Hey, impressed though I am by the many planet-sized intellects beavering
away at card fixes I'm STILL not convinced that we need to do anything at
all. However, as Churchill once said a fanatic is someone who doesn't
agree with you and won't change the subject, and I am MUCH too indolent to
be a fanatic. So, I propose the ADDITION of the following two new cards to
the Jyhad/VTES set, to be acceptably representable by proxies at any level
of Jyhad/VTES play:
RULES TEAM
Costs 3 pool
Unique Ally, 1 life, 0 hand damage, 0 bleed.
Rules team may not play action cards and may not acquire equipment by any
means whatsoever. Rules team may take an unblockable action to call a
vote, that will change any one word in the text of any Jyhad card to any
other word. If the vote passes, that card has the wording suggested until
the end of the game. Once voting has been completed, control of Rules Team
passes to the player on your right.
NEWSGROUP
Costs 2 pool
Unique Ally, X life where X = number of players currently in game, 0
bleed, 0 hand damage.
Newsgroup cannot be played unless Information Highway is in play. If
Information Highway leaves play, burn the Newsgroup. Newsgroup may not
play action cards and may not acquire equipment by any means whatsoever.
Newsgroup may take an action at +1 stealth to name any card in any VTES or
Jyhad basic set or expansion. If the action is successful, all Methuselahs
must search their library, Ashheap, in-play area and hand to locate all
copies of this card, which are then removed from the game. Control of the
Newsgroup then passes to the player on your right.
Legbiter, a Methuselah of Very Little Brain ......
Legbiter wrote:
"Hey, impressed though I am by the many planet-sized intellects beavering away
at card fixes I'm STILL not convinced that we need to do anything at all.
However, as Churchill once said a fanatic is someone who doesn't agree with you
and won't change the subject, and I am MUCH too indolent to be a fanatic. So, I
propose the ADDITION of the following two new cards to the Jyhad/VTES set, to
be acceptably representable by proxies at any level
of Jyhad/VTES play:"
Wow. What fools we were. Thank you for straightening us out and showing us
the error of our ways.
Rather than using this newsgroup as a forum for discussing the balance of the
game and developing interesting threads on game theory and balance, let us
instead use it solely as an outlet for our bad jokes.
...and boy, are my arms tired.
Peter D Bakija
PD...@aol.com
"They come at night.
Mostly."
-Newt
In article <19980316025...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, pd...@aol.com
(PDB6) wrote:
> Legbiter wrote:
>
> "Hey, impressed though I am by the many planet-sized intellects beavering away
> at card fixes I'm STILL not convinced that we need to do anything at all.
> However, as Churchill once said a fanatic is someone who doesn't agree
with you
> and won't change the subject, and I am MUCH too indolent to be a
fanatic. So, I
> propose the ADDITION of the following two new cards to the Jyhad/VTES set, to
> be acceptably representable by proxies at any level
> of Jyhad/VTES play:"
>
> Wow. What fools we were. Thank you for straightening us out and showing us
> the error of our ways.
WHOA!! Steady, matey!! As a fully paid-up Malkavian I INSIST on being the
only card-carrying fool in this newsgroup .....
>
> Rather than using this newsgroup as a forum for discussing the balance of the
> game and developing interesting threads on game theory and balance, let us
> instead use it solely as an outlet for our bad jokes.
Nope, sorry, you need a Malkavian union card for that too. Course, for a
small fee and a convincing demonstration of complete loopinees, I can
arrange not only a card but also a complimentary copy of Legbiter's Bumper
Book of Jests, Taunts and Jibes will positively WING its way towards you
....
> ...and boy, are my arms tired.
>
>
Hehehe .. sorry about your arms, matey, and no personal insult intended.
However, though my original post was tongue-in-cheek it's not altogether a
joke. I do like reading about people's ideas on making the game better.
I'm not anti-change for the sake of contrariness .. for example, i
thoroughly support Lupus's idea on de-disciplining concealed weapon
[which, i just noticed, is actually supported by card text ... "minion" in
concealed weapon, "vampire" in disguised weapon]. It's just that I
disagree with the prevailing consensus that banning or modifying a raft of
powerful cards is obviously right. So, I proposed a couple of fun cards to
make everyone happy!
The effect of those cards would be that whenever a group of players felt
strongly about the inappropriateness of a card they could squash it or
modify it IN GAME. Sounds to me like a lot of you out there would quite
like this. I personally, and Jason, take a different view. This compromise
allows you guys to do what you want in your games [and in games where you
are the majority] without queering the pitch for the vocal but obviously
not-very-amusing minority represented by ourselves.
Hey, for me that was pretty reasonable, doncha think? Almost, well,
developing an interesting thread on game theory and balance .....
>The effect of those cards would be that whenever a group of players felt
>strongly about the inappropriateness of a card they could squash it or
>modify it IN GAME. Sounds to me like a lot of you out there would quite
>like this. I personally, and Jason, take a different view. This compromise
>allows you guys to do what you want in your games [and in games where you
>are the majority] without queering the pitch for the vocal but obviously
>not-very-amusing minority represented by ourselves.
>
>Hey, for me that was pretty reasonable, doncha think? Almost, well,
>developing an interesting thread on game theory and balance .....
Oh, come now. You can't be serious about trying to play with the
cards.
Night Moves:
(D) Oust your predator or prey at +3 stealth. If more than one pool
is bled with this action, ignore the excess.
(D) As above, but at +6 stealth.
In article <350d7118....@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, gaus...@uiuc.edu
(David Gausebeck) wrote:
> >The effect of those cards would be that whenever a group of players felt
> >strongly about the inappropriateness of a card they could squash it or
> >modify it IN GAME. Sounds to me like a lot of you out there would quite
> >like this. I personally, and Jason, take a different view. This compromise
> >allows you guys to do what you want in your games [and in games where you
> >are the majority] without queering the pitch for the vocal but obviously
> >not-very-amusing minority represented by ourselves.
> >
> >Hey, for me that was pretty reasonable, doncha think? Almost, well,
> >developing an interesting thread on game theory and balance .....
>
> Oh, come now. You can't be serious about trying to play with the
> cards.
Sniff. Sob. And there was me trying to be all constructive. Blub.
>
> Night Moves:
> (D) Oust your predator or prey at +3 stealth. If more than one pool
> is bled with this action, ignore the excess.
> (D) As above, but at +6 stealth.
Well, sure. If it takes 1 pool to oust your predator or prey, s/he is out.
If not, s/he is still in. That particular word change has no game effect
at all!
Still, this is a thread worth pursuing. What single-word changes can we
think of that really WOULD chuff things up???
>> Night Moves:
>> (D) Oust your predator or prey at +3 stealth. If more than one pool
>> is bled with this action, ignore the excess.
>> (D) As above, but at +6 stealth.>
>Well, sure. If it takes 1 pool to oust your predator or prey, s/he is out.
>If not, s/he is still in. That particular word change has no game effect
>at all!
no no no...
You can oust someone without bleeding them for any pool whatsoever.
They just leave the game. The second sentence there has no effect
since the card is no longer a bleed action.
If you want more examples, though:
Misdirection:
Master.
Burn X minions.
Unnatural Disaster:
Master.
Burn any card.
Letter From Vienna:
Master.
Burn all ready Tremere.
Second change to Letter From Vienna:
Master.
Burn all ready (clan or card type of choice).
Malkavian Dementia:
Master.
You control a ready minion that another Methuselah controls until your
next untap phase.
Second change on Malkavian Dementia:
Master.
You control a ready minion that another Methuselah controls until your
hundredth untap phase.
Effective Management:
Bring a vampire from your crypt to your active region.
Army of Rats:
+1 stealth
If successful, the Army of Rats is in play. During your untap each
round your prey loses 1 minion. Any minion can burn an Army of Rats
with a (D) action.
I'm sure I could come with more and worse ones. This is just from
flipping through a pile of cards I had handy.
Changing a single word can have dramatic effects, and is likely to
generate a lot more trouble than it resolves. What if you make a card
into complete nonsense? And it would be pretty hard to fix a lot of
cards that people want to fix just by changing one word. It's much
easier to abuse than to use as you intended it.
Sorry.
(Legbiter) wrote:
> (David Gausebeck) wrote:
> > > [Legbiter describes a fictional card that allows word-changes to
> > > other cards]> >
> > Night Moves:
> > (D) Oust your predator or prey at +3 stealth. If more than one pool
> > is bled with this action, ignore the excess.
> > (D) As above, but at +6 stealth.
>
> Well, sure. If it takes 1 pool to oust your predator or prey, s/he is out.
> If not, s/he is still in. That particular word change has no game effect
> at all!
The word-altered Night Moves is not a bleed action, so no pool would
be bled. So the second sentence is ignored. The action, if successful,
would simply oust the target (prey or predator? difficult decision :-)
That particular word change has a dramatic effect.
--
L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com)
Official VtES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast.
(*) - Subject to review by Rules Tea
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
In article <350e9bec....@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, gaus...@uiuc.edu
(David Gausebeck) wrote:
> >> Night Moves:
> >> (D) Oust your predator or prey at +3 stealth. If more than one pool
> >> is bled with this action, ignore the excess.
> >> (D) As above, but at +6 stealth.
> >
> >Well, sure. If it takes 1 pool to oust your predator or prey, s/he is out.
> >If not, s/he is still in. That particular word change has no game effect
> >at all!
>> no no no...
> You can oust someone without bleeding them for any pool whatsoever.
> They just leave the game. The second sentence there has no effect
> since the card is no longer a bleed action.
Cor, I didn't know that. I thought ousting was something that happened to
you when you ran out of pool. Nice one!
>
> If you want more examples, though:
>
> Misdirection:
> Master.
> Burn X minions.
Good one!
>
> Unnatural Disaster:
> Master.
> Burn any card.
BZZZ!! That's removing a word and not replacing it.
[ quoted text not captured ]
WAYHAY!!! The Prodigal Methuselah is returned to his Country! Give him Vitae!!!
What if you make a card
> into complete nonsense?
Well, a lot of people would vote for it then, if they felt threatened by
it. Then you slap a Voter Captivation down and gloat maniacally.
And it would be pretty hard to fix a lot of
> cards that people want to fix just by changing one word. It's much
> easier to abuse than to use as you intended it.
>
> Sorry.
Why are you sorry??? I think these are all terrific and creative and JUST
the kind of thing to lead to fisticuffs at the Jyhad table. And they make
the point, much better than i could have done, that endlessly tinkering
with card texts is ultimately sterile. Which is where I came in! Gotta
hand it to you matey, if you want my post as Jester to the Court of the
Newsgroup you could probably have it ....
>> Unnatural Disaster:
>> Master.
>> Burn any card.>
>BZZZ!! That's removing a word and not replacing it.
I believe the original text was
Master.
Burn any location.
location->card
>Why are you sorry??? I think these are all terrific and creative and JUST
>the kind of thing to lead to fisticuffs at the Jyhad table. And they make
>the point, much better than i could have done, that endlessly tinkering
>with card texts is ultimately sterile. Which is where I came in! Gotta
oh ok... I thought the intent was to actually let people make changes
that they thought would improve the game by paying much more than it
was worth :)
I think it's certainly clear that tinkering with card texts with the
intent of _creating_ broken cards is certainly not going to improve
the game much.
If tinkering with card texts was always bad, though, this wouldn't be
much of a game. Because then the cards should never have changed from
their original incarnations in early game design, which i'm sure were
truly hideous. The people at WotC do a lot of playtesting and refine
the cards to where they think they're good. Then everyone out there
who plays Jyhad does a LOT of playtesting and generates opinions with
more experience behind them.
Now admittedly changing cards after they're printed is not nearly as
good as changing them before they're printed, but the idea is the
same, and I don't think it's a bad one.
>hand it to you matey, if you want my post as Jester to the Court of the
>Newsgroup you could probably have it ....
ooh! ooh! could I?
> I think it's certainly clear that tinkering with card texts with the
> intent of _creating_ broken cards is certainly not going to improve
> the game much.
> If tinkering with card texts was always bad, though, this wouldn't be
> much of a game. Because then the cards should never have changed from
> their original incarnations in early game design, which i'm sure were
> truly hideous. The people at WotC do a lot of playtesting and refine
> the cards to where they think they're good. Then everyone out there
> who plays Jyhad does a LOT of playtesting and generates opinions with
> more experience behind them.
> Now admittedly changing cards after they're printed is not nearly as
> good as changing them before they're printed, but the idea is the
> same, and I don't think it's a bad one.
In principle, i agree - though i still think that the current set of
alterations under consideration [to things like RtI, TB and the Tomb] is
actually not justified by the impact on game play. On the other hand I
support No Repeat Actions, changing CW to being disciplineless, and making
Dragos with CEL unable to play a Lightning Reflexes costing no blood for
infinitely many additional strikes.
However, with a small game like ours which is already difficult to master,
the cumulative effect of changes is to create an elite inner circle of
players who actually know what all the rules are, leaving the new guy or
gal in the extremely unsatisfactory position of losing because they don't
know the rules, and can't easily find them out. Give you an example; a new
guy called The Mad One joined jol64, and played a bleed modified by
Conditioning and Confusion. So, of course, we had to tell him that there
was errata to the Jyhad card, that the new VTES text took precedence, and
that all these bleed modifiers could only be played once. So, his whole
deck design was screwed and he was ousted PDQ. Which I found a pity .....
I think our game needs to be MORE transparent [so as to attract new
players] and not less. At the very least, there have to be OVERWHELMINGLY
good reasons for any further fixes. That's my view.
>
> >hand it to you matey, if you want my post as Jester to the Court of the
> >Newsgroup you could probably have it ....
>
> ooh! ooh! could I?
Yeah, it's yours. But you have to provide your own pig's bladder, and I'll
have to saw your legs off so that you can fit into my costume ....
(Legbiter) wrote:
> (David Gausebeck) wrote:> > Unnatural Disaster:
> > Master.
> > Burn any card.
>
> BZZZ!! That's removing a word and not replacing it.
Current official actual card text: "Burn any location."
Replace "location" with "card" and you get David's mutated text.
--
L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com)
Official VtES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast.
(*) - Subject to review by Rules Team
[ quoted text not captured ]
In article <350e9bec....@news.cso.uiuc.edu>,
David Gausebeck <gaus...@uiuc.edu> wrote:
[examples snipped]
>I'm sure I could come with more and worse ones. This is just from
>flipping through a pile of cards I had handy.
>
>Changing a single word can have dramatic effects, and is likely to>generate a lot more trouble than it resolves. What if you make a card
>into complete nonsense? And it would be pretty hard to fix a lot of>cards that people want to fix just by changing one word. It's much
>easier to abuse than to use as you intended it.
>
>Sorry.
Wow. That is simply the biggest Straw Man argument I've ever seen.
Who says you have to make stupid or intentionally malicious changes
to card text when you attempt to fix them?
--
/\ Jasper Phillips
/VVVVVVVVVVVVVV|~"~"~"~"~"~"----------........____ jaz
j^^^^^^^^^^^^^\/"~"~"~"~-----------........._____ ~"~--.
* http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/ "~"~'--`
(Legbiter) wrote:
> [I support changing the rulings to make]> Dragos with CEL unable to play a Lightning Reflexes costing no blood for
> infinitely many additional strikes.
This is already true. The X in Lightning Reflexes is how much blood
he can burn to gain additional strikes after playing LR. Dragos doesn't
burn blood to play the card, but must still burn X if he want to gain
any additional strikes.
[ quoted text not captured ]
>>Changing a single word can have dramatic effects, and is likely to
>>generate a lot more trouble than it resolves. What if you make a card
>>into complete nonsense? And it would be pretty hard to fix a lot of
>>cards that people want to fix just by changing one word. It's much
>>easier to abuse than to use as you intended it.>>Wow. That is simply the biggest Straw Man argument I've ever seen.
>Who says you have to make stupid or intentionally malicious changes
>to card text when you attempt to fix them?
*sigh*
this was in response to the basenote of this thread.
the idea that a card could be introduced that would let you change
text on cards during the game by passing a vote.
In such a case, that is exactly what would happen. People would use
it to their best advantage and try to break cards.
This is _not_ trying to describe what would happen if people were
trying to change cards to fix them. Context is important.
And enough with the straw men already. Geez.
In article <35116bc7...@news.cso.uiuc.edu>,
David Gausebeck <gaus...@uiuc.edu> wrote:
>>
>>Wow. That is simply the biggest Straw Man argument I've ever seen.
>>Who says you have to make stupid or intentionally malicious changes
>>to card text when you attempt to fix them?>
>*sigh*
>this was in response to the basenote of this thread.
>the idea that a card could be introduced that would let you change
>text on cards during the game by passing a vote.
>In such a case, that is exactly what would happen. People would use
>it to their best advantage and try to break cards.
>
>This is _not_ trying to describe what would happen if people were
>trying to change cards to fix them. Context is important.
>
>And enough with the straw men already. Geez.
Argh. I'm trying to pull my foot out of my mouth, but it seems to
be stuck. :-/ My fault for not reading back into the thread.
[ quoted text not captured ]