd rather restrict/ ban cards than repair them so that such "out of ass" limits wouldn't be necessary. I have to say, "I told you so." I'm sure that many of the established players won't be in any tournaments (under these rules) as they are prohibited from using DS cards (unless they want to invest $$$ in buying a lot of redundent VtES cards). [Cassandra mode off] Nil carborundum illigitimi, James R. McClure Jr. The OS/2 Apostle <insert disclaimer here>

Apologies if this appears twice, my news server just had a coronary. dsa...@prism.gatech.edu (Stuart J. Pieloch) writes: >I might suggest that now would be an excellent time for US to come up with a >Useable, sensible JYHAD Tournement Rules list >with all the appropriate fixes we aggre on. Nice idea, but mostly pointless. It will just be a set of house rules. >I.E. >Card restirctions - NO >Ante - NO >Vote Pushing - one card for one vote for each Meth including the calling vote > (I'll probably get flamed for that one - feel free) >5th Tradition - not on self >Majesty/Freak/FoM/EM- one extra blood, maybe, I don't like it..help.please Alternative idea (suggested by others and echoed by myself): Restrict a minion to no more than one of any given action type during a single turn, regardless of subsequent untapping - only one bleed, one vote, one hunt, one equip, one burn Mob Connections, one burn Army of Rat's, one Bum's Rush, etc. As for FoM - acknowledging that the superior version is, in fact, an action modifier as well as a strike card would bring it back in line (only one additional stealth, and only one additional attempt at the action - as the card designers perhaps intended). >Cards = -40+10*# >Sleaves allowed/or a shoe for mixed decks.maybe. >. >I'm sure there are others, but that's the idea. >The 5 player round is GOOD IMHO >The points/scoring is good. >the no ante I like for tourneys (you can't really ante the cards > in your deck now can you?) >So why don't we get a definite list out. >Just an idea for tourneys that I might be running. >Cause I will play with more than 2 KRC's or Majesties >Hell, I play with 3 or 4 in a non vote deck. just for the first turn >vote surprise if I get a caitiff out or a vamp before my prey can block >That strategy is a luck based surprise that has helped in the past but is >not broken in any wway I can think of. Their fix however. >That is nonsensical True. [ quoted text not captured ]

Before I could do anything to stop it, James R. McClure Jr. wrote: > I'm so glad that "mixed decks are no problem." Too bad the DC's tourney rules > don't jibe with WotC's official stance on mixing card backs. Open your wallets > (gentlemen)/purses(ladies), bend over, and smile [Vaseline optional]! The man with the rubber glove was surprisingly gentle. -- "It's at the end of his arm," thought Frito, nervously | Brian shaking it, "it's got to be a hand." | Wilson

curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: >sjoh...@math.scarolina.edu (L. Scott Johnson) writes: >>jcoo...@Glue.umd.edu (Judith Cookson Grunberger) writes: >>>Ok, so if the only VTES cards I have in my deck are from Dark Soveriegns, >>>will that be considered marking my deck? I'd hazard a "yes" on that one. >>>Also, in order to get 40% (minimum) of my deck to be from VTES, I'd have >>>to play a Dark Soveriegns clan with Dark Soveriegns disciplines. Whoops. >>>Guess they did screw over Jyhad players after all. > >>Or you could simply play with an all-Jyhad deck. If you want to play >>a DS clan, then you could reasonably come up with a 60-40 mix. If you >>don't want to play a DS clan, use only Jyhad cards. > >Well, if you're playing either of the new clans alone, and own no V:tES >other than DS, 2/3 of your available disciplinary cards will be from >Jyhad. So even then it would require some work to make your deck 40% >V:tES, If you combine a DS clan with a Jyhad clan, things are much worse >- 40% V:tES is probably impractical. > >This rule effectively bans mixed decks from anybody who hasn't got a fair >amount of the V:tES basic set. So the common plan to buy no V:tES >proper,.but buy DS, will not allow effective tournament decks that contain >DS clans. Peace be with you, I'm so glad that "mixed decks are no problem." Too bad the DC's tourney rules don't jibe with WotC's official stance on mixing card backs. Open your wallets (gentlemen)/purses(ladies), bend over, and smile [Vaseline optional]! [ quoted text not captured ]

The funny thing about the restriction of voting is that supposedly DS is going to be highly political. Right now there is no reason to play a political deck, so unless DS pumps up voting big time, no one is going to do it. This is of course just talking under tourney rules. The question that I have is what does this do to people playing a 4 card limit right now? (This include my group btw.) Personally, I'd rather play no limits (even though I have, far and away, the smallest card collection, so the 4 limit helps me). However, the 2 card limit on the cards seems rediculous. I think either something along the lines of 10%, or a higher number (4 to 8) would have been better. (Assuming the DT doesn't want to make all the needed rules changes to fix the problems.) Also, you have to wonder if people are even going to use these rules. I can't picture it. The funny thing is that the DC had 2 ways to make people happy; go with a 4 card limit, or go with no limits. They did neither, and now no one is happy. -- Charles T. Schwope | Every man is a spark in the darkness. By the aka CT | time he is noticed, he is gone forever, a ch...@fpah1.dseg.ti.com | retinal afterimage that fades, and is obscured c-sc...@ti.com | by newer, brighter lights.

In article <45b7no$i...@acmex.gatech.edu>, Stuart J. Pieloch <dsa...@prism.gatech.edu> wrote: >I might suggest that now would be an excellent time for US to come up with a >Useable, sensible JYHAD Tournement Rules list >with all the appropriate fixes we aggre on. > >Majesty/Freak/FoM/EM- one extra blood, maybe, I don't like it..help.please I recently had a brainwave regarding untap spoilers. It came from the kind of Magic card referred to as a "cantrip." The fix would be as follows. Any card that untaps a minion is not replaced by drawing from the library until the next Mesuthelah's untap phase How does it sound to you guyz? gnfnrf .

CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >Hey, Tom, at Manafest I showed you my Freaky Bleed deck and you said that >you'd be fixing that kind of thing in V:tES. What gives? What I meant was that the card set was being changed to slow that sort of strategy down, not that the rules were being changed. Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

L. Scott Johnson <sjoh...@math.scarolina.edu> wrote: >>Did they just pull the number 2 right our of their collective asses? >Temporary insanity defense :-) >It's their solution to their created problem of vote-pushing. >This way, they can still use the vote pushing mis-rule without >having every tourney trampled by a KRC deck (until the expansions >collectively come up with 25-30 "direct damage" votes, which will >effectively circumvent the 2-card restriction). ... >>Guess that TOTALLY screws political decks. Sure, it stops weenie >>political decks cold, but it also eliminates any kind of legit political >>deck, given that one of their main defenses, Majesty, is limited, and >>also 6 (SIX!!!!!!!!!!!) vote cards. It's almost as if the DC is saying, >>"OK, you can have a vote deck, but only happy friendly vote decks that >>everyone loves." Um, no. > >Right. But it beats saying "We were wrong about this vote-pushing thing". >This way, they're still "right" Whether or not the voting rules should be fixed, the point is that under VTES rules, vote pushing is allowed. Given that this is not going to change until the next edition, if it changes at all, it's pretty clear that something needs to be done in the meantime to keep tournaments from degenerating. [ quoted text not captured ]

Thomas R Wylie (aa...@cats.ucsc.edu) wrote: : CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: : >I'd me curious how WotC came up with the restricted list... : Since I'm basically the one who came up with it, you can ask me. Well, at least they weren't just pulling cards out of their butts. <Curt's comments snipped> : The restricted cards came from two general categories of effects: Effects : that allow you more opportunities for acting without giving your prey : more opportunities to block, and votes that burned pool. A couple of single : cards, like Hospitality, were thrown in for good measure. I'm not someone who thinks WoTC should right now up and change the rules of Jyhad. However the fact that basicly all of the cards that were restricted are of 2 types seems to indicate that there are more general problems with the rules governing those cards. Some simple fixes indicated by the net people would be useful. : >Deciding to make votes pushable is having some astonishing side effects. : >Since weenie vote decks can be made near-unstoppable, all aggressive votes : >have to be drastically curtailed, and (as many have pointed out) vote : >decks nixed. So now rather than three basic decks, we have two, with : >votes serving as just "spice". : Well, the per-card restriction needs to be loosened up. It's possible to : set the number such that decks revolving around voting are competitive : without being degenerate. Agreed. If they come up with a half way decent number to restrict to (I'm thinking about 6, or maybe 10% of the deck size) people might be willing to actually play in the tourneys. I think everyone would like to have a unizersally accepted format of playing Jyhad/VTES, which is what the tourney rules should be. I hope that Tom is carrying to the DC the fact that (as far as I've seen) _everyone_ thinks the tourney rules really suck. And, by the way, were you (meaning Tom) ever told why they picked the number 2? : >It's getting very hard to see a good future for this game if the producers : >of the game make such major changes to the game to avoid some very : >reasonable errata or to stick to dysfunctional interpretations of the rules. : First, as a general note, the DC are not the producers of the game. They : should not be slammed for not doing what they basically aren't allowed to : do, namely, issue errata to cards and rules without R&D consent. I hate to say it, but why not? They change the rules of deck construction. Why not change other rules as well? (Granted that isn't realisticly going to happen, but still.) [ quoted text not captured ]

I'd me curious how WotC came up with the restricted list. It includes cards proven abusive in tournaments, given the current DT rulings, (Freak Drive, Majesty, 5th Tradition, Kine Resources Contested, and Conservative Agitation), two thought abusive but to my knowledge not demonstrated at a tournament (Earth Meld, Form of Mist), two with clear analogies to KRC (Sabbat Threat, Parity Shift), and two that I've never heard any concerns over (Ancillae Empowerment and Domain Challenge). Is someone really concerned with a weenie voting deck going on an AE rampage? (HA! I've three minions out on turn 2 and you haven't any! I call 3 AE! Take that!) Deciding to make votes pushable is having some astonishing side effects. Since weenie vote decks can be made near-unstoppable, all aggressive votes have to be drastically curtailed, and (as many have pointed out) vote decks nixed. So now rather than three basic decks, we have two, with votes serving as just "spice". Interestingly, this was the situation in the playtest of the Beta version of Jyhad (Jyhad went through at least 3 versions: Alpha, Beta, and Gamma). So to strike one word from the rulebook (any *other* Methuselah) WotC has rolled the basic game structure back an entire playtest version! Certainly you could make an interesting game out of a combat vs bleed contest with vote spicing. Still, voting adds great flavor to the game and I think there are excellent reasons the game evolved to have a much larger role for voting. In any case, backtraking would take a lot of work - Toreadors need something else to do, you need some way of introducing more unpredictability into votes now that vote enhancers/influencers aren't worth putting in, etc. For me, Jyhad without vote decks is like cooking without spices - edible, but I think I'll have something else. The only reason I would play in a tournament is to make a point about Dragonsbreath Rounds or Taste of Vitae, the remaining (IMO) broken cards (which get a lot worse without S:CE,) or Pulled Fangs, broken under the new aggro rules. Restricting S:CE has some pretty severe effects too. The cards in question ARE too good, but you need some defense against combat monsters with rush, and defenses were already somewhat sparse against Brujah with additional strike. With these rules it would take specialist decks to deal with them. It's getting very hard to see a good future for this game if the producers of the game make such major changes to the game to avoid some very reasonable errata or to stick to dysfunctional interpretations of the rules. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >>I'd me curious how WotC came up with the restricted list... >Since I'm basically the one who came up with it, you can ask me. >The restricted cards came from two general categories of effects: Effects >that allow you more opportunities for acting without giving your prey >more opportunities to block, and votes that burned pool. A couple of single >cards, like Hospitality, were thrown in for good measure. No votes that progress the game towards resolution. Yep, definitely need to restrict those. How else can you force S+B to be the only strategy in a 1 hour and 40 minute time vise? >As far as the votes that burned pool, I figured that if we simply restricted >KRC and Agitation, people would just load up the decks with the other efficient >vote-bleeds. Basically, I threw in anything that was likely to burn more pool >for other players than it would for you, or that didn't depend on them >playing certain kinds of decks (so I didn't bother with Peace Treaty or >Kindred Segregation). Ancilla Empowerment is no more like to burn more external pool than Peace Treaty, IMO. Sabbat Threat is self restricting (No more than two threat counter, Prince/Justicar) as is Parity Shift (Only targets a Meth with more pool than you, Prince/Justicar) - hardly in need of further restriction. And what about Political Flux? Easily capable of costing a Methuselah five (future) pool :-) >I really do not want to get into what the Jyhad rulebook really said again, Course not, it supports the opposing point of view. >but certainly by the time the game was released, the intention was to allow >Methuselahs to burn votes on their own behalf. Everybody here knows that >the rulebook sucked, and was often inaccurate, and in this case, it was >misleading at the very least. Whether or not you think vote pushing should >be allowed, *we* are the ones who know what should have been included in >the Jyhad rulebook, and for better or for worse, it should have allowed >vote pushing. Just like *you* were the ones who "knew" how you wanted Strike: Combat Ends to resolve - even in the absence of support from either version of the Jyhad Rulebook. Funny how the rules didn't change to reflect that (spurious) ruling when the game evolved to VtES. "We meant for it to be so" doesn't hold as much weight with the backdrop of the previous spurious rulings ((D) symbols, reaction to action during your own turn). I was chastised a coupla times with "It says 'immediately' right there in the rulebook. What else could that mean?" even after explaining exactly what the 'immediately' was referring to (strike *resolution*). >Second, the errata that you are referring to *are* major changes to the >rules and the cards. Trying to pin the "major change" badge on us isn't >going to work. Also, nobody is saying that the current VTES rules will The RT didn't hesitate to change the function of the (D) symbol. >be the VTES rules forever. From what I can tell, several of these changes >people here push for, such as vote pushing, were not priorities when them >were doing VTES. They might or might not become priorities for the >next edition of VTES. "Fixing the game in the face of obvious degeneracy is not a priortity." I figured that one out already. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <45drh2$2...@mksrv1.dseg.ti.com>, Charles T. Schwope <ch...@fpah1.dseg.ti.com> wrote: > The funny thing about the restriction of voting is that supposedly >DS is going to be highly political. Right now there is no reason to play >a political deck, so unless DS pumps up voting big time, no one is going to >do it. This is of course just talking under tourney rules. Hyper-cynical viewpoint: WotC could have crippled non-DS vote decks to ensure that the oldtimers would have to buy DS to play tourney voters, and thus (perhaps) even buy VtES to keep up with the 40%-60% rule. Of course, oldtimers might just not play in tourneys :-) > Also, you have to wonder if people are even going to use these >rules. I can't picture it. The funny thing is that the DC had 2 ways to >make people happy; go with a 4 card limit, or go with no limits. They did >neither, and now no one is happy. I was thinking about that myself. The Duelists' Convocation rules for tournaments in Magic have carried over to nearly every non-official game I've seen. I don't think this will happen with Jyhad/VtES. Why? (a) There is already an extensive and well done list of house rules that can be used to fix what's broken in a manner that suits a particular group. (b) Jyhad doesn't lend itself to pick-up games as well as Magic does, so people using house rules don't usually have to worry about what rules the other guy might think are in effect. (c) Magic's tournament rules improved game play. Jyhad/VtES's don't, IMO. Hunter -- J. Hunter Johnson jhun...@io.com (Illuminati Online) "Never blame the audience. If you blame the audience, not only have you failed, you have failed to learn from your mistakes." -- Carlo Mazzone-Clemente

CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >I'd me curious how WotC came up with the restricted list... Since I'm basically the one who came up with it, you can ask me. >It includes >cards proven abusive in tournaments, given the current DT rulings, (Freak >Drive, Majesty, 5th Tradition, Kine Resources Contested, and Conservative >Agitation), two thought abusive but to my knowledge not demonstrated at a >tournament (Earth Meld, Form of Mist), two with clear analogies to KRC >(Sabbat Threat, Parity Shift), and two that I've never heard any concerns >over (Ancillae Empowerment and Domain Challenge). Is someone really >concerned with a weenie voting deck going on an AE rampage? (HA! I've >three minions out on turn 2 and you haven't any! I call 3 AE! Take that!) The restricted cards came from two general categories of effects: Effects that allow you more opportunities for acting without giving your prey more opportunities to block, and votes that burned pool. A couple of single cards, like Hospitality, were thrown in for good measure. The combat ends/untap cards are the common example of cards that untap one of your minions (during your turn) without allowing another of your prey's minions to block. Form of Mist basically does the same thing, by continuing the current action without untapping the blocking minion. Earth Meld is basically Majesty, with the only difference being that Gangrel don't bleed very well. As a kind of counterexample, Change of Target was not restricted because it also leaves the blocker untapped (assuming it didn't wake up or something). As far as the votes that burned pool, I figured that if we simply restricted KRC and Agitation, people would just load up the decks with the other efficient vote-bleeds. Basically, I threw in anything that was likely to burn more pool for other players than it would for you, or that didn't depend on them playing certain kinds of decks (so I didn't bother with Peace Treaty or Kindred Segregation). >Deciding to make votes pushable is having some astonishing side effects. >Since weenie vote decks can be made near-unstoppable, all aggressive votes >have to be drastically curtailed, and (as many have pointed out) vote >decks nixed. So now rather than three basic decks, we have two, with >votes serving as just "spice". Well, the per-card restriction needs to be loosened up. It's possible to set the number such that decks revolving around voting are competitive without being degenerate. >Interestingly, this was the situation in the playtest of the Beta version >of Jyhad (Jyhad went through at least 3 versions: Alpha, Beta, and Gamma). > So to strike one word from the rulebook (any *other* Methuselah) WotC has >rolled the basic game structure back an entire playtest version! I really do not want to get into what the Jyhad rulebook really said again, but certainly by the time the game was released, the intention was to allow Methuselahs to burn votes on their own behalf. Everybody here knows that the rulebook sucked, and was often inaccurate, and in this case, it was misleading at the very least. Whether or not you think vote pushing should be allowed, *we* are the ones who know what should have been included in the Jyhad rulebook, and for better or for worse, it should have allowed vote pushing. >It's getting very hard to see a good future for this game if the producers >of the game make such major changes to the game to avoid some very >reasonable errata or to stick to dysfunctional interpretations of the rules. First, as a general note, the DC are not the producers of the game. They should not be slammed for not doing what they basically aren't allowed to do, namely, issue errata to cards and rules without R&D consent. Second, the errata that you are referring to *are* major changes to the rules and the cards. Trying to pin the "major change" badge on us isn't going to work. Also, nobody is saying that the current VTES rules will be the VTES rules forever. From what I can tell, several of these changes people here push for, such as vote pushing, were not priorities when them were doing VTES. They might or might not become priorities for the next edition of VTES. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <45glu8$p...@mo6.rc.tudelft.nl>, Johan Meijdam <jo...@pa.twi.tudelft.nl> wrote: >Domain Challenge is a Prince/Justicar card, which must be tapped to use it Nah, that's 2nd Tradition: Domain. Domain Challenge is a simple (rather innocuous, IMO) vote - costing every Methuselah a pool for each tapped minion (counted at vote's end). >Why didn't they include Archon? That card is extremely scary as well... Because it doesn't directly cost another Methuselah pool. -- ----- L. Scott Johnson (lsc...@crl.com) | The opinions expressed are mine Graphics Specialist and V:tES Rulemonger | and subject to card text

In article <45ee7l$9...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: >Judith Cookson Grunberger <jcoo...@Glue.umd.edu> wrote: >>Ok, so if the only VTES cards I have in my deck are from Dark Soveriegns, >>will that be considered marking my deck? I'd hazard a "yes" on that one. >>Also, in order to get 40% (minimum) of my deck to be from VTES, I'd have >>to play a Dark Soveriegns clan with Dark Soveriegns disciplines. Whoops. >>Guess they did screw over Jyhad players after all. > >Given that there are, in general, no card limits, it's quite easy to play >with 3 or 4 cards from Dark Sovereigns and have 40% of your deck >be from VTES. You do not have to play a DS clan to get a legal mix >of card backs, assuming you are playing with enough copies of cards to >be reasonably assured of seeing them in a game, which most *tournament* >decks want to do anyway. No, I *won't* have 40% of my deck from VTES. I was planning on only buying Dark Soveriegns, because I already have enough Jyhad cards. I don't need *more* of the basic set. If the only VTES cards I own are from DS, and I find some of those cards useful for a deck I have already built with, tough. Unless I use a DS clan with DS disciplines, I won't be able to construct a deck with 40% VTES cards. Because of this 40% minimum, new players aren't going to trade for Jyhad cards. Why would they trade for a card they aren't going to be able to play with under the 40% rule? Should they have to go back and buy a box of Jyhad? I don't think so. Why should I be forced to buy a box of VTES just so I can play a deck with a few DS cards? >Banning Jyhad cards from tournaments would have screwed Jyhad players over. >Having a reasonable mix, assuming a mix at all, should not be a problem, >especially after Ancient Hearts is out. What you have done is effectively banned those players who were planning on buying only the expansion set from playing in tourneys with expansion cards. I'd say that's screwing us over. I kept my mouth shut during the whole debate about card backs because I really didn't care too much about the backs. I was even willing to buy a card shoe or whatever. But now, I'm finally angry. >>>2. The crypt must contain a minimum of 12 (twelve) vampire cards. The >>>crypt can be made up of vampires from the Jyhad or Vampire: The Eternal >>>Struggle card sets, but not both. There is no maximum on the number of >>>vampires that can be in your crypt. The library can contain a minimum of >>>60 (sixty) cards and maximum of 80 (eighty) cards total. > >Allowing a percentage mix of card backs is almost meaningless in a 12-card >deck. Given that most players are swimming in vampires they don't play >with, it shouldn't be any problem to get VTES copies of the vampires >for your *tournament* deck, assuming you need to (i.e., are playing with >expansion vampires in the first place.) No. I will *not* be swimming in VTES vampires. The only VTES vampires I will have will be from DS. You see my problem with this? I will not go out and buy a whole bunch of VTES just to get VTES vampires. That's silly. Actually, I was blanning on buying a VTES starter, just so I can have the rulebook. Whoohoo. I'll *obviously* be *drowning* in all sixteen of my VTES vampires. And we've already nixed the idea that newbies are going to trade to me... >The tournament minimum of 60 is mostly a carryover from Magic, yes. >But then, Magic also has a 40 card minimum in the rulebook. That's not so much of a problem, given I know noone who plays with a 40 card deck. It was just a deviation from the rules and I was wondering about why the DC was prompted to make such an uneccesary ruling. >>>3. The Restricted List: >>Did they just pull the number 2 right our of their collective asses? > >I don't know where 2 came from, and am looking into that. > >>Guess that TOTALLY screws political decks... > >Yes, it does, which is largely why I'm looking into it. So, you picked the cards to restrict, and they picked the number 2? My goodness. How... odd. I'd call it a lack of communication, but I don't know about the inner workings of WoTC. >>This also totally screws protean stealth-and-tap decks with the >>restriction of Form of Mist and Earth Meld, and presence bleed decks with >>the restriction of Majesty. Looks like Malk S&B and combat decks are about >>the only options now... what BRILLIANCE! > >I actually don't think that a 2-per restriction on those cards would >devastate those sorts of decks, but it's probably *too* restrictive, yes. Um, it does. I know, I have a Protean stealth-and-tap deck. I would have no problem paying an extra blood for my untaps and S:CE. Or even not attempting the same action again. Both of which are things the DTR should have considered a while ago. But if I only had two Earth Melds and two Form of Mist... uh-uh. I know the Design Team is not the Duelist Convention, but again we seem to have a lack of communication going on here. Perhaps the DC could have talked to the DT while making these rulings? Or maybe even listening to the people who actually play the game quite frequently? (OK, so you guys could play the game a whole bunch, I don't know. But I don't see these rulings as having come out of people who understabd the mechanics of the game.) >>I won't even touch Freak Drive and Fifth Tradition, which could be fixed >>by card errata. > >The rules team issues errata, not the DC. Slamming the DC for not issuing >errata is pointless, since they very specifically don't do that. Sample conversation. DC: Hey, we seem to have a problem with ****** card. Why do we have this problem? RT: Because that card is abused in ****** situation. DC: Can you fix the card? Or the rules, so the card isn't abusive? RT: Yeah. DC: Are you going to? RT: Nahhhhhhh. DC: OK, lets restrict the card. Brilliance. Sigh. Sorry for being so vitriolic, but WHERE IS THE COMMUNICATION? [Snip. Todd plays a paralyze-amaranth deck] >*any* restricted or banned list hoses a deck concept here and there. >This is unavoidable. Just keep in mind that nobody is banning these >cards for private play. Todd can play that deck, just not in a tournament. Yes, but this hoses a perfectly legitimate deck, not a super-abusive deck. Rulings are supposed to hose abusive decks without nicking the legit concepts. Oh well. Peace, James. Yes, you told me so. Judy -- ______________________________________________________________________________ http://www.wam.umd.edu/~jcookson |"What's teen spirit" jcoo...@wam.umd.edu |"Dude, if you don't know, I'm not jcoo...@eng.umd.edu | going to tell you."

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) wrote: >CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >>It's getting very hard to see a good future for this game if the producers >>of the game make such major changes to the game to avoid some very >>reasonable errata or to stick to dysfunctional interpretations of the rules. > >Second, the errata that you are referring to *are* major changes to the >rules and the cards. Trying to pin the "major change" badge on us isn't >going to work. Also, nobody is saying that the current VTES rules will >be the VTES rules forever. From what I can tell, several of these changes >people here push for, such as vote pushing, were not priorities when them >were doing VTES. They might or might not become priorities for the >next edition of VTES. Peace Tom, Why do you have to wait for the "next edition of VtES" when the first isn't out yet? You have a problem that you acknoledge and yet claim you can't fix till later; what gives? Is WotC's HQ close to Redmond, because you (WotC) seem to be catching Microsoft's production methods. [ quoted text not captured ]

sjoh...@math.scarolina.edu (L. Scott Johnson) wrote: >The Corrupter <sull...@cslab.uwlax.edu> writes: >>[Discussion on necessity of a Player's Tourney Rules] >>Scoring: Definately needs changes. L. Scott Johnson mentions that a Rush >> deck would not be able to get points in two hours (as compared to >> S&B.) I have to concur. > >Thanks, but it wasn't me. Probably Curt, or possibly Alan or James, who >have logged more hours than I analyzing victory margins. Peace be with you both, I said that Brujah rush combat decks would score really poorly under the one hundred minute rounds that the DC has proposed. I have first hand experience on this as I played a Brujah deck at Origins this year and even though I did extremely well (in play), I scored very poorly since I didn't have enough time to bleed my prey after neutralizing both my prey & predator. Even tossing in a few Laptops won't allow a Brujah deck to bleed fast enough to oust even one other Meth reliably in one hundred minutes. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <45dtus$s...@galaxy.ee.rochester.edu>, [ quoted text not captured ] This sounds amazing. Play groups could selectively apply it to their own problem cards (I've never really had a problem with the reaction cards, mostly just the combat and action mods). I think you may have something here. Also (DC take note) easy to add to the tournament rules, if you can get over the hump of "only deck-building restrictions, no rule changes". Jyhad players are sophisticated enough to handle tournament rule changes, I promise. Make this change and eliminate vote-pushing, and you might come up with some tourney rules that will actually survive the transition to casual play. [ quoted text not captured ]

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) wrote: >Whether or not the voting rules should be fixed, the point is that >under VTES rules, vote pushing is allowed. Given that this is not going >to change until the next edition, if it changes at all, it's pretty clear >that something needs to be done in the meantime to keep tournaments >from degenerating. Peace Tom, Fiddle-faddle! Fix it before VtES is released. You apparently realize there is a problem, so why don't you fix it? Limiting each Meth to one PA card per unblocked PA solves the problem nicely and prevents degenerate, vote-only decks. You fixed the rules right after Jyhad was released, why not fix the rules for VtES BEFORE they are released? [ quoted text not captured ]

James R. McClure Jr. <jmcc...@e-mail.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote: >Fiddle-faddle! Fix it before VtES is released. You apparently realize there >is a problem, so why don't you fix it? Limiting each Meth to one PA card per >unblocked PA solves the problem nicely and prevents degenerate, vote-only >decks. You fixed the rules right after Jyhad was released, why not fix the >rules for VtES BEFORE they are released? We don't want to have to go through the corrected rulebook circus again. While the rulebook does have some errata, and we will probably be printing copies of the rulebook with that errata, we generally only fix rules when new editions come out, and the deadling for setting rules content of VTES passed long ago. It's one thing for tweleve people chatting on a newsgroup to decide they want to change something and just do it; it's quite another thing for us to change the rules, and get those changes to potentially tens of thousands of customers. And no, the net is not a reliable way of passing along that information. Also, it is not entirely clear to us just what the fix, if any, ought to be. While the popular fix here seems to be just eliminating the acting player's ability to push the vote, and while that's probably the simplest solution from a mechanics standpoint, it's absurd from a simulation standpoint that others can stump against your vote, but that you cannot stump for it. Some other solution, that eliminates the degeneracy while making voting viable in both competitive and friendly play, needs to be found. It's probably that by the time we've found such a solution, we'll be doing the next edition anyway, so it's better just to wait for that than to rush into a change. [ quoted text not captured ]

Tom writes: >>It's getting very hard to see a good future for this game if the producers >>of the game make such major changes to the game to avoid some very >>reasonable errata or to stick to dysfunctional interpretations of the rules. >First, as a general note, the DC are not the producers of the game. They >should not be slammed for not doing what they basically aren't allowed to >do, namely, issue errata to cards and rules without R&D consent. Well, get R&D in on this! You're starting to sound like the government! (I'm sorry, that has to be handled by the Department of Playtesting. No, I can't tell you where they are.) Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <45eg3o$9...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: > >J. Hunter Johnson <jhun...@io.com> wrote: >>I was thinking about that myself. The Duelists' Convocation rules for >>tournaments in Magic have carried over to nearly every non-official game >>I've seen. I don't think this will happen with Jyhad/VtES. Why? >>(a) There is already an extensive and well done list of house rules that >>can be used to fix what's broken in a manner that suits a particular group. > >That "particular group" being what, the readers of this newsgroup? >The percentage of players of any game that read the internet is not as >high as those of us on the internet try to think. OK, so maybe the ruling >cabal on this newsgroup, and their followers, will ignore the DC rules and >play with their house rules. That hardly means that VTES players in general >are going to ignore the DC. You missed my point. "A particular group" being "any group of players who decide to play Jyhad". I don't think that the tourney rules will be used by the vast majority of particular groups, as has happened with MtG. I think they (the various particular groups) will continue to play with whatever subset of the house rules list suits them, including the null set. Perhaps they also have house rules that aren't listed, but I don't think any majority of particular groups will be using the DC tourney rules. I wasn't making any assumptions of the Internet population vs. the general population. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <45ijcj$l...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: >James R. McClure Jr. <jmcc...@e-mail.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote: >>Fiddle-faddle! Fix it before VtES is released. You apparently realize there >>is a problem, so why don't you fix it? Limiting each Meth to one PA card per >>unblocked PA solves the problem nicely and prevents degenerate, vote-only >>decks. You fixed the rules right after Jyhad was released, why not fix the >>rules for VtES BEFORE they are released? > > >Also, it is not entirely clear to us just what the fix, if any, ought to be. >While the popular fix here seems to be just eliminating the acting player's >ability to push the vote, and while that's probably the simplest solution >from a mechanics standpoint, it's absurd from a simulation standpoint that >others can stump against your vote, but that you cannot stump for it. Some >other solution, that eliminates the degeneracy while making voting viable >in both competitive and friendly play, needs to be found. It's probably that >by the time we've found such a solution, we'll be doing the next edition >anyway, so it's better just to wait for that than to rush into a change. No, the popular solution around here is to limit *all* Methuselahs' ability to push the vote (as in the article you quoted). A close second is the suggestion you chose to refute. This is the "Some other solution" that you refer to, and it was "found" by a close scrutinizing of the original Jyhad rulebook by the good Alan S. H. Kwan (kw...@cs.cornell.edu) quite some time ago (in article <3o3pra$q...@ask.cs.cornell.edu>) Vote pushing, in general, is "absurd from a simulation standpoint", IMO. Why does a Methuselah get a say-so in what happens? For being a Methuselah who takes the time to make her opinion known, and for controlling influential resources like titled vampire, vampires with commanding presence, and other resources (like Ventrue headquarters). Vote pushing just because you have more PAs in your hand is like winning a debate by screaming louder than anyone else. The one vote you get from the PA represents (IMO) the Methuselah making her opinion known. Repeating your opinion won't allow you to pull any more weight around the elders. [ quoted text not captured ]

CurtAdams (curt...@aol.com) wrote: : ch...@fpah1.dseg.ti.com (Charles T. Schwope) : Not to disagree with your idea about internet tourney rules (I agree they : are now necessary) but your write: : : >The funny thing is that the DC had 2 ways to : >make people happy; go with a 4 card limit, or go with no limits. : 4-card is certainly no alternative to the DC tournament rules. Yes, the : DC rules bar political decks and most tap-and-bleed decks, but those decks : are not good with 4-card anyway, and there are many, many decks possible : with the DC rules (all the rush decks, Seductive Bleed, maneuver decks, : disciplineless decks, etc.) that are not viable with 4-card. I fully agree with this. I wasn't saying that 4-card was the way to go. I think about half the players out there use a 4-card limit, and half use no limits. Therefore either one of these choices would have allienated about half the players. What the DC did was alienate all the players by limiting some cards to an obscenely low value (thus alienating no-limit players) and having no limits on the others 300 or so cards (alienating the limit players). Currently the group I am in is playing 4 card limit. I've never played a serious game w/out 4 card limits, and only played about... 10 or so games with. What I see happening in our group is 2 types of decks: Malk based Stealth-Bleed, and just about anything else w/ all the intercept cards that can be mustered. In general (especially the last couple of weeks) the Stealth-Bleeders have been winning. I also don't think anyone has done a "pure" stealth bleed deck (as in nothing but Stealth and Bleed). Also, the group is not super competative, with a lot of people (including me) coming up with wierd decks, just to see what they do. Of course, it seems like just about everyone is packing Malk Demetia though. : One would only expect that limiting over 300 cards to 4 affects the game : more than limiting 10 cards to 2. *nods* : Less stringent limits can hold down the offensive untaps without : demolishing the game, but the all-vote problem is not amenable to any : simple card limit solution. So basicly, the general impression that I'm getting is that the the vote problem can not be fixed with simple card limits. The reason for this is if the number of bleeding votes is reduced to a fixed number, a "legit" vote deck (big Ventrue) is handicapped. However, without a limit, "weenie" vote decks that win by calling tons of votes and forcing them to pass by playing political actions for votes are over powering. And any number low enough to stop the weenie decks stops the legit decks. Out of curiosity, (assuming I'm right above) where does a weenie deck that uses Praxis and Justicar cards to make their vampires get votes? The other problem can be solved by restricting the cards to a number. Everyone seems to think that 2 it too low, and 4 probably is as well. 10% was a number thrown out at some point, and to me that seems just about right. If there was a 10% limit on the vote cards, would the problem with votes still exist? [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <45ikad$l...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: >Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with the story. You people slam the rules team >when we don't do something your way, and then slam us again when we decide >to change things after all, because you're not happy unless you're dumping >on the people who made this game you profess to love so much. Ho hum. I admit I don't know how all of the various people who support Jyhad/VTES at WotC interact. AFAIK, Richard Garfield made the game, and nobody's been slamming him. The rules team clarifies/extends/corrects the rules/cards as they deem necessary -- this has not been to the perfect satisfaction of the readers of this group, it seems :-). You (Tom) are the 'leader' of the rules team (?) and the net liaison for Jyhad (in addition to your other tasks with the Magic game). Someone else is the liaison on one of the commercial online systems. The DC is responsible for tournament rules. Then there are people (I assume) who book slots at conventions for sanctioned (and probably unsanctioned) events, and people who actually run these events. And people who do press releases and other promotions. Is there someone who coordinates all these groups? How many people are represented in that list? Did someone book GenCon as a sanctioned tourney by mistake? Did anyone on the DC try to get input from the readers of this group, through the net liaison (you)? Did they get input from other sources? [ quoted text not captured ]

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >While the popular fix here seems to be just eliminating the acting player's >ability to push the vote, and while that's probably the simplest solution >from a mechanics standpoint, it's absurd from a simulation standpoint that >others can stump against your vote, but that you cannot stump for it. Some >other solution, that eliminates the degeneracy while making voting viable >in both competitive and friendly play, needs to be found. It's probably that >by the time we've found such a solution, we'll be doing the next edition >anyway, so it's better just to wait for that than to rush into a change. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Just such a solution has been Established to be letting every Meth play one and only one PA card during any vote. (AFTER CALLED) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Including Bloodhunt This means you get the vote calling the KRC and one push as it were. If there isn't enough political muster at the table to stop that then the weenie will win and should And if you can convince others to vote for you, then they can only burn one PA and use whatever titles they have. Admittedly this doesn't stop the Praxis weenie deck that I'm fond of playing but that requires only a little intercept since it's so much slower than the weenie vote pushing. This si what We've played for a while now and Votes are no longer a problem under this format. It allows for surprise, I have some clout and maintains balance. Don't even get me started on the limits on untaps S:CE and Freaky FIX? ONE action type for each minion per turn. Bleed-Vote-Equip-Arson-5Th Tradition-recruit-Restoration-etc. Still a great deal of actions for one vamp but not very devastating. is it? >Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for >aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Stu -- Stu Pieloch TLTT Players-Lord High And Mighty Potentate of the Known Universe DramaTech Theatre Improv Troupe http://photobooks.gatech.edu/~zync/lttp.html GE/T/S d++(--) H(-) s++:- g+(-) p2 au++ a- w+++(--) v++ C++ U N++ W---() M+ V-- po+++(---) t--- 5+++ G+++ B--- e++ u++ f+ r++ n--- y*

Tom writes: >I really do not want to get into what the Jyhad rulebook really said again, >but certainly by the time the game was released, the intention was to allow >Methuselahs to burn votes on their own behalf. Everybody here knows that >the rulebook sucked, and was often inaccurate, and in this case, it was >misleading at the very least. Whether or not you think vote pushing should >be allowed, *we* are the ones who know what should have been included in >the Jyhad rulebook, and for better or for worse, it should have allowed >vote pushing. Well, maybe - 1) Garfield made a major booboo allowing a deck style (all vote) that both violates the spirit of Jyhad (involved planning and combinations) and is a major balance problem. 2) The playtesters made a major booboo by not testing a very straightforward deck concept. 3) The rules writers and proofers made a major booboo by miswriting a very important rule. 4) The rules rewriters (for the corrected rules) made a major booboo by missing an important difference between the concept and the written rules. Maybe. You're the one claiming that all this was going on, not me. I still think at least somebody knew what they were doing on this. But all this is completely irrelevant! Unlimited vote pushing is a VERY bad rule. If politics in Jyhad is to be playable, vote pushing must be fixed. Now, I know the V:tES rules permit unlimited vote pushing. But you didn't let the written rules stop you before - the Jyhad rules said no vote pushing, but the DT allowed it. Why start being a stickler for written rules now, when it causes so much harm? You can still weasel Alan Kwan's interpretation (1 vote card per Meth) out of the V:tES rules. It works very nicely; political decks are viable, strict weenie vote is a bust almost all the time, but you can base decks around small vampires with presence. It's not precisely what the rules say, but certainly within the realm of plausible intentions for the written rules. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

eisi...@galaxy.ee.rochester.edu (Alan Eisinger) writes: >I recently had a brainwave regarding untap spoilers. It came from the kind of >Magic card referred to as a "cantrip." The fix would be as follows. >Any card that untaps a minion is not replaced by drawing from the library until >the next Mesuthelah's untap phase >How does it sound to you guyz? It's a plausible alternative fix. Better would be the minion's Methuselah's next phase, I think. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) >J. Hunter Johnson <jhun...@io.com> wrote: >>I was thinking about that myself. The Duelists' Convocation rules for >>tournaments in Magic have carried over to nearly every non-official game >>I've seen. I don't think this will happen with Jyhad/VtES. Why? >>(a) There is already an extensive and well done list of house rules that >>can be used to fix what's broken in a manner that suits a particular group. >That "particular group" being what, the readers of this newsgroup? >The percentage of players of any game that read the internet is not as >high as those of us on the internet try to think. OK, so maybe the ruling >cabal on this newsgroup, and their followers, will ignore the DC rules and >play with their house rules. That hardly means that VTES players in general >are going to ignore the DC. Oooh, we're a cabal! How exciting! :-) If the DC rules bar vote decks, or fail to bar weenie voters, Freaky Bleed and (in my lonely opinion) abuses of Dragonsbreath Rounds and Taste of Vitae, they will be ignored. Players will have no choice. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <45ilkl$l...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: >Judith Grunberger <jcoo...@wam.umd.edu> wrote: >>>Given that there are, in general, no card limits, it's quite easy to play >>>with 3 or 4 cards from Dark Sovereigns and have 40% of your deck >>>be from VTES. You do not have to play a DS clan to get a legal mix >>>of card backs, assuming you are playing with enough copies of cards to >>>be reasonably assured of seeing them in a game, which most *tournament* >>>decks want to do anyway. >>No, I *won't* have 40% of my deck from VTES. I was planning on only buying >>Dark Soveriegns, because I already have enough Jyhad cards. I don't need >>*more* of the basic set. If the only VTES cards I own are from DS, and I >>find some of those cards useful for a deck I have already built with, >>tough. Unless I use a DS clan with DS disciplines, I won't be able to >>construct a deck with 40% VTES cards. > >Hm. There's a confusion here, and I'll have to look to see how much of >it comes from the wording of the VTES tournament rules. > >The rule you're thinking of here is not that 40% to whatever% of the deck >has to be from the VTES *set*, but that they have to have the VTES *backs* >(assuming you mix at all). I still maintain that it would not be terribly >difficult to get a 40% mix of DS cards and Jyhad cards. Since the public >hasn't seen DS yet, or any VTES expansion for that matter, I find it strange >that it's simply impossible for someone to be able to make such a deck. OK. I understand perfectly well that my tournament deck has to have 40% VTES *backs*. I also understand that both Dark Soveriegns and the new VTES basic set have the new backs. This means that my 80 card deck must have at least 32 cards from either DS, VTES basic set, or a combination of both. I'm not going to buy VTES basic set, except for maybe one starter pack. I am, however, going to buy DS. You're right. I can't tell what DS is going to be like, since I haven't seen it yet. But if I don't use a DS clan using DS disciplines, I don't see how I could could put 32 cards with VTES backs into a deck. If, for example, I find some of the DS dominate cards useful for one of my decks that I have already constructed with Jyhad cards, I will not be able to play with those cards, since they will stick out like proverbial sore thumbs. When you said "mixed decks will be allowed," I assumed that you meant all mixed decks, not just decks with a certain proportion of mix. For me to play the decks I want in Tournaments, it appears as if I am going to have to spend a whole lot of money to, in effect, replace my Jyhad cards with VTES cards. >>Because of this 40% minimum, new players aren't going to trade for Jyhad >>cards. Why would they trade for a card they aren't going to be able to >>play with under the 40% rule? Should they have to go back and buy a box >>of Jyhad? I don't think so. Why should I be forced to buy a box of >>VTES just so I can play a deck with a few DS cards? > >Actually, there are ways for VTES players to trade for Jyhad and still make >a tournament deck. For example, one player's Dominate VTES could be traded >for another player's Fortitude Jyhad. But then that would be marking my deck, which is illegal! I'd know, for example, that all my VTES cards are dominate... But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn't think of that. Yes, I could do multi-discipline trading, with each of us trading a mix of cards. >And, given the seven cards that exist >in Jyhad but not in VTES, I don't really see it being "necessary" for someone >to have to go back and trade for Jyhad. No, I don't see as how newbies would have to go back and trade for Jyhad, either. I think that's my point. Why would they even want to get my Jyahd cards? Pity at my plight? >>cards. I'd say that's screwing us over. I kept my mouth shut during the >>whole debate about card backs because I really didn't care too much about >>the backs. I was even willing to buy a card shoe or whatever. But now, I'm >>finally angry. >Exactly how am I supposed to help you, given that you have apparently decided >to be angry no matter what happens? I don't know how you're supposed to help. I'm actually more frustrated than angry. I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say about the 40% mix problem, since you misinterpret what I post. Which is not necessarily your fault - you *do* have a different perspective on things, and you *do* have knowledge of what DS and VTES are going to be like. But I do feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall when I try to explain how difficult it will be for me to meet the 40% VTES quota in tourney decks without buying lots of VTES basic set cards. >>And we've already nixed the idea that newbies are going to trade to me... > >*You've* already nixed the idea that newbies could trade with you, by being >unwilling to do a couple of perfectly reasonable things, and by writing off >the possibility of a solution before even turning to the very person you seem >to expect to help you. Customer service is a two-way street. If you aren't >willing to accept that there might be solutions to your problems, which you >pretty clearly aren't, then I don't see why you're bothering to ask for them. I am willing to accept that there might be solutions to my problems. A card trade-in would be perfect. But I don't really expect that to happen. Actually, all the Jyhad players I know are planning to buy only DS, and not the basic set. I don't know anyone who is waiting for VTES to come out to buy cards. I haven't even *heard* of anyone who is going to buy VTES. Sometimes I wonder who I'm going to trade with... Your suggestion about trading in bulk with newbies is a good one, but I'm wondering how many of them will want to trade me, given that they would only be doing me a favor and not helping themselves at all. I can see a lot of newbies say "gee, I'd really love to help you, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to use all those cards you want to trade me... I don't know if I'll be able to make a 40% Jyhad 60% VTES deck with those cards... your cards are kinda old, and they've been played..." See my point? >>>The tournament minimum of 60 is mostly a carryover from Magic, yes. >>>But then, Magic also has a 40 card minimum in the rulebook. >>That's not so much of a problem, given I know noone who plays with a 40 >>card deck. It was just a deviation from the rules and I was wondering >>about why the DC was prompted to make such an uneccesary ruling. > >We thought it was a good idea. OK, now I know. Thank you. I don't think it was a "good idea," but it's something I can live with. And I think everyone else can live with it too, given that I have never ever seen a less than 60 card deck. >>Um, it does. I know, I have a Protean stealth-and-tap deck. I would have >>no problem paying an extra blood for my untaps and S:CE. Or even not >>attempting the same action again. Both of which are things the DTR should >>have considered a while ago... > >Considering the changes does not necessarily lead to implementing them. Sensible rules fixes/card errata vs. card limits that Jyhad was supposed to avoid in the first place. It doesn't seem like there should be much of choice. But, to look at it from your point of view, I understand that the DC had the current rules to work with, and no power to change the rules or the cards. They had to do they best they could with what they had. I just wish there was better communication, or that tourney rules could have been formulated a bit earlier, in time for questions about card & rules errata, etc. Oh well. >Those who play the game are perfectly free to send their tournament rules >input in to the DC. While I can pass along what I see here, and CST can >pass along what they hear on the phones, direct communication is always >the best kind. And given that nobody has even asked to sanction a Jyhad >tournament in months, and therefore none have been approved, the DC has >virtually no input from the field to work with. I can't say much about this, except "I'm sorry I didn't realize that the DC was working on tourney rules." Perhaps if the DC had asked for input, more than a few people would have been happy to offer insight. Isn't a company supposed to explore it's customer base's (consumer base?) wants and needs before they implement policy that affects said people? If I called WoTC and asked to speak to the DC, would I even make it past customer service? Just wondering. >The communication is right there. The DC asks the RT what it thinks about >some card. The RT gives its feedback to the DC. The DC makes a decision, >based in part on the RT's answer. The fact that the DC's decision is not >what you would like for it to be does not eliminate the communication that >is going on there. OK, granted on the fact that there was communication. Yes, I'm disappointed that it didn't turn out the way I wanted. But I don't understand some of the RT rulings, given my experience with game mechanics. Anyway. I'm not trying to bash you or WoTC. I am trying to look at this from both sides in a somewhat rational matter. I do feel frustrated, and I do feel let down. I think that communicating my feelings about these rules is better than just sitting back and doing nothing. Can we be civil? Judy -- "As you know, I am a Jew, so I am going back to my vault where I control the media." -- Jon Lovitz, 1995 MTV Movie Awards *** jcoo...@eng.umd.edu * http://www.wam.umd.edu/~jcookson ***

About the 40% card mix, to me there is only one solution that the DC could easily adopt without much hassle: Delete the part concerning card sleeves saying that a player can be forced to unsleeve his/her cards. This way if I have a mix of VTES and Jyhad, I can double pack all the cards in sleeves (could even use all my extra vamppires as the backs). I don't think anyone will make you pull cards from sleeve in a tourney anyway, but this will make sure that they can't. (In about 30 or so MtG tourneys I have yet to see anyone make someone pull the sleeves.) Or supply some opaque sleeves. Another posibility is to let players proxy cards that they own (to bad there isn't a mostly blank card like the MtG plains) so that card backs are the same. Or some sort of box that would hide the card backs before drawn. (Granted that your opponents might eventually figure out a pattern, but at least its better then having to buy VTES if you don't want to. Besides, you could probably pick up a little bit of variety in you commons if you had to.) Of course, a card trade in plan would be far and away the best, but it seems like this won't happen. This problem seems much more far reaching then the card limit thing because this is not a "quick fix" deal, like the card limit is. (Ok, not really easy for WotC/DC but atleast its only rules changes.) Has anyone come up with a decent way of solving this problem? [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <45e2mq$i...@pentagon.io.com> jhun...@io.com (J. Hunter Johnson) writes: >> Also, you have to wonder if people are even going to use these >>rules. I can't picture it. The funny thing is that the DC had 2 ways to >>make people happy; go with a 4 card limit, or go with no limits. They did >>neither, and now no one is happy. Doesn't that drive you crazy. All the players here have talked over many good ideas for tournament rules and the DC completely ignored the players and came up from this straight from space set of rules. >I was thinking about that myself. The Duelists' Convocation rules for >tournaments in Magic have carried over to nearly every non-official game >I've seen. I don't think this will happen with Jyhad/VtES. Why? I think tournament rules definately won't be played outside of tournaments. The type of deck required under these tournament rules is a high speed, score as many vp's in the time limit as possible deck. In free play, I prefer to play a nice slow, try to control to flow of the whole game deck that tries to keep everyone from scoring more than 1 vp (except myself, of course). If I tried that in a tourney, I might win the game at my table with 2 vp's, if I manage to within the time limit, but some guy at another table would have scored more vp's than me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Andrews S2...@nmu.edu

In article <45efhd$9...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: > >I really do not want to get into what the Jyhad rulebook really said again, >but certainly by the time the game was released, the intention was to allow >Methuselahs to burn votes on their own behalf. Everybody here knows that >the rulebook sucked, and was often inaccurate, and in this case, it was >misleading at the very least. Whether or not you think vote pushing should >be allowed, *we* are the ones who know what should have been included in >the Jyhad rulebook, and for better or for worse, it should have allowed >vote pushing. I call your bluff, Tom. *You* are the ones who know what the rulebook is supposed to say about Cross-Table Bleeds ([D] Bleeds) ? -- "Live Life with Heart." Alan Kwan kw...@cs.cornell.edu

doe...@church.cse.ogi.edu (Thomas Doehne) writes: >I'd like to see us come up with a set of Tournament rules. They may >only be 'house' rules, but the Internet is a very big house. Better >that than a) put up with a set of very broken tournament rules or >b) boycott tournaments, which generate a lot of interest in the game. >(Or at least, they did for Magic). Mmm.. Anyone considering holding a Jyhad tournament is probably able to put together a decent set of tournament rules (using the current net.house rules and DC rules as inspiration). Still, 'Alternative Tourney Rules Guide' for Jyhad/VTES might be a good resource for competitive players and people holding non-sanctioned tournaments (and for DT & DC too, if they had any eye for good rulings.. :)) >I see some of the old hands starting to hold their noses and play >V:TES. I'd much rather see widespread adoption of the very >sensible fixes proposed on house rules here. I'm not going to >hold my nose (didn't with Magic, either. I quit playing.) This is really a valid point. Jyhad is an excellent card game, but these days there are so many great card games around (many more than you can find time to play) that if a game is supported badly it is better to go ahead and switch to some other game. The most important aspect of support must be the actual cards published, since you can ignore bad official rules and make up your own (especially with the dedicated Jyhad people here in Usenet, big thanks for the great house rules!). But I don't think good rules support should be neglected by the publisher! Look at INWO, for example - all the big-time mistakes in the first printing were corrected quite elegantly, paying attention to discussion and complaints on the usenet. Cards were changed somewhat (the most abusive cards quite heavily altered) and errata published with the new rulebook, and there were no problems in that, at least every player I know has been happy with the changes and the way they were made. With VTES/Jyhad, it seems that the public has a lot greater understanding of the game than the design team that obviously prefers all kinds of complicated point systems or restricted lists (that always follow a badly designed game) over just fixing the cards. Cheers, pirkka

In article <45jk8m$8...@mocha.eng.umd.edu>, Judith Cookson Grunberger <jcoo...@Glue.umd.edu> wrote: >In article <45ilkl$l...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, >Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: >>Judith Grunberger <jcoo...@wam.umd.edu> wrote: >>Those who play the game are perfectly free to send their tournament rules >>input in to the DC. While I can pass along what I see here, and CST can > >before they implement policy that affects said people? If I called WoTC >and asked to speak to the DC, would I even make it past customer service? >Just wondering. Yes. I have never had a problem getting in touch with anyone at WotC that I've wanted to talk to. If you have real suggestions that you feel would help, they're perfectly willing to listen. | If you've got a hot lead on a new | *--Joe--* | PC game, call the announce line at | js...@vt.edu | ** csi...@discus.ise.vt.edu ** | +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------- "There. That should do nicely. After all, we don't want the locals to see grannies clipped to trash bins by their teeth, do we?" -- Mr. Gone

In article <45ijcj$l...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: > >Also, it is not entirely clear to us just what the fix, if any, ought to be. >While the popular fix here seems to be just eliminating the acting player's >ability to push the vote, and while that's probably the simplest solution >from a mechanics standpoint, it's absurd from a simulation standpoint that >others can stump against your vote, but that you cannot stump for it. Some >other solution, that eliminates the degeneracy while making voting viable >in both competitive and friendly play, needs to be found. It's probably that >by the time we've found such a solution, we'll be doing the next edition >anyway, so it's better just to wait for that than to rush into a change. Where have you been, Tom? There has always been /two/ proposed fixes for the vote-pushing mis-rule. One is as you stated. Ever heard about the other? Or you find that one so unacceptable that you don't even bother comment on it? :-( [ quoted text not captured ]

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >Also, it is not entirely clear to us just what the fix, if any, ought to be. >While the popular fix here seems to be just eliminating the acting player's >ability to push the vote, and while that's probably the simplest solution >from a mechanics standpoint, it's absurd from a simulation standpoint that >others can stump against your vote, but that you cannot stump for it. It's a game first, and a simulation second. You can't say that a 3000 year old vampire must spend all his resources to get 6 Assault Rifles and claim that plausible simulation is more important than an interesting game. >Some >other solution, that eliminates the degeneracy while making voting viable >in both competitive and friendly play, needs to be found. Hardly. It's perfectly viable. There's lots of ways to pass votes, like Bewitching Oration, Telepathic Vote Counting, Bribes, and Scorn of Adonis. When a Toreador calls a vote with an Oration, Bribes, and a Scorn, the vote will almost always pass, regardless of table or pushing situations. But, if the imbalance between caller and non-caller gets your knickers in a twist, use Alan Kwan's suggestion of of push per Meth, including the caller. That works too. To all you folks with political decks: Who would prefer the 2 per aggresive vote limitation to not being able to push your vote? If you can't push, things get somewhat harder, but that's nothing like having no votes to call. >It's probably that >by the time we've found such a solution, we'll be doing the next edition >anyway, so it's better just to wait for that than to rush into a change. Solutions are at hand, now. Don't procrastinate. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

ch...@fpah1.dseg.ti.com (Charles T. Schwope) >CurtAdams (curt...@aol.com) wrote: >: 4-card is certainly no alternative to the DC tournament rules. > I fully agree with this. OK, we're on the same wavelength. >I wasn't saying that 4-card was the way to >go. I think about half the players out there use a 4-card limit, and half >use no limits. Therefore either one of these choices would have allienated >about half the players. What the DC did was alienate all the players by >limiting some cards to an obscenely low value (thus alienating no-limit >players) and having no limits on the others 300 or so cards (alienating >the limit players). A good point. > Currently the group I am in is playing 4 card limit. > In general (especially the last couple of >weeks) the Stealth-Bleeders have been winning. I also don't think anyone >has done a "pure" stealth bleed deck (as in nothing but Stealth and Bleed). Malk stealth/bleed/intercept makes for a much more interesting game than pure stealth and bleed. It says something about Jyhad that even a game with nothing but that can be interesting, at least for a while. >: Less stringent limits can hold down the offensive untaps without >: demolishing the game, but the all-vote problem is not amenable to any >: simple card limit solution. > So basicly, the general impression that I'm getting is that the >the vote problem can not be fixed with simple card limits. (Proof deleted) Yeah, we're in agreement on this too. > Out of curiosity, (assuming I'm right above) where does a weenie >deck that uses Praxis and Justicar cards to make their vampires get votes? Vote pushing - the DT rule that any player can fling down unlimited political actions for votes. Since a vote deck has far more votes than a non-vote deck, this strongly favors voters. Weenie vote decks have basically nothing but votes, so they 5-8 votes each time from political action cards. > The other problem can be solved by restricting the cards to a >number. Everyone seems to think that 2 it too low, and 4 probably is as >well. 10% was a number thrown out at some point, and to me that seems >just about right. 10% has been proposed as an overall limit. Personally, I'd like a slightly more stringent limit on things like Majesty myself. When I'm playing without the fixes, I limit myself to 4 of all the abusive cards. > If there was a 10% limit on the vote cards, would the problem >with votes still exist? Yes, although it would be less, at least until DS came out. However, one guy in may group built a 6-card limit 50 card vote deck, and even that was enough to make people refuse to play it. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

Shane Travis <tra...@duke.usask.ca> wrote: >The problem being, of course, that by restricting cards that have not >ever been abused or touted as a problem, you make people wonder even more >where these rules came from, make the sanctioning of a tourney an even >less appealing proposition, and end up with _no_ input as to how well >these rules work (since there are no sanctioned tourneys). I was attempting to, for once, look ahead and guess which cards would simply take over for KRC once it was restricted (for example). Remember that the initial tournament rules for Jyhad didn't have a restricted list, under the theory that tournaments would indicate which cards needs to be restricted. Well, there never was any *sanctioned* feedback, but there was feedback from unsanctioned tournaments, and from sources such as this newsgroup, which I substitued for the normal channels. >And if you are willing to change the list _without_ such input, why not >simply change it now and avoid the problems? We did change it without such input, by creating it in the first place. >(talking about both cards and rulebook here): Sometimes the text is >perfectly clear, but ignored because of (possible) prior knowledge >(Rotschreck); sometimes it is perfectly clear and we all _wish_ it would >be ignored in favour of a 'no-brainer', commonsense ruling (Multiple >strikes); sometimes the text is ambiguous (Parity Shift, Elder Kindred >Network); sometimes it seems perfectly clear but is interpretted >differently by different groups (S:CE, vote pushing). > >Yes, I cannot deny that we (the members of this group) are sometimes >subject to 'selective blindness' when it suits our purposes, but are you >saying that the RT is not? (The (D) thing is a good example - see below) When Jyhad first came out, what the rules should be usually became pretty clear once you sat everyone down in the same room, rather than playing tag with various people through email or in the halls. The real question that became whether the rulebook was flat-out wrong, ambiguous, or just silent. Errata was issued almost invariably in the first case, and somewhat haphazardly in the other cases. Over the last six months, the policy has shifted more to putting up with minor slipups in the rulebook, especially with the knowledge that VTES was about to come out anyway. Yes, it was somewhat moronic that you could just dump additional strike cards, that problem didn't come up until we had drifted into the "less errata is better, so issue it only if necessary" policy, and that errata certainly didn't seem necessary. >: It surprises you that not everything that should have made it into the >: rulebook did? Hello? >The point here is this: the people of this group and you/the RT disagreed >about how S:CE (and the Madness Network) should work. Most people here >were working from a 'makes sense' and 'game cohesion' standpoint. Your >(RT)'s argument was that it was supposed to be the was it was, becuase it >just _was_, and had always been intended as that way. Which is basically a simplistic way of saying: Look, there are several ways combat ends *could* work, and more than one of them make sense, and keep the game cohesive, and whatever. The official interpretation of combat ends is the way combat ends was always supposed to work. It got modified later to at least allow the blocking minion to strike (if the attacker ended combat), but the concept is still basically the same. >Now, the new rules come out, and these areas are clarified... in favour of >logic/playability (the 'makes sense' interpretations). It doesn't seem >_at all_ like something which 'should have made it into the rulebook' was >missing: it seems like in these cases, the RT was just plain _wrong_. >(Or, to be kind, misguided/arguing an untenable position.) Why do all of the possible reasons for changing something in VTES have to be sinister? Is it really that hard to believe that though such-and-such a rule was constructed one way prior to release, we later decided that another way (most likely the 'popular' way) was better, so changed it? >Don't tell me you don't remember the Great Directed Action Debate, or >'Can I bleed anyone else but my prey with a Computer Hacking?' I certainly remember those debates, and just didn't make the link, probably because it's not a subject that flares up constantly. >As written/intended (from all reliable sources), the (D) symbol was a >_reminder_, although the rules were a little vague about this. The RT >decided that the (D) _overrode_ the regular rules for actions (i.e. can >only bleed prey) and changed the meaning of this symbol (breaking a few >cards in the process). Now VTES rules come out, and (apparently) are >quite clear that (D) doesn't override anything, but serves as a reminder only. I read the Jyhad section on this last week, and it seemed rather clear to me that the rules were defining what the (D) symbol meant. And when you think about it, they sort of have to: otherwise, what are players supposed to do to figure out whether something is directed, read our minds? While it's generally possible to guess whether an action should or shouldn't be directed by looking it at, there will always be corner cases where the line blurs. For these cases, it's better to simply define what (D) means, in the rulebook, and get it over with. Now, it's true that the line blurs a little bit in the VTES card texts. Certain of the rules in the rulebook are constantly stuck into the card texts as brief reminders. But to me, "Cards involve directed actions have a (D) in the card text" is not a rulebook reminder of what a directed action is. It's a defintion of the (D) symbol; it's a definition of what a directed action is. >Thus, it seems (from this side of the fence) that the RT is talking >through its collective hats when it says 'We must uphold the letter of >the rules' in one instance (Multiple strikes), but then ignores these >letters in other cases (vote pushing, Rotschreck, (D) symbol). That's a mix of policy shifts, and of disagreeing over what the rulebook says, or how a rulebook ever gets interpreted in the first place, with a little bit of "reading something into the rules/card that isn't there" thrown in for good measure. [ quoted text not captured ]

CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >Well, maybe - >1) Garfield made a major booboo allowing a deck style (all vote) that both >violates the spirit of Jyhad (involved planning and combinations) and is a >major balance problem. >2) The playtesters made a major booboo by not testing a very >straightforward deck concept. >3) The rules writers and proofers made a major booboo by miswriting a very >important rule. >4) The rules rewriters (for the corrected rules) made a major booboo by >missing an important difference between the concept and the written rules. > >Maybe. You're the one claiming that all this was going on, not me. I >still think at least somebody knew what they were doing on this. Well, 1) wouldn't have come about without a failure somewhere in 2) through 4). I doubt anyone's gone through the Jyhad rules or cards to track exactly where each little problem crept in, but my impression is that all of those last three options played a part. >Now, I know the V:tES rules permit unlimited vote pushing. But you didn't >let the written rules stop you before - the Jyhad rules said no vote >pushing, but the DT allowed it. Why start being a stickler for written >rules now, when it causes so much harm? See another post in this thread for more on this. Regardless of how voting should work, and regardless of how the Jyhad rulebook should or shouldn't have been interprested, they knew exactly what they wanted to put into the VTES rulebook, and we are currently running under the theory of not issuing errata except when we wrote something we didn't intend to. I do believe, by they way, that the voting rules will be changed someday. But it's not going to happen in the next couple of months, and I suspect it will wind up waiting until the next edition of VTES. [ quoted text not captured ]

J. Hunter Johnson <jhun...@io.com> wrote: >>First, as a general note, the DC are not the producers of the game. They >>should not be slammed for not doing what they basically aren't allowed to >>do, namely, issue errata to cards and rules without R&D consent. >This sounds like the problem of a over-large faceless corporation, not >of a responsive game company. WotC, I fear, is moving from the latter to ^^^^^^^^^^ >the former. You've got two teams who aren't talking to each other at >the level needed. Rather than using that as a reason why certain things can't >be done, I think WotC should view it as a problem that needs to be solved. Setting the tournament issue aside for a moment, the customer base for most trading cards games is a morass of contradictions. Just take a look at this group and you'll see what I mean. Some people want flat card limits for VTES, others don't. Some like one way of running voting, others like another way, and there are a couple of others besides. While being responsive means following customer input in some cases, that doesn't always work, and in fact, it usually doesn't. What are we supposed to do when opinion is divided evenly down the middle? Whichever path we follow, half the customers will be happy, most of the rest will grump a bit but realize they simply lost, and the remainder will brand us as "unresponsive", when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Also, virtually no department here can work in a vacuum. They always have to rely, at least in part, on feedback and information from other departments. I've actually overstated R&D's influence on the DC here, unfortunately, simply because R&D drafted most of the changes to the VTES rules. The DC actually does think for itself, and collects information from others. I just didn't want someone yelling at Jason or Heather or someone at cons over rules they didn't write, so overstated the case. [ quoted text not captured ]

Alan Kwan <kw...@cs.cornell.edu> wrote: >>I really do not want to get into what the Jyhad rulebook really said again, >>but certainly by the time the game was released, the intention was to allow >>Methuselahs to burn votes on their own behalf. Everybody here knows that >>the rulebook sucked, and was often inaccurate, and in this case, it was >>misleading at the very least. Whether or not you think vote pushing should >>be allowed, *we* are the ones who know what should have been included in >>the Jyhad rulebook, and for better or for worse, it should have allowed >>vote pushing. >I call your bluff, Tom. *You* are the ones who know what the rulebook >is supposed to say about Cross-Table Bleeds ([D] Bleeds) ? I was not involved in the development or the documentation of Jyhad, but from everything I'm told (including from Richard), D-bleeds were always supposed to be directable at anyone, just like other D actions. [ quoted text not captured ]

Dave Andrews <s2...@nmu.edu> wrote: >I think tournament rules definately won't be played outside of tournaments. >The type of deck required under these tournament rules is a high speed, score >as many vp's in the time limit as possible deck. In free play, I prefer to >play a nice slow, try to control to flow of the whole game deck that tries to >keep everyone from scoring more than 1 vp (except myself, of course). If I >tried that in a tourney, I might win the game at my table with 2 vp's, if I >manage to within the time limit, but some guy at another table would have >scored more vp's than me. I read this, and started composing a rebuttal in my head. This rebuttal was going to point out that in Magic, there is this very difference between many peoples' private play (where people mess around with Thallid decks or Purple Blast decks or whatever), and tournament play (where you try to reduce the average number of turns in which you kill your opponent), and yet, this difference has not stopped the tournament rules from becoming, in many areas, the default rules for private play. But you know what? I've always hated the fact that the DC rules became standard. In fact, I routinely try to prod people into ignoring those rules, or at least coming up with house variants, particularly during discussions on the merits of Type I vs. Type II. What you have to realize is that tournaments are, by definition, run under a time limit. A convention says it has a tournament for such-and-such a game, and a certain time limit is alloted, and everything has to be finished within that limit. (Some private groups might run one game a week for a couple of months and call that a tournament, but that's really more of a league.) An environment where everyone wants to finish in roughly two hours is obviously going to be different than an environment were you can just sit down, enjoy yourselves, and play a game of VTES. In other words, it will not surprise me at all if tournament rules get largely ignored by VTES groups that are not practicing for tournaments, regardless of what the tournament rules happen to be. Questions like whether untapping cards should cost blood are general gameplay issues, not issues specific to jumping into a limited-time environment, and this, I believe, is why the DC doesn't get involved with those issues. Tournament rules are meant to oversee tournaments, not private play, and that's why they're called tournament rules. [ quoted text not captured ]

CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >Less stringent limits can hold down the offensive untaps without >demolishing the game, but the all-vote problem is not amenable to any >simple card limit solution. As I recall, all the discussions the impact that card limits might have on voting largely assumed that the card limits would be flat throughout the cardset, rather than having a small restricted list. Have you actually tried running KRC decks under the restricted list (of 2 or of 6), or are you just assuming it can't address the problem? [ quoted text not captured ]

J. Hunter Johnson <jhun...@io.com> wrote: >I admit I don't know how all of the various people who support Jyhad/VTES >at WotC interact. AFAIK, Richard Garfield made the game, and nobody's been >slamming him... Richard does not design games in a vacuum. At the very least, he has people helping him with the post-alpha polishing stages, and in many cases, he gets input on the alpha versions. So while the majority of the design work for Jyhad was probably Richard's, he did not exactly "make the game". >The rules team clarifies/extends/corrects the rules/cards as >they deem necessary -- this has not been to the perfect satisfaction of the >readers of this group, it seems :-)... Yes, and such a group existed during the development of Jyhad as well. >You (Tom) are the 'leader' of the >rules team (?) and the net liaison for Jyhad (in addition to your other tasks >with the Magic game). Someone else is the liaison on one of the commercial >online systems. The DC is responsible for tournament rules... >And people who do press releases and other promotions. All correct. >Then there >are people (I assume) who book slots at conventions for sanctioned (and >probably unsanctioned) events, and people who actually run these events. There are people who set up tournaments at some of the cons WotC makes appearances at, and peole who run those. There are people who are perfectly happy to sanction tournaments, though nobody ever asks. >Is there someone who coordinates all these groups? How many people are >represented in that list? Did someone book GenCon as a sanctioned >tourney by mistake? Did anyone on the DC try to get input from the >readers of this group, through the net liaison (you)? Did they get >input from other sources? Yes, there's a product manager (Matt Burke). The total number of people in the functions you list is roughly a dozen. Several plans for GenCon changed after the initial plans had to be sent in. The DC gets feedback from customers through customer service and the NetReps, and from other sources as well, such as R&D. It would also get customer input through sanctioned tournaments, if there ever were any. [ quoted text not captured ]

L. Scott Johnson <lsc...@crl.com> wrote: >It was clear to me and many others that that was not the way S:CE was >intended to work, but that someone made a hasty statement/answer that >somehow developed into the "immediate" errata championed for so long >by yourself and the RT. "clear"? Exactly what information do you have to go on about what happened during the development of Jyhad that doesn't come from us? While the lines of communication about Jyhad were down some at the beginning, 99% of that mess got sorted out within a month or so. [ quoted text not captured ]

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) wrote: >CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >>Less stringent limits can hold down the offensive untaps without >>demolishing the game, but the all-vote problem is not amenable to any >>simple card limit solution. >As I recall, all the discussions the impact that card limits might have >on voting largely assumed that the card limits would be flat throughout the >cardset, rather than having a small restricted list. Have you actually >tried running KRC decks under the restricted list (of 2 or of 6), or are you >just assuming it can't address the problem? First, the problem with the vote balance thing is that there are two types of vote based decks: weenie and big vamp. The big vamp is seen as ok by the general public (using princes/primogens/justicars to pass votes is a good thing). However the weenie style where the whole library is all poli. actions is just wrong. It doesn't make sense from a game balance or a "world view" point of view. With the poli. actions restricted the big vampire vote deck is not possible. The only real solution to this problem (in the minds of many players) is to fix the vote pushing problem. This is why the vote problem can't be fixed by card limits. The impression I'm getting is that any number picked will either handicap the big vamp deck or allow the weenie deck. Also, you are damn close to being wrong about KRC decks with restrictions. The group I'm in plays with a 4 card limit. Even there, a political deck can be vicious. I would say its just one step below Malk stealth bleed decks. 4 of all the aggrsve votes (aka the restricted list), some justicar and praxis seziures just to be sure you can get enough votes. You really don't even need to put any vote gaining card (like Bribes) in the deck, because more then likely you will have as many votes on the table as everyone else combined. Then just use political actions to push any votes that need to be pushed. -CT (Hope my this news reader attaches my sig) -- Charles T. Schwope | Every man is a spark in the darkness. By the aka CT | time he is noticed, he is gone forever, a [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <45j19s$h...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) writes: >From: curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) >Subject: Re: Tourney rules ruin Jyhad >Date: 12 Oct 1995 08:22:20 -0400 >The problem is that if a Ventrue vote deck can have enough KRC and CA (or >whatever) to win, so can the weenie voter. But the weenie voter will be >almost unstoppable, while the Ventrue won't. I have never run into one of these degenerate weenie vote decks that has been unstoppable, although I believe they must exist since they are such a hot topic of discussion. Because I have no experience with such a deck, my comments may be off track, but I think that the cards everyone seems to have a problem with are KRC's and CA's. Possibly the same restriction should be added to these votes as is on Sabbat Threats and other powerful votes: they can only be called by a prince or justicar. I believe that the rules should be written to allow the greatest number of viable strategies, even including weenie vote decks. Possibly this change would take the unfair edge away from the weenie vote deck while still leaving it as a viable strategy. A low cost vampire couldn't start throwing out KRC's as soon as it comes under your control: it would have to call and pass a Praxis Seizure first. This means that the methusalah couldn't pack so many KRC's and CA's. Also, rather than having a bunch of expendable vote callers, the weenie voter would have some weenie's and a few princes, and would have to protect the princes from Rushes and Intercepters. I think that ruling out vote pushing would be a huge mistake, since it would pretty much require presence for a voting deck. My Nosferatu voting deck, which doesn't win a lot but is a blast to play, would never even be a factor at all if I couldn't push my own votes. I think we can find a solution to put an end to the unfair advantage of weenie voters without ruining other strategies that add variety and flavor to the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Andrews S2...@nmu.edu

Before I could do anything to stop it, Thomas R Wylie wrote: > Any change going to the rules is going to have to undergo playtesting, by us, > regardless of the quality of the playtesting that is reported by others. > Basically, we have to be sure that *we* are happy with any change being made > to the game. It is highly unlikely that decent playtesting can be done before > Duelist #8 gets locked down and has to go to press. In fact, I would say it's > impossible unless those who would be involved with it grind *everything* else > to a halt, which isn't going to happen. Perhaps the time has come to enlist playtesters from the wide network world. Seems like there should be some way to approve and sanction avid players who more than happily test and provide input to free up you overworked staff from some of their load. Impossible is a very strong term. -- "It's at the end of his arm," thought Frito, nervously | Brian shaking it, "it's got to be a hand." | Wilson

THeerm <the...@aol.com> wrote: > >Instead of worrying about card backs and ratios, how about just letting >one or more of your opponents shuffle your deck if they choose, whether >its mixed or not? In a related vein, one non-sleeve related fix : your predator or prey can cut your decks at any time. If this is done, the deck-peeking Nosferatu are allowed to repeek immediately. -- Alec Habig, Indiana University High Energy Astrophysics aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu http://www.astro.indiana.edu/home/ahabig/ Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns.

In article <45t3d2$b...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >From: aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) >Subject: Re: Tourney rules ruin Jyhad >Date: 16 Oct 1995 07:59:30 GMT >I read this, and started composing a rebuttal in my head. This rebuttal >was going to point out that in Magic, there is this very difference between >many peoples' private play (where people mess around with Thallid decks or >Purple Blast decks or whatever), and tournament play (where you try to reduce >the average number of turns in which you kill your opponent), and yet, >this difference has not stopped the tournament rules from becoming, in >many areas, the default rules for private play. The difference here is that if you play the private play Magic deck that is slow against the high speed tournament winner, the high speed tourney deck will win, and therefore, a winning deck in a tournament is representative of a winning deck in Magic. However, if the slower acting Jyhad/V:TES deck is played against the high speed tourney Jyhad/V:TES deck, it is quite possible that the slower deck will beat the high speed one every time in a private play environment. Therefore, the winning deck in a tournament is NOT representative of the best winning deck of Jyhad, and I believe the point of a tournament is that the best player/deck wins. I'm not griping about tourney rules; I know it would never work without a time limit. I'm just saying this is the difference between Magic and Jyhad/V:TES, and this is one of the reasons why I believe the tourney rules will not be played in the private play environments. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Andrews S2...@nmu.edu

In article <45t2g8$b...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: > >I was not involved in the development or the documentation of Jyhad, >but from everything I'm told (including from Richard), D-bleeds were >always supposed to be directable at anyone, just like other D actions. Then is Cat Burglary deliberate wallpaper? CAT BURGLARY +1 stealth, inf=bleed [for 1 only], sup=bleed any Mesuthelah [for 1 only] since the only diff is the "any Mesuthelah" phrase, if the (D) already means that, what's the point of Superior? It is either a misprint, wallpaper, or the (D) symbol changed meaning from the writing to now. gnfnrf, keeper of the goat cheese D +1 stealth, inf=(D) bleed, [for 1 only], sup=bleed any Mesuthelah >

Alec Habig <aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu> wrote: >As far as I can tell, it's simply out of habit - the deck construction rules >were the rules that needed to be changed to make Magic a viable tourny game. >If that isn't the case with Jyhad, why try to pound a square peg into a round >hole? The solution that several people are supporting here, that the rules team simply errata various cards to the point of altering their costs, could have just as easily been applied to Magic. There's no reason why the DC or the rules team couldn't have raised to cost of Ancestral Recall to 3U, for example. But there are various reasons why this wasn't done for Magic, and won't be done for other games: I've listed some here, Fred listed a couple of others, and others could be found in old threads in the Magic groups, I'm sure. [ quoted text not captured ]

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >>Well, maybe - >>1) Garfield made a major booboo allowing a deck style (all vote) that both >>violates the spirit of Jyhad (involved planning and combinations) and is a >>major balance problem. >>2) The playtesters made a major booboo by not testing a very >>straightforward deck concept. >>3) The rules writers and proofers made a major booboo by miswriting a very >>important rule. >>4) The rules rewriters (for the corrected rules) made a major booboo by >>missing an important difference between the concept and the written rules. > >>Maybe. You're the one claiming that all this was going on, not me. I >>still think at least somebody knew what they were doing on this. >Well, 1) wouldn't have come about without a failure somewhere in 2) >through 4). Perhaps I wasn't clear. I was saying all 4 had to happen - if any of the above did their job right, the second Jyhad rulebook wouldn't have barred vote pushing. >>Now, I know the V:tES rules permit unlimited vote pushing. But you didn't >>let the written rules stop you before - the Jyhad rules said no vote >>pushing, but the DT allowed it. Why start being a stickler for written >>rules now, when it causes so much harm? >See another post in this thread for more on this. Regardless of how >voting should work, and regardless of how the Jyhad rulebook should or >shouldn't have been interprested, they knew exactly what they wanted to >put into the VTES rulebook, and we are currently running under the theory >of not issuing errata except when we wrote something we didn't intend to. This is not inconsistent with Magic principles, but in that case you're setting yourself an impossible task -that you're requiring yourself to have perfect intentions. Every CCG I've seen to date - no exceptions - has had major balance problems when first released. I would conclude that if you won't fix things after they come out, every game you ever make will have major problems. I do, incidentally, have a photocopy of a written page signed by Garfield saying that Rotschreck was NOT intended to work the way the Design Team said it did. I didn't see it signed, but it is a reasonable facsimile of his signatures on my Jyhad cards. >I do believe, by they way, that the voting rules will be changed someday. >But it's not going to happen in the next couple of months, and I suspect >it will wind up waiting until the next edition of VTES. Another edition of V:TES? You've got to be kidding. The limited run was way overprinted, you're now putting out a second edition, adding to the glut (and driving away a number of existing players in the process) and a critical rules fix must wait until the next edition? Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

Tom writes: >What are we supposed to do when opinion is >divided evenly down the middle? Whichever path we follow, half the customers >will be happy, most of the rest will grump a bit but realize they simply lost, >and the remainder will brand us as "unresponsive", when in fact nothing could >be further from the truth. Why don't you look at what you did for Fame? There were many proposed fixes, and the one you chose was not the one I wanted. But certainly the unique fix was better than no fix, and nobody's mad at you for making it. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

s2...@nmu.edu (Dave Andrews) wrote: >I think that ruling out vote pushing would be a huge mistake, since it would >pretty much require presence for a voting deck. My Nosferatu voting deck, >which doesn't win a lot but is a blast to play, would never even be a factor >at all if I couldn't push my own votes. I think we can find a solution to put >an end to the unfair advantage of weenie voters without ruining other >strategies that add variety and flavor to the game. Peace Dave, You are playing an unusual deck (kind of like a Blue "blast" deck in Mt$). Clans with Presense are supposed to be the strong political ones, those with Dominate the big bleeders, those with Auspex the interceptors, etc. You are playing a clan that isn't well suited toward politics (kind of like building a Brujah S&B deck). Vote pushing terribly unbalances the game towards all-PA decks. As the rules rules currently stand, politics isn't very political; it tends to boil down to who has the most PAs in hand when the vote is called [no, this isn't ALWAYS true, but it is more often then not]. One PA card per Meth per vote would make politics more political (more negotiation/diplomacy). Yes, I realize that some people don't like the idea that their political deck would have to cooperate to get votes to pass, but it is a much more balance and playable solution than "I've got seven vote cards in my hand. You lose." Nil carborundum illigitimi, James R. McClure Jr. The OS/2 Apostle <insert disclaimer here>

In article <45t09m$a...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote: > >J. Hunter Johnson <jhun...@io.com> wrote: >>I admit I don't know how all of the various people who support Jyhad/VTES >>at WotC interact. AFAIK, Richard Garfield made the game, and nobody's been >>slamming him... > >Richard does not design games in a vacuum. At the very least, he has people >helping him with the post-alpha polishing stages, and in many cases, he >gets input on the alpha versions. So while the majority of the design work >for Jyhad was probably Richard's, he did not exactly "make the game". Ah, c'mon, Tom. I don't have my box or rules handy, but I thought they said something like "by Richard Garfield", not "by Richard Garfield and friends." I know he doesn't do it alone. I've playtested pre-release games for other companies myself, but I don't consider myself a maker of the games. >>Then there >>are people (I assume) who book slots at conventions for sanctioned (and >>probably unsanctioned) events, and people who actually run these events. > >There are people who set up tournaments at some of the cons WotC makes >appearances at, and peole who run those. There are people who are perfectly >happy to sanction tournaments, though nobody ever asks. > >>Is there someone who coordinates all these groups? How many people are >>represented in that list? Did someone book GenCon as a sanctioned >>tourney by mistake? Did anyone on the DC try to get input from the >>readers of this group, through the net liaison (you)? Did they get >>input from other sources? > >Yes, there's a product manager (Matt Burke). The total number of people >in the functions you list is roughly a dozen. Several plans for GenCon >changed after the initial plans had to be sent in. The DC gets feedback >from customers through customer service and the NetReps, and from other >sources as well, such as R&D. It would also get customer input through >sanctioned tournaments, if there ever were any. I've got that there have never been any sanctioned Jyhad tourneys. What isn't clear from your info is how the GenCon tourney got labelled as Sanctioned. Did GenCon tack that on without WotC's help, perhaps assuming that any tourney by WotC must be Sanctioned? Or did someone at WotC tell them it was sanctioned, and then just not correct that when it was determined that the tourney wasn't sanctioned? I know that this is all water under the bridge, but from my disappointed tourney player perspective, it seems that WotC retroactively unsanctioned this event, and is trying to say that that is how it's always been. Hunter -- J. Hunter Johnson jhun...@io.com (Illuminati Online) "Never blame the audience. If you blame the audience, not only have you failed, you have failed to learn from your mistakes." -- Carlo Mazzone-Clemente

aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) writes: >Frederick Scott <fre...@anthrax.cisco.com> wrote: >>Much as I agree with the rules complaints expressed in this group, the >>Convocation should stick to issuing deck construction rules ONLY. Any >>deviance from that (special situations like Magic's Ring of Ma'Ruf excepted) >>would invite anarchy and generally detract from the game. The design team >>must be the ones to fix these problems. > >But Fred, why are the deck construction rules any less sacred than any of the >other game play rules? Because deck construction rules are very easy to split off from other rules and don't ever require complex interpretation. It doesn't take Tom Wylie to consult with the rules team to tell you what a maximum of two KRC's in a deck means. At the same time, deck construction rules are an effect means of providing the ersatz play-balancing effect that tournament rules require. Fred

Frederick Scott <fre...@anthrax.cisco.com> wrote: >>Questions like whether untapping cards should cost blood are general gameplay >>issues, not issues specific to jumping into a limited-time environment, and >>this, I believe, is why the DC doesn't get involved with those issues. >(I'm not sure why you use the words "I believe". One would hope WotC hasn't >become so large that you couldn't find Jason's office to ask if need be. Not if I'm posting from home at 1 in the morning :) While I'm about 95% sure that's correct, I didn't have any immediate means of checking, hence the "I believe." >Anyway,...) It seems to me that a good reason for a tournament org to refrain >from issuing card play rulings is the confusion it would cause. If you >couldn't (for instance) push votes in a DC tournament but the design team >continually issued rulings stating you could, what would inevitably happen is: > >1) Incidents of tournament misrulings by judges using the DT's ruling >compendiums would be rife. > >2) Many informal games would be interrupted midway by arguments between >some players wanting to use the DC rules and others favoring the DT's rulings. >Such arguments would be difficult to resolve as both sides complain that "I >built my deck assuming this way of playing the game..." > >Much as I agree with the rules complaints expressed in this group, the >Convocation should stick to issuing deck construction rules ONLY. Any >deviance from that (special situations like Magic's Ring of Ma'Ruf excepted) >would invite anarchy and generally detract from the game. The design team >must be the ones to fix these problems. These are also good reasons why the DC doesn't involve itself in changing the rules, yes (though #1 could be at least partially solved by the DC making sure it sent out ruling compendiums using what it considered to be the rules, when a conflict occurred). [ quoted text not captured ]

On 16 Oct 1995, Alec Habig wrote: > THeerm <the...@aol.com> wrote: > > > >Instead of worrying about card backs and ratios, how about just letting > >one or more of your opponents shuffle your deck if they choose, whether > >its mixed or not? > > In a related vein, one non-sleeve related fix : your predator or prey can cut > your decks at any time. If this is done, the deck-peeking Nosferatu are > allowed to repeek immediately. > Hi Alec, Hmmmm, I don't know about this one. It requires a certain amount of fair play from the players allowed to cut, otherwise you would draw all of your Jyhad or Vampire backs in a row.... It would work fine in my group, but then, my group wouldn't need it. I would hate to chance it at a tourney though. I think I'll wate for White Wolf card sleaves and play them. It is unlikely WOC will ever sponsor anything besides magic tournements in my area.... Algustas *****A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment.***** Willis Player

jhun...@io.com (J. Hunter Johnson) writes: >I've got that there have never been any sanctioned Jyhad tourneys. I believe the Manafest Jyhad tourney was advertised as a "sanctioned tourney". Fred

s2...@nmu.edu (Dave Andrews) wrote: >"James R. McClure Jr." wrote: >>s2...@nmu.edu (Dave Andrews) wrote: >>>I think that ruling out vote pushing would be a huge mistake, since it would >>>pretty much require presence for a voting deck. My Nosferatu voting deck, >>>which doesn't win a lot but is a blast to play, would never even be a factor >>>at all if I couldn't push my own votes. I think we can find a solution to put >>>an end to the unfair advantage of weenie voters without ruining other >>>strategies that add variety and flavor to the game. > >>You are playing an unusual deck (kind of like a Blue "blast" deck in Mt$). Clans >>with Presense are supposed to be the strong political ones, those with Dominate >>the big bleeders, those with Auspex the interceptors, etc. You are playing a clan >>that isn't well suited toward politics (kind of like building a Brujah S&B deck). > >I want to be free to do the unusual. That's why I play CCG's as opposed to >Monopoly or something where the game board is always the same. We can find a >solution that fixes the problems and still allows people to be creative, >rather than to be spoon fed their deck construction (You must use this clan >for this deck, and that one for that deck....) Peace Dave, You are free to do the unusual, as long as you are willing to accept that playing a clan that is weak in politics means that you will do poorly against a political deck based on Ventrue/Toreador. A Brujah S&B deck could never hope to be as ef- fective as a Malkavian one, nor can a Malk combat deck be as effective as a Brujah one. This doesn't mean that you aren't free to build them. It just means that you have to be willing to accept that you are placing yourself at a disadvantage init- ially by choosing that clan(s). Pushing votes encourages degeneracy in politics when there are other solutions which work (though not a cheaply). Given the Presence vote modifiers and the disciplineless (sp) mods, I don't believe that vote decks need to push votes anymore than Bleeding needs to be a +1 stealth action (it is much too easy to block it, after all). [ quoted text not captured ]

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >>>>Less stringent limits can hold down the offensive untaps without >>>>demolishing the game, but the all-vote problem is not amenable to any >>>>simple card limit solution. >>.>..Have you actually >>>tried running KRC decks under the restricted list (of 2 or of 6)... >>One person in our group did build a KRC deck under 6-card. It always >>ousted at least one person, sometimes 2 or 3, but was never the last deck >>standing. Still, it made the game so unfun for the first prey that >>several people simply would not play if it was in the game. There were >>also some weird alterations to the usual predator-prey interactions from >>trying to stop him. >Well, "unfun" decks are inevitable in any game, especially when one is >gunning for tournament play. I'm surprised you're so pessimistic. I disagree with respect to Jyhad; I believe that apart from the three big broken card issues, there are no grossly unfair decks that are unfun to play against. >The results of that player's experiment >indicate that the restricted list is a viable bandaid for KRC decks, >and stops them from being degenerate, which was really all it was >intended to do. a) It was 6-card limits, not 2. b) He didn't have a lot of Praxis Seizures. c) It doesn't show that normal vote decks can win with 6-card limits on aggressive votes. Nobody is saying that tight limits on aggressive vote cards won't stop KRC decks (although there is some disputation on how tight the limits need to be). The claim is that if KRC doesn't work, neither does Ventrue vote or Toreador vote or Brujah bruise-and-vote or whatever. >Altering predator-prey interactions to stop the leading >player doesn't strike me as unusual, either. When someone is concerned with slowing a Meth soon to be their predator, that's normal. When the whole table drops the predator-prey relationships to put the brakes on somebody, that's abnormal. That's an arrangement typical of multiplayer games, and tends to lead to stalemates. Presumably avoiding the "stop the leader" tendency is the reason Garfield put predator-prey into the game. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >>Well, "unfun" decks are inevitable in any game, especially when one is >>gunning for tournament play. >I'm surprised you're so pessimistic. I disagree with respect to Jyhad; I >believe that apart from the three big broken card issues, there are no >grossly unfair decks that are unfun to play against. I define "unfair" as being a subset of "unfun". I don't consider being walked over by a Malkavian stealth and bleed deck to be very fun, and in fact roughly the VTES equivalent of a red direct damage deck, but I don't see either deck as being "unfair". >>The results of that player's experiment >>indicate that the restricted list is a viable bandaid for KRC decks, >>and stops them from being degenerate, which was really all it was >>intended to do. >a) It was 6-card limits, not 2. >b) He didn't have a lot of Praxis Seizures. >c) It doesn't show that normal vote decks can win with 6-card limits on >aggressive votes. Nobody is saying that tight limits on aggressive vote >cards won't stop KRC decks (although there is some disputation on how >tight the limits need to be). The claim is that if KRC doesn't work, >neither does Ventrue vote or Toreador vote or Brujah bruise-and-vote or >whatever. And how many non-degenerate decks *require* having more than 6 of any given political action? Any deck that relies on a single political action (or combat card, or bleed modifier card) is, in some sense, degenerate, even if it diversifies into cards not directly related to political actions. [ quoted text not captured ]

Thomas R Wylie (aa...@cats.ucsc.edu) wrote: : And how many non-degenerate decks *require* having more than 6 of any : given political action? Any deck that relies on a single political : action (or combat card, or bleed modifier card) is, in some sense, degenerate, : even if it diversifies into cards not directly related to political actions. So are you also saying that any deck which requires more than 6 Bum's Rush is also degenerate? I mean, come _on_ people! Surely there have to be other way sto get your minions into combat, right? Kine Recources Contested (along with Conservative Agitation) provide the mainstays of any Political deck, much the same as Bum's Rush (and Haven Uncovered) are the mainstay in any rush combat deck. Sure, there are other ways to vote-damage a prey, much as there are other ways to get into combat, but none so effective (and iunrestricted) as these two cards. Would you say that a Brujah deck with 14 Bum's Rush and 6 Haven Uncovered was degenerate? And if not, then why say the same thing about a Ventrue Vote deck with comparable numbers of comparable cards? Shane H.W. Travis | I try to take one day at a time, tra...@duke.usask.ca | but sometimes several days attack at once. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | -- Ashleigh Brilliant

curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) writes: >aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >>CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >A good deck is not walked over by Malkavian bleed. Many of my decks >downright enjoy Malkavian predators. Malk decks are neither unfun nor >unfair. In my last game, I had an ANSI Standard MALK S&B coming at me An appropriately timed deflection can work wonders for eliminating your prey instead of being ousted. So Tele Misd and Deflection shoud be in your deck if you can use them They are jsut too handy. Especially Superior dominate Deflection doesn't tap. Just food for thought on S&B Stu >Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com) -- Stu Pieloch TLTT Players-Lord High And Mighty Potentate of the Known Universe DramaTech Theatre Improv Troupe http://photobooks.gatech.edu/~zync/lttp.html GE/T/S d++(--) H(-) s++:- g+(-) p2 au++ a- w+++(--) v++ C++ U N++ W---() M+ V-- po+++(---) t--- 5+++ G+++ B--- e++ u++ f+ r++ n--- y*

aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes: >CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >>>Well, "unfun" decks are inevitable in any game, especially when one is >>>gunning for tournament play. >>I'm surprised you're so pessimistic. I disagree with respect to Jyhad; I >>believe that apart from the three big broken card issues, there are no >>grossly unfair decks that are unfun to play against. >I define "unfair" as being a subset of "unfun". I don't consider being walked >over by a Malkavian stealth and bleed deck to be very fun, and in fact >roughly the VTES equivalent of a red direct damage deck, but I don't >see either deck as being "unfair". A good deck is not walked over by Malkavian bleed. Many of my decks downright enjoy Malkavian predators. Malk decks are neither unfun nor unfair. >>>The results of that player's experiment >>>indicate that the restricted list is a viable bandaid for KRC decks, >>>and stops them from being degenerate, which was really all it was >>>intended to do. >>a) It was 6-card limits, not 2. >>b) He didn't have a lot of Praxis Seizures. >>c) It doesn't show that normal vote decks can win with 6-card limits on >>aggressive votes. Nobody is saying that tight limits on aggressive vote >>cards won't stop KRC decks (although there is some disputation on how >>tight the limits need to be). The claim is that if KRC doesn't work, >>neither does Ventrue vote or Toreador vote or Brujah bruise-and-vote or >>whatever. >And how many non-degenerate decks *require* having more than 6 of any >given political action? With only 2 simple damage prey votes? Virtually all of them. How well would bleed decks do if they were only allowed 12 medium-sized bleeds per game? >Any deck that relies on a single political >action (or combat card, or bleed modifier card) is, in some sense, degenerate, >even if it diversifies into cards not directly related to political actions. If that's you're definition of degenerate, what's wrong with degeneracy? This sounds like a M:tg mentality. As I've pointed out before, Jyhad has many important unduplicated cards without decent substitutes. Heavy reliance on particular cards is quite normal. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)