Sabbat War slogans

There's a big two-page advert for Sabbat war in Scrye. A couple of points: * Lucita gets a of lot attention with the byline "Lucita of Clan Lasombra. Shadows kill at her command." * There's a slogan "Make and break alliances as you eliminate your foes." It's this latter point which concerns me as the game seems a bit schizo here. There was a fair amount of table talk and cross-table action in our games last night. This seems quite feasible but seems to cause more bad feelings than in other games like Shadowfist. Partly it's because of the presumption that players ought to be attacking their prey instead and partly because one is constantly in fear for one's position as the blood pool dries up and Final Death approaches. I know that Garfield tried to design the game to eliminate multi-player diplomacy but don't think that he succeeded. It's interesting to see this feature of the game being promoted now. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > There's a big two-page advert for Sabbat war in Scrye. A couple of > points: > > * Lucita gets a of lot attention with the byline "Lucita of Clan > Lasombra. Shadows kill at her command." > > * There's a slogan "Make and break alliances as you eliminate your > foes." > > It's this latter point which concerns me as the game seems a bit > schizo here. There was a fair amount of table talk and cross-table > action in our games last night. This seems quite feasible but seems > to cause more bad feelings than in other games like Shadowfist. > Partly it's because of the presumption that players ought to be > attacking their prey instead and partly because one is constantly in > fear for one's position as the blood pool dries up and Final Death > approaches. Players "ought to be" maximizing their VPs - in whatever manner they can. Making deals to go across table in return for some boost to one's position or ability to harvest another VP (as one perceives it) is common. Attacking one's prey is the obvious way to increase VPs, of course. > I know that Garfield tried to design the game to eliminate > multi-player diplomacy but don't think that he succeeded. It's > interesting to see this feature of the game being promoted now. Garfield did not design the game to eliminate multi-player diplomacy (the voting rules are proof of that). That feature has always been a big selling point of the game. Garfield *did* attempt to eliminate the "king-maker"(*) aspect inherent to so many multi-player games (as he stated in an interview in an old issue of Scrye), which many players find distasteful (at least from what I can tell from reading rec.games.board). Garfield attempted to decrease the king-maker aspect by, e.g., allowing bleed to be directed only at the prey by default (and the two bleed actions that one could direct elsewhere in the base set were both capped to bleed for no more than one). A player might still be able to play "king-maker" with her decisions to attack or to defend, or with votes or rush combat, but these are harder to restrict, and harder to implement effectively from a losing position anyhow. (*) "King-maker" refers to the ability of a player with a "lost" position (one who no longer has any chance of winning) to force any of the other remaining players to win (or lose) through his actions, almost without regard to those other players' positions and resources. -- 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/

a...@csi.com wrote: > There was a fair amount of table talk and cross-table > action in our games last night. As well it should. VTES, unlike other CCGs, encourages a social aspect to it's strategy, much like poker. I've always felt that the best players of VTES were not the people that put together the best decks, but the people that played the table to their best advantage. A mediocre deck in the hands of a skilled player is usually more effective than a great deck in the hands of a mediocre player. That's why some people seem do well in tournaments no matter what type of deck they play and some people never seem to make the finals. > This seems quite feasible but seems to cause more bad feelings > than in other games like Shadowfist. Partly it's because of the > presumption that players ought to be attacking their prey instead > and partly because one is constantly in fear for one's position > as the blood pool dries up and Final Death approaches. It's a fool that ignores the rest of the table. Just because a player isn't a predator or prey, that doesn't make them your new best friend. Very often it is to your best advantage to attack cross table to keep a player from steam rolling the table. > I know that Garfield tried to design the game to eliminate > multi-player diplomacy You "know" wrong. This is starting to be a theme, Andrew. If I hadn't met you in person, I would have thought you a teenager with all the things that you "know". You would do well to gain more experience in the game before making assumptions about it. 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" Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

In article <58A0433DEBE0DC22.78097829...@lp.airnew s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes >I know that Garfield tried to design the game to eliminate >multi-player diplomacy but don't think that he succeeded. It's >interesting to see this feature of the game being promoted now. Finding a copy of the White Wolf book on Jyhad, which was produced very early on, would be well worth your while. It is one of the few bits of canon about what Garfield wanted. -- James Coupe

On Fri, 04 Aug 2000 08:14:28 -0400, LSJ wrote: >Players "ought to be" maximizing their VPs - in whatever manner >they can. This works well in tournaments I expect. It's not so easy to retain this focus in a one-off, social game where there are other considerations like * being the winner (coming second is coming nowhere) * having fun (through role-playing, vengeance &c) * getting a lost game over with quickly I suggested that we keep a running total of VP to help our group retain the correct focus but, without a formal system to copy, I doubt that anything will come of it. >Garfield did not design the game to eliminate multi-player diplomacy >(the voting rules are proof of that). That feature has always been >a big selling point of the game. Garfield *did* attempt to eliminate >the "king-maker"(*) aspect inherent to so many multi-player games (as >he stated in an interview in an old issue of Scrye), which many >players find distasteful I don't agree. As I see it, the key mechanic that distinguishes Vampire from most other multi-player CCG is the attack-to-the-left system. This is designed to stop players forming coalitions to oust other players in a free-for-all way. As I understand it, he wanted to stop the game from being dominated by traditional multi-player diplomacy - something which he feels has been done to death elsewhere. One price of this is that it encourages king-making, in my view. Your predator is quite implacable because, apart from those rare effects which change the seating order, you both know that he's coming to get you. If your predator establishes dominance over you to the point that your position is doomed then you have little else to do but play king-maker - there's nothing you can say to him that would persuade him to attack someone else. Anyway, this is somewhat beside the point. To be clear, this was my surprise that the game is being promoted as a traditional type of wheeler-dealer, multi-player game when, to my mind, Vampire's unique selling proposition is that it is less dominated by this aspect than most. Andrew

In article <DFF66245950804C7.61C0E339...@lp.airnew s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes >I suggested that we keep a running total of VP to help our group >retain the correct focus but, without a formal system to copy, I doubt >that anything will come of it. Erm, do you really need a formal system to tot up VPs? Here's one if you do: - At the end of a game, write down how many VPs each player got on a sheet of paper. Use the same sheet of paper for all games, until it gets full. Repeat with another piece of paper as necessary - When a player asks how many points they have got in total, total the number of points they have on the sheet(s) -- James Coupe

On Sat, 05 Aug 2000 00:41:56 +0100, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: >>Players "ought to be" maximizing their VPs - in whatever manner >>they can. > >I suggested that we keep a running total of VP to help our group >retain the correct focus but, without a formal system to copy, I doubt >that anything will come of it. It occurs to me that using the Ante rule is a good way of maintaining the correct focus in social games with no need for record-keeping. No doubt the rule has been discarded in most groups, as happened with Magic but it's a shame to waste the cards which relate to this. And it's a good way of restraining the player with lots of power rares without recourse to a card limit or moral pressure. We haven't tried this rule yet and we'd have to figure out a way of handling players using borrowed decks. Is anyone else out there playing this way? Andrew

a...@csi.com writes: >On Sat, 05 Aug 2000 00:41:56 +0100, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > >It occurs to me that using the Ante rule is a good way of maintaining >the correct focus in social games with no need for record-keeping. No it isn't. If I played with Ante, I'd be focusing on _that_ rather than the joy of playing a good game. If you could draw a picture of the use of the V:tES Ante rule in a fun informal game, it would be in the dictionary next to the word "counterproductive". Fred

On Tue, 08 Aug 2000 13:07:19 +0100, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >It occurs to me that using the Ante rule is a good way of maintaining >the correct focus in social games with no need for record-keeping. No I suggest that playing for ante with your friends is an excellent way to turn the games cut-throat, anti-social, much more serious, and much, much, much less than fun. Since you know which card you're anteing, when it turns out to be your solitary Protected Resources that it took you FOREVER and a day to get, you're going to be VERY pissy from the word 'go', and even more pissy if you lose it. I know I would be much less than happy. It will be the same for everyone, except for the guy who's anteing Lucky Blow. He won't give a damn. Why would you use Protected Resources in a social game? Perhaps you're testing out an idea. Who knows? It's your deck, it's your business. But PR just happens to be THE most rare card in the game. Losing it to cheesy ante and putting a hole in your collection would be just stupid. >doubt the rule has been discarded in most groups, as happened with >Magic but it's a shame to waste the cards which relate to this. And No it's not. This is Jyhad, not marbles. And look closely at some of those cards - High Stakes? "Ante another card or be ousted." A Ventrue deck could really put a beating on your cards with this, not like the Ventrue aren't already inherently a strong clan or anything. >it's a good way of restraining the player with lots of power rares >without recourse to a card limit or moral pressure. First: Why should the player with lots of rare cards need to be restrained? It's possible to build decks out of all common and uncommon cards that will defeat "rare" decks. If someone wants to play with a bunch of wack rares, LET THEM. Second: the concept of "power rare" doesn't really exist in V:TES. Even Awe, a hideously good and rare card, has its inherent drawback of needing a Voter Cap along with it to avoid emptying the blood off your vamp. Sometimes it's better to just use the Bewitching Oration - a blisteringly common card. Third: It's not a "good" way of restraint in any case. Under the ante rules, I would never play a deck that had anything but commons + uncommons in it - too much effort getting the rares in the first place to let luck take them away. Actually, I'd probably quit playing with that group completely, because it wouldn't be any fun for me anymore. This may restrain me and make the rest of the group happy, but it equates to social and/or moral pressure on the group's part, and loses a player, which is pretty much a bad thing. >We haven't tried this rule yet and we'd have to figure out a way of >handling players using borrowed decks. Is anyone else out there >playing this way? Not that we know of. Most people had a look at the ante rules, retched loudly, and continued on. I've played in a couple of draft tournaments where the ante rules and cards were used, but that's different - since it's a draft tournament, they're not really "my" cards anyway until the end of the tournament. And since I put forth no effort to go out and get them in the first place, I don't really mind watching them get ante'd away. If I had drafted a card I really couldn't possibly stand the thought of giving up, then I would probably have just not put it in my draft deck and kept it aside. But more likely than not, I'd have stuck it in my deck and tried to win with it. Again, though, this is draft. -- Derek Jack-Booted Thug of Atlanta

> > We haven't tried this rule yet and we'd have to figure out a way of > handling players using borrowed decks. Is anyone else out there > playing this way? > > Andrew The Group here in Madison does. It works out alright so far, although, in this case we play a limited set (9 boosters each) so that someone doesn't end up losing cards in their constructed decks. It's played seperatly. We still keep track of VP's, and when you oust someone you can take either their ante card or something from their sideboard. Also, a player antes the top two cards after a cut, and then protects one, shuffleing it back into the deck. Although, with the limited card set, the decks aren't tournement winners, they are compedative amongst themselves. On a personal note, i think you get a better card mix with a starter and two boosters (IMHO) but mixing them is bad. The extra commons make the starter based decks usually more lethal than the just boosters. This makes for an interesting game play, but to cover another base, ante in a constucted arena is kind of a non-starter. Mainly because with everyone able to choose from a larger card set you can't quite use them to keep track of wins. Even in our restricted environment, we still write down VP wins. If you're more interested in this concept i suggest contacting Adrian, aka the corruptor about it. Cameron PS, looking forward to meeting everyone at gencon [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <CAB0F5E1934E2E33.25D8B957...@lp.airnews.net>, a...@csi.com wrote: > On Sat, 05 Aug 2000 00:41:56 +0100, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > > >>Players "ought to be" maximizing their VPs - in whatever manner > >>they can. > > > >I suggested that we keep a running total of VP to help our group > >retain the correct focus but, without a formal system to copy, I > >doubt that anything will come of it. > > It occurs to me that using the Ante rule is a good way of maintaining > the correct focus in social games with no need for record-keeping. Instead of Ante, you might try the VTES Risk League idea recorded here: http://www.melancholy.org/domain-no/tournaments/risk_league.php3 Carpe Noctem. Lasombra http://members.tripod.com/~Lasombra No > doubt the rule has been discarded in most groups, as happened with > Magic but it's a shame to waste the cards which relate to this. And > it's a good way of restraining the player with lots of power rares > without recourse to a card limit or moral pressure. > > We haven't tried this rule yet and we'd have to figure out a way of > handling players using borrowed decks. Is anyone else out there > playing this way? > > Andrew > [ quoted text not captured ]