More on set groupings

First off I figured I'd post afresh as the other massive thread on set grouping was becoming a little difficult to follow. I really just wanted to add some constructive thoughts for people to consider/respond to. Anyway, I have no hesitation in stating that IMHO the set groupings is a Really Good Idea. Some reasoning has been stated already by various people on the group, but I figure it is worth recapping. I'll include my additional comments throughout. 1) GROUPING PROVIDES EQUALITY FOR NEW PLAYERS Any new player buying into the game now (or in the future) will be able to take advantage of a play environment with clearly defined boundaries. When set X is released with crypt cards for group Y, the new player does not actually need to consider the entire product history of the game, as the card grouping restricts the play environment to the last few sets still on print, and the next few sets to be released. More importantly, the new player does not need to worry too much about his ability to compete with more experienced players, because these other older players would have to by necessity either a) choose from the same limited pool of cards as the new player (hence game balance), or b) choose from an alternate limited pool of cards that may in their nature be different, but which themselves would have defined boundaries in the interests of fairness and equivalence with other grouping combinations (hence game balance) This is a fundamental concept that should encourage more new players to buy the game, and to participate in official events. The alternative is a more intimidating environment where more experienced players and collectors have more options, and more likelyhood of winning both friendly and official events, which would only scare ambitious new players away. 2) GROUPING PROVIDES THE GAME WITH INNATE CHRONOLOGY By breaking up card sets into different crypt groups, White Wolf have immediately given themselves a method for reflecting the passing of time in the game. When new vampires show up in the RPG setting, they can be produced also as V:tES cards. When other characters are destroyed in a story, then they can be cycled out of new card sets. It also means that White Wolf can move backwards in time to do card sets based on Victorian Age: Vampire, or Dark Ages: Vampire. More interestingly, it raises the possibility of one day seeing less experienced or more experienced versions of vampire cards (or even crypt cards) that we already know from the existing card sets we already have access to. Although this is pure conjecture on my part, is strikes me as a great way of adding yet more flavour and depth to the game. 3) GROUPING CONSIDERS A CEILING ON CRYPT CHOICE One important concept of the RPG setting is the fact that the numbers of active vampires in the world are limited. The ratio is quoted as approximately 1 to every 100,000 mortals. Furthemore, the world's population on vampires is further broken up into various clans and sects. It should be noted that (AFAIK): - there are more Camarilla vampires than Sabbat or Independent vampires - there are more Camarilla or Sabbat vampires than Independent vampires - there are more Camarilla, Sabbat or Independent vampires than there are bloodline vampires Not only should there be limited numbers of each clan to choose from in any crypt grouping combination, but that each combination should observe certain ratios of choice, as per above. It seems quite appropriate then that instead of simply adding new vampire cards to a single, massive crypt group, we instead break things up a bit more. There then comes the additional advantage that (following the previous point on chronology above) should WW wish to fundamentally change the distribution of different vampires in respect to each other in the RPG setting, then this can be reflected in the card game quite easily by releasing new crypt groups, as this does not impact on the older vampiers distributions reflected by card sets already released. E.g. if the Sabbat becomes dominant in the RPG, then in subsequent groups, there could be more Sabbat vampire cards printed than Camarilla ones. With the release of CE, the crypt choice of Camarilla vampires of grouping combinations 1/2 and 2/3 has already been equalised (15 + 9 vs 9 + 15). In addition, these figures are equal to the totals of all 4 Independent clans in Group 2. What we have to ask next is a) what ceiling per sect/clan is planned by White Wolf for Groups 1, 2 and 3, and what chronological progression in planned in regards to vampire and clan distributions? In theory it is possible that White Wolf could choose to release more vampire cards into the existing 3 groups without moving into a new Group 4 yet. However, the flip side of this is if the current vampire totals we already have are to be the ceiling for these groups, then it is possible that any new vampires for some of the clans in any new sets (including Anarchs) could be shunted to Group 4 straight away. It is unlikely that we will be able to draw LSJ or anyone else out on these design concepts, and so I guess we'll have to wait for new sets to be released to find which way things go. Either way, I see such developments as no bad thing. 4) GROUPING KEEPS THE METAGAME MOVING One additional benefit is that different groupings can break up the metagame. Different groupings of vampires can be assigned different distributions of Disciplines and/or card texts. New concepts and card mechanics could also be released on certain groupings of vampires. Looking ahead, the grouping system allows White Wolf to segregate different styles of metagame without restricting the play of the game as a whole. Also, I doubt I will win many friends by saying this, but the groupings also gives the VEKN a mechanism for streaming different styles of official play. By specifying '1/2', '2/3' or '3/4' specific events only, you can encourage players to try new decks and strategies, rather than just bringing the same old reliable combo from the same sets to every game all the time. By changing the competitive environment from event to event, it should be easier for Princes to keep things interesting for their local player base. 5) GROUPING IS A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL The bottom line is that White Wolf need to make a significant amount of money from the product line to ensure its future development and distribution. And although they may be reluctant to admit it, acquiring and expanding a new player base is probably more important to them than appeasing the whims of existing, veteran players. The only complication at the moment is that White Wolf don't have the infrastructure or the industry/retail presence to market the card game on a world-wide scale themselves, and so VEKN volunteers (who just happen to be independently-minded veteran players) are pivotal in the marketing and the success of the game in the public market. (The cosmetic design changes to the game aside) White Wolf have actually to date been very careful not to alienate the existing player base, mainly I think because of the the symbiotic relationship they currently maintain with us at the VEKN. The amount of hostility that they have had to deal with in regards to the changes that came with CE has been unprecedented, and I am sure from their point of view it has been quite shocking and disheartening. I think we should all be glad that they have, despite the criticism, committed to more card sets for Anarchs and beyond. We we originally worried about Bloodlines before it came out, but the set turned out to be brilliant. We were all very worried about what we heard about the CE set, but (except for the cosmetic design) it turned out to be ok. I have every confidence that White Wolf will continue the handle the product with skill, and with the player base in mind. Anyway, the ugly truth is that there is very little future (from a business perspective) for a game where the play environment is static, such that a player with some old cards remains as competitive as other players who are buying into new sets. If the experienced player with a large collection of old cards can be just as competitive as anyone else, then there is no incentive for him to buy any new product at all - this does not sustain V:tES as a business model. In addition, if new players discover they can be just as competitive by acquiring spares from experienced players, or by purchasing discounted or second-hand stock of older cards, then again they will not buy new cards - again this does not sustain V:tES as a business model. The best mechanism that keeps people buying cards is to constantly evolve and change the play environment, and this quite plainly means cycling out a number of old cards, and introducing a number of new cards in their place on a regular basis. WotC cracked this business model very early on, and it has been key to their continued success on the market. My only criticism of WotC is that the turnaround of their environment for M:tG is so fast is that it is difficult to keep up as a player without investing a *serious* amount of money. Too much money IMHO, and as many gamers see this from the outset, they choose not to buy into the product in the first place. Which is fair enough. I think it will be quite necessary for White Wolf to follow a similar model, but they do not need to make the same mistakes. They have never said that players can't play with older cards. And, although the VEKN over time might devote greater energy to promoting newer sets, the old ones will never get left behind completely. Just like with different M:tG formats, us Princes could continue to run open format tournaments alongside 1/2, 2/3 specific events to cater to the different tastes of all the players that are out there. As long as White Wolf maintain a reasonable pace for the product's development (i.e. one or two card sets a year at the most) there will be plenty of time for players to buy in and absorb the latest developments. Or not as they so choose. In the long term, White Wolf will have to drive their business model forward, and either us players will go with them, or we don't. The only alternative is that they drop the game, and we're back to square one like we were years ago. From what I've seen in the last 6 months, I think there are more new players coming to the game with or without the help of us veterans. The more people buy new product the better, and the more we can encourage this the better. This is good not just for White Wolf, but for the V:tES community as a whole, as product lifetime is extended, and future development and releases are insured. Well I guess I haven't made many friends by making some of these points, but I had to get it off my chest. I really do feel us VEKN types need to try to be more supportive and constructive. I am sure White Wolf would appreciate reasoned criticism over crazy rants and flames. In fact, I am sure the major reason that they have made so little announcements to the community over their intentions for the game is mainly because they feel they got their fingers burnt unnecessarily the last time around. And before anyone comments to say what I mindless WW-loving zombie I am, and how I am ignoring the feelings and criticisms of my local players, all I can say is that is not the case at all. All of the above is based on my own independent, reasoned thinking, considering a lot of stuff my players share with me, and with what I see posted here on the group. Back in the summer I had a real hard time over the CE, and I had my own doubts too, but I kept thinking positive, and I held our group together right up until the CE release. When the set came out there were mixed reactions, but even the skeptics are now slowly warming to the new cards and the new concepts. There are a few who can't afford new cards, or they haven't bought any on principle, but that will always be the case. However many of us are playing with the new cards, and as a result the play environment here is changing despite the rest, and it all seems to be going down well. Again, some of the guys here have their doubts over what will happen with the Anarch set. However, that's a long way off yet, and I will voice what I can with White Wolf in a sensible fashion a little nearer the time. And I'm pertty sure things will work out for the best. Anyway, enough from me. I'm outta here. Regards, Mike Nudd VEKN Prince of London

"Mike Nudd" <mi...@vekn.org.uk> wrote in message > Anyway, enough from me. I'm outta here. [biggest SNIP ever] Fair play to you Mike. Might not agree with all your points but a well thought out and reasoned set of opinions and might I be so bold as to say quite a few convincing arguments. Speaking as a true skeptic turned (mostly) believer I think if any changes / opinions or arguments for or against new material were put in this well reasoned manner we would have a lot less toys on the floor and a lot more satisfied players. Might see you at DragonCon ? Rob

"Rob Treasure" <r.tre...@btinternet.com> wrote in message news:aq94jm$isj$1...@helle.btinternet.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Speaking as a skeptic turned *mostly* skeptic, I'll admit that the grouping rule was probably the best way to deal with things *if* it was a good idea to release 100 new vampires. I still don't like it, and will be very upset if I ever see Group 5 vampires (Group 4 seems almost a given at this point, and it seems a reasonable follow-up to Group 3), but I'm willing to accept it, I suppose. And I agree that Mike's arguments were pretty good. Although I can't really see grouping as being a good levelling ground for new players. I can't think of any person I know who wouldn't give away at least 1 or 2 copies of every Group 1 vampire. The only way to not have easy access to Group 1 is if you have no one in your playgroup who ever bought multiple boxes of the still very available Jyhad set. I have at least 10 copies of just about every Group 1 vampire (other than the ones we lost back in the mists of time), and so do most long time players. AFAIK, giving away vampires to new players is common in most circles, and is far from a hardship.

> Also, I doubt I will win many friends by saying this, but the groupings also > gives the VEKN a mechanism for streaming different styles of official play. > By specifying '1/2', '2/3' or '3/4' specific events only, you can encourage > players to try new decks and strategies, rather than just bringing the same > old reliable combo from the same sets to every game all the time. By > changing the competitive environment from event to event, it should be > easier for Princes to keep things interesting for their local player base. > I would definitely not be keen on seeing these kind of tournmanents. Much too close to Magic Type 2 for my liking. I think events like the storyline tournaments coming up and your combat tourney at Gencon produce quite enough interesting new strategies and combos.

"James Lewis" <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote in message news:3DC82289...@btinternet.com... [ quoted text not captured ] The principle does sound a little scary at the moment, and it's not something I would advocate in enforcing any time soon. I guess I just wanted to bat the idea around, as it is something I think the VEKN should tackle at some point in the future. As everyone knows, White Wolf have at no point ever said that players can't use older cards. TBH I seriously doubt it is something they will ever say to us. Quite frankly they don't really need to. When new card sets are introduced a good portion of the player community will buy in and will initially focus on trying the new cards over their older cards for the sake of novelty as much as any other reason. This is what is already happening with CE AFAICS. Most of my decks were Group 2-focused with the odd Group 1 vampire here of there. Now my decks are moving from Group 2 to Groups 2/3. TBH I don't think at the moment I am using any Group 1 vampires in the 16 decks I have currently constructed. TBH I used the old vampires for so long I'm happy to move on. I may come back later to make the odd 1/2 deck for nostalgia's sake, or to compete in an open/national event, but otherwise I'm not fussed. Given the timeframe for the release of new card sets, it's probably going to be another couple of years at least before Group 3 is fully populated and we are will into (theoretically) subsequent Groups. At the moment streaming events by crypt grouping doesn't actually achieve very much (except maybe p*** people off), but looking ahead, I can see the advantages for both a) offering events with more challenge/flavour to players, and b) helping to promote newer product. If for example if down the line you have a range of choice between 0/1, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 and 4/5 decks, then why not try some combination specific events? And if the range of card sets ends up being so large, then surely it is reasonable that a certain number of VEKN sanctioned events should focus just on the latest ones? After all, most sealed events (including pre-releases) are grouping-specific anyway. At the end of the day the decision would be down to us as Princes whether to take this approach or not. You will always have the option of playing with older cards if you want, and obviously there is no point in fighting your players if they are not interested (although I'd recommend you seek out some more co-operative players). It's more a question of whether you want to help move the play environment and the business model forward or not. I think us VEKN types have a responsibility to follow this through, and if we don't then the game will inevitably suffer. I guess that was the real point underlying the last bit of my earlier post. Regards, Mike

"Rob Treasure" <r.tre...@btinternet.com> wrote in message news:aq94jm$isj$1...@helle.btinternet.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Hey dude thanks for the positive post (TBH it's more than I expected). > Might see you at DragonCon ? Hope so. Should I save you a seat? You working some high quality sleaze up for us then? :) Regards, Mike

"Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message news:shVx9.84620$bt.1...@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net... > > "Rob Treasure" <r.tre...@btinternet.com> wrote in message > news:aq94jm$isj$1...@helle.btinternet.com... > > "Mike Nudd" <mi...@vekn.org.uk> wrote in message <snip> > And I agree that Mike's arguments were pretty good. Although I can't really > see grouping as being a good levelling ground for new players. I can't think > of any person I know who wouldn't give away at least 1 or 2 copies of every > Group 1 vampire. The only way to not have easy access to Group 1 is if you > have no one in your playgroup who ever bought multiple boxes of the still very > available Jyhad set. I have at least 10 copies of just about every Group 1 > vampire (other than the ones we lost back in the mists of time), and so do most > long time players. AFAIK, giving away vampires to new players is common in > most circles, and is far from a hardship. I quite agree. However, supposing your local Prince organises and advertises a sanctioned open constructed tournament, and on the day a couple of new players show up (whom no-one has met before) with their decks made from the new cards they recently bought. They would never have seen the older cards, and they would not have been aware of the principle of veterans giving out older cards for free. On that day they would still want to play with their decks, and they would still want to compete on a level playing field. So why shouldn't we let them, and why shouldn't things be as fair for them as possible? In addition, what happens in a couple of years time, when all the veteran players have given out all their spares of older vampires, and they don't have any left? New players will (we hope) still be buying into the game at that point, and again they will want to compete with other players who may have larger and/or older collections. Can you see what I mean? Regards, Mike

James Lewis <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote in message news:<3DC82289...@btinternet.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] I agree with James on this one. This is something, and I'm certain I'm not alone in this, that I DON'T EVER wanna see. This is EXACTLY how Magic went with their Type 1/2 format bullshit. They flooded the market with too many expansions (something which WW seem to be following suit with) and then, when it got too difficult to handle, banned about 50% of the cards from most tournaments. The grouping ruling might not have players quitting in disgust (as much as some don't like it at all), but introducing this mechanic will. Marty

Marty wrote: > James Lewis <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote in message > > I would definitely not be keen on seeing these kind of tournmanents. Much > > too close to Magic Type 2 for my liking. I think events like the > > storyline tournaments coming up and your combat tourney at Gencon > > produce quite enough interesting new strategies and combos. > > I agree with James on this one. This is something, and I'm certain > I'm not alone in this, that I DON'T EVER wanna see. This is EXACTLY > how Magic went with their Type 1/2 format [stuff]. They flooded the > market with too many expansions (something which WW seem to be > following suit with) and then, when it got too difficult to handle, > banned about 50% of the cards from most tournaments. I quite agree (except for the "WW is flooding the market with too many expansions - perhaps you could elaborate on that and describe what you feel is the "proper" rate of expansion release and why). The grouping rule was introduced, in fact, to avoid the type 2 format. The current DT will not be party to any rules which ban old cards en masse. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

[most of the stuff snipped, since, well I agree with it :) ] > Also, I doubt I will win many friends by saying this, but the groupings also > gives the VEKN a mechanism for streaming different styles of official play. > By specifying '1/2', '2/3' or '3/4' specific events only, you can encourage > players to try new decks and strategies, rather than just bringing the same > old reliable combo from the same sets to every game all the time. By > changing the competitive environment from event to event, it should be > easier for Princes to keep things interesting for their local player base. Ideally I would not like this to happen, but I understand it might be necessary in order for WW to make money. And since no money to WW from last set = no future set at all :( , it might be necessary. But it will also depend on how old players would behave. [snip some more] > Anyway, the ugly truth is that there is very little future (from a business > perspective) for a game where the play environment is static, such that a > player with some old cards remains as competitive as other players who are > buying into new sets. If the experienced player with a large collection of > old cards can be just as competitive as anyone else, then there is no > incentive for him to buy any new product at all - this does not sustain > V:tES as a business model. In addition, if new players discover they can be > just as competitive by acquiring spares from experienced players, or by > purchasing discounted or second-hand stock of older cards, then again they > will not buy new cards - again this does not sustain V:tES as a business > model. Hovewer I believe that if the expansions come out at reasonable pace even old players with lots of old cards would buy cards just to try new things (and have a little break from their favourite group X clan) if those new things were interesting enough. (and thus possibility of 1/2 2/3 etc tournaments I do not like could be prevented) [additional snip] > Well I guess I haven't made many friends by making some of these points, but > I had to get it off my chest. I really do feel us VEKN types need to try to > be more supportive and constructive. I am sure White Wolf would appreciate > reasoned criticism over crazy rants and flames. In fact, I am sure the major > reason that they have made so little announcements to the community over > their intentions for the game is mainly because they feel they got their > fingers burnt unnecessarily the last time around. Yes, and it is very sad how little support/credit people seems to give to WW for all good stuff they do (which is IMO vast majority) and how they all cry 'the sky is falling' if something displeased them. > And before anyone comments to say what I mindless WW-loving zombie I am, and > how I am ignoring the feelings and criticisms of my local players, all I can > say is that is not the case at all. All of the above is based on my own > independent, reasoned thinking, considering a lot of stuff my players share > with me, and with what I see posted here on the group. Then I am mindless WW-loving zombie too :) Could WW create card named Mindless WW-loving zombie for us ? :) Since I believe that your post is very thoughtful with many points clearly explained, I believe it should be archived somewhere. Karol

"Mike Nudd" <mi...@vekn.org.uk> wrote in message news:<aq90qn$ccl$1...@helle.btinternet.com>... <snip stuff> > 1) GROUPING PROVIDES EQUALITY FOR NEW PLAYERS <snip more stuff> To take it a step further, Grouping provides *some* equality for old players. If new vampires come out that, when integrated into an older crypt, would produce a flat-out more effective deck, I would be forced to aquire those vampires to stay competitive. As long as the new vampires aren't horribly broken, I don't have to aquire any to stay competitive. I may need new library cards, but at least I won't have to worry about the crypt. -Snapcase

"Mike Nudd" <mi...@vekn.org.uk> wrote in message news:<aqaqbb$q5$1...@knossos.btinternet.com>... > I quite agree. However, supposing your local Prince organises and advertises > a sanctioned open constructed tournament, and on the day a couple of new > players show up (whom no-one has met before) with their decks made from the > new cards they recently bought. They would never have seen the older cards, > and they would not have been aware of the principle of veterans giving out > older cards for free. On that day they would still want to play with their > decks, and they would still want to compete on a level playing field. So why > shouldn't we let them, and why shouldn't things be as fair for them as > possible? This presumes White Wolf cannot ever reprint the old vampires these newbies cannot get. If the majority of the "good" vampires (ie: Anvil, Anson, etc.) from Jyhad/VTES were reprinted in Cam, instead of 100 new vampires, the grouping rule would not be necessary, and the newbies would have access to the old vampires. Grouping is only necessary if one accepts that White Wolf had no choice but to print 100 new vampires. That is not the case. They could have printed fewer new vampires, and reprinted useful old vampires. They could have even "fixed" old vampires like they did some of the old cards, like Monocle of Clarity. It might still have been necessary to institue a grouping rule eventually, but White Wolf forced the problem to appear now. JSpektr

snap...@eudoramail.com (Snapcase) wrote in message news:<9945f27a.02110...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] This assumes that new vampires would necessarily make old decks more effective. That is not a given. See Bloodlines for evidence. It also assumes that if new vampires make old decks more effective, the other vampires required for those decks are not being reprinted. If the majority of "staple" vampires from Jyhad/VTES/Ancient Hearts/Dark Sovereigns were reprinted along with a smaller selection of new vampires, no one would have to worry about getting old vampires to stay competitive. They'd get them at the same time they got the new vampires. JSpektr

jspektr wrote: > > "Mike Nudd" <mi...@vekn.org.uk> wrote in message news:<aqaqbb$q5$1...@knossos.btinternet.com>... > > > I quite agree. However, supposing your local Prince organises and advertises > > a sanctioned open constructed tournament, and on the day a couple of new > > players show up (whom no-one has met before) with their decks made from the > > new cards they recently bought. They would never have seen the older cards, > > and they would not have been aware of the principle of veterans giving out > > older cards for free. On that day they would still want to play with their > > decks, and they would still want to compete on a level playing field. So why > > shouldn't we let them, and why shouldn't things be as fair for them as > > possible? > > This presumes White Wolf cannot ever reprint the old vampires these > newbies cannot get. If the majority of the "good" vampires (ie: Anvil, > Anson, etc.) from Jyhad/VTES were reprinted in Cam, instead of 100 new > vampires, the grouping rule would not be necessary, and the newbies > would have access to the old vampires. > > Grouping is only necessary if one accepts that White Wolf had no > choice but to print 100 new vampires. That is not the case. They could > have printed fewer new vampires, and reprinted useful old vampires. ... and no more vampires, ever. Of course White Wolf doesn't have to print new cards. But arguing that point is disingenuous. > They could have even "fixed" old vampires like they did some of the > old cards, like Monocle of Clarity. It might still have been necessary > to institue a grouping rule eventually, but White Wolf forced the > problem to appear now. No, WW addressed the problem with CE. The problem is (was) one of degrees. [ quoted text not captured ]

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:3DC9A20D...@white-wolf.com... > jspektr wrote: > > > They could have even "fixed" old vampires like they did some of the > > old cards, like Monocle of Clarity. It might still have been necessary > > to institue a grouping rule eventually, but White Wolf forced the > > problem to appear now. > > No, WW addressed the problem with CE. The problem is (was) one of degrees. > Maybe I'm dense, but I still don't understand what the problem is (was). More options in your crypt choices? More variety in the types of possible competitive decks? More odd combos of disciplines available? And before "dial-a-crypt" gets brought up, there are many orders of magnitude more possible discipline combinations available than the number of vampires that will ever be printed, even by the most optimistic estimate of WW/VTES's staying power. And since the game is clan-based as well as discipline-based, the field is opened even wider. And even if there *is* a "problem", there was always the possibility of re-issuing vampires with the same name and different abilities, perhaps with some kind of "experienced" rule. But oh well... what's done is done. It is nice, even refreshing, to hear a high-up designer/etc. come out and say that the company is against any move that would ban large numbers of old cards, and I'm no longer as upset about the grouping rule as I thought I would be. I just really hope they keep the number of groups reasonable, or else use the suggestion that someone else brought up, that any odd group may be combined with any even group to form a legal subset of vampires.

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<3DC91539...@white-wolf.com>... > I quite agree (except for the "WW is flooding the market with too many > expansions - perhaps you could elaborate on that and describe what you > feel is the "proper" rate of expansion release and why). The other trick with expansions is new library cards. Library cards are harder to create anew than Vampire cards since currently any library card can be used with any crypt card. There are logical limits based on gameplay balance that must be taken into consideration when designing, say, a new Celerity combat card. I know people won't want to continue buying expansions and base sets if very few (Praxis Seizure anyone?) cards circulate. Here's a schedule that I think would agree with me: Mid 2002: Camarilla Base (Group 3) Late 2002: Anarch Expansion (Group 3-4) Early 2003: Sabbat Base (Group 4) Late 2003: Independent Expansion (Group 4) Early 2004: Camarilla Base (Group 5) Late 2004: Anarch Expansion (Group 5-6) Early 2005: Sabbat Base (Group 6) Late 2005: Independent Expansion (Group 6) Something like that would be reasonable to me. This would give roughly a two year shelf life for any grouping pair as the "current" play environment, which should allow sufficient time for the Storyline to develop (in tandem with the RPG) as well as developers to come up with sufficiently DIFFERENT cards for VTES CCG. > The grouping rule was introduced, in fact, to avoid the type 2 format. > The current DT will not be party to any rules which ban old cards en masse. That's good to hear. Thanks for the insight. :) Jeff

On Wed, 06 Nov 2002 08:12:25 -0500, LSJ wrote: >The grouping rule was introduced, in fact, to avoid the type 2 format. >The current DT will not be party to any rules which ban old cards en masse. The VEKN rules I have to hand (Dec 2001) state: "6.1. Constructed Formats The V:EKN sanctions only one constructed format: Standard Constructed. 6.1.1. Set Restrictions The tournament organizer may limit players to the use of one or more card sets. For example, the tournament organizer may require players to restrict their decks to cards from the Dark Sovereigns and Final Nights card sets." This is a generalised form of Magic's various block formats. They are just tournament formats too - the core rules for that game don't ban anything. In that sense, the grouping rules go beyond Magic because they are supposed to be mandatory in informal play too. Anyway, my point is that if one were to run a "Type 3" event for VTES (only CE format cards allowed) then the VEKN and WW would sanction it, wouldn't they? The game is no different from Magic in that respect. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing - just that the distinction is one of practise rather than principle. Andrew

In message <196f2577.02110...@posting.google.com>, jspektr <jsp...@sprynet.com> writes: >This assumes that new vampires would necessarily make old decks more >effective. That is not a given. See Bloodlines for evidence. Partly true. There are some damn fine Bloodlines vampires, however, who do work well with old vampires. Not necessarily old decks, but to use some of them effectively, it's often most useful to have old vampires. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D EBD690ECD7A1F She twirled a lock of hair around her forefinger and smiled B457CA213D7E6 faintly. "Actually, I'd settle for a small Greek." 68C3695D623D5D

In message <504FF3726D301C3E.8C003B81...@lp.airnew s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes: >On Wed, 06 Nov 2002 08:12:25 -0500, LSJ wrote: >>The grouping rule was introduced, in fact, to avoid the type 2 format. >>The current DT will not be party to any rules which ban old cards en masse. ^^ >The VEKN rules I have to hand (Dec 2001) state: ^^^^ Hint: The Design Team aren't V:EKN. The difference may be causing you some problems. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <jWky9.40777$Lu1.44296@sccrnsc01>, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> writes: >> No, WW addressed the problem with CE. The problem is (was) one of degrees. >> >Maybe I'm dense, but I still don't understand what the problem is (was). More >options in your crypt choices? More variety in the types of possible >competitive decks? More odd combos of disciplines available? Lots of potential problems. >And before "dial-a-crypt" gets brought up, Well, let's start with this. The game was designed very clearly that you never get the vampires you absolutely want, unless they're printed. As has been pointed out before, there would have been potential mileage in a game where the Methuselah had 30 cards in his crypt and allocated them out to create vampires who he then paid for, representing a devious, subtle manipulation and control of a vampire over years, getting them *just* right. It would also have moved away even further from a Magic like construct, which was being used as a starting point, swapping carded creatures for created monstrosities. You are *supposed* to find it hard to create a crypt. With 15 vampires, even with 24 vampires (Toreador and Gangrel having duplicates), that was still difficult. Add more vampires, it gets easier. At this point, the standard argument is "Well, you could have only added 4 new vampires, then you wouldn't have needed the rule." Potentially true, but this is LSJ's point of the problem being one of degrees. The problem becomes more and more pronounced as more vampires are made. Say, we only create, hmmm, 6 now, and have 9 reprints, well, that's 36 new vampires (42 with Anarchs) for old players. But what if, say, three, four years down the line, you want to print "The Camarilla Got Kicked In The Head, Here's the Remains, Suckers"? Print, oh, six or seven new vampires. You're in the same situation again, it just happened later. You have 12 new vampires, now. Each new vampire is obviously themed in clan. No, they don't always stay true in clan. Obviously not. But there is usually some obvious facet that makes them Toreador or makes them Giovanni. Yes, we can all think of exceptions. But it's 90% true - Rake has Brujah disciplines, Donal O' Connor has some Brujah disciplines, etc. Assuming current design holds roughly true, you have 12 new vampires. Some weenies, some middies, some fatties. You get weenies *again*. Woo, more pre weenies, more cel/pot weenies. For weenies, there are only so many combinations you can have before you start doing odd things. A few 'odd' things have come up in Camarilla Edition, just as in Ancient Hearts etc. But the 'core' is still there. Okay, Gengis is a bit weird, but you've still got another cel/pot weenie. The amount of fighting you have to do to get the crypt you want, and adapt around the limitations, becomes significantly smaller. Alison and Tayshawn, more cheap cel/pot, or whatever you want. Pile in with the previous vampires and your crypt stops needing duplicates, becomes even smaller, harder to contest or whatever. Fun! And it breaks the need to fight for the right vampires, or use duplicates, which is encoded from the start. So what if we don't assume current design holds roughly true? Well, what's the point of clans then? One of the great splits in the game is that you can do things in clan, easily, or you can do things out of clan, but much harder. You also then have much less benefit from, say, a Hunting Ground (some people swear by them, others at them), an Enchanted Marionette, a Femur of Toomler or whatever. Any clan card that you want to use becomes much harder the moment you go cross-clan. Say, you want to play Presence/Protean. Well, no clan has that in clan, so you fight with vampires to find what you want. The first six cheapest vampires for it are 6 different clans (well, 5 plus Caitiff). All the benefits that you get from staying in clan - early superior disciplines, clan cards, a tight mix of disciplines and so on - are exchanged for a more carefully chosen set of disciplines. AUS/CEL/PRE is great, but stealth is hard to come by. Aus/Obf/Pre might suit you better? A bit all over the place, and superiors are much harder to come by. As you add more and more vampires, these limitations become far weaker. Would we ever get to true dial-a-crypt? Unlikely in the short term, but eroding the fundamental facets of the game doesn't strike me as a good idea. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Anyone wanna place bets on when it falls over? Similarly, if some of the vampires in group [63] combo really, really well with vampires in group [34], what are you going to tell a newbie? Sorry, we stopped printing those vampires, you'll have to pay 100 quid just to look at it. Library cards are being recycled and expanded - pre-cons provide an excellent way of doing that for newbies. But as you add more vampires, White Wolf have shown a tendency to want story line vampires. Who's going to be able to get Rake? And if Rake makes that deck over there uber-competitive, which a newbie can just never get hold of, what are you going to do? That *does* then turn it into "The person with the most cards can make harder decks." Or as you print new expansions, you have to recycle vampires to buggery. Anyone care to reprint all of Sabbat in 3 years time, when you've already got 5 full sets of it? Mmm... I can smell the cash flowing out the door and into another game already. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<3DC91539...@white-wolf.com>... > Marty wrote: > > James Lewis <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote in message > > > I would definitely not be keen on seeing these kind of tournmanents. Much > > > too close to Magic Type 2 for my liking. I think events like the > > > storyline tournaments coming up and your combat tourney at Gencon > > > produce quite enough interesting new strategies and combos. > > > > I agree with James on this one. This is something, and I'm certain > > I'm not alone in this, that I DON'T EVER wanna see. This is EXACTLY > > how Magic went with their Type 1/2 format [stuff]. They flooded the > > market with too many expansions (something which WW seem to be > > following suit with) and then, when it got too difficult to handle, > > banned about 50% of the cards from most tournaments. > > I quite agree (except for the "WW is flooding the market with too many > expansions - perhaps you could elaborate on that and describe what you > feel is the "proper" rate of expansion release and why). Ok, perhaps I'm being a little unfair. Maybe it seems that we are being inundated with expansions because we went for years without any... Thing is, it takes a while for expansions to settle down, and for people to get to grips with them - Final Nights and Bloodlines introduced a LOT of new stuff, and now we have to contend with 100 new vamps from CE too!!! My brain hurts :) Personally, I'd rather something like 3 expansions every 2 years, but I know others who prefer as many as possible. I feel I miss out on a lot of possible strategies but quickly skipping over to new expansions (which inevitably happens - everybody likes to use new cards). That said, I really have an aversion to CE cards. The rules/groupings is one thing, but I just do not like the aesthetics of them, and as a consequence, I don't intend to buy any. So it won't be a problem for me anymore... :( Unless White Wolf has a massive change of heart and decides to go back to the old look cards (you'd get my thumbs up!) Marty

Chris Berger wrote: > > "LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message > news:3DC9A20D...@white-wolf.com... > > jspektr wrote: > > > > > They could have even "fixed" old vampires like they did some of the > > > old cards, like Monocle of Clarity. It might still have been necessary > > > to institue a grouping rule eventually, but White Wolf forced the > > > problem to appear now. > > > > No, WW addressed the problem with CE. The problem is (was) one of degrees. > > > Maybe I'm dense, but I still don't understand what the problem is (was). More > options in your crypt choices? More variety in the types of possible > competitive decks? More odd combos of disciplines available? jspektr speaks of a problem that WW "forced to appear" by printing 100 new vampires. The quote from jspektr (included in my previous response for context): > Grouping is only necessary if one accepts that White Wolf had no > choice but to print 100 new vampires. jspektr posits that grouping is necessary if as few as 100 new vampires are printed. I responded to that point. [ quoted text not captured ]

jspektr wrote: > > snap...@eudoramail.com (Snapcase) wrote in message news:<9945f27a.02110...@posting.google.com>... > > "Mike Nudd" <mi...@vekn.org.uk> wrote in message news:<aq90qn$ccl$1...@helle.btinternet.com>... > > > > <snip stuff> > > > > > 1) GROUPING PROVIDES EQUALITY FOR NEW PLAYERS > > > > <snip more stuff> > > > > To take it a step further, Grouping provides *some* equality for old > > players. If new vampires come out that, when integrated into an older > > crypt, would produce a flat-out more effective deck, I would be forced > > to aquire those vampires to stay competitive. As long as the new > > vampires aren't horribly broken, I don't have to aquire any to stay > > competitive. I may need new library cards, but at least I won't have > > to worry about the crypt. > > This assumes that new vampires would necessarily make old decks more > effective. That is not a given. See Bloodlines for evidence. > More importantly, see the Camarilla Edition. There's quite a few solid decks that would be made anything but more effective by switching to a 2/3 crypt (Ventrue princes and most weenie decks, for example). Thomas

"Jeff Kuta" <jeff...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:621dd332.02110...@posting.google.com... > > Here's a schedule that I think would agree with me: > > Mid 2002: Camarilla Base (Group 3) > Late 2002: Anarch Expansion (Group 3-4) > Early 2003: Sabbat Base (Group 4) > Late 2003: Independent Expansion (Group 4) > > Early 2004: Camarilla Base (Group 5) > Late 2004: Anarch Expansion (Group 5-6) > Early 2005: Sabbat Base (Group 6) > Late 2005: Independent Expansion (Group 6) > Good lord, a new base set for every new expansion??? Ludicrous. Why not just have an unlimited print-run base set and leave it at that? Then add expansions on top of it. If a new base set needed to be run every 3 or 4 expansions, then so be it, although of course as a long-time player I wouldn't be *especially* happy about it. Also, only 1 new expansion per year, and each one a new group? Ack. If WW follows your schedule, I doubt there will be too many people left for the late 2005 expansion.

>>> >> I would definitely not be keen on seeing these kind of tournmanents. Much >>too close to Magic Type 2 for my liking. I think events like the >>storyline tournaments coming up and your combat tourney at Gencon >>produce quite enough interesting new strategies and combos. >> > > I agree with James on this one. This is something, and I'm certain > I'm not alone in this, that I DON'T EVER wanna see. This is EXACTLY > how Magic went with their Type 1/2 format bullshit. They flooded the > market with too many expansions (something which WW seem to be > following suit with) and then, when it got too difficult to handle, > banned about 50% of the cards from most tournaments. > The grouping ruling might not have players quitting in disgust (as > much as some don't like it at all), but introducing this mechanic > will. > > Marty > Its rare for us to agree on something and glad I'm not the only one. Just want to stress that I'm not completely opposed to tournaments with additional rules (even ones that only allow certain crypt groupings) just as long as they're the exception and not the rule. James

In message <3DCA7D93...@aon.at>, Thomas Pichler <tom.p...@aon.at> writes: >> This assumes that new vampires would necessarily make old decks more >> effective. That is not a given. See Bloodlines for evidence. >> >More importantly, see the Camarilla Edition. There's quite a few solid >decks that would be made anything but more effective by switching to a >2/3 crypt (Ventrue princes and most weenie decks, for example). I believe the suggestion was rather *adding* to old decks. There are, of course, a number of archetypes which don't work with [3] vampires, or even [2/3] vampires, added to them. There are other archetypes that would be on fire if you could combine [1/2/3] vampires in the same crypt. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Jeff Kuta" <jeff...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:621dd332.02110...@posting.google.com... > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<3DC91539...@white-wolf.com>... > > I quite agree (except for the "WW is flooding the market with too many > > expansions - perhaps you could elaborate on that and describe what you > > feel is the "proper" rate of expansion release and why). > Here's a schedule that I think would agree with me: This schedule is actually much faster than WW's current plans, as I understand it. Last I heard, they're shooting for about nine months between new sets. > Mid 2002: Camarilla Base (Group 3) > Late 2002: Anarch Expansion (Group 3-4) Anarchs will be early 2003 - sometime in the spring. > Early 2003: Sabbat Base (Group 4) > Late 2003: Independent Expansion (Group 4) > > Early 2004: Camarilla Base (Group 5) > Late 2004: Anarch Expansion (Group 5-6) > Early 2005: Sabbat Base (Group 6) > Late 2005: Independent Expansion (Group 6) Analogous schedule on a 9-month basis: Spring 2003: Anarchs (group 3-4?) Winter 2003/2004: Sabbat base (group 4?) Fall 2004: Independent expansion (group 4?) Summer 2005: Camarilla base (group 5?) Spring 2006: Anarch expansion (group 5-6?) Winter 2006/7: Sabbat base (group 6?) Fall 2007: Independent expansion (group 6?) I do agree with Chris to some extent, though, that it might be preferable from the POV of existing players to have "base sets" that just stay in print all the time, and make the "base" slots occupied by expansions (for those sects or otherwise) instead. Of course, that could run into problems with grouping, if the group number of the "expansion" sets kept going up and the base set stayed at its existing group number. Josh not a grouping groupie

"Joshua Duffin" <jtdu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:aqe60i$8ns98$1...@ID-121616.news.dfncis.de... > > I do agree with Chris to some extent, though, that it might be > preferable from the POV of existing players to have "base sets" > that just stay in print all the time, and make the "base" slots > occupied by expansions (for those sects or otherwise) instead. > > Of course, that could run into problems with grouping, if the > group number of the "expansion" sets kept going up and the base > set stayed at its existing group number. > Well, I guess the group numbers should stay within the general area of 1-3 then, eh? 8)

James Coupe wrote: > > You are *supposed* to find it hard to create a crypt. With 15 vampires, > even with 24 vampires (Toreador and Gangrel having duplicates), that was > still difficult. Add more vampires, it gets easier. That may or may not have been an intended feature of the game. In a practical sense, there's only so many vampires WotC could have issued in the first edition of the game. And given the number of disciplines they were forced to allow for various reasons, the original level of difficulty in determining the crypt was set by an artifact caused by undeniably practical reasons. This is not a good reason to suggest that it (or something like it) must be defended as a perpetual game feature going forward - except possibly in a "devil-you-know" type of argument. And frankly, it's a feature I've never cared for. At least, the difficulty of creating a decent crypt for a given deck concept has often struck me as being greater than it needs to be. I don't like having to decide between the relative handful of deck archetypes that have a ready, riskfree crypt for them and branching out into more imaginative strategies that almost inevitably involve risk of either vampire duplication or drawing fairly poor choices in some of your games. When you opt for the latter, certain games will get lost on the shuffle of the crypt deck, thus throwing off the entire table balance for the game. I've always felt that risk of a bad crypt draw was one of the poorer design properties to use in to balance this game. Of course, I would still concede that you have to use it at some level because I also agree that the true "Dial-A-Crypt" scenario would lose something for the game as well. I just feel like there was never a risk of getting to a point where a player could chose a truly arbitrary combination of disciplines and still easily build a crypt for it. > So what if we don't assume current design holds roughly true? Well, > what's the point of clans then? > > One of the great splits in the game is that you can do things in clan, > easily, or you can do things out of clan, but much harder. But who said things were going to be easy to do out of clan just because more vampires are allowed in combination? A few things will be. But with the choices in different levels of different disciplines and different specials, there are limitless numbers of vampires that can be issued without replicating, say, some weird Chi-Dom confluence in the more or less the same capacity vampire 12 times - unless it's replicated in rather high-cap vampires. I think we've found over time that using whole crypts full of high-cap vampires are not worth using just for the ability to pull off some strange combo. In fact, historically that's been one of the weaknesses of the game as designed: high cap vampires are not even attractive for the number of different discipline combinations they allowed for. Ultimately, attractive specials need to be grafted onto them to get players to use them. That point is very revealing about the real danger (or lack thereof) of arbitrary combo disciplines, IMO. > AUS/CEL/PRE is great, but stealth is hard to > come by. Aus/Obf/Pre might suit you better? A bit all over the place, > and superiors are much harder to come by. > > As you add more and more vampires, these limitations become far weaker. Marginally weaker. Not "far weaker". At least in my experience, over time from Jyhad only through all the expansions that have been issued, I haven't seen evidence of any kind of detrimental shift except possibly in the availability of weenies in a given discipline. Even these are a creep, not a rush. And I don't care about them. If they become too much of a factor, I'm sure a few more antiweeny cards that have alternate use might be called for but nothing major. > Would we ever get to true dial-a-crypt? Unlikely in the short term, but > eroding the fundamental facets of the game doesn't strike me as a good > idea. > > Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Anyone wanna place bets on when it falls > over? Yea. I'll take 21 million years from now. Assuming the current rate of expansions of course. But I'm crude. I'm perfectly willing to foist this problem off on my great great great great great (time some order of magnitude) grandchildren. Fred

jsp...@sprynet.com (jspektr) wrote in message news:<196f2577.02110...@posting.google.com>... > This assumes that new vampires would necessarily make old decks more > effective. That is not a given. See Bloodlines for evidence. Bloodlines isn't proper evidence; they were all new clans (most with a unique discipline). White Wolf obviously isn't going to follow that trend with every set. > It also assumes that if new vampires make old decks more effective, > the other vampires required for those decks are not being reprinted. No, it does not. The idea was simply that as an old player, grouping allows me to never buy another vampire again and still remain competitive from the crypt side. This does assume the new group of vampires are not strictly "better" than older groups of vampires. > If the majority of "staple" vampires from Jyhad/VTES/Ancient > Hearts/Dark Sovereigns were reprinted along with a smaller selection > of new vampires, no one would have to worry about getting old vampires > to stay competitive. They'd get them at the same time they got the new > vampires. Which is fine for new players. Heavy reprinting tends to put off veterans, from my ccg experience. -Snapcase

"Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message news:<ecwy9.3151$Dc4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>... [ quoted text not captured ] I'd be glad if there were an even slower rate of release than what I wrote above, but I don't think what I put up is unreasonable. I think the Sabbat clans are significant enough in the WoD that they DO merit being a complete "base set" in and of themselves. I am sure WW considers the viability of the limited environment when releasing their VTES sets, and with more Sabbat clans than Camarilla clans, it's very reasonable that they want to make it self-contained. The limitations of Starter + 3 Booster Draft have been well-discussed. If a pure booster draft limited environment is to be viable (which I hope to be the case), the staple cards MUST be included in multiple sets. Perhaps Minion Tap would be absent from a Sabbat "base set" and Blood Doll would be back in. Flash out, Pursuit in. Granted, not all exchanges are perfect analogs, but there are usually adequate substitutions for the most part. Jeff

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<Y0s1z5OL...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > Or as you print new expansions, you have to recycle vampires to buggery. > Anyone care to reprint all of Sabbat in 3 years time, when you've > already got 5 full sets of it? Mmm... I can smell the cash flowing out > the door and into another game already. In contrast to reprinting most of the library of Jyhad in Camarilla, you mean? That didn't seem to cause a catastrophe either. JSpektr

Frederick Scott <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:<3DCAAD91...@removethis.com>... > James Coupe wrote: > > > > You are *supposed* to find it hard to create a crypt. With 15 vampires, > > even with 24 vampires (Toreador and Gangrel having duplicates), that was > > still difficult. Add more vampires, it gets easier. > > That may or may not have been an intended feature of the game. In a practical > sense, there's only so many vampires WotC could have issued in the first edition > of the game. And given the number of disciplines they were forced to allow for > various reasons, the original level of difficulty in determining the crypt was > set by an artifact caused by undeniably practical reasons. This is not a good > reason to suggest that it (or something like it) must be defended as a perpetual > game feature going forward - except possibly in a "devil-you-know" type of > argument. I think it's a relatively empty arguement. The difficulty of finding vampires for a particular combo doesn't balance your vampire choices, it *forces* you to play particular decks, for whom the vampires already exist in an optimal state. Is the absense of, say, CHI/QUI vampires a major balance to the game? No. For some combinations, it is a good idea to limit available vampires. The absense of a 5-cap Malkavian with OBF/DOM/aus is clearly a design decision in favor of balance. Nigel the Shunned can have ANI/POT/obf because that is a much less powerful combination. But what about ANI/FOR/pro? Is that too powerful to be allowed in combination with Raven and Camille? What about OBF/CEL at 5 for the Assamites, PRE/POT for the Brujah, etc.? Are those so powerful they would destroy the game, or would they just make currently weak decks more viable? I would like a set of vampires usuable with the old vampires that make decks no one uses more competitive. Obviously, printing more Eurobrujah, cheap DOM, or other cards that boost currently powerful decks would be a bad idea. But printing vampires that combine with old decks to make little used clans better would enhance, not damage, the game. > > So what if we don't assume current design holds roughly true? Well, > > what's the point of clans then? > > > > One of the great splits in the game is that you can do things in clan, > > easily, or you can do things out of clan, but much harder. > > But who said things were going to be easy to do out of clan just because > more vampires are allowed in combination? A few things will be. But with > the choices in different levels of different disciplines and different > specials, there are limitless numbers of vampires that can be issued > without replicating, say, some weird Chi-Dom confluence in the more or I agree here. With some effort, grouping could be delayed for years, and the game would become richer as new decks became viable. Lack of access to old vampires could be prevented by reprinting old vampires. Win-win-win situation. > > AUS/CEL/PRE is great, but stealth is hard to > > come by. Aus/Obf/Pre might suit you better? A bit all over the place, > > and superiors are much harder to come by. > > > > As you add more and more vampires, these limitations become far weaker. > > Marginally weaker. Not "far weaker". At least in my experience, over > time from Jyhad only through all the expansions that have been issued, > I haven't seen evidence of any kind of detrimental shift except possibly > in the availability of weenies in a given discipline. Even these are a > creep, not a rush. And I don't care about them. If they become too > much of a factor, I'm sure a few more antiweeny cards that have alternate > use might be called for but nothing major. I don't even agree that more weenies are a problem. The weenie problem already exists. In any given weenie deck, enough small-cap vampires already exist that you can usually get out as many as you want without duplication. I know this is the case for weenie dom, pot, for and obf, because I've played those decks, and having more vampires available for them would have had little impact on their effectiveness. It might become a problem if a bunch of vic weenies were printed or something. Grouping won't get rid of existing weenie decks, and in my opinion, the absence of grouping wouldn't make them that much stronger. Even if it did, new weenies don't have to be printed, which would also solve the problem. > > > Would we ever get to true dial-a-crypt? Unlikely in the short term, but > > eroding the fundamental facets of the game doesn't strike me as a good > > idea. > > > > Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Anyone wanna place bets on when it falls > > over? > > Yea. I'll take 21 million years from now. Assuming the current rate of > expansions of course. But I'm crude. I'm perfectly willing to foist > this problem off on my great great great great great (time some order of > magnitude) grandchildren. I can see it eventually becoming a problem in 3-5 years, if the designers completely ran out of ideas. By then the game would have significantly changed, and who's to say what the best solution would be by that time? JSpektr

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<3DCA6627...@white-wolf.com>... > jspektr posits that grouping is necessary if as few as 100 new vampires > are printed. > > I responded to that point. To clarify, grouping is necessary if the particular 100 vampires that were printed in Cam were printed. I am confidant that, say, 100 bloodlines vampires could be printed without increasing the power of existing weenie, stealth-bleed, or prince decks one bit. JSpektr

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<3DC9A20D...@white-wolf.com>... > jspektr wrote: > > This presumes White Wolf cannot ever reprint the old vampires these > > newbies cannot get. If the majority of the "good" vampires (ie: Anvil, > > Anson, etc.) from Jyhad/VTES were reprinted in Cam, instead of 100 new > > vampires, the grouping rule would not be necessary, and the newbies > > would have access to the old vampires. > > > > Grouping is only necessary if one accepts that White Wolf had no > > choice but to print 100 new vampires. That is not the case. They could > > have printed fewer new vampires, and reprinted useful old vampires. > > ... and no more vampires, ever. As detailed in other posts in this thread, which I'm sure you read, more vampires could have been printed if some care was taken to avoid stacking issues. Or, as I suggested elsewhere, new versions of old vampires were printed, which contested with but did not replace old ones. That would allow "new" vampires while at the same time limiting the ability to put the new and old vampires together in the same crypt. The difference would be that the limitation would be tightly focused on preventing vampires with very similar disciplines from being put together (ie: Donnal O'Connor the Prince cannot be used with Donnal O'Connor the Justicar, preventing DOM/CEL/POT from getting as large a boost, but still allowing both vampires to be used with any other vampire from other sets). JSpektr [ quoted text not captured ]

karol...@yahoo.com (Karol Magda) wrote in message news:<df69cc0d.02110...@posting.google.com>... Yes, and it is very sad how little support/credit people seems to give > to WW for all good stuff they do (which is IMO vast majority) and how > they all cry 'the sky is falling' if something displeased them. As Zhi Lin, my old drawing teacher used to say, "I will not complement you unless you do something truly amazing. If you do something well, you should know it. But you may not know it when you do something wrong. That is why I will criticize you every day." I believe in that same philosophy. It should be balanced by understanding that critiquing an action is NOT the same as criticizing a person. I certainly don't have anything to say about anyone at White Wolf on a personal level. Saying that their actions may not have been the best shouldn't have any impact on their egos, unless they are very fragile, which I don't believe is the case. To back up the appropriateness of this response, I think it is widely known that White Wolf claimed to be surprised and shocked at the level of negative reaction from the Cam set. If they were being genuine, and not just spinning events, then it was vitally important for people to express their unhappiness, because White Wolf clearly did not realize what all of the ramifications of their actions would be. JSpektr

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<hk67X0NS...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <196f2577.02110...@posting.google.com>, jspektr > <jsp...@sprynet.com> writes: > >This assumes that new vampires would necessarily make old decks more > >effective. That is not a given. See Bloodlines for evidence. > > Partly true. There are some damn fine Bloodlines vampires, however, who > do work well with old vampires. Not necessarily old decks, but to use > some of them effectively, it's often most useful to have old vampires. Exactly. I think the same pattern could have been followed, with new vampires focusing on interesting or unusual discipline combos and specials that might work well with old vampires, but that didn't make old, powerful decks more powerful. Combined with reprinting old vampires, to ensure that new players can get everything they need, I think we could have avoided any kind of grouping rules for quite some time, while expanding the game. JSpektr

snap...@eudoramail.com (Snapcase) wrote in message news:<9945f27a.02110...@posting.google.com>... > jsp...@sprynet.com (jspektr) wrote in message news:<196f2577.02110...@posting.google.com>... > > > This assumes that new vampires would necessarily make old decks more > > effective. That is not a given. See Bloodlines for evidence. > > Bloodlines isn't proper evidence; they were all new clans (most with a > unique discipline). White Wolf obviously isn't going to follow that > trend with every set. Well, duh. The point was that a large number of new vampires can be made without causing stacking problems. Bloodlines achieved this by having vampires that didn't match existing discipline sets. New, non-bloodlines vampires could do the same thing with a little creativity. > > > It also assumes that if new vampires make old decks more effective, > > the other vampires required for those decks are not being reprinted. > > No, it does not. The idea was simply that as an old player, grouping > allows me to never buy another vampire again and still remain > competitive from the crypt side. This does assume the new group of > vampires are not strictly "better" than older groups of vampires. Assume that is true, then how is it a good business decision for White Wolf? Why on earth would they want to make it viable, much less an advantage, for old players to simply never buy any more cards? Mind you, this is exactly what they have achieved with me, if they hadn't reprinted Sabbat Wars and Final Nights, I wouldn't buy any new cards at all. But I'd much rather have had Camarilla keep the old design and not have had the grouping rule, then I'd have bought several, maybe even dozens, of boxes. > > > If the majority of "staple" vampires from Jyhad/VTES/Ancient > > Hearts/Dark Sovereigns were reprinted along with a smaller selection > > of new vampires, no one would have to worry about getting old vampires > > to stay competitive. They'd get them at the same time they got the new > > vampires. > > Which is fine for new players. Heavy reprinting tends to put off > veterans, from my ccg experience. If the reprinting is done in the "base" set, it would not impact the veterans. According to White Wolf, the Cam set is intended for new players, and they will not be turned off by reprints, since all cards are equally new to them. JSpektr

"jspektr" <jsp...@sprynet.com> wrote in message news:196f2577.02110...@posting.google.com... > Assume that is true, then how is it a good business decision for White > Wolf? Why on earth would they want to make it viable, much less an > advantage, for old players to simply never buy any more cards? I don't think it is an advantage to not buy or buy the CE cards. What they've given us is the *option* of buying these new CE cards. We buy them if we'd like to have more deckbuilding options. What makes it a good business decision is that they've actually created a base set that is available and competitive for new players while actually having the potential to be interesting to some of the existing players. > Mind you, this is exactly what they have achieved with me, if they > hadn't reprinted Sabbat Wars and Final Nights, I wouldn't buy any new > cards at all. But I'd much rather have had Camarilla keep the old > design and not have had the grouping rule, then I'd have bought > several, maybe even dozens, of boxes. Hmm. Odd. I was just telling a friend that I never intended to buy even a single box when I heard about a new base Cam set. I've got so many of those Jyhad/VTES cards that I have zero interest in getting anymore--even for free. The new vamps generated a small amount of interest for me and I've got 2 boxes of CE. > If the reprinting is done in the "base" set, it would not impact the > veterans. According to White Wolf, the Cam set is intended for new > players, and they will not be turned off by reprints, since all cards > are equally new to them. Sure. The new base set is aimed at new players. The impact on the veterans is that a VTES reprint would have generated zero interest whereas a new CE set with new vamps generates some interest. -Robert Robert Goudie rob...@vtesinla.org

"jspektr" <jsp...@sprynet.com> wrote in message news:196f2577.0211...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] This certainly wouldn't be easy unless you are introducing new skills. With the existing skills I can think of at least two problems with this approach. The first is that "unusual discipline combos" would create a CE set which is inferior to its predecessors. If the CE is a hodge-podge of odd skills then the new players without access to VTES/Jyhad would be disadvantaged. If you are instead speaking of a CE set which focuses on different (as oppossed to mismatched) skills (like say Venture with Animalism) than were previously introduced, you'd be degrading what I call the "clannishness" of each clan. Printing Ventrue with Animalism, Gangrel with Presence, Toreador with Protean, etc. makes each clan less distinct. Eventually "clan" becomes meaningless when you widely distribute what gives each of them their distinctness. The degradation probably wouldn't reach an unacceptable level for most people for a while but I believe it is a flaw in that approach. I do think that you are probably right and that the design team could have developed a set that worked with the concepts you've mentioned to create a CE set. Unfortunately, the suggestions above are only attempts to ignore the problem or delay dealing with them. The design team seems to have decided that a new CE base set would be a good time to address the problem. The grouping rule actually *addresses* the problem and provides a way for countless numbers of cards to be produced long into the future. -Robert rob...@vtesinla.org

Robert Goudie wrote: > I do think that you are probably right and that the design team could have > developed a set that worked with the concepts you've mentioned to create a CE > set. Unfortunately, the suggestions above are only attempts to ignore the > problem or delay dealing with them. The design team seems to have decided that > a new CE base set would be a good time to address the problem. The grouping > rule actually *addresses* the problem and provides a way for countless numbers > of cards to be produced long into the future. I'm curious, Robert. Were you actually seeing the beginnings of these kind of problems in your play? Were clans beginning to lose their "clannishness" and people beginning to create crypt with unusual discipline combinations (apart from weeny monodiscipline decks)? Were such decks beginning to detract from your enjoyment of the game? Fred (curious, because I think you play more highly competitive games than I do)

James Lewis <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote in message news:<3DCA957E...@btinternet.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Its rare for us to agree on something..... How can you say that? Did we not make a mutual withdrawal deal at the last tourney we were at? Surely that counts as agreeing on something? Marty

jsp...@sprynet.com (jspektr) wrote in message news:<196f2577.02110...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] *Cringe* I've been watching both sides of this discussion with mild interest, and think that there are many good points on both sides (though I personally agree with grouping), but I do have to jump in on this statement. I think Bloodlines is a VERY good example of how grouping prevents degenerate crypt-building. The only way I can think of 100 bloodlines vamps not causing problems is if they consisted of 20 different 5-vamp Blood Brother circles. There are just a couple of bloodlines that I think should get some Group 3 help (Salubri antitribu and MAYBE Daughters of Cacophony) that would make sense from both a power balance and a storyline perspective, but most of the bloodlines were intentionally balanced to have just a few vamps. Even with power-balancing rules like scarcity, slaves and infernalism, more vamps means more options, and even just one or two more options could seriously overpower clans like True Brujah or Salubri. The two Kiasyd decks came in second and third at the Portland storyline, and I can only imagine how much nastier those decks would be with even ONE more vamp with Mytherceria. (You want to talk about stealth bleed?) If there are ANY bloodlines vamps in group 3, I sincerely hope they are just for the clans that really need it. All the others (any new Salubri, for example) had better be group 4. -Volya42

Marty wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Hadn't forgotten but think that was the only other time. Still think I could have won that game if there was more time left.

"Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<yZIy9.999$Aq5....@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>... > "jspektr" <jsp...@sprynet.com> wrote in message > news:196f2577.0211...@posting.google.com... > > Exactly. I think the same pattern could have been followed, with new > > vampires focusing on interesting or unusual discipline combos and > > specials that might work well with old vampires, but that didn't make > > old, powerful decks more powerful. Combined with reprinting old > > vampires, to ensure that new players can get everything they need, I > > think we could have avoided any kind of grouping rules for quite some > > time, while expanding the game. > > This certainly wouldn't be easy unless you are introducing new skills. I agree. It would not have been easy, but "possible" and "easy" are not the same thing. I believe it would have been within the ability of the design team with some effort. > > With the existing skills I can think of at least two problems with this > approach. The first is that "unusual discipline combos" would create a CE set > which is inferior to its predecessors. If the CE is a hodge-podge of odd skills > then the new players without access to VTES/Jyhad would be disadvantaged. As I believe I stated elsewhere in the thread, part of the assumption is that the bulk of Cam is reprinted (or updated with new stats and reprinted) Jyhad/VTES vampires, with around 1/3 of the vampires being new. That prevents new players from being disadvantaged, but still creates enough interest for veterans. That's especially true if old not so great vampires, like Appolonius, were updated with the new costing scheme, possibly with the "contests but does not replace" mechanic I described upthread. > If you are instead speaking of a CE set which focuses on different (as oppossed > to mismatched) skills (like say Venture with Animalism) than were previously > introduced, you'd be degrading what I call the "clannishness" of each clan. > Printing Ventrue with Animalism, Gangrel with Presence, Toreador with Protean, > etc. makes each clan less distinct. Eventually "clan" becomes meaningless when > you widely distribute what gives each of them their distinctness. The > degradation probably wouldn't reach an unacceptable level for most people for a > while but I believe it is a flaw in that approach. I think that could eventually become true, but I also think it is less of a drawback than those inherent in grouping. There might also be some value in the idea of expanding the number of vampires with the "forth clan discipline" some clans seem to have, like the Malkavians with celerity, or the Tzemisce with dominate. > > I do think that you are probably right and that the design team could have > developed a set that worked with the concepts you've mentioned to create a CE > set. Unfortunately, the suggestions above are only attempts to ignore the > problem or delay dealing with them. The design team seems to have decided that > a new CE base set would be a good time to address the problem. The grouping > rule actually *addresses* the problem and provides a way for countless numbers > of cards to be produced long into the future. I agree that the problem would eventually have to be addressed. But the way it has been addressed has resulted in my buying less cards, the rest of my playgroup buying less cards, and outside of Sabbat War and Final Nights, even the NEW players in my area buying less cards. That is not an acceptible trade off to me. Grouping was intended to prevent the game from breaking, but in my area it essentially put VTES out of print, with very little possibility of new cards being purchased in any significant number. JSpektr

"Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<LIIy9.981$Aq5....@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>... > "jspektr" <jsp...@sprynet.com> wrote in message > news:196f2577.02110...@posting.google.com... > > Assume that is true, then how is it a good business decision for White > > Wolf? Why on earth would they want to make it viable, much less an > > advantage, for old players to simply never buy any more cards? > > I don't think it is an advantage to not buy or buy the CE cards. What they've > given us is the *option* of buying these new CE cards. We buy them if we'd like > to have more deckbuilding options. What makes it a good business decision is > that they've actually created a base set that is available and competitive for > new players while actually having the potential to be interesting to some of the > existing players. I think the bulk of their market is existing players, and at best Cam and the Grouping rule were viewed neutrally, at worst with open hostility, in that demographic. That is a bad business decision as far as I'm concerned, as the boost to new players was not balanced by the harm it did to relations with and sales to old players. > > > Mind you, this is exactly what they have achieved with me, if they > > hadn't reprinted Sabbat Wars and Final Nights, I wouldn't buy any new > > cards at all. But I'd much rather have had Camarilla keep the old > > design and not have had the grouping rule, then I'd have bought > > several, maybe even dozens, of boxes. > > Hmm. Odd. I was just telling a friend that I never intended to buy even a > single box when I heard about a new base Cam set. I've got so many of those > Jyhad/VTES cards that I have zero interest in getting anymore--even for free. > The new vamps generated a small amount of interest for me and I've got 2 boxes > of CE. I'll happily admit that I REALLY hate cards that no longer do what they say. If the design had remained the same, I'd have bought Cam just to replace the cards that had changed. But I hate the new design more than I hate inaccurate text. If I could use the new vampires, that would have also been a powerful reason to buy Cam. Dozens may have been an exaggeration, but I can see myself buying 10-12 boxes if I'd have been able to use the vampires, the design had not changed, and maybe if there had been a few more new library cards. JSpektr

Eric Simon wrote: > > I think Bloodlines is a VERY good example of how grouping prevents > degenerate crypt-building. The only way I can think of 100 bloodlines > vamps not causing problems is if they consisted of 20 different 5-vamp > Blood Brother circles. There are just a couple of bloodlines that I > think should get some Group 3 help (Salubri antitribu and MAYBE > Daughters of Cacophony) that would make sense from both a power > balance and a storyline perspective, but most of the bloodlines were > intentionally balanced to have just a few vamps. Even with > power-balancing rules like scarcity, slaves and infernalism, more > vamps means more options, and even just one or two more options could > seriously overpower clans like True Brujah or Salubri. The two Kiasyd > decks came in second and third at the Portland storyline, and I can > only imagine how much nastier those decks would be with even ONE more > vamp with Mytherceria. (You want to talk about stealth bleed?) > > If there are ANY bloodlines vamps in group 3, I sincerely hope they > are just for the clans that really need it. All the others (any new > Salubri, for example) had better be group 4. Yep. That may be one thing that turns out to be good about grouping, I'll admit. If we get interesting new group 4 Salubri or Nagaraja or the like at some point later on down the line, that would not be an unwelcome development. I'm still thinking there's not enough group 3 stuff in print to support any group 4 vampires and have them be useful right now, however. Fred

"Frederick Scott" <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:3DCB672F...@removethis.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Hey Fred, I think your guess is correct that a highly competitive environment would first see signs of the clans losing their "clannishness". That type of group is more likely to abandon playing a particular clan that they like and will more often play whatever is competitive. I think that many of the decks locally seem to be based around skills and not clans. At this point, however, most skill-based decks still generally turn out looking like a particular clan deck. I don't think this will ever reach a point that it detracts from the enjoyment of the game unless the designers have a sudden change of heart and drop grouping and instead opt for mis-matching the skills to create unique vampires for the existing clans. When all of the clan newsletters talk about the same cards or decks then we'll know there's a problem. :) -Robert