small things

Blocking taps a vampire... but the rulebook does not say that the vampire be untapped to block. I've always played this as a requirement to block. Just to make sure I am not crazy, can I get a confirmation? Second, no reaction card of the same type may be played on the same action... I am guessing this goes for Wake with Evening's Freshness if the first "waking" vampire loses the ability to block somehow and the potential blocking player is tapped out otherwise? Third, what is the most official site for tournament rules and play now that the game is no longer produced and are tournament rankings still being maintained? Thanks again for the help.

1. In order to attempt to block, the blocker must be untapped (or be under the effects of a card like Wake With Evening's Freshness which allows them to block "as if" untapped). 2. No reaction card of the same name can be played in the same action by the same minion. Multiple vampires can play Wake with Evening's Freshness during the same action, even if they aren't attempting to block. 3. http://www.vekn.net/ Oh, and 3a. http://www.secretlibrary.info/ has the latest card texts in a nice search engine. Happy to help.

from the rulebook on the vekn site linked above: > 6. Minion Phase > Most of the activity in the game occurs in the minion phases. During your minion phase, you may have your minions take actions. Only ready untapped minions can take actions, and taking an action taps the acting minion. Other Methuselah's ready untapped minions may attempt to block your action, and blocking taps the blocking minion (see Resolve Any Block Attempts, sec. 6.2.2).

Just to clarify: Wake/Forced do not untap the vampire, it allows a tapped vampire to block. Guard Dogs and Rats warning untaps the vampire(s). The minion who attempted to block taps only if the block is successful. Have fun!

thanks... seems like there is no card count restriction outside of the banned list in tourney play... is this right? So I can has 30 bondings?

That's right. The only deckbuilding restriction, other than size and the short banned list, is the Grouping Rule in the crypt. > Grouping Rule wrote: > Each vampire belongs to a specific group, identified by a number above the upper left corner of the text box. A player's crypt must be built using vampires from a single group or from two consecutive groups. This does not restrict a Methuselah from stealing vampires from other groups through play, however. Cards from some older sets do not have this designation. For those cards, the ones with an expansion set symbol (an icon in the upper right corner of the card) are treated as Group 2 vampires; the others are Group 1 vampires.

And while decks with 30 copies of a single card are certainly rare, it's by no means unheard of. (http://www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=6392)

> jozxyqk wrote: > That's right. > The only deckbuilding restriction, other than size and the short banned list, is the Grouping Rule in the crypt. > > > Grouping Rule wrote: > > Each vampire belongs to a specific group, identified by a number above the upper left corner of the text box. A player's crypt must be built using vampires from a single group or from two consecutive groups. This does not restrict a Methuselah from stealing vampires from other groups through play, however. Cards from some older sets do not have this designation. For those cards, the ones with an expansion set symbol (an icon in the upper right corner of the card) are treated as Group 2 vampires; the others are Group 1 vampires. > This is confusing... like much of the game that kept changing it's card design like a bunch of morons. So, what they MEANT TO WRITE was all vampires in your crypt can only be from no more than 2 sets/expansions of V:TES? REALLY? Do they not have a "Classic" or "Type I" set of tournament rules as well?

> Willi B wrote: > > > jozxyqk wrote: > > That's right. > > The only deckbuilding restriction, other than size and the short banned list, is the Grouping Rule in the crypt. > > > > > Grouping Rule wrote: > > > Each vampire belongs to a specific group, identified by a number above the upper left corner of the text box. A player's crypt must be built using vampires from a single group or from two consecutive groups. This does not restrict a Methuselah from stealing vampires from other groups through play, however. Cards from some older sets do not have this designation. For those cards, the ones with an expansion set symbol (an icon in the upper right corner of the card) are treated as Group 2 vampires; the others are Group 1 vampires. > > > This is confusing... like much of the game that kept changing it's card design like a bunch of morons. > > So, what they MEANT TO WRITE was all vampires in your crypt can only be from no more than 2 sets/expansions of V:TES? REALLY? Do they not have a "Classic" or "Type I" set of tournament rules as well? Not 2 expansions. 2 groups. The Groups are: Group 1: Jyhad/VTES base set, old expansion-symbol-less promos Dan and Marianna, or those vampires marked as Group 1 (there are 2 "Advanced" versions of Group 1 vampires that were printed much later) Group 2: Everything pre-Camarilla Edition with an expansion symbol, or those vampires marked as Group 2 (some of which have been printed much later) Group 3 through 6: Anything marked with that number in the Grouping Number area; single expansions may have multiple consecutive (and in some cases, like those group 1 advanced vamp outliers, non-consecutive) groups represented in them. Group ANY: Just the Anarch Convert (for now), he ignores the Grouping Rule. And of course in Draft, you ignore the Grouping Rule altogether. It's not moronic. There was a backlash against it back in the Camarilla Edition pre-release days, but really it has worked out for the best for game balance, to avoid people being able to create a "dial-a-crypt". At a certain capacity and clan, there are only so many combinations of disciplines you can put on a vampire. Without the Grouping Rule, it would barely be a challenge to create a no-risk crypt. It also helps new players have access to competitive crypts without having to buy a bunch of old cards, while still having the right "support vampires" (a 2-capacity vampire with Potence by any other name...) And remember: I can be playing a "Group 1-2" deck at the same table as someone playing a "Group 5-6" deck. The grouping rule only matters at deck-building time, and is a much more sensible limitation than a 4 card limit, especially in a game like VTES.

I love the game, but it had built in flaws from the get go that were certainly going to cause design issues. This, however, is confusing and limiting to a new player. It would have been better to have no restrictions and work around it by having formats like Magic... so that there would at least be a single tournament structure that was constructed without limitations. I like that the current format allows any set, but I am disappointed when there is no possibilities of building ANY deck I want (to me, this is why you play a CCG over other games). THANKS for the help!

There is still the possibility of building ANY deck. Your library, the main deck that you use throughout the game, can have cards from any expansion, any card-back (including mixing Jyhad-backed and VTES-backed and 3rd-edition-misprint-backed card). Grouping Rule limitation on the crypt just forces you to make some creative decisions. * Or sometimes, not-so-creative decisions. Group 2 is so huge, for example, that you can already almost dial-a-crypt from G1-2 or 2-3 for a lot of archetypes. The game certainly does have design flaws from the beginning, but when LSJ inherited game-design from the drunk WotC team, he did his best. And the grouping rule was one of the best solutions he introduced to avoid having things like "set rotation". All of this being said.. if you're not playing in tournaments, your group is free to use whatever rules you want for deckbuilding, of course.

> Willi B wrote: > This, however, is confusing and limiting to a new player. It would have been better to have no restrictions and work around it by having formats like Magic... so that there would at least be a single tournament structure that was constructed without limitations. As someone who picked up the game after the grouping rule was introduced, I strongly disagree with that assessment. The grouping limitation is hardly a source of confusion, nor have I seen it significantly limit anyone's ability to build decks. Library cards are almost always the limiting factor when it comes to deck construction. In addition to avoiding dial-a-cypt issues, the grouping rule also helps avoid issues with contesting vampires, since it's possible (and common) for players to build similar decks with non-overlapping crypts.

It's no confusion to you because you were born into it. I picked up Jyhad on day 1. Add to that that they started a system that used terminology that could not include the previous sets in the terminology always upsets me. Jyhad constantly did this and not only upset original owners, but also drove potential customers away with the constant changes. Not only did they change the backs (SOMETHING YOU NEVER SHOULD DO) of the cards, they changed the fronts (Master cards were easily differentiated and now are not). From a coroner's perspective, there are many reasons the game could have died long ago instead of lasting as long as it did. The contesting thing was a bad design choice because they made too many unique things to start with and people tire of negative reinforcement loops... it was never going to be a widely popular thing though I can appreciate it for what it was supposed to do. While I would have appreciated the thematic limitation of Camarilla, independent and Sabbat, that is not the grouping system they decided to go with... and if I am an ancient vampire I would use anyone I chose to use and not be restricted at all... so these are not thematic choices they made with the tournament rule. As far as there only being so many disciplines and them needing to make a rule to cover this problem, I think there are 2 better ways of dealing with this "perceived" problem: 1) Make fewer vampires. 2) Make design choices that would counter this... for every yin, there is a yang. Regardless of my nit-picking, I really love the game and I am finally getting some plays in while teaching and exciting new players. It's a fun time re-connecting with this game and somewhat infuriating at the same time.

The grouping rule enabled WW to keep printing new vampires without rotating out sets. It added years to the game's life (unlife?).

It's an old game. Almost 20 years old. The second oldest CCG, designed when nobody had a clue about what CCGs would become. With a long and tumultuous business and design history. Half of your rant is anger at WotC for their original design. Yes. They screwed up a lot. They made too many poor decisions. The other half is what fell into Rulemonger 's lap when White Wolf picked up the game again, and he had to fix while designing new cards that made sense. He did a very commendable job of filling in the holes, correcting issues the way they should have been designed in the first place, and making the cards look and work better. It took him 10 or more years to clear up a lot of the crap that WotC left behind, through reprints, rewordings, and hand-wavey rulings. He isn't perfect. He made some unpopular decisions, too. But make sure you don't blame him for what isn't his fault.

> Willi B wrote: > Not only did they change the backs (SOMETHING YOU NEVER SHOULD DO) True. But the original name was a very real problem. And the name was on the card backs. So they were faced with two very bad options: keep the name, or change the name. They could have changed the name and kept the card backs (still a bad option, but perhaps not as bad as the other two), but they didn't. > They changed the fronts (Master cards were easily differentiated and now are not). True. Masters are still differentiated by the lack of a card type icon, but the primary point still stands. Moreso for crypt cards. > From a coroner's perspective, there are many reasons the game could have died long ago instead of lasting as long as it did. Indeed. > The contesting thing was a bad design choice because they made too many unique things to start with and people tire of negative reinforcement loops... it was never going to be a widely popular thing though I can appreciate it for what it was supposed to do. Well, it was necessary from a thematic perspective, even though it wasn't great from a game design perspective (running into a situation where contesting could happen is not something you can avoid when building your deck, and the performance hit you suffer when you run into that situation is often severe. But "too many" unique things wasn't really a factor there (except as a method of reducing the occurrence of being in a bad situation). The negative reinforcement angle would only apply if there were some behavior (deck design process or something) that led to increased contestation. The thing being negatively reinforced. But there isn't. > While I would have appreciated the thematic limitation of Camarilla, independent and Sabbat, that is not the grouping system they decided to go with... and if I am an ancient vampire I would use anyone I chose to use and not be restricted at all... so these are not thematic choices they made with the tournament rule. True. The thematic limit you cite would, as you also cite, not have been thematic at all. > As far as there only being so many disciplines and them needing to make a rule to cover this problem, I think there are 2 better ways of dealing with this "perceived" problem: > > 1) Make fewer vampires. > 2) Make design choices that would counter this... for every yin, there is a yang. 1) would certainly not have been a better way of handling the problem. 2) would be fine, if such a thing were to exist. > Regardless of my nit-picking, I really love the game and I am finally getting some plays in while teaching and exciting new players. It's a fun time re-connecting with this game and somewhat infuriating at the same time. Welcome (back). I would suggest that you suspend the grouping rule for as long as you collection (and your friends' collections) remain at the level where the lack of the rule poses no problem. That tends to be quite a long time. Maybe forever, depending on your buying habits.

> Willi B wrote: > It's no confusion to you because you were born into it. I picked up Jyhad on day 1. > > Add to that that they started a system that used terminology that could not include the previous sets in the terminology always upsets me. Jyhad constantly did this and not only upset original owners, but also drove potential customers away with the constant changes. Not only did they change the backs (SOMETHING YOU NEVER SHOULD DO) of the cards, they changed the fronts (Master cards were easily differentiated and now are not). From a coroner's perspective, there are many reasons the game could have died long ago instead of lasting as long as it did. > > The contesting thing was a bad design choice because they made too many unique things to start with and people tire of negative reinforcement loops... it was never going to be a widely popular thing though I can appreciate it for what it was supposed to do. > > While I would have appreciated the thematic limitation of Camarilla, independent and Sabbat, that is not the grouping system they decided to go with... and if I am an ancient vampire I would use anyone I chose to use and not be restricted at all... so these are not thematic choices they made with the tournament rule. > > As far as there only being so many disciplines and them needing to make a rule to cover this problem, I think there are 2 better ways of dealing with this "perceived" problem: > > 1) Make fewer vampires. > 2) Make design choices that would counter this... for every yin, there is a yang. > > Regardless of my nit-picking, I really love the game and I am finally getting some plays in while teaching and exciting new players. It's a fun time re-connecting with this game and somewhat infuriating at the same time. Wow. Someone seems narcissistic and wants to argue that he is right and smart, and everyone else is a moron.

> jackalope wrote: > Wow. Someone seems narcissistic and wants to argue that he is right and smart, and everyone else is a moron. In 13 years, with all that has changed with VTES in the meantime (mainly having an official publisher again since ~2018), maybe he changed his mind. Appropriate for a game like VTES for you to resurrect a thread so long dead, though.