Just wanted to let you know that I have compiled all the questions into a
big document to take to the Rules Team, and will get the answers posted as
soon as they give them to me.
Some questions from Mr. Burke: What is the general impression of Sabbat?
Do you think it will bring new players to the game? What now (what's the
next expansion, IYHO)?
Quick tip: Go see Long Kiss Goodnight. Talk about mindless mayhem...
-------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Wilkie Wot...@aol.com
a.k.a."Scalpel" Customer Service, Wizards of the Coast
"This isn't going to have a happy ending"
-Detective Somerset, Se7en
-------------------------------------------------------------
>Wot...@aol.com (Jon Wilkie) writes:>>Some questions from Mr. Burke: What is the general impression of Sabbat?
>>Do you think it will bring new players to the game? What now (what's the
>>next expansion, IYHO)?>>Take a look at any of the articles with Sabbat in the title. I've glanced at
>the spoiler list and read the articles, and I hope it isn't as unbalancing
>as it sounds.
>Maybe if you could tell us what WotC's aim was with the Sabbat? I don't mean
>market wise, I mean game wise.
I'd like to know as well. How does WotC go about playtesting a game? How do
you determine if a card is broken? It seems to me that there are *alot* of
cards in Sabbat that are trump cards (the biggest problem w/M:tG) or are very,
very overpowered.
I am really saddened by the new expansion.
Sorrow
--
I don't want to be alone | I hurt, therefore I am
anymore |--------------------------------
I don't want to be anyone | "What are you looking at...?
anymore | you never seen anyone try to
I don't need a reason to kill myself | commit suicide before?" - Anon
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Just wanted to let you know that I have compiled all the questions into a
> big document to take to the Rules Team, and will get the answers posted
as
> soon as they give them to me.
Good.
> Some questions from Mr. Burke: What is the general impression of Sabbat?> Do you think it will bring new players to the game? What now (what's the
> next expansion, IYHO)?
My general impression is nice art, but many bad and unbalancing cards. It
may bring new players to the game (nice packaging), however I think you may
loose many old players.
> Quick tip: Go see Long Kiss Goodnight. Talk about mindless mayhem...
Hmmm. Mindless mayhem. That pretty much describes The Sabbat...
Steve Bucy
Jon wrote:
"Some questions from Mr. Burke: What is the general impression of Sabbat?
Do you think it will bring new players to the game?"
Hmm, I guess I should put in my 2 pool in regards to this whole Sabbat
debacle. From my viewpoint, the very bad things are:
-The bigger vampires are mostly out of control. Way too many middle size
vampires (6-8) with too many disciplines and/or abilities. For instance,
there are a bunch of 6 point vampires that have 2 superior disciplines, 2
inferior disciplines, as well as +1 bleed or +1 hand damage. Where does
this leave Zack North, Bianca, and Adrianne, for instance? All of the
original set 6 point vampires (except for Anvil) are now completely
obsolete. Very very wack.
-Strike: Opponent goes to torpor. Yeah, like the Malkavians need this
ability. Like anyone needs this ability. Great. Very very wack.
-Way too many potent anti-clan master cards. All of the original
anti-clan masters were ok, but usually not worth putting in a deck, unless
you know you are playing against the appropriate clan. The only way to do
this is to have a "side board" (hey! wait a minute...) deal going, which
is lame, or say "well, I'm playing Jack tonight, so I'll put in 6 Brujah
Frenzy" which is equally as lame, and a good way to not make friends. The
new anti-clan master are absurdly potent, to the point that there is no
good reason to not have them in your deck, like the one the BURNS an
anti-brujah. Uh, yeah, whatever. Anti-clan trump cards were a bad idea
in the original set, but they were not that good, so it didn't matter
much. In the Sabbat, they are still a bad idea, except now they are way
too good. These kinds of cards make me think "Hey. I could get the same
sort of thing by playing Bridge, except a Bridge deck only costs $2.95"
-Direct Intervention? I think someone mistyped "Counterspell". There
were many reasons I stopped playing Magic:The Wackness in favor of Jyhad.
They just introduced one of them to Jyahd. Great.
-A great deal of "Power" rares. In the original set, for the most part,
the Rare cards were amusing, interesting, and certainly helpful in the
right decks, but not clearly too useful. This does not seem to be the
case in this set.
On the good side, the art is very nice, and the "Permutation" cards(the
cards that take a basic card concept and add a point here or there for the
appropriate cost, like the 1 blood first round Growing Fury card and the
various Fortitude damage resistance cards) are all pretty cool, and won't
break anything. If only there weren't so many glaring mistakes.
I suspect that if Sabbat aids in bringing in new players, it will only do
so at the expense of alienating old dedicated ones, which is never a good
idea.
Peter D Bakija
PD...@aol.com
"Look at me. I'm way cool. I'm off with my way
cool friends to sniff floor wax."
-Brian Krackow
Wot...@aol.com (Jon Wilkie) writes:
>Just wanted to let you know that I have compiled all the questions into a
>big document to take to the Rules Team, and will get the answers posted as
>soon as they give them to me.
Just for my own gratification, can I know what constitutes "all the
questions"? Without your feedback as questions are asked (like, "OK,
I'll add this to the list"), it's impossible to know whether you've
seen certain questions, and easy to assume that you haven't.
>Some questions from Mr. Burke: What is the general impression of Sabbat?>Do you think it will bring new players to the game? What now (what's the
>next expansion, IYHO)?
There is no general impression yet - it's not out yet for us to
experiment with. The first glance at the spoiler list and the
rules sheet, however, shows (an expected) lack of
proofreading/balance-testing. Judging only on the ways in which
the vampires obviously out-class the old ones and the
less-obvious way in which trump cards are becoming the standard,
things don't look good. I had to put together a long list of
house rules to "fix" the numerous cards from DS that weren't
balanced properly. I don't look forward to having to do that
again with an expansion the size of the Sabbat (with apparently
a geopmetric increase in the number of improperly balanced cards).
But, first impression of the card art seems high. You guys really
out did yourselves there. But that will only sell cards, it won't
make the game any better.
--
L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | I don't suffer from insanity.
http://www.math.sc.edu/cgi-bin/sjohnson/home | I enjoy every minute of it.
Graphics Specialist and V:tES Rulemonger. |
Wot...@aol.com (Jon Wilkie) writes:
>Some questions from Mr. Burke: What is the general impression of Sabbat?
>Do you think it will bring new players to the game? What now (what's the
>next expansion, IYHO)?
Take a look at any of the articles with Sabbat in the title. I've glanced at
the spoiler list and read the articles, and I hope it isn't as unbalancing
as it sounds.
Maybe if you could tell us what WotC's aim was with the Sabbat? I don't mean
market wise, I mean game wise.
Mike
On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, Jon Wilkie wrote:
> Some questions from Mr. Burke: What is the general impression of Sabbat?
> Do you think it will bring new players to the game? What now (what's the
> next expansion, IYHO)?
Isn't that obvious? The Black Hand. You can't go and do a whole Sabbat
expansion without so much as MENTIONING the hand (in non-flavor text)
unless you plan on giving them their own expansion. Include material on
the False hand, infiltrators in the Sabbat and Camarilla by the True Hand.
Especially include Sabbat Assamites, Serpents of the Light, and Ravnos.
Ignore all of the bits about Time-Travelling True Brujah, however.
Jeffrey Raglin <jra...@cs.clemson.edu> writes:
>
>
>On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, Jon Wilkie wrote:
>>> Do you think it will bring new players to the game? What now (what's the
>> next expansion, IYHO)?>
>Isn't that obvious? The Black Hand. You can't go and do a whole Sabbat
>expansion without so much as MENTIONING the hand (in non-flavor text)
>unless you plan on giving them their own expansion. Include material on
>the False hand, infiltrators in the Sabbat and Camarilla by the True Hand.
The Black Hand, yeah. That's the subsect that makes Sabbat afraid, right ?
If those Sabbat guys are afraid of them, then what will they look like
when pitted against the Camarilla wimps that made up our pitiful decks
until these days ?
>Especially include Sabbat Assamites, Serpents of the Light, and Ravnos.
>Ignore all of the bits about Time-Travelling True Brujah, however.
>
I haven't seen the cards yet. My playgroup plans on first playing Sabbat-only
in a limited environment to see what they're like. If we ever get to
unlimited mixing, the new clans will have the same problem as the
non-Camarilla have: too few vampires to choose from. Especially now that most
Cam clans have *ten* more (barring the discipline differences for a few
clans).
--
Philippe Duchon (duc...@labri.u-bordeaux.fr)
pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote:
>Hmm, I guess I should put in my 2 pool in regards to this whole Sabbat
>debacle. From my viewpoint, the very bad things are:
>
>-The bigger vampires are mostly out of control. Way too many middle size
>vampires (6-8) with too many disciplines and/or abilities. For instance,
>there are a bunch of 6 point vampires that have 2 superior disciplines, 2
>inferior disciplines, as well as +1 bleed or +1 hand damage. Where does
>this leave Zack North, Bianca, and Adrianne, for instance? All of the
>original set 6 point vampires (except for Anvil) are now completely
>obsolete. Very very wack.
Have to agree there, wonder why they did that? I don't have the
chance right now to look carefully at the mid-range Sabbat vampires (my
cards are with someone else), so is it possible that some of their
disciplines are non-standard to make up for the extra discipline levels? I
remember that one gangrel antitribu had superior obfuscate, which I don't
find very useful.
>-Strike: Opponent goes to torpor. Yeah, like the Malkavians need this
>ability. Like anyone needs this ability. Great. Very very wack.
I find Coma to be powerful but not ridiculous. It does cost three blood and
does no damage to the torpored vampire so there's no chance of burning. I
find Coma to be one of the few cards that makes Dementation interesting
since most of the other cards are just stealth/bleed cards. Besides, in a
tournament situation anyone playing Malkavian antitribu is going to play
them for stealth/bleed, not for combat.
>-Way too many potent anti-clan master cards. All of the original
>anti-clan masters were ok, but usually not worth putting in a deck, unless
>you know you are playing against the appropriate clan. The only way to do
>this is to have a "side board" (hey! wait a minute...) deal going, which
>is lame, or say "well, I'm playing Jack tonight, so I'll put in 6 Brujah
>Frenzy" which is equally as lame, and a good way to not make friends. The
>new anti-clan master are absurdly potent, to the point that there is no
>good reason to not have them in your deck, like the one the BURNS an
>anti-brujah. Uh, yeah, whatever. Anti-clan trump cards were a bad idea
>in the original set, but they were not that good, so it didn't matter
>much. In the Sabbat, they are still a bad idea, except now they are way
>too good. These kinds of cards make me think "Hey. I could get the same
>sort of thing by playing Bridge, except a Bridge deck only costs $2.95"
They are powerful, but look at how many clans there are. In Magic, there
are only five colors but even then people will uaually only put
'color-hosers' in the sideboard. In Vampire there are now, what, 22 clans
including Catiff and Panders. That's pretty low odds that a powerful
anti-clan card is going to be of any use. I'm not sure I'll be using any
anti-clan cards just cause chances are they'll take up space in my deck for
no purpose. And don't forget Sudden Reversal got reprinted.
>-Direct Intervention? I think someone mistyped "Counterspell". There
>were many reasons I stopped playing Magic:The Wackness in favor of Jyhad.
>They just introduced one of them to Jyahd. Great.
I agree wholeheartedly with you on this one, this card did not need to
exist. I consider it pretty abuseable and could see whole decks built
around it. The last thing I want to see is a Vampire "permission" deck.
>I suspect that if Sabbat aids in bringing in new players, it will only do
>so at the expense of alienating old dedicated ones, which is never a good
>idea.
I like the set but obviously can only speak for myself.
Glen McKay (Mishra Worker)
Mishras Worker wrote:
"is it possible that some of their disciplines are non-standard to make up
for the extra discipline levels? I remember that one gangrel antitribu
had superior obfuscate, which I don't find very useful."
I think the new vampires are, in fact, "paying" less for out of clan
disciplines, which may or may not be a good idea, but regardless, should
not have been implimented simply because it makes all the old vampires who
"payed" full points obsolete. Zack North, for instance, "pays" a full
point (or slot or whatever) for his out of clan Potence, as well as 2
points (or whatever) for his +1 hand damage. As new 6 point vampires
don't pay a full point for out of clan disciplines and don't pay 2 points
for +1 hand damage, Zack is now clearly outclassed by the newer vampires.
This is bad. All big vampires have out of clan disciplines, and they
should very well pay something for them. Wheither or not these
disciplines are useful at first glance is not particularly important,as
someone will find a way to make them useful in some deck, and all of the
original (now mostly obsolete) vampires payed full points for them.
Implimenting a new vampire building system that makes new 6 point vampires
clearly better than old 6 point vampires (for instance) was extremely
irresponsible of WotC, in terms of game design.
"I find Coma to be powerful but not ridiculous."
Yeah, I don't really think it is a game breaker or anything, just sort of
icky as a concept. I mean I'll still Immortally Grapple them and kill
them, but its the principal of the thing :-)
"That's pretty low odds that a powerful anti-clan card is going to be of
any use. I'm not sure I'll be using any anti-clan cards just cause
chances are they'll take up space in my deck for no purpose."
You are completely correct on this. Anti-clan hosers have always been a
sore point with me. They are in the game as sort of a "balancing" device,
but they fail in that they are completely uncertain as there are so many
clans. As a result of the uncertainy, by all deck building conventions,
anti-clan hosers are a waste of deck space, unless you know they will be
useful. Thus, the only reason to use them is because you know your
opponents will be playing a certain clan, but if you put Brujah Frenzy in
your deck because you know you will be playing against Jack, who always
likes to use the Brujah, you will A) Have a defenite advantage, and B) be
being a big weenie. The new anti-clan hosers are much more powerful than
the old ones, but still just as unlikely to be useful. Thus, with inside
information (you know Josh likes to always play anti-Brujah) you gain a
huge advantage with the new anti-clan hosers, when you shouldn't be
playing with them to begin with.
"I like the set but obviously can only speak for myself. "
I don't think it is as destructive to the game as many people do, and will
play with it, but I really think that many many mistakes were made, and
the game will suffer as a whole. Most of the cards in the set are
perfectly acceptable if not really cool. Some of the cards, on the other
hand, are just plain wrong. The new vampires (bigger than 5) are for the
most part just plain better than their contemporaries. Again, this will
not break the game, but it is wrong in terms of game balance. Now, an old
vampire whos capacity is 9 will have fewer disciplines (and thus be less
flexible) or less useful special abilities than their new contemporary 9
pointer.
[ quoted text not captured ]
In article <555m6b$o...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, mboh...@students.uiuc.edu (michael charles bohlmann) writes:
> Wot...@aol.com (Jon Wilkie) writes:
>
> >Some questions from Mr. Burke: What is the general impression of Sabbat?> >Do you think it will bring new players to the game? What now (what's the
> >next expansion, IYHO)?
>> Take a look at any of the articles with Sabbat in the title. I've glanced at
> the spoiler list and read the articles, and I hope it isn't as unbalancing
> as it sounds.
>
Actually, people hopping up and down over brokenness is what
card.net.groups are all about. I remember `I can't play with Dark Sovereigns,
it's broken!', not too mention the old T:oG quote `Antiquities will break the
game!'. Jyhad (yes, jyhad) benefits MORE from expansions than other games, as
the inherant card/blood/discipline/clan requems are all laid down, and I
haven't seen an unbalanced card yet.
As for `Appolonius is obsolete!' complaints, I can only shake my head
and sigh. These are the same people who noticed in the beggining that
Appolonius always sucked. Making 10s good enough to pack is good, as people
will actually pack 10s.
> Mike
>
Ritaxis
In article <WotCCST-2910...@w11-63.wizards.com>
Wot...@aol.com (Jon Wilkie) writes:
>Just wanted to let you know that I have compiled all the questions into a
>big document to take to the Rules Team, and will get the answers posted as
>soon as they give them to me.
Thanks!
>Some questions from Mr. Burke:
>What is the general impression of Sabbat?
Card titles come to mind:
Out of Control
Screw Up the Masquerade
There is widespread escalation in the set, and a number of cards
that out-and-out break the game, at least as a balanced game
with some subtlety to deck design and play. It's worse than
I'd feared, and I was expecting escalation and problems. But
there are some obviously flawed cards:
1) Strike: opposing vampire goes to torpor. This breaks combat.
Now, you can't survive combat unless you play S:CE or dodge.
At least against aggro damage, you could maneuver to a
safe range, or prevent it.
2) Recruitment
Building a crypt used to be an exercise in balancing clans,
ensuring that enough of them had the disciplines you wanted
to use, and deciding whether or not to duplicate valuable
vamipres. All that goes out the window. What on earth
were you thinking? (Don't answer that, it's painfully
obvious that no one did much thinking.)
3) Angelica The Canonicus
Allowing the player an unlimited discard of Master cards? That alone
breaks part of the game. But allowing a discard of X for a benefit?
Hand jam, especially of master cards, is one of the key elements
of play and deckbuilding. Gone, at least for everyone who puts
this vampire in their crypt.
4) Breaking limits:
a) only one +bleed action modifier. (Command of the Beast)
b) only one extra strike card/source per combat round
(Quickness)
When the game first came out, it was pretty clear that
violating these restrictions made for an unbalanced game.
Because the rules weren't clear, people played without one,
the other, or both of these limitations. The game works
much better with them. Why the heck did you do this? You
should know better!
>Do you think it will bring new players to the game?
It might bring in some MtG power munchkins. It *will*
drive away a lot of long-time players. On balance, I
think you'll lose a little in the short run, and a
lot in the long run.
>What now (what's the next expansion, IYHO)?
What now? Well, WotC won't be supporting the balanced
game that I know and like, so I have to try to keep
people interested in playing without more expansions.
As for the next expansion, I doubt that there will
be one.
--
Tom Doehne
doe...@cse.ogi.edu
doe...@church.cse.ogi.edu (Thomas Doehne) writes:
>1) Strike: opposing vampire goes to torpor. This breaks combat.
>Now, you can't survive combat unless you play S:CE or dodge.
>At least against aggro damage, you could maneuver to a
>safe range, or prevent it.
Coma only works at close range, so you can still maneuver to a safe
range. It doesn't seem any more powerful than, say, Rowan Ring.
[ quoted text not captured ]