new blood... opinions of future expansions

new to the group. hi. what the hell, i get an opinion. (of course i could've gotten a box of MTG arabian nights for less, but i went into JYHAD!!!) looks like a good group. many have good points and white wolf would do well to hear you all. if we assume that shoring up the independent clans is definite, the question becomes how to approach it. i will break with the previous thread here... the person with the idea that certain disciplines, nay possibly whole (small) clans could be represented by card texts is on the right track. if you only print one Salubri, and one True Brujah, and one baali, then they just get used as SUPPLEMENTS to the existing jyhad of the methuselahs. you don't have to print 12 vamps of varying ages and skills that make say, Salubri, viable. if the Salubri's healing capability proves nasty enough in combo with their skills, they will be a vamp that a methuselah covets control of, like certain other vamps have always been (rake, agrippina, black cat, violette prentiss...) where Mortis needs to be different than necromancy, just use special card text. the same with obeah/van. give a couple Salubri/samedi special skills in their card text. oddly, i think that the 2 Disciplines that need to be disciplines and have specialized cards printed for them are Temporis and Daimoinon. these shouldn't be on many vamps to start, but if the Master:discipline card is printed, methuselahs could bestow these devastating capabilities on their minions. although there are a ton of overpowered cards on lasombra's site, WW should check out some of the card ideas linked there. i favor a full run of the following (viable) clans: !assem, !ravnos, SoL, and harbingers. i also favor only printing 1-5 vampires of each of the following: True Brujah, Baali, Salubri, Samedi, Cappadocian, (and Gargoyles printed as allies, with errata stating that they are vampires.) ==== one more philosophical thing. this is to the WHITE WOLF REP and everyone. the big mistake that magic always made, and which v:tes has certainly also made, is in how they react to overpowered or unbalancing cards. ban them, change their text ridiculously, or change the actual rules as a reaction to their use. WRONG! this is flat-out WRONG thinking, to my mind. accept that you will be printing expansions. in these expansions, print cards, possibly even common cards, that take care of the problem or add another facet to the metagame of using that card. example: there is a problem with return to innocence. instead of changing the card text to something unrecognizable as the card text, use one of your reprint slots to reprint Archon Investigation, and also make a new reaction card like SEEN FROM A MILE AWAY:reaction,common,costs 1 from the vamp;if an opponent is bleeding you for more than 3 pool, tap this minion--this bleed is reduced to 1 and no further modifiers may be played on this bleed. it's simple, it's not unbalanced... do you really risk the loss of that inner circle member if dimple might see that return to innocence coming from a mile away??? maybe you do, and that re-vitalizes not only return to innocence, but cards that let you peek at your prey's hand... also, ON REPRINTS: someone suggested that complaining about reprints is wrong because there is always some use to 40 copies of a card... i offer them as many THE BARRENS as they can handle. truly wallpaper. reprinters at white wolf should look at the usefulness of each card if you have 2, 10, and 50. yeah, i can make a case for 50 theft of vitae, or blood dolls in my collection. but the barrens? elder library? deer rifle? surely these are cards nobody really wants more than 10 of. if white wolf can not come up with balanced useful alternatives to these ULTRACOMMONS, they should hire a couple of us who could easily do so. any reprints should be ones that are both desirable and dynamic. there are endless possibilities that haven't been touched for every discipline and clan, as well as new allies, equipment and retainers, vote modifiers, referendum ideas, actions, locations, combat cards, and Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

...and more. =============== spinney99 p.s. selma, prince of cleveland, has superior obfuscate, something those arguing logically with an illogical "prince of cleveland" might remembe [ quoted text not captured ]

how could i think of such a thing? ------------- card idea: RECOUNT (may be used as an action modifier or reaction; use only after all votes are counted.) if this referendum finished tied or with a difference of one vote, votes are all nullified. any set of methuselahs may pay one life for one vote each, and if the edge is controlled, it may be used to gain one vote as well. these are the only votes that are counted in the Recount. "this election should come to an expeditious end." tim crowley, bush spokespe [ quoted text not captured ]

<spin...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8ul9fe$6v8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com... > new to the group. hi. what the hell, i get an opinion. (of course i > could've gotten a box of MTG arabian nights for less, but i went into > JYHAD!!!) Of course, you would have busted that open and probably traded away/played-to-death the cards in that expansion, so your statement is basically worthless. [snip what-spinney99-would-like-to-see-done-with-future-expansions] > one more philosophical thing. this is to the WHITE WOLF REP and > everyone. the big mistake that magic always made, and which v:tes has > certainly also made, is in how they react to overpowered or unbalancing > cards. ban them, change their text ridiculously, or change the actual > rules as a reaction to their use. WRONG! this is flat-out WRONG > thinking, to my mind. accept that you will be printing expansions. in > these expansions, print cards, possibly even common cards, that take > care of the problem or add another facet to the metagame of using that > card. example: there is a problem with return to innocence. instead of > changing the card text to something unrecognizable as the card text, The Return to Innocence [AH] Cardtype: Action Cost: 4 blood {(D) Bleed. If you successfully bleed your prey for one or more, put this card on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any blood or goes to torpor, or if your prey is ousted. During your next untap, this vampire is removed from play and your prey burns X pool, where X is the capacity of this vampire.} How is this "something unrecognizable"? > use one of your reprint slots to reprint Archon Investigation, and also make > a new reaction card like SEEN FROM A MILE AWAY:reaction,common,costs 1 > from the vamp;if an opponent is bleeding you for more than 3 pool, tap > this minion--this bleed is reduced to 1 and no further modifiers may be > played on this bleed. it's simple, it's not unbalanced... So instead of fixing one card, we should allow an arguably broken card to remain in existence, a card that a player can do NOTHING about when it is played against them, and then we should waste a slot in the next expansion by printing a band-aid card, a card which every single player will have to get their hands on to stop the bleeding (pun-intended) done by the still-broken card? [snip discussion about reprints] -- Kevin J. Mergen, kjme...@home.com, Prince of Madison, WI "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 05:22:57 GMT, spin...@my-deja.com wrote: >looks like a good group. many have good points You make some good points yourself and I agree with most of them. Andrew

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 08:53:48 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: >The Return to Innocence [AH] >Cardtype: Action >Cost: 4 blood >{(D) Bleed. If you successfully bleed your prey for one or more, put this >card on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any >blood or goes to torpor, or if your prey is ousted. During your next >untap, this vampire is removed from play and your prey burns X pool, >where X is the capacity of this vampire.} > >How is this "something unrecognizable"? For one thing, this restatement doesn't make it clear whether the cost comes from your pool or the acting vampire. Why exactly is this card supposed to be broken and how is this supposed to fix it? The fix just seems to be an invitation for some other player to come across table and take out the acting vampire before the effect finally kicks in. This seems an ugly and unreliable fix - just like the fix to Wake. And what is supposed to be going on here? I get the idea that your vampire is regaining its humanity or some such but what has this got to do with a big bleed? Andrew

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:21:14 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 08:53:48 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: > >>The Return to Innocence [AH] >>Cardtype: Action >>Cost: 4 blood >>{(D) Bleed. If you successfully bleed your prey for one or more, put this >>card on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any >>blood or goes to torpor, or if your prey is ousted. During your next >>untap, this vampire is removed from play and your prey burns X pool, >>where X is the capacity of this vampire.} >> >>How is this "something unrecognizable"? > >For one thing, this restatement doesn't make it clear whether the cost >comes from your pool or the acting vampire. Um. 4 blood = 4 blood, therefore the acting vampire. 4 pool would be 4 pool. And the symbol on the card has a great big "4" on it in the "blood off a vampire" spot. This is the same format all the other cards are in...? >Why exactly is this card supposed to be broken and how is this >supposed to fix it? The fix just seems to be an invitation for some >other player to come across table and take out the acting vampire >before the effect finally kicks in. This seems an ugly and unreliable >fix - just like the fix to Wake. It is, in fact, such an invitation. The original version of the card was: Cost: 4 blood Requires a ready vampire. (D) Bleed your prey with +X bleed, where X is the capacity of the acting vampire. Burn this vampire if this action is successful. So you got out Arika, Minion Tapped her down to 6, and bled with this card. Day Op for unblockable, and Conditioning for a bleed modifier afterwards; total bleed amount = 3 + 11 + 3 = 17. This was usually enough to oust almost anyone, and resulted in everyone being forced to pack 12 Deflections in their deck, or risk being ousted at any given time - since even if you weren't the original target of the bleed, it was likely to get bounced to you. Archon Investigation was insufficient, as you needed it on the -top- of your deck. "Hideously Broken" wasn't an accurate description. AND you could do it with any big vampire, due to the discipline-lessness of the card. AND, because of the ill-worded "Burn" on the card, you could perform elaborate Soul Gem tricks. Several different errata were tried, and none really proved useful, as you had to be playing combat *and* get through an Obedience wall in order to actually remove blood from the vampire in question and negate the card. The NJL tried "no action modifiers may be played with this card", so you couldn't Day Op or add stealth to it, but this left the door open for the Concoction of Vitality and Marked Path. In the end, it was decided that having the ability to bleed for 10 or more with one card was unbalancing, and the card was banned... thank god. -- Derek Jack-Booted Thug of Atlanta "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." - C. Darwin, 1871

>the big mistake that magic always made, and which v:tes has >certainly also made, is in how they react to overpowered or unbalancing >cards. ban them, change their text ridiculously, or change the actual >rules as a reaction to their use. WRONG! this is flat-out WRONG >thinking, to my mind. My experience has been that some cards are so bad that trying to work around them produces long term flaws in the game. What happens too often, when hoser cards are made, is that the game becomes unstable. The broken strategy is still broken as long as the counter isn't played. If it is, the broken strategy often becomes completely ineffectual. Personally, I find the volume of errata in this game to be a joke. I'm amazed people find the game playable, yet we find a way. The negative effects of errata can be somewhat mitigated with reprinting cards with correct text, which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't. As for banning, I've learned to be heavily in favor of banning. It's so much easier to remember a list of cards than to remember how card texts have changed. But, most CCG companies never want to ban anything because then they will look like WotC. Also, for some reason, players scream bloody murder about how they can't play their cards. Apparently, CCGs attract numerous power gamers. There's also a limit to how many cards can be banned. Archon Investigation, for instance, seems to be an attempt to fix a group of strategies not one card. Banning Conditioning, Govern, etc. doesn't seem realistic. There will always be problem cards. Having playtested quite a bit for a few games, I don't see how playtesting will ever catch every problem. What to do with the problems has no simple solution, for if it did, everyone would use it. And, not every problem should be looked in the same way. Sometimes trying to work around a problem card/strategy is the best solution. Sometimes a different response is best. I have zero problem with Return being banned. I played in a tournament game where every player was ousted with it (original text). It was just too disruptive. As a last comment, no doubt brought up often when discussing the problems with big bleed that produced Archon Investigation in the first place, players adapt. However, the metagame should be open to as many different strategies as possible. If adapting means playing proX or counterX only, the game isn't likely to be much fun. Adapting can solve many problems but not all.

well, i take it the most objectionable part of my statement is my idea about how to approach overpowered cards. i still stand by some of it, but i see what people are saying. there are certain cards that i also think are unfixable: madness of the bard, monocle of clarity, etc. perhaps return to innocence was a bad example... i have more objection to the "fixing" of cards like misdirection and wake, by ascribing text to them that isn't printed on them. enough about that... nobody commented on my opinions of which clans/new disciplines/and how to approach them. good god! does that mean some may agree? also, i had something to say about ultracommons being reprinted. also, no objections. i have a blue fuzzy warm feeling. -spin p.s. in another thread, someone implied that new card ideas aren't germane here. i'd love to see any and everyone's ideas, and i'd hope that ww would feel the same. we can discuss their value, possible problems, over- or under-poweredness, etc. -------- [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 05:22:57 GMT, spin...@my-deja.com wrote: >the person with the idea that certain disciplines, nay possibly whole >(small) clans could be represented by card texts is on the right track. >if you only print one Salubri, and one True Brujah, and one baali, then >they just get used as SUPPLEMENTS to the existing jyhad of the >methuselahs. you don't have to print 12 vamps of varying ages and I question whether printing "power" vampires adds anything to the game, other than fierce contesting of the "power" vampires. Jimmy Dunn functions well partly because of his special disability re: contesting, and partly because he is highly specialized. If you're not beating things up, you don't have Jimmy. And if you do use Jimmy, you have to be wary of someone else wanting that same Jimmy. >methuselahs could bestow these devastating capabilities on their >minions. and I also question whether providing "devastating capabilities" is such a good idea. The game balance would have to be carefully taken into consideration, especially when introducing a discipline via Master cards only. As a "master-only" discipline, the inferior of most cards would have to be highly effective, and the superior even MORE so, to reward the problems encountered in getting the discipline onto vampires in the first place. So now you have to carefully balance every single card printed to avoid accidentally providing too much support to one discipline or another; and there are an awful lot of disciplines and combos out there already. It becomes somewhat like equipment, actually. There is an awful lot of good equipment out there. But you don't see it used much, because it's difficult to get into play and difficult to keep in play, and easy to get hosed. So even though the relative power-per-cost of equipment has increased substantially (compare Bang Nakh, Crimson Sentinel, and Femur of Toomler to the original Jyhad toys), you still don't hear about anyone's fabulous Bang Nakh deck because it's STILL almost not worth the time to equip it. Is the solution to keep increasing the power of equipment? No, since then you get into an "arms race" where eventually you have something that's just TOO good, and tips over the balance. Same with the new disciplines. Making them weak will just make them ignored. Making them good is difficult without accidentally making them TOO good. >although there are a ton of overpowered cards on lasombra's site, WW >should check out some of the card ideas linked there. i favor a full >run of the following (viable) clans: !assem, !ravnos, SoL, and I favor getting Final Nights out first to fix the Independent clans (Ravnos/Giovanni/Setite/Assamite), and then doing a partial reprint of the base set to give new players a solid platform to start from that they can combine with the reprint of Sabbat War. A new player can do OK with Sabbat War right now, but the "original seven" clans need to be available in stores as well. >==== >one more philosophical thing. this is to the WHITE WOLF REP and >everyone. the big mistake that magic always made, and which v:tes has >certainly also made, is in how they react to overpowered or unbalancing >cards. ban them, change their text ridiculously, or change the actual >rules as a reaction to their use. WRONG! this is flat-out WRONG >thinking, to my mind. accept that you will be printing expansions. in First, only something like seven cards have been banned. A pretty good track record, since most of them have OBVIOUS problems in tournament play. Some cards are sufficiently broken that immediate repair is required. (see: RtI) This is V:TES, not Magic. We don't get expansions every two months - for the past two years, we weren't even sure we would GET another expansion. Banning or errata wasn't just an unpleasant option, it was the ONLY option. How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? Aside from the problems it causes for non-native-language speakers, it relies on a totally subjective interpretation of what a "rhyme" is. No two people are likely to agree. One person on here believes that simply repeating the sentence twice qualifies as a rhyme; I would NEVER permit such a thing as a judge, but that just points up the real problem with the card, that it's totally dependent on who's judging. So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. >these expansions, print cards, possibly even common cards, that take >care of the problem or add another facet to the metagame of using that >card. example: there is a problem with return to innocence. instead of >changing the card text to something unrecognizable as the card text, use >one of your reprint slots to reprint Archon Investigation, and also make Besides that Archon Investigation is not an adequate solution to RtI... see below for why trying to "fix" broken cards with other cards is a bad idea. >a new reaction card like SEEN FROM A MILE AWAY:reaction,common,costs 1 >from the vamp;if an opponent is bleeding you for more than 3 pool, tap >this minion--this bleed is reduced to 1 and no further modifiers may be >played on this bleed. it's simple, it's not unbalanced... do you Actually, it's dreadfully unbalanced, since it drastically weakens bleed as a strategy. Bleeding is already balanced out sufficiently by intercept and Deflection; it doesn't need to have a magic card available to everyone that negates one of its strengths,... that it can do more than 3 at a time. If I can only do 3 pool loss max, why not just play a vote deck? Much easier, comes with +1 stealth on all actions by default... >really risk the loss of that inner circle member if dimple might see >that return to innocence coming from a mile away??? maybe you do, and >that re-vitalizes not only return to innocence, but cards that let you >peek at your prey's hand... Return to Innocence does not need to be revitalized. It needs to be gone, and stay gone. The game was not designed to handle bleeds of 10-15 from a single vampire in one action. I mentioned above the other problem with fixing cards by printing other cards. You turn it into an "arms race", where you're either playing the RtI deck, or you're playing with a copy of this new reaction, or you're being ousted. It also sharply reduces the deck variety possible; for example, where is the room for combat in this? Most combat decks couldn't afford the 8 Wakes and 8 copies of your reaction that would be REQUIRED to provide a defense against RtI. It's been generally agreed here that any situation where you are forced to either play "X" or play "anti-X" is a Bad Thing, and something for the game as a whole to avoid moving towards. To that extent, the suitable approach to fixing broken cards is to fix the card, NOT to layer band-aids on top of it. >also, ON REPRINTS: someone suggested that complaining about reprints is >wrong because there is always some use to 40 copies of a card... i >offer them as many THE BARRENS as they can handle. truly wallpaper. >reprinters at white wolf should look at the usefulness of each card if >you have 2, 10, and 50. yeah, i can make a case for 50 theft of vitae, >or blood dolls in my collection. but the barrens? elder library? deer >rifle? surely these are cards nobody really wants more than 10 of. if >white wolf can not come up with balanced useful alternatives to these >ULTRACOMMONS, they should hire a couple of us who could easily do so. They aren't ultra-common unless you have purchased a lot of the original Jyhad base set. In the current set (and only one White Wolf has been responsible for, FYI), Sabbat War, The Barrens is only found in the preconstructed Brujah and Lasombra decks. This makes it easily available for people who want one, and also no longer "common". New players may not want the original Jyhad set, because the card backs do not match. They may not want to go chasing after the old "Vampire" starter set, which is old, slightly more expensive, and currently filled with incorrect card text. This is why the Barrens was reprinted in Sabbat War; because the usefulness of the card is undeniable, and it needs to be available in a suitable fashion. As much as we'd all love to see 437 new cards, it's not appropriate for new players, which is something this game desperately needs. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 17:41:51 GMT, spin...@my-deja.com wrote: >p.s. in another thread, someone implied that new card ideas aren't >germane here. i'd love to see any and everyone's ideas, and i'd hope >that ww would feel the same. we can discuss their value, possible >problems, over- or under-poweredness, etc. I believe that ideas are fine, but the objection that Wizards raised (and I suspect White Wolf echoes) is against specific card texts. So it'd be OK to hold a discussion on, say, a hypothetical Auspex card that got around S:CE somehow, and which clans it would benefit, and why it should be in Auspex instead, and should it be only superior, etc... but spewing out card text just makes things difficult for WW. the problem lies in the recent American tendency towards frivolous lawsuits. Fighting those costs money, time, and effort, and could well delay an entire expansion over one card that someone with more money than sense believed was "his intellectual property", and that somehow "he came up with it first". So ideas are great, but please... no specific card texts, no specific card titles. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000, Derek Ray wrote: > I believe that ideas are fine, but the objection that Wizards raised > (and I suspect White Wolf echoes) is against specific card texts. Steve Wieck has noted that White Wolf have no objection to specific card texts (as Legbiter said at the time, they probably have better lawyers), but they aren't soliciting them - which means that such things aren't likely to turn up in an expansion because the Design Team aren't looking out for cool ideas but already have their own thoughts about how to take the game forward in terms of specific texts. -- James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D "Steve: Yeah, well that's one of the advantages of being a sad, lonely fairy, I guess. You get to learn how to be a spy." - Stephen Fry, Making History

Oops! Forgot this bit. On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 17:41:51 GMT, spin...@my-deja.com wrote: >nobody commented on my opinions of which clans/new disciplines/and how >to approach them. good god! does that mean some may agree? Well... I'm still formulating a concrete opinion on new clans, disciplines, etc. There's been such a froth over it recently, with one person claiming that any new disciplines are a Horrible Bad Idea and that it would Just Ruin the game, and quite a lot of counterargument, and then a couple others leaping in in support of the other side... that I'm taking my time before wading into that one, to be sure I have solid examples. I can summarise my position thusly: I believe that adding new clans and disciplines to the game is the ONLY WAY to guarantee a consistently growing player base, because you MUST have a marketing tie-in. Some people love the Gangrel, true, and adding the occasional new toy for the Gangrel is great... but the Gangrel are quite viable the way they are, and there's no need to screw with that. Taking a brand-new clan and simply making them a subset of a previous clan and a previous discipline just won't thrill people. The average person wants New n' Shiny, and a New Clan with New Toys is it. I also believe that adding new clans and disciplines, if/when it's done, must be done properly, so that we don't end up with the problems that the Ravnos, Giovanni, Assamites, and Setites had for so long. The two major weak points in the DS/AH expansions were: 1) Not enough vampires, or vampires that sucked 2) Not enough discipline cards that didn't suck Both of these can be laid directly at the door of the design team and playtesters, who should have KNOWN better than to let this sort of thing out the door. Exception must be made for whoever designed the Ravnos vampires, though, because damn near all of them are quite effective and focused; now the LIBRARY cards, those could use help. #1 can be easily fixed. Print 12 vampires per new clan. Each of them should have either inferior or superior of the new discipline. Enough of the larger vampires should have the superior that it is possible to make a deck "go" without use of skill cards. Make sure that you keep the disciplines relatively focused on the in-clans - don't create vampires like Aisha (ani aus PRE ser), who have disciplines scattered all to hell and gone and a convenient special to try to make up for it. She should've been (obf PRE SER) and the same special, and THEN she would've been functional. #2 can be easily fixed as well; if a card requires conditions that are excruciatingly rare, then DON'T PRINT IT unless the benefits of the card are huge. Simple playtesting would have solved a lot of the problems; I have no idea what the writer of Death Pact was thinking, with the multiple ultra-rare conditions layered on top of each other. The "fragmentation" issue is one I'd like to save for later, since I have some pretty firm ideas but need to work up a solid basis to present them on. [ quoted text not captured ]

my god, it never would have even occured to me. i guess i have more sense than money... all i want is to GIVE ww ideas. i assumed that nobody could make claims like that if they posted out here in a newsgroup... it wouldn't seem like one could prove that someone else hadn't come up with an idea even before that... not to mention that the game is ww's. if you come up with an idea for monopoly, and parker brothers incorporates it, they don't owe you anything but THANKS. > I believe that ideas are fine, but the objection that Wizards raised > (and I suspect White Wolf echoes) is against specific card texts. So > it'd be OK to hold a discussion on, say, a hypothetical Auspex card > that got around S:CE somehow, and which clans it would benefit, and > why it should be in Auspex instead, and should it be only superior, > etc... but spewing out card text just makes things difficult for WW. > > the problem lies in the recent American tendency towards frivolous > lawsuits. Fighting those costs money, time, and effort, and could > well delay an entire expansion over one card that someone with more > money than sense believed was "his intellectual property", and that > somehow "he came up with it first". So ideas are great, but please... > no specific card texts, no specific card titles. > > -- Derek > Jack-Booted Thug of Atlanta > > "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." > - C. Darwin, 1 [ quoted text not captured ]

spin...@my-deja.com wrote: > > >the person with the idea that certain disciplines, nay possibly whole > >if you only print one Salubri, and one True Brujah, and one baali, > >they just get used as SUPPLEMENTS to the existing jyhad of the > >methuselahs. you don't have to print 12 vamps of varying ages - > I question whether printing "power" vampires adds anything to the > game, other than fierce contesting of the "power" vampires. ... > and I also question whether providing "devastating capabilities" is > such a good idea. The game balance would have to be carefully taken > into consideration, especially when introducing a discipline via > Master cards only. As a "master-only" discipline, the inferior of > most cards would have to be highly effective, and the superior even > MORE so, to reward the problems encountered in getting the discipline > onto vampires in the first place. So now you have to carefully > balance every single card printed to avoid accidentally providing too > much support to one discipline or another; and there are an awful lot > of disciplines and combos out there already. i agree with all of this... extreme care does need to be taken. and i'm not saying the few vamps of small clans need to be highly powered; i'm just saying that any healing capability might be as valued/contested for as say carlotta giovanni... not OVERPOWERED, but powered. > How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? Aside from the > problems it causes for non-native-language speakers, it relies on a > totally subjective interpretation of what a "rhyme" is. No two people > are likely to agree.... > So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. AGREED in this case, and Monocle of clarity. ----------- (in response to a card idea i put out there...) > Actually, it's dreadfully unbalanced, since it drastically weakens > bleed as a strategy. Bleeding is already balanced out sufficiently by > intercept and Deflection; it doesn't need to have a magic card > available to everyone that negates one of its strengths,... that it > can do more than 3 at a time. If I can only do 3 pool loss max, why > not just play a vote deck? Much easier, comes with +1 stealth on all > actions by default... HAVE TO DISAGREE HERE A BIT. most of the players i know do not think that bleed/ween decks are sufficiently counter-balanced. a card that makes everyone re-think whether to throw that conditioning on influences the metagame... there's still a good chance that you can get that 6 point bleed in, but it gives one pause, especially if it is a common card. ----------- [ quoted text not captured ] again, disagree. if it's so useful, then trade me ANY card for one. also, it was printed in a suitable fashion in SABBAT. ------- thanks, thug. i do appreciate your perspectives on these thoughts, and i agree with much of what you say... ---spincity == [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 spin...@my-deja.com wrote: > the person with the idea that certain disciplines, nay possibly whole > (small) clans could be represented by card texts is on the right track. > if you only print one Salubri, and one True Brujah, and one baali, then > they just get used as SUPPLEMENTS to the existing jyhad of the > methuselahs. you don't have to print 12 vamps of varying ages and > skills that make say, Salubri, viable. if the Salubri's healing > capability proves nasty enough in combo with their skills, they will be > a vamp that a methuselah covets control of, like certain other vamps > have always been (rake, agrippina, black cat, violette prentiss...) > where Mortis needs to be different than necromancy, just use special > card text. the same with obeah/van. give a couple Salubri/samedi > special skills in their card text. The problems with doing this are that you then limit your options for the future. Assume that Wizards of the Coast had decided with Sabbat that, well, Jyhad wasn't really viable and they'd make this their last expansion, and they would bother after that. So, they printed a Salubri with text as you suggest. Now, several years down the line, we have White Wolf in control. Several years ago, we couldn't have predicted that at all. With changes that occur in the World of Darkness, printing just a couple of vampires with special abilities means that you end up cutting off future possibilities. How do you then, later, integrate that clan in when you want to do them as a whole clan? > oddly, i think that the 2 > Disciplines that need to be disciplines and have specialized cards > printed for them are Temporis and Daimoinon. Daimoinon is a possibility, of course, but many, many people have objections to Temporis, in my experience. As a discipline in V:tM, it was the very epitomy of stupidity. Time-travel and such like always ends up screwing with games for people. I think it was Xian, or someone, who mentioned recently when this topic came up, how many times have we all heard players saying "Hey, we'll go back in time and kill...." Bang goes your story arc. Maybe we could go back in time and convince people that the Salubri are actually a bunch of cuddly people after all, and the Tremere shouldn't ever do nasty things to them. And.... > one more philosophical thing. this is to the WHITE WOLF REP and > everyone. the big mistake that magic always made, and which v:tes has > certainly also made, is in how they react to overpowered or unbalancing > cards. ban them, change their text ridiculously, or change the actual > rules as a reaction to their use. WRONG! this is flat-out WRONG > thinking, to my mind. Many differing approaches were looked at when such problems were brought up. There were many different thoughts. Some people like the shock nature of such power cards, others preferred small errata, others major errata, others banning. Everything comes down to a judgement call in the end, but all the options were thoroughly discussed at the time. > accept that you will be printing expansions. in > these expansions, print cards, possibly even common cards, that take > care of the problem or add another facet to the metagame of using that > card. Well, there are many problems with this. 1) You assume you are going to get an expansion. When the problems with Return to Innocence were encountered and addressed by LSJ, the chances of V:TES *ever* getting an expansion were slim. Very slim. 2) What happens before you get the expansion. Okay, cool. We don't errata X because we can address it later. Well, for six months now we still have to carry on playing with a completely broken card. If there is a problem with a card, it does need to be addressed. Waiting six months, a year or more for a new expansion to come out takes a lot of time. 3) The cash-cow mentality. If you, to compete with Return to Innocence, need a card in Final Nights, it produces a situation where people pretty much have to buy Final Nights or die (to take random situations here). So, people have to buy Final Nights. People can end up resenting doing that. As it currently stands, people with a reasonably large card pool taken at random have an excellently workable situation to work with. About 500-600 cards works well (the size of a box of Jyhad boosters). Take, for example, the card Corruption in Ancient Hearts. It uses old, established mechanisms and can be countered via old, established mechanisms. You don't *have* to buy Ancient Hearts, you can play with your Jyhad/V:TES set and still find all the cards you need to deal with it. Sure, you can add cards from elsewhere, but you don't *need* to. Creating situations where you *need* to buy new cards creates unrest. Not everyone can afford to buy new cards all the time, some of us have other commitments. And good will of players counts for a whole lot. > example: there is a problem with return to innocence. instead of > changing the card text to something unrecognizable as the card text, use > one of your reprint slots to reprint Archon Investigation, and also make > a new reaction card like SEEN FROM A MILE AWAY:reaction,common,costs 1 > from the vamp;if an opponent is bleeding you for more than 3 pool, tap > this minion--this bleed is reduced to 1 and no further modifiers may be > played on this bleed. it's simple, it's not unbalanced... Okay, first of all, you need to be reacting. Not all decks are designed to do a lot of reacting. Second of all, is it not unbalanced? Well, it might or might not be. But look at it this way: If I create a piece of errata for a card, I can target that *specific* card. Same applies to banning it. If I create other cards, it's much more difficult. What does your card actually do? Well, it kills Return to Innocence. Definitely. No arguments there. But it doesn't *just* kill Return to Innocence. It really hurts stealth-bleed decks, which are in a situation where they're pretty much balanced at the moment. They certainly aren't, in my experience, winning a completely unbalancing number of tournaments. Then there's your bruise and bleed. When bruise and bleed does find a gap to get through, it needs to be able to bleed for a fair bit - and your card stacks against that, too. (This is one of the commoner complaints against Protected Resources (also known as Protected Racehorses, if Deja ever puts it archive back on-line).) See, when you target bleed, you don't just target Return to Innocence. You change the whole face of the game. If the problem is *only* with Return to Innocence, just affecting that one card can be a way, way simpler method of achieving a balanced environment whilst simultaneously not completely resculpting that environment under everyone's feet. > also, ON REPRINTS: someone suggested that complaining about reprints is > wrong because there is always some use to 40 copies of a card... With a number of cards, there can be. > i > offer them as many THE BARRENS as they can handle. Sure, but what do you do with new players who don't have the cards? > truly wallpaper. Not at all. There are a number of common thoughts in the game about some things, a number of which are just plain wrong. One of the things that sets Jyhad apart from Magic is the replacement mechanism. If I play Magic, I always replenish cards, regardless. I can speed that up, sure, but I can be pretty much sure of getting a card every turn, without doing *anything*. Jyhad works with a constant replace mechanism, instead. If you don't get rid of cards, you can't get new ones. The Barrens is an excellent way of providing extra card cycling. If I get into sticky situations, I can speed up the rate at which I sift through my deck. I can try and pull out new cards which will help me, sifting out the cards that are screwing me up at the moment. Sure, you're never going to want 40 in a deck, but that's a problem with any card game where you only have two or three different rarities - common, uncommon and rare. Some of the commons you want a lot of, some of them you don't. It happens. > reprinters at white wolf should look at the usefulness of each card if > you have 2, 10, and 50. yeah, i can make a case for 50 theft of vitae, > or blood dolls in my collection. but the barrens? 50, no, I can't see any use for that many (other than multiple decks, for demos and such-like). But how do you propose to provide the cards to brand new players without repriting them? > elder library? deer > rifle? surely these are cards nobody really wants more than 10 of. There's a case for lots of copies of deer rifle. The weenie Brujah decks that sometimes get rolled out find it to be excellent combat defence. Having to draw *2* maneuvers to stay at close range against a deck is a fairly stiff problem. Would everyone want them? Unlikely. But some people do. > if > white wolf can not come up with balanced useful alternatives to these > ULTRACOMMONS, They're not really ultra-common, they're just common. And if the point is that you wouldn't want more than, say, 10 discard locations, creating an alternative doesn't really help. If you don't want more than 10 Barrens, why do you want 10 Barrens and 10 Barrens Mark 2? > there > are endless possibilities that haven't been touched for every discipline > and clan, true, there are endless possibilities. But a lot of them should remain endless. One of my arguments against the idea of creating meta-disciplines, the sort favoured by the players who don't want to see Thanatosis brought into the game in favour of new cards for Necromancy which do the same, is that I don't like the idea of making every discipline end up doing everything. Each discipline is unique and does its own thing. Cross-over, sure, but Necromancy shouldn't be the premier bleed discipline, nor should Obfuscate be the offensive combat discipline or whatever. Staying away from such things is Good. > as well as new allies, equipment and retainers, vote > modifiers, referendum ideas, actions, locations, combat cards, and True. But that doesn't stop you, at the same time, providing old staples so that everyone can play sealed deck right out of the starter and booster. If you just create infinite subtle variations, so that you don't re-print old cards, what's the point? You can't use all of them in a deck, so why not just re-print the old card? And in situations where you could have both the original and the variation in a deck, and want that, you provide a real benefit to old players. They have both, so they can compete better. The newbie can't, since they can't get access to the old card and so get trashed at the tournament and decide to give up the game. (This really does happen.) If you just reprint the old version, no-one gets an advantage in terms of card availability. [ quoted text not captured ]

"James Coupe" <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote in message news:Pine.SOL.4.21.001112...@yellow.csi.cam.ac.uk... > Daimoinon is a possibility, of course, but many, many people have > objections to Temporis, in my experience. As a discipline in V:tM, it was > the very epitomy of stupidity. Time-travel and such like always ends up > screwing with games for people. I think it was Xian, or someone, who > mentioned recently when this topic came up, how many times have we all > heard players saying "Hey, we'll go back in time and kill...." Well, it wasn't me, but I agree that Temporis is one of the worst-conceived disciplines ever. Only marginally better than any of the number of crappy disciplines that you can find on people's personal webpages that equate to: "I have a cool vampire that I want to do everything. He is [a new blood line/creator of a new discipline] that is kewl. He rawks. This discipline is the best ever, because it's a combination of the natural synchronicity between dominate, fortitude, and potence. The best of all three, with none of the drawbacks." Sigh. My money is on Derek being the wise one who mentioned this. Xian -- I'd tell the world and save my soul, But rain falls down and I feel cold. A cold that sleeps within my heart, It tears the earth and sun apart. --_Shellshock_, New Order www.waste.org/~xian

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 19:05:02 GMT, spin...@my-deja.com wrote: >(in response to a card idea i put out there...) >> Actually, it's dreadfully unbalanced, since it drastically weakens >> bleed as a strategy. Bleeding is already balanced out sufficiently by >> intercept and Deflection; it doesn't need to have a magic card >> available to everyone that negates one of its strengths,... that it >> can do more than 3 at a time. If I can only do 3 pool loss max, why >> not just play a vote deck? Much easier, comes with +1 stealth on all >> actions by default... >HAVE TO DISAGREE HERE A BIT. most of the players i know do not think >that bleed/ween decks are sufficiently counter-balanced. a card that >makes everyone re-think whether to throw that conditioning on influences >the metagame... there's still a good chance that you can get that 6 >point bleed in, but it gives one pause, especially if it is a common >card. This hypothetical card doesn't affect weenie bleed in the slightest bit. Weenies rarely, if ever, bleed for more than 3, and often not for more than 2 with a disciplineless Computer Hacking. The errata to Misdirection did much more to help against the weenie hordes. It does, however, discriminate against large vampires, who -need- to be able to bleed for more than 3 per action to make their lesser number of actions count for the same. Most people will agree that the game needs to lean back towards large vampires, as power goes. A card like this just encourages weenies, since it's not worth it any more to attempt to bleed for more than 3. I know I certainly wouldn't waste time trying... and that also wallpapers Archon Investigation. >> New players may not want the original Jyhad set, because the card >> backs do not match. They may not want to go chasing after the old >> "Vampire" starter set, which is old, slightly more expensive, and >> currently filled with incorrect card text. This is why the Barrens >> was reprinted in Sabbat War; because the usefulness of the card is >> undeniable, and it needs to be available in a suitable fashion. As >> much as we'd all love to see 437 new cards, it's not appropriate for >> new players, which is something this game desperately needs. > >again, disagree. if it's so useful, then trade me ANY card for one. >also, it was printed in a suitable fashion in SABBAT. However, Sabbat is no longer available at any reasonable price. I have at -least- 10 boxes of the original Jyhad set... as a result, I have plenty of Barrens, thanks. However, I am puzzled as to why you don't think the Barrens is useful. How can it be a bad thing to get rid of a useless card from your hand and have the chance of getting a better one from your library? Do you always have a perfect hand of 7 cards? There was a time when I used to include the Barrens and a Fragment of the Book of Nod in nearly every deck I built, and especially in any combat decks. The value of the ability to move cards out of your hand to get to the one you really need is uncountable; and while the Fragment is more useful, the Barrens can't be stolen as easily. Having both out on the table and available for use almost ensures that you'll have what you need in your hand when you really need it. [ quoted text not captured ]

Spincity wrote: >>HAVE TO DISAGREE HERE A BIT. most of the players i know do not think that bleed/ween decks are sufficiently counter-balanced. a card that makes everyone re-think whether to throw that conditioning on influences the metagame... there's still a good chance that you can get that 6 point bleed in, but it gives one pause, especially if it is a common card.>> I assure you that bleed decks are sufficiently balanced at this point in time--newer players (I'm not saying that you are necessarily a newer player, mind you, just illustrating my point) and people who don't play that much see bleed decks (like archtypical Malkavian Sneak and Bleed or S+B) as over powered. The game is balanced sufficiently that bleed decks, while the most efficient at accomlishing the main goal of the game (oust your prey), it is generally easily derailed by common defenses like Bleed Bounce and Rush combat (which is usually the last strategy any play group decides is worth actually playing). Malk S+B decks, often decried as "cheesy" or overpowered are really not even all that good in a sufficiently varied play environment. Weenie bleed decks were, in fact, slightly over the top of the power curve, and mostly unaffected by the likes of Bleed Bounce and Archon Investigation, but they have just been set back centuries by the Sabbat War reprint of Misdirection (which now only taps a single minion, rather than X minions), to the point that I don't think weenie bleed is any longer any more effective than any other good strategy. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com http://www.geocities.com/bakija6 "Why so many swords?" "I must kill many." -Kikuchiyo

> Well, it wasn't me, but I agree that Temporis is one of the worst-conceived > disciplines ever. Only marginally better than any of the number of crappy > disciplines that you can find on people's personal webpages that equate to: > "I have a cool vampire that I want to do everything. He is [a new blood > line/creator of a new discipline] that is kewl. He rawks. This discipline is > the best ever, because it's a combination of the natural synchronicity between > dominate, fortitude, and potence. The best of all three, with none of the > drawbacks." Sigh. Temporis comes from Dirty Secrets and can therefore be dismissed as "silly". It does, however, make some sense when you regard the True Brujah as the heartless philosophers that they are. If it were a discipline that let you time travel and alter history, they would have done. Instead, they're a pathetic bunch of nobodies who have to resort to getting help from the _Setites_. The _Setites_, for goodness sake. That's what drug addicts do.

> Now, several years down the line, we have White Wolf in control. Several > years ago, we couldn't have predicted that at all. With changes that > occur in the World of Darkness, printing just a couple of vampires with > special abilities means that you end up cutting off future > possibilities. How do you then, later, integrate that clan in when you > want to do them as a whole clan? I would say that this has already happened. Hunting Grounds are all messed up. Human servants can't go out during the day. All the US vampires are completely made up (as opposed to the canon US vampires who are made up, but you know what I mean). And so on. All kinds of things have already been restricted terribly.

In article <7hmt0tcapf0bo5c4p...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> writes: >Well... I'm still formulating a concrete opinion on new clans, >disciplines, etc. There's been such a froth over it recently, with >one person claiming that any new disciplines are a Horrible Bad Idea >and that it would Just Ruin the game, I can only presume this is intended to be a paraphrase of my views. As such, it requires some clarification. My opinion expressed was that new disciplines would, *if* incorporated in the traditional V:tES manner damage the marketability of the game by fragmenting the customer base, and making it harder to satisfy the entire available customer base with each expansion. I therefore advocated that new disciplines not be incorporated in the traditional manner, with their own crypt-card symbol and a host of support crypt and library cards to support them. Instead I advocated that new concepts be incorporated in such a manner that they interact easily within the existing structure. I never claimed that new disciplines would "just ruin the game" in the sense of making it unplayable or less fun (which I believe is what the phrase implies). My concerns, very specifically expressed, addressed its marketabilty and profitability. Considering that Wizards of the Coast gave up on the game, there was already reason to suspect that the game's profitability was hovering somewhere on the borders of survival. If the game ceases to be profitable, then it will not be marketted or promoted, and, in the long run, is likely to be less played. If the player base is fragmented, it becomes, for all practical purposes, smaller. >and quite a lot of >counterargument, and then a couple others leaping in in support of the >other side... that I'm taking my time before wading into that one, to >be sure I have solid examples. > >I can summarise my position thusly: I believe that adding new clans >and disciplines to the game is the ONLY WAY to guarantee a >consistently growing player base, because you MUST have a marketing >tie-in. This seems a very extreme position to take. I am confused as how adding new clans and disciplines will assist in enhancing the player base, much less GUARANTEE such, much less be the ONLY such strategy worthy of consideration. I could be wrong, but I just cannot see how a V:tM player player will be convinced to try V:tES because of a new expansion introduces the new discipline of Spiritus, when they could not be lured by its featuring of Animalism, Auspex, Celerity, Chimeristry, Dementate, Dominate, Fortitude, Necromancy, Obfuscate, Obtenebrate, Potence, Presence, Protean, Quietus, Serpentis, Thaumaturgy, or Vicissitude. Indeed, it seems more likely that the sheer number of clans and disciplines will intimidate new players (one of the reasons I favor focussed expansions). Indeed, my concern was that any marginal gains in the player base made by such a strategy (if any) would be more than offset by the "fragmentation" of the interests of the existing customer base, such it would be more difficult to keep all players interested in every expansion. While the overall number of V:tES players MIGHT rise, a smaller percentage of these would be interested in each expansion, since its cards would be less likely to interact with those they prefer to play. For all practical purposes, fragmentation reduces the player base for each expansion. I do of course agree that new expansions are essential for marketing the game and keeping alive. I do not see why new disciplines MUST necessarily be part of this strategy. Of course, I am not against adding new things. Rather I am against adding new things in an unnecessarily fragmenting manner. Will introducing the "Mortis" the "new discipline" really have greater marketing value than introducing "Mortuus" the new set of powers for an old discipline? Thematically, they are virtually identical, so if one can be used for marketing, so can the other. >Some people love the Gangrel, true, and adding the occasional >new toy for the Gangrel is great... but the Gangrel are quite viable >the way they are, and there's no need to screw with that. Taking a >brand-new clan and simply making them a subset of a previous clan and >a previous discipline just won't thrill people. The average person >wants New n' Shiny, and a New Clan with New Toys is it. I presume you are talking about veteran players here, who have already collected all the "old Toys". It seems to me difficult to believe that any player fanatic enough to have collected cards from all 22 clans and all 17 disciplines, in numbers sufficient to be playable, will somehow lose interest and stop playing just because he does not get a 23rd and a 18th. Judging by the reactions on this newsgroup to the handful of new cards in the Sabbat War expansion, it would appear to me that veteran players are more than capable of getting excited about "new toys" that interact with the existing structure and are not set aside in their own little lonely corner of the game. We are more than capable of get excited by Pier 13, Telepathic Tracking, City Gangrel in sufficient numbers to make a deck out of, etc. etc. For new players, of course, the old clans are a better draw. They represent White Wolf's best creative efforts, are better developed, and more popular. Any new players who are left cold by the old clans are unlikely to be drawn by new ones. >I also believe that adding new clans and disciplines, if/when it's >done, must be done properly, so that we don't end up with the problems >that the Ravnos, Giovanni, Assamites, and Setites had for so long. >The two major weak points in the DS/AH expansions were: > >1) Not enough vampires, or vampires that sucked >2) Not enough discipline cards that didn't suck No argument here, except that for me, "done properly" includes the idea of incorporating "new disciplines" as paths of existing disciplines.. >The "fragmentation" issue is one I'd like to save for later, since I >have some pretty firm ideas but need to work up a solid basis to >present them on. Til then... -- John Whelan

ok. here's where the rpg intrudes on the possibilities of the ccg. though silly, there could be a few spells that are understandably nasty for the discipline, but they do NOT have to unbalance the game... whole new strategies would become available, as with daimoinon, that are unforeseen by the current players... as i said before, i favor having FEW vamps who start with these skills, mainly as a M:Discipline toss-on. since i give white wolf the right to use any of this "intellectual property" (like they need my permission; it's their game,), i'll feel free to describe a couple cards off the top of my head... ===== RE-STRIKE--- combat tem: each minion re-chooses their current strike (any blood paid is returned to the vampire); use this card only immediately after strikes are chosen. TEM: as above, but this vampire strikes with First Strike. === or: GO BACK IN TIME AND KILL IT action-- tem: this acting vampire takes a +3 stealth action to enter combat with a minion they have previously been in combat with this game. TEM: as above, but if this vampire is ready after the resulting combat, it may untap; if it does, it must take another action. ==== or: Visionary Oracle: ally. 1 life, 0 bleed, 0 dmg. visionary oracle may dodge as a strike once per combat. tem: the visionary oracle may tap to reduce a predator's minion's action's stealth by 1. TEM: as above, but an action's stealth is reduced by up to 2 (but not below 0) ==== and lots and lots of better-thought-out and kewler stuff than that... that doesn't have to hurt the ccg one iota. is everyone afraid of change...?-spintoy [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:A5A5CFBE3C2D91E2.E1FA244E...@lp.airnews.net... > On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 08:53:48 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: > > >The Return to Innocence [AH] > >Cardtype: Action > >Cost: 4 blood > >{(D) Bleed. If you successfully bleed your prey for one or more, put this > >card on the acting vampire. Burn this card if this vampire loses any > >blood or goes to torpor, or if your prey is ousted. During your next > >untap, this vampire is removed from play and your prey burns X pool, > >where X is the capacity of this vampire.} > > > >How is this "something unrecognizable"? > > For one thing, this restatement doesn't make it clear whether the cost > comes from your pool or the acting vampire. Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... <sigh> Ok. I have to ask. I shouldn't, but I have to. . . . . . Nope, I just can't be that much of a dick. Sorry. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000, Tim Fletcher wrote: > and alter history, they would have done. Instead, they're a pathetic > bunch of nobodies who have to resort to getting help from the > _Setites_. The _Setites_, for goodness sake. That's what drug addicts > do. Hey, no knocking the Setites! *grin* [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8ul9fe$6v8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, spin...@my-deja.com wrote: > new to the group. hi. Hi yourself! [ quoted text not captured ] i've been keeping out of the debate about whether more clans and disciplines is going to fragment the game too much, but when i was in America i played a Cappadocian Happy Families deck quite a bit using Damnan's new cards [accessible via Lasombra's site]. That deck slotted pretty well into play and despite having only one new discipline the Cappas really turned out to have a nice "flavour" about them. There were certainly issues about some of the cards - Legion of Zombu is ridiculouly over-powered, Temple of Erciyes needs tightening up textually, and the reaction/combat/action modifier card that lets you not be burned from Agg damage could easily be abused in horrid Day Op decks. i also made a Baali deck but only played it once - Damnan's cards again plus a bit of field engineering to create a set of rules for Dark Thaumaturgy. Again, there were issues about particular cards but no sense of fragmentation. [If anyone's interested, i didn't win a SINGLE game with either of these decks, but i did get the odd VP and spoiled a few people's plans with them.] Why fragmentation didn't crop up as a problem perhaps bears some examination. i think it's because the new cards for new disciplines aren't really that new - they are version of cards used for other disciplines, mostly, with a few little individual tweaks. Approached like this, i think there is a chance that everybody could be satisfied with straightforward new expansions including new clans and disciplines. > ==== > one more philosophical thing. this is to the WHITE WOLF REP and > everyone. the big mistake that magic always made, and which v:tes has > certainly also made, is in how they react to overpowered or unbalancing > cards. ban them, change their text ridiculously, or change the actual > rules as a reaction to their use. WRONG! this is flat-out WRONG > thinking, to my mind. accept that you will be printing expansions. in > these expansions, print cards, possibly even common cards, that take > care of the problem or add another facet to the metagame of using that > card. example: there is a problem with return to innocence. instead of > changing the card text to something unrecognizable as the card text, use > one of your reprint slots to reprint Archon Investigation, and also make > a new reaction card like SEEN FROM A MILE AWAY:reaction,common,costs 1 > from the vamp;if an opponent is bleeding you for more than 3 pool, tap > this minion--this bleed is reduced to 1 and no further modifiers may be > played on this bleed. it's simple, it's not unbalanced... do you > really risk the loss of that inner circle member if dimple might see > that return to innocence coming from a mile away??? maybe you do, and > that re-vitalizes not only return to innocence, but cards that let you > peek at your prey's hand... i don't really agree with you here. i think this kind of MAgic Bullet approach looks horrid from a game-design point of view and doesn't work that well in practice. i don't play the games and possibly am speaking out of line here but i'm fairly sure this has happened in Star Wars or B5 or something. Perhaps someone who plays these games could comment? Whether they do or not, arguably the worst cards in our own game are the various clan hosers. Yuck. Not optimistic based on that precedent that card- or strategy-hosers would work any better. > also, ON REPRINTS: someone suggested that complaining about reprints is > wrong because there is always some use to 40 copies of a card... i > offer them as many THE BARRENS as they can handle. truly wallpaper. > reprinters at white wolf should look at the usefulness of each card if > you have 2, 10, and 50. yeah, i can make a case for 50 theft of vitae, > or blood dolls in my collection. but the barrens? elder library? deer > rifle? surely these are cards nobody really wants more than 10 of. if > white wolf can not come up with balanced useful alternatives to these > ULTRACOMMONS, they should hire a couple of us who could easily do so. > any reprints should be ones that are both desirable and dynamic. there > are endless possibilities that haven't been touched for every discipline > and clan, as well as new allies, equipment and retainers, vote > modifiers, referendum ideas, actions, locations, combat cards, and > It's true that there are some commons you won't EVER need a lot of. But there are lots that ALL players need SOME of. A good solution is having cards of this kind as "vitals" in precon decks, which was an idea pioneered in Netrunner, and echoed in the SW precon decks. [ quoted text not captured ]

apologies in advance if i happen to match clan and discipline names wrong, or if the clans I use aren't really related, or whatever. some of this is off the top of my head. On 13 Nov 2000 06:04:35 GMT, nys...@cs.com (Nystulc) wrote: >it requires some clarification. My opinion expressed was that new disciplines >would, *if* incorporated in the traditional V:tES manner damage the >marketability of the game by fragmenting the customer base, and making it >harder to satisfy the entire available customer base with each expansion. I My first objection comes from this. Satisfying the entire existing customer base is, frankly, a hopeless cause. There will always be people unhappy with what has been done, and there will always be people who think that something else should have been done. Any number of companies have learned this the hard way, that you can't make everyone happy all the time. It is far more effective and profitable to make some people VERY satisfied (by more narrowly targeting any new expansions). Players are not going to get mad and quit just because the latest expansion didn't have their favourite toys in; a good example is the lack of the !Tremere in Sabbat War. Nobody is quitting because of it. Several people are not thrilled with it, but they are also happy with the -rest- of the expansion, so it works out. >somewhere on the borders of survival. If the game ceases to be profitable, >then it will not be marketted or promoted, and, in the long run, is likely to >be less played. If the player base is fragmented, it becomes, for all >practical purposes, smaller. I question whether having a significant number of disciplines truly "fragments" the player base. I have yet to have seen a single person declare that they wouldn't be buying Sabbat War because their favourite clan wasn't supported. Eleven clans WEREN'T supported in SW; all the Camarilla, and all the Independents. All but four disciplines got NO new cards whatsoever - and one discipline got only Telepathic Tracking. Instead, the reaction has been nothing but positive, enthusiastic, etc. Having a wide number of disciplines helps to DIVERSIFY the player base by encouraging variety, thus providing a greater number of people actually playing the game. To say that more people playing is somehow "smaller" is a fallacy, and so I must dispute your assertion. If we have 200 people playing this game, and 100 of them buy the new expansion, then we've sold 100. If we have 100 people playing this game, and all of them buy the new expansion, we've still sold 100, but we had no potential to sell more, and we still have fewer people playing - a losing situation in the long run. >>I can summarise my position thusly: I believe that adding new clans >>and disciplines to the game is the ONLY WAY to guarantee a >>consistently growing player base, because you MUST have a marketing >>tie-in. > >This seems a very extreme position to take. I am confused as how adding new Not especially. Stagnation = death. V:TES had nothing new for a long time, and the player base shrunk enormously, even with the cheap availability of the Jyhad base set to draw in the occasional new player. Until you hit upon a 'classic' formula such as chess, then ANYTHING must constantly be evolving with the times. This is a very basic concept; if you don't have new stuff consistently, you will lose out to the other, INFERIOR new stuff. >clans and disciplines will assist in enhancing the player base, much less >GUARANTEE such, much less be the ONLY such strategy worthy of consideration. I >could be wrong, but I just cannot see how a V:tM player player will be >convinced to try V:tES because of a new expansion introduces the new discipline >of Spiritus, when they could not be lured by its featuring of Animalism, Perhaps their "thing" happens to be Spiritus. Perhaps they've been wondering about this V:TES thing for some time now, and when the White Wolf marketing campaign hits the streets, it ends up being the final push, and they go and get a box of the base V:TES set and a box of the new expansion. I suspect you underestimate just how much marketing potential is generated by "new and shiny", though. From what I personally saw, Sabbat War has drawn a good bit of attention; not bad for a dead game that just released a set consisting largely of reprints. How did that happen? Marketing. New clans would provide a huge potential, as everyone imagines the "cool powers" from each clan. >Auspex, Celerity, Chimeristry, Dementate, Dominate, Fortitude, Necromancy, >Obfuscate, Obtenebrate, Potence, Presence, Protean, Quietus, Serpentis, >Thaumaturgy, or Vicissitude. Indeed, it seems more likely that the sheer >number of clans and disciplines will intimidate new players (one of the reasons >I favor focussed expansions). If you present the game as "Thirteen clans and 21 disciplines!", then yes, you're going to intimidate players. This would be a poor way to present the game, though; a much better way would be to emphasize the wide variety of clans you could play that you would also find in V:tM, each of which has its inherent three disciplines. Remember, V:tM players are already dealing with a wide variety of disciplines. It's not going to bother them in the slightest, while finding that Mortis has been relegated to merely a subset of Necromancy might. As regards new players, the "starter deck" angle that WW is taking is clearly intended to be the way to bring newer players into the game, and looks to be very effective. You get your starter deck of a cool-looking clan, then you buy some boosters to get some more cards that fit with your clan, and you take the cards you don't want in the boosters ("Protean? But the !Brujah don't have Protean...") and you trade them away to other people for MORE cards that fit within your clan and your deck. Eventually you get bored with the deck as you become more familiar with the game, and you begin exploring different options within the clan, and then different options OUTSIDE of the clan, and so on, and so on. New players will only be a problem if we try to hit them over the head with everything at once, something WW's marketing group has rather deftly avoided with the starter decks. >Indeed, my concern was that any marginal gains in the player base made by such >a strategy (if any) would be more than offset by the "fragmentation" of the >interests of the existing customer base, such it would be more difficult to >keep all players interested in every expansion. While the overall number of as stated previously, the thought of keeping all players interested in every expansion is hopeless. A much better approach is to ensure that many players will be VERY interested in each expansion; an approach that encourages DIVERSITY, not fragmentation. >V:tES players MIGHT rise, a smaller percentage of these would be interested in >each expansion, since its cards would be less likely to interact with those >they prefer to play. For all practical purposes, fragmentation reduces the >player base for each expansion. The longer someone plays, the less likely they are to be satisfied with "just one clan". I don't know anyone 'round here who's been playing for any great length of time who still confines themselves to any specific clan. The lure of the new (here it is again!) always attracts them, and they build things and say "Well, I've never played the Nosferatu before, but I figured I'd give them a try..." About the only thing I've ever seen is the occasional player who refuses to play one clan; will use all others EXCEPT one, frequently Toreador. This, of course, hurts the game not at all. >I do of course agree that new expansions are essential for marketing the game >and keeping alive. I do not see why new disciplines MUST necessarily be part >of this strategy. > >Of course, I am not against adding new things. Rather I am against adding new >things in an unnecessarily fragmenting manner. Will introducing the "Mortis" >the "new discipline" really have greater marketing value than introducing >"Mortuus" the new set of powers for an old discipline? Thematically, they are >virtually identical, so if one can be used for marketing, so can the other. Virtually identical won't cut it. Surely you've seen the complaints regarding Wake with Evening's Freshness and how it should be a Tremere-only card? We all know that for game balance, it wouldn't work, since everyone needs to have the -capability- to untap. But people still bitch about it. Also, YES, the name-recognition matters enormously. "Mortis" is something that V:tM players are familiar with. "Cappadocians" are something they're familiar with. Splashing out advertising that touts the Cappadocians in the next expansion and a bunch of Mortis cards will snag the eye of V:tM players in a huge way. Splashing out advertising that gives the new "Mortuus" path to Necromancy ... well... you lose the name recognition, and probably confuse people. The first question they'll ask is "Why didn't they just call it Mortis?", and then they'll complain about the Cappadocians not having Necromancy itself at all, and so on and so on. Name recognition is an extremely important part of advertising - why do you think products will go out of their way to never specifically name their competitors? The Coke/Pepsi wars are a very rare situation, where both brands have sufficient name recognition on their own. In general, though, you want to capitalize on any "name" you've gone out of your way to establish. So yes, "Mortis" the new is much more valuable than "Mortuus", the weird Necromancy variant. >>Some people love the Gangrel, true, and adding the occasional >>new toy for the Gangrel is great... but the Gangrel are quite viable >>the way they are, and there's no need to screw with that. Taking a >>brand-new clan and simply making them a subset of a previous clan and >>a previous discipline just won't thrill people. The average person >>wants New n' Shiny, and a New Clan with New Toys is it. > >I presume you are talking about veteran players here, who have already >collected all the "old Toys". It seems to me difficult to believe that any >player fanatic enough to have collected cards from all 22 clans and all 17 >disciplines, in numbers sufficient to be playable, will somehow lose interest >and stop playing just because he does not get a 23rd and a 18th. I am not. I am speaking of newer players who we are trying to draw in. See above for why "new n' shiny" matters so much; it's been in a couple different paragraphs. >Judging by the reactions on this newsgroup to the handful of new cards in the >Sabbat War expansion, it would appear to me that veteran players are more than >capable of getting excited about "new toys" that interact with the existing >structure and are not set aside in their own little lonely corner of the game. >We are more than capable of get excited by Pier 13, Telepathic Tracking, City >Gangrel in sufficient numbers to make a deck out of, etc. etc. Yes, because we've all been watching for several years now as equipment has continued to suck, S:CE has continued to make combat suck, and the City Gangrel were a totally lost cause due to lack of vampires. We are happy, ...because we have new things, emphasizing my points above about "new and shiny". >For new players, of course, the old clans are a better draw. They represent >White Wolf's best creative efforts, are better developed, and more popular. >Any new players who are left cold by the old clans are unlikely to be drawn by >new ones. One of the reasons I advocated that the next expansion after final nights be a reprint of the base set, to attempt to draw totally brand-new players who are not familiar with V:tM or the World of Darkness at all. Also, such players who are not drawn to the 'older' clans at all will likely never play the game anyway, and so are largely irrelevant. >>I also believe that adding new clans and disciplines, if/when it's >>done, must be done properly, so that we don't end up with the problems >>that the Ravnos, Giovanni, Assamites, and Setites had for so long. >>The two major weak points in the DS/AH expansions were: >> >>1) Not enough vampires, or vampires that sucked >>2) Not enough discipline cards that didn't suck > >No argument here, except that for me, "done properly" includes the idea of >incorporating "new disciplines" as paths of existing disciplines.. Well... here's the problem with that, as I see it. All the marketing/etc. ideas aside, assume you create a new clan, the Cappadocians, and a new discipline, Mortis. Jolly. I'll go ahead and use the Gangrel as a "baseline", since they are a well-developed clan who possess a discipline, Protean, which was unique to them when they were introduced. From looking at the site with the created Cappadocian cards, their skill set seems to be MOR/AUS/FOR. The Gangrel have 21 discipline cards, 11 "clan toy" cards of some form, and 24 vampires. This is after one set and three expansions, keep in mind. The original Jyhad Gangrel only had 10 discipline cards and 7 "clan toys"; I don't remember how many vamps. Oh, and a skill card "Protean", so call it 8/12 clan toys. To make the Cappadocians viable, you need to print 12 vampires and 10-15 discipline cards for Mortis. You should print at least 8 clan toys in some form; this means that 30-35 cards of your new expansion are going to be totally focussed on Cappadocians. If you introduce two new clans in one expansion (reference DS and AH), then you have 70 cards of your expansion, worst case, that are totally about the new clans. Assuming a 120 card expansion, since that's a number I've seen tossed around a lot, then that still leaves you 50 cards to totally and gratuitously screw around with; so you shouldn't have problems throwing a bone or two to everyone else in the set, say 2 new cards for every other old discipline, leaving you 24 cards... then 2 new vamps for each of the Independents and the Sabbat clans, with Mortis and/or the other new discipline on them, takes you right down to 2 cards left. I excluded the "original 7" because right now, they have significantly more vampires than any other clan out there, even after Sabbat War; we need to bring the existing stuff up to speed. Hopefully Final Nights will help with that, and we can begin adding more toys for the original 7. Anyway, this certainly seems to indicate that it's no problem to include plenty of support for the "veteran" players in a new expansion; when 50 out of 120 cards are related to existing clans, it's highly likely that even if someone doesn't want the Cappadocians, they'll get some of the new expansion for the other-discipline stuff. So while it's still not possible to make EVERYONE happy (some people will undoubtedly bitch about having to buy the stupid Cappadocians just to get the cool new Auspex cards), you certainly don't leave very many people out. Now, to address the problem with making Mortis a subset of Necromancy, and the Cappadocians a subset of ... the Giovanni? I don't remember how you intended to handle that *exactly*, so correct me if I mess up somewhere. To symbolise the Cappadocians properly, I assume you would be printing "Cappadocian" text on the vampires, while still using the Giovanni clan symbol and background, so that they could benefit from the existing Giovanni hunting grounds, etc. OK. I also must assume that you would be creating a number of vampires with NEC/AUS/FOR in some variant. Fair enough. I believe you've then said that you would print Mortis cards by using the NEC symbol, and specifying somehow on the card "requires a Cappadocian". This, however, creates a number of potential balance issues that will rapidly become difficult to resolve, as well as some thematic/style issues. First, as tempting as it may be to just think of the Cappadocians as a "subset" of the Giovanni, they've been deliberately separated in the World of Darkness, and you lose most of the marketing draw for Mortis. There's also the confusion that is generated by having an elaborate setup to distinguish between clans, while to the casual onlooker the vampires in question are all of the same clan; why weren't THESE just done up separately like all the rest? Loses style points. Also loses style points for complicated-ness; when you have to include "Only playable by a Cappadocian" on NEC skill cards, you no longer have the visual reference that the skill symbols were intended to provide. Newer players will be rapidly confused as to why the card in their hand with the discipline symbol their vampire has isn't playable, and will become frustrated. Speaking of frustrated, skill cards... how do you add Mortis to vampires? "This Vampire is a Cappadocian" cards? Second, the game balance issues become very difficult. By making Cappadocians have NEC, you effectively give them four disciplines; Mortis, Auspex, Fortitude, and Necromancy. Any Necromancy cards you print are not automatically restricted to the "true" Giovanni, as they could normally be; the Cappadocians have them too, so now you must print Giovanni-only cards instead of making them discipline-related. Some card combinations may become an immediate issue; is there a reason that NEC/AUS shouldn't be combined together at such a low level? How about NEC/FOR? Is Minion Tap/Force of Will/Possession too powerful? Maybe not, but what else haven't you thought of? Players are creative... they'll discover things to do with old cards that the playtesters will overlook. Do we need more AUS/FOR vampires? How about the Giovanni clan toys? Ambrosius, eww... do the Cappadocians need Ambrosius? (This is one of the things that worries me about the Gargoyles people are mentioning; POT/PRO is one of the discipline combos that doesn't need to show up too easily, especially in the form POT/pro. POT/PRO/FOR could be even worse. Bleeds for 1 are still pretty damn effective, and there's always Computer Hacking once you're done burning all his vampires. Some disciplines DO NOT need to be combined, because of the existing cards.) So, what happens is you end up restricting the Mortis cards too carefully, or worse, not carefully enough. If you had separated the discipline out, you wouldn't have to worry about the game balance issues as much, although you'd still have to ask yourself whether or not the game needed more AUS/FOR vampires. But by separating Mortis, you gain a significant number of benefits, some tangible, some intangible. Right now, there is already an AUS/FOR clan, so you can pretty much assume that AUS/FOR, as a combination, doesn't pose a significant problem to game balance. This gives you great flexibility with creating the Mortis cards, as unless you're quite careless, you have difficulty "breaking" the game. I tried looking at Damnans' page to go through his proposed Mortis cards, and it's not showing up right for some reason. But really, no matter what route you take with Mortis, whether you make it a bleed discipline, a combat discipline, a utility discipline, what have you, it's MUCH easier to maintain balance when you can separate it somewhat. Legbiter played his Cappadocian deck several times during his visit, and I never felt that it was HORRIBLY broken, even though Damnans' vampires and his cards are noticeably high-powered. (The Legion of Zombu, however, is just a no-no from the word "go".) And just because it's partly separate doesn't mean that it has to be TOTALLY off in its own world. The Ventrue Anti would undoubtedly be happy to get another few AUS/FOR vampires, to supplement themselves. There are several mono-FOR decks, and plenty of mono-Auspex decks that would be delighted to get the new low-cap vamps. Depending on what "fourth-discipline" skills you scattered among the clan, you could easily provide some support to the Toreador (include some inferior Presence), the Ravnos/Gangrel/Tzimisce (include some Animalism), Malkavians (include some Obfuscate), ... take your pick. (whew) OK. Breathing now. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 11:17:01 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >So you got out Arika, Minion Tapped her down to 6, and bled with this >card. Day Op for unblockable, and Conditioning for a bleed modifier >afterwards; total bleed amount = 3 + 11 + 3 = 17. A five card combo; how shocking. In this case, I'd point the finger at Minion Tap. The more I see of this card, the cheesier it seems. >Several different errata were tried, and none really proved useful, as >you had to be playing combat *and* get through an Obedience wall in >order to actually remove blood from the vampire in question and negate >the card. The NJL tried "no action modifiers may be played with this >card", so you couldn't Day Op or add stealth to it, but this left the >door open for the Concoction of Vitality and Marked Path. A counter card like Shadowfist's Expendable Unit is one possibility - a card which would make a minion take the hit instead of you being bled. And make it disciplineless so that it's more generally available than Deflection. That's rather like the Mile Away suggestion but a bit pricier - you'd have to sacrifice a minion to stop a big bleed. The errata that I'd like to see tried is to make X (the value of the bleed) equal to the amount of blood on the acting vampire rather than its capacity. This would reduce the value of the bleed by at least 4 (the cost of the action) and increase the overall cost of the action considerably by stopping the abusive Minion Tap combo. And most importantly, it would do little violence to the original wording. Andrew

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:49:21 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >First, only something like seven cards have been banned. A pretty >good track record, since most of them have OBVIOUS problems in >tournament play. It's a lousy track record. Most CGG don't ban any cards while this game just apes Magic and continues to use DCI rules. >How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? > ... >So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. I'm feel sure that the card was banned because the PTB didn't like it, not because it's impossible to play. They're second guessing the designer - that's what stinks about all these errata and bans. Not being prepared to play the game as it is but insisting on shaping it to their own vision of how it ought to have been. >Return to Innocence does not need to be revitalized. It needs to be >gone, and stay gone. The game was not designed to handle bleeds of >10-15 from a single vampire in one action. It seems clear that Return to Innocence was explicitly designed to let you make a big bleed at the cost of a vampire. The game is not a platonic ideal - it is merely the sum of its parts and RtI is one of those parts. If you ban RtI or MoB, you're not playing the game as designed and printed. This is a greater sacrilege than playing with a card limit. >Most combat decks couldn't afford the 8 Wakes and 8 copies of your >reaction that would be REQUIRED to provide a defense against RtI. Presumably combat decks would deal with this by leaping on any large vampire that might RtI, the instant that it appears. >It's been generally agreed here that any situation where you are >forced to either play "X" or play "anti-X" is a Bad Thing, and >something for the game as a whole to avoid moving towards. To that >extent, the suitable approach to fixing broken cards is to fix the >card, NOT to layer band-aids on top of it. This is not the only solution. You can create hosers which have sufficient general utility that they are common in the metagame and so deter use of the power card. Andrew

On 12 Nov 2000 16:22:30 GMT, Ian Lee wrote: >I have zero problem with Return being banned. I played in a tournament game >where every player was ousted with it (original text). It was just too >disruptive. Eh? I read frequently here how one player has swept a table in a tournament. Presumably they ousted every player with some other narrow, degenerate strategy - what's the difference? Return to Innocence gives you a killer punch but it's not clear that it sets you up well to sweep the table because the large vampire that did it is burned. Andrew

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:49:21 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >Some cards are sufficiently broken that immediate repair is required. >(see: RtI) This is V:TES, not Magic. It seems almost indistinguishable from Magic to me - they ban and errata cards at the drop of a hat too. Now that the game is free of WotC, I'd like to see the DCI mentality shed so that the game can develop its own identity. >How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? Aside from the >problems it causes for non-native-language speakers, it relies on a >totally subjective interpretation of what a "rhyme" is. No two people >are likely to agree. One person on here believes that simply >repeating the sentence twice qualifies as a rhyme; I would NEVER >permit such a thing as a judge, but that just points up the real >problem with the card, that it's totally dependent on who's judging. > >So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. What rot. The card could use some clarification but it is certainly playable. The card reads "All players in the game must speak in rhyming sentences." Presumably this means that each player must speak in rhyming couplets. In particular, the sentences are not required to rhyme internally (the rain in spain...); players are not required to rhyme with each other; and that the rhyme can start afresh after each pair (i.e. couplets). Requiring formal grammatical sentences seems too fussy and I'd be happy with terse stuff like "Yes. I guess." as a valid couplet. Repetition is a cheesy way of getting round the requirement but certainly obeys the letter of the law. Note that there are plenty of real poems which make good use of repetition, e.g. Old MacDonald or The Raven. If the card saw heavy use then I'd expect some standard boilerplate devices of this kind to develop. You can see this in game shows like Jeopardy. US natives probably take this for granted through long familiarity but I find it amusingly bizarre that the requirement that each answer must be phrased as a question has degenerated to just adding "What is" on the front of the real answer. UK residents will be more familiar with the game show, "Just a Minute" in which the contestants must talk on a random subject for up to a minute without "hesitation, deviation or repetition." They are allowed to repeat the subject title but it's obviously not sporting to repeatedly chant this alone and this would normally be challenged as deviation. It's a great game and easily played at any time without any equipment except a stop watch. It's scored just like VTES - if you oust the speaker with a succesful challenge you score a point and you get a final VP if you have the floor when the minute is up. While we're at it, can someone explain why the Monocle of Clarity of banned too? This all reminds me of the cartoon in which Dogbert frees Dilbert from the trolls of the accounting department by threatening to turn his cap backwards and so make their hard-wired brains explode. In the final frame, Dilbert asks, "what's that sound?" and Dogbert explains, "a paradigm shifting without a clutch." Andrew

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000 19:41:47 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 11:17:01 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >>So you got out Arika, Minion Tapped her down to 6, and bled with this >>card. Day Op for unblockable, and Conditioning for a bleed modifier >>afterwards; total bleed amount = 3 + 11 + 3 = 17. > >A five card combo; how shocking. In this case, I'd point the finger >at Minion Tap. The more I see of this card, the cheesier it seems. And you would be in error. The problem is not the 5 blood gained from Minion Tapping an IC member; the problem is the bleed for 17. Return to Innocence is no less broken just because it cost someone an 11-pool vampire instead of a 6-pool vampire. Minion Tap is also one of the few cards that makes large vampires worth playing; when you can get out a 10-cap and immediately pull 6 back from it, you are at far less risk if someone happens to Rush, Pentex Subvert, Sensory Deprive, or otherwise pull off any of the "screw one vampire" tricks that are very prevalent in the game. Changing or removing Minion Tap would tip the balance far towards weenies. The *true* blood-gain cheese with Minion Tap comes when it's combined with a single vampire and 5th Tradition. And in this instance, it's been suggested repeatedly that errata to 5th Tradition requiring that it be used on a -different- vampire would be a good step towards a solution for the MT/5th combo; no more getting out Emerson and having him MT/5th as his first action. >>Several different errata were tried, and none really proved useful, as >>you had to be playing combat *and* get through an Obedience wall in >>order to actually remove blood from the vampire in question and negate >>the card. The NJL tried "no action modifiers may be played with this >>card", so you couldn't Day Op or add stealth to it, but this left the >>door open for the Concoction of Vitality and Marked Path. > >A counter card like Shadowfist's Expendable Unit is one possibility - >a card which would make a minion take the hit instead of you being >bled. And make it disciplineless so that it's more generally >available than Deflection. That's rather like the Mile Away >suggestion but a bit pricier - you'd have to sacrifice a minion to >stop a big bleed. First problem: what do you do about Big Vampire Decks that include 20 copies of this card and just soak up any bleeds with a 10-cap Prince/Justicar who does nothing but 5th Tradition himself every turn, sit there, and cast his votes? Second problem: by making it disciplineless, you turn it into a replacement for most other bleed defenses, neutering bleed significantly as a strategy. Third problem: you need to carefully design the card so that people are only able to play it with minions who have enough blood to cover the bleed, otherwise you give weenie decks yet another enormous benefit ("Smudge lobs himself in the way of that bleed for 6. Aw, he goes to torpor, he only had 1. Rats"). Once you do that, this makes the card itself somewhat worthless for the NON-big vampire decks. Fourth problem: you mandate that everyone have and obtain this card or be ousted by RtI. Again, it degenerates into an "X or anti-X" problem, and that's been accepted as a Bad Thing. >The errata that I'd like to see tried is to make X (the value of the >bleed) equal to the amount of blood on the acting vampire rather than >its capacity. This would reduce the value of the bleed by at least 4 >(the cost of the action) and increase the overall cost of the action >considerably by stopping the abusive Minion Tap combo. And most >importantly, it would do little violence to the original wording. This has been suggested, and is a logical errata. I don't recall if it was tried or not, but it still leaves the door open for pesky Soul Gem combinations. Once you errata the "burn" to "remove from the game", then you are in better shape, but now you're doing more violence to the card text. Actually, thinking back, I believe it WAS tried, and it was concluded that being hit for a 12-point bleed with Arika was pretty much just as bad as being hit for a 17-point bleed. To add insult to injury, of course, there was using one of the 10-cap Justicars instead, who would just MT/5th himself once beforehand, and then come and whack you for 10. Bleeds of that size from one vampire, no matter what the source, simply do not belong in the game. RtI effectively turns the game into a "bounce or die" situation, and it becomes a contest of who can draw their RtI first. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:27AD47EE97356009.68328BF4...@lp.airnews.net... > On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:49:21 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: [clip] > >How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? Aside from the > >problems it causes for non-native-language speakers, it relies on a > >totally subjective interpretation of what a "rhyme" is. No two people > >are likely to agree. [clip] > >So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. > > What rot. The card could use some clarification but it is certainly > playable. The card was banned due to difficulties in creating rhyme in a language other than your native tongue. Some players in Los Angeles are native spanish speakers and requiring them to rhyme in English is unfair. I saw the card played before and the guy who played it felt bad as a poor Spanish speaking fellow just had a feeling of dread during every turn as he lost pool. -Robert Robert Goudie Chairman, V:EKN rob...@vtesinla.org

>I played in a tournament game >>where every player was ousted with it (original text). It was just too >>disruptive. > >Eh? I read frequently here how one player has swept a table in a >tournament. Presumably they ousted every player with some other >narrow, degenerate strategy - what's the difference? Return to >Innocence gives you a killer punch but it's not clear that it sets you >up well to sweep the table because the large vampire that did it is >burned. Table wasn't swept. Three (out of 5) decks were playing RtI. The finishing stroke was always a double digit bleed comboed with tap and/or stealth (mostly tap, IIRC). The difference is how much one action can change a game. There was nothing subtle about RtI. It killed whoever got bled by it in one shot.

> This is not the only solution. You can create hosers which have > sufficient general utility that they are common in the metagame and so > deter use of the power card. In the words of George Carlin, "This sentence is full of things that piss me off." No actual offense met, though; replace "piss me off" with "worry me." "You can create hosers..." 1) ...that people have to have in their deck, or die. This gets to the 'Play X or anti-X' issue, which makes all the rest of the cards cute, but no good for winning; either in your playgroup, if you have a player just only has fun by winning, or in tournaments, where the point is to Win. After winning a tournament, some people move on to Winning With Style or just Having Fun, but the tournament will reduce to 'Play X or anti-X' and drive people away. I'm personally not sure I was ever going to play in a tournament again after seeing tap-and-bleed win Dragon*Con. Thanks to Misdirection being *fixed*, proving to me that errata can be a Very Very Good Thing, I'm once again excited about tournament play. "...which have sufficient general utility..." 2) ...that no deck can or should be without them. This is a subset of 'Play X or anti-X.' No CCG should have The Card you have to have to be competitive. It's fine to have Good Cards that go well in almost any deck, but 'sufficient general utility' can just wallpaper other cards. "...that they are common in the metagame..." 3) ...so common, in fact, that everyone will have them, so no one will play the card(s) they're protecting against. Which, in effect, is the same as banning the offending card. If they're NOT that common, then we're back to point #1, that if someone is playing a card like Return to Innocence, either they will be hosed by the "hoser" of "sufficient general utility," and RtI is worthless, or they won't be stopped by the hoser card, and then RtI will crush the poor sap who didn't have The Hoser Card in hand. (note that be needing it "in hand" they, and everyone else, is required to have MANY copies of The Hoser Card. <soapbox> "...and so deter the use of the power card." 4) Ok, I'll admit that the words "...the power card" falls into the 'piss me off' category more than the 'annoy me' category. MtCH can have their "power cards," but keep them away from my beloved V:tES. The game was not meant to have a single card that if you got it could dominate or win you the game, and the errata may be, as was argued against, be the needs and feelings of the rules team over the needs and feeling of the designers. If the designer of RtI was designing a "power card," and this generation of V:tES players is mature enough to want a more thought out and planned and strategic game, where you win through a culmination of many clever tricks and plays, and not just one card, GOOD. There will always be a "final blow" as someone is ousted, sometimes an anticlimactic bleed for one, sometimes a magnificent table-mangaged vote with a side-effect no one noticed but the scheming Methuselah calling the vote...which makes for the great "war stories" V:tES players have. "And then I bled with Arika for 13 and ousted him!" isn't the kind of victory most V:tES players want. Sure, it's cute...once. But that doesn't keep the immature, uncreative players from abusing it over and over and over. If banning such cards drives away players wanting "power card" options to them, so be it. Maybe banning/errata of "power cards" isn't the best way to address the issues of all CCGs, but it sure is the best way for a strategic balanced game like V:tES. </soapbox> -- Pat Ricochet Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:1E3CA29C360758E8.FC64C08B...@lp.airnews.net... > Eh? I read frequently here how one player has swept a table in a > tournament. Presumably they ousted every player with some other > narrow, degenerate strategy - what's the difference? Return to > Innocence gives you a killer punch but it's not clear that it sets you > up well to sweep the table because the large vampire that did it is > burned. Point out a tournament-legal degenerate strategy. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <1E3CA29C360758E8.FC64C08B...@lp.airnews.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On 12 Nov 2000 16:22:30 GMT, Ian Lee wrote: > >>I have zero problem with Return being banned. I played in a tournament game >>where every player was ousted with it (original text). It was just too >>disruptive. >Eh? I read frequently here how one player has swept a table in a >tournament. Presumably they ousted every player with some other >narrow, degenerate strategy - what's the difference? Return to >Innocence gives you a killer punch but it's not clear that it sets you >up well to sweep the table because the large vampire that did it is >burned. Untrue. Consider the Etrius Happy Fun Ball Deck, which I made (way back in the days when RtoI was new)explicitly to showcase RtoI's overarching advantage: Crypt 12xEtrius (11 AUS DOM OBF pro THA) Library 20xReturn to Innocence 10xHorrific Countenance 10xDay Operation 20xSoul Gem of Etrius 20xFortitude 10xFreak Drive Fairly straightforward: Get out Etrius. Give him Fortitude. Equip with Soul Gem. Freak Drive. Return to Innocence/Day Operation for a bleed of 14. Etrius burns, Soul Gem kicks in, get a fresh Etrius. Next turn, give Etrius Fortitude, Return to Innocence, Day Operation for a bleed of 14. Etrius burns, Soul Gem kicks in, get a fresh Etrius. 12 Etrii in the crypt, each bleeding for 14 = 172 pool, more than enough to oust the 30 pool of each of your four opponents, never mind what they've expended on vampires of their own. And that isn't even tuned. The deck can be made strong vs. combat by adding 10 Obediences, or even fewer. It's not particularly vulnerable to vote or bleed. And it bleeds unblockably for 14. Every turn. Replace RtoI with Govern the Unaligned, and it's an amusing joke -- the whole point is to burn the bleeding vampire. The cost of RtoI has been turned into an asset. Such decks force everyone to play with bleedbounce, Protected Resources, or Archon Investigation. This either circumscribes the game environment severely (bad) or forces everyone to chase hard-to-find, expensive rare cards (worse). And it all hinges -- exclusively -- on Return to Innocence, because it's so damned efficient. One card packs a massive wallop with a cost that some creative deckbuilding can turn into an asset. Banning seven cards out of 1300 or so is hardly 'wholesale banning,' as you've asserting, and comparing sane rules changes for the sake of balance is hardly equivalent to a card limit, as you've ludicrously asserted elsewhere. VTES is a better and more playable game today that it was when it was printed, and that difference comes from the care and attention given to post-release tuning. gomi -- "I wanted to feel that tug of a body as it jerks and kicks while I hold the handle and the life erupts from it like water from the cold springs of the Eastern Mountains. That's what I wanted, and what you want makes you who you are." - Steven Brust, Teckla

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000, Derek Ray wrote: > > Not especially. Stagnation = death. V:TES had nothing new for a long > time, and the player base shrunk enormously, even with the cheap > availability of the Jyhad base set to draw in the occasional new > player. Until you hit upon a 'classic' formula such as chess, then > ANYTHING must constantly be evolving with the times. Chess itself is possibly a very good example to take here. What we know now as chess, with all the fixed rules and positions, isn't what chess has always been. For instance, in very old vresions of chess, the Knight took a different role entirely, working as a piece that could jump three spaces in one direction, rather than the L shape we have now. It's not until yuo get things "right" that you should stop innovating. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > On 12 Nov 2000 16:22:30 GMT, Ian Lee wrote: > > >I have zero problem with Return being banned. I played in a tournament game > >where every player was ousted with it (original text). It was just too > >disruptive. > > Eh? I read frequently here how one player has swept a table in a > tournament. Presumably they ousted every player with some other > narrow, degenerate strategy Utter, utter rubbish. Simply playing a deck that sweeps a table doesn't make it narrow, focused or degenerate. Have you ever actually played Jyhad? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > It's a lousy track record. Most CGG don't ban any cards while this > game just apes Magic and continues to use DCI rules. No, it uses V:EKN rules. > > >How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? > > ... > >So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. > > I'm feel sure that the card was banned because the PTB didn't like it, > not because it's impossible to play. You never did answer my question which put forward half a dozen different questiosn for you, askign you to determine which was a valid rhyme and which wasn't. If Madness of the Bard is ever allowed back into tournaments, I will take great pleasure in using every different form of rhyme known to literature in as many languages as I know (Welsh englyn, anyone?) > They're second guessing the > designer - that's what stinks about all these errata and bans Crap, just because you aren't the designer doesn't mean you can see that Something Went Wrong. (Tm) >. Not > being prepared to play the game as it is but insisting on shaping it > to their own vision of how it ought to have been. So no cards which are broken shoudl ever be dealt wi, of course. We could just add a card t hat says "You win the game" adn because someone designed it, we can't do anything about it. Oh dear. > >Return to Innocence does not need to be revitalized. It needs to be > >gone, and stay gone. The game was not designed to handle bleeds of > >10-15 from a single vampire in one action. > > It seems clear that Return to Innocence was explicitly designed to let > you make a big bleed at the cost of a vampire. However, it is very clear that the designers and rules team of the time were not active players (this is pretty much known). Just because somene screwed up and added a broken card is no reason to carry on with the mistakes. > those parts. If you ban RtI or MoB, you're not playing the game as > designed and printed. Indeed not. I don't know any game where some form of errata hasn't had to be issued because of a textual error somewhere, however. > Presumably combat decks would deal with this by leaping on any large > vampire that might RtI, the instant that it appears. Do you actually know just how easy it is to hose the ocmbat deck in a well-designed Ventrue steamroller deck? [ quoted text not captured ]

> >First, only something like seven cards have been banned. A pretty > >good track record, since most of them have OBVIOUS problems in > >tournament play. > > It's a lousy track record. Most CGG don't ban any cards while this > game just apes Magic and continues to use DCI rules. > gee... and they even had the same creator... sorry that was snide. well see also below above the note on sacrilige. > >How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? > > ... > >So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. > > I'm feel sure that the card was banned because the PTB didn't like it, > not because it's impossible to play. They're second guessing the > designer - that's what stinks about all these errata and bans. Not > being prepared to play the game as it is but insisting on shaping it > to their own vision of how it ought to have been. > It is impossiable to play, I've played it, won with it and then stopped using it, because it forces everyone to pack enough suddens to prevent it from coming out. For real evil use a monacle of clarity and ask yes/no questions. any way, that plus it's limits on rhyme definitions and language requirements (does that rhyme in german? i don't know.) the card is funny, but i'd refer you to a thread (if i could) dealing with someone playing a malk mess with you deck, and screwing with the whole table. This killed several people, but didn't get him a VP, and was therefore a stupid deck. MoB fits that ideal. And should be banned. > >Return to Innocence does not need to be revitalized. It needs to be > >gone, and stay gone. The game was not designed to handle bleeds of > >10-15 from a single vampire in one action. > > It seems clear that Return to Innocence was explicitly designed to let > you make a big bleed at the cost of a vampire. The game is not a > platonic ideal - it is merely the sum of its parts and RtI is one of > those parts. If you ban RtI or MoB, you're not playing the game as > designed and printed. This is a greater sacrilege than playing with a > card limit. > No, you are playing the game that is playable and balanced, far better than designed. As designed we didn't have the golden tenets, those surely were useful, but would you have us throw those out? I certianly hope not. NOTE: Sacrilege is not a word i'd use in conection with a card game. Nun burning, yes... torture, probably... banning pieces of cardboard, not so much. > >Most combat decks couldn't afford the 8 Wakes and 8 copies of your > >reaction that would be REQUIRED to provide a defense against RtI. > > Presumably combat decks would deal with this by leaping on any large > vampire that might RtI, the instant that it appears. > Hence 'Obediance' hoses this right up. then like in the millions of Etrius/or Cardano deck, boom kill everyone next turn. The hoser discussion was well covered elsewhere, so i wont do more than say i agree. getting off my box Cameron [ quoted text not captured ]

Hmmm. What if you are deaf? What if you speak in a language that does not have sentences? Hahaha, I am running down the Gallaudet U, teaching all those ASL speakers V:TES, then springing MotB on them! I win again! Chris Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > > On Mon, 13 Nov 2000 21:13:38 GMT, Robert Goudie wrote: > > >The card was banned due to difficulties in creating rhyme in a language > >other than your native tongue. Some players in Los Angeles are native > >spanish speakers and requiring them to rhyme in English is unfair. I saw > >the card played before and the guy who played it felt bad as a poor Spanish > >speaking fellow just had a feeling of dread during every turn as he lost > >pool. > > The card does not require you to rhyme in English; this is VTES, not > Scrabble. You don't need to rhyme in _any_ known language; the poem > Jabberwocky is a good example of Malkavian madness: > > "Twas brillig and the slithy toves > did gyre and gimble in the wabe. > All mimsy were the borogroves > and the mome raths outgrabe." > > In any case, more frequent use of the card would soon lead to some > stock pieces of easily-learnt doggerel, just like a traveller's phrase > book: > > "I bleed for two pool. Don't you feel like a fool?" > "My vamp has three stealth. He treads like an elf." > "My postillion has been struck by lightning. It was most > frightening." > > etc. > > Andrew -- chris <www.vtesinla.org> (A V:TES site in development) ultimate disc - V:TES - hockey v:ekn prince of torrance, ca

> >First, only something like seven cards have been banned. A pretty > >good track record, since most of them have OBVIOUS problems in > >tournament play. > > It's a lousy track record. Most CGG don't ban any cards while this > game just apes Magic and continues to use DCI rules. > What are you smoking? I think you need to lay off it and try something that won't affect your grasp on reality as much. Why don't you try a bushel of halucinogenic mushrooms? The reason that most CCG's don't ban cards is because they die off rather than survive for seven years. > >How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? > > ... > >So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. > > I'm feel sure that the card was banned because the PTB didn't like it, > not because it's impossible to play. They're second guessing the > designer - that's what stinks about all these errata and bans. Not > being prepared to play the game as it is but insisting on shaping it > to their own vision of how it ought to have been. > >Return to Innocence does not need to be revitalized. It needs to be > >gone, and stay gone. The game was not designed to handle bleeds of > >10-15 from a single vampire in one action. > > It seems clear that Return to Innocence was explicitly designed to let > you make a big bleed at the cost of a vampire. The game is not a > platonic ideal - it is merely the sum of its parts and RtI is one of > those parts. If you ban RtI or MoB, you're not playing the game as > designed and printed. This is a greater sacrilege than playing with a > card limit. You seem to have some sort of religious fixation of the designers of the game as being all-knowing. Surely, you cannot believe that the designers thought of every possible combination of cards and then play tested every single one of them. That would take years. > >Most combat decks couldn't afford the 8 Wakes and 8 copies of your > >reaction that would be REQUIRED to provide a defense against RtI. > > Presumably combat decks would deal with this by leaping on any large > vampire that might RtI, the instant that it appears. > Yes but you can't kill every large vampire on the table that could RtI and then be bounced on you with a deflection. > >It's been generally agreed here that any situation where you are > >forced to either play "X" or play "anti-X" is a Bad Thing, and > >something for the game as a whole to avoid moving towards. To that > >extent, the suitable approach to fixing broken cards is to fix the > >card, NOT to layer band-aids on top of it. > > This is not the only solution. You can create hosers which have > sufficient general utility that they are common in the metagame and so > deter use of the power card. > Why build a fence to keep one Wild Tiger out of your playground, when you can just shoot the Wild Tiger? Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:49:21 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > > >First, only something like seven cards have been banned. A pretty > >good track record, since most of them have OBVIOUS problems in > >tournament play. > > It's a lousy track record. Most CGG don't ban any cards while this > game just apes Magic and continues to use DCI rules. It's a great track record. Anyone who thinks a complex game can be published without players finding the occasional weakness in the rules is basically mad. Weak components of games should be fixed; not allowed to sit and fester. Jyhad is just like any other game. Over time, certain rules have been found to be incomplete, self- contradictory, and/or unclear. And certain strategies have been found to be imbalanced, which causes serious problems since such imbalance general precludes the pursuit of many, MANY other paths to victories which the designers had put a lot of time and effort into creating for the game. Under the circumstances, it's not surprising that the rules get changed. Third Reich, I understand, has undergone many changes over the years to clean up various aspects of the game which didn't work correctly. With a board game, you simple republish it and people who want it can buy the new copy or mock up their old components to follow the new rules. With CCGs, you just reissue any new rules which don't affect cards directly. However, you must remember that the non-flavor text written on cards are part of the rules of the game as well, and when you need to rewrite these part of the rules, the rewrite comes in the form of errata. If the new rule is to simply not allow the card in question because its rules are not worth fixing, then the card is banned. Given how complicated a game Jyhad, the banning of only seven cards for tournament purposes is fantastic. As for those other games, I can't say. I've heard tell that the designers of a lot of other games just stupidly don't care about play-balance hardly at all and ignore imbalance, with predicable results. If that's what you're holding up as the ideal, you can keep it. Fred

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:49:21 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? Aside from the > >problems it causes for non-native-language speakers, it relies on a > >totally subjective interpretation of what a "rhyme" is. No two people > >are likely to agree. One person on here believes that simply > >repeating the sentence twice qualifies as a rhyme; I would NEVER > >permit such a thing as a judge, but that just points up the real > >problem with the card, that it's totally dependent on who's judging. > > > >So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. > > What rot. The card could use some clarification but it is certainly > playable. The card reads "All players in the game must speak in > rhyming sentences." Presumably this means that each player must speak > in rhyming couplets. In particular, the sentences are not required to > rhyme internally (the rain in spain...); players are not required to > rhyme with each other; and that the rhyme can start afresh after each > pair (i.e. couplets). Requiring formal grammatical sentences seems > too fussy and I'd be happy with terse stuff like "Yes. I guess." as a > valid couplet. > > Repetition is a cheesy way of getting round the requirement but > certainly obeys the letter of the law. ... That that is is totally totally stupid stupid. This this card card can can not not be be taken taken seriously seriously! Fred's reaction, in totally legal rhyme

> While we're at it, can someone explain why the Monocle of Clarity of > banned too? Have you seem the card called "Malkavian Game"? You play rock, paper, or scissors. If I have the Monocle, then I ask my prey if when I play Malkavian Game whether he is going to play scissors. If he answers yes, then I play rock. If he answers no then I play paper. Fun! Fun! Fun! [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 00:41:51 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: >Given how complicated a game Jyhad, the banning of only seven cards for >tournament purposes is fantastic. As for those other games, I can't >say. In other words, you don't know what you're talking about. Me, I usually play CCG which haven't banned _any_ cards. Andrew

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 01:28:26 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 00:41:51 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Which one is that?

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 00:41:51 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: > > >Given how complicated a game Jyhad, the banning of only seven cards for > >tournament purposes is fantastic. As for those other games, I can't > >say. > > In other words, you don't know what you're talking about. Bullshit! I'm saying that I'm not familiar with all the other games currently in print and I can only take your word for it that a good game exist which is: 1) As complex as Jyhad is; 2) Is not currently broken and is as well playbalanced as Jyhad is; 3) Will not be broken later when they have as much play by as many players as Jyhad has had; 4) Has as many cards has Jyhad has; 5) Have no cards banned and will not need to have any cards banned when they have as many cards as Jyhad has. (For that matter, you're not even taking into account that some of these cards are not banned because they're bad cards. They're simply banned because it is not the governing body's intent to include gambling cards in their tournament environment.) Frankly, you're not a person whose judgment I would trust in this. And no one I know personally has ever made the claim you're making. Fred

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 00:46:06 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote: <SNIP> >... > >That >that >is >is >totally >totally >stupid >stupid. >This >this >card >card >can >can >not >not >be >be >taken >taken >seriously >seriously! > >Fred's reaction, in totally legal rhyme Umm, not that it matters, but I don't think that is legal under the requirements of Madness. You must speak in rhyming sentances, not just phrases or words. Not that it matters much, the card annoys me too. Lee Who's Laughing Now?

[ quoted text not captured ] Granted. You're right, it would not be legal. By Andrew's suggested, rulings, however, I see no reason why you couldn't simply repeat every whole sentence, which would therefore rhyme - and make the whole game annoying and stupid. Fred

<X_Ze...@email.msn.com> wrote in message news:8upvtk$qhf$1...@nnrp1.deja.com... > [clip] > > It seems clear that Return to Innocence was explicitly designed to let > > you make a big bleed at the cost of a vampire. The game is not a > > platonic ideal - it is merely the sum of its parts and RtI is one of > > those parts. If you ban RtI or MoB, you're not playing the game as > > designed and printed. This is a greater sacrilege than playing with a > > card limit. > > You seem to have some sort of religious fixation of the designers of the > game as being all-knowing. Surely, you cannot believe that the > designers thought of every possible combination of cards and then play > tested every single one of them. That would take years. I have an almost religious fixation on the philosophies that Garfield used when he created the game. Such as no kingmaking, bleed your prey only, etc. But as each expansion was done there were fewer and fewer real players involved in the design and playtesting. I have no loyalty to the brains that created the expansions before Sabbat War. That's not to say that I think we should ban or errata everything, just that I don't think they know as much as we do about the game. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > It seems almost indistinguishable from Magic to me - they ban and > errata cards at the drop of a hat too. Now that the game is free of > WotC, I'd like to see the DCI mentality shed so that the game can > develop its own identity. I am happy to note that none of the new SW cards require errata or banning. Whereas Magic (after 7+ years) routinely has bannings and errata. All of the errata and bannings you're talking about happened three years ago. > What rot. The card could use some clarification but it is certainly > playable. The card reads "All players in the game must speak in > rhyming sentences." Presumably this means that each player must speak > in rhyming couplets. In particular, the sentences are not required to > rhyme internally (the rain in spain...); players are not required to > rhyme with each other; and that the rhyme can start afresh after each > pair (i.e. couplets). Requiring formal grammatical sentences seems > too fussy and I'd be happy with terse stuff like "Yes. I guess." as a > valid couplet. The language barrier issue has already been raised and not adequately addressed by you. If I am not a native English speaker, I can't fairly be required to rhyme in a foreign language. I also can't speak in my native tongue, since no one will understand what I'm saying. The card is not appropriate for a tournament setting. Feel free to play it in your group. > While we're at it, can someone explain why the Monocle of Clarity of > banned too? Because you're able to ask questions about questions, you can force someone into a logical trap that forces them to do whatever you want them to do. I think the card is pretty reasonable if you disallow questions about questions. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu "Maine has crushed my evil heart." -- John Linnell

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:27AD47EE97356009.68328BF4...@lp.airnews.net... > On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:49:21 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > > >Some cards are sufficiently broken that immediate repair is required. > >(see: RtI) This is V:TES, not Magic. > > It seems almost indistinguishable from Magic to me - they ban and > errata cards at the drop of a hat too. Now that the game is free of > WotC, I'd like to see the DCI mentality shed so that the game can > develop its own identity. > > >How do you deal with Madness of the Bard, for example? Aside from the > >problems it causes for non-native-language speakers, it relies on a > >totally subjective interpretation of what a "rhyme" is. No two people > >are likely to agree. One person on here believes that simply > >repeating the sentence twice qualifies as a rhyme; I would NEVER > >permit such a thing as a judge, but that just points up the real > >problem with the card, that it's totally dependent on who's judging. > > > >So you have to ban the card. There's no other way. > > What rot. The card could use some clarification but it is certainly > playable. The card reads "All players in the game must speak in > rhyming sentences." Presumably this means that each player must speak > in rhyming couplets. So we have to assume something for a card to work. Oh, and we have to define whatever "rhyming sentences" are so that people are able to play with the card. > In particular, the sentences are not required to > rhyme internally (the rain in spain...); players are not required to > rhyme with each other; and that the rhyme can start afresh after each > pair (i.e. couplets). Requiring formal grammatical sentences seems > too fussy Too fussy? Like all the new rules you have come up with in the last few sentences so that a single card is playable? > and I'd be happy with terse stuff like "Yes. I guess." as a valid couplet. What about all the OTHER players/judges out there? > Repetition is a cheesy way of getting round the requirement but > certainly obeys the letter of the law. But Andrew, you have said that you don't like 'cheese'? Now you do? Which is it? > Note that there are plenty of > real poems which make good use of repetition, e.g. Old MacDonald or > The Raven. If the card saw heavy use then I'd expect some standard > boilerplate devices of this kind to develop. You can see this in game > shows like Jeopardy. US natives probably take this for granted > through long familiarity but I find it amusingly bizarre that the > requirement that each answer must be phrased as a question has > degenerated to just adding "What is" on the front of the real answer. > > UK residents will be more familiar with the game show, "Just a Minute" > in which the contestants must talk on a random subject for up to a > minute without "hesitation, deviation or repetition." They are > allowed to repeat the subject title but it's obviously not sporting to > repeatedly chant this alone But it IS sporting to say "Yes. I guess." Give me a break. > and this would normally be challenged as > deviation. Just like saying "Yes. I guess." would and should be challenged. Oh, but that is OK under your system. Oh, but what about all the other players/judges out there? > It's a great game and easily played at any time without > any equipment except a stop watch. It's scored just like VTES - if > you oust the speaker with a succesful challenge you score a point and > you get a final VP if you have the floor when the minute is up. > > While we're at it, can someone explain why the Monocle of Clarity of > banned too? It was banned because, when the card came out, someone on the newsgroup came up with a way to break the card. > This all reminds me of the cartoon in which Dogbert frees > Dilbert from the trolls of the accounting department by threatening to > turn his cap backwards and so make their hard-wired brains explode. > In the final frame, Dilbert asks, "what's that sound?" and Dogbert > explains, "a paradigm shifting without a clutch." > > Andrew -- Kevin J. Mergen, kjme...@home.com, Prince of Madison, WI "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

In article <yC5Q5.49361$a7.9...@news1.rdc1.il.home.com>, Kevin M. <kjme...@NOSPAMhome.com> wrote: >It was banned because, when the card came out, someone on the newsgroup >came up with a way to break the card. That would be Alan Kwan, of blessed memory (*). His cogent, well-reasoned posts and incisive logic are missed to this day. To put it a different way, he was a damn clever bugger. gomi * not dead, as far as I know, but hasn't posted since, i think, 1996 [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > "My vamp has three stealth. He treads like an elf." Half-rhyme. > "My postillion has been struck by lightning. It was most > frightening." Lightning has two syllables, frightening has three, causing loss of rhyme. Wow... three examples and you haven't rhymed in two of them, just done something you think is rhyme. I, on the other hand, would penalise you in both cases, because neither of these two are rhyme. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > In other words, you don't know what you're talking about. Me, I > usually play CCG which haven't banned _any_ cards. Close the door on the way out then? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Lee Fent wrote: > Umm, not that it matters, but I don't think that is legal under the > requirements of Madness. You must speak in rhyming sentances, not > just phrases or words. It rhymes internally, as one defence. Again, all allowing Madness of the Bard into a game does is hands the game over to whoever can bluff the most about the English (or whichever) language. Hmm... maybe that's not a bad idea then. I might get a VP this way. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Frederick Scott wrote: > Granted. You're right, it would not be legal. By Andrew's suggested, > rulings, however, I see no reason why you couldn't simply repeat every > whole sentence, which would therefore rhyme - and make the whole game > annoying and stupid. This works on the principle that any given word rhymes with itself - which it may or may not do, depending on your point of view. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <3A10A260...@netcom.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] i think Andrew is talking about Shadowfist and maybe Doomtown. Both good games, and i would rate Shadowfist as another Great Old Multi-Player game. Shadowfist AFAIK has never banned any cards, but the new edition has some heavy errata which is labelled as such with a neat little "2" next to the official card text. There are some pretty nasty cards and combos in SF which is a fast, furious and funny game very faithful to its HK action movie sources. These are tolerable in SF because there are neat ways to Come back from the dead and because in SF you don't lose by having no resources left - you win by accumulating resources. Taking all that into account, could we have gone the SF way, and would our game be better for it? My suspicion is not, and in particular i do think that we had no alternative but to ban some of the cards that were causing problems in tournaments for tournaments. In reality, of course, there are NO banned cards in VTES - only cards that you may not use in tournaments. i've not kept up with Doomtown but i seem to recall at one point lots of people moaning about It Was A Mountain Lion. i'll just add that in Classic rage no cards were ever banned, again AFAIK. But they should have been! And great and funny game though Classic rage is, it's not a competitor to VTES in terms of general excellence and balance. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8urc6h$riq$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <3A10A260...@netcom.com>, > fre...@netcom.com wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] [OT] Uhhh, yeah! Ever seen the Uktena Gaia's Vengance, Shroud deck?? basiccally turn 1-2 win...That's one of the cards that I believe was globally baaned by many playgroups as it only had 1 counter...That Gnosis 10 gift counter Tim > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy. > -- A.A.H. Tim Eijpe V:EKN Prince of Utrecht The Netherlands E-mail: time...@hotmail.com PROPHECY OF GEHENNA: On The First Day Of Gehenna The Shrieking Wind Shall Be Silent And When A Black Sun Hangs From A Somber Sky Caine's Sleeping Children Shall Once Again Arise Ancient-The Cainian Chronicles [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SOL.4.21.00111...@green.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Lee Fent wrote: > > Umm, not that it matters, but I don't think that is legal under the > > requirements of Madness. You must speak in rhyming sentances, not > > just phrases or words. > > It rhymes internally, as one defence. > > Again, all allowing Madness of the Bard into a game does is hands the game > over to whoever can bluff the most about the English (or > whichever) language. Hmm... maybe that's not a bad idea then. I might > get a VP this way. > > -- > James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D > "Steve: Yeah, well that's one of the advantages of being a sad, lonely > fairy, I guess. You get to learn how to be a spy." > - Stephen Fry, Making History > The flavour text of MotB actually tells you how to get round the requirement to rhyme. You just add the same meaningless coda to every thing you say. From memory the flavour text is: "Would you, could you, in the rain? i would not, could not, in the rain." But this coda can perfectly well be Spanish or Slovak or whatever. i actually completely agree with Andrew that this card shouldn't be banned, but i reserve the right to say: "Just because you played the Wretched Madness of the bard pipi for my butthole, Anvil bum's rushes ozmo cross-table, pipi for my butthole. Do you block, pipi for my butthole? In that case i rip a signpost out of the ground, pipi for my butthole." And so on. i'm also kind of on Andrew's side in respect of Monocle of Clarity, though i think it needs clarification that all questions have to be game- related, so that "Are you shagging my wife?" would not be legal, whereas "have you shagged my wife during this game?" would be legal. But Norman is quite right that there are some hideous combos here - the one he mentions was actually invented by Lady Legbiter [and quite possibly independently by loads of other people]. They do require skill to pull off, though, and it is equipment so is burnable and stealable and so on. [ quoted text not captured ]

Gomi no Sensei wrote: > That would be Alan Kwan, of blessed memory (*). > * not dead, as far as I know, but hasn't posted since, i think, 1996 He's still a regular poster to rec.games.board, in fact, lending support to the "not dead" theory. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

In article <3A1132E9...@white-wolf.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] Not to mention rec.games.trading-cards.misc, IIRC. In fact, hasn't he actually designed a non-trading card game called Mystic or something like that? He was talking about it on that NG a while back, anyway. Come to think of it, perhaps he was just promoting it, and i think he was doing that because he owns a shop, now. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8uq2tb$squ$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > > > > While we're at it, can someone explain why the Monocle of Clarity of > > banned too? > > Have you seem the card called "Malkavian Game"? You play rock, paper, > or scissors. If I have the Monocle, then I ask my prey if when I play > Malkavian Game whether he is going to play scissors. If he answers yes, > then I play rock. If he answers no then I play paper. Man o Man is this a ruling nightmare since you can argue that he has to play scissors every time you play the game that turn allowing you to throw scissors until you're upto 12 pool or something stupid and then throw your rock. Of course the counter arguement is that he would have thrown scissors in the 3rd round, but you didn't ask what he would start with, so he's not bound by the monocle... yeach, it's an ugly mess... Lee Who's Laughing Now? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > i think Andrew is talking about Shadowfist and maybe Doomtown. Both good > games, and i would rate Shadowfist as another Great Old Multi-Player > game. Shadowfist AFAIK has never banned any cards, but the new edition > has some heavy errata which is labelled as such with a neat little "2" > next to the official card text. Oops. That's one game he'll have to give up then. > i've not kept up with Doomtown but i seem to recall at one point lots of > people moaning about It Was A Mountain Lion. http://www.ghostrock.fsnet.co.uk/official.htm Lots of errata and rulings. Lots. It was, as they say, taking up over 50 pages in the old version of the FAQ. > i'll just add that in Classic rage no cards were ever banned, again > AFAIK. But they should have been! And great and funny game though Classic > rage is, it's not a competitor to VTES in terms of general excellence and > balance. Funny game, but *no* play balance. I win before you get a go. Yay! [ quoted text not captured ]

> The *true* blood-gain cheese with Minion Tap comes when it's combined > with a single vampire and 5th Tradition. And in this instance, it's > been suggested repeatedly that errata to 5th Tradition requiring that > it be used on a -different- vampire would be a good step towards a > solution for the MT/5th combo; no more getting out Emerson and having > him MT/5th as his first action. My memory could be failing me, but I seem to recall back some time ago that 5thTrad used to require that it be performed on a vamp other than the acting. Is this true, LSJ? Sorrow --- I keep telling them that I think they're out to get me. They ask me if I feel remose and I answer, "Why of course! There's so much more I could have done if they'd let me!" So it's Rorschach and Prozac and everything is groovy

legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > i think Andrew is talking about Shadowfist and maybe Doomtown. Both good > games, and i would rate Shadowfist as another Great Old Multi-Player > game. Shadowfist AFAIK has never banned any cards, but the new edition > has some heavy errata which is labelled as such with a neat little "2" > next to the official card text. There are some pretty nasty cards and > combos in SF which is a fast, furious and funny game very faithful to its > HK action movie sources. These are tolerable in SF because there are neat > ways to Come back from the dead and because in SF you don't lose by > having no resources left - you win by accumulating resources. Taking all > that into account, could we have gone the SF way, and would our game be > better for it? My suspicion is not, and in particular i do think that we > had no alternative but to ban some of the cards that were causing > problems in tournaments for tournaments. In reality, of course, there are > NO banned cards in VTES - only cards that you may not use in tournaments. Right. Gets down to it, the difference between banning a card and errata which complete rewrites the card is that you basically create a new card out of thin air to replace what you've banned. So the banned list contains ante cards, which can't be used in constructed tournaments due to the fact that the ante rule isn't being used in constructed, Monocle of Clarity and Madness of the Bard which are judging nightmares, Rowen Ring - which beats the hell out of me why it's banned (someone remind me; I had this explained to me a while ago and just plumb forgot), and Return to Innocence which LSJ decided was too hard to errata to a balanced card without completely changing its flavor. Of all of these (depending on what's wrong with Rowen Ring), only Return to Innocence is the least bit controversial and that's because the decision was made to ban rather than to errata. Other than that, what's the difference between Shadowfist and Jyhad? > i'll just add that in Classic rage no cards were ever banned, again > AFAIK. But they should have been! And great and funny game though Classic > rage is, it's not a competitor to VTES in terms of general excellence and > balance. Amen. The game needed the kind of going over that Ryan Dancy and his folk did on it for Rage II to make it even vaguely tournament-worthy. I still say he just lost the ball game before the first pitch when he decided to completely ignore the Classic Rage cards already in peoples' hands. Sad to spend all of that time and effort and come up a loser. Fred

In article <0C5CA28AC300FBE1.1ACEF92D...@lp.airnews.net>, a...@csi.com wrote: > On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:49:21 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > [snip] This is all very interesting; > > I'm feel sure that the card was banned because the PTB didn't like it, > not because it's impossible to play. They're second guessing the > designer - that's what stinks about all these errata and bans. Not > being prepared to play the game as it is but insisting on shaping it > to their own vision of how it ought to have been. > > >Return to Innocence does not need to be revitalized. It needs to be > >gone, and stay gone. The game was not designed to handle bleeds of > >10-15 from a single vampire in one action. > > It seems clear that Return to Innocence was explicitly designed to let > you make a big bleed at the cost of a vampire. The game is not a > platonic ideal - it is merely the sum of its parts and RtI is one of > those parts. If you ban RtI or MoB, you're not playing the game as > designed and printed. This is a greater sacrilege than playing with a > card limit. > Out of interest Andrew is your group now playing with no limits or are you still using an enforced card limit a la M:TG - a position you strongly defended a while ago. It seems you find no problem in apeing Magic in some respects. If you playing NL, how are you finding it? Not provocative i assure you- i'm just interested from the point of view of a 'clueless bigot'. Also, are you actually arguing that you would prefer to play a flawed game that is degenerate and therefore lacks continuous play potential rather than banning a card? Do you advocate strenuous errata instead? I've read this thread a couple of times now and still can't see how you are constructively adding to the fact that you think RTI should not be banned. Just saying that it shouldn't be is no real arguement here. It's fairly obvious that playtesting Ancient Hearts had little effect on the outcome of the set, in an ideal world this wouldn't happen and cards like RtI and ToRIII would never get printed in their original forms. It does though, and you deal with it. So WotC could improve it's playtesting a little, whilst other companies get it right. Excellent- good luck to them, but knocking the market leader is all too easy to do. What they did worked for them. Mock up some RtI and play them amongst your group. It will radically change the environment i assure you. It's like most threads on this group, the old guys remember how bad it was. Most like it as it is now. Opinions and experience are different animals Andrew. I think WW did a pretty good job with SW (though Telepathic Tracking should be uncommon IMO). I hope it continues. mgreen02 [ quoted text not captured ]

<snip> > > > i'll just add that in Classic rage no cards were ever banned, again > > AFAIK. But they should have been! And great and funny game though Classic > > rage is, it's not a competitor to VTES in terms of general excellence and > > balance. > > Funny game, but *no* play balance. I win before you get a go. Yay! > Well, the simultaneity of play means you always get a go. You may not get an alpha phase, however, if your opponent is Motoring with big werewolves and one of the several ridiculous game-breaking combos that are the crowning glory of Classic Rage. When you play rage like we play it, with deliberately pre-balanced decks and no attempt to exploit the game- breaking cards it works out just fine, however. In that respect parallels could be drawn with netrunner where the sealed-deck version is just about the best two-person fun you can have with your clothes on, and the constructed-deck version is, erm, less appealing. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <3A115FA7...@netcom.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] i'm only a SF newbie or perhaps retread would be a better word, since i did play it when it first came out and am just now getting back into it. i do love the game but, how can i put this tactfully, i could lose its phone number and not break my heart over it, as would happen if i ever lost touch with Jyhad or netrunner. But there are lots of good SF players in this NG - Peter, Josh and James Hamblin. Maybe they can give you a proper answer. > > > i'll just add that in Classic rage no cards were ever banned, again > > AFAIK. But they should have been! And great and funny game though Classic > > rage is, it's not a competitor to VTES in terms of general excellence and > > balance. > > Amen. The game needed the kind of going over that Ryan Dancy and his folk > did on it for Rage II to make it even vaguely tournament-worthy. I still > say he just lost the ball game before the first pitch when he decided to > completely ignore the Classic Rage cards already in peoples' hands. Sad > to spend all of that time and effort and come up a loser. Indeed, an opportunity lost. But Rage II was/is a good game, albeit TOTALLY different from Classic rage. > > Fred [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote: > My memory could be failing me, but I seem to recall back some time > ago that 5thTrad used to require that it be performed on a vamp other > than the acting. > Is this true, LSJ? No. It has always been legal to target the acting vampire with 5th. [ quoted text not captured ]

> > My memory could be failing me, but I seem to recall back some time > > ago that 5thTrad used to require that it be performed on a vamp other > > than the acting. > > Is this true, LSJ? > No. It has always been legal to target the acting vampire with 5th. Ok, then that must have been a house rule for the group I joined shortly after I started playing. I remember that for a long time 5th was played that way (cannot target acting vamp) but then it changed and I thought it was due to some errata. Thanks for helping me clear that up. Sorrow --- "Are they dead?" - Pugsly "Does it matter?" - Wednesday

mgre...@my-deja.com wrote: > (though Telepathic Tracking should be uncommon IMO). It is uncommon. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 02:27:24 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: >> In other words, you don't know what you're talking about. > >Bullshit! I'm saying that I'm not familiar with all the other games >currently in print and I can only take your word for it that a good game >exist which is: .... >Frankly, you're not a person whose judgment I would trust in this. >And no one I know personally has ever made the claim you're making. The facts are a matter of public record. Apart from Magic, it's hard to find _any_ CCG which has banned cards. I'm only aware of one; Star Trek has a banned card called Raise the Stakes which sounds like an ante card. To compare like with like, we can compare VTES with Magic's most open format - Type 1. Leaving ante cards aside, this now only has three banned cards to VTES's four. This makes VTES the worst CCG in this respect, worse even than Magic. Shameful. Andrew

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 13:06:45 GMT, legb...@my-deja.com wrote: >agree with Andrew that this card shouldn't be banned, but i reserve the >right to say: "Just because you played the Wretched Madness of the bard >pipi for my butthole, Anvil bum's rushes ozmo cross-table, pipi for my >butthole. Do you block, pipi for my butthole? In that case i rip a >signpost out of the ground, pipi for my butthole." And so on. This works for me though I'm now curious as to what this refrain might mean. >i'm also kind of on Andrew's side in respect of Monocle of Clarity, >though i think it needs clarification that all questions have to be game- >related I don't have one of these cards to read but the online text anticipates you: Monocle of Clarity [Jyhad] Cardtype: Equipment Unique Equipment. During your untap phase, if bearer is ready, you can ask any Methuselah a yes or no question <pertaining to the game>. He or she must answer <'yes' or 'no'> truthfully. If the question pertains to the future, he or she must abide by the answer if possible {until your next untap phase}. Using the monocle is not an action. {Questions about questions may not be asked.} Presumably you're only allowed to ask one question per turn, right? Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > The facts are a matter of public record. Apart from Magic, it's hard > to find _any_ CCG which has banned cards. I'm only aware of one; Star > Trek has a banned card called Raise the Stakes which sounds like an > ante card. > > To compare like with like, we can compare VTES with Magic's most open > format - Type 1. Leaving ante cards aside, this now only has three > banned cards to VTES's four. This makes VTES the worst CCG in this > respect, worse even than Magic. Shameful. Each year, MLB Showdown bans all pitchers and hitters from previous years. Battletech has 5 cards on the banned list. The philosophy of the V:EKN is that it is less shameful to admit a mistake than to ignore it, while of course it would be best all around to never make mistakes in design. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 14:13:24 GMT, Lee Fent wrote: >Man o Man is this a ruling nightmare since you can argue that he has to >play scissors every time you play the game that turn allowing you to >throw scissors until you're upto 12 pool or something stupid and then >throw your rock. Of course the counter arguement is that he would have >thrown scissors in the 3rd round, but you didn't ask what he would >start with, so he's not bound by the monocle... yeach, it's an ugly >mess... Not really. The target just answers "yes", plays scissors in the first round and is then free to do what he likes after that. The Monocle gets you one freebie and that's it. Andrew

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 10:19:27 +0000, James Coupe wrote: >> "My vamp has three stealth. He treads like an elf." > >Half-rhyme. > >> "My postillion has been struck by lightning. It was most >> frightening." > >Lightning has two syllables, frightening has three, causing loss of rhyme. > >Wow... three examples and you haven't rhymed in two of them, just done >something you think is rhyme. I, on the other hand, would penalise you in >both cases, because neither of these two are rhyme. Rhyme is a matter of pronunciation. If you were judging in this heavy-handed way then I'd use modern Estuary English in which these are perfect rhymes. But the half-rhyme that one gets from Received Pronunciation is good enough AFAIC. By coincidence, there was a nice example in last night's episode of Andromeda. The Magog was giving a sermon and quoted from Blake's The Tyger. I was eager to see how he coped with the now awkward second rhyme: "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" He brazened it out by rhyming symmetry with eye perfectly. This makes me wince but I'd still allow it in a VTES game. It's poetic licence. Andrew

[ quoted text not captured ] Actually, it was a bit of a rhetorical question in that I don't think you could really do much better with Jyhad. So even if Shadowfist is totally balanced with no banned cards but heavy errata on a few cards (which is pretty good also, no question), then it's really not much better in this respect than Jyhad. Not that I'd mind hearing the perspectives of people who are old tyme adherents of both games. Fred

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 16:23:16 GMT, mgre...@my-deja.com wrote: >If you playing NL, how are you finding it? Not provocative i assure you- >i'm just interested from the point of view of a 'clueless bigot'. No, we're not using a card limit - never have. It's not been an issue in the games that we've played but I don't like the degenerate decks that it encourages. I have an idea on how to fix this and other problems but using a different approach. >I've read this thread a couple of times now and still can't see how you >are constructively adding to the fact that you think RTI should not be >banned. Just saying that it shouldn't be is no real arguement here. RtI already has an errata and this is presumably there to be used. I suggested an errata which seems better to me - less strenuous, for one thing. >It's like most threads on this group, the old guys remember how bad it >was. Most like it as it is now. Opinions and experience are different >animals Andrew. Rediscovering this game is bringing back ugly memories of Magic. You see the differences - I see the similarities. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 02:27:24 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: > > >> In other words, you don't know what you're talking about. > > > >Bullshit! I'm saying that I'm not familiar with all the other games > >currently in print and I can only take your word for it that a good game > >exist which is: > .... > >Frankly, you're not a person whose judgment I would trust in this. > >And no one I know personally has ever made the claim you're making. > > The facts are a matter of public record. Apart from Magic, it's hard > to find _any_ CCG which has banned cards. I'm only aware of one; Star > Trek has a banned card called Raise the Stakes which sounds like an > ante card. Sure. But it's one thing to have no banned cards and quite another to have no banned cards and still present a balanced game. As I tried to tell you before, I have friends who have described a complete lack of concern on the part of other game producers about whether their game is play balanced or not. I can't fathom why they would take that attitude but if my friends are correct, the games in question absolutely suffer for it. I'd never want to touch such a game with a 10 foot pole. > To compare like with like, we can compare VTES with Magic's most open > format - Type 1. Leaving ante cards aside, this now only has three > banned cards to VTES's four. This makes VTES the worst CCG in this > respect, worse even than Magic. Shameful. I'm not sure what you're talking about. Jyhad is lightyears better than type 1 Magic. For this *exact* reason. Fred

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > James Coupe wrote: > >> "My vamp has three stealth. He treads like an elf." > >Half-rhyme. > > > >> "My postillion has been struck by lightning. It was most > >> frightening." > >Lightning has two syllables, frightening has three, causing loss of rhyme. > > > >Wow... three examples and you haven't rhymed in two of them, just done > >something you think is rhyme. I, on the other hand, would penalise you in > >both cases, because neither of these two are rhyme. > > Rhyme is a matter of pronunciation. If you were judging in this > heavy-handed way then I'd use modern Estuary English in which these > are perfect rhymes. But the half-rhyme that one gets from Received > Pronunciation is good enough AFAIC. The conversation you two are having illustrates clearly a good reason to ban the card, even if the even better reason regarding non-native speakers didn't exist. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 21:51:39 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 10:19:27 +0000, James Coupe wrote: > >>> "My vamp has three stealth. He treads like an elf." >> >>Half-rhyme. >> >>> "My postillion has been struck by lightning. It was most >>> frightening." >> >>Lightning has two syllables, frightening has three, causing loss of rhyme. >> >>Wow... three examples and you haven't rhymed in two of them, just done >>something you think is rhyme. I, on the other hand, would penalise you in >>both cases, because neither of these two are rhyme. > >Rhyme is a matter of pronunciation. If you were judging in this >heavy-handed way then I'd use modern Estuary English in which these >are perfect rhymes. But the half-rhyme that one gets from Received >Pronunciation is good enough AFAIC. ...Completely and irrevocably proving our point that it is TOTALLY based upon the SUBJECTIVE opinion of the judge, which makes it unfit to be included in tournaments. I also do not consider "stealth" and "elf" to be a rhyme in the remotest degree, as the "f" and "th" sounds are quite distinct. You could force "lightning" and "fright'ning" to rhyme if you pronounced "frightening" in the manner I first typed it... further proving our point, as three different people have now offered three different opinions on one particular rhyme. >By coincidence, there was a nice example in last night's episode of >Andromeda. The Magog was giving a sermon and quoted from Blake's The >Tyger. I was eager to see how he coped with the now awkward second >rhyme: > >"Tyger! Tyger! burning bright >In the forests of the night >What immortal hand or eye >Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" > >He brazened it out by rhyming symmetry with eye perfectly. This makes >me wince but I'd still allow it in a VTES game. It's poetic licence. Making the card pointless, as most words can be horribly mispronounced and still be intelligible. Actually, the entire card is pointless, as the intent of the card is clearly being completely circumvented by people devising ways to get around actually having to produce a rhyme. This is just as well, as V:TES is a game about deck-building and play of the cards and vampires, not about who is more literate, who has a wider vocabulary to choose rhymes from, and who is tone-deaf. You still have not yet satisfactorily answered the question of what to do with non-native speakers. Andrzej, our recent Polish visitor, is perfectly capable of understanding spoken English, but speaks it less than fluently himself. Expecting him to rhyme in English is a crock of shit. Expecting him to rhyme in Polish is fine, except that nobody here speaks Polish, and I can pin him down and make him lose pool by simply saying: "i'm sorry, my friend, you must say that again; it's the language, you see, i don't understand thee." And he's screwed, because he HAS to be able to communicate to the rest of us somehow what he wants. Similarly, I would be screwed were I to play with his group in Poland, as I can't even say his NAME correctly, much less make a rhyme in his language. So the card gets banned, stays banned, deserves to be banned, and it's as simple as that. -- Derek Jack-Booted Thug of Atlanta "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." - C. Darwin, 1871

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > Rediscovering this game is bringing back ugly memories of Magic. You > see the differences - I see the similarities. Ironically, your point of view brings back *my* ugly memories of Magic. And Jyhad, for that matter. I played for years beginning with the first sanctioned tournaments in 1994. I was a top 25 DCI player in 1994 and 1995, back when the ratings system granted points for simply attending tournaments and stair-stepped upwards for each round of the single elimination tournaments you advanced through. (Losing in the first round got you 10 points. If you won the first round and lost the second, you got 10 + 20 for a total of 30 points. Losing in the third round counted 60 points, and so on. Player ranking positions were determined by total points accumulated throughout a one year period.) I wasn't that good of a player. Fair, I suppose, but no genius. I attended a lot of tournaments. But mostly, I had "The "Jewels". The power 9 probably won me a lot more matches than my playing savvy. As a fair contest of skill, it was just silly. It took WotC years to accept the fact that I could see plain and simple myself that power cards kill a constructed deck game. And it also took years before the playing community began to grasp that point, either. I argued with so many idiots in Magic newsgroups who kept getting lost at around the point of reason that a card does not have to be overwhelmingly powerful to harm a game. Merely being way more powerful than most cards will do, even if hosers for it exist. Even now, Type 1 only exists because it has a character to it that certain kinds of players like. They don't care about the fact that many, many cards are basically worthless in Type I as much as they like the speed and dynamics of the game. They're entitled to their preferences, I suppose. But they're in the distinct minority for a good reason. As for Jyhad, until it was turned over to LSJ, I feel that WotC was in total denial about the importance of play balance. Though I understand the discomfort with the shear amount of errata that LSJ has issued to fix the various problems he sees, there's no doubt in my mind that the game is in far better shape today than it was before he took over. Fred

In article <3A11BF51...@netcom.com>, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote: > >Actually, it was a bit of a rhetorical question in that I don't think you could >really do much better with Jyhad. So even if Shadowfist is totally balanced with >no banned cards but heavy errata on a few cards (which is pretty good also, no >question), then it's really not much better in this respect than Jyhad. > >Not that I'd mind hearing the perspectives of people who are old tyme adherents >of both games. > >Fred Both games are great, and are about equally balanced. Shadowfist is faster paced, and can also be played one on one. I prefer the Shadowfist theme, but both games are about equally as fun, and as deep. As far as errata/banning goes, Shadowfist has been much better simply because there were only a very few cards that needed to be fixed -- nothing compared to Jyhad's huge collection of ambigous, broken, or simply badly designed cards. As a result Jyhad has needed far more errata, which isn't terribly suprising considering who was in charge of it after the initial release! -Jasper

In article <3A11BF51...@netcom.com>, fre...@netcom.com wrote: > legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > > > > i'm only a SF newbie or perhaps retread would be a better word, since i > > did play it when it first came out and am just now getting back into it. > > i do love the game but, how can i put this tactfully, i could lose its > > phone number and not break my heart over it, as would happen if i ever > > lost touch with Jyhad or netrunner. But there are lots of good SF players > > in this NG - Peter, Josh and James Hamblin. Maybe they can give you a > > proper answer. > > Actually, it was a bit of a rhetorical question in that I don't think you could > really do much better with Jyhad. So even if Shadowfist is totally balanced with > no banned cards but heavy errata on a few cards (which is pretty good also, no > question), then it's really not much better in this respect than Jyhad. > > Not that I'd mind hearing the perspectives of people who are old tyme adherents > of both games. I'd agree that Fist isn't exactly "better" than VTES, although they did manage to print cards with their errataed texts (barely) earlier. Sure, Fist doesn't have anything banned, but it does have some cards that are a little above the power curve which tend to show up in an awful lot of tournament decks of the appropriate factions. Of course, I quickly learned to love the 6/23 and 7/7 VTES rulings, so I'm probably not the most change-resistant commentator. Also note that Andrew Davidson is another well-known (at least on the newsgroups) Shadowfist player from way back... ;-) As is Tom Kassel, who I seem to remember seeing posts from on the Jyhad group not too long ago, although maybe that's just my memory acting up. Josh just another common tater [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 14:03:40 -0500, LSJ wrote: >Each year, MLB Showdown bans all pitchers and hitters from previous years. I have no problem with that - it makes sense in a sports-game, fantasy league context. Likewise the sort of banning that you get with set rotation and storylines is a different issue - Type II, Jade, Boot Hill format, etc. >Battletech has 5 cards on the banned list. Another game designed by Richard Garfield. I see the pattern. >The philosophy of the V:EKN is that it is less shameful to admit a >mistake than to ignore it, while of course it would be best all around >to never make mistakes in design. To err is human. The question is what you do about the error. To their credit, the DCI seem to have seen the light and are now unbanning cards in Type 1. VEKN should likewise review their banned list, especially as no-one seems to have a clue why the Rowan Ring is banned. Andrew

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 18:30:34 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >...Completely and irrevocably proving our point that it is TOTALLY >based upon the SUBJECTIVE opinion of the judge, which makes it unfit >to be included in tournaments. No - that's why tournaments have to have a Judge. The tournament rules on stalling, collusion and sportsmanship are subjective. So too are many more subtle points such as whether a player did or did not declare an action. I gather that Magic play at the highest levels turns on such minute details and that a judge has to monitor the behaviour of each player very closely. The more seriously you take a game, the more you have to confront such issues. Just look at the US Presidential election. In theory, this is a simple matter of counting votes. In practise, it is turning on all sorts of subjective, physical details like whether a chad is pregnant or not. Can you call for a recount in a VTES referendum <grin>? >I also do not consider "stealth" and "elf" to be a rhyme in the >remotest degree, as the "f" and "th" sounds are quite distinct. Not in England where "th" is commonly pronounced as "f", e.g. "fick". >Actually, the entire card is pointless, as the intent of the card is >clearly being completely circumvented by people devising ways to get >around actually having to produce a rhyme. This is just as well, as >V:TES is a game about deck-building and play of the cards and >vampires, not about who is more literate, who has a wider vocabulary >to choose rhymes from, and who is tone-deaf. The game is what it is and Madness of the Bard is part of it. As James (Legbiter) McClellan has so cleverly pointed out, the card itself indicates that repetition is a valid rhyme and this option is available to any speaker, whatever their mother tongue. This does not make the card useless - it just makes the challenge more subtle. Suppose you adopt the simple ruse of ending each sentence with the word "period". This mannerism is common in ordinary US speech and seems to be the perfect way of punctuating each sentence in a rhyming way. This sounds easy but the catch is that you have to remember to do it. Those familiar with the Shadowfist card, "Art of War", will know how hard this can be. >You still have not yet satisfactorily answered the question of what to >do with non-native speakers. See above. >And he's screwed, because he HAS to be able to communicate to the rest >of us somehow what he wants. Similarly, I would be screwed were I to >play with his group in Poland, as I can't even say his NAME correctly, >much less make a rhyme in his language. The VEKN rules say nothing about the language to be used in an event though, as the rules and cards only exist in English form, there is an implicit presumption that any player must be fluent and literate in that language. This is a general issue at events such as the European Championships. You seem to think that a player can insist that a particular language must be used but what would it be in this case - German, English or what? Maybe we need a set of sign-cards for international events - in the same way as football referees have to use coloured cards and arm signals. Andrew

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000 22:57:35 +0000, James Coupe wrote: >> game just apes Magic and continues to use DCI rules. > >No, it uses V:EKN rules. Which are explicitly based on the DCI rules and copy them verbatim. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:8661D19948867D83.5596EEC3...@lp.airnews.net... [clip] > >Battletech has 5 cards on the banned list. > > Another game designed by Richard Garfield. I see the pattern. There is nothing about V:TES' design (design is what Garfield does) that is broken. He is not personally responsible for the creation of cards like RTI or for any bannings that have gone on. -Robert Robert Goudie Chairman, V:EKN rob...@vtesinla.org

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 18:30:34 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >Actually, the entire card is pointless, as the intent of the card is > >clearly being completely circumvented by people devising ways to get > >around actually having to produce a rhyme. This is just as well, as > >V:TES is a game about deck-building and play of the cards and > >vampires, not about who is more literate, who has a wider vocabulary > >to choose rhymes from, and who is tone-deaf. > > The game is what it is and Madness of the Bard is part of it. As > James (Legbiter) McClellan has so cleverly pointed out, the card > itself indicates that repetition is a valid rhyme and this option is > available to any speaker, whatever their mother tongue. This does not > make the card useless - it just makes the challenge more subtle. It also makes the refereeing of it an absolute nightmare and - as I already pointed - would require the full time presence of a judge which therefore makes it problematic to have it in play at more tables at a time than there are judges. I'm not sure how anyone could advocate allowing a card like that in a tournament. As far as the game being "what it is", what Madness of the Bard is is a mistake. It's a parlor game card which got snuck into a strategy game because some designer at some point in time (I'm assuming it was Richard Garfield but I may be wrong) thought it was cute. If you don't believe that was just a mistake, a bad move, a faux pas, whatever, the vast majority of other tournament players seem to. And, as LSJ so cleverly pointed out, it is less shameful to admit a mistake than to ignore it. Fred

> "Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message > news:8661D19948867D83.5596EEC3...@lp.airnews.net... > [clip] >>> Battletech has 5 cards on the banned list. >> >> Another game designed by Richard Garfield. I see the pattern. > > There is nothing about V:TES' design (design is what Garfield does) that is > broken. He is not personally responsible for the creation of cards like RTI > or for any bannings that have gone on. However, he is responsible for the predator/prey relationship, of course, one of the pillars of why V:tES is such an excellent game. The other, IMO, is the nature of pool being both your resources and your lifeline. Both ideas make for a great balancing (one tablewide, one personal) act in every game. -- Pat Ricochet Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta

>> I've read this thread a couple of times now and still can't see how you >> are constructively adding to the fact that you think RTI should not be >> banned. Just saying that it shouldn't be is no real arguement here. > > RtI already has an errata and this is presumably there to be used. I > suggested an errata which seems better to me - less strenuous, for one > thing. But it already got broken *again* by the L.A. group, when Malks do it using a Madness Network at the end of their predator's minion phase, so the pile of errata makes no difference, since no one else (except other Bum's Rushing Malks, I guess) has any chance to see it coming, rush, deal, etc. So the card was errata'd *again*, and now says: "You play this this card at any time. This card is removed from the game, and is not to ever be put back into your deck, or any other deck." and the flavor text says something like "For an even larger collection of bookmarks inspired by poor design, insufficient playtesting, clever blokes who broke the cards, and cheezball players who would play them in tournaments, go to http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/banned" >> It's like most threads on this group, the old guys remember how bad it >> was. Most like it as it is now. Opinions and experience are different >> animals Andrew. > > Rediscovering this game is bringing back ugly memories of Magic. You > see the differences - I see the similarities. We see the differences (I say "we" only because I haven't seen anyone else poke up defending Return to Broken Cards..er, Innocence) in the history of how long and how many broken cards were allowed in Magic, where V:tES is self-repairing to keep open the wide variety of strategies to all be competitive. You seem to see the similarity that Magic banned cards, and "all banning of cards is a bad thing". You've certainly never answered again on the idea that the game designers CAN and HAVE made mistakes in designing cards. You attribute more credit to the wisdom of one group of people (the original designers) that some other group of people (the rules team). Hindsight is 20/20, and that means the errata are made with more knowledge and experience (thereby, wisdom) than the original designers had. But, it's not a matter of blind trust. We can see for ourselves, by actually playing the game and the cards, seeing tournaments with all the same broken trick winning all the VPs, that "this card" or "that card" is broken, and unbalances an otherwise excellent game. We are very fortunate to have LSJ at the helm, who manages to keep the "letter of the law" clear even in the most obtuse situations, and who keeps to the "spirit of the law" in issuing errata to preserve the balanced nature of the game. The difference, to many players, is that (most all) Magic players like only to win, and (most all) V:tES players actually like to *play*. We like the game, we like the variety, we like the complexity that amazingly retains an excellent set of checks and balances. And we want to *keep* it that way. *That* is what matters most to us. What seems to matter most to you is cards not be changed, and certainly not banned. As you say: > Leaving ante cards aside, this now only has three banned cards to VTES's four. > This makes VTES the worst CCG in this respect, worse even than Magic. > Shameful. I find the idea of four banned cards being "shameful" to be bizarre, really. I can't fathom why it bothers you so much. Play balance matters to me. It's part of what attracted me to V:tES, (the other half being the complexity, and the montage of having that much complexity while still being play balanced is what makes V:tES shine.) and it certainly matters to me far *more* than whether 4 or 3 or 0 cards out of Oodles got banned. All that contrariness aside, lemme say one thing in some agreement. I'm not sure it's clear that Rowan Ring needs to be banned, really, considering the amount of errata that is in existence. "Paralyze" got nixed a long time ago, but Wooden stake got fixed, and I can't think it's too hard to make text for Rowan Ring that does the intended purpose. I mean, there is the Amaranth/Archon combo, or just use Amaranth with Mua-cheeze, but is that really a "broken" combo? [ quoted text not captured ]

"Pat Ricochet" <sp...@socrates.gatech.edu> wrote in message news:B6385DA6.A5A%sp...@socrates.gatech.edu... > > > > "Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message > >>> Battletech has 5 cards on the banned list. > >> Another game designed by Richard Garfield. I see the pattern. > > > > There is nothing about V:TES' design (design is what Garfield does) that is > > broken. He is not personally responsible for the creation of cards like RTI > > or for any bannings that have gone on. > > However, he is responsible for the predator/prey relationship, of > course, one of the pillars of why V:tES is such an excellent game. The > other, IMO, is the nature of pool being both your resources and your > lifeline. Both ideas make for a great balancing (one tablewide, one > personal) act in every game. Indeed. If you can pick up a copy of the old Jyhad strategy guide, I'd highly recommend it. You can get a glimpse into the creative process and learn about some of the other pillars of the game design. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > Not really. The target just answers "yes", plays scissors in the > first round and is then free to do what he likes after that. The > Monocle gets you one freebie and that's it. Instead, you phrase your question better. Include the words "truth value", for memories of a particularly vile question. -- James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D "Steve: Yeah, well that's one of the advantages of being a sad, lonely fairy, I guess. You get to learn how to be a spy." - Stephen Fry, Making History

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > Rhyme is a matter of pronunciation. Indeed. > "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright > In the forests of the night > What immortal hand or eye > Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" > > He brazened it out by rhyming symmetry with eye perfectly. This makes > me wince but I'd still allow it in a VTES game. It's poetic licence. It's not "rhyming sentences", though. It's a sentence, which rhymes internally. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 15 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > To err is human. The question is what you do about the error. To > their credit, the DCI seem to have seen the light and are now > unbanning cards in Type 1. The play environment has changed *substantially* in the last five years, with several thousand extra cards. > VEKN should likewise review their banned > list, especially as no-one seems to have a clue why the Rowan Ring is > banned. Rowan Ring banned = paralyse is no longer a supported rule e.g. in Sabbat War Only Return to Innocence could possibly have been affected, as a card, by the change due to Sabbat War. The Ante cards won't go. Monocle of Clarity won't go. Madness of the Bard won't go. Only Return to Innocence could be affected. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 15 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > >...Completely and irrevocably proving our point that it is TOTALLY > >based upon the SUBJECTIVE opinion of the judge, which makes it unfit > >to be included in tournaments. > > No - that's why tournaments have to have a Judge. And judges have rules which tell them how to work out a given situation, so that play is consistent the world over, so far as is humanly possible. You cannot compile such a list for Madness of the Bard. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8uunue$m0l$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Joshua Duffin <jt...@cornell.edu> wrote: > Also note that Andrew Davidson is another well-known (at least > on the newsgroups) Shadowfist player from way back... ;-) As > is Tom Kassel, who I seem to remember seeing posts from on the > Jyhad group not too long ago, although maybe that's just my > memory acting up. > Your memory's just fine. I'm hoping to play a bit more VTes in future, while continuing with 'Fist. Tom Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

On Wed, 15 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > >> game just apes Magic and continues to use DCI rules. > > > >No, it uses V:EKN rules. > > Which are explicitly based on the DCI rules and copy them verbatim. Which is not the same thing at all. It uses V:EKN rules, regardless of similarity (or lack thereof) to DCI rules. -- James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D "Steve: Yeah, well that's one of the advantages of being a sad, lonely fairy, I guess. You get to learn how to be a spy." - Stephen Fry, Making History

In article <8661D19948867D83.5596EEC3...@lp.airnews.net>, a...@csi.com wrote: > unbanning cards in Type 1. VEKN should likewise review their banned > list, especially as no-one seems to have a clue why the Rowan Ring is > banned. It was banned because it uses the term "paralyze" which was removed from V:tES. I believe someone else mentioned this in this same thread within the past day or two. Paralyze was, I believe, seen as overly complicated, and since it was only used by two cards, could be simplified, as seen in Wooden Stake. Xian -- But rain falls down and I feel cold A cold that sleeps within my heart It tears the earth and sun apart --New Order, "Shellshock" [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 15 Nov 2000, Robert Goudie wrote: > Indeed. If you can pick up a copy of the old Jyhad strategy guide, I'd > highly recommend it. You can get a glimpse into the creative process and > learn about some of the other pillars of the game design. My copy appears to have gone missing. I must root around at home for it, since it is worth its wait in blood for the introduction. [ quoted text not captured ]

> On Wed, 15 Nov 2000, Robert Goudie wrote: >> Indeed. If you can pick up a copy of the old Jyhad strategy guide, I'd >> highly recommend it. You can get a glimpse into the creative process and >> learn about some of the other pillars of the game design. > > My copy appears to have gone missing. I must root around at home for it, > since it is worth its wait in blood for the introduction. Is that the intro about how the designers were shocked that Magic players actually considered themselves as role-playing "good guys," and so the designers grumbled back to their lairs to make a game where it was *certain* that the players knew they were all black, rotten Methuselahs, with certainly only evil purposes? -- Pat Ricochet Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:7FBB40D6E08296FB.50F74C62...@lp.airnews.net... > On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 18:30:34 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > > >...Completely and irrevocably proving our point that it is TOTALLY > >based upon the SUBJECTIVE opinion of the judge, which makes it unfit > >to be included in tournaments. > > No - that's why tournaments have to have a Judge. The tournament > rules on stalling, collusion and sportsmanship are subjective. So too > are many more subtle points such as whether a player did or did not > declare an action. I gather that Magic play at the highest levels > turns on such minute details and that a judge has to monitor the > behaviour of each player very closely. The more seriously you take a > game, the more you have to confront such issues. Actually, you are completely wrong here. Magic play at the highest levels has the least amount of behavioral monitoring, since a) the players know the rules so well, and b) the rules are OBJECTIVE, not SUBJECTIVE, as you seem to want the rules for Madness of the Mard to be. > Just look at the US > Presidential election. In theory, this is a simple matter of counting > votes. In practise, it is turning on all sorts of subjective, > physical details like whether a chad is pregnant or not. Can you call > for a recount in a VTES referendum <grin>? > > >I also do not consider "stealth" and "elf" to be a rhyme in the > >remotest degree, as the "f" and "th" sounds are quite distinct. > > Not in England where "th" is commonly pronounced as "f", e.g. "fick". So, basically, a rhyme can be anything you want it to be. Oh, wait, we have to have RULES to play the game, so... oh, wait, but we don't *really* have to have rules for *this* card, let's just play with it subjectively and see what happens. > >Actually, the entire card is pointless, as the intent of the card is > >clearly being completely circumvented by people devising ways to get > >around actually having to produce a rhyme. This is just as well, as > >V:TES is a game about deck-building and play of the cards and > >vampires, not about who is more literate, who has a wider vocabulary > >to choose rhymes from, and who is tone-deaf. > > The game is what it is and Madness of the Bard is part of it. As > James (Legbiter) McClellan has so cleverly pointed out, the card > itself indicates that repetition is a valid rhyme and this option is > available to any speaker, whatever their mother tongue. This does not > make the card useless - it just makes the challenge more subtle. > > Suppose you adopt the simple ruse of ending each sentence with the > word "period". This mannerism is common in ordinary US speech and > seems to be the perfect way of punctuating each sentence in a rhyming > way. This sounds easy but the catch is that you have to remember to > do it. Those familiar with the Shadowfist card, "Art of War", will > know how hard this can be. > > >You still have not yet satisfactorily answered the question of what to > >do with non-native speakers. > > See above. > > >And he's screwed, because he HAS to be able to communicate to the rest > >of us somehow what he wants. Similarly, I would be screwed were I to > >play with his group in Poland, as I can't even say his NAME correctly, > >much less make a rhyme in his language. > > The VEKN rules say nothing about the language to be used in an event > though, as the rules and cards only exist in English form, there is an > implicit presumption that any player must be fluent and literate in > that language. This is a general issue at events such as the European > Championships. You seem to think that a player can insist that a > particular language must be used but what would it be in this case - > German, English or what? Maybe we need a set of sign-cards for > international events - in the same way as football referees have to > use coloured cards and arm signals. > > Andrew -- Kevin J. Mergen, kjme...@home.com, Prince of Madison, WI "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

In article < F3C5EFADB1D724A1.8B415614...@lp.airnews.net>, a...@csi.com wrote: > On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 13:06:45 GMT, legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > > >agree with Andrew that this card shouldn't be banned, but i reserve the > >right to say: "Just because you played the Wretched Madness of the bard > >pipi for my butthole, Anvil bum's rushes ozmo cross-table, pipi for my > >butthole. Do you block, pipi for my butthole? In that case i rip a > >signpost out of the ground, pipi for my butthole." And so on. > > This works for me though I'm now curious as to what this refrain might > mean. Basically nothing at all - it is from Beavis and butthead Do America which Michael Eichler and i watched with fascinated horror last time he was over here. It's what the blond one is saying when, high on cardiac stimulants, he infiltrates the white house. > > >i'm also kind of on Andrew's side in respect of Monocle of Clarity, > >though i think it needs clarification that all questions have to be game- > >related > > I don't have one of these cards to read but the online text > anticipates you: > > Monocle of Clarity [Jyhad] > Cardtype: Equipment > Unique Equipment. During your untap phase, if bearer is ready, you can > ask any Methuselah a yes or no question <pertaining to the game>. He > or she must answer <'yes' or 'no'> truthfully. If the question > pertains to the future, he or she must abide by the answer if possible > {until your next untap phase}. Using the monocle is not an action. > {Questions about questions may not be asked.} > > Presumably you're only allowed to ask one question per turn, right? Yes, only one. The other guys are right that you can ask some pretty fiendish questions, but my view is that there isn't an "i win" question to be asked, given the restrictions on the card. > > Andrew [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <B6387061.A7D%sp...@socrates.gatech.edu>, [ quoted text not captured ] That is, indeed, the very volume, another of whose highlights is the revelation that Ulugh Beg was a Tuba during playtesting. Not particularly wanting to rake over old ashes here, but i do want to comment briefly on the [as i see it] validity of the general point that Andrew is making, which is that text-unsupported errata are INCREDIBLY annoying for new/returning players. i think everyone knows this, and the question really becomes, which is more important: [1] keeping the game transparent so that new people can basically pick up a deck, read the rules, and play; or [2] keeping the game balanced, so that particular cards and strategies don't achieve a boring degree of dominance in tournaments/general competitive play. The NG has a view on this which is basically that [2] wins out, but i have a foot in another camp of Playing for Fun with family and friends. There, the parlour-game nature of MotB is actually an ATTRACTIVE feature of the card and many of them simply don't understand [2] and think it is elitist crap. In the future i would like to see problem cards quite simply BANNED from tournaments, just as the problem strategy of repeat actions is BANNED from tournaments, rather than the issuing of text-unsupported errata. And the justification for the banning would quite simply be that the Rules Team have banned it, or that the Judges don't think they can cope with enforcing the play of the card. Cards could be unbanned later, though, when they are reissued with modified text. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000, Derek Ray wrote: > My first objection comes from this. Satisfying the entire existing > customer base is, frankly, a hopeless cause. There will always be > people unhappy with what has been done, and there will always be > people who think that something else should have been done. Any > number of companies have learned this the hard way, that you can't > make everyone happy all the time. I agree that 100% absolute customer satisfaction is impossible. It does not thereby follow, of course, that customer satisfaction does not matter, and that such factors can be ignored. Your objection is inadequate. You have dodged the issue of whether fragmentation reduces customer satisfaction, and gone on to argue points that are not under contention. > It is far more effective and profitable to make some people VERY > satisfied (by more narrowly targeting any new expansions). I am in favor of focussed expansions. There is no disagreement here. > Players > are not going to get mad and quit just because the latest expansion > didn't have their favourite toys in; No. If they feel they do not get adequate reward for the money they spend, they are more likely to get bored and quit. They will drift away. I don't expect grand speeches from the vast majority of people who stop playing. > a good example is the lack of the > !Tremere in Sabbat War. A move that I approve of. I had in fact stated, before the release, that it would be good if as many as two or three clans were left out in the interest of adequate focus. > Nobody is quitting because of it. You mean nobody is suddenly quitting because of it after making loud speaches of protest. People are quitting, of course, for one reason or another. Presumably they drift away because they find more rewarding ways to spend their time and money. Giving them less satisfaction for their money is an excellent way to ensure that we lose the competition for their interests. > Several > people are not thrilled with it, but they are also happy with the > -rest- of the expansion, so it works out. Once more clans and disciplines exist, you will have to leave out even more clans and disciplines to make an expansion adequately focussed. This is because, even though the number of clans/disciplines increases, the number that can be reasonably featured in an adequately focussed expansion remains the same. So several more people will be even less thrilled with it. I am impressed by your amazing faith that no-one will ever stop playing on this account. > >somewhere on the borders of survival. If the game ceases to be profitable, > >then it will not be marketted or promoted, and, in the long run, is likely to > >be less played. If the player base is fragmented, it becomes, for all > >practical purposes, smaller. > > I question whether having a significant number of disciplines truly > "fragments" the player base. I have yet to have seen a single person > declare that they wouldn't be buying Sabbat War because their > favourite clan wasn't supported. I doubt that you spend much time talking to people who no longer play the game. In any event, the players who still play, who have not lost interest and drifted to other games, are those fanatics like you or I who have continued to collect and play the game for the past 4 years in spite of the level of fragmentation already introduced. It is unlikely that any such people will suddently stop playing in loud protest after the first expansion that does NOT increase the fragmentation level. > Eleven clans WEREN'T supported in > SW; all the Camarilla, and all the Independents. All but four > disciplines got NO new cards whatsoever - and one discipline got only > Telepathic Tracking. Instead, the reaction has been nothing but > positive, enthusiastic, etc. Yes indeed, from us hardcore fanatics who have been continued to play this game for the last 4 years with little or no support from WoTC and no expansions. > Having a wide number of disciplines helps to DIVERSIFY the player base > by encouraging variety, thus providing a greater number of people > actually playing the game. And how exactly does it do this? > To say that more people playing is somehow > "smaller" is a fallacy, and so I must dispute your assertion. When you rephrase it in so ingenious a manner, how can I disagree? > If we > have 200 people playing this game, and 100 of them buy the new > expansion, then we've sold 100. If we have 100 people playing this > game, and all of them buy the new expansion, we've still sold 100, but > we had no potential to sell more, and we still have fewer people > playing - a losing situation in the long run. You seem to be suggesting that by doubling the number of clans we can double (or at least substantially increase) the number of players. I concede that IF this were true, the enhancement of the player base would compensate for the fragmentation. But I am not convinced that this is the case, nor do I feel you make an adequate case for the claim. Sounds to me like voodoo logic, as though you are taking a metaphor literally. > >>I can summarise my position thusly: I believe that adding new clans > >>and disciplines to the game is the ONLY WAY to guarantee a > >>consistently growing player base, because you MUST have a marketing > >>tie-in. > > > >This seems a very extreme position to take. I am confused as how adding new > > Not especially. Stagnation = death. V:TES had nothing new for a long > time, and the player base shrunk enormously, even with the cheap > availability of the Jyhad base set to draw in the occasional new > player. You are arguing a non-issue. Nobody is advocating that there should not be expansions. The position I was asking you to justify was the claim that expansions would only succeed if the added "new clans and disciplines", not new powers, vampires, resources etc. You need to defend your claim that fragmentation is the ONLY way to maintain a player base. You need to explain why Magic the Gathering should have died long ago because after all these years, they are still "stagnant" with only same five colors of magic. > Until you hit upon a 'classic' formula such as chess, then > ANYTHING must constantly be evolving with the times. This is a very > basic concept; if you don't have new stuff consistently, you will lose > out to the other, INFERIOR new stuff. This is fine, but you need to explain why you feel that Magic the Gathering (or any other card game) needs to increase the number of colors of magic to have any chance of survival. > >clans and disciplines will assist in enhancing the player base, much less > >GUARANTEE such, much less be the ONLY such strategy worthy of consideration. I > >could be wrong, but I just cannot see how a V:tM player player will be > >convinced to try V:tES because of a new expansion introduces the new discipline > >of Spiritus, when they could not be lured by its featuring of Animalism, > > Perhaps their "thing" happens to be Spiritus. Perhaps they've been > wondering about this V:TES thing for some time now, and when the White > Wolf marketing campaign hits the streets, it ends up being the final > push, and they go and get a box of the base V:TES set and a box of the > new expansion. Perhaps. Perhaps. Sounds immensely improbable to me, but if it sounds good to you then fine. > I suspect you underestimate just how much marketing > potential is generated by "new and shiny", though. Are you suggesting that the display box will shine more brightly if it advertizes the introduction of the "new" Mortis powers, as opposed to the "new" Mortuus powers? In this case, there is nothing to prevent them from referring to the powers as "Mortis", since they are in fact the same thing. > From what I > personally saw, Sabbat War has drawn a good bit of attention; not bad > for a dead game that just released a set consisting largely of > reprints. How did that happen? Marketing. This is all great, but you do realize, don't you, that Sabbat War did not introduce *any* additional fragmentation in the way of new clans/disciplines. Sounds like this argument supports my positions. > New clans would provide a > huge potential, as everyone imagines the "cool powers" from each clan. If that's what lures them in, then advertize "cool powers" and provide "cool powers". You can give these "cool powers" cool names like Mortuus, and print them as cards with a certain familiar and appropriate skull symbol, and names like "Mortuus: Black Plague" or something. You need to explain why it is necessary to give these new "cool powers" their own symbol or "magic color" and confine them to their own separate corner of the game so that it is more difficult to combine them with other powers and creativle explore combinations. There is no rule in Vampire the Masquerade that says "each discipline must have its own seperate symbol". The symbols are inventions of the card game, and it the game designers want to say that that funky skull represents both Mortis and Necromancy (it is clearly appropriate for both) then this in no way contradicts the WoD material (especially since recent developments show them to be the same discipline anyway). > >Auspex, Celerity, Chimeristry, Dementate, Dominate, Fortitude, Necromancy, > >Obfuscate, Obtenebrate, Potence, Presence, Protean, Quietus, Serpentis, > >Thaumaturgy, or Vicissitude. Indeed, it seems more likely that the sheer > >number of clans and disciplines will intimidate new players (one of the reasons > >I favor focussed expansions). > > If you present the game as "Thirteen clans and 21 disciplines!", then > yes, you're going to intimidate players. This would be a poor way to > present the game, though; a much better way would be to emphasize the > wide variety of clans you could play that you would also find in V:tM, > each of which has its inherent three disciplines. Remember, V:tM > players are already dealing with a wide variety of disciplines. It's > not going to bother them in the slightest, That is because, in V:tM, "fragmentation" does not matter, and has no effect on the function of the game. It does not matter how many disciplines there are, because the options are limited only by the imagination of the players. Play is based around powers, which are grouped into paths, which in turn are grouped into disciplines. Precise classification is irrelevant, because the player can always choose which paths he wishes to pursue ... regardless of whether these paths are considered as multiple paths or multiple disciplines. He can even choose what powers are in his path by inventing his own path and getting the permission of his storyteller to pursue it. He creates his own vampire, with just about any combination of powers he wants, only slightly limited by clan tendencies which nudges him in a certain direction. He does not need disciplines to be classified broadly so that he can maintain flexibility in terms of what combination of powers he is allowed to have, or put in his "deck" and still be competitively. If he wants to be. > while finding that Mortis > has been relegated to merely a subset of Necromancy might. Why would it? This is, after all, the current situation in the World of Darkness, for all practical purposes. Do you know V:tM players who were disappointed and upset when Mortis was reintroduced in the context of Necromancy? > As regards new players, the "starter deck" angle that WW is taking is > clearly intended to be the way to bring newer players into the game, > and looks to be very effective. I understand how starter decks work, and I approve of the move. > You get your starter deck of a > cool-looking clan, then you buy some boosters to get some more cards > that fit with your clan, and you take the cards you don't want in the > boosters ("Protean? But the !Brujah don't have Protean...") and you > trade them away to other people for MORE cards that fit within your > clan and your deck. Eventually you get bored with the deck as you > become more familiar with the game, and you begin exploring different > options within the clan, and then different options OUTSIDE of the > clan, and so on, and so on. Trading is indeed one way of compensating for fragmentation. However trading requires an expenditure of energy. Not everyone has the time, or the money, to cope with a zillion clans and disciplines that they do not use. Why make things difficult for them? Why make it so hard for them to use the cards they buy? Why do mystical powers have to be divided into so large a number of specialized categories. What purpose does this serve? > New players will only be a problem if we try to hit them over the head > with everything at once, something WW's marketing group has rather > deftly avoided with the starter decks. A very clever move, and, at this stage, very necessary. However when they try to expand beyond the starters, fragmentation will become an issue. Perhaps not too much of an issue, but perhaps the fragmetnation has not become too excessive ... yet. A new player might make it through the Sabbat War boosters, but, if he is a Tzimisce fan, he might well have a problem with a new expansion that introduces the new Lamia clan featuring the disciplines of Deimos, Mortis, and Potence, especially when he still has not even collected enough cards to make playable decks of the Ravnos or Giovanni yet, and has fair piles of cards that he cannot yet use. > >Indeed, my concern was that any marginal gains in the player base made by such > >a strategy (if any) would be more than offset by the "fragmentation" of the > >interests of the existing customer base, such it would be more difficult to > >keep all players interested in every expansion. While the overall number of > > as stated previously, the thought of keeping all players interested in > every expansion is hopeless. A much better approach is to ensure that > many players will be VERY interested in each expansion; an approach > that encourages DIVERSITY, not fragmentation. I think we should follow the example of the Amoeba, and at least attempt to grow a little before we make further efforts to "diversify". > >V:tES players MIGHT rise, a smaller percentage of these would be interested in > >each expansion, since its cards would be less likely to interact with those > >they prefer to play. For all practical purposes, fragmentation reduces the > >player base for each expansion. > > The longer someone plays, the less likely they are to be satisfied > with "just one clan". I don't know anyone 'round here who's been > playing for any great length of time who still confines themselves to > any specific clan. The lure of the new (here it is again!) always > attracts them, and they build things and say "Well, I've never played > the Nosferatu before, but I figured I'd give them a try..." The converse of this situation, of course, is that we know no players who play with all 17 disciplines and all 22 clans to a significant extent. If such energetic fanatics exist, they are an extreme minority. > About the only thing I've ever seen is the occasional player who > refuses to play one clan; will use all others EXCEPT one, frequently > Toreador. This, of course, hurts the game not at all. I suspect you only notice people not playing clans when they make a loud announcement to the effect that they are not playing a clan. > >I do of course agree that new expansions are essential for marketing the game > >and keeping alive. I do not see why new disciplines MUST necessarily be part > >of this strategy. > > > >Of course, I am not against adding new things. Rather I am against adding new > >things in an unnecessarily fragmenting manner. Will introducing the "Mortis" > >the "new discipline" really have greater marketing value than introducing > >"Mortuus" the new set of powers for an old discipline? Thematically, they are > >virtually identical, so if one can be used for marketing, so can the other. > > Virtually identical won't cut it. Why not? The Harbingers ARE the surviving Cappodocians. They are just too secretive to come out and say so. The so-called "Mortuus" path IS, apart from Semantics and perhaps a little evolution with time, the same as the old "Mortis" discipline. The variable semantics are merely an attempt to be subtle and mysterious. The situation is nonetheless clear enough. These are clearly the same vampires that existed in the Dark Ages, using the same powers they used in the Dark Ages. Everything else is semantics. > Surely you've seen the complaints > regarding Wake with Evening's Freshness and how it should be a > Tremere-only card? I've seen them. I am not advocating any violation this blatant. (Nonetheless the game does survive such violations. In this case, the effect is appropriate to the title, and even within the context of the WoD need not refer to a specific power -- might merely be poetic expression for a normal event. One can still print a card for the specific power). > We all know that for game balance, it wouldn't > work, since everyone needs to have the -capability- to untap. But > people still bitch about it. > Also, YES, the name-recognition matters enormously. "Mortis" is > something that V:tM players are familiar with. "Cappadocians" are > something they're familiar with. You forgot "Mortuus is something they're familiar with." > Splashing out advertising that touts > the Cappadocians in the next expansion and a bunch of Mortis cards > will snag the eye of V:tM players in a huge way. This big splash will, of course, be made amongst those numerous V:tM players who do not care about Animalsim, Auspex, Celerity, Chimeristry, Dementate, Dominate, etc... but who are for some odd reason fanatically interested in Mortis. Fine. I'm sure these Mortis freaks are already aware that Mortuus is the modern term for the old Mortis powers, and are really excited the Cappodocians have returned to life, and are proud tht these pioneers of Death Magic have been able to combine the two disciplines into one, and show an equal affinity for the variant paths invented by their usurpers. > Splashing out > advertising that gives the new "Mortuus" path to Necromancy ... > well... you lose the name recognition, and probably confuse people. Seems unlikely, as the words are identical except for very small variations of spelling and pronunciation. But if you really think it is such a problem, then it can be called "Mortis", and thus confuse all the players who are fans of "Mortuus". Either scenario is unlikely. Any player who follows the World of Darkness, and has an interest in the Cappodocians and in Mortis, should already guess that the Harbingers are in fact the surviving Cappodocians, and that Mortuus is in fact Mortis. Players who do not take an issue in the Cappodocians are unlikely to get upset about it. > The first question they'll ask is "Why didn't they just call it > Mortis?", The answer, of course, is that White Wolf was trying not to be completely blatant about fact that the Cappodocians have re-emerged. > and then they'll complain about the Cappadocians not having > Necromancy itself at all, and so on and so on. In which case wiser minds will explain that the Cappodocians *do* have Necromancy, now that it has been invented. In the Dark Ages, of course, the Cappodocians did not practice modern Necromancy, because this particular path of Death Sorcery had not been invented yet. They had their own path of Necromancy, which they called Mortis. Then the Giovanni came along and diablerized the Cappodocians, inheriting their affinity with Death Magic. However, even though the talent and affinity with Death Magic was gained, the specific secrets and traditions of the Cappodocians were lost. The Giovanni were forced to develop their own path of Death Magic, which was called Necromancy. Now that the Cappodocians have returned (using the "Harbingers" alias) they have had little difficulty learning Giovanni Death Magic as well as their own, since one is in fact just a variant path of the other. I'm sure that, from the Cappodocian viewpoint, it is in fact Necromancy that should be regarded as a path of Mortis. Nonetheless, the Sabbat rulebook names the discipline "Necromancy" and the lists "Mortuus" as one of the paths, which for all practical purposes amounts to the same thing. > Name recognition is an > extremely important part of advertising - why do you think products > will go out of their way to never specifically name their competitors? This is all beside the point. Mortis and Mortuus are both names used by White Wolf. So is Necromancy. They all have name recognition. V:TM uses all three terms, according to context, and their is nothing stopping V:tES from using all three terms, as appropriate, according to context. It would seem, though, that in the modern context, "Mortuus" is the more correct term, and "path of Necromancy" is the more accurate conceptualization. > The Coke/Pepsi wars are a very rare situation, where both brands have > sufficient name recognition on their own. In general, though, you > want to capitalize on any "name" you've gone out of your way to > establish. So yes, "Mortis" the new is much more valuable than > "Mortuus", the weird Necromancy variant. I'm tempted to conclude that you have not been keeping up with developments in V:tM. "Mortuus" is not something that I invented. The only reason that this small variation of spelling was mentioned by me is that that is what White Wolf in fact did in the case of Mortis when they made it a path of Necromancy. But their is no compelling reason such shifts of conceptualization and categorization need involve spelling changes. Let us imagine, for instance, that in the World of Darkness a startling development takes place. A family of Gargoyles manage to break free from the limitations programmed into them by their Tremere creators, and are now able to practice full-blown Protean. In this context, their old Visceratika powers are now revealed to be merely a path of Protean. They can still learn these powers, but are no longer limited to learning them only. [Please note ... I am not saying this is a good idea or a wise development. It is merely an example for the sake of a very minor point.] If White Wolf wants to say that Visceratika is now a path of Protean, there is nothing stopping them from doing so. There is no need for them to change the name to "Visceratikuus" or something silly like that. There need be no loss of "name recognition". Nor would there be any need for name changes if (for instance - and again, I am not saying this is the only option or the best idea) White Wolf were to decide that Thanatosis and Quietus are actually two different paths of a broader Death's Hand discipline. They tend to exist as separate entities only because both the Assamites and Samedi are secretive, and are unlikely to teach eachother their particular traditions. Nor would their be logical contradiction, or loss of name recognition, if V:tES designers were to rule that the Death's Hand symbol currently used to represent Quietus also represents Thanatosis. > >>Some people love the Gangrel, true, and adding the occasional > >>new toy for the Gangrel is great... but the Gangrel are quite viable > >>the way they are, and there's no need to screw with that. Taking a > >>brand-new clan and simply making them a subset of a previous clan and > >>a previous discipline just won't thrill people. The average person > >>wants New n' Shiny, and a New Clan with New Toys is it. > > > >I presume you are talking about veteran players here, who have already > >collected all the "old Toys". It seems to me difficult to believe that any > >player fanatic enough to have collected cards from all 22 clans and all 17 > >disciplines, in numbers sufficient to be playable, will somehow lose interest > >and stop playing just because he does not get a 23rd and a 18th. > > I am not. I am speaking of newer players who we are trying to draw > in. See above for why "new n' shiny" matters so much; it's been in a > couple different paragraphs. We seem to be miscommunicating. I was under the impression that this discussion concerned whether to print expansions that added clans or added disciplines. There was never a debate over whether we should or should not print new cards. I never advocated that any cards printed should be old and ugly. > >Judging by the reactions on this newsgroup to the handful of new cards in the > >Sabbat War expansion, it would appear to me that veteran players are more than > >capable of getting excited about "new toys" that interact with the existing > >structure and are not set aside in their own little lonely corner of the game. > >We are more than capable of get excited by Pier 13, Telepathic Tracking, City > >Gangrel in sufficient numbers to make a deck out of, etc. etc. > > Yes, because we've all been watching for several years now as > equipment has continued to suck, S:CE has continued to make combat > suck, and the City Gangrel were a totally lost cause due to lack of > vampires. We are happy, ...because we have new things, emphasizing my > points above about "new and shiny". Apparently, "new and shiny", in this context, need have nothing to do with new clans and new disciplines. I am, of course, all in favor of new expansions, new cards, new concepts and new themes. I hope you were not under a different impression. If this emphasises your point about "new and shiny" then I would guess that this point is not part of any argument against my views. Nothing in the Sabbat War expansion did anything to increase the fragmentation level. > >For new players, of course, the old clans are a better draw. They represent > >White Wolf's best creative efforts, are better developed, and more popular. > >Any new players who are left cold by the old clans are unlikely to be drawn by > >new ones. > > One of the reasons I advocated that the next expansion after final > nights be a reprint of the base set, to attempt to draw totally > brand-new players who are not familiar with V:tM or the World of > Darkness at all. Also, such players who are not drawn to the 'older' > clans at all will likely never play the game anyway, and so are > largely irrelevant. We seem to be in agreement on this last part. In what way then, will new clans be a drawing point that will enlarge the player base? Perhaps we are misunderstanding each other, but it sounds to me as though you have just conceded that new clans are unlikely to be a useful drawing point for new players, who can be better attracted by expansions focussing on the mainstream clans. Perhaps you feel that they will keep veteran players hooked? That would certainly be a more plausible basis of argument. I would am skeptical about that idea as well, though, as I feel new disciplines are as likely to alienate old players as to reel them in. > >>I also believe that adding new clans and disciplines, if/when it's > >>done, must be done properly, so that we don't end up with the problems > >>that the Ravnos, Giovanni, Assamites, and Setites had for so long. > >>The two major weak points in the DS/AH expansions were: > >> > >>1) Not enough vampires, or vampires that sucked > >>2) Not enough discipline cards that didn't suck > > > >No argument here, except that for me, "done properly" includes the idea of > >incorporating "new disciplines" as paths of existing disciplines.. > > Well... here's the problem with that, as I see it. All the > marketing/etc. ideas aside, assume you create a new clan, the > Cappadocians, and a new discipline, Mortis. Jolly. I'll go ahead and > use the Gangrel as a "baseline", since they are a well-developed clan > who possess a discipline, Protean, which was unique to them when they > were introduced. From looking at the site with the created > Cappadocian cards, their skill set seems to be MOR/AUS/FOR. OK, but why are you using the Gangrel? > The Gangrel have 21 discipline cards, 11 "clan toy" cards of some > form, and 24 vampires. This is after one set and three expansions, > keep in mind. The original Jyhad Gangrel only had 10 discipline cards > and 7 "clan toys"; I don't remember how many vamps. Oh, and a skill > card "Protean", so call it 8/12 clan toys. > > To make the Cappadocians viable, you need to print 12 vampires and > 10-15 discipline cards for Mortis. You should print at least 8 clan > toys in some form; this means that 30-35 cards of your new expansion > are going to be totally focussed on Cappadocians. If you introduce > two new clans in one expansion (reference DS and AH), then you have 70 > cards of your expansion, worst case, that are totally about the new > clans. Assuming a 120 card expansion, since that's a number I've seen > tossed around a lot, then that still leaves you 50 cards to totally > and gratuitously screw around with; so you shouldn't have problems > throwing a bone or two to everyone else in the set, say 2 new cards > for every other old discipline, leaving you 24 cards... then 2 new > vamps for each of the Independents and the Sabbat clans, with Mortis > and/or the other new discipline on them, takes you right down to 2 > cards left. I excluded the "original 7" because right now, they have > significantly more vampires than any other clan out there, even after > Sabbat War; we need to bring the existing stuff up to speed. > Hopefully Final Nights will help with that, and we can begin adding > more toys for the original 7. > > Anyway, this certainly seems to indicate that it's no problem to > include plenty of support for the "veteran" players in a new > expansion; when 50 out of 120 cards are related to existing clans, What you call "plenty", I call less than half of what of what you could have given if you had not chosen to fragment the game. > it's highly likely that even if someone doesn't want the Cappadocians, > they'll get some of the new expansion for the other-discipline stuff. > So while it's still not possible to make EVERYONE happy (some people > will undoubtedly bitch about having to buy the stupid Cappadocians > just to get the cool new Auspex cards), you certainly don't leave very > many people out. You will give them less for their money. Some people will drift away and get distracted by other pass-times that they feel give them more for their money - perhaps another card game that they feel gives them more when they open a booster pack. They will probably not make loud speeches first. If you run into them, they are more likely to discuss their other interests and appologize about no longer having time for Jyhad. They will probably not rant and rave about abstact concepts like Fragmentation. > Now, to address the problem with making Mortis a subset of Necromancy, > and the Cappadocians a subset of ... the Giovanni? I don't remember > how you intended to handle that *exactly*, so correct me if I mess up > somewhere. I am far more concerned about new disciplines, which is far more "fragmenting" than new clans, IMHO. My opposition to new clans is much softer, and I have only urged that it not be done unnecessarily. I see no reason, for instance, why the Sabbat Ravnos need be incorporated as a separate clan, when one could just print a few Ravnos who have the word "Sabbat" written on them. There are plenty of other groups that could be incorporated without adding new disciplines OR new clans. You could have Baratovich Tzimisce with Pot-Ani-Vic, Koldunic Sorcerors with Aus-Ani-Tha, Old-World Tzimisce with Aus-Ani-Dom, Greek Gangrel with Ani-Obf-Pro, Ravnos Phuri Dae with Ani-Aus-Chi, Ravnos Rakshasas with Ani-For-Chi-Vic, Telyavelik Tremere with Aus-Pre-Tha, Warriors of Set with Pot-Pre-Ser, plus any other minor family or subclan that White Wold chooses to present as plausible. These are subclans, and presenting them as such is entirely faithful. I did, I admit, go a little beyond this, and suggest that certain "bloodlines" should be presented in V:tES as though they were subclans of the clans from which they were derived. I believe I played with the idea that the Ahrimanes might be presented as a subset of the Ganrel Antitribu. I have backed off from this idea, because 1) the Ahrimanes don't exist any more, so there is no reason to try to incorporate them, and 2) There are much better options available ... too many ligitimate subclans, that would involve no stretching of WoD thematics and categorization. I still feel that most bloodlines are not worth incorporating, but for the few that are, (like, perhaps the Samedi) I do not think it would be a great tragedy to incorporate them *as* a separate clan. They add a fair amount of flavor, and, provided no new disciplines are introduced, the resulting fragmentation is minimal. > To symbolise the Cappadocians properly, I assume you would be printing > "Cappadocian" text on the vampires, while still using the Giovanni > clan symbol and background, so that they could benefit from the > existing Giovanni hunting grounds, etc. OK. This is incorrect. My most extreme suggestion was that such treatment might be given to bloodlines, with respect to the clan from which they were derived. The Cappodocians are not a bloodline. They are one of the Thirteen Clans. The Giovanni have taken their place on the list, but they are just a bunch of obnoxious upstarts and usurpers. If they are ever incorporated, it should be as a separate clan. > I also must assume that > you would be creating a number of vampires with NEC/AUS/FOR in some > variant. This is correct and proper. The modern Cappodocians *do* hav Nec Aus For. > Fair enough. I believe you've then said that you would > print Mortis cards by using the NEC symbol, Correct. > and specifying somehow on > the card "requires a Cappadocian". Not at all. You are misremembering a very different suggestion made in a different context. I might print cards that require a Cappodocian, or cards that require Necromancy. I would not print cards that require both. Rather, I would print for the Cappodocians/Harbingers Necromancy (Mortuus) cards that tend to work well when used in combination with Fortitude and Auspex, and for the Giovanni cards that would tend to work well in combination with Dominate and Potence. Already we have a situation where we know the Cappodocians will have little use for the light intercept of standard Necromancy, because they have Auspex. Other measures, such as "Path" master cards, might be used to encourage one set of powers over another. However, it sufficient, thematically, to support general tendencies, not absolute prohibitions that interfere with player creativity. It is not impossible, thematically, for a Giovanni to learn Mortis powers, especially if his training is arranged by a powerful ancient Methuselah who has knowledge of these powers in his "library". > This, however, creates a number of potential balance issues that will > rapidly become difficult to resolve, as well as some thematic/style > issues. > > First, as tempting as it may be to just think of the Cappadocians as a > "subset" of the Giovanni, they've been deliberately separated in the > World of Darkness, and you lose most of the marketing draw for Mortis. > There's also the confusion that is generated by having an elaborate > setup to distinguish between clans, while to the casual onlooker the > vampires in question are all of the same clan; why weren't THESE just > done up separately like all the rest? Loses style points. Moot. I never suggested that the Cappodocians be incorporated as a bloodline of the Giovanni. <snip> > Second, the game balance issues become very difficult. By making > Cappadocians have NEC, you effectively give them four disciplines; > Mortis, Auspex, Fortitude, and Necromancy. No. I give them three. Necromancy, if you give it 21 cards, is not necessarily going to be any more overpowered than an other discipline with 21 cards. That 7 of these might be labelled as "Mortuus" powers is irrelevant. > Any Necromancy cards you > print are not automatically restricted to the "true" Giovanni, as they > could normally be; Necromancy cards have never been restricted to the "true" Giovanni. Anyone who learns Necromancy (such as the Samedi or the Nagaraja) can practice these powers. So can the "Harbingers"/Cappodocians who can and do practice normal Necromancy in addition to their own variant path. > the Cappadocians have them too, Indeed they do. This is faithful to what White Wolf tells us about the "Harbingers". > so now you must > print Giovanni-only cards instead of making them discipline-related. No I don't. Because I never printed "Cappodocian-only" Necromancy cards in the first place. > Some card combinations may become an immediate issue; is there a > reason that NEC/AUS shouldn't be combined together at such a low > level? Is there? Why don't you look and see? I'm pretty sure the answer is a resounding "NO", but maybe you can find sometthing that I have missed. > How about NEC/FOR? Is Minion Tap/Force of Will/Possession too > powerful? Maybe not, Probably not. Necromancy is currently the most pathetically weak of all clan disciplines. If someone finds a good combo for it, that is good news. > but what else haven't you thought of? This is what playtesting is for. Issues like this come into play every time you print a new card. > Players > are creative... they'll discover things to do with old cards that the > playtesters will overlook. Do we need more AUS/FOR vampires? How > about the Giovanni clan toys? Ambrosius, eww... do the Cappadocians > need Ambrosius? They won't get him (though to me he does not seem entirely inappropriate). > (This is one of the things that worries me about the Gargoyles people > are mentioning; POT/PRO is one of the discipline combos that doesn't > need to show up too easily, especially in the form POT/pro. > POT/PRO/FOR could be even worse. Bleeds for 1 are still pretty damn > effective, and there's always Computer Hacking once you're done > burning all his vampires. Some disciplines DO NOT need to be > combined, because of the existing cards.) I do not advocate adding the Gargoyles, whom I find uninteresting. I used them as a hypothetical example to illustrate general ideas. But there is no reason why they could not be balanced. All the designer would have to do is take game balance into account when designing them. There is a simple solution to any vampire that is overpowered or undercosted: you raise the cost, or reduce the power. If POT FOR PRO, or even just POT FOR, is an exceptionally advantagious combination, then all you need do is take this into account when you cost the vampire. Such principles will not stop a stupid designer from being stupid and costing vampires incorrectly, but there is no cure for stupidity no matter what kind of cards you print. At this point in Jyhad's history, I think we can be reasonably confident that we do not have a stupid designer at the helm of the next expansion, at any rate. > So, what happens is you end up restricting the Mortis cards too > carefully, or worse, not carefully enough. If he is stupid, he is sure to get it wrong. You seem to rule out the possibility that he might be smart and get it right. > If you had separated the > discipline out, you wouldn't have to worry about the game balance > issues as much, No, because fewer people would be able to use the cards. Far fewer possiblities. Far fewer combos to explore. Far fewer options for fun and creative exploration. In this same spirit, perhaps you should advise against new expansions entirely. After all, the game is fairly balanced currently, and you never know how new cards are going to mess things up. The fewer new card you print, the less the danger will be. But of course, this is totally wrong. A discipline that is posessed by more than one clan, and can be combined with more than just two other disciplines, is hardly unprecedented, nor is it an enormous problem. > although you'd still have to ask yourself whether or > not the game needed more AUS/FOR vampires. Not a problem. When you print your two 3-capacity vampires, give them Aus-Nec or Nec-For. > But by separating Mortis, > you gain a significant number of benefits, some tangible, some > intangible. Right now, there is already an AUS/FOR clan, so you can > pretty much assume that AUS/FOR, as a combination, doesn't pose a > significant problem to game balance. It was a pretty safe assumption to begin with. > This gives you great flexibility > with creating the Mortis cards, as unless you're quite careless, you > have difficulty "breaking" the game. I have a better solution: design them well and don't be careless. Then give it to the players and let them do their damndest trying to break it. > I tried looking at Damnans' page > to go through his proposed Mortis cards, and it's not showing up right > for some reason. But really, no matter what route you take with > Mortis, whether you make it a bleed discipline, a combat discipline, a > utility discipline, what have you, it's MUCH easier to maintain > balance when you can separate it somewhat. Legbiter played his > Cappadocian deck several times during his visit, and I never felt that > it was HORRIBLY broken, even though Damnans' vampires and his cards > are noticeably high-powered. (The Legion of Zombu, however, is just a > no-no from the word "go".) So you feel that if we don't let the players play with their toys much, or allow them to play only in the approved manner, then maybe they wont break them. > And just because it's partly separate doesn't mean that it has to be > TOTALLY off in its own world. The Ventrue Anti would undoubtedly be > happy to get another few AUS/FOR vampires, to supplement themselves. > There are several mono-FOR decks, and plenty of mono-Auspex decks that > would be delighted to get the new low-cap vamps. Depending on what > "fourth-discipline" skills you scattered among the clan, you could > easily provide some support to the Toreador (include some inferior > Presence), the Ravnos/Gangrel/Tzimisce (include some Animalism), > Malkavians (include some Obfuscate), ... take your pick. Necromancy has already been introduced to the game as a corner discipline of a corner clan. Caution is all very well, but why cannot the discipline start expanding out of its corner now? It is, after all, FAR FAR from broken. And here's another example to introducing Mortis as Necromancy: you can do so slowly and cautiously. You can add 3 Mortis powers in one expansion, and 2 or 3 more in the next after you have assessed the impact of the last three. You don't have to plonk down 10-15 new powers into the game at one time, because it does not have to sustain itself as an entire separate discipline. -- John Whelan

> But it already got broken *again* by the L.A. group, when Malks do it >using a Madness Network at the end of their predator's minion phase, so the >pile of errata makes no difference, since no one else (except other Bum's >Rushing Malks, I guess) has any chance to see it coming, rush, deal, etc. Is it possible to use the same vampire for multiple Returns to Innocence? Imagine Masika bleeding each turn (so it doesn't violate Repeat Actions Rule) and each time he plays RtL. Since it's a burn your vampire "and" your prey burns pool (instead of a "to"), it seems like multiple RtL's would work. Right? Halcyan 2

halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote: > Is it possible to use the same vampire for multiple Returns to > Innocence? Yes, but it's only interesting if the vampire somehow manages to reduce the cost to zero, since each Return will be burned as soon as the vampire pays for the next. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) VTES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <B6385C66.A57%sp...@socrates.gatech.edu>, Pat Ricochet <sp...@socrates.gatech.edu> wrote: > >> I've read this thread a couple of times now and still can't see how you > >> are constructively adding to the fact that you think RTI should not be > >> banned. Just saying that it shouldn't be is no real arguement here. > > > > RtI already has an errata and this is presumably there to be used. I > > suggested an errata which seems better to me - less strenuous, for one > > thing. > > But it already got broken *again* by the L.A. group, when Malks do it > using a Madness Network at the end of their predator's minion phase, so the > pile of errata makes no difference, since no one else (except other Bum's > Rushing Malks, I guess) has any chance to see it coming, rush, deal, etc. > So the card was errata'd *again*, and now says: > "You play this this card at any time. This card is removed from the > game, and is not to ever be put back into your deck, or any other deck." > > and the flavor text says something like > > "For an even larger collection of bookmarks inspired by poor design, > insufficient playtesting, clever blokes who broke the cards, and cheezball > players who would play them in tournaments, go to > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/banned" It's only banned from tournaments, Pat! > > >> It's like most threads on this group, the old guys remember how bad it > >> was. Most like it as it is now. Opinions and experience are different > >> animals Andrew. > > > > Rediscovering this game is bringing back ugly memories of Magic. You > > see the differences - I see the similarities. > > We see the differences (I say "we" only because I haven't seen anyone > else poke up defending Return to Broken Cards..er, Innocence) in the history > of how long and how many broken cards were allowed in Magic, where V:tES is > self-repairing to keep open the wide variety of strategies to all be > competitive. > You seem to see the similarity that Magic banned cards, and "all banning > of cards is a bad thing". You've certainly never answered again on the idea > that the game designers CAN and HAVE made mistakes in designing cards. You > attribute more credit to the wisdom of one group of people (the original > designers) that some other group of people (the rules team). Hindsight is > 20/20, and that means the errata are made with more knowledge and experience > (thereby, wisdom) than the original designers had. > But, it's not a matter of blind trust. We can see for ourselves, by > actually playing the game and the cards, seeing tournaments with all the > same broken trick winning all the VPs, that "this card" or "that card" is > broken, and unbalances an otherwise excellent game. > We are very fortunate to have LSJ at the helm, who manages to keep the > "letter of the law" clear even in the most obtuse situations, and who keeps > to the "spirit of the law" in issuing errata to preserve the balanced nature > of the game. > The difference, to many players, is that (most all) Magic players like > only to win, and (most all) V:tES players actually like to *play*. We like > the game, we like the variety, we like the complexity that amazingly retains > an excellent set of checks and balances. And we want to *keep* it that way. > *That* is what matters most to us. What seems to matter most to you is > cards not be changed, and certainly not banned. Well, i think Andrew is making two reasonable points but perhaps not distinguishing between them clearly enough. He is saying firstly that Wizards have a game [namely Magic] the new expansions for which routinely turn out to contain broken power rares which eventually have to be banned, that this is a bad thing, and that to some extent VTES [originally from the same stable] has the same problem. Matt's answer to that was that Wizards ARE the market leaders in CCGs, or to put it another way, people LIKE it that way, and don't mind a card getting banned or fixed once they've had a chance to abuse it properly. i am sure this strikes chords with Rob "Legacy of Pander" Treasure, and i admit to a twinge of guilty satisfaction over the rewrite to heidelburg castle which followed closely on the heels of its [mis]use during Legbiter's Crusade in jyhad on-line. The seond point i think he's making is that for new or returning players text-unsupported errata are a big turn-off because they basically fence off a whole area of [re]discovery from the new/returning player - a little bit like rich countries telling poor ones that they have to go green even before they get industrial. > As you say: > > > Leaving ante cards aside, this now only has three banned cards to VTES's four. > > This makes VTES the worst CCG in this respect, worse even than Magic. > > Shameful. > > I find the idea of four banned cards being "shameful" to be bizarre, > really. I can't fathom why it bothers you so much. Way back in the Mists of Time [just after the 7/7/98 RT rulings] we had a right old ding-dong on the NG about banning and errata-ing problem cards. At that time LSJ and the RT were very much in favour of errata and against bans, so spiritually at least i think LSJ and Andrew agree about bans - sorry if that puts unwanted words in the mouth of either gentleman! i have the opposite view, namely that it is better to ban a card than to issue a text-unsupported erratum. My position reflects my belief that the tournament scene is less important for the overall health of VTES than most people on the NG think - we need to remember that we are unusually-committed and competitive players, and that we don't represent the REAL jyhad-playing public, many of whom find text- unsupported errata a real turn-off becaue it buggers up their home-made combos. i'd like to reinforce the point that you and Scott and Matt have made about the experience of individual cards in play, and not Grand Generalisations about Game Design, being the best way forward from problem cards. In reality there is no Great Project, shameful or otherwise, to ban cards - there are specific cards banned, for specific reasons. Cunctator Motion, High Stakes and Playing for Keeps are banned in tournament play because playing for ante is an optional rule that is not used in tournaments. Madness of the Bard is banned because we do not have enough judges to have one sitting in permanently on every tournament game, and even if we did it's doubtful that they could keep up with everything that was said by every player, and that any consensus could be reached about what constitutes rhyme. i know the ostensible reason is to do with non-English speakers but frankly i don't buy that one and i know at least two NES's who find this justification faintly offensive. Monocle of Clarity is banned because there are some truly appalling combos around this card, based on the template: "If i do X, will you do Y?" i sometimes wonder if these are quite as bad as people think, given that the monocle is unique equipment, and that the combos require an unusually-high level of cleverness to pull off. There is also a problem about judging the MoC but it is less severe than with MotB. Rowan Ring is banned because paralysation rules are no longer used in VTES. A pity. i think they should be reinstated. Return to Innocence is banned because nobody can think of a good way to rewrite the card that both preserves its original intention [burn a big vamp you control to bleed for loads] without shifting the game too radically towards Stupid Big Bleed Decks. i'd suggest that if somebody CAN think of such a fix then good for them, and us. If it happens then maybe we can look forward to a reissue of the card with new text - for the reasons explained above, i'd certainly NOT be in favour of it coming back with text-unsupported errata. And in defence of the AH design team i'd add that IMO they tried to do something worthy in that set, namely shift the balance towards Big Vamps and Allies. That their success was only partial is unfortunate but i think if you try anything creative you should have the right to fail - not understanding this point is one of the Deep Flaws in the British character, but by and large Australians, Americans and some Europeans do get it. i think the failure of AH in achieving these ends has laid the foundation for what i confidently expect to be SW's success at exactly the same task [among others]. > Play balance matters to me. It's part of what attracted me to V:tES, > (the other half being the complexity, and the montage of having that much > complexity while still being play balanced is what makes V:tES shine.) and > it certainly matters to me far *more* than whether 4 or 3 or 0 cards out of > Oodles got banned. i like play balance too, but it is not the most important thing to me. IMO a good game is good for reasons of synergy between a number of different factors which are different for different games. For VTES/Jyhad these would include balance, complexity, consistency, artwork, creation of a believable universe populated by credible personalites, social interaction with bright people, excitement, the opportunity to express your own creativity and personality, and lots of others probably which i've forgotten. i think that games that go questing after balance [or even consistency] at the expense of any other consideration can end up losing a lot of their freshness and accessibility. IMO this happened to Rage when it changed into Rage II and to D&D when it changed into AD&D [arguably] and second edition [even more arguably]. And not that i play the game, but a lot of people i know feel the same way about what happened to SFB. > > All that contrariness aside, lemme say one thing in some agreement. I'm > not sure it's clear that Rowan Ring needs to be banned, really, considering > the amount of errata that is in existence. "Paralyze" got nixed a long time > ago, but Wooden stake got fixed, and I can't think it's too hard to make > text for Rowan Ring that does the intended purpose. I mean, there is the > Amaranth/Archon combo, or just use Amaranth with Mua-cheeze, but is that > really a "broken" combo? i agree with you. Please, sir, can we have our paralysation back? > > -- > Pat Ricochet > Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta > > [ quoted text not captured ]

> halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote: >> Is it possible to use the same vampire for multiple Returns to >> Innocence? > > Yes, but it's only interesting if the vampire somehow manages to > reduce the cost to zero, since each Return will be burned as soon > as the vampire pays for the next. > > -- > LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) VTES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. > Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ But would they ever actually stack? Or would completing the effect of one RtI ("During your next untap, this vampire is removed from play and your prey burns X pool, where X is the capacity of this vampire") remove the vampire and all the other RtI's, thus not allowing them to "go off?" [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8v0ai5$vco$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <legb...@my-deja.com> wrote: >Basically nothing at all - it is from Beavis and butthead Do America >which Michael Eichler and i watched with fascinated horror last time he >was over here. It's what the blond one is saying when, high on cardiac >stimulants, he infiltrates the white house. The blond one is Beavis. Butt-head is the leader. And the word (if it may be so described) is "TP," not "pipi." TP is a not-uncommon abbreviation for toilet paper, doubtless called 'rumfrucious layer' or something in the ever-so-piquant British slang. I live only to tease, leggy; don't take me seriously. Or even serously, which might be hazardous. gomi in your serum, nightly -- i haul the burden for the high and mighty but i'm the top hat devil's son i've got the luck of the drunk, try an' nail me i'm the bullseye - aim your gun

>> Monocle of Clarity [Jyhad] > > Yes, only one. The other guys are right that you can ask some > pretty fiendish questions, I used to play with a guy that took full license with it, turning it into half a game of Truth or Dare. The tamest question I ever recall him asking is, "Boxers of briefs?" Regards, Noal -- "I was probably pretty young, when I realised that I had come from what you might call a family, a clan, a race, maybe even a species, of pure sons of bitches." --Faulkner, "The Mansion" [ quoted text not captured ]

>Yes, but it's only interesting if the vampire somehow manages to >reduce the cost to zero, since each Return will be burned as soon >as the vampire pays for the next. > Aha! Another use for Masochism and the seldom seen Ravnos Carnival!!! Halcyan 2

On Wed, 15 Nov 2000 20:12:35 GMT, Robert Goudie wrote: >> >Battletech has 5 cards on the banned list. >> >> Another game designed by Richard Garfield. I see the pattern. > >There is nothing about V:TES' design (design is what Garfield does) that is >broken. He is not personally responsible for the creation of cards like RTI >or for any bannings that have gone on. Garfield's a good designer but he doesn't seem to take much interest in his creations after the initial set or maybe he just loses control. The pattern has been that cuts are then made. I'd prefer to enjoy his original creative vision - the director's cut, you might say. Other games presumably don't suffer in the same way because there is more continuity in the design team and they are naturally not keen to butcher their own brain children. Andrew

On Wed, 15 Nov 2000 21:58:03 GMT, Xian wrote: >It was banned because it uses the term "paralyze" which was removed >from V:tES. I believe someone else mentioned this in this same thread >within the past day or two. Paralyze was, I believe, seen as overly >complicated, and since it was only used by two cards, could be >simplified, as seen in Wooden Stake. The term paralyze was defined in the VTES rulebook and so there was no need to ban the Ring on that account. The entry was put in the rulebook precisely so that you could continue to use your Jyhad cards. It all seems very strange. Especially now - a generation brought up on Pokemon will find the concept of paralyzation very familiar. Andrew

On Wed, 15 Nov 2000 21:26:54 +0000, James Coupe wrote: >> No - that's why tournaments have to have a Judge. > >And judges have rules which tell them how to work out a given situation, >so that play is consistent the world over, so far as is humanly possible. > >You cannot compile such a list for Madness of the Bard. An infant can tell you whether two words rhyme or not. The sample on the card is a nursery rhyme from a basic reader - Dr Seuss. A judge who can't handle a simple matter like this shouldn't be put in charge of infants, never mind adults. Andrew

On Wed, 15 Nov 2000 20:19:01 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: >It also makes the refereeing of it an absolute nightmare and - as I >already pointed - would require the full time presence of a judge which >therefore makes it problematic to have it in play at more tables at a >time than there are judges. I'm not sure how anyone could advocate >allowing a card like that in a tournament. Keep up - we're past that stage of the argument now. If players rhyme by using the same word or refrain at the end of every sentence then it is not necessary to have a judge listening. That difficulty has been solved. >As far as the game being "what it is", what Madness of the Bard is is >a mistake. It's a parlor game card which got snuck into a strategy >game because some designer at some point in time (I'm assuming it was >Richard Garfield but I may be wrong) thought it was cute. If you don't >believe that was just a mistake, a bad move, a faux pas, whatever, the >vast majority of other tournament players seem to. And, as LSJ so >cleverly pointed out, it is less shameful to admit a mistake than to >ignore it. It's not a mistake - it's one of several deliberately bizarre Malkavian cards. That you can't stand the mechanic just demonstrates how effective and appropriate it is. It's meant to set your teeth on edge. If you don't like it, then take a directed action to destroy it. Lobbying to ban the card instead is underhand. Andrew

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 23:58:42 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Andrew, have you so quickly forgotten that three different people offered three different opinions on whether "stealth" and "elf" rhymed, and whether "frightening" and "lightning" rhymed? The statement "An infant can tell you whether two words rhyme" is simply a blithering crock on the face of it. It does NOT come down to "We just accept Andrew's way of pronouncing words", as much as you'd like to believe! We should all three be able to come to the same conclusion as regards what a rhyme is, with a minimum of effort. We cannot, because much as beauty is in the eye of the beer holder, rhyming is in the ear of the listener. It is totally subjective, as seen by the discussion earlier, and therefore is not a suitable subject for judging, even if you COULD solve the issue of having to have a judge present all the time. Want to play Madness of the Bard? Keep it in your playgroup. The only card our group has yet objected to seeing on "ban" principles is Return to Innocence and the "ante" cards, because we don't play for ante. If someone came in with a Rowan Ring in their deck, i'd imagine we would just work around the damn thing as opposed to trying to tell them "ooo, that's banned in tournaments." -- Derek Jack-Booted Thug of Atlanta "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." - C. Darwin, 1871

Frederick Scott wrote: > [snip] > > Hey, shooting your opponents with a real gun would also be pretty effective. Not really. You don't get your opponent's VP. [snip] -- chris <www.vtesinla.org> (A V:TES site in development) ultimate disc - V:TES - hockey v:ekn prince of torrance, ca

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Wed, 15 Nov 2000 20:19:01 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: > > >It also makes the refereeing of it an absolute nightmare and - as I > >already pointed - would require the full time presence of a judge which > >therefore makes it problematic to have it in play at more tables at a > >time than there are judges. I'm not sure how anyone could advocate > >allowing a card like that in a tournament. > > Keep up - we're past that stage of the argument now. If players rhyme > by using the same word or refrain at the end of every sentence then it > is not necessary to have a judge listening. That difficulty has been > solved. I'm not sure what your point is. You mean, "If it's so easy to solve the card then a judge isn't required."? I hope you don't seriously want a response to that. Obviously, if judging the thing isn't required because rhyming is so easy to do, then the card itself isn't required. Ban it. No one needs to play a useless - but irritating - card. If, on the other hand, rhyming is a potentially difficult task that some player might actually fail at, you need to have a referee present full time to decide when and how someone failed. If you don't, then people have to appeal every time they think someone failed (assuming the offender does not simply admit it - which often they probably won't). An appeal for every blood lost? Then there's the question of, do you have to rhyme when requesting the appeal? Or explaining it? How can you tell the judge what wasn't a rhyme without failing to rhyme yourself? What if your recitation of the alleged failure conflicts with offender's - who may well decide to change it? The problem is, this card isn't about strategy, it's about a physical task. You can not get fair, reliable judging without the judge being physically present to experience the incident himself - any more than you could get reasonable scores for an olympic ice skater by having someone describe the skater's performance to the skating judges and asking them to write down their numbers from the description. > >As far as the game being "what it is", what Madness of the Bard is is > >a mistake. It's a parlor game card which got snuck into a strategy > >game because some designer at some point in time (I'm assuming it was > >Richard Garfield but I may be wrong) thought it was cute. If you don't > >believe that was just a mistake, a bad move, a faux pas, whatever, the > >vast majority of other tournament players seem to. And, as LSJ so > >cleverly pointed out, it is less shameful to admit a mistake than to > >ignore it. > > It's not a mistake - it's one of several deliberately bizarre > Malkavian cards. That you can't stand the mechanic just demonstrates > how effective and appropriate it is. Hey, shooting your opponents with a real gun would also be pretty effective. That doesn't make it "appropriate". You seem to be insinuating that if a card is useful in advancing someone's position in the game, it is ergo "appropriate". I'm not sure how you made that leap. Suffice it to say, I disagree. And it is both "deliberately bizarre" AND a parlor game - not a strategy game - card. The latter is what makes it inappropriate. > If you don't like it, then take a directed action to destroy > it. Lobbying to ban the card instead is underhand. Why? I don't like parlor games. Or at least, I don't care for them mixed in with my strategy games. If I don't like it, and the vast majority of the players don't like, and the current player organization doesn't like it, who the hell are you to tell us we're stuck with it just because you and a few of the early game designers like it? Why are cards supposed to be stuck in the game once they get printed and can never be excised until the end of time? How did you arrive at that rule? Things that don't work well and don't fit in the game can be dropped. That's not underhanded. That's fixing a problem. Fred

>> screwing with games for people. I think it was Xian, or someone, who >> mentioned recently when this topic came up, how many times have we all >> heard players saying "Hey, we'll go back in time and kill...." > >Well, it wasn't me, but I agree that Temporis is one of the worst-conceived >disciplines ever <snipped> >My money is on Derek being the wise one who mentioned this. Oh hi everybody. Actually, I think it was me. James and I were having a discussion about how terribly abusive Temporis (2nd Edition) was. I did point out that they really changed Temporis in 3rd Edition. (Not even close in terms of abusiveness, and much more specific in terms of effects). That thread also discussed the whole Temporis vs. Celerity and the thing about disciplines evolving. Sigh. All those people wanting to go back in time, kill Caine, and become the first vampire themselves! (BTW: If they try that, say that's what was "supposed" to happen. The Caine we all know and love wasn't the "original" Caine. And then have some gruesome fate happen -- maybe someone else has the bright idea to diablerize Caine, and diablerize Caine the 2nd, to become Caine the 3rd...) Halcyan 2

Chris Shorb wrote: > > Frederick Scott wrote: > > > [snip] > > > > > Hey, shooting your opponents with a real gun would also be pretty effective. > > Not really. You don't get your opponent's VP. Sure you would. If it's your prey, you say, "I bleed, conditioning +2 for 3" (or whatever). "No block?...OK, take 3". Continue until ousted. If it's your predator, say...well, say nothing but at least you don't need to worry about any pressure until your grand prey has gotten through him. Hmmm...upon further reflection, maybe it's better to shoot your prey but just maim your predator, twisting his neck out of place so he can only look at his predator's cards. Like Gomi, these combat decisions just befuddle me. Fred

<snip> > > > I tried looking at Damnans' page > > to go through his proposed Mortis cards, and it's not showing up right > > for some reason. But really, no matter what route you take with > > Mortis, whether you make it a bleed discipline, a combat discipline, a > > utility discipline, what have you, it's MUCH easier to maintain > > balance when you can separate it somewhat. Legbiter played his > > Cappadocian deck several times during his visit, and I never felt that > > it was HORRIBLY broken, even though Damnans' vampires and his cards > > are noticeably high-powered. (The Legion of Zombu, however, is just a > > no-no from the word "go".) > > So you feel that if we don't let the players play with their toys much, > or allow them to play only in the approved manner, then maybe they wont > break them. > Really what we found in Atlanta was that Damnan's Cappadocian concept was pretty functional, had the right "flavour", and slotted quite well into the game as we currently play it. We found that some of his cards ARE broken right from the word go, and saw that some are breakable quite easily. So much might be said for any draft set of cards that are up for playtesting. However, i now don't think data of this kind is to the point of your objection to more clans and disciplines. If i understand you correctly, you are saying that even if you could get perfectly-playtested cards for all the new clans and disciplines you would STILL be against expansions of this kind, because they would increase global player dissatisfaction. You see this happening because any new expansion would either contain one's favourite clan or it wouldn't, or else it would contain so few new cards for your favourite discipline/clan that you wouldn't bother collecting it, so that most people would be unhappy with most expansions. Is that right? i'm quite prepared to be told that i have HORRIBLY misunderstood you! If it is a fair summary of your position, i would like to raise a tremulous talon and confess to liking ALL the vampires of ALL the clans except, of course, the Camarilla Toiletdoors, which means that i would collect ANY CONCEIVABLE expansion for the game except the Toiletdoors Private Party expansion. Who am i kidding, i would even collect that, especially if it contained lots of semi-pornographic images. i wonder if i am alone in this perhaps rather uncritical approach to new expansions? Finally, to pick up on the point you make about Magic not needing more colours [so why should VTES need more disciplines?] i see the disciplines as suites of competence in particular areas. Necromancy and Mortis are suites of competence in particular areas, and arguably they are the SAME colour, or shades of the same colour. Other new disciplines would correspond to multi-colour cards of which Magic has rather a lot, and they don't seem to break that game up particularly. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8v17f1$1opn$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, go...@best.com (Gomi no Sensei) wrote: > In article <8v0ai5$vco$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <legb...@my-deja.com> wrote: > > >Basically nothing at all - it is from Beavis and butthead Do America > >which Michael Eichler and i watched with fascinated horror last time he > >was over here. It's what the blond one is saying when, high on cardiac > >stimulants, he infiltrates the white house. > > The blond one is Beavis. Butt-head is the leader. And the word (if it may > be so described) is "TP," not "pipi." TP is a not-uncommon abbreviation > for toilet paper, Excellent, thanks for the, er, clarification. doubtless called 'rumfrucious layer' or something in > the ever-so-piquant British slang. Ha! that's pretty rich, coming from a native of the land where they call a Spade a Person-portable excavation implement! I live only to tease, leggy; don't take > me seriously. Or even serously, which might be hazardous. Understood perfectly, and when i come to Absolute Global Power i will grant you and your heirs the Barony of Teasing-Under-the-Wold in perpetuity. Your arms will be a shield, Argent, with Polka-dots Gules and Azure, supported by Two Clowns. The motto of your house will be Extractio Michael, Ergo Sum. > > gomi > in your serum, nightly > -- > i haul the burden for the high and mighty > but i'm the top hat devil's son > i've got the luck of the drunk, try an' nail me > i'm the bullseye - aim your gun > [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:1C3A6ED93259F106.BF86E7A5...@lp.airnews.net... > On Wed, 15 Nov 2000 20:12:35 GMT, Robert Goudie wrote: > > >> >Battletech has 5 cards on the banned list. > >> > >> Another game designed by Richard Garfield. I see the pattern. > > > >There is nothing about V:TES' design (design is what Garfield does) that is > >broken. He is not personally responsible for the creation of cards like RTI > >or for any bannings that have gone on. > > Garfield's a good designer but he doesn't seem to take much interest > in his creations after the initial set or maybe he just loses control. > The pattern has been that cuts are then made. I'd prefer to enjoy his > original creative vision - the director's cut, you might say. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yes, I'd have to agree. The joy Garfield seems to get is in the creation and then he moves on. I'm not really too sure that he even designed the base set as much as the mechanic for the base set. That detail wasn't clearly laid out in any of the writings. A lot of the articles V:TES players have penned over the years are on elements of the design where they try to raise awareness of what the "director's" original vision was. Hopefully, the knowledge of what RG thought was important can then enlighten any debates about cards, rules, etc. -- Robert Goudie Chairman, V:EKN rob...@vtesinla.org

>>>> I've read this thread a couple of times now and still can't see how you >>>> are constructively adding to the fact that you think RTI should not be >>>> banned. Just saying that it shouldn't be is no real arguement here. >>> >>> RtI already has an errata and this is presumably there to be used. I >>> suggested an errata which seems better to me - less strenuous, for one >>> thing. >> >> But it already got broken *again* by the L.A. group, when Malks do it >> using a Madness Network at the end of their predator's minion phase, so the >> pile of errata makes no difference, since no one else (except other Bum's >> Rushing Malks, I guess) has any chance to see it coming, rush, deal, etc. >> So the card was errata'd *again*, and now says: >> "You play this this card at any time. This card is removed from the >> game, and is not to ever be put back into your deck, or any other deck." >> >> and the flavor text says something like >> >> "For an even larger collection of bookmarks inspired by poor design, >> insufficient playtesting, clever blokes who broke the cards, and cheezball >> players who would play them in tournaments, go to >> http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/banned" > > It's only banned from tournaments, Pat! My apologies; I forgot the "=)" that goes on the end. In case of point, though, White Wolf can only ban cards *from* tournaments, right? I mean, if they print the cards, or if someone prints their own cards (say, those Cappadocians you brought along) and a playgroup wants to use them, they're going to be used. It's just that our playgroup in particular likes to stick to tournament rules as much as possible, so I'll admit to a knee-jerk-style reaction to banned cards being a bad thing. Last time Davila played with RtI/Madness Network, he just proved how unbalancing it was, and we agreed that "banned from tournaments" and "banned from local play" would be the same. Actually, we had all pretty much thought that before, but Davila just wanted to play with RtI, and also put forth the "It's only banned from tournaments" line. That was the same night we formalized another mostly true rule, which was that you could play as Cheeze-Whiz a deck as you wanted to, but you had to sit there and take the ridicule from the rest of the table for it. =) > Madness of the Bard is banned because we do not have enough judges to > have one sitting in permanently on every tournament game, and even if we > did it's doubtful that they could keep up with everything that was said > by every player, and that any consensus could be reached about what > constitutes rhyme. i know the ostensible reason is to do with non-English > speakers but frankly i don't buy that one and i know at least two NES's > who find this justification faintly offensive. Well, my personal justification is the elitist one. "I came to play cards, not parlor games, and it has no place here." I'm certainly in the "the card never should have been printed" band, now, though I originally thought it was a great idea for a card. But, if someone actually *lost* a tournament from Madness of the Bard, I'll feel about the same way as a guy losing because of the old Misdirection: "Pity the best player didn't get to win." (obviously, as in most competitions, there are rarely clear cut cases to say what "one thing" actually caused someone to lose) I think Madness of the Bard fits better as a "3rd party" card, like the Cappadocians are now, making it house-play only. And, really, banning it has the same effect, except we might have rather had some other card printed, in 20/20 hindsight. >> Play balance matters to me. It's part of what attracted me to V:tES, >> (the other half being the complexity, and the montage of having that much >> complexity while still being play balanced is what makes V:tES shine.) and >> it certainly matters to me far *more* than whether 4 or 3 or 0 cards out of >> Oodles got banned. > > i like play balance too, but it is not the most important thing to me. > IMO a good game is good for reasons of synergy between a number of > different factors which are different for different games. For VTES/Jyhad > these would include balance, complexity, consistency, artwork, creation > of a believable universe populated by credible personalites, social > interaction with bright people, excitement, the opportunity to express > your own creativity and personality, and lots of others probably which > i've forgotten. i think that games that go questing after balance [or > even consistency] at the expense of any other consideration can end up > losing a lot of their freshness and accessibility. IMO this happened to > Rage when it changed into Rage II and to D&D when it changed into AD&D > [arguably] and second edition [even more arguably]. And not that i play > the game, but a lot of people i know feel the same way about what > happened to SFB. Well, now you've gone and made me look like a narrow-minded hide-bound bean-counter, James. =) I have to admit that the play balance is what attracted me; but, play balance alone isn't going to get me to stay. I might say that Artwork doesn't really matter to me, but I certainly have favorites that I like to play with (I'm just waiting to play The Haunting so I can say "Boogity Booooogity!!" while rattling the card like Marley's chains at the target in question) and cards I may never play with (say, Dolphin Black, by the same artist, even with DEM for The Haunting, but I'd feel obliged to keep her stacked with blood so I didn't have to look at her.) I'm a BIG fan of the predator/prey relationship and the politics of all kinds that go on (hardly limited to "referenda"), threats, bluffs, and smack talk. It means you have social players, because hermits have trouble controlling the table, and have to, as a rule, to win. The game goes well with beer, too! (not to mention scotch!) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 17 Nov 2000 02:22:24 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: >I'm not sure what your point is. You mean, "If it's so easy to solve >the card then a judge isn't required."? That's right. >Obviously, if judging the thing isn't required because >rhyming is so easy to do, then the card itself isn't required. Ban it. >No one needs to play a useless - but irritating - card. If the card were useless then there'd be no need to ban it. It isn't though as, even if the rhyme is trivial, remembering to make one isn't. >Hey, shooting your opponents with a real gun would also be pretty effective. SJ Games has an amusing variant of Killer called "Andrew Season". Something to do with there being too many Andrews in gaming ... >That doesn't make it "appropriate". You seem to be insinuating that if a >card is useful in advancing someone's position in the game, it is ergo >"appropriate". I'm not sure how you made that leap. It's appropriate because it is in character for the Malkavians and similar to their other prank cards. >And it is both "deliberately bizarre" AND a parlor game - not a strategy >game - card. The latter is what makes it inappropriate. Why? I don't >like parlor games. A serious chess player might dismiss all of VTES as a parlor game - the luck of the draw; the table talk; the deals; the fuzzy timing; the role-playing ambiance. But this distinction is irrelevant - the game is defined by its rules and components, not by such stereotyping. But, if you wish to pursue the point, take a look at Malkavian Game. This invokes a parlor game of Rock/Scissors/Paper without even troubling to explain the rules. You could make all the same pettifogging objections to this: * the finger patterns are subjective * the game's fleeting nature and split-second timing require a keen judging eye * the game's rules are ill-defined. * the game is physical and discriminates against certain classes of folk, e.g. people with arthritis or missing fingers. I have an unfortunate colleague who would only be able to choose Rock. In practise, I assume players and judges are prepared to deal with such issues by using some common sense. The same should apply to Madness of the Bard. >If I don't like it, and the vast majority of the players don't like, >and the current player organization doesn't >like it, who the hell are you to tell us we're stuck with it just because >you and a few of the early game designers like it? Why are cards supposed >to be stuck in the game once they get printed and can never be excised >until the end of time? How did you arrive at that rule? I just want to play with the cards that I've bought. It's the VEKN who wants to stop me with their non-canonical rule - who the hell are they? A non-rhetorical answer might be helpful. The organisation has some formal structure I believe but what are my rights as a member? My impression is that I have none - that this is an oligarchy not unlike the political structure of the game's sects. In that case, you may consider me to be an Anarch. Andrew

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 22:21:08 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >Andrew, have you so quickly forgotten that three different people >offered three different opinions on whether "stealth" and "elf" >rhymed, and whether "frightening" and "lightning" rhymed? The >statement "An infant can tell you whether two words rhyme" is simply a >blithering crock on the face of it. The card only regulates speech and the test of a spoken rhyme is what it sounds like. You and James didn't hear the sounds and so your opinions in this case are irrelevant. >>subjective, as seen by the discussion earlier, and therefore is not a >suitable subject for judging, even if you COULD solve the issue of >having to have a judge present all the time. Both issues have been solved. Pronounce the "period" in every sentence and there you have your objective rhyme which does not require an ever-present judge. Period. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Fri, 17 Nov 2000 02:22:24 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: > > > >And it is both "deliberately bizarre" AND a parlor game - not a strategy > >game - card. The latter is what makes it inappropriate. Why? I don't > >like parlor games. ... > But, if you wish to pursue the point, take a look at Malkavian Game. > This invokes a parlor game of Rock/Scissors/Paper without even > troubling to explain the rules. You could make all the same > pettifogging objections to this: > > * the finger patterns are subjective > * the game's fleeting nature and split-second timing require a keen > judging eye > * the game's rules are ill-defined. > * the game is physical and discriminates against certain classes of > folk, e.g. people with arthritis or missing fingers. I have an > unfortunate colleague who would only be able to choose Rock. > > In practise, I assume players and judges are prepared to deal with > such issues by using some common sense. The same should apply to > Madness of the Bard. To advance a reductio ad adsurdum argument like this, you're clearly missing the whole point. If there's truly no difference between Madness of the Bard and Malkavian Game, why would I and others be arguing with you? What do you think our discernment is supposed to be, then? Do you think people have a bias against a card with the word, "Bard" in it? Do you think we just woke up one fine morning and the whole lot of us decided we didn't like this one card? Maybe you think it's the art? Of course you don't. You can damn well see for yourself the difference between engaging in and the judging of rhyming vs. the mechanics of Malkavian game. I suppose if it actually were difficult to know whether folks chose a rock, a paper, or a scissors or if the rules were "ill- defined", then not only would you have an excellent point but you would have to understand that a bunch of people would likewise want Malkavian Game banned, too. But it's not. You're reaching for argument here and you missed. The reasons we don't like the card are due to a distinct difference between it and the other cards. The only question is, what to do about it. > >If I don't like it, and the vast majority of the players don't like, > >and the current player organization doesn't > >like it, who the hell are you to tell us we're stuck with it just because > >you and a few of the early game designers like it? Why are cards supposed > >to be stuck in the game once they get printed and can never be excised > >until the end of time? How did you arrive at that rule? > > I just want to play with the cards that I've bought. It's the VEKN > who wants to stop me with their non-canonical rule - who the hell are > they? A non-rhetorical answer might be helpful. The organisation has > some formal structure I believe but what are my rights as a member? > My impression is that I have none - that this is an oligarchy not > unlike the political structure of the game's sects. In that case, you > may consider me to be an Anarch. That is actually a valid question. I have no problem with your opinion. You have a right to it. And the question of, "How do the various players get to express their opinion and have a say in the outcome?", is a good one. The answer, in practice, is that we all express our opinions and then LSJ and WW do what they please - and each person hopes what he pleases is what they decide to do. (Maybe it's slightly different than that but I think I'm in the ballpark.) I don't know that that's the only system possible. For this thread, though, my main bone of contention is about there being the notion that there is no means of changing things that were done wrong in the first place. That was too often the way things were in the early years of Magic and I found that highly frustrating. Fred

On Fri, 17 Nov 2000 19:37:06 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >But, if you wish to pursue the point, take a look at Malkavian Game. >This invokes a parlor game of Rock/Scissors/Paper without even >troubling to explain the rules. You could make all the same >pettifogging objections to this: What an astonishing bunch of unmitigated CRAP you have produced here. >* the finger patterns are subjective Bullshit. If two (2) fingers are extended, it is "Scissors." If five/all fingers are extended, it is "Paper." If no fingers are extended, it is "Rock." There is no subjectivity about this. Those who cannot distinguish between zero, two, and five need not be playing V:TES, sayonara, have a nice day. Those who think that two fingers are five fingers need to have one less pint prior to play. >* the game's fleeting nature and split-second timing require a keen >judging eye Bullshit. You count "three", and on "three", you produce a hand-sign. There are three reasonably-disinterested other players convenient to provide witness, even if it WERE easily possible to convert one of the above hand-signs to another upon sight of the opponent's without anyone noticing. >* the game's rules are ill-defined. Bullshit. How is "Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, Paper beats Rock" ill-defined? >* the game is physical and discriminates against certain classes of >folk, e.g. people with arthritis or missing fingers. I have an >unfortunate colleague who would only be able to choose Rock. It is to be noted that such unfortunates are in the excruciatingly slim minority, and it would be further noted that those without fingers are not likely to be interested in a card game anyway, card games being one of the things one pretty much *requires* fingers for, if only to hold the bloody cards. Such a slim minority, in fact, such a FAR SLIMMER minority than non-native speakers (which I must assume is the parallel you are trying to draw here), would be quite simple for a single judge to handle during tournament play; either with physical presence for every playing of Malkavian Game, or if he's an intelligent judge, a determination of an easily recognizable "substitute" for Rock, Paper, and Scissors that someone without fingers could reproduce. Perhaps one could hold 1, 2, or 3 pool under the table in one's fingered hand. >In practise, I assume players and judges are prepared to deal with >such issues by using some common sense. The same should apply to >Madness of the Bard. Except that there is no issue above that requires any subjective judgement, unlike Madness of the Bard. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 17 Nov 2000 19:37:13 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 22:21:08 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >>Andrew, have you so quickly forgotten that three different people >>offered three different opinions on whether "stealth" and "elf" >>rhymed, and whether "frightening" and "lightning" rhymed? The >>statement "An infant can tell you whether two words rhyme" is simply a >>blithering crock on the face of it. > >The card only regulates speech and the test of a spoken rhyme is what >it sounds like. You and James didn't hear the sounds and so your >opinions in this case are irrelevant. Another bunch of unmitigated CRAP. I've begun to notice that you'll argue the most ABSURD nit-picks in order to not be shown up wrong. Are you prepared to produce reasons that stand up to reality, or are you just going to continue blathering? >>>subjective, as seen by the discussion earlier, and therefore is not a >>suitable subject for judging, even if you COULD solve the issue of >>having to have a judge present all the time. > >Both issues have been solved. Pronounce the "period" in every >sentence and there you have your objective rhyme which does not >require an ever-present judge. Period. Assuming this were judged legal, it reduces the card to a pointless, meaningless nuisance, making it an EXCELLENT target for banning, as there are enough nuisances in the game without requiring a judge present all the time. As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, a judge MUST be present all the time, as nobody else can enforce disputes about whether or not "stealth" rhymed with "elf", even if some momo pronounced it "stealf". Assume Player A says "stealf, elf". Player B says "You fool, pay a pool, those don't rhyme anytime". Player B goes on to somehow, in rhyme, make his case that he heard player A say "stealth"/"elf", and that those don't rhyme. Player A begins claiming that "I pronounced it THIS way!". The only adequate solution is if a judge HEARD it pronounced originally (much as you claimed above that James and I didn't hear it, so we weren't relevant), and the only way to guarantee THAT is to have a judge present all the time. Should I use words of two syllables or less next time? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 03:47:50 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: >If there's truly no difference between Madness >of the Bard and Malkavian Game, why would I and others be arguing with >you? What do you think our discernment is supposed to be, then? Do you >think people have a bias against a card with the word, "Bard" in it? Andreas, the Bard of Crete, isn't banned too is he? I think that this is simple prejudice against a game mechanic that you're not comfortable with. It makes you uneasy because you don't think you can cope with it. You feel that you can cope with Rock, Scissors, Paper and so you don't raise similar, spurious objections to it. As the Bard said, "the fault lies not in the stars, dear Brutus ..." >I don't know that that's the only system possible. It isn't. There was a rule change in Doomtown which was put to a vote of the Gomorra Town Council (that game's fan club). This followed some earlier discussion and voting on the alternatives within the game's playtest group. There was likewise some voting on errata within the playtest group for Shadowfist but the PTB didn't like the result (uniformly against) and refused to be bound by it. Andrew

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 03:54:02 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >There is no subjectivity about this. Those who cannot distinguish >between zero, two, and five need not be playing V:TES, sayonara, have >a nice day. Those who think that two fingers are five fingers need to >have one less pint prior to play. When I have played the game, I find that my fingers occasionally have a mind of their own and don't form a clear pattern, being splayed in an intermediate configuration. What then? And who decides? >You count "three", and on "three", you produce a hand-sign. There are >three reasonably-disinterested other players convenient to provide >witness, even if it WERE easily possible to convert one of the above >hand-signs to another upon sight of the opponent's without anyone >noticing. I'm used to players beating out the rhythm with their fists. But what if one player lags behind the other. How much of a lag is too much? And there's no guarantee that you have 3 other players watching. According to Tom, his main game on Thursday was down to just 2 players for the last 90 minutes. >How is "Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, Paper beats Rock" >ill-defined? Does this definition appear in the card or rules? I think not - you just made it up. I tried my dictionary but it says nothing about this though it does, of course, define what a rhyme is. I tried a web search and ended up with a jumble of hits including stuff like the Chinese game of "Throwing Fists" which has quite different rules. >Such a slim minority, in fact, such a FAR SLIMMER minority than >non-native speakers No it's not - here's another example. I was playing cards at the club on Thursday night - Shadowfist, as it happens. All in our group spoke English well enough - even our occasional foreign visitors speak excellent English, even the ones from America <grin>. But one of our number was a highly-strung individual who has shaky hands - a nervous tremour, I suppose. We always have to be careful when playing games with him as he can quite easily knock pieces all over the table. He wouldn't be completely incapable of playing RSP but it wouldn't be a pretty sight. And for a third example, I myself have a minor palsy of one arm and finger due to a trapped nerve. No big deal but it just goes to show that these things are more common than you think. >or if he's an intelligent judge, a >determination of an easily recognizable "substitute" for Rock, Paper, >and Scissors that someone without fingers could reproduce. Perhaps >one could hold 1, 2, or 3 pool under the table in one's fingered hand. This is my point. It's easy to find some satisfactory equivalent but you won't make a similar effort to help MoB work. Just banning the card instead is a lazy cop-out. Andrew

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 04:03:54 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >Assuming this were judged legal, it reduces the card to a pointless, >meaningless nuisance, making it an EXCELLENT target for banning This is doubly wrong. Firstly, being useless is no good reason to ban a card. Secondly, an easy rhyming scheme still has to be remembered. Games like "Simon Says" show that this is non-trivial. >As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, a judge MUST be present >all the time, as nobody else can enforce disputes about whether... If players are going to be unreasonable assholes then you need a judge present all the time regardless. Suppose, for example, there is a dispute about whether a player did or did not pay a blood cost. This might be a matter of deliberate cheating or just a slip. In practise, this game currently depends upon a certain amount of player memory, honour and good will to function at all. More serious games like chess _do_ have a judge present all the time or the players record every move. If you want perfection then you will have to do this too. Mind you, the VEKN rules do mandate that "Officially sanctioned competition requires the physical presence of a head judge during play to adjudicate disputes..." So there's not really an issue here. If one judge isn't enough then deputies may be appointed. Just how often do you expect MoB to appear? And how long do you expect it to stay in play before someone takes it out with a directed action? Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:43BCF6EC38793890.52D6AF62...@lp.airnews.net... > On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 03:54:02 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > > >There is no subjectivity about this. Those who cannot distinguish > >between zero, two, and five need not be playing V:TES, sayonara, have > >a nice day. Those who think that two fingers are five fingers need to > >have one less pint prior to play. > > When I have played the game, I find that my fingers occasionally have > a mind of their own and don't form a clear pattern, being splayed in > an intermediate configuration. What then? And who decides? I often want to slap other humans that I find are annoying me, but I use my brain and control my fist. I think you need to control your brain and tell it to control your fingers. > >You count "three", and on "three", you produce a hand-sign. There are > >three reasonably-disinterested other players convenient to provide > >witness, even if it WERE easily possible to convert one of the above > >hand-signs to another upon sight of the opponent's without anyone > >noticing. > > I'm used to players beating out the rhythm with their fists. But what > if one player lags behind the other. How much of a lag is too much? > And there's no guarantee that you have 3 other players watching. > According to Tom, his main game on Thursday was down to just 2 players > for the last 90 minutes. > > >How is "Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, Paper beats Rock" > >ill-defined? > > Does this definition appear in the card or rules? I think not - you > just made it up. I tried my dictionary but it says nothing about this > though it does, of course, define what a rhyme is. I tried a web > search and ended up with a jumble of hits including stuff like the > Chinese game of "Throwing Fists" which has quite different rules. I can teach someone to play RPS in less than 60 seconds, unless they have a learning disability, in which case it might take 90 seconds. In fact, someone I know wanted to repeat the rules back to me, since that is how he is able to distinguish if what he 'heard' was really what was said. That fellow took about 3 minutes, but he COMPLETELY understood ALL the rules to the game, since it is pretty damn simple to learn. <sarcasm> Wow, look at that! It took me all of 15 seconds to find a rules page for RPS. Wow, every search engine I try comes up with the same page, in less than 30 seconds! The web is really neat! </sarcasm> Go to http://www.worldrps.com/index1.html, for a complete rules explanation to a simple game. > >Such a slim minority, in fact, such a FAR SLIMMER minority than > >non-native speakers > > No it's not - here's another example. I was playing cards at the club > on Thursday night - Shadowfist, as it happens. All in our group spoke > English well enough - even our occasional foreign visitors speak > excellent English, even the ones from America <grin>. But one of our > number was a highly-strung individual who has shaky hands - a nervous > tremour, I suppose. We always have to be careful when playing games > with him as he can quite easily knock pieces all over the table. He > wouldn't be completely incapable of playing RSP but it wouldn't be a > pretty sight. And for a third example, I myself have a minor palsy of > one arm and finger due to a trapped nerve. No big deal but it just > goes to show that these things are more common than you think. Wait, I thought you wanted to legalize the card. Now you are giving more reasons to keep the card banned in tournament play. Are you testifying for the defense now? (Apologies for my first comment to you in this post, since it appears you have a minor palsy in one arm. It may be that your brain cannot totally control that arm, which isn't your fault, so I guess you'd have to use the other arm.) > >or if he's an intelligent judge, a > >determination of an easily recognizable "substitute" for Rock, Paper, > >and Scissors that someone without fingers could reproduce. Perhaps > >one could hold 1, 2, or 3 pool under the table in one's fingered hand. > > This is my point. It's easy to find some satisfactory equivalent but > you won't make a similar effort to help MoB work. Just banning the > card instead is a lazy cop-out. Then it wouldn't be RPS, it would be some other game. Oh, wait, the card tells us to play RPS. Hmmmm, I wonder how we can deal with this problem? Oh, wait, the card isn't legal in tournaments, so the problem has already been dealt with. > Andrew -- Kevin J. Mergen, kjme...@home.com, Prince of Madison, WI "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Fri, 17 Nov 2000 02:22:24 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: > > >That doesn't make it "appropriate". You seem to be insinuating that if a > >card is useful in advancing someone's position in the game, it is ergo > >"appropriate". I'm not sure how you made that leap. > > It's appropriate because it is in character for the Malkavians and > similar to their other prank cards. It may be "in flavor" for the Malkavians, but the card has severe problems which have already been mentioned. > But, if you wish to pursue the point, take a look at Malkavian Game. > This invokes a parlor game of Rock/Scissors/Paper without even > troubling to explain the rules. You could make all the same > pettifogging objections to this: There are many ways to get around this. > * the finger patterns are subjective Instead have both players take a die and turn it so that a 1, 2, or 3 is showing. They both agree that these stand for Paper, Rock, and Scissors, respectively. They cover the dice and reveal them on the count of three. > * the game's fleeting nature and split-second timing require a keen > judging eye The alternative dice method I describe above does not require timing nor a keen eye. You might argue that it's not technically RPS, but it allows someone who lacks the physical dexterity to play that game to play a mathematically equivalent one. > * the game's rules are ill-defined. The only ill-defined rule I can think of is "1,2,3,shoot" or "shoot on 3"? And of course, the correct way to play is "1,2,3,shoot". :) Seriously, the players should agree ahead of time. If I'm playing with someone and they shoot on 3, I correct them, and we try again. > * the game is physical and discriminates against certain classes of > folk, e.g. people with arthritis or missing fingers. I have an > unfortunate colleague who would only be able to choose Rock. The dice method does not discriminate in such a way. Barring that, your disabled friend could whisper his choice into a friend's ear, and they could play for him. > In practise, I assume players and judges are prepared to deal with > such issues by using some common sense. The same should apply to > Madness of the Bard. Some people are much more strict about their interpretation of "rhyme". One person's common sense is another's absurd nonsense. > I just want to play with the cards that I've bought. I understand that, Andrew, and I sympathize. Please feel free to play with whatever cards you want in your group. But in a _sanctioned_ tournament, a concerted effort _must_ be made for the play environment to be balanced. Otherwise, no one will want to play in the tournaments, and that's bad for the game. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu ...off to play bridge...

Pat Ricochet <sp...@socrates.gatech.edu> wrote: > But would they ever actually stack? Or would completing the effect of > one RtI ("During your next untap, this vampire is removed from play and your > prey burns X pool, where X is the capacity of this vampire") remove the > vampire and all the other RtI's, thus not allowing them to "go off?" Hmm. Quite right. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) VTES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 09:33:08 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: >It may be "in flavor" for the Malkavians, but the card has severe >problems which have already been mentioned. And disposed of. >The alternative dice method I describe above does not require timing nor >a keen eye. You might argue that it's not technically RPS, but it >allows someone who lacks the physical dexterity to play that game to >play a mathematically equivalent one. I would rather use 3 cards, preferably with rock, scissors, paper pictures on them. I don't like to see dice in a card game. But I wonder if using a substitute makes a difference. It may be that there are subtle tells when you do it properly. >The only ill-defined rule I can think of is "1,2,3,shoot" or "shoot on >3"? And of course, the correct way to play is "1,2,3,shoot". :) I tried the game with my girlfriend today with little preamble. She shot on 1! She grew up in Malaya and it turns out that her understanding of the game is quite different. For one thing, it's rock/bird/water and the finger pattern for bird is to bring all the fingers and thumb together in a point. And there's a different routine before the draw - a little chant and and then you pull the choice from near your ear. >Some people are much more strict about their interpretation of "rhyme". >One person's common sense is another's absurd nonsense. If there's ambiguity then bring it out into the open and resolve it. I played a game of SW with my girlfriend today. She played Effective Management and then started riffling through her crypt. I asked why and she explained that she was looking for the "top vampire", i.e. the one with the highest capacity. An amusing ambiguity but no reason to ban the card. >Otherwise, no one will want to play in the tournaments, >and that's bad for the game. I don't want to play in tournaments which ban cards. Would you refuse to play in a tournament which used Madness of the Bard? Do you refuse to play with it in non-sanctioned games? Andrew

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 15:26:06 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: >Then it wouldn't be RPS, it would be some other game. Oh, wait, the card >tells us to play RPS. Hmmmm, I wonder how we can deal with this problem? >Oh, wait, the card isn't legal in tournaments, so the problem has already >been dealt with. You appear to be confused. Madness of the Bard is banned by VEKN. Malkavian Game is legal. Right? Andrew

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 12:19:41 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 04:03:54 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >>Assuming this were judged legal, it reduces the card to a pointless, >>meaningless nuisance, making it an EXCELLENT target for banning > >This is doubly wrong. Firstly, being useless is no good reason to ban >a card. Secondly, an easy rhyming scheme still has to be remembered. >Games like "Simon Says" show that this is non-trivial. No, it is doubly CORRECT, actually. First, "pointless nuisance" and "useless" are two entirely different things. Useless is just that; useless, and can be easily ignored. Nuisances are generally classified as such because they CANNOT be easily ignored. Ignoring this card will result in your rapid ousting. Second, games like "Simon Says" rely on "Simon" to misdirect, confuse, and basically trick other players into forgetting to only do what "Simon Says"; there is no "Simon" available in V:TES. In addition, "Simon" has an advantage in comparison to Madness of the Bard; he is permitted to break the rules all he wants. This analogy is flawed. Elsewhere, you claim that MotB's effect can be avoided with what must be considered a "trivial" fudge such as ending each sentence by stating "period." Which is it? Either MotB's requirement is not trivial, in which case all other arguments apply, or it IS trivial, in which case it is just a pointless nuisance and should be given the boot from tournaments. >>As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, a judge MUST be present >>all the time, as nobody else can enforce disputes about whether... > >If players are going to be unreasonable assholes then you need a judge >present all the time regardless. Suppose, for example, there is a Some players are only unreasonable assholes in pressure situations. In a late-game situation where each pool matters, some of the most perfectly sane people have been known to flip and argue miniscule, ridiculous things. Nevertheless, some players WILL always be unreasonable assholes. Since you cannot stop them from being assholes, you force a judge to be present at all times when MotB is played, making it unworkable in practice. >dispute about whether a player did or did not pay a blood cost. This >might be a matter of deliberate cheating or just a slip. In practise, >this game currently depends upon a certain amount of player memory, >honour and good will to function at all. More serious games like >chess _do_ have a judge present all the time or the players record >every move. If you want perfection then you will have to do this too. I have played competitive chess. Recording every move takes an insignificant amount of time; one writes something simple like "e4" after one moves (while your opponent's time is running), and has done with it. It takes approximately two seconds. Recording every move and play in V:TES is also unworkable in practice. Most things, such as paying a blood cost, are a concrete, non-subjective occurrence. Either one did pay off the vampire, or one didn't, and it's normally easy to go back and determine how much the vampire originally had and whether they should have paid or not. The onus is also somewhat on one's opponents to pay attention; but again, with non-subjective occurrences, it's easy to point out at the time "Hey, you didn't pay for that Blur yet." Whether or not something someone just said rhymed is still a subjective call, and since it is a spoken phrase with no record, it is impossible to go back and determine. There is a difference. >Mind you, the VEKN rules do mandate that > >"Officially sanctioned competition requires the physical presence of a >head judge during play to adjudicate disputes..." > >So there's not really an issue here. If one judge isn't enough then Requiring a sufficient amount of non-players who are competent to be available; this only adds to the difficulty, since Madness of the Bard requires full-time attention. >deputies may be appointed. Just how often do you expect MoB to >appear? And how long do you expect it to stay in play before someone >takes it out with a directed action? These statements are not relevant to the issue at hand, which is whether or not its appearance causes several non-resolvable problems. "It doesn't come up very much anyway" is not a good answer, sorry; not when one knew about the problems ahead of time. And the person who gets screwed by its appearance, or the judge who has to stand near the table verifying every single rhyme, are not going to think it's a very good answer either. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 12:19:31 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 03:47:50 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: > >>If there's truly no difference between Madness >>of the Bard and Malkavian Game, why would I and others be arguing with >>you? What do you think our discernment is supposed to be, then? Do you >>think people have a bias against a card with the word, "Bard" in it? > >Andreas, the Bard of Crete, isn't banned too is he? I think that >this is simple prejudice against a game mechanic that you're not >comfortable with. It makes you uneasy because you don't think you can >cope with it. You feel that you can cope with Rock, Scissors, Paper >and so you don't raise similar, spurious objections to it. As the >Bard said, "the fault lies not in the stars, dear Brutus ..." I beg to differ. I am normally a loquacious bastard, have an adequate vocabulary, and am MORE than capable of producing simple doggerel in my speech to avoid pool loss from Madness of the Bard. Plus, you can damn well expect me to abuse via repetition some very simple rhymes for situations that occur frequently in the game; ie. "what a crock! I don't block", and the like. It would only inconvenience me a small amount. However, there are plenty of people who do not have the facility to rhyme in this fashion, and I do not believe that the game should be turned into "whoever's prey rhymes worst wins", which is effectively what this card does. >>I don't know that that's the only system possible. > >It isn't. There was a rule change in Doomtown which was put to a vote >of the Gomorra Town Council (that game's fan club). This followed >some earlier discussion and voting on the alternatives within the >game's playtest group. There was likewise some voting on errata >within the playtest group for Shadowfist but the PTB didn't like the >result (uniformly against) and refused to be bound by it. Good for them. True democracy is a tragic failure; the majority of people ARE, frankly, stupid. This would of course be less true for a CCG, where one needs a certain degree of intelligence to play the game (although some Magic players make me wonder), but any organization that makes decisions by true democracy is doomed to failure. Benevolent dictatorships (where one person listens to a number of trusted advisors and then makes a decision) work much better as far as getting things done, and also better as far as getting the CORRECT things done. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 12:19:34 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 03:54:02 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >>There is no subjectivity about this. Those who cannot distinguish >>between zero, two, and five need not be playing V:TES, sayonara, have >>a nice day. Those who think that two fingers are five fingers need to >>have one less pint prior to play. > >When I have played the game, I find that my fingers occasionally have >a mind of their own and don't form a clear pattern, being splayed in >an intermediate configuration. What then? And who decides? Then you do it again, but do it right this time. You mentioned having a palsy in one arm. If this would cause you to be unable to consistently produce zero, two, or five fingers, then any number of substitutions are easily available and you should make this clear BEFORE playing the game. Select three cards from your ash heap; declare one to be "Rock", one to be "Scissors", and one to be "Paper". Pick one secretly, and place it face down on the table. When both players have placed a card, turn them over. Presto, solution achieved. No such simple substitution by a judge is available for MotB. >>You count "three", and on "three", you produce a hand-sign. There are >>three reasonably-disinterested other players convenient to provide >>witness, even if it WERE easily possible to convert one of the above >>hand-signs to another upon sight of the opponent's without anyone >>noticing. > >I'm used to players beating out the rhythm with their fists. But what >if one player lags behind the other. How much of a lag is too much? Then you do it again, and do it RIGHT this time. Again, if one has physical difficulties with keeping to the rhythm, then specify beforehand and a substitution can be easily made. >And there's no guarantee that you have 3 other players watching. >According to Tom, his main game on Thursday was down to just 2 players >for the last 90 minutes. Not really relevant anyway. If a dispute arises, either player may summon the judge, and he will arrange matters so that things can be resolved fairly; by watching himself, if need be. He may then wander off and resolve other issues until the next Malkavian Game is played; if one player intends to play lots of them, he can be warned ahead of time so that the judge can stay in earshot and be quickly fetched as necessary. Note how this differs from Madness of the Bard, where the judge must listen to everything every player says and therefore must devote 100% of his attention and time to a single game and card. >>How is "Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, Paper beats Rock" >>ill-defined? > >Does this definition appear in the card or rules? I think not - you >just made it up. I tried my dictionary but it says nothing about this >though it does, of course, define what a rhyme is. I tried a web >search and ended up with a jumble of hits including stuff like the >Chinese game of "Throwing Fists" which has quite different rules. Then perhaps one should ask the judge, who will happily define the game for the participants in thirty seconds. One could reasonably expect that anyone qualified to be judging would also be familiar with the common definition of the game. Perhaps a formal "definition" could be added to the clarifications page, since it does not require errata to Malkavian Game, and although I find the need for such a definition slim to none, it would also not hurt anything (since it's not errata and does not require card text changing). >>or if he's an intelligent judge, a >>determination of an easily recognizable "substitute" for Rock, Paper, >>and Scissors that someone without fingers could reproduce. Perhaps >>one could hold 1, 2, or 3 pool under the table in one's fingered hand. > >This is my point. It's easy to find some satisfactory equivalent but >you won't make a similar effort to help MoB work. Just banning the >card instead is a lazy cop-out. It's easy to find an equivalent that still satisfies the *intent* of Malkavian Game, you mean, which is that one should play some form of Rock/Scissors/Paper for 2 pool. The intent of Madness of the Bard, on the other hand, can be easily argued to have NOT meant that players should simply repeat "period." at the end of each of their sentences; it was obviously designed to induce a little verbal wordplay and creativity, ie parlor game. However, it failed. Since the INTENT of the card cannot be easily satisfied, it is a much better solution just to ban the damn thing and have done with it. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 22:20:58 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >>The alternative dice method I describe above does not require timing nor >>a keen eye. You might argue that it's not technically RPS, but it >>allows someone who lacks the physical dexterity to play that game to >>play a mathematically equivalent one. > >I would rather use 3 cards, preferably with rock, scissors, paper >pictures on them. I don't like to see dice in a card game. But I >wonder if using a substitute makes a difference. It may be that there >are subtle tells when you do it properly. Fabricated stuff and nonsense. The rules as everyone learned them in 3rd grade are designed to remove the possibility for such "tells"; the game is supposed to be random, such that in a sufficiently long series, each player would win approximately 50% of the time. This rarely occurs, however, as people are differently skilled at guessing what their opponent would do next... "we tied on Rock, will he stick with Rock, so I should go Paper, or will he go Scissors to try to beat my Paper, so I should stay with Rock...". But there should be no physical "tells" involved. >>The only ill-defined rule I can think of is "1,2,3,shoot" or "shoot on >>3"? And of course, the correct way to play is "1,2,3,shoot". :) > >I tried the game with my girlfriend today with little preamble. She >shot on 1! She grew up in Malaya and it turns out that her >understanding of the game is quite different. For one thing, it's >rock/bird/water and the finger pattern for bird is to bring all the >fingers and thumb together in a point. And there's a different >routine before the draw - a little chant and and then you pull the >choice from near your ear. And all that aside, someone from Malaysia (i'm assuming you intended that, as I've never heard of Malaya, but if I'm wrong, do correct me) STILL has heard of this game! And although the names are different, the game is still the same. Rock, Scissors, Paper, or whatever name one chooses to call it by, is one of those universal bits that nearly everyone has heard of. See also "Santa Claus". I bet it took all of 60 seconds to agree on a format that you two could play the game by, too. >>Some people are much more strict about their interpretation of "rhyme". >>One person's common sense is another's absurd nonsense. > >If there's ambiguity then bring it out into the open and resolve it. Except that it can't BE resolved, since it requires a subjective *opinion*. We all hear things differently. Our friend Andrzej from Poland tried in vain for 10 minutes to teach me to pronounce his name; I was repeating exactly what I heard, to my own ears, but he kept shaking his head and laughing, as apparently I wasn't even able to come CLOSE to pronouncing the 'z' properly. >I played a game of SW with my girlfriend today. She played Effective >Management and then started riffling through her crypt. I asked why >and she explained that she was looking for the "top vampire", i.e. the >one with the highest capacity. An amusing ambiguity but no reason to >ban the card. Of course not. It can be dealt with by a one-sentence explanation, namely "No, it means take the top *card*". Rhyming cannot be dealt with as easily. >>Otherwise, no one will want to play in the tournaments, >>and that's bad for the game. > >I don't want to play in tournaments which ban cards. Would you refuse >to play in a tournament which used Madness of the Bard? Do you refuse >to play with it in non-sanctioned games? Then don't play in them. I find your objections to four banned cards quite unreasonable, frankly, and arising directly from your personal beliefs and opinion that "cards shouldn't be banned!" Well, nobody's perfect, and when you screw up a design sufficiently (see Return to Innocence), then you end up with a problem that can only be fixed one way. It's worth noting that due to careful work by LSJ and the Design Team, we don't have any "broken" cards like RtI in Sabbat War, and so I don't expect that we'll see any of Sabbat War's cards banned, either. Simple. Oh, to answer your questions; I wouldn't refuse to play, no, because it's only a minor hassle for me to deal with MotB. I wouldn't REFUSE to play in a tournament that used printed RtI, but I would probably decide not to play in it as "likely not to be fun." I wouldn't make much of an issue out of it though. Do I refuse to play with it in non-sanctioned games? Good question. In our playgroup, we don't use the banned cards, so it's not an issue for us. If someone who was new to our group used it, though, and didn't realize that we DIDN'T use the banned cards, I'd bite the bullet and deal with it; and then suggest afterwards that we prefer not to use the banned cards and talk with him/her about it. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 03:47:50 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: > > >If there's truly no difference between Madness > >of the Bard and Malkavian Game, why would I and others be arguing with > >you? What do you think our discernment is supposed to be, then? Do you > >think people have a bias against a card with the word, "Bard" in it? > > Andreas, the Bard of Crete, isn't banned too is he? I think that > this is simple prejudice against a game mechanic that you're not > comfortable with. It makes you uneasy because you don't think you can > cope with it. You feel that you can cope with Rock, Scissors, Paper > and so you don't raise similar, spurious objections to it. As the > Bard said, "the fault lies not in the stars, dear Brutus ..." I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say, "(I) don't think (I) can cope with it." If you mean I don't think I'm very good at rhyming stuff, I suppose that's true but it's not really the point. There's a lot of stuff in the game I'm not very good at, to be honest. I make no secret of that. I don't try to get things banned just because I'm not good at them. Furthermore, there's too many people who object to the card to attribute the dislike to that. Otherwise, why would people who were relatively good at it want to ban it? They should be playing with the card if they're better than average at rhyming. On the other hand, no one's trying to ban Malkavian Prank and surely there must be _someone_ out there who feels like they do badly at the RPS game. It's an easy charge, claiming people who want to ban a card hate it because it's a part of the game they don't play well. Unfortunately, it's also impossible to prove or disprove. So it's not worth arguing about. Stick to the merits of why a card should or should not be part of the tournament game. Fred

>Second, games like "Simon Says" rely on "Simon" to misdirect, confuse, >and basically trick other players into forgetting to only do what >"Simon Says"; there is no "Simon" available in V:TES. In addition, >"Simon" has an advantage in comparison to Madness of the Bard; he is >permitted to break the rules all he wants. This analogy is flawed. (Off-topic) I never really played much of Simon Says, but I was just curious what would happen if what Simon says conflicts with the natural rules of the game. Which one takes precedence? In fact, while I understand the basics of the game, are there actually specific rules for it? Is it limited to physical actions or...? For example, what happens if Simon says "Simon says that from now on you will do things that start with just "Simon" instead of "Simon Says""? Or let's say he delegates his Simon-ness to someone else, but still keeps some veto power? Halcyan 2

though derek accused andrew of using nitpick arguments to avoid admitting he was wrong in any way, then proceeded to be as pointedly nitpicky as he felt like being, IMO madness of the bard is unjudgable. i encourage andrew to set ground rules, have a tourney where the entire flavor of the tournament is geared to MoB being legal, or even having an automatic MoB in effect during every game start-to-finish, get english profs or teachers to judge at every table, and see if you can actually get any support for this kind of event. hell, it might be fun... but, try to understand, without these special precautions, MoB is absolutely unjudgable, on the grounds of: false and near rhymes, cadence (does it matter?), language differences, and cheat-mode repetition like saying period after every sentence. though i favor trying to fix most cards, madness of the bard is as broken for sanctioned play as broken can be. -spinney the spinner "1) identity of sound between words or syllables or the endings of lines of verse" --- definition of "rhyme" in oxford american dictionary [ quoted text not captured ]

On 19 Nov 2000 07:17:56 GMT, halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote: >>Second, games like "Simon Says" rely on "Simon" to misdirect, confuse, >>and basically trick other players into forgetting to only do what >>"Simon Says"; there is no "Simon" available in V:TES. In addition, >>"Simon" has an advantage in comparison to Madness of the Bard; he is >>permitted to break the rules all he wants. This analogy is flawed. > >(Off-topic) I never really played much of Simon Says, but I was just curious >what would happen if what Simon says conflicts with the natural rules of the >game. Which one takes precedence? In fact, while I understand the basics of the >game, are there actually specific rules for it? Is it limited to physical >actions or...? From what I remember (YMMV), Simon can't change the rule. This concrete-ness permits him to work an additional degree of trickery on those who forget momentarily that there is only one rule: do what Simon says, if the sentence begins "Simon says", and if not, DON'T. >For example, what happens if Simon says "Simon says that from now on you will >do things that start with just "Simon" instead of "Simon Says""? Or let's say >he delegates his Simon-ness to someone else, but still keeps some veto power? This could get confusing rapidly, especially with a Simon who wanted to put the game beyond the reach of the players' memory by simply adding conditionals ad infinitum/ad nauseam. But you can always see if someone's thinking by trying it. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

>From what I remember (YMMV), Simon can't change the rule. This >concrete-ness permits him to work an additional degree of trickery on >those who forget momentarily that there is only one rule: do what >Simon says, if the sentence begins "Simon says", and if not, DON'T. What if "Simon says to do nothing" vs. "just do nothing." How do you tell if the person is doing or not doing what they should or should not be doing? >This could get confusing rapidly, especially with a Simon who wanted >to put the game beyond the reach of the players' memory by simply >adding conditionals ad infinitum/ad nauseam. Kind of reminds me of that card game called Mao or something. Every game someone gets to add a new rule that everyone else has to try to figure out as the game progresses... Halcyan 2

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 09:33:08 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: > > >It may be "in flavor" for the Malkavians, but the card has severe > >problems which have already been mentioned. > > And disposed of. You may feel that they have been disposed of, but I don't. Hence, they haven't been disposed of. [alternative to physical RPS] > I would rather use 3 cards, preferably with rock, scissors, paper > pictures on them. I don't like to see dice in a card game. But I > wonder if using a substitute makes a difference. It may be that there > are subtle tells when you do it properly. Cards would be fine. The problem is that there is no real alternative to Madness of the Bard. What if I have a speech impediment? Is it fair to expect me to speak in rhyming sentences when just speaking is difficult? And if it's fair for some people and not fair for others, where do you draw the line? Can I bring a notepad to the game, and have all my communication be written (and hence, not required to rhyme)? What if a player refuses to read my note? In Ithaca, I remember this card coming out once, and all communication immediately ceased. The game stopped, and every single action was directed at getting rid of the damned thing. > >Some people are much more strict about their interpretation of "rhyme". > >One person's common sense is another's absurd nonsense. > > If there's ambiguity then bring it out into the open and resolve it. But someone has to be the arbitrator of what counts as a rhyme and what doesn't. I would tend to be much looser with that than, say, a 6th-grade English teacher. > I played a game of SW with my girlfriend today. She played Effective > Management and then started riffling through her crypt. I asked why > and she explained that she was looking for the "top vampire", i.e. the > one with the highest capacity. An amusing ambiguity but no reason to > ban the card. Because there is a single _correct_ interpretation of the card. The interpretation of Madness is inherently subjective. > >Otherwise, no one will want to play in the tournaments, > >and that's bad for the game. > > I don't want to play in tournaments which ban cards. Would you refuse > to play in a tournament which used Madness of the Bard? Do you refuse > to play with it in non-sanctioned games? Yes, and yes. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu "So what will happen when the fliers come back from the sky and say there's no Heaven up there?"

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > > >agree with Andrew that this card shouldn't be banned, but i reserve the > > >right to say: "Just because you played the Wretched Madness of the bard > > >pipi for my butthole, Anvil bum's rushes ozmo cross-table, pipi for my > > >butthole. Do you block, pipi for my butthole? In that case i rip a > > >signpost out of the ground, pipi for my butthole." And so on. > > > > This works for me though I'm now curious as to what this refrain might > > mean. > > Basically nothing at all - it is from Beavis and butthead Do America > which Michael Eichler and i watched with fascinated horror last time he > was over here. It's what the blond one is saying when, high on cardiac > stimulants, he infiltrates the white house. As I recall, from friends who are fans of the show, something to the effect of "TP for my bumhole" is actually said, where TP = toilet-paper. -- James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D "Steve: Yeah, well that's one of the advantages of being a sad, lonely fairy, I guess. You get to learn how to be a spy." - Stephen Fry, Making History

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000, Noal McDonald wrote: > I used to play with a guy that took full license with it, turning it > into half a game of Truth or Dare. The tamest question I ever recall him > asking is, "Boxers of briefs?" Oh pish. There are far more entertaining games to be played than Truth or Dare. Ever played "I have never...."? Do not, I repeat, DO NOT play I have never whilst drinking port. Ever. Especially not if you're going to drink two-thirds of a litre of the stuff. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > >You cannot compile such a list for Madness of the Bard. > > An infant can tell you whether two words rhyme or not. Please compile a list of all rhyming words and submit it to the Rules Team and V:EKN for ratification into standing errata or the V:EKN rules. When you have done that, you will be able to sort everything out, and since an infant could do it, I'm sure you'll have no problem. Whether two words rhyme or not is very, very subjective. Difficerent languages, different accents and so forth make things much, much, MUCH more difficult and syllabic pronunciation and elision only further complicate the matter. I would also note that the card, by card text, does not specify any type of rhyme. What type of rhyme are you specifying? Can I rhyme using Irish rhyme, also known as true rhyme? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > The card only regulates speech and the test of a spoken rhyme is what > it sounds like. Not solely, at all. The card does not specify any type of rhyme. It does not specify that the rhymes must be made in a manner that can be heard. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, Derek Ray wrote: > >The card only regulates speech and the test of a spoken rhyme is what > >it sounds like. You and James didn't hear the sounds and so your > >opinions in this case are irrelevant. > > Another bunch of unmitigated CRAP. I've begun to notice that you'll > argue the most ABSURD nit-picks in order to not be shown up wrong. You'd only just begun to notice that one? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 03:47:50 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: > > >If there's truly no difference between Madness > >of the Bard and Malkavian Game, why would I and others be arguing with > >you? What do you think our discernment is supposed to be, then? Do you > >think people have a bias against a card with the word, "Bard" in it? > > Andreas, the Bard of Crete, isn't banned too is he? Yes. He was banned yesterday. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > >How is "Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, Paper beats Rock" > >ill-defined? > > Does this definition appear in the card or rules? 1) Jyhad does not define what a bid constitutes, for Malkavian Time Auction. Outside knowledge of what bidding is is required, as here. 2) An exhaustive list of the rules for Malkavian Game can be entered into the clarifications. Such cannot be done with Madness of the Bard. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SOL.4.21.001119...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > What type of rhyme are you specifying? Can I rhyme using Irish > rhyme, also known as true rhyme? Oooh...can you provide an example, James? Since my study of the English language focused more on linguistics/literary analysis thaan production/literature, I didn't get enough of a chance to see all of the lovely variations on rhyme you keep mentioning. I'd also like to point out that each of your posts makes my day a bit brighter. Especially the posts pointing out glaringly obvious errors. Heh. Oh, and the ones, where you say "yay!" I have fun imagining that. Xian -- But rain falls down and I feel cold A cold that sleeps within my heart It tears the earth and sun apart --New Order, "Shellshock" [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > > On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > > > On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 03:47:50 GMT, Frederick Scott wrote: > > > > >If there's truly no difference between Madness > > >of the Bard and Malkavian Game, why would I and others be arguing with > > >you? What do you think our discernment is supposed to be, then? Do you > > >think people have a bias against a card with the word, "Bard" in it? > > > > Andreas, the Bard of Crete, isn't banned too is he? > > Yes. He was banned yesterday. > What??!? Where is the hue, the outcry? The infamous 7/7 rulings pale to the infamous 11/18 - the banning of Andreas, Bard of Crete. I mean, I knew there had been a lot of discussion about how broken he is - heck, burn one blood for +1 intercept - that is crazy. I thought that the suggestion that he burn one eyebrow for +1 intercept would have worked, or perhaps burn one velvet vest for +1 intercept. But to outright ban him - it goes against the very nature of the game. Bah, I am going out right now to start my own league, with its own rules, the Andreas Bard of Crete Supporters League, also known as the ABC'S League (and in some circles, as the Cretins) - we will take this game back to the way it was meant to be played, with Andreas! Ok, go bye-bye now. Chris -- chris <www.vtesinla.org> (A V:TES site in development) ultimate disc - V:TES - hockey v:ekn prince of torrance, ca

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000 21:18:08 +0000, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: >On Thu, 16 Nov 2000, Noal McDonald wrote: >> I used to play with a guy that took full license with it, turning it >> into half a game of Truth or Dare. The tamest question I ever recall him >> asking is, "Boxers of briefs?" > >Oh pish. There are far more entertaining games to be played than Truth or >Dare. Ever played "I have never...."? Do not, I repeat, DO NOT play I >have never whilst drinking port. Ever. Especially not if you're going to >drink two-thirds of a litre of the stuff. Should I even ask what "I have never..." is? If it's what it sounds like and I should be forced to list off things I've never done, I'd like to opt out of playing RIGHT now, lest my list accidentally prove short in the wrong areas. :) (although i have NEVER slept with a goat. so there.) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, Xian wrote: > In article <Pine.SOL.4.21.001119...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, > James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > > What type of rhyme are you specifying? Can I rhyme using Irish > > rhyme, also known as true rhyme? > > Oooh...can you provide an example, James? Since my study of the > English language focused more on linguistics/literary analysis thaan > production/literature, I didn't get enough of a chance to see all of > the lovely variations on rhyme you keep mentioning. Originally found in Irish (i.e. Gaelic), hence the name, though also found in other languages in the Celtic group. Basically, it works on the principle that certain consonants sound similar. If you do any work on phonetics, you tend to get certain sounds lumped together under terms like nasals, fricatives and plosives and the like. Any vowel placed before a vowel from one consonant group will rhyme with any other vowel placed before a consonant from the same group. "Deibhidhe /dev-ith-a (voiced 'th')/ or /jevy/- the most common syllabic meter. In the dán díreach style, it is made up of rhyming couplets in stanzas of 4 lines, or a quatrain. The rhyme is between words of unequal syllabic length; the shorter word is called rinn /reen/, the longer one airdrinn /ard-reen/. In Irish, rhyme begins with the first stressed vowel of the word, and all subsequent consonants must be of the same class and quality. There are six consonant classes: (p, t, c); (b, d, g); (ph, th,ch); (bh, mh, dh, gh, l, n, r); (ll, mm, ng, nn, rr); (s). Any consonant rhymes fully with itself or any other consonant in its group. There are additional rules governing alliteration within each line and internal rhymes." http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~laa68/handouts/IrishBardicTerms.htm Since Madness of the Bard doesn't require you to use English rhymes, this is a perfectly acceptable rhyme scheme to use by card text. > I'd also like to point out that each of your posts makes my day a bit > brighter. Especially the posts pointing out glaringly obvious errors. Aw, it makes me feel all warm and fluffy inside, like Barney the Dinosaur. I love you too, Xian. *lick* [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, Derek Ray wrote: > >Oh pish. There are far more entertaining games to be played than Truth or > >Dare. Ever played "I have never...."? Do not, I repeat, DO NOT play I > >have never whilst drinking port. Ever. Especially not if you're going to > >drink two-thirds of a litre of the stuff. > > Should I even ask what "I have never..." is? Okay, everyone sits round in a circle with a drink, preferably something where you know roughly what the equivalence between the drinks is, in terms of alcohol e.g. a mouthful of this has as many alcoholic units as a pint of that, or a sip of that, or whatever. One person starts. They declare something they have never done. e.g. "I have never cheated in an exam."[0] Everyone who *has* performed said act then takes a drink. If no-one drinks, the person stating the question has to drink. (This stops people using totally outlandish things they've never done without some sort of "punishment".) Very drunken, very good fun and not something you ever, ever want to play anywhere near anyone from the armed services, ever. [0] This is solely an example. Other questions get far dirtier and more devious very quickly. It is also very easy to target questions at people where you want to know the reality of a rumour. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000 23:41:46 +0000, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: >On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, Xian asked for it by saying: > >> Oooh...can you provide an example, James? Since my study of the >> English language focused more on linguistics/literary analysis thaan >> production/literature, I didn't get enough of a chance to see all of >> the lovely variations on rhyme you keep mentioning. > >"Deibhidhe /dev-ith-a (voiced 'th')/ or /jevy/- the most common syllabic >meter. In the dán díreach style, it is made up of rhyming couplets in >stanzas of 4 lines, or a quatrain. The rhyme is between words of unequal >syllabic length; the shorter word is called rinn /reen/, the longer one >airdrinn /ard-reen/. In Irish, rhyme begins with the first stressed vowel >of the word, and all subsequent consonants must be of the same class and >quality. There are six consonant classes: (p, t, c); (b, d, g); (ph, >th,ch); (bh, mh, dh, gh, l, n, r); (ll, mm, ng, nn, rr); (s). Any >consonant rhymes fully with itself or any other consonant in its >group. There are additional rules governing alliteration within each line >and internal rhymes." Gesundheit! There's a spittoon in the corner if you need. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6sng1tgrr0ihfqpng...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > (although i have NEVER slept with a goat. so there.) > -- Derek > Jack-Booted Thug of Atlanta Well, who would want to cuddle up in a barn in a pile of hay with a distinctly goat-y smelling thing? Talk about getting no sleep. Note that, suspiciously, he makes no mention of anything else he might have done with a goat. Xian, who has never had any form of sexual contact with a goat. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > (although i have NEVER slept with a goat. so there.) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... Hey guys! We got us a *virgin*!!! Fred

"Xian" <xi...@waste.org> wrote in message news:8v9mu1$3ci$1...@nnrp1.deja.com... > In article <Pine.SOL.4.21.001119...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, > James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > > What type of rhyme are you specifying? Can I rhyme using Irish > > rhyme, also known as true rhyme? > > Oooh...can you provide an example, James? Since my study of the > English language focused more on linguistics/literary analysis thaan > production/literature, I didn't get enough of a chance to see all of > the lovely variations on rhyme you keep mentioning. http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/irishptr/drchpoem/comharda.html Comhardadh: how to rhyme in Irish I hate to tell you this, but to learn how the medieval Irish rhymed their poems, you first have to find out how they looked at the sounds of their language. I know this looks really scary and complicated, but bear in mind just how complicated that, say, a rap song would look, if outlined in terms of meter and phonetics! The poet and the audience would have had the patterns engrained in them; it's only to the outsider or the describer that these patterns seems detailed, difficult and strange. In medieval Irish linguistic and poetic tracts, the sounds of Old and Middle Irish are carefully divided into two kinds of classifications. The first was broadness/slenderness. Broad vowels: a, o, u, á, ó, & ú Slender vowels: e, i, é & í Broad consonants: Consonants immediately preceded by broad vowels Slender consonants: Consonants immediately preceded by slender vowels. The second classification was similar to the description of consonants that linguists use today. The letters in parentheses are the spellings used for the same sound when it's not the first sound in a word. na trí chonnsuine chruaidhe 'the 3 hard consonants' = voiced stops b, d, g (p, t, c) na trí chonnsuine bhoga 'the 3 soft consonants' = voiceless stops p, t, c (pp, tt, cc) na trí chonnsuine gharbha 'the 3 rough consonants' = voiceless spirants ph (f), th, ch na seacht gconnsuine éadroma 'the 6 light consonants' = voiced spirants & weak-pronounced voiced liquids b (v), m (nasal v), d (th as in then), g (as in morgen), l, n, r. na cúig chonnsuine theanna 'the 5 strong consonants' = strong pronounced voiced liquids m (mm), ll, nn, ng, rr. Strong consonants rhyme with light ones. connsuinne aimrid nach coír a modh ar bioth gan 's' eile na haghaidh. (I have no idea what that means in Irish = continuants.) S (ss). Rhymes only with itself. In the case of a consonant blend, the blends fell into one of the following classes, each of which only rhymed with blends of the same class. Following the modern scholars, '+' means before or after and '-' means before. Hard+Light. Soft+Light, Soft+Rough, Light+Rough, Strong+Soft, Hard-Rough. Rough+Light, Rough+Strong, Rough+Rough, Rough+Hard. Light+Light, Light+Strong. S+consonant Rhymes when each consonant accompanying s is of the same class (Strong & Light count as the same class for this); in Middle Irish, the accompanying consonants are lenited for poetic purposes. (In Middle Irish, when s is the initial sound of any part of a compound word except the first syllable, s is lenited & soundless -- except in the case of demonstrative suffixes or words beginning with sg, sd, sb or sm. Also in compound words, the broadness or slenderness of the final syllable of any component word becomes the broadness or slenderness of the initial sound of the component following it. I don't know that you'll ever need to know these rules, but now you do.) Comhardadh occurs only when the first syllable of each word (the first syllable was always stressed in Old Irish, or Middle Irish as pronounced by poets) had the same vowel and consonants of the same class and broadness/slenderness. The initial consonants don't count; only the sounds in the middle and end of the syllable do. Other syllables than the first one only need to have the same vowel if that vowel is long. Comhardadh could be final, internal, or aicill. Aicill rhymes the final stressed word of one line with the next-to-last unstressed word in the next line. (In this relationship, the final rhyming word is called rinn, 'tip' and the unstressed rhyming word airdrinn, 'attention-tip'. ) Do bhíoth dhamh ag déanaimh eóil an gheágsoin fa gar do mhaoin; fada siar ón tírsi thuaidh aniar uain do-chínnsi an gcraoibh. Final rhyme: mhaoin/gcraoibh Internal rhyme: dhamh/gar, siar/aniar, tírsi/do-chínnsi, déanaimh/ghéagsoin Aicill: thuaidh/uain Pretty, isn't it? Think how appealing that kind of pattern must be to your ear. comhardadh slán: perfect rhyme (rhyme which follows the rules above) comhardadh briste: imperfect rhyme (rhymes only by same vowel & same broadness/slenderness of consonants) A line in a couplet may include a word which rhymes with two words instead of just one! This usually happens when the two-rhyme line has a word which is repeated, but also in less easy ways. > I'd also like to point out that each of your posts makes my day a bit > brighter. Especially the posts pointing out glaringly obvious errors. > Heh. Oh, and the ones, where you say "yay!" I have fun imagining > that. > > Xian > > -- > But rain falls down and I feel cold > A cold that sleeps within my heart > It tears the earth and sun apart > --New Order, "Shellshock" -- Kevin J. Mergen, kjme...@home.com, Prince of Madison, WI "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, James Coupe wrote: >Please compile a list of all rhyming words and submit it to the Rules Team >and V:EKN for ratification into standing errata or the V:EKN rules. When >you have done that, you will be able to sort everything out, and since an >infant could do it, I'm sure you'll have no problem. I don't need to - it's already been done. If that's the way you'd have them do it, they merely need to specify one of many rhyming dictionaries as a standard reference. You can buy Merriam-Webster's Rhyming Dictionary from Amazon for all of $4.49. While use of an official dictionary is standard in a serious game like Scrabble, it hardly seems appropriate for a parlor game like VTES. And none of this effort is necessary as you don't need a dictionary to rhyme a word with itself. >The card does not specify any type of rhyme. It does not specify >that the rhymes must be made in a manner that can be heard. It specifies that you rhyme when you "speak". Thank you for playing. Next, please. Andrew

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000 09:06:21 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: >Cards would be fine. The problem is that there is no real alternative >to Madness of the Bard. What if I have a speech impediment? Is it fair >to expect me to speak in rhyming sentences when just speaking is >difficult? And if it's fair for some people and not fair for others, >where do you draw the line? Can I bring a notepad to the game, and have >all my communication be written (and hence, not required to rhyme)? >What if a player refuses to read my note? In Ithaca, I remember this >card coming out once, and all communication immediately ceased. The >game stopped, and every single action was directed at getting rid of the >damned thing. No surprise to me. My experience of a similar game effect in Groo is that it makes players clam up and so there's little need to worry about what a valid rhyme is. As for your objections, they apply with or without MoB. What a deaf-mute wants to play the game? What if a blind person wants to play? We can bandy hypothetical disabilities all day and the general answer is that the Head Judge has to use his good sense and decide whether and in what manner a disabled person may participate. >But someone has to be the arbitrator of what counts as a rhyme and what >doesn't. I would tend to be much looser with that than, say, a >6th-grade English teacher. I thought that current teaching practise was to allow almost anything. Or is free expression out of fashion now? >Because there is a single _correct_ interpretation of the card. Sez you. I bet that the definition of "top" isn't and won't be spelt out anywhere. If a player doesn't agree then someone just has to make a call on the spot. >>Do you refuse to play with it in non-sanctioned games? > Yes I picked up this game again because I was impressed by the wit and intelligence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and thought that this game might evoke some of the same magic. Instead, I find that it's leaden and the players seem to suffer from acute constriction of the sphincter. Not Buffy but stuffy. And btw, that's a rhyme. Andrew

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, Derek Ray wrote: >However, there are plenty of people who do not have the facility to >rhyme in this fashion, and I do not believe that the game should be >turned into "whoever's prey rhymes worst wins", which is effectively >what this card does. Any player who feels handicapped by the presence of Madness of the Bard has the option to have a minion take a directed action to burn it. Given that the card costs two blood to play, it seems more than adequately balanced. >Note how this differs from Madness of the Bard, where the judge must >listen to everything every player says and therefore must devote 100% >of his attention and time to a single game and card. I'd be glad of the entertainment if I were judging. If another game needed a decision, I'd call a time-out and then go back to the fun. You only get a problem if there are more Madness games in progress than there are judges. If I couldn't trust the players to look after it themselves, I'd then invoke the Bishop Berkeley principle - if a judge doesn't hear it then it doesn't exist. Just keep the players guessing whether you're listening or not. >The intent of Madness of the Bard, on the other hand, can be easily >argued to have NOT meant that players should simply repeat "period." >at the end of each of their sentences; it was obviously designed to >induce a little verbal wordplay and creativity, ie parlor game. >However, it failed. Since the INTENT of the card cannot be easily >satisfied, it is a much better solution just to ban the damn thing and >have done with it. The intent of the card was to make the players speak in an unusual and amusing manner. Having them add a nonsensical refrain to every sentence is good enough for this purpose in a tournament and satisfies the letter of the law. This is closer than substituting a dice game for rock/scissors/paper as it requires no deviation at all. >Elsewhere, you claim that MotB's effect can be avoided with what must >be considered a "trivial" fudge such as ending each sentence by >stating "period." Which is it? Either MotB's requirement is not >trivial, in which case all other arguments apply, or it IS trivial, in >which case it is just a pointless nuisance and should be given the >boot from tournaments. The rhyming requirement is trivial. Remembering to do so is not. Clear? >Most things, such as paying a blood cost, are a concrete, >non-subjective occurrence. Either one did pay off the vampire, or one >didn't, and it's normally easy to go back and determine how much the >vampire originally had and whether they should have paid or not. The >onus is also somewhat on one's opponents to pay attention; but again, >with non-subjective occurrences, it's easy to point out at the time >"Hey, you didn't pay for that Blur yet." I've experienced situations where no-one was sure whether a cost had been paid or not and, without a clear audit trail, there was no way to tell the correct situation. We manage. >And all that aside, someone from Malaysia (i'm assuming you intended >that, as I've never heard of Malaya, but if I'm wrong, do correct me) Malaya is correct. The only detail worth tossing in is that Malaya was Britain's Vietnam. The difference was that the commies lost that one. >Do I refuse to play with it in non-sanctioned games? Good question. >In our playgroup, we don't use the banned cards, so it's not an issue >for us. If someone who was new to our group used it, though, and >didn't realize that we DIDN'T use the banned cards, I'd bite the >bullet and deal with it; and then suggest afterwards that we prefer >not to use the banned cards and talk with him/her about it. I expect that this is same attitude that developed rapidly in Magic - that players would only play by the DCI tournament rules, even in pick-up games. I thought it was very funny that most of the players, most of the time, weren't actually playing proper Magic - the 40 card, NCL, ante version of the game that was in the rulebook - but only played a variant instead. After all this time, VTES is still in the same weird state. Tsk. Andrew

In article <8v33j7$81l$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, legb...@my-deja.com writes: >Really what we found in Atlanta was that Damnan's Cappadocian concept was >pretty functional, had the right "flavour", and slotted quite well into >the game as we currently play it. We found that some of his cards ARE >broken right from the word go, and saw that some are breakable quite >easily. So much might be said for any draft set of cards that are up for >playtesting. > >However, i now don't think data of this kind is to the point of your >objection to more clans and disciplines. If i understand you correctly, >you are saying that even if you could get perfectly-playtested cards for >all the new clans and disciplines you would STILL be against expansions >of this kind, because they would increase global player dissatisfaction. More or less, though I'm still not sure you see the whole concept as I see it. My concepts seem abstract even to me, such that I have difficulty even articulating them as I understand them. Still, the Cappodocians provide a very concrete example, whose lessons can be applied to almost every "new discipline" that one might contemplate incorporating. The two approaches are 1) incorporate Mortis as a separate discipline and give the Cappodocians Aus-For-Mor, or 2) incorporate Mortis as a path of an old discipline, and give the Cappodocians Aus-For-Nec. I think I have already clearly shown that option #2 offers everything that option #1 does, but gives much more besides. It can be clearly shown that the Aus-For-Nec approach is much more efficient, and gives more satisfaction to a greater number of players. You not ONLY introduce a new clan with new powers, but you ALSO keep the Giovanni happy by giving them new toys to play with, and ALSO the new clan is more flexible because it can use the old Necromancy powers as well as the new Mortis ones. The new powers become more viable and full of possibilty because they can be efficiently combined with 4 other discipines as opposed to only two. In a game which revolves around combos, and in which powerful combos do not (or should not) exist WITHIN a single discipline, this seems to me to be very important. I'd rather not say that if provokes player dissatisfaction (though I suspect this is true). I would rather say that it promotes much less player satisfaction than the alternate, superior approach. It seems to me blatantly obvious that a good designer does not deliberately put out a product that he knows to be half as good as what he is capable. He does not deliberately make second-best choices. If he does, it is his own fault if players start playing better games whose designers are making better choices than he. I think the ball is in your court. I have made many arguments showing why introducing new resource-requirement categories is inferior to the alternative approach to introducing the same powers. You need to explain why these new Mortis power that are being introduced need to have the new skull symbol of Mortis, as opposed to the old skull symbol of Necromancy. You need to explain why that would make them better and more fun to play with. >You see this happening because any new expansion would either contain >one's favourite clan or it wouldn't, or else it would contain so few new >cards for your favourite discipline/clan that you wouldn't bother >collecting it, so that most people would be unhappy with most expansions. >Is that right? i'm quite prepared to be told that i have HORRIBLY >misunderstood you! This is fair enough, though the statements are too absolute and removed from the comparative context that I prefer. I would not say that the above things are true in any absolute sense, I merely say that they are MORE true than would be the case with the alternate, superior, non-fragmenting approach, which introduces the same "new things" in a better way. The non-fragmenting approach allows "cool new powers" to be more usable and accessable, and does not try to confine them within a newly invented resource-requirement category which makes it inaccessible to any other vampire that was previously printed. >If it is a fair summary of your position, i would like >to raise a tremulous talon and confess to liking ALL the vampires of ALL >the clans except, of course, the Camarilla Toiletdoors, which means that >i would collect ANY CONCEIVABLE expansion for the game except the >Toiletdoors Private Party expansion. Who am i kidding, i would even >collect that, especially if it contained lots of semi-pornographic >images. i wonder if i am alone in this perhaps rather uncritical approach >to new expansions? This is all very well, but you need to consider that 1) not all players will have your fanatic devotion, or even my fanatic devotion, and 2) would it not be better if the expansions gave you more for your money? Would it not be better and more efficient if, in the context of the same space requirements, the expansion introduced a more-flexible version of the Cappodocians AND enhanced the Giovanni, as opposed to merely the introducing a less-flexible version of Cappodocians? Would not an expansion that was twice as good make you twice as happy? -- John Whelan

<snip> > > I picked up this game again because I was impressed by the wit and > intelligence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and thought that this game > might evoke some of the same magic. Instead, I find that it's leaden > and the players seem to suffer from acute constriction of the > sphincter. Not Buffy but stuffy. And btw, that's a rhyme. > > Andrew > It isn't like buffy, that's for sure, because Buffy is the hero of buffy and vampire slayers are only witless tools of the Methuselahs in VTES. Also Buffy is a TV show for kids and VTES is a CCG for grown-ups. And it's true that among CCGs VTES isn't as out-and-out hilarious as Shadowfist or Classic Rage, and that VTES players tend to take their game quite seriously, because taken that way it is amazingly satisfying - all the best bits of role-playing and strategy games in one. i wouldn't have thought "stuffy" was fair though. Maybe you have met the wrong VTES players, or maybe you are reacting personally to the fact that most people here don't agree with the points you are making about the banned cards, game design etc. A pity. Play VTES using house-rules with like- minded people would be my advice, and/or go back to one of the more tongue-in-cheek games. i don't think you'll be able to convince our little VTES cult of the error of its ways though - we have all been members for a good long time and we have the shiny smily impregnability of the cult member grafted on to our collective psyche as a result. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <20001120042909...@nso-df.news.cs.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] Well, first of all i needed to understand the point you were making. Now, thanks to caffeine or reading your posts while sober or something, i actually do. And from the game-play point of view i agree with you. i'm a little concerned about the effect on "flavour" but not much. You could even have some cards that required not just a discipline but also a clan or clan-specific Meta-Card to be put into play. [Dark Ages. Unique Master. Costs 5 pool, requires cappadocians. Put this card in play. Burn all 1-cap vampires and all laptop computers, Information Highway, Chainsaws, IR goggles, vehicles and weapons that do ranged damage apart from the Ivory Bow. None of the above cards may be played for the rest of the game. Computer hacking may not be played for the rest of the game.] [ quoted text not captured ] Yep, i'm finally getting it thanks to this post and the other one you made in the "On breaking cards ....." thread. i now see exactly what you mean. i still think Pat and i are right that the old VTES players will buy pretty much anything to do with the game, which imposes an Awful Burden of Responsibility on the designers and playtesters not to muck it up. And i see the point you are making that if the Cappas had Nec instead of Mor then they would work better and there would be a positive spin-off for the Giovanni players and the Nec discipline generally. There's a price to pay [which you acknowledge] in the form of Violence to the "existing" reality of the World of Darkness, but WW routinely pull off and retract similar reality shifts. Personally, after the initial surprise i think a Harbinger/Samedi/Cappa-lover would be quite pleased to know the "Secret truth" behind his/her clan's "Unique" discipline. [ quoted text not captured ]

>The intent of the card was to make the players speak in an unusual and >amusing manner. Having them add a nonsensical refrain to every >sentence is good enough for this purpose in a tournament and satisfies >the letter of the law. vs. >The rhyming requirement is trivial. Remembering to do so is not. >Clear? Um...is it just me, or do these two statements seem to contradict each other? Is the intent of the card to cause speaking to be in a creative manner, or causing them to remember to do so? If it's the latter, and the rhyming part is trivial while remembering isn't, why don't we just require them to say something before their statement? You know, have them say "Simon Says" before announcing what they're going to do. Of course it doesn't rhyme, but at least it makes players remember that they *should* be rhyming. It can sort of be like with Uno, when you have to remember to say "Uno" when you're down to one card! Halcyan 2

<snip> > > >And all that aside, someone from Malaysia (i'm assuming you intended > >that, as I've never heard of Malaya, but if I'm wrong, do correct me) > > Malaya is correct. The only detail worth tossing in is that Malaya > was Britain's Vietnam. The difference was that the commies lost that > one. > Engaging Pedant mode here, but i think there were a FEW other differences. Among these might be mentioned that the Communists drew, and draw, their support overwhelmingly from the ethnic chinese minority in Malaya, so it was a reasonable tactic for the Brits to stick all the available ethnic Chinese in "protected villages" which [a] took away the sea in which the guerrillas swam a la Chairman Mao, and [b] created/ exacerbated a nice little racist divide/rule thing via-a-vis the ethnic Malay population and the Chinese. i expect the Americans could have won in Vietnam if the Viet Cong had all been Montagnards. Before i leave pedant mode, isn't there a federation of Malaysian States [called, perhaps, Malaysia for short] of which Malaya is one? SE asian geopolitics not my long suit here, i am just asking out of Need to Know. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article < E18D4B59CDD279A8.08941FC9...@lp.airnews.net>, a...@csi.com wrote: > On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 09:33:08 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: > > >It may be "in flavor" for the Malkavians, but the card has severe > >problems which have already been mentioned. > > And disposed of. > As you know, i basically agree with you that Madness ought not to have been banned. But i am not a judge, and the overwhelming view of the judges is that it SHOULD be banned, because unless they have been paying close attention to every conversation at every table they can't adjudicate disputes. i bow to this real-world explanation of why this otherwise-neat card can't be played in tournaments where judge time not to mention physical judginess is limited. In what sense do you think that you or i [who seem to be the only ones arguing publicly for the card] have "disposed" of this [to me] eminently sensible, practical, unarguable point? In another thread [Return to Innocence] which spun off from this one i posted something to which no-one has yet responded in that thread. i repost bits of it here because it seems relevant to the point[s] at issue. If you read it you will find that some quite surprising people agree with at least part of what you are saying. Maybe you would persuade more people about the rightness of at least some of your points if you used slightly less evangelical language, i would gently suggest. STARTQUOTE " Pat Ricochet <sp...@socrates.gatech.edu> wrote: > >> I've read this thread a couple of times now and still can't see how you > >> are constructively adding to the fact that you think RTI should not be > >> banned. Just saying that it shouldn't be is no real arguement here. > > > > RtI already has an errata and this is presumably there to be used. I > > suggested an errata which seems better to me - less strenuous, for one > > thing. > > But it already got broken *again* by the L.A. group, when Malks do it > using a Madness Network at the end of their predator's minion phase, so the > pile of errata makes no difference, since no one else (except other Bum's > Rushing Malks, I guess) has any chance to see it coming, rush, deal, etc. > So the card was errata'd *again*, and now says: > "You play this this card at any time. This card is removed from the > game, and is not to ever be put back into your deck, or any other deck." > > and the flavor text says something like > > "For an even larger collection of bookmarks inspired by poor design, > insufficient playtesting, clever blokes who broke the cards, and cheezball > players who would play them in tournaments, go to > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/banned" It's only banned from tournaments, Pat! > > >> It's like most threads on this group, the old guys remember how bad it > >> was. Most like it as it is now. Opinions and experience are different > >> animals Andrew. > > > > Rediscovering this game is bringing back ugly memories of Magic. You > > see the differences - I see the similarities. > > We see the differences (I say "we" only because I haven't seen anyone > else poke up defending Return to Broken Cards..er, Innocence) in the history > of how long and how many broken cards were allowed in Magic, where V:tES is > self-repairing to keep open the wide variety of strategies to all be > competitive. > You seem to see the similarity that Magic banned cards, and "all banning > of cards is a bad thing". You've certainly never answered again on the idea > that the game designers CAN and HAVE made mistakes in designing cards. You > attribute more credit to the wisdom of one group of people (the original > designers) that some other group of people (the rules team). Hindsight is > 20/20, and that means the errata are made with more knowledge and experience > (thereby, wisdom) than the original designers had. > But, it's not a matter of blind trust. We can see for ourselves, by > actually playing the game and the cards, seeing tournaments with all the > same broken trick winning all the VPs, that "this card" or "that card" is > broken, and unbalances an otherwise excellent game. > We are very fortunate to have LSJ at the helm, who manages to keep the > "letter of the law" clear even in the most obtuse situations, and who keeps > to the "spirit of the law" in issuing errata to preserve the balanced nature > of the game. > The difference, to many players, is that (most all) Magic players like > only to win, and (most all) V:tES players actually like to *play*. We like > the game, we like the variety, we like the complexity that amazingly retains > an excellent set of checks and balances. And we want to *keep* it that way. > *That* is what matters most to us. What seems to matter most to you is > cards not be changed, and certainly not banned. Well, i think Andrew is making two reasonable points but perhaps not distinguishing between them clearly enough. He is saying firstly that Wizards have a game [namely Magic] the new expansions for which routinely turn out to contain broken power rares which eventually have to be banned, that this is a bad thing, and that to some extent VTES [originally from the same stable] has the same problem. Matt's answer to that was that Wizards ARE the market leaders in CCGs, or to put it another way, people LIKE it that way, and don't mind a card getting banned or fixed once they've had a chance to abuse it properly. i am sure this strikes chords with Rob "Legacy of Pander" Treasure, and i admit to a twinge of guilty satisfaction over the rewrite to heidelburg castle which followed closely on the heels of its [mis]use during Legbiter's Crusade in jyhad on-line. The seond point i think he's making is that for new or returning players text-unsupported errata are a big turn-off because they basically fence off a whole area of [re]discovery from the new/returning player - a little bit like rich countries telling poor ones that they have to go green even before they get industrial. > As you say: > > > Leaving ante cards aside, this now only has three banned cards to VTES's four. > > This makes VTES the worst CCG in this respect, worse even than Magic. > > Shameful. > > I find the idea of four banned cards being "shameful" to be bizarre, > really. I can't fathom why it bothers you so much. Way back in the Mists of Time [just after the 7/7/98 RT rulings] we had a right old ding-dong on the NG about banning and errata-ing problem cards. At that time LSJ and the RT were very much in favour of errata and against bans, so spiritually at least i think LSJ and Andrew agree about bans - sorry if that puts unwanted words in the mouth of either gentleman! i have the opposite view, namely that it is better to ban a card than to issue a text-unsupported erratum. My position reflects my belief that the tournament scene is less important for the overall health of VTES than most people on the NG think - we need to remember that we are unusually-committed and competitive players, and that we don't represent the REAL jyhad-playing public, many of whom find text- unsupported errata a real turn-off becaue it buggers up their home-made combos. i'd like to reinforce the point that you and Scott and Matt have made about the experience of individual cards in play, and not Grand Generalisations about Game Design, being the best way forward from problem cards. In reality there is no Great Project, shameful or otherwise, to ban cards - there are specific cards banned, for specific reasons. Cunctator Motion, High Stakes and Playing for Keeps are banned in tournament play because playing for ante is an optional rule that is not used in tournaments. Madness of the Bard is banned because we do not have enough judges to have one sitting in permanently on every tournament game, and even if we did it's doubtful that they could keep up with everything that was said by every player, and that any consensus could be reached about what constitutes rhyme. i know the ostensible reason is to do with non-English speakers but frankly i don't buy that one and i know at least two NES's who find this justification faintly offensive. Monocle of Clarity is banned because there are some truly appalling combos around this card, based on the template: "If i do X, will you do Y?" i sometimes wonder if these are quite as bad as people think, given that the monocle is unique equipment, and that the combos require an unusually-high level of cleverness to pull off. There is also a problem about judging the MoC but it is less severe than with MotB. Rowan Ring is banned because paralysation rules are no longer used in VTES. A pity. i think they should be reinstated. Return to Innocence is banned because nobody can think of a good way to rewrite the card that both preserves its original intention [burn a big vamp you control to bleed for loads] without shifting the game too radically towards Stupid Big Bleed Decks. i'd suggest that if somebody CAN think of such a fix then good for them, and us. If it happens then maybe we can look forward to a reissue of the card with new text - for the reasons explained above, i'd certainly NOT be in favour of it coming back with text-unsupported errata. And in defence of the AH design team i'd add that IMO they tried to do something worthy in that set, namely shift the balance towards Big Vamps and Allies. That their success was only partial is unfortunate but i think if you try anything creative you should have the right to fail - not understanding this point is one of the Deep Flaws in the British character, but by and large Australians, Americans and some Europeans do get it. i think the failure of AH in achieving these ends has laid the foundation for what i confidently expect to be SW's success at exactly the same task [among others]. > Play balance matters to me. It's part of what attracted me to V:tES, > (the other half being the complexity, and the montage of having that much > complexity while still being play balanced is what makes V:tES shine.) and > it certainly matters to me far *more* than whether 4 or 3 or 0 cards out of > Oodles got banned. i like play balance too, but it is not the most important thing to me. IMO a good game is good for reasons of synergy between a number of different factors which are different for different games. For VTES/Jyhad these would include balance, complexity, consistency, artwork, creation of a believable universe populated by credible personalites, social interaction with bright people, excitement, the opportunity to express your own creativity and personality, and lots of others probably which i've forgotten. i think that games that go questing after balance [or even consistency] at the expense of any other consideration can end up losing a lot of their freshness and accessibility. IMO this happened to Rage when it changed into Rage II and to D&D when it changed into AD&D [arguably] and second edition [even more arguably]. And not that i play the game, but a lot of people i know feel the same way about what happened to SFB. > > All that contrariness aside, lemme say one thing in some agreement. I'm > not sure it's clear that Rowan Ring needs to be banned, really, considering > the amount of errata that is in existence. "Paralyze" got nixed a long time > ago, but Wooden stake got fixed, and I can't think it's too hard to make > text for Rowan Ring that does the intended purpose. I mean, there is the > Amaranth/Archon combo, or just use Amaranth with Mua-cheeze, but is that > really a "broken" combo? i agree with you. Please, sir, can we have our paralysation back? " ENDQUOTE [ quoted text not captured ]

legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > > It isn't like buffy, that's for sure, because Buffy is the hero of buffy > and vampire slayers are only witless tools of the Methuselahs in VTES. So true... makes it really hard to make a Buffy theme deck. > Also Buffy is a TV show for kids and VTES is a CCG for grown-ups. Hey! Now you've crossed the line. Buffy is an excellent TV show (one of the best currently in production), and certainly not just for teenagers. You might be a little careful discussing things you obviously know nothing about. Rrrr... James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu

>legb...@my-deja.com wrote: >> >> It isn't like buffy, that's for sure, because Buffy is the hero of buffy >> and vampire slayers are only witless tools of the Methuselahs in VTES. > >So true... makes it really hard to make a Buffy theme deck. Let's brainstorm: We have multiple Muddled Vampire Hunters (of course we paste over the ugly picture with Sarah Michelle Gellar in various poses). Sure it's unique (so are Slayers), and everytime she dies, a new Slayer is born! (We put another into play). We need Wooden Stakes and Haven Uncovered. Also maybe Bum's Rush, Arson, and Ambush. We could throw in a Rowan Ring too if we really need to... Renegade Garou = Oz Order of Hermes Cabal (or maybe Arcanus Investigator) = generic watchers Outcast Mage (or maybe Thadius Zho) = Giles Tara, the Hollowed One = Willow Arms Dealer = Buffy's new beau (to represent his military connections) Escaped Mental Patient = Xander Cards such as Faithful Servant, Resplendant Protector, and Spiritual Protector can represent some more of the sidekicks. And I'm sure we can find someone for Jackie Therman and Tasha Morgan. Of course Charnas the Imp = Anya. And we DEFINITELY have to find appropriate vampires for Angel (maybe a different one for his Angelus version?) and Spike. Idealistically, we could use Giovanni vampires and throw in some Compel the Spirit and other Necromancy cards. Throw in some discipline-less combat cards (Boxed In, Fake Out, Dodge), and maybe Memories of Mortality. Definitely Vagabond Mystic. Maybe a Hunting Ground or two (Academic, Libary, University), Elder/Arcane Libary, Arcanum Chapterhouse, and the Mausoleum. To represent the Bronze (whatever that bar is called), we can choose from Fetish Club or Society Hunting Grounds, or Inbase Discotek, Hungry Coyote, or Succubus Club. Of course this will be a predominantly ally deck. It'll be hard with all these clan-specific cards...maybe some Clan Impersonations or Recruitments? Storage Annex could help allay the problem and Waste Management Operations helps overall re-cycling. Any other thoughts, suggestions, or ideas for the Buffy deck? Halcyan 2

In article <3A192E54...@math.wisc.edu>, James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > > legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > > > > It isn't like buffy, that's for sure, because Buffy is the hero of buffy > > and vampire slayers are only witless tools of the Methuselahs in VTES. > > So true... makes it really hard to make a Buffy theme deck. It would be GREAT if WW could make a stand-alone VTES expansion reflecting Buffy or Blade or Angel - bearing the same relationship to real VTES that Young Jedi does to Star Wars would be the format, i'd suggest. i know it would probably cost too much to get the license, but a Fiend can always Dream. > > > Also Buffy is a TV show for kids and VTES is a CCG for grown-ups. > > Hey! Now you've crossed the line. Buffy is an excellent TV show (one > of the best currently in production), and certainly not just for > teenagers. You might be a little careful discussing things you > obviously know nothing about. Rrrr... i like it too! Down boy, down!! But it IS a show for kids - stripped of the snappy dialogue its horror/sex content is definitely pre-watershed. Angel is more adult and i like that, too. i still maintain these are shows made for mid/late teens that just happen to have enough content and wry humour to appeal to adults also. And now STOP biting my leg. I do the biting around here, if you don't mind. > > James > -- > James Hamblin > ham...@math.wisc.edu > [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <20001120082632...@ng-fz1.aol.com>, halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote: > >The intent of the card was to make the players speak in an unusual and > >amusing manner. Having them add a nonsensical refrain to every > >sentence is good enough for this purpose in a tournament and satisfies > >the letter of the law. > > vs. > > >The rhyming requirement is trivial. Remembering to do so is not. > >Clear? > > Um...is it just me, or do these two statements seem to contradict each other? i don't think there is a contradiction, is there? The intent is to make you make a verbal fool of yourself. This is easy - it tells you how to do it on the card. But you might forget to do it, which is also easy. Conversely, remembering to do it is hard ie not trivial. i think this is fair enough, albeit IMO unnecessarily brusquely-put. > Is the intent of the card to cause speaking to be in a creative manner, or > causing them to remember to do so? > Actually i think the intent of the card is to show that whoever designed it had read and liked Sirens of Titan by a Famous SF writer whose name, alas, escapes me [possibly harry Harrison if he is the one who wrote Bill, the Galactic Hero, since i'm fairly sure they come from the same stable or perhaps Cosmodrome]. Anyway it's the one where there are these extraterrestrial panthers that eat anyone who doesn't speak in Heroic Rhyming Couplets. GREAT comic moment of Science Fiction, IMO. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <20001120092239...@ng-fz1.aol.com>, halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote: > >legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > >> > >> It isn't like buffy, that's for sure, because Buffy is the hero of buffy > >> and vampire slayers are only witless tools of the Methuselahs in VTES. > > > >So true... makes it really hard to make a Buffy theme deck. > > Let's brainstorm: > > We have multiple Muddled Vampire Hunters (of course we paste over the ugly > picture with Sarah Michelle Gellar in various poses). Sure it's unique (so are > Slayers), and everytime she dies, a new Slayer is born! (We put another into > play). > > We need Wooden Stakes and Haven Uncovered. Also maybe Bum's Rush, Arson, and > Ambush. We could throw in a Rowan Ring too if we really need to... > > Renegade Garou = Oz > Order of Hermes Cabal (or maybe Arcanus Investigator) = generic watchers > Outcast Mage (or maybe Thadius Zho) = > Giles Or else JS Simmons is. JS and Tasha can go on minions, you know. > Tara, the Hollowed One = Willow Oh NO!!! Tara is Miss Calendar, or better Rom Gypsy. Willow i'd suggest is Jackie Therman or Tasha Morgan. > Arms Dealer = Buffy's new beau (to represent his military > connections) > Escaped Mental Patient = Xander Too good. Wesley might be escaped Mental patient. Xander i'd suggest is Guardian Ghoul or Courier. Not Courier. Courier is too good. Courier could be Doyle from Angel. > > Cards such as Faithful Servant, Resplendant Protector, and Spiritual Protector > can represent some more of the sidekicks. And I'm sure we can find someone for > Jackie Therman and Tasha Morgan. Of course Charnas the Imp = Anya. > > And we DEFINITELY have to find appropriate vampires for Angel (maybe a > different one for his Angelus version?) Uriah Winter or Jimmy Dunn. and Spike. Dylan looks a bit like Spike, i always think. Then wotsername the !Ven with dementation could be Dru. Idealistically, we could use > Giovanni vampires and throw in some Compel the Spirit and other Necromancy > cards. > > Throw in some discipline-less combat cards (Boxed In, Fake Out, Dodge), and > maybe Memories of Mortality. Definitely Vagabond Mystic. > > Maybe a Hunting Ground or two (Academic, Libary, University), Elder/Arcane > Libary, Arcanum Chapterhouse, and the Mausoleum. To represent the Bronze > (whatever that bar is called), we can choose from Fetish Club or Society > Hunting Grounds, or Inbase Discotek, Hungry Coyote, or Succubus Club. > > Of course this will be a predominantly ally deck. It'll be hard with all these > clan-specific cards...maybe some Clan Impersonations or Recruitments? Storage > Annex could help allay the problem and Waste Management Operations helps > overall re-cycling. > > Any other thoughts, suggestions, or ideas for the Buffy deck? Millicent Smith, Puritan Vampire Hunter would become Faith, Overtly Promiscuous Vampire Hunter. Political Ally or Antagonist or Infernal Familiar would be the Mayor. Arcanum Investigator might be Professor Whatsername. The rocker girl that Oz gets off with would be Black Spiral buddy. War Ghoul is obviously Cordelia Chase - the picture shows EXACTLY why she NEEDS all those shoes and cosmetics. > > Halcyan 2 [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > I don't need to - it's already been done. If that's the way you'd > have them do it, they merely need to specify one of many rhyming > dictionaries as a standard reference. You can buy Merriam-Webster's > Rhyming Dictionary from Amazon for all of $4.49. And for every language on the planet you'll be doing the rest of the leg-work, I take it? [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8v9pr4$5fh$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, xi...@waste.org (Xian) wrote: > In article <6sng1tgrr0ihfqpng...@4ax.com>, > Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > > (although i have NEVER slept with a goat. so there.) > > -- Derek > > Jack-Booted Thug of Atlanta > > Well, who would want to cuddle up in a barn in a pile of hay with a > distinctly goat-y smelling thing? The Brides of Legbiter manage this on a regular basis. Talk about getting no sleep. Talk and Sleep are both discouraged on these occasions. > > Note that, suspiciously, he makes no mention of anything else he might > have done with a goat. > > Xian, who has never had any form of sexual contact with a goat. Note that, suspiciously, neither Xian nor Derek make any mention of anything else they might have done with any other kind of ungulate. > > :) > > Legbiter, who is taking the Fifth Amendment and Passing the Port QUICKLY to his left. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8vbep3$d03$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <legb...@my-deja.com> wrote: >Actually i think the intent of the card is to show that whoever designed >it had read and liked Sirens of Titan by a Famous SF writer whose name, >alas, escapes me [possibly harry Harrison if he is the one who wrote >Bill, the Galactic Hero, since i'm fairly sure they come from the same >stable or perhaps Cosmodrome]. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Sirens of Titan. It was the only even half-way legible material he ever produced, with the possible exception of cat's cradle, which is legible in its own, Peter Greenaway-on-an-off-day sort of horrible uninteresting way. He's not actually worse than Joyce Carol Oates, but damn, he comes close. gomi -- i haul the burden for the high and mighty but i'm the top hat devil's son i've got the luck of the drunk, try an' nail me i'm the bullseye - aim your gun

In the recent changes to the RPG, Mortis is now a subset 'Path' of Necromancy... more or less... much like Walk of Flames is a Path of Thaumaturgy. So including Mortis powers as a set of cards compatible with Necromancy would be consistent in both game terms and World of Darkness terms... It is possible for Giovanni vampires to learn Mortis and it is possible for say Harbingers to learn the Sepulchre Path... I personally would much rather see the Giovanni become a playable clan... in my opinion as they are they don't compete at all. Of all the 'independents', the Giovanni are probably the least able to compete. Some of the existing Necromancy cards are completely useless... I mean, 'Eyes of the Dead' ? Come on... that card bites. What we need are BETTER Necromancy cards... not a slight variation of Necromancy that can't be played by Giovanni. Cheers, WES

>> From what I remember (YMMV), Simon can't change the rule. This >> concrete-ness permits him to work an additional degree of trickery on >> those who forget momentarily that there is only one rule: do what >> Simon says, if the sentence begins "Simon says", and if not, DON'T. > > What if "Simon says to do nothing" vs. > "just do nothing." How do you tell if the person is doing or not doing what > they should or should not be doing? > >> This could get confusing rapidly, especially with a Simon who wanted >> to put the game beyond the reach of the players' memory by simply >> adding conditionals ad infinitum/ad nauseam. > > Kind of reminds me of that card game called Mao or something. Every game > someone gets to add a new rule that everyone else has to try to figure out as > the game progresses... /gives card to Halcyon "Explaining a rule." =) -- Pat Ricochet Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta

> i agree with you. Please, sir, can we have our paralysation back? Here here. Although Jyhad is still quite complex, I think they tried too hard to water it down when transitioning to VTES. Of course it makes sense that many terms (paralyze, close quarters) didn't have enough cards to support its use, but maybe we can change that? Introduce new cards with those terms and reprint the old ones (with errata). Paralyze: We just have Wooden Stake and Rowan Ring. Close Quarters: Never actually heard or read of this, but if what people say about it are true, Storm Sewers and Gang Tactics already use the idea. Doing so would save a lot of room (and a lot less explaining on each card). But then again, seeing how EFFICIENT blank space was used in Sabbat War ::cough cough::, maybe it's better to have lots of text covering the entire card as opposed to really ugly looking cards that have text in the first 3 or 4 lines, and have nothing in the next 20... Halcyan 2

> I picked up this game again because I was impressed by the wit and > intelligence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and thought that this game > might evoke some of the same magic. Instead, I find that it's leaden > and the players seem to suffer from acute constriction of the > sphincter. To quote James Coupe, "Close the door on your way out then?" Andrew, you've made it clear that you have no intention but to continue to blather about this game that you, apparently, hate. You've made it clear you think V:tES players are uptight fools who simply can't see the wisdom of your words. Your attempt at appearing superior to all around you belies you to be insecure, a jerk, or both. I have no idea why you continue to spend time on this newsgroup, but for a group of people that argues, as a rule, to reach a CONCLUSION, you're making a right ass of yourself, insulting all the players because several vocal posters disagree with you, and nobody backs you up, so you lash out at everyone indiscriminately, for not agreeing with your opinion. Feel free to reply, since I you've proved it's your prerogative to have "the last word." But you might do me one last favor and either stop blanket insulting all the players of V:tES in your posts, or just quit reading and posting to the newsgroup as a whole. I fully expect you will do neither, but hope to be pleasantly surprised. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8vbep3$d03$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > Actually i think the intent of the card is to show that whoever > designed it had read and liked Sirens of Titan by a Famous SF writer > whose name, alas, escapes me As Gomi pointed out, Sirens of Titan was by Kurt Vonnegut. I personally also enjoy Player Piano; Slaughterhouse 5 is bizarre, yet interesting; I also just bought God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater which I remember reading years ago and liking at the time...we'll see if I still do. > [possibly harry Harrison if he is the one who wrote Bill, the > Galactic Hero, since i'm fairly sure they come from the same > stable or perhaps Cosmodrome]. Anyway it's the one where there are Yeah, Harry Harrison wrote Bill, the Galactic Hero, as well as being the writer of the Stainless Steel Rat series...also entertaining, and I think there's a new one out. Pretty entertaining spoof of SF writing, in general. Similar to Michael Moorcock's short The Stone Thing, but in novel format. Xian -- But rain falls down and I feel cold A cold that sleeps within my heart It tears the earth and sun apart --New Order, "Shellshock" [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] To try to follow Legbiter's example of being conciliatory: I'll apologize to the newsgroup as a whole for lashing out myself, and therefore being not only a ass, but a hypocritical ass. Nevertheless, I stand by my bone of contention that Andrew has several times insulted the game and/or it's players as a whole, and done so unfairly. However, I'll also state that I find Andrew's writing style inflammatory, if not deliberately so. As such, I've replied in kind, which is only going to get him riled up as well, of course, and waste everyone's time on the newsgroup. I'm willing to back off and give him the benefit of the doubt. If he persists, of course, I'm not going to continue to give him said benefit. (Sorry, Leggy, that's the best I can do when I'm cheezed off =) [ quoted text not captured ]

On 20 Nov 2000 14:22:39 GMT, Halcyan 2 wrote: >To represent the Bronze (whatever that bar is called), >we can choose from Fetish Club or Society >Hunting Grounds, or Inbase Discotek, Hungry Coyote, or Succubus Club. These are good ideas but it was clear to me as soon as I saw it that the card for the Bronze is The Rack. >Any other thoughts, suggestions, or ideas for the Buffy deck? I built a Buffy deck a few weeks ago and it uses quite a few of the cards already suggested. It works but not as well as I'd like - getting the crypt right is tricky. I'll check out some of your ideas now that I've got a few more cards. Thanks. Andrew

On Mon, 20 Nov 2000 05:39:58 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: >Do bhíoth dhamh ag déanaimh eóil >an gheágsoin fa gar do mhaoin; >fada siar ón tírsi thuaidh >aniar uain do-chínnsi an gcraoibh. Bravo! Is someone going to tell us what it means? Andrew

On Tue, 21 Nov 2000 08:40:21 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] No problem. Line-by-line... >>Do bhíoth dhamh ag déanaimh eóil "There once was a man from Nantucket..." -- Derek Jack-Booted Thug of Atlanta "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." - C. Darwin, 1871

In article <8vbnfb$2djm$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, go...@best.com (Gomi no Sensei) wrote: > In article <8vbep3$d03$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <legb...@my-deja.com> wrote: > > >Actually i think the intent of the card is to show that whoever designed > >it had read and liked Sirens of Titan by a Famous SF writer whose name, > >alas, escapes me [possibly harry Harrison if he is the one who wrote > >Bill, the Galactic Hero, since i'm fairly sure they come from the same > >stable or perhaps Cosmodrome]. > > Kurt Vonnegut wrote Sirens of Titan. It was the only even half-way legible > material he ever produced, with the possible exception of cat's cradle, > which is legible in its own, Peter Greenaway-on-an-off-day sort of horrible > uninteresting way. He's not actually worse than Joyce Carol Oates, but damn, > he comes close. Thanks again for the clarification! i did like Slaughterhouse 5 by Vonnegut. Also didn't he do Wampeter, Foma and Granfaloons? [i'm sure that's NOT the title, but it was another one i quite liked]. Who is Joyce Carol Oates? Legbiter, QUITE unable to assess literature accurately due to brain- damage sustained while trying to read Gary Gygax's Magum Opuses. [ quoted text not captured ]

<snip> > > To try to follow Legbiter's example of being conciliatory: Hey! That's fighting talk where i come from! i'm a conciliasocialist, me [that's concialiacommie in American, i believe]. > I'll apologize to the newsgroup as a whole for lashing out myself, and > therefore being not only a ass, but a hypocritical ass. Well, as i've said before i think that everyone, including you and Andrew and Derek but not Jeffrey moore, has the right to be vocal, passionate and downright insulting in arguing for, against or around this game or anything else you care about. Civility in discourse is a tactic to be used, sometimes, when you want to advance your argument. Rudeness and passion are other tactics which are sometimes more appropriate [pace LSJ and Ben Franklin]. But civility for its own sake is deadly, sterile and the antithesis of healthy democratic debate. On second thoughts even Jeffrey Moore may speak. Not TOO often, though, and preferably after a bit of EDUKASHUN [wot we call it in Engerlond]. Nevertheless, I > stand by my bone of contention that Andrew has several times insulted the > game and/or it's players as a whole, and done so unfairly. > However, I'll also state that I find Andrew's writing style > inflammatory, if not deliberately so. As such, I've replied in kind, which > is only going to get him riled up as well, of course, and waste everyone's > time on the newsgroup. I'm willing to back off and give him the benefit of > the doubt. > If he persists, of course, I'm not going to continue to give him said > benefit. (Sorry, Leggy, that's the best I can do when I'm cheezed off =) And a dam' fine effort. i agree with you that Andrew doesn't come across well in his arguments about/against Jyhad because he doesn't seem to actually like the game [not understanding it is another issue]. But he was kind to me when i was relearning Shadowfist, and i personally also agree with some of the points he is making about our game. > > -- > Pat Ricochet > Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta > > [ quoted text not captured ]

<snip text of interesting post about how to rhyme in Erse> > This, and the related post by The Hated Coupe Beneath Whose Iron Heel the Kindred of Central England Nightly Groan, i find to be amazingly interesting. Slightly off-topic but i have to get this in while we have some proper linguists in the house, am i right in thinking that in Classical Chinese verse rhymes are actually regarded as a poetic blunder? [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8ve581$kq5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <legb...@my-deja.com> wrote: >In article <8vbnfb$2djm$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, >Thanks again for the clarification! i did like Slaughterhouse 5 by >Vonnegut. Also didn't he do Wampeter, Foma and Granfaloons? [i'm sure >that's NOT the title, but it was another one i quite liked]. That was Cat's Cradle, yeah. >Who is Joyce Carol Oates? "A pair of very untalented actors from Canada." Um. Actually, this gets Long and Ranty. The U.S. has a long-standing love affair with the either/or dichotomy (or, as poncey Rightpondians know it, the Excluded Middle). A book is either High Lit'rature, and therefore Good, or Lowbrow Genre Trash, and therefore Bad. SF, fantasy, murder mysteries, and horror are all in the "not High Lit'rature" section, barring musty ancients that have been grandfathered in (Stoker, Shelley, Verne, Wells, Doyle). Joyce Carol Oates is the supreme current representative of masturbating for 500 pages and putting out some garbage book that is guaranteed to get slavering reviews and sell as many copies as there are insecure-about-their-intellect pseudo-'cultured' former English majors in the Country. She gives literature a bad name, and gets all my pissed-offedness at the modern Aahhhht 'community' going. You didn't want to know, really. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6C8CBA989F655336.4E3119C5...@lp.airnews.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Mon, 20 Nov 2000 05:39:58 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: > >>Do bhíoth dhamh ag déanaimh eóil >>an gheágsoin fa gar do mhaoin; >>fada siar ón tírsi thuaidh >>aniar uain do-chínnsi an gcraoibh. > >Bravo! Is someone going to tell us what it means? "There once was a man from Nantucket..." gomi [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 21 Nov 2000 16:04:32 GMT, legb...@my-deja.com wrote: >Andrew doesn't come across well in his arguments about/against >Jyhad because he doesn't seem to actually like the game Don't understand me so fast. In this case, I'm the one liking the game and it's the Bard Banners who loathe it. It isn't me that's saying "screw the design team". Andrew

In article <61743D1CBE0F76CB.30FAAE22...@lp.airnews.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Okay, now no-one else can play Reality Mirror for the remainder of this thread. Andrew: do consider a career in politics. Labour desperately needs a good sophist. gomi guffawing in slightly sick disbelief [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 21 Nov 2000 22:12:23 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Tue, 21 Nov 2000 16:04:32 GMT, legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > >>Andrew doesn't come across well in his arguments about/against >>Jyhad because he doesn't seem to actually like the game > >Don't understand me so fast. In this case, I'm the one liking the >game and it's the Bard Banners who loathe it. It isn't me that's >saying "screw the design team". Another bunch of unmitigated, provocatory, unsubstantiated CRAP. Madness of the Bard came out in the Dark Sovereigns expansion, and as I understand it, Garfield was NOT involved in the design of this expansion... much like he was NOT involved in the design of Ancient Hearts, which produced Return to Innocence and Tomb of Ridiculous Blood Gain III, I mean, Ramses, for us. The original designers of the game are the ones who produced the Jyhad set. That same Jyhad set serves exceptionally well for sealed-draft tournaments, as was seen at DragonCon with 25 players having a blast playing cards like "Vanish from Mind's Eye". The original well-balanced Jyhad set design is what we all wish to maintain. This is why we argue for cards like RtI to be banned so strongly; note that in Jyhad there is no way to bleed for more than 4 pool with any given single card, and that ONE card that *can* bleed for 4 requires superior Dominate and one blood. Monocle of Clarity was from Jyhad, yes. It was a neat idea. It was unfortunately ill-thought out; everyone makes mistakes, and it turned out to be too easy to break the Monocle. Oh well. One mistake out of the whole original set isn't too bad, frankly, esp. for a time when CCGs were brand spankin' new. As far as you liking the game, you have YET to post something that didn't, as a sideline, illustrate something you found wrong with v:TES and that Fist or Doomtown didn't do "better". Either you don't like the game, or you're a chronic complainer. Which is it? And as far as the REST of that paragraph, please do not waste our time OR yours by trying to put words in our mouths that we neither spoke nor implied. It is a pathetic way to counterargue, the last resort of someone who is out of mental resources. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <mnlm1tgr5o28k86vo...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >And as far as the REST of that paragraph, please do not waste our time >OR yours by trying to put words in our mouths that we neither spoke >nor implied. It is a pathetic way to counterargue, the last resort of >someone who is out of mental resources. I understand proof by repeated assertion is big in Sweden. Perhaps Our Andrew has been visiting there. gomi -- Individually, I love you all with affection unspeakable; but, collectively, I look upon you with a disgust that amounts to absolute detestation.

On 22 Nov 2000 06:57:38 GMT, Gomi no Sensei wrote: >>And as far as the REST of that paragraph, please do not waste our time >>OR yours by trying to put words in our mouths that we neither spoke >>nor implied. It is a pathetic way to counterargue, the last resort of >>someone who is out of mental resources. > >I understand proof by repeated assertion is big in Sweden. Perhaps >Our Andrew has been visiting there. I usually use quotation marks to indicate a direct quote. In this case, "Screw the design team." was taken from Matt Green's recent post. His position doesn't seem very different from Derek's. The Swedes (and the Quebecois before them) were much abused for adding a restriction to the game that was not in the original design. You guys then turn right around and insist that it's necessary to ban cards (Monocle), rules (Paralyze) and options (repeat actions) that were in the original design. Look in your own Reality Mirror. >Andrew: do consider a career in politics. Labour desperately >needs a good sophist. I'm already in the kitchen cabinet of a Labour M.P. He's enjoyed playing Shadowfist and Doomtown but I haven't tried VTES with him yet. In our last gaming session, we were fighting in the jungles of Malaya instead. He'd probably enjoy the political mechanics of VTES and will especially appreciate Conservative Agitation. Andrew

In article < 3D47B1212DAED001.D19AED2E...@lp.airnews.net>, a...@csi.com wrote: > On 22 Nov 2000 06:57:38 GMT, Gomi no Sensei wrote: > > >>And as far as the REST of that paragraph, please do not waste our time > >>OR yours by trying to put words in our mouths that we neither spoke > >>nor implied. It is a pathetic way to counterargue, the last resort of > >>someone who is out of mental resources. > > > >I understand proof by repeated assertion is big in Sweden. Perhaps > >Our Andrew has been visiting there. > > I usually use quotation marks to indicate a direct quote. In this > case, "Screw the design team." was taken from Matt Green's recent > post. His position doesn't seem very different from Derek's. > > The Swedes (and the Quebecois before them) were much abused for adding > a restriction to the game that was not in the original design. You > guys then turn right around and insist that it's necessary to ban > cards (Monocle), rules (Paralyze) and options (repeat actions) that > were in the original design. Look in your own Reality Mirror. > > >Andrew: do consider a career in politics. Labour desperately > >needs a good sophist. > > I'm already in the kitchen cabinet of a Labour M.P. He's enjoyed > playing Shadowfist and Doomtown but I haven't tried VTES with him yet. > In our last gaming session, we were fighting in the jungles of Malaya > instead. He'd probably enjoy the political mechanics of VTES and will > especially appreciate Conservative Agitation. Plus disputed terriTORY - geddit????? ************************************* See, see??? i TOLD you all that Andrew was basically an OKD albeit a little, um, precipitate in some of his arguments. As for your pet MP Andrew, i'm guessing its little watsisname, the guy who beat Portillo on that never-to-be-forgotten May night 3 years ago. But whoever it is, may i also recommend On The Edge for his/your consideration? i think the building up of power-structure aspect of that game is VERY likely to appeal to the professional political mind. > > Andrew [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > Don't understand me so fast. In this case, I'm the one liking the > game and it's the Bard Banners who loathe it. It isn't me that's > saying "screw the design team". You are assuming that, as with a number of other games, the Design Team for DS, AH and Sabbat (not Sabbat War) fully understood Jyhad and its intricacies, playing it regularly. This is *not* the case. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > The Swedes (and the Quebecois before them) were much abused for adding > a restriction to the game that was not in the original design. That some of the restrictions (e.g. xCL) were not in the original design isn't why people are attacked for using them. The fact is, many of the restrictions added do none of the things people say they do and lead to a more broken game. Were xCL to fix drastic holes in the game, people wouldn't object to it so much and it could, quite possibly, be a tournament rule option. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 22 Nov 2000 legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > As for your pet MP Andrew, i'm guessing its little watsisname, the guy > who beat Portillo on that never-to-be-forgotten May night 3 years ago. Stephen Twigg, Enfield Southgate. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 22 Nov 2000 17:48:25 +0000, James Coupe wrote: >You are assuming that, as with a number of other games, the Design Team >for DS, AH and Sabbat (not Sabbat War) fully understood Jyhad and its >intricacies, playing it regularly. I don't know about that. But, judging by results, I do not observe a drop in quality between the sets. So far as bans go we have: 4 Jyhad 2 Dark Sovereigns 1 Ancient Hearts 0 Sabbat Things seem to have gotten better rather than worse. It's not like Magic where, even though the recent design teams have contained experienced players, sets have continued to appear with cards which have soon been banned. I'm guessing that there's an element of politics in this disparagement. I have the impression that fans still have a large chip on their shoulder about the Jyhad -> VTES renaming and this may colour their attitude to the WotC staff responsible. But I'm uncertain about the origin of the VEKN and the relationship of it and its officers to what went before. Who first banned these cards and when? Andrew

On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > I don't know about that. But, judging by results, I do not observe a > drop in quality between the sets. So far as bans go we have: > > 4 Jyhad 2 of which are because ante is banned (the use of ante has international implications, for countries which ban all forms of gambling), 1 is unworkable (Monocle) and the rule for the other (Rowan Ring) is no longer supported. Of those, only Monocle is broken. > 2 Dark Sovereigns > 1 Ancient Hearts > 0 Sabbat You fail to take into account the 7/7 (and a few pieces of similar style) errata, which are somewhat more relevant with regards the power:cost ratio of a number of cards which *could* (but weren't) have been solved by outright banning. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <AD61E77863DB33D2.1B873ADF...@lp.airnews.net>, a...@csi.com wrote: > On Wed, 22 Nov 2000 17:48:25 +0000, James Coupe wrote: > > >You are assuming that, as with a number of other games, the Design Team > >for DS, AH and Sabbat (not Sabbat War) fully understood Jyhad and its > >intricacies, playing it regularly. > > I don't know about that. But, judging by results, I do not observe a > drop in quality between the sets. So far as bans go we have: > > 4 Jyhad > 2 Dark Sovereigns > 1 Ancient Hearts > 0 Sabbat > > Things seem to have gotten better rather than worse. It's not like > Magic where, even though the recent design teams have contained > experienced players, sets have continued to appear with cards which > have soon been banned. > Overpowered cards are one measure. Underpowered cards are another. If the percentage of coasters per set were calculated (an obvious impossibility as highly subjective), I suspect DS and AH would lead the pack. Tom [ quoted text not captured ]

a...@csi.com wrote: > I'm guessing that there's an element of politics in this > disparagement. I have the impression that fans still have a large > chip on their shoulder about the Jyhad -> VTES renaming and this may > colour their attitude to the WotC staff responsible. But I'm > uncertain about the origin of the VEKN and the relationship of it and > its officers to what went before. Who first banned these cards and > when? The DCI banned all of the cards that are currently on the V:EKN banned list. Madness of the Bard and Return to Innocence were the last to be added to the list, and were added after the point in time in which I became the rules authority - not that there's necessarily any connection - just food for your theories. They also banned a few more (Rotschreck, Stake, etc.) over the course of history (which became unbanned around the time that I became the rules authority, incidentally). And they had previously toyed with a restricted list (no more than 2 each of Freak Drive, Kine Resources Contested, etc. which eventually became 6 and then went back to 2 briefly) before the DCI eventually adopted their version of the SPTR - the DCI's version included No Repeat Actions and Delayed Vote Replenishment. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) VTES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ [ quoted text not captured ]

Tom Kassel <tka...@my-deja.com> wrote: > If the percentage of coasters per set were calculated (an obvious > impossibility as highly subjective), I suspect DS and AH would lead > the pack. I'd agree with you there. But then I regard the Independent clans and their disciplines are being coasters en masse. I don't look forward to Final Nights if it is all about those clans and won't buy much. It's not so much play balance as their lack of coolness. I'd much rather see some Cathayans or Hunters. Andrew [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 22 Nov 2000 22:22:04 +0000, James Coupe wrote: >2 of which are because ante is banned (the use of ante has international >implications, for countries which ban all forms of gambling) De minimis non curat lex. I expect that ante is not used for three other reasons: 1. It is an optional rule 2. It complicates tournaments in which you are expected to re-use the same deck without modification 3. The anal folk who play CCG simply can't stand the idea of losing one of their precious cards. Myself, I always thought that ante was a clever idea of Garfield's but found that, in practise, the clash with my own collecting instinct caused too many pangs. It's a shame that we can't live up to his expectations. >Of those, only Monocle is broken. With the existing errata/clarifications, I still don't see the problem. The persistence of the ban must either be inertia or simple prejudice against any card with an open-ended nature. Andrew

<a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:8vj6ub$csp$1...@nnrp1.deja.com... > Tom Kassel <tka...@my-deja.com> wrote: > > > If the percentage of coasters per set were calculated (an obvious > > impossibility as highly subjective), I suspect DS and AH would lead > > the pack. > > I'd agree with you there. But then I regard the Independent clans and > their disciplines are being coasters en masse. You and the people you play with must not experiment much to see what the independent clans can do. You should really try to play around with them a bit. > I don't look forward > to Final Nights if it is all about those clans and won't buy much. It's > not so much play balance as their lack of coolness. Could their lack of coolness be caused by... oh... I don't know... having less CARDS than the other clans? Sounds like the guy who wants to give the rhyming card another chance is biased against practically two whole sets, maybe because he hasn't tried them. Pot? Kettle? Black? > I'd much rather see some Cathayans or Hunters. > > Andrew > I'd rather see some new cards to bolster up the 4 independent clans. -- Kevin J. Mergen, kjme...@home.com, Prince of Madison, WI "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 03:27:28 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: >You and the people you play with must not experiment much to see what the >independent clans can do. You should really try to play around with them >a bit. Life's too short. The original seven clans are all quite interesting in concept but the only additional one that I've got any time for is the Lasombra. The antitribu are just silly reflections of the originals and even the Caitiff are more interesting than the Independents. Andrew

In article <Pine.SOL.4.21.001122...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Wed, 22 Nov 2000 legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > > As for your pet MP Andrew, i'm guessing its little watsisname, the guy > > who beat Portillo on that never-to-be-forgotten May night 3 years ago. > > Stephen Twigg, Enfield Southgate. Excellent, i was stuck on Twiglet and Putney but i knew they were both wrong. Twiglet is a tasty snack and Putney was where james goldsmith didn't beat old frog-face the toesucker. But somebody else did. > > -- > James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D > "Steve: Yeah, well that's one of the advantages of being a sad, lonely > fairy, I guess. You get to learn how to be a spy." > - Stephen Fry, Making History > > [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:B50F5750598814F4.63E3507F...@lp.airnews.net... > On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 03:27:28 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: > > >You and the people you play with must not experiment much to see what the > >independent clans can do. You should really try to play around with them > >a bit. > > Life's too short. The original seven clans are all quite interesting > in concept but the only additional one that I've got any time for is > the Lasombra. The antitribu are just silly reflections of the > originals and even the Caitiff are more interesting than the > Independents. Sounds like you either don't plan on playing the game too long or don't plan on living too long. IMHO, you may want to rethink your attitude. What clans do you play? The Camarilla Seven and the Lasombra? How can you talk the way you talk when you don't even attempt a try with more than 50% of the clans? > Andrew [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ, Lasombra, Do either of you fine fellows actually *have* the post where that other fine fellow showed us all how Monocle can be broken? It would help the discussion is we could get that up here. "James Coupe" <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote in message news:Pine.SOL.4.21.001124...@green.csi.cam.ac.uk... > On Thu, 23 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > > >Of those, only Monocle is broken. > > > > With the existing errata/clarifications, I still don't see the > > problem. > > Were Deja to be online, the question about "truth values" is one such > problem. > > If you cannot break Monocle, even with all the errata, rulings and > clarifications on it, quite simply, you aren't trying hard enough. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Kevin M. wrote: > You and the people you play with must not experiment much to see what the > independent clans can do. You should really try to play around with them > a bit. My deck "All Hail Mind Numb" is still one of the decks I've had most fun with, in all the years I've been playing V:TES. Heavy Setite Presence, with tap, bleed and corrupt. Tres cool. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Kevin M. wrote: > What clans do you play? The Camarilla Seven and the Lasombra? How can > you talk the way you talk when you don't even attempt a try with more > than 50% of the clans? Bluff and bravado, like most of his posts. He hasn't played anything like the number of games the rest of the newsgroup has and yet still is able to provide us with mana from on high about how it should be played. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 legb...@my-deja.com wrote: > Excellent, i was stuck on Twiglet and Putney but i knew they were both > wrong. Twiglet is a tasty snack and Putney was where james goldsmith > didn't beat old frog-face the toesucker. But somebody else did. Anthony Colman (Lab) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 17:41:03 +0000, James Coupe wrote: >> With the existing errata/clarifications, I still don't see the >> problem. > >Were Deja to be online, the question about "truth values" is one such >problem. This sounds like a question about questions and hence is forbidden. Andrew

On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > >Were Deja to be online, the question about "truth values" is one such > >problem. > > This sounds like a question about questions and hence is forbidden. Nope, it was a question about a truth value which was not defined in terms of another question. Like I say, if you can't break Monocle with all the standing restrictions on its use, you're not trying hard enough. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 25 Nov 2000 00:01:23 +0000, James Coupe wrote: >Nope, it was a question about a truth value which was not defined in terms >of another question. > >Like I say, if you can't break Monocle with all the standing restrictions >on its use, you're not trying hard enough. I'd be more impressed if you could actually reproduce this killer question. It's not me who's not trying hard enough. Andrew

>> 2 of which are because ante is banned (the use of ante has international >> implications, for countries which ban all forms of gambling) > > De minimis non curat lex. I expect that ante is not used for three > other reasons: > > 1. It is an optional rule > 2. It complicates tournaments in which you are expected to re-use the > same deck without modification In case you've missed the discussion that you yourself started, it was about banned cards. A card can only be "banned" from tournament play, so this reason is sufficient. However, you go on to say: > 3. The anal folk who play CCG simply can't stand the idea of losing > one of their precious cards. Does "the anal folk who play CCG" include yourself or not? Since you make no distinction between players, I would then assume that you do. However, since you distance yourself by referring to the lost ante as "*their* precious cards", I am left assuming that you refer to players other than yourself who we are then to assume is a CCG player that one would never describe as "anal." > Myself, I always thought that ante was a clever idea of Garfield's but > found that, in practise, the clash with my own collecting instinct > caused too many pangs. It's a shame that we can't live up to his > expectations. "Pangs?" Are you for real? "It's a shame that we can't live up to his expectations?" Once again, the "Founding Fathers" of V:tES are beyond reproach, and it's only the inability of "us shameful, anal players" to see the True Wisdom of the original designers. For as much as you seem able to construct coherent sentences, Andrew, you really can belt out some absolute nonsense. I'd be pleased to hear that you're just pulling our collective leg, and don't believe this one bit, and I'd be the first to admit I was trolled into it, because I can't reconcile it any other way. On the topic, though, I would never want to play with ante because it would mean that I would *have* to make a deck that I thought would never get ousted if I wanted to use any cards I didn't have many of. The point of winning V:tES, however, is to earn VPs, only one of which you can earn by being the last man standing. If I win 3/5 VPs at a table for 3 ousts and am then ousted, I have won the game, but lost my ante. As VPs are intangible, but cards are tangible, I risk something for nothing. Yes, yes, I've picked up 3 ante cards, but we're back "cards I didn't have many of". They can all play Gangrel Untap Walls with all common cards, but I can't make a Giovanni deck and use my one copy of Ambrosius, since the risk is too great. This limits my deck choices to common cards, even if I'm making a deck that can win a table with 3/5 VPs. Ante was introduced in Magic, a primarily 2 player game, where winner takes all. A deck is desiged to: Win or Win. This mechanic does not carry over to V:tES, with the Predator/Prey relationship and where the games are almost always 4-6 people. I begin to support James Coupe's theory that you haven't played this game anywhere near as much as the rest of us, if you've even ever played at all. On top of all that, I'm playing with my playgroup to have fun, not to gamble, and the rare cards actually cost money, and that only leads to hard feelings, especially if I'm playing a goofy new deck (something we "anal" players do often) and lose a rare because my trick didn't' work out. If we're playing a tournament, well, you already explained that one away yourself. >> Of those, only Monocle is broken. > > With the existing errata/clarifications, I still don't see the > problem. The persistence of the ban must either be inertia or simple > prejudice against any card with an open-ended nature. Because we won't look through the old news *for* you and produce the exact wording of the "question that broke the MonoCamel's back?" You're certainly not making friends fast, and here you are asking for favors. Sheesh. What a nerve. -- Pat Ricochet Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta

>> You and the people you play with must not experiment much to see what the >> independent clans can do. You should really try to play around with them >> a bit. > > Life's too short. The original seven clans are all quite interesting > in concept but the only additional one that I've got any time for is > the Lasombra. The antitribu are just silly reflections of the > originals and even the Caitiff are more interesting than the > Independents. i.e. you don't take time to play the game because you're too busy pontificating on the newsgroup about a game you revile and don't actually play. Why *do* you post here? Just trolling? [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > I'm guessing that there's an element of politics in this > disparagement. I have the impression that fans still have a large > chip on their shoulder about the Jyhad -> VTES renaming and this may > colour their attitude to the WotC staff responsible. Actually, the only WotC "staff" who's responsible for the changing of the card backs - which is the truly divisive issue, not the renaming of the game - is Peter Adkison (sp?). The renaming/repackaging issues may have been a general marketing brainstorm from various individuals but Adkison took sole responsibility for insisting that the cardbacks needed to be changed as part of the overall facelift. I do not believe he participated in resolving any game design or tournament rules issues. However, IMHO, the quality of his excursion into business ethics was about on par with the Jyhad designers' ability to make intelligent decisions about the structure of the game: "Let's demonstrate our respect for other cultures by screwing all the customers who've bought our product!" Fred

In article <B50F5750598814F4.63E3507F...@lp.airnews.net>, a...@csi.com wrote: > On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 03:27:28 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: > > >You and the people you play with must not experiment much to see what the > >independent clans can do. You should really try to play around with them > >a bit. > > Life's too short. The original seven clans are all quite interesting > in concept but the only additional one that I've got any time for is > the Lasombra. The antitribu are just silly reflections of the > originals and even the Caitiff are more interesting than the > Independents. Wow! That is like saying, "When I want some ice cream, I'll go to McDonald's. They have chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. All other flavors really aren't that important." Stick with your strengths. I would recommend vanilla. Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp [ quoted text not captured ]

>The point of >winning V:tES, however, is to earn VPs, only one of which you can earn by >being the last man standing. Actually, if you're last man standing, don't you get 2 VP's? One for yourself, and one for your former prey? >They can all >play Gangrel Untap Walls with all common cards, but I can't make a Giovanni >deck and use my one copy of Ambrosius, since the risk is too great. Agreed. Plus with ante, you can make REALLY nasty political decks. Think about it. Play multiple High Stakes to have others ante more cards. Use Cuntator Motion to choose and set up all the nice cards on the weakest Methusaleh. Kindred Restructure or Dramatic Upheaval to become the predator of that Methusaleh. Sure, who cares if I lose the game and only gain 1 VP? I win and get to keep all the cool cards! To make things even WORSE, I heavily use Succubus Club just for this purpose. If Player X helps me do all that (oust the weak Methusaleh and win those good cards), I'll give him all my stuff with the Club... Halcyan 2

>> The point of >> winning V:tES, however, is to earn VPs, only one of which you can earn by >> being the last man standing. > > Actually, if you're last man standing, don't you get 2 VP's? One for yourself, > and one for your former prey? Well, now that they've fixed Life Boon, yes, that's always true. =) But what I meant was you only get *a* VP for being last man standing. You got the other one for ousting your prey, as always. I guess you could have a very "passive oust," like them transferring themselves out, or two guys wiping each other out in a vote or something, but in general, you got one VP for being there, but you had to DO something for the other one. If you had a deck that JUST lived, and did *no* damage to it's prey (a BloodDoll/Regenerating/ReformBody deck or something silly like that) you can't get a VP, just 1/2 for timing out. For most games, of course, you're completely right. The 2 VP "Wall" deck is certainly a strategy people have tried. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 27 Nov 2000 04:27:40 -0500, Pat Ricochet wrote: >On the topic, though, I would never want to play with ante because it >would mean that I would *have* to make a deck that I thought would never get >ousted if I wanted to use any cards I didn't have many of. That's the point of ante. It's a balancing mechanism which is designed to discourage the use of rare cards. It is _meant_ to be a factor that you take into account when you build your deck. I wonder if Cantila and his Swedish chums have tried using ante instead of a CL? It's perfect for the situation where you have a limited card supply in a closed circle of players. If one player uses "too many" of a particular card then, over time, the effect of ante will be to redistribute the wealth. The more of a card that they use, the more likely it is to become the ante. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: (snip) > I expect that this is same attitude that developed rapidly in Magic - > that players would only play by the DCI tournament rules, even in > pick-up games. I thought it was very funny that most of the players, > most of the time, weren't actually playing proper Magic - the 40 card, > NCL, ante version of the game that was in the rulebook - but only > played a variant instead. After all this time, VTES is still in the > same weird state. Tsk. Have you ever played 40 card deck, NCL Magic? Have you ever heard of decks of the form 20 Black Lotus, 10 Fireball, 10 Channel? This is the best deck to play in that format, because it wins on Turn 1 like 99% of the time. You'll never see this deck, but decks that are just as stupid can easily be made. People play Magic with DCI rules because the game is incredibly stupid without them. Kind of like the way VTES games are stupid when people are playing original RTI with Tomb of Ramses. Do you really want every deck to look like that Etrius/Soul Gem deck that somebody posted on the RTI thread? Cards get banned. Deal with it. -T -- "The Good will not be any more good by being eternal, if a long-lasting white thing is no whiter than an ephemeral one." -Aristotle, from the Nicomachean Ethics "We got nothin' better to do, then watch TV; have a couple of brews." -Black Flag, TV Party

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes: > That's the point of ante. It's a balancing mechanism which is > designed to discourage the use of rare cards. It is _meant_ to be a > factor that you take into account when you build your deck. If I have 30 copies of a rare card in my deck and I ante one, that's not a big deal. I still have 29 left. But if I lose my *only* copy of Grave Robbing... Mr. Suitcases can *afford* to lose their rare antes. If I lose my only copy of a rare card, that's it. (And I searched far and wide for that Grave Robbing. I just couldn't bring myself to construct a Giovanni deck without it. :-) ) HG -- hg | The brain does process all sensation, Crowley said. If the brain @iki | is fully awake and conscious of what it is doing, why on earth .fi | should it treat any sensation as a less than orgasmic experience? | - Robert Anton Wilson, "Masks of the Illuminati"

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > I'd be glad of the entertainment if I were judging. If another game > needed a decision, I'd call a time-out and then go back to the fun. This is no way to judge a tournament. And I doubt if many judges would find it to be "fun". ... > I expect that this is same attitude that developed rapidly in Magic - > that players would only play by the DCI tournament rules, even in > pick-up games. I thought it was very funny that most of the players, > most of the time, weren't actually playing proper Magic - the 40 card, > NCL, ante version of the game that was in the rulebook - but only > played a variant instead. That's because the original version in the rulebook was so utterly unbalanced that it wasn't funny. The current version is little better. As for ante, so many people don't like it that it's natural the rule gets ignored. What do you want? Magic was 90% a genius game but WotC's first release was screwed up in a lot of ways. So people played it their own way, as happens with a lot of great but flawed games. The real tragedy was when WotC refused to admit many mistakes and fix important problems. Because they didn't, no "standard" version has ever existed. This is to the great frustration of a lot of deckbuilders who can't be sure what rules they'll be playing by when their deck is played (in situations where people are building decks for informal play, not tournaments). Fred

> I do not believe he participated in resolving any game design or > tournament rules issues. However, IMHO, the quality of his excursion > into business ethics was about on par with the Jyhad designers' > ability to make intelligent decisions about the structure of the > game: "Let's demonstrate our respect for other cultures by screwing > all the customers who've bought our product!" Not that I am Mr. Politically Correct, but I actually met a Islamic V:TES player, who both he and his parents, that were horrified when they looked at the backings of my cards and saw JYHAD printed there. They had only seen the game printed as VTES. Of course, it started a whole religious debate as to the difference between the holiness of words and the holiness of their meaning. It was quite interesting actually. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:C7965BD772E9B371.D3456D8A...@lp.airnews.net... > On Mon, 27 Nov 2000 04:27:40 -0500, Pat Ricochet wrote: > That's the point of ante. It's a balancing mechanism which is > designed to discourage the use of rare cards. It is _meant_ to be a > factor that you take into account when you build your deck. Ante was never designed to regulate rare cards. Since we have written record that rare cards were meant to be unusual but not more powerful than the common cards, it seems unlikely that they'd design a balancing mechanism to discourage use of unusual, but not unbalanced, cards. -Robert Robert Goudie Chairman, V:EKN rob...@vtesinla.org

a...@csi.com wrote: >On 20 Nov 2000 14:22:39 GMT, Halcyan 2 wrote: > >>To represent the Bronze (whatever that bar is called), >>we can choose from Fetish Club or Society >>Hunting Grounds, or Inbase Discotek, Hungry Coyote, or Succubus Club. > >These are good ideas but it was clear to me as soon as I saw it that >the card for the Bronze is The Rack. > >>Any other thoughts, suggestions, or ideas for the Buffy deck? > >I built a Buffy deck a few weeks ago and it uses quite a few of the >cards already suggested. It works but not as well as I'd like - >getting the crypt right is tricky. I'll check out some of your ideas >now that I've got a few more cards. Thanks. > >Andrew I'm still trying to come up with a good Buffy deck, using allies and some vamps with obfuscate (somehow, malks and nosferatus are just naturals there, for the show and the discipline) I'm afraid it would be much easier to make a deck based on the vamps than on the Scooby Gang. But still, am I the only one who can easily see Giles as the Outcast Mage, Ethan Rayne as Thadius, and Wesley as the Arcanum Investigator? Yes? Okay, I'll shut up now. I'll write again in a month or so. Bleu