The Winter of our Discontent

Hi everyone. I'm writing this because the other day, I was talking to some of my Jyhad-playing friends, and we sort of came to the conclusion that we're stuck in some kind of rut when it comes to what can be done in Jyhad in our gaming group. The problem, as I see it, is that the so-called metagame has become the perhaps most important factor in determining the eventual winner of any given game of Jyhad we play. So what I want to know is, do you out there have a "metagame", and if so, what goes on with it? And especially, have you solved any of the problems we have? What I mean by the "metagame" is basically what kind of decks people design and play, based on what they expect to be going on in a typical game of Jyhad. Also, I'd include the aspect of what deck people actually take out and play when starting a game of Jyhad (several of us, including me, have multiple decks made most of the time). It seems, of late, that this metagame has come to dominate the outcome of our games, far more than skill in either deck construction or even game play. The main features of our metagame include, one, an emphasis on combat. Combat is popular here. Real popular. Seriously brutal combat decks are common enough that most games have at least one, if not several. This has resulted in a substantial escalation in combat/anti-combat techniques - the use of Immortal Grapple, and to a lesser extent Hidden Lurker, Psyche, and Fast Reaction, has become very widespread. So now, Fortitude is perhaps the most effective combat defense - and it is so effective that it will nearly shut down many of our mainly-potence-based combat decks. So basically, every deck either is a serious combat deck, or else has a fair amount of effort devoted to surviving fights with the serious combat decks. Now, even that might not be so bad, except that I think combat has an inherent disadvantage as a Jyhad strategy. Namely, it does not directly get you closer to having a dead prey. Bleed does. Voting does (at least if you use the KRC/Con Agitation type of votes). If you succeed in getting rid of all your prey's vampires, you still have to rid him of pool, and often enough, the only way to do that is by bleeding him for one with all your vampires each turn. That will do the trick eventually, but in the meantime, your predator could be killing you off right quick. So maybe you instead send only a couple of your vampires to bleed your prey, and the others to kick your predator's vampires into submission so you don't get ousted yourself. That may work, but it makes combat decks really, really slow in getting victory points. Next, we don't seem to have any good way of dealing with weenie decks. Most of the decks people play are not weenie decks (by weenies, I mean decks where most if not all of the vampires have capacity one or two, maybe three). But the weenie decks we have had have been far more effective than the average deck - there was, a while ago, a stealth/bleed presence/obfuscate deck that was only semi-weenie, using all vampires of cap 4 or less, and it swept tables on a not-too-infrequent basis. The combat decks that are prevalent here - mostly potence-based, with fortitude, celerity, or obfuscate as secondary disciplines - are not able to effectively deal with such an onslaught of vampires as a deck like this can put out. Weenie votes have also caused us trouble - even with no vote push (and I suppose I've failed to mention until now - we play no limits/golden tenets, with a few house rules for cards we consider broken), presence-based weenie vote can almost always pass at least a prince or two before anyone else's votes really show up, and then they're rolling, and you can't get rid of their vampires fast enough to stop them. I've made a deck that has three atonements in it, which was intended largely to be able to counter such weenie decks, but the problem there is that, one, the weenie decks are usually fast enough to put their prey at a substantial disadvantage before s/he even gets set up, and then, three atonements may not be enough - but more is too many, and the blood cost is high for vamps of capacity five or less, who are the only ones allowed to use it. So, weenies are a problem. And the combat/anti-combat is a problem. But the problem that they lead to is that, when we actually sit down to play a game, the decks people pull out and where they sit seems to have an undue influence on the outcome of the game. For example, last Friday, we played a five-player game that turned out to be four basically-vote decks, and one rush combat deck. The combat deck was the first one ousted. I went on to sweep the table with my vote/bleed deck - but I don't think it was entirely because of the brilliance of my deckbuilding and play. ;) The combat deck was my initial prey, and he was nearly unable to hurt me, due to the great deal of combat defense my deck had - 12 Skin of Steel, 8 Majesty - which I know will almost never be uncalled for, since combat is so prevalent in our group. Furthermore, my initial predator was hit hard early on by his predator, which left him in a position of trying to recover for essentially the entire game - and he still hadn't entirely succeeded by the time I had ousted everyone else and come back to him, thus leaving him doomed. What I'm looking for, then, is input as to what the experience of all the rest of you has been in this area, and maybe even input into what we could do toward trying to solve the problems we have here. To give an idea of the kind of combat decks I'm talking about, here's the one I have right now - it's a Brujah pot/cel rush combat deck, with a few votes thrown in as my clever angle to try to give me an edge. crypt: Lupo 2 pot Sarah Brando 3 CEL (Sabbat) Dre - Leader of the Cold Dawn 3 pot cel Jacob Bragg 3 pot cel (Sabbat) Hector Sosa 4 POT Jimmy Dunn 4 POT CEL (Sabbat) Volker, the Puppet Prince x2 5 pot CEL Prince Black Cat 5 pot CEL Bianca 6 pot CEL 2 hand damage Rake 6 pot cel Prince Anvilx2 6 POT CEL Primogen 13 vamps (style reasons), avg. 4.46 library: 80 cards: masters: Warzone Hunting Ground Fragment of the Book of Nod Potence x3 Celerity x3 Haven Uncovered x3 Major Boon Blood Doll x2 votes: Archon x2 Anathema x2 Praxis Seizure: Rome Delaying Tactics x2 actions: Bum's Rush x8 Ambush Arson Rampage combat: Sideslip x5 Side Strike x2 Torn Signpost x6 Fists of Death Increased Strength x2 Undead Strength x7 Pushing the Limit x2 Blur x5 Immortal Grapple x8 Flash x6 Pursuit Taste of Vitae x2 Pulled Fangs --- 17.5% masters, 60% combat, 15% rush. I'm not really looking for input on this particular deck - I'm just providing it as an example of a semi-typical combat deck for our environment. This deck does not always win fights, most notable against our resident potence/fortitude nightmare (aka Hey Hey, s'Marty Lechthansi, v.4), but it regularly pummels non-combat decks into repentance. So that's it for my tirade on our local metagame. Thoughts and comments? Josh "what good is science if nobody gets hurt?"

As I'm the third of this goofy meta-game wackness, I figured I'd better say my piece as well. I guess my main problem is that, to which most people I game with can attest, I am not a very good strategist. I enjoy strategy games, but I'm not that great at them. In Jyhad, this equates to not-so-brilliant deck design. Also contributing to this problem is my constant desire for cool combos... I once tried to play a Dom/For/Ani deck whose main goal was to bleed on Dawn Operations, and then use Ani retainers and combat cards to send the blocker to torpor. It got summarily murdered by the other decks in the group. My current endeavors, to give everyone a good idea of the environment, are (as mentioned) an Anti-Nossie Obf/Pot combat deck, a Toreador Tap and Bleed deck, and a Gangrel intercept deck, which at this point is the worst of the bunch. The Gangrel deck sucks so much because it has no way to deal with Fortitude and S:CE, which are present in almost all the decks in our group (with the notable exception of Josh's Brjuah and Peter's Obf/Dom decks). So, I rarely play the deck anymore, since it never does well. The Anti-Nosferatu deck: Crypt: Lupo 2 pot Hugo 4 POT KoKo 2 pot Agrippina 4 pot OBF Mitchell 2 pot Nigel 5 POT obf Duck 3 pot obf Olivia 5 POT OBF 2x Agatha 4 POT obf 2x Beast POT OBF, Bum's Rush built-in Avg: 4.08, worst 24 2 Ambush 6 Bum's Rush 8 Immortal Grapple 6 Decapitate 3 Fists of Death 4 Increased Strength 6 Torn Signpost 10 Undead Strength 8 Taste of Vitae 6 Behind You 2 Swallowed by the Night 5 Hidden Lurker Nosferatu Kingdom The Hungry Coyote Shanty Town Hunting Ground 2 Minion Tap 2 Potence 4 Haven Uncovered 2 Blood Doll 80 Cards, 16% masters, 15% rush ----------- So, that deck's pretty effective, usually with the hidden lurker action, since I go send Mitchell to meet his doom, and Olivia was a hidden lurker... but even then, this deck has no way to deal with Fortitude. I my mind, Fortitude is the obvious solution to those hoping not to get killed in combat (S:CE is easier, but also easier to deal with). No one plays a Tremere deck, since: a) no one has both the cards and the will, and b) you can't do unpreventable damage when you're immortally grappled, and it's hard for the Tremere to maneuver. So the only people who the Tremere are good against are the anti-combat decks (and the Gangrel; yay... :( ), but they get killed by the combat decks. The Assamites have a better chance of shaking things up, but the only person we know with an Assamite deck can't come to our games club meetings. The underlying problem in my mind is that no one wants to change. We all really like our cool combat decks. What's going to shake up our environment? Stealth and bleed? Maybe, maybe not. There's a pretty harsh S&B deck which plays occasionally and does fairly well, but all the rush combat usually puts it down. Votes? Probably. The horrible 5 player game with the 4 vote decks and 1 combat deck (that was me) was pretty harsh. Weenies? Definitely. The Obf/Pre deck (that was me, too) was pretty effective, and had a > 50% win ratio. But it wasn't any fun to play. Help us out, somebody... we're in such a rut. James -- James Hamblin je...@cornell.edu --------------------------------------------------- "Well, Mulder didn't say that it _was_ Alex Trebek, just someone who looked extremely like him." -- Dana Scully, X-Files: "Jose Chung's _From Outer Space_"

As further example of our groups wacky meta game action, a few weeks ago, Josh, James Hamblin, and I were sitting around playing game after game of 3 way Jyhad. We each had 3 decks to use, so we rolled dice to see which deck we used in each game, as well as sitting randomly. We each had seen all of the others decks and knew what they each did. I had a viscious Pot/For combat deck (the pre "It only works if I get out Marty Lechtansi, v.4" deck), an Anti-Ventrue Aus/For intercept deck, and a Nosferatu/Malk S+B+Guns deck. Josh had a Brujah Rush deck (probably the one he posted above), a Ventrue Vote/Bleed deck, and a Toreador Guns/Intercept. James was fielding an Anti-Nosferatu Pot/Obf rush deck (fueled by 8 Taste of Vitae), a Pre/Cel Tap and Bleed deck (also recently posted), and a Gangrel Intercept/Blood gain deck. In all of the 5 or 6 games we played in rapid sucession, we were succsessfully able to predict the winner of every game, based entirely on what decks we were using and where we were sitting at the time. For instance, if Josh was my Predator with his Ventrue deck, I was playing my Pot/For combat deck, and James was my prey with his Gangrel deck, Josh would win, and we all knew it was going to happen. On the other hand, if Josh, James and I were in the same table posititons and used the same decks, except that James used his Tap and Bleed deck instead of the Gangrel one, he would win. If all three of us were playing our combat decks (Brujah, Anti-Nos, Mixed Pot/For), I would win. Invariably. It was wacky. We rotate decks within limits (usually everyone has at least one new deck every week, and then the other two or three are the same), and there are 2 or 3 other people who play with us regularly, but still, we can pretty much look at who is playing with what deck in what postiton in any particular game, and pretty much know who will win from the beginning (this becomes less likely with the more people who play in any particular game). When we do make new decks, the whole meta aspect gets out of control, as you try real hard to not specifically make decks to kill your friends deck, as that would be wack, but still trying to make a sucessful deck, knowing what is likely to be in any particular game. Just the other day, James was thinking of making a new Nosferatu Obf/Ani combat deck, but he said "What is the point. It'll get whacked by all the other Immortal Grapple powered combat decks and will be unable to deal with the S:CE or Fortitude of the other anti-combat decks. Eech." Eh. What can you do. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "Good morning, ladies. I'm quite mad, you know." -Autoclyus

du...@newton.ruph.cornell.edu (Joshua Duffin) writes: [ quoted text not captured ] >rest of you has been in this area, and maybe even input. I find the metagame evolves - when everybody has oodles of combat defense, people will stop playing (many) combat decks. If people in your group like combat so much they play combat decks even if they have little chance, then the problem is that you are *not* playing the metagame. We don't have much of a problem with ruts, but then we all have significant variety of basic types and pretty much all value innovation. As to the predator/prey situation, yes, that can be a problem. Some people play better than others; some prefer defensive play and some offensive. I've seen a fair number of games decided by fortunate/unfortunate table position. This problem doesn't kind of disappear on its own, like the rut problem. So that you personally don't contribute to the problem, my recommendation is that you play decks with both good offense and good defense. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

On Sun, 09 Feb 1997 23:07:32 -0500, James Hamblin <je...@cornell.edu> wrote: >As I'm the third of this goofy meta-game wackness, I figured I'd better >say my piece as well. <snipped details of decks and problems> >I my mind, Fortitude is the obvious solution to those hoping not to get >killed in combat (S:CE is easier, but also easier to deal with). No one >plays a Tremere deck, since: a) no one has both the cards and the will, >and b) you can't do unpreventable damage when you're immortally >grappled, and it's hard for the Tremere to maneuver. I have no idea how helpful this would be for you, but before my group banned half the cards in the deck because of brokenness, I had a rather ugly Tremere deck based on combat survival and making vampires hunt eternally(description follows) The combat section was a pile of Apportations a mile high, several Magics of the smith to get IR goggles, and a Heidelburg castle to move them and blood between vampires. The Strikes were mainly Thefts of Vitae, with a few walks of flame(probably not worth it in your enviroment), and soul burns. The core of the deck was Cryptic Missions and Seeds of Corruption. My prey's vampires ended up Corrupted, with not enough blood, and began to hunt eternally with the aid of XTC laced blood and all of their pals hunting and being knocked into torpor. Arcanum Chapterhouses kept hunting grounds from being profitable, and Thadius Zho and the Succubus were nasty, if expensive, additions. All the intercept was either permanent, Spirit's touches, or Telepathic misdirections. In your enviroment, I'd add weather controls, more Chantries than I had(one..), and even more manuvers and unpreventable strikes. The vampires in the crypt are pushing the limits of fairness, but as long as they aren't banned... 2 x Blythe Candleria 2 x Muaziz, Archon of Ulugh Beg 2 x Merill Molitor Rebekka, Chantry Elder of Munich Heinrich Shlempt Richard Tauber Sarah Cobbler Magdelena Shaefer Dr. John Casey Maybe something along these lines would help. I have the approximate contents written down somewhere. >So the only people who the Tremere are good against are the anti-combat >decks (and the Gangrel; yay... :( ), but they get killed by the combat >decks. The Assamites have a better chance of shaking things up, but the >only person we know with an Assamite deck can't come to our games club >meetings. > >The underlying problem in my mind is that no one wants to change. We >all really like our cool combat decks. What's going to shake up our >environment? Stealth and bleed? Maybe, maybe not. There's a pretty >harsh S&B deck which plays occasionally and does fairly well, but all >the rush combat usually puts it down. Votes? Probably. The horrible 5 >player game with the 4 vote decks and 1 combat deck (that was me) was >pretty harsh. Weenies? Definitely. The Obf/Pre deck (that was me, >too) was pretty effective, and had a > 50% win ratio. But it wasn't any >fun to play. Well, I used to have a habit of tossing in Secure Havens, Elysiums and S:CE into almost every deck I played, just to tick off combat players. Several of my vote decks which worked off of that principle were quite nasty, especially the ventrue ones which also used fortitude(rolling with the punches, mainly). I still remember the 1st tradition: The Masquerade deck fondly; eveybody either pays pool, or loses their turn, and if they lose their turn, I parity shift their pool away, poor babies... I don't know, maybe nathan and I would be able to help with our old decks, but If you people contacted us in about a month, we'll be freer to do something than we are now. >Help us out, somebody... we're in such a rut. Well, for something different, make a deck based on fortitude that relies on princes and having vampires in Torpor. This would function off of minion taps, Force of Will, Regeneration, rapid healing, and, of course, the 2nd, 5th, and 6th Traditions, along with the deadliest sin, just so no one lunches on your sleeping darlings. Nathan and I played with the idea a while back, but never got around to seeing how much blood we could gain using the "I'm sleeping, go away" deck. It was rather obscene in some tests we ran, although intercept made it very unhappy unless it had day operations(hey, who cares if I go to torpor? I'm already _in_ torpor! Oh, excuse me, freak drive and rapid healing, care to block?). Anyway, I'll stop going off. If you want more ideas, mail me or something. Alec Chang

Alec Chang wrote: > > On Sun, 09 Feb 1997 23:07:32 -0500, James Hamblin <je...@cornell.edu> > wrote: [snip meta-game issues which I have noticed in the more experienced playgroup I have played in a couple of times {hi Robert, Steve, Spiridonas}] > > > I have no idea how helpful this would be for you, but before my group > banned half the cards in the deck because of brokenness, I had a > rather ugly Tremere deck based on combat survival and making vampires > hunt eternally(description follows) Care to post the exact deck? Which cards have you guys banned? [snip of deck description - waiting full disclosure] > Maybe something along these lines would help. I have the approximate > contents written down somewhere. > [snip James discussion of Tremere being well-nigh useless in his play-group] [snip of interesting ideas from Alec to piss off combat Meths] > > I don't know, maybe nathan and I would be able to help with our old > decks, but If you people contacted us in about a month, we'll be freer > to do something than we are now. What do you mean here? Are you and Nathan having net probs? > > >Help us out, somebody... we're in such a rut. > > Well, for something different, make a deck based on fortitude that > relies on princes and having vampires in Torpor. This would function > off of minion taps, Force of Will, Regeneration, rapid healing, and, > of course, the 2nd, 5th, and 6th Traditions, along with the deadliest > sin, just so no one lunches on your sleeping darlings. Nathan and I > played with the idea a while back, but never got around to seeing how > much blood we could gain using the "I'm sleeping, go away" deck. It > was rather obscene in some tests we ran, although intercept made it > very unhappy unless it had day operations(hey, who cares if I go to > torpor? I'm already _in_ torpor! Oh, excuse me, freak drive and > rapid healing, care to block?). I'm going to give this one a shot. > > Anyway, I'll stop going off. If you want more ideas, mail me or > something. > > Alec Chang -- Chris Shorb ino...@ix.netcom.com [insert obscure/pithy/witty quote here]

>As I'm the third of this goofy meta-game wackness, I figured I'd better >say my piece as well. <cut-cut-cut> >The underlying problem in my mind is that no one wants to change. We >all really like our cool combat decks. What's going to shake up our >environment? Stealth and bleed? Maybe, maybe not. There's a pretty >harsh S&B deck which plays occasionally and does fairly well, but all >the rush combat usually puts it down. Votes? Probably. The horrible 5 >player game with the 4 vote decks and 1 combat deck (that was me) was >pretty harsh. Weenies? Definitely. The Obf/Pre deck (that was me, >too) was pretty effective, and had a > 50% win ratio. But it wasn't any >fun to play. >Help us out, somebody... we're in such a rut. Nobody wanted any intelligent solutions, so I may say something, too. :) Try card limit house rule. For example, one card is limited to 4, or to X+1 (or plain X), where X is the amount of players. Of course, this is quite tricky, if there's only 3 players, so a minimum of 4 of one card is always permitted. Card limit house rule has its drawbacks, but in heavy combat environments one must search for different ways of doing things. Now, you can have only four Majesty cards in deck. So, Dodge? Well, celerity has additional strikes... Ok, there is more S:CE cards in presence, but you got the point. Just try it..!

Card limits are not an option, for a huge multitude of reasons I really don't want to get into. If you want to see past discussions, look at DejaNews or Mark Langsdorf's web page. [ quoted text not captured ]

> There is a Gangrel retainer, non-unique from AH, I believe, > which prohibits S:CE as a strike. Well, it's rare (I have _one_) and it costs two pool. Not really all that effective. > Also, try using more Earth > Melds yourself, so when the acting minion plays Majesty and > untaps, you S:CE and untap as well. That could work... but then the effectiveness of the combat angle of the deck (fortitude and aggro damage) is reduced > As for Fortitude, do you > still use Rotschreck? No, since its text is farily ambiguous. > As for your rut, try different and crazy ideas. One of > our players designs interesting one-trick pony decks, usually > with oodles of pool gain which work fairly well and get quite > annoying. Try ousting someone who is gaining 9 pool per turn! What are some effective (non-vote) pool gain ideas. I can't make votes effective b/c I don't have the cards. [ quoted text not captured ]

> If it's not banned or damaged in your environment, Thoughts > Betrayed is a beautiful card for the Tremere. Well, I wouldn't use the word "beautiful". How about "hallaciously unbalanced and completely against the paradigm of the game"? Yes, we've "fixed" it. You can look at our house rules at http://www.csuglab.cornell.edu/Info/People/jeh13/jyhad/house-rules.html The dilemma is, do we completely screw combat (even though it's got so many strikes against it already: too card intensive, S:CE, Fortitude, etc.)? I don't want to... [ quoted text not captured ]

CurtAdams (curt...@aol.com) wrote: : I find the metagame evolves - when everybody has oodles of combat defense, : people will stop playing (many) combat decks. If people in your group : like combat so much they play combat decks even if they have little : chance, then the problem is that you are *not* playing the metagame. Hmm. You know, that's a good point. In fact, I think that probably is part of our problem. We do have at least a couple players who do play combat decks that really have very little chance of winning the game - but that's not why they like those decks anyway. Their basic goal, I think, has more to do with vaporizing as many vampires as possible, rather than accumulating victory points. Given that, there may not be much to do besides try to convince people not to make or play combat decks that can't win games. : We don't have much of a problem with ruts, but then we all have : significant variety of basic types and pretty much all value innovation. : As to the predator/prey situation, yes, that can be a problem. Some : people play better than others; some prefer defensive play and some : offensive. I've seen a fair number of games decided by : fortunate/unfortunate table position. This problem doesn't kind of : disappear on its own, like the rut problem. So that you personally don't : contribute to the problem, my recommendation is that you play decks with : both good offense and good defense. Also good advice, and I'll probably try that for this weekend. And maybe even throw in a little innovation, at least with regard to what my decks usually look like. Josh

Mattitopias Tapanainen (mus...@sci.fi) wrote: : Nobody wanted any intelligent solutions, so I may say something, too. :) : Try card limit house rule. For example, one card is limited to 4, or : to X+1 (or plain X), where X is the amount of players. Of course, this is : quite tricky, if there's only 3 players, so a minimum of 4 of one card : is always permitted. : Card limit house rule has its drawbacks, but in heavy combat environments : one must search for different ways of doing things. Now, you can have only : four Majesty cards in deck. So, Dodge? Well, celerity has additional : strikes... Ok, there is more S:CE cards in presence, but you got the : point. : Just try it..! Heh. As James said, going to a card-limit system is really not something we want to do at this point. In fact, until something like a year ago, we played 4CL, and had done so for quite some time. We switched after a great deal of persuasion from the newsgroup and such, and we've pretty much never looked back, based on our experience that the no-limit game is much more fair and balanced. Thanks anyway though... Josh "last night he could not make it, he tried hard but he could not make it.."

[ quoted text not captured ] Hello! Sombody else from their playgroup breaking in here. I think you've hit the nail on the head here: the biggest problem is trying to combine playing "for fun" and playing "to win" at the same time. This is a big problem in most multi-player games. In a setting where there is no extra incentive to win (such as prizes of some sort), some people prefer to use stategies ( and in CCG's this means use decks) that focus on maximizing their own personal fun. This sounds great, and is, if everyone is doing it. Unfortunately, when some but not all of the people playing are doing this, and the others are really attempting to win, then it is really frustrating for the latter group, because they are forced to deal with people playing irrationally. The most common example of this is when one player decides to help another win. In games like L5R and Illuminati, this generally means that the person wins. In Jyhad, this is not as common of a problem because each player is limited in the area of the table he can affect. Still, it can be a major factor in deciding a game when people start doing things are would be blatantly stupid if they were attempting to win. The end result is often that someone leaves mad. They probably have a right to. I dont believe anyone would consider it "fair" if a rush combat deck left its prey alone and started beating up its grandprey. In this situation, one player clearly has an increased chance of winning due to irrational play by another. So anyway (if anyone managed to wade through that tirade and reach this point) it seems to me that the simplest solution is to get everyone playing to win. (We could also get everyone playing to be silly, but I think that would be harder to maintain over the long term) The best way to do this is to attach some extra incentive to winning. Prizes jump immediately to mind, of course, but that would have to be prohibitively expensive to be worth while. Ante could work, but, again, you either play for cheap cards and no one cares anyway, or play for useful/rare cards, and people who lose are often badly hurt by the loss. The best idea I've had up to this point would be to keep some kind of rankings list. It wouldn't be to hard to do (providing we could agree on how it would work...), and, in my experience, stuff like that increases desire to win by more than you would think. Oh, well. Just my 2¢. (More like $2 by this point...) -- Steve "I Bled Someone for 14 Pool in One Turn Because of a Misdirection" Wampler, creator of the "Spend 29 Pool on Vampires and Get Bled for One and Die™" deck sjwa...@hotmail.com (ignore the above adress, its plain brown wrong)

James Hamblin <je...@cornell.edu> wrote in article <3300CA...@cornell.edu>... > > What are some effective (non-vote) pool gain ideas. I can't make votes > effective b/c I don't have the cards. > > James My person favorite is Minion tap and 5th tradition. You can also do Minion tap and Golconda, although this doesn't work as well. Hunting grounds, Inbase discotec, The Rack, and blood dolls can also be used. For Gangrel you can use Minion tap or Blood Dolls and Restoration. There are many ways to gain blood. My advice for a Gangrel deck is to make combat secondary. Try making a Bleed, or Political deck with them. It is hard to do, but if you do it right it can be devastating. I only include combat for defense in my Gangrel decks. Making it your primary strategy doesn't work, because everyone expects Gangrel combat, and prepares for it. Nobody expects a Gangrel political deck... -- Steve Bucy I'd be better off undead... "Hmmm. I notice the number of conditional phrases in there... _seems_ to indicate a weakness, _may_ be vulnerable in theory." - G'Kar

Ever tried dicing for position? ie roll D20 and sit from highest to lowest. Don't let anyone know before hand what clan you are playing. As for small "weenies" well one word Burn!. That's the easiest way to get rid of 'em. However I play games to (more often than not) burn as many vamps as I can. Normally I burn around two, depending on what other decks are around. If weenies I burn Many! The key deffence to weenies are Wakes and rats warnings/cats guidance (untap)

Steve Wampler ("sek10"@cornellSHA.edu) wrote: [Steve Wampler's tirade deleted] : So anyway (if anyone managed to wade through that tirade and reach : this point) it seems to me that the simplest solution is to get : everyone playing to win. (We could also get everyone playing to be : silly, but I think that would be harder to maintain over the long : term) The best way to do this is to attach some extra incentive to : winning. Prizes jump immediately to mind, of course, but that would : have to be prohibitively expensive to be worth while. Ante could : work, but, again, you either play for cheap cards and no one cares : anyway, or play for useful/rare cards, and people who lose are often : badly hurt by the loss. The best idea I've had up to this point would : be to keep some kind of rankings list. It wouldn't be to hard to do : (providing we could agree on how it would work...), and, in my : experience, stuff like that increases desire to win by more than you : would think. : Oh, well. Just my 2¢. (More like $2 by this point...) : -- : Steve "I Bled Someone for 14 Pool in One Turn Because of a : Misdirection" Wampler, creator of the "Spend 29 Pool on Vampires and : Get Bled for One and Die™" deck Steve! Amazing. I guess I've actually seen you post here before, but it must've been long enough ago that I forgot you did... for that matter, you haven't shown up to play Jyhad with us for a couple weeks, have you? I agree though, as long as we're not all playing to win there will be some problems along these lines. So do you think we should get ourselves a ratings list? We could probably keep track of people's scores via Victory Points or something, and have some kind of prize at the end of some period of time if we wanted. Or just keep the rankings up, for bragging rights or somesuch. Kinda funny though - I don't know if that Ravnos deck of yours is meant to be a 'to-win' rather than a 'for fun' deck, but (no offense) it's never struck me as an especially effective one if it is. Although of course, the infamous Bled for 14 in One Turn due to Misdirection one worked rather well. Well, I intend to be trying to play decks that are meant to be effective for a while at least, so we'll see how it goes. Josh "They came from behind!"

> I my mind, Fortitude is the obvious solution to those hoping not to get > killed in combat (S:CE is easier, but also easier to deal with). No one > plays a Tremere deck, since: a) no one has both the cards and the will, > and b) you can't do unpreventable damage when you're immortally > grappled, and it's hard for the Tremere to maneuver. > > So the only people who the Tremere are good against are the anti-combat > decks (and the Gangrel; yay... :( ), but they get killed by the combat > decks. The Assamites have a better chance of shaking things up, but the > only person we know with an Assamite deck can't come to our games club > meetings. Tremere can be combat monsters. Since your group has lots of fortitude, thaumaturgy is a good answer. Only Cauldron of Blood and Walk of Flame, plus whatever Sabbat 1st round madness wotc has added, can be prevented. Theft of Vitae is such an excellent card. It might as well read, "2R strike, and prevent 2 damage". And it's zero cost. With Fast reactions, you ought to be able to recover lost blood to combat decks since your opponent isn't getting a strike; and you can defeat S:CE with a theft and then a blood to water. There are 4 useful manuvers available to the Tremere - Movement of the Mind, Apportation, IR Goggles, and The Spirit's Touch. Since there are so many Grapples in your group, focus on getting to range and stealing blood. Weather Control can also be used to send your opponent into torpor without facing a potence strike. For your Gangrel deck, someone recently posted about Drawing out the beast, Dawn op, and skin of steel being non-preventable aggravated damage. I haven't tried it, but it could be interesting. The Gangrel have wonderful retainers to help them get the edge over other combat decks - more damage, and it beats 'prevent all damage from x strike(s)' cards. I'm working on a Ravnos deck right now, that centers on apparition and Trap, with weapon combat (use horrid reality if necessary). If you can survive the damage your opponent has in hand, while preventing 2 a round, then you're guarunteed 3x weapon damage. Dodges and Fortitude only prolong the trap. Plus Illusions of the Kindred allows you to fight with a minion that doesn't matter. Has anyone worked on a deck with lots of Obediences? They're the blocking minion's answer to psyche, immortal grapple, hidden lurker, and fast reaction. If intercept is low in your group, which it sounds like since it's got lots of rush combat, a S&B deck, or a vote deck centered around obedience should be effective.

Scott Green <com...@spirit.com.au> wrote in article <33023...@spirit.com.au>... [ quoted text not captured ] A couple of months after we started playing we went to random seating. We pick a deck and then use some kind of technique (dice, drawing cards) to determine seating. This makes it impossible for someone to prepare for any one deck. Most of our decks tend to be more balanced for this reason. [ quoted text not captured ]

Scott Green (com...@spirit.com.au) wrote: : Ever tried dicing for position? ie roll D20 and sit from highest to : lowest. Don't let anyone know before hand what clan you are playing. As : for small "weenies" well one word Burn!. That's the easiest way to get : rid of 'em. However I play games to (more often than not) burn as many : vamps as I can. Normally I burn around two, depending on what other : decks are around. If weenies I burn Many! The key deffence to weenies : are Wakes and rats warnings/cats guidance (untap) I didn't mean to imply by my comments on table position determining the outcome of games that people choose their seat and that helps them win games. We do determine seating randomly (usually by dice), generally after people have decided what deck they're playing. I just meant that, when we've determined seating, and found out what deck everyone is playing, it's often possible to predict the winner right then. While burning weenies is always good, the problem I have with your "key defence" suggestions is that they require the defender to be basically an intercept deck. No strategy should require everyone to go to one particular deck type in order to deal with it. As far as it goes, though, sure, wakes and rats/cats will do well against weenies; we just don't have a whole lot of people playing intercept lately - probably because it seems to us very difficult to have an intercept-based deck that will win games larger than three players, since it seems inherent to the intercept deck that it sits around not doing much to its prey most of the time. (Yes, I know, there are ways of having your intercept deck also substantially hurt your prey - we just haven't had many people playing them lately.) Josh "the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire..."

James Hamblin wrote: > > Card limits are not an option, for a huge multitude of reasons I really > don't want to get into. If you want to see past discussions, look at > DejaNews or Mark Langsdorf's web page. James, I don't think Mattitopias' post was meaning to propose a structured card limit as an environment wherein you would enjoy the game more (as opposed to No Limit). I believe that what he was getting at is a sort of handicapping (See Richard Garfield's article in the latest Duelist) to shake things up a bit. I used to play 4 card limit and though I clearly see that it is inferior, I must admit that I learned some skills and gained some habits (good and bad) I otherwise may not have developed. Certainly, some form of card limit will force you to reach your goal by using cards you may not have otherwise chosen for a no limit deck. Frankly, I prefer to just force myself to play with cards that nobody ever plays with. This is where most of my deck ideas come from. -Robert -- ...................................................................... :The opinions expressed here are strictly my own delusional ramblings: :and do not reflect the opinions of The Walt Disney Company. : : : :Robert Goudie robert...@studio.disney.com: :LA Tourny Info -> http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~ezix/other/rg/vtourn_1.html: :....................................................................: :Da pony run, he jump he pitch. He t'row my master in da ditch. : :He died and da jury wondered why. Da verdict was the blue tail fly.: :....................................................................:

In article <19970210030...@ladder01.news.aol.com> pd...@aol.com (PDB6) writes: >As further example of our groups wacky meta game action, a few weeks ago, >Josh, James Hamblin, and I were sitting around playing game after game of >3 way Jyhad. We each had 3 decks to use, so we rolled dice to see which >deck we used in each game, as well as sitting randomly. We each had seen >all of the others decks and knew what they each did. [snip of all the decks] >In all of the 5 or 6 games we played in rapid sucession, we were >succsessfully able to predict the winner of every game, based entirely on >what decks we were using and where we were sitting at the time. For Take some hints from Sun Tzu: "All Warfare is based on deception." When you rebuild one of your favorite decks, take into account what the other players 'know' and will expect from your deck. Try and figure out how you can use their expectations to put them in a weak position. If you do this, you will be playing the metagame in a fair way, using their knowledge and expectations against them. Yes, it'll work once. Then change your deck back. You need to change your decks often enough to keep everyone else off balance. That's part of playing a good metagame. >game). When we do make new decks, the whole meta aspect gets out of >control, as you try real hard to not specifically make decks to kill your >friends deck, as that would be wack, but still trying to make a sucessful >deck, knowing what is likely to be in any particular game. Try to turn this on its head, and build a deck to use your friends' expectations of what you'll play, to make a successful deck. Also, to some extent you're refusing to play the metagame -- you do need to give your friends a little shove, once in a while, if they become too predictable. Sun again: "when able to attack, we must seem unable, when using our forces, we must seem inactive, when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away, when far away, we must make him believe we are near" Use more deception in your games. Sacrifice a small vampire, to give the illusion that you are hand jammed, so that you can lure your predator (or prey) into a deadly combat. Try to build deception into your decks. Example: build a Toreador Tap&Bleed/Vote deck, with dodge and Majesty for combat, and intercept to protect useful permanents like Toreador Ball. Then rebuild it with first strike/aggro damage to complement the intercept, instead of Majesty/Dodge. Or in more general terms, change your playing style. If you don't like the idea of trying to use your friends' expectations, try playing each others' decks a few times. Try to play your own decks in the style one of your other opponents would play it. In the examples you gave, if you were all playing each others' decks, would the outcome have been as certain? >Just the other day, James was thinking of making a new Nosferatu Obf/Ani >combat deck, but he said "What is the point. It'll get whacked by all the >other Immortal Grapple powered combat decks and will be unable to deal >with the S:CE or Fortitude of the other anti-combat decks. Eech." > >Eh. What can you do. Sit back and take a look at the way you build decks? Do you always have 18-25% masters in your deck? Try rebuilding a deck so that it has less than 10%, or less than 5%. Push yourself out of the patterns you (and maybe your friends, too) have fallen into. Play clans you haven't played for a long time. Try strategies you haven't played much. Or in short, quit playing the same damn 3 decks over and over! I'd be bored too! -- Tom Doehne doe...@cse.ogi.edu

Thomas Doehne wrote: [snip Sun Tzu and stories of static games] > When you rebuild one of your favorite decks, take into account what > the other players 'know' and will expect from your deck. Try and > figure out how you can use their expectations to put them in > a weak position. If you do this, you will be playing the metagame > in a fair way, using their knowledge and expectations against them. > Yes, it'll work once. Then change your deck back. You need to > change your decks often enough to keep everyone else off balance. > That's part of playing a good metagame. > Or in more general terms, change your playing style. If you don't > like the idea of trying to use your friends' expectations, try playing > each others' decks a few times. Try to play your own decks in > the style one of your other opponents would play it. In the examples > you gave, if you were all playing each others' decks, would the outcome > have been as certain? > Or in short, quit playing the same damn 3 decks over and over! I'd > be bored too! > > -- > Tom Doehne > doe...@cse.ogi.edu What you say has a lot of validity, Tom. Despite some bad luck last night, I introduced a combination that nobody had tried in my playgroup: a Toreador/Ravnos deck. Unfortunately, my predator both games was using his only deck, a partial SB/combat deck (Malk/Nos), that *everyone* is tired of seeing. Despite permanent +2 intercept I generated, along with untap, Lucretia managed to SB me to death: very frustrating considering I had managed to set up Konstantin with Raven Spy, Mr Winthrop, CEL, and had stolen a Sengir Dagger... So, I'll revise the deck and keep trying it-but at the very least I've managed to get people to consider changing things up themselves. I know my predator woke up when Salbatore used Illusions of the Kindred to pull out Vaclav, who proceeded to Trap and pull out Talbot's Chainsaw-illusion after illusion after illusion! Ravnos are fun! Later, Sean Whittaker

On 12 Feb 1997, Steven Bucy wrote: [Re: Random Seating and play styles] > A couple of months after we started playing we went to random seating. We > pick a deck and then use some kind of technique (dice, drawing cards) to > determine seating. This makes it impossible for someone to prepare for any > one deck. Most of our decks tend to be more balanced for this reason. This method tends to have a number of benefits. As you describe, people's decks tend to be more balanced and less chosen for their ability to deal with specific decks. Another bonus is that games tend to be harsher. Since players aren't going to be directly prepared for each specific deck, more conflict tends to occur. This earlier conflict causes an acceleration of games that let's more games get played, but also increases a deck's ability to survive in a harsh environment. I'm sure you'll find that playing in another environment (a tourney for example), groups with random seating will have a much higher incidence of success in these environments. @#$ The Corrupter $#@ @#$ Adrian Lee Sullivan $#@ Truth is as @#$ Game Theory - Coffee - Opinion - Hedonism $#@ subjective as @#$ <http://upl.cs.wisc.edu/~adrian/jyhad> $#@ Reality ... GAT/CS/WS C(+++) USX+ P++ N++ PS++@ PE@ b++(+++) X+++ R+++* r+ z++**?

On 12 Feb 1997, Scott Green wrote: > Ever tried dicing for position? ie roll D20 and sit from highest to > lowest. Don't let anyone know before hand what clan you are playing. As > for small "weenies" well one word Burn!. That's the easiest way to get > rid of 'em. However I play games to (more often than not) burn as many > vamps as I can. Normally I burn around two, depending on what other > decks are around. If weenies I burn Many! The key deffence to weenies > are Wakes and rats warnings/cats guidance (untap) In our circle we choose our decks and then play 2 or 3 rounds of the Game of Malkav to determine seating. The high winner chooses who goes first and then everyone draws up their cards. Tends to work well. [ quoted text not captured ]

Thomas Doehne <doe...@church.cse.ogi.edu> wrote in article <5dtut3$f...@reuter.cse.ogi.edu>... (snip) > Take some hints from Sun Tzu: > "All Warfare is based on deception." > > When you rebuild one of your favorite decks, take into account what > the other players 'know' and will expect from your deck. Try and > figure out how you can use their expectations to put them in > a weak position. If you do this, you will be playing the metagame > in a fair way, using their knowledge and expectations against them. > Yes, it'll work once. Then change your deck back. You need to > change your decks often enough to keep everyone else off balance. > That's part of playing a good metagame. (snip) > Or in short, quit playing the same damn 3 decks over and over! I'd > be bored too! It really helps to have two or more totally different decks that use many of the same vampires. At one point I had a Gangrel bleed deck, political deck, and combat deck. I played all three decks frequently. Everyone in my group wouldn't know what was coming until I let them know. A couple of times I was able to oust someone easily because they where expecting something else. If you don't have enough cards to make several decks you should switch just enough cards to change you strategy a little. It will keep everyone on their toes. [ quoted text not captured ]

I think that the matter may have been beaten nearly into torpor, but I have already played "Opening the Mouth" and have to get my swing in too. If only I have superior impotence, instead of inferior. At any rate, the key here is to VALUE INNOVATION. If your play group tries to use STYLE in deck building, the game is a lot more fun. In my group, there are 4-7 people per week playing. Of that group, two of us usually try to bring a new concept deck at least every other week. The other players change more sporadically, or are less noticeable in their changes. I'm not talking about the new and improved sneaky bleed deck here, we try to build new concepts by picking a card or a combo and assembling a deck around it. Sometimes, it's just because we like the artwork on generally useless card, sometimes it's 'cause we never see the card in use and feel sorry for it. The worst part is we can usually make highly effective decks this way. And when they work, everyone a tthe table goes "Ooooooooooh." One of the guys is so good at it that I don't think he has brought a deck in that hasn't cleared the table at one point or another. BTW - the answer is "No - we're not so lame the just any deck cleans up." Sure, occassionly we see themes that aren't exactly new. Weenie vote push, Gangel agg damage, Toreador guns, etc. I built "Innocence, My Ass" to generate 15+ unblockable ultrableed. Not too novel, but it is amusing to see that bleed bounce from Methuselah to Methuselah. And it forced some meta-game adjustments in my play group with Deflect, Misdirect and Boons being a lot more common these days. My current project is Methuselah Direct Intervention - a deck that allows 3 master cards per turn. It may not prove that effective the 1st time I play it, but it sure will raise a few eyebrows. Lets face it, not everyone has the time or inclination to build cool new decks every week - and that's OK. In some cases, it's nice to see staple decks to test new decks against. But if players at least try new CONCEPTS it makes the game a ton more fun. Darby And just in case corporate CIS didn't get their 2 cents in: "all posts are soley the opinions of the author and in no way reflect the position of Amgen" *** Disclaimer: These are the opinions of the poster not Amgen Inc.***

Joshua Duffin wrote: > > Steve Wampler ("sek10"@cornellSHA.edu) wrote: > [Steve Wampler's tirade deleted] [BIG CLIP] > : The best idea I've had up to this point would > : be to keep some kind of rankings list. It wouldn't be to hard to do > : (providing we could agree on how it would work...), and, in my > : experience, stuff like that increases desire to win by more than you > : would think. This is a great idea. Ok, let's start brainstorming about some systems for ranking players. Robert [ quoted text not captured ]

The Corrupter (sull...@cslab.uwlax.edu) wrote: [randomm seating deleted] : : This method tends to have a number of benefits. As you describe, : people's decks tend to be more balanced and less chosen for their ability : to deal with specific decks. Another bonus is that games tend to be : harsher. Since players aren't going to be directly prepared for each : specific deck, more conflict tends to occur. This earlier conflict : causes an acceleration of games that let's more games get played, but : also increases a deck's ability to survive in a harsh environment. I'm : sure you'll find that playing in another environment (a tourney for : example), groups with random seating will have a much higher incidence of : success in these environments. ....Which makes me wonder. Are there in fact any groups out there that *don't* use random seating? And if so, what method do you use to determine seating? Does someone get to choose? (I would think that pretty much everyone would use random seating. It seems like the natural thing to do. But maybe that's just me.) Josh

Robert Goudie <robert...@studio.disney.com> wrote in article <33039...@studio.disney.com>... > Joshua Duffin wrote: > > > > Steve Wampler ("sek10"@cornellSHA.edu) wrote: > > [Steve Wampler's tirade deleted] > [BIG CLIP] > > : The best idea I've had up to this point would > > : be to keep some kind of rankings list. It wouldn't be to hard to do > > : (providing we could agree on how it would work...), and, in my > > : experience, stuff like that increases desire to win by more than you > > : would think. > > This is a great idea. Ok, let's start brainstorming about some systems > for ranking players. It seems to me the only easy way that makes a lot of sense is to rank players by victory points. Some players score victory points in almost every game yet don't win that often. Others sweep a game occasionally but often are the first ousted. Counting VP's would show this. This would make getting that victory point much more important. It would make people think twice before they decide to wipe out their preditor and give someone else a victory point. Such an action might hurt there overall rating. It would also be very easy to keep track of. [ quoted text not captured ]

Our Group works out that all players "give" a Vampire (doesn't matter which one) from thier crypt to a person. After all the players have "Ante'd" up a Vamp (no duplicates) these cards are shuffled at random and then flipped up in front of a seat from Left-to-Right with the first card being turned over being the 1st players' seat. Each Methusalah then takes their chair position and gets situated for their game. There is no substituting of decks after seating (Whining "My predator has Brujah, Waahhh"), that's too bad. No sidebars or modifying decks in any way aside of the shuffle/cut prior to drawing your hand. The benefit of this method (to some degree) is that players watch to see how Vampires are positioned around the table and adjust their strategies accordingly. Fun to watch, especially considering the number of folks mixing clans, etc.. -- Bernie

Robert Goudie (robert...@studio.disney.com) wrote: : > Steve Wampler ("sek10"@cornellSHA.edu) wrote: : [BIG CLIP] : > : The best idea I've had up to this point would : > : be to keep some kind of rankings list. It wouldn't be to hard to do : > : (providing we could agree on how it would work...), and, in my : > : experience, stuff like that increases desire to win by more than you : > : would think. : This is a great idea. Ok, let's start brainstorming about some systems : for ranking players. Hmm. Well, the most obvious thing to me would to give players scores based on the victory points they accumulate during the games you play. Keep a running total of their VPs over the weeks, or something. If you wanted to get sophisticated, maybe you could do something silly like what the DCI magic ratings system is like - start everyone with a rating of (some number, say 1000) and then have it go up or down based on their performance in each game, and the ratings of the other players. Of course, you could also keep rankings for a variety of statistics - victory points earned, vampires burned, votes passed, uh... well, pretty much anything. On the other hand, if the objective is to encourage people to play "to win", it might be counterproductive to rate them on things that aren't exactly winning. Josh

On Tue, 11 Feb 1997 14:40:47 -0500, James Hamblin <je...@cornell.edu> wrote: >> If it's not banned or damaged in your environment, Thoughts >> Betrayed is a beautiful card for the Tremere. > >Well, I wouldn't use the word "beautiful". How about "hallaciously >unbalanced and completely against the paradigm of the game"? > >Yes, we've "fixed" it. You can look at our house rules at > >http://www.csuglab.cornell.edu/Info/People/jeh13/jyhad/house-rules.html > >The dilemma is, do we completely screw combat (even though it's got so >many strikes against it already: too card intensive, S:CE, Fortitude, >etc.)? I don't want to... > Well, just as a degenerate idea my friends and I came up with (god, we have too much time on our hands sometimes...), make the disposable tremere deck. Step 1: Either get as many Weather Controls as possible, or simply convince your unsuspecting playgroup to let you proxy as many as you want as a test of NL/GT. Step 2: Put all of them in a deck with tremere and other small vampires with thaumaturgy. Add Chantries, Hunting grounds, the catacombs and humanitas so you can keep your weenie tremere alive after they enter torpor. Embraces help too. Step 3: Enter combat with another vampire; preferably a combat monster type. Before range, play enough weather controls so that they enter torpor, no more. This will torporize your tremere. Luckily, that Tremere happened to be roreca Quaid. Laugh at the poor fool who can't play any fortitude. Step 4: Repeat step 3 until your friends decide that weather control should be banned. Anyway, just my contribution to degeneracy everywhere. I finally realized why there was a maximum deck size.... Alec Chang

Our group has always used random seating. Even for non-league play (pick up games and such). To do otherwise just seems wrong. And it does ensure that all decks are fairly balanced, people are not creating decks specifically for the purpose of hosing another deck. There are strategy decks built depending on what is the predominant type of deck being played, though. Our playgroup tends to play just about everything at one point or another, with some strange concepts surfacing from time to time (Quietus/Thaumaturgy based combat deck anyone :). Then again, we have a rather large group, averageing 10-12 on a league night, with over 20 total members, that it would be difficult to build hoser decks just due to logistics. Hardrock -- Hardrock Llewynyth a.g.AB founding member (DNRC) hard...@speakeasy.org http://www.speakeasy.org/~hardrock No good deed goes unpunished. --Clare Boothe Luce

On Thu, 13 Feb 1997, Robert Goudie wrote: [Re: Ranking Players to make more of a sense of competition] > This is a great idea. Ok, let's start brainstorming about some systems > for ranking players. This season's Madison Jyhad League is an Open Season (play sealed, constructed, whatever you want...), but we score games as follows. 1) Each Player starts with 1000 points. Players can start at any time. 2) Whenever a league game happens, each player throws 10% of their current point total into the Victory Pool. 3) Each player gets a fraction of the Victory Pool equal to the fraction of Victory Points they received. (i.e., 4 player game, winner with 3VP gets 75% of pool). It works quite well and is relatively simple to explain and implement. To keep people from getting discouraged, it is important to note that 800-1200 is still about "average". (I got really lucky this Wednesday when I picked up 6VP in a 7 Player Game... :) Good luck. It kind of increases rivalry, but hasn't seemed to increase player tension, but YMMV. [ quoted text not captured ]

Alec Chang wrote: > > Step 3: Enter combat with another vampire; preferably a combat monster > type. Before range, play enough weather controls so that they enter > torpor, no more. This will torporize your tremere. Luckily, that > Tremere happened to be roreca Quaid. Laugh at the poor fool who can't > play any fortitude. Isn't there a limit to how many combat cards you can play in a round similar to the limit on reactions and action mods per action? > Alec Chang -- Chris Shorb ino...@ix.netcom.com [insert obscure/pithy/witty quote here]

Thomas Doehne wrote: > [clip] > Or in short, quit playing the same damn 3 decks over and over! I'd > be bored too! That had me rolling Thomas! I have 15 decks right now any of which can be played at any time. There are 3 different weenie decks (dom bleed, fortitude/trap/undead persistance, and stealthy vote-push), a Brainwash deck, a Female Malk Fast Reaction Hidden Lurker Guns Deck, two unpreventable agg decks (Dawn Op/Weather Control/Skin of Night and a Dawn Op, Drawing Out the Beast deck), A Brujah Rush Deck, A Ventrue/Gangrel Bleed Bouncer, a Toreador Rush/Intercept deck with extra strikes & untaps, a Bruise & Vote Brujah Euro Prince Deck and a few others that I can't remember at the moment. The rest of my group has between 3 and 12 decks each with no overlap of ideas except possibly for the Brujah Rush Deck. There are so many possible decks I really don't see any need to play the same few over and over. Thomas made some excellent points about deception. Steve Bucy was complaining about my Weenie Dom Bleed deck with the Zip Guns and Dragons Breath Rounds. By the time he started complaining, I only had a couple of DBRs in the deck making even more room for bleed. My Ventrue/Gangrel deck often scares people who don't know it becuase they see me discard or play one of my two Claws of the Dead and they assume I am capable of playing those at any time. [ quoted text not captured ]

Chris Shorb wrote: > > Alec Chang wrote: > > > > Step 3: Enter combat with another vampire; preferably a combat monster > > type. Before range, play enough weather controls so that they enter > > torpor, no more. This will torporize your tremere. Luckily, that > > Tremere happened to be roreca Quaid. Laugh at the poor fool who can't > > play any fortitude. > > Isn't there a limit to how many combat cards you can play in a round > similar to the limit on reactions and action mods per action? > No. You can use 8 Unflinching Persistence to prevent 8 damage, for instance. Or, you can play 8 Weather Controls to deal 8 damage to each minion at the start of the first round. -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | He who laughs last http://www.math.sc.edu/cgi-bin/sjohnson/home | thinks slowest Graphics Specialist and V:tES Rulemonger. |

The Corrupter wrote: > > On 12 Feb 1997, Steven Bucy wrote: > > [Re: Random Seating and play styles] > > A couple of months after we started playing we went to random seating. We > > pick a deck and then use some kind of technique (dice, drawing cards) to > > determine seating. This makes it impossible for someone to prepare for any > > one deck. Most of our decks tend to be more balanced for this reason. > > This method tends to have a number of benefits. As you describe, > people's decks tend to be more balanced and less chosen for their ability > to deal with specific decks. Another bonus is that games tend to be > harsher. Since players aren't going to be directly prepared for each > specific deck, more conflict tends to occur. This earlier conflict > causes an acceleration of games that let's more games get played, but > also increases a deck's ability to survive in a harsh environment. I'm > sure you'll find that playing in another environment (a tourney for > example), groups with random seating will have a much higher incidence >of success in these environments. This is very true our play group also uses random seating,(once and a while we get to lazy to move but...) and this is exactly what happened to our group, you never new what deck to play and alot of games were one by bringing out the right deck and luck of seating position. Errol T

[ quoted text not captured ] Hmmm... sounds pretty good. I was thinking maybe keep track of averages of % of victory points gained, which would be very similar to this method, but more complicated, as my way you'd have to keep track of the scores for all games, and yours if everyone knows there score your golden. Both of these methods are, IMHO, better than simple VP totaling, as that gives an unfair advantage to people who play more games. Anyway, in the time it took to write that I convinced myself that the system you describe above is the best I've heard so far. I'd be in favor of implemnting it. What do other people think? (especially James, Josh, and Peter and otheres from our playgroup) -- Steve "I Bled Someone for 14 Pool in One Turn Because of a Misdirection" Wampler, creator of the "Spend 29 Pool on Vampires and Get Bled for One and Die™" deck sjwa...@hotmail.com (ignore the above adress, its plain brown wrong)

> Anyway, in the time it took to write that I convinced myself that > the system you describe above is the best I've heard so far. I'd be > in favor of implemnting it. What do other people think? (especially > James, Josh, and Peter and otheres from our playgroup) Sounds good to me... we'd have to decide what kind of deck tinkering is or is not allowed, and when/if to retire really good/successful decks. I've tried to re-gear my decks to primarily play to win, and I think that it'd be a lot better for everyone involved if we all played to win. Unfortunately, the big problem is weenie decks. They're always going to be successful, so do we disallow them? What do other people think? James -- James Hamblin je...@cornell.edu --------------------------------------------------- "Well, Mulder didn't say that it _was_ Alex Trebek, just someone who looked extremely like him." -- Dana Scully, X-Files: "Jose Chung's _From Outer Space_"

James Hamblin wrote: "I've tried to re-gear my decks to primarily play to win, and I think that it'd be a lot better for everyone involved if we all played to win. Unfortunately, the big problem is weenie decks. They're always going to be successful, so do we disallow them?" Now when everyone says "we want people to play to win" what do they mean? Do we want people to not play decks that have no chance of winning or do we want people to make as killer decks as possible? There is a large difference there. What is the difference between playing a deck that can't actually win (i.e. get the most victory points) and playing a newly designed untested deck idea that may end up being bad? How do you determine wheither someone is playing to win or not? When I make decks, I try to build decks that can win games. Some of them are much better than others at doing that, but I don't make decks that are designed to lose. Granted, sometimes my decks main way of ousting its prey is to bleed them one point at a time, but even that works sometimes. All the decks I own have some possiblity of winning somewhere in them, and when I play I attempt to oust my prey. What else defines trying to win? If we intend on making as killer decks as possible (i.e. "I'm playing to win!"), then we are all going to end up with high speed weenie decks, at least for a while, until everyone starts making anti weenie decks. If there is a limit on "weenie decks", then everyone will end up with as close to said "weenie deck" as possible in the realm of the rules. What do you mean by "...deck tinkering."? Why would we not allow deck tinkering? I'm confused by that. How do you regulate "deck tinkering"? How do you regulate wheither a deck is "too good" and needs to be retired? That is just silly. If we intend on making as killer winning decks as we can, what is the point of doing that if someone is going to say "Oh boy. You certainly swept the table 4 times with that weenie bleed deck. We're impressed. Play something new now." If the whole point is to play to win, why punish someone for winning? That does not make sense. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "Good morning, ladies. I'm quite mad, you know." -Autolycus

PDB6 (pd...@aol.com) wrote: : James Hamblin wrote: : "I've tried to re-gear my decks to primarily play to win, and I think that : it'd be a lot better for everyone involved if we all played to win. : Unfortunately, the big problem is weenie decks. They're always going to : be successful, so do we disallow them?" : Now when everyone says "we want people to play to win" what do they mean? : Do we want people to not play decks that have no chance of winning or do : we want people to make as killer decks as possible? There is a large : difference there. What is the difference between playing a deck that : can't actually win (i.e. get the most victory points) and playing a newly : designed untested deck idea that may end up being bad? How do you : determine wheither someone is playing to win or not? Hi Peter, James, Steve. Before I get into the ranting and raving bit, I'll just say that I like Adrian Sullivan's scoring system too, and think we should use that one if we want to start using a score system. Now for the ranting... There is no such thing as a deck that has no chance of winning. Any deck can get the most victory points by making one vampire and bleeding its prey for one every turn until s/he dies, and then its next prey, and so on. I know, that's not what you mean, but there's as big a difference between "no chance of winning" and "slim chance of winning" as there is between decks that "can't win" and that are "as killer as possible." : When I make decks, I try to build decks that can win games. Some of them : are much better than others at doing that, but I don't make decks that are : designed to lose. Granted, sometimes my decks main way of ousting its : prey is to bleed them one point at a time, but even that works sometimes. : All the decks I own have some possiblity of winning somewhere in them, and : when I play I attempt to oust my prey. What else defines trying to win? See, that's the problem with the idea of decks that can't win games - any deck can win a game; it's all a matter of degree whether it has nearly no chance of doing so, as opposed to a great chance of sweeping the entire table. Every deck anyone plays, and any deck anyone has ever played in our group, has an ability to win. There are decks that will in practice never win games, for example an intercept combat deck that never bleeds its prey and has no other way of causing its prey to lose pool - such a deck, while it may often get two victory points, for being the last person alive and ousting its last surviving opponent, will never outright win a game of four players or more. What I think James probably means by playing to win (and what I mean by playing to win) is that you're playing a deck that you believe is designed to garner as many victory points as possible. That hypothetical intercept combat deck would not be designed to win, in this sense. : If we intend on making as killer decks as possible (i.e. "I'm playing to : win!"), then we are all going to end up with high speed weenie decks, at : least for a while, until everyone starts making anti weenie decks. If : there is a limit on "weenie decks", then everyone will end up with as : close to said "weenie deck" as possible in the realm of the rules. Okay, at this point I feel obliged to point out that we felt exactly the same way, a year ago, about playing in a no-card-limits environment. The argument then was that everyone would end up playing decks in the style of a 20 majesty/20 kine resources contested/20 bewitching oration deck. We were wrong about that. Maybe we're also wrong that weenie decks (by which I mean decks that don't make any substantial use of vampires of capacity greater than three; the ideal weenie deck would use only 1s and 2s) would dominate an environment in which everyone was really playing "to win" - a more cutthroat environment, where people really tried to get all the VPs they could. Or, maybe you're right, and weenie decks are inherently the most efficient decks in Jyhad. I know there are at least a couple groups out there that really do play speedier, more "to win" decks - is it your experience, folks, that it's all weenies out there? : What do you mean by "...deck tinkering."? Why would we not allow deck : tinkering? I'm confused by that. How do you regulate "deck tinkering"? I think James probably was thinking of deck tinkering in the milieu of us playing with a scoring system like the one Steve and Adrian S. referred to. Maybe he was thinking that we would be essentially playing a sort of ongoing tournament, and as such, playing only one deck (?) and not messing with it during the scoring period, or some such. It's not what I was thinking of though - I was thinking that people would have scores, rather than decks having scores, and as such they would score points for the games they play, regardless of what deck they're playing, or how altered it is from the last time they played it. : How do you regulate wheither a deck is "too good" and needs to be retired? : That is just silly. If we intend on making as killer winning decks as we : can, what is the point of doing that if someone is going to say "Oh boy. : You certainly swept the table 4 times with that weenie bleed deck. We're : impressed. Play something new now." If the whole point is to play to : win, why punish someone for winning? That does not make sense. There is no point to retiring decks for being too good, if you've decided that playing "to win" is where it's at. But I don't know that we've decided that, and I don't even know if we're going to. However, saying things like "Gosh, that weenie deck sure is effective. Why don't you put it away and play a real deck now?" is something we *do*, and it's something we've been doing for a while now. Basically, we still have a set of unwritten house rules, besides the card-based ones we actually have written down. They say something like "Weenie decks are classless and too effective, so you shouldn't use them. Offensive votes are too effective and no one wants to use sufficient defense against them, so the entire table is justified in voting against them or otherwise stopping them. Combat is fun and classy, so people are allowed to play rush combat (or other such) decks even if the only way they will ever oust anyone is by sending all their prey's vampires to torpor and then bleeding them for a one a turn with all their vampires till their prey is dead." I don't think it's good for our play group, or for anyone's peace of mind, to have unwritten rules like that. I think if we want to have rules limiting the effectiveness of allowable decks - for example, disallowing weenie decks cause we don't want our "cool" decks to lose to them every time we play - we should admit that we have such rules, and write them down. Okay, that's probably enough tirade for now. I had been considering doing a from-scratch rant on this, but since you saved me the trouble, Peter, I won't have to do that now. ;) So, thoughts anyone? Josh "Oh look, I've been Bum Rushed, Immortal Grappled, and hit for twenty. Again. Whee."

James Hamblin <je...@cornell.edu> writes: >I've tried to re-gear my decks to primarily play to win, and I think >that it'd be a lot better for everyone involved if we all played to win. >Unfortunately, the big problem is weenie decks. They're always going to >be successful, so do we disallow them? Hrm. We play with a lot of combat deck and weenie decks don't do all that great; they just get too many vamps burnt. Try playing with rankings or a "go-for-the-throat" mentality. That might solve your problem by itself. If you still have problems with weenie decks, I think a better solution would be to play all games under an externally imposed Masquerade Enforcement (bringing out a vampire costs an extra pool). "Weenie deck" is too vague a category to be banned. P.S. A little ago we had a thread on game variants. Playing under a ME would be a good game variant. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

Joshua Duffin wrote: > > What I think James probably means by playing to win (and what I mean by > playing to win) is that you're playing a deck that you believe is designed > to garner as many victory points as possible. That hypothetical intercept > combat deck would not be designed to win, in this sense. Yeah, I mean, it's not like I don't _want_ to win, or that I don't _try_ to win, but in the past my decks have not had "get victory points" as their main goal. > : If we intend on making as killer decks as possible (i.e. "I'm playing to > : win!"), then we are all going to end up with high speed weenie decks, at > : least for a while, until everyone starts making anti weenie decks. If > : there is a limit on "weenie decks", then everyone will end up with as > : close to said "weenie deck" as possible in the realm of the rules. There's got to be some sort of middle ground here, Peter. All I'm saying is that if we all try to win the games we play (i.e., use the built-in victory conditions for the game: victory points), our decks will evolve from "good in combat" or "good at voting" to "good period". [snip Josh: maybe we're just being paranoid] Maybe you're right. Weenie decks certainly have their disadvantages. They're fast, but they're not well-rounded. > I think James probably was thinking of deck tinkering in the milieu of us > playing with a scoring system like the one Steve and Adrian S. referred to. > Maybe he was thinking that we would be essentially playing a sort of ongoing > tournament, and as such, playing only one deck (?) and not messing with it > during the scoring period, or some such. > > It's not what I was thinking of though - I was thinking that people would > have scores, rather than decks having scores, and as such they would score > points for the games they play, regardless of what deck they're playing, or > how altered it is from the last time they played it. Hmmm... you're right; I was thinking of attributing scores to decks, not people. > : How do you regulate wheither a deck is "too good" and needs to be retired? > : That is just silly. If we intend on making as killer winning decks as we > : can, what is the point of doing that if someone is going to say "Oh boy. > : You certainly swept the table 4 times with that weenie bleed deck. We're > : impressed. Play something new now." If the whole point is to play to > : win, why punish someone for winning? That does not make sense. > > There is no point to retiring decks for being too good, if you've decided > that playing "to win" is where it's at. But I don't know that we've decided > that, and I don't even know if we're going to. Geez... Sorry. I was just thinking (with points for decks in mind) that once a deck got too many points (say, above 2000) it might be good to rotate it out. Why not? Even though we might be playing "to win", do we want to play the same exact game over and over? Then again, I can see the point that no deck (theoretically) should be so good that it always wins, so always having the same deck shouldn't be that much of an advantage anyway. [snip Josh: unwritten house rules] I agree that we do these things. In some part, it's talking smack. There's this whole "honor" thing going on in our group, and we've got to break out of it. This started off as me getting annoyed at Peter's "I Immortally Grapple you, and punch you for 17 aggravated damage and prevent all your damage" deck. But as effective as it is in combat, it's not the most versatile of decks. > I don't think it's good for our play group, or for anyone's peace of mind, > to have unwritten rules like that. I think if we want to have rules limiting > the effectiveness of allowable decks - for example, disallowing weenie decks > cause we don't want our "cool" decks to lose to them every time we play - > we should admit that we have such rules, and write them down. But if we do that, I don't see how Peter's deck won't always win. If we reduce the game to "who's the most effective in combat", then Potence and Fortitude will seemingly always win, modulo your theoretical bizzaro Tremere deck. Why don't we just make it clear that we're just talking smack, and start playing the game? > "Oh look, I've been Bum Rushed, Immortal Grappled, and hit for twenty. > Again. Whee." I don't know, maybe you meant this as a joke, but maybe there really is a little bit too much of this. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin wrote: > > Joshua Duffin wrote: > > > > What I think James probably means by playing to win (and what I mean by > > playing to win) is that you're playing a deck that you believe is designed > > to garner as many victory points as possible. That hypothetical intercept > > combat deck would not be designed to win, in this sense. > > Yeah, I mean, it's not like I don't _want_ to win, or that I don't _try_ > to win, but in the past my decks have not had "get victory points" as > their main goal. > > > : If we intend on making as killer decks as possible (i.e. "I'm playing to > > : win!"), then we are all going to end up with high speed weenie decks, at > > : least for a while, until everyone starts making anti weenie decks. If > > : there is a limit on "weenie decks", then everyone will end up with as > > : close to said "weenie deck" as possible in the realm of the rules. > > There's got to be some sort of middle ground here, Peter. All I'm > saying is > that if we all try to win the games we play (i.e., use the built-in > victory conditions for the game: victory points), our decks will evolve > from "good in combat" or "good at voting" to "good period". > > [snip Josh: maybe we're just being paranoid] > > Maybe you're right. Weenie decks certainly have their disadvantages. > They're fast, but they're not well-rounded. > > > I think James probably was thinking of deck tinkering in the milieu of us > > playing with a scoring system like the one Steve and Adrian S. referred to. > > Maybe he was thinking that we would be essentially playing a sort of ongoing > > tournament, and as such, playing only one deck (?) and not messing with it > > during the scoring period, or some such. > > > > It's not what I was thinking of though - I was thinking that people would > > have scores, rather than decks having scores, and as such they would score > > points for the games they play, regardless of what deck they're playing, or > > how altered it is from the last time they played it. > > Hmmm... you're right; I was thinking of attributing scores to decks, not > people. > > > : How do you regulate wheither a deck is "too good" and needs to be retired? > > : That is just silly. If we intend on making as killer winning decks as we > > : can, what is the point of doing that if someone is going to say "Oh boy. > > : You certainly swept the table 4 times with that weenie bleed deck. We're > > : impressed. Play something new now." If the whole point is to play to > > : win, why punish someone for winning? That does not make sense. > > > > There is no point to retiring decks for being too good, if you've decided > > that playing "to win" is where it's at. But I don't know that we've decided > > that, and I don't even know if we're going to. > > Geez... Sorry. I was just thinking (with points for decks in mind) that > once a deck got too many points (say, above 2000) it might be good to > rotate it out. Why not? Even though we might be playing "to win", do > we want to play the same exact game over and over? > > Then again, I can see the point that no deck (theoretically) should be > so good that it always wins, so always having the same deck shouldn't be > that much of an advantage anyway. > > [snip Josh: unwritten house rules] > > I agree that we do these things. In some part, it's talking smack. > There's > this whole "honor" thing going on in our group, and we've got to break > out of it. > This started off as me getting annoyed at Peter's "I Immortally Grapple > you, and punch you for 17 aggravated damage and prevent all your damage" > deck. But as effective as it is in combat, it's not the most versatile > of decks. > > > I don't think it's good for our play group, or for anyone's peace of mind, > > to have unwritten rules like that. I think if we want to have rules limiting > > the effectiveness of allowable decks - for example, disallowing weenie decks > > cause we don't want our "cool" decks to lose to them every time we play - > > we should admit that we have such rules, and write them down. > > But if we do that, I don't see how Peter's deck won't always win. If we > reduce the game to "who's the most effective in combat", then Potence > and Fortitude will seemingly always win, modulo your theoretical bizzaro > Tremere deck. > > Why don't we just make it clear that we're just talking smack, and start > playing the game? > > > "Oh look, I've been Bum Rushed, Immortal Grappled, and hit for twenty. > > Again. Whee." > > I don't know, maybe you meant this as a joke, but maybe there really is > a little bit too much of this. > > James > -- > > James Hamblin > je...@cornell.edu > --------------------------------------------------- > "Well, Mulder didn't say that it _was_ Alex Trebek, > just someone who looked extremely like him." > -- Dana Scully, X-Files: > "Jose Chung's _From Outer Space_" As I see it, we seem to be hung up on defining "playing to win" as the opposite of "playing for fun". A better distinction would be "playing to win" and "being silly." Since this is, after all, a GAME, that we are "playing for fun" should ALWAYS be true ('cept mebbe at tourneys, but we're not talkin' 'bout that here). This whole huge thread started because we wanted to figure out how to make the games more FUN! Even if we have rankings, people will sometimes not use their very effective decks if they are no fun. DIGRESSION OF SORTS: After my WB deck had won about 27000 times, you guys started sticking atonements in my face, and I stopped playing the deck (for a while). But you never actually played atonement on me; the real reason I stopped was that the deck was no fun, even though it won. Oh, swept the table again. *YAWN*. After a couple of months, I've brought the deck back. END DIGRESSION. So, effective, boring decks eliminate themselves. This will be true even if we have rankings. Mark me down as being in favor of "playing for the fun of winning." I believe that player rankings (I'm thinking personal points, not deck points) would make the game more fun by encouraging diversity two ways: 1) Getting people away from our traditional combat decks 2) Forcing even winning decks to change via the mechanism of the meta-game: once a deck wins a couple of times, people will figure out how to beat it. (The guy who comes in every week with a malk S&B deck is gonna be mighty sad when I add 15 dementias to my deck) the other reason that not everyone will have the same deck: nobody wins if everyone spends the whole game contesting Igo the Hungry. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin (je...@cornell.edu) wrote: : Joshua Duffin wrote: : > [some stuff deleeted] : What, you again? You read news too fast for your own good, you know that? : > : If we intend on making as killer decks as possible (i.e. "I'm playing to : > : win!"), then we are all going to end up with high speed weenie decks, at : > : least for a while, until everyone starts making anti weenie decks. If : > : there is a limit on "weenie decks", then everyone will end up with as : > : close to said "weenie deck" as possible in the realm of the rules. : There's got to be some sort of middle ground here, Peter. All I'm : saying is : that if we all try to win the games we play (i.e., use the built-in : victory conditions for the game: victory points), our decks will evolve : from "good in combat" or "good at voting" to "good period". : Well, yes, I pretty much agree with what you say here, James. : [snip Josh: maybe we're just being paranoid] : Maybe you're right. Weenie decks certainly have their disadvantages. : They're fast, but they're not well-rounded. : Yes, well-rounded is what weenie decks usually are not. It may be possible for them to be well-rounded, if well-designed, but I would guess that the archetypal weenie deck is a one trick pony of one variety or another. Like any one-trick-pony, it is (as was mentioned in our discussion the other day) susceptible to being not just hampered but *completely shut down* by having the wrong kind of deck sitting next to it. Which is, to my mind, basically the risk you run by playing a OTP deck. : > There is no point to retiring decks for being too good, if you've decided : > that playing "to win" is where it's at. But I don't know that we've decided : > that, and I don't even know if we're going to. : Geez... Sorry. I was just thinking (with points for decks in mind) that : once a deck got too many points (say, above 2000) it might be good to : rotate it out. Why not? Even though we might be playing "to win", do : we want to play the same exact game over and over? : Then again, I can see the point that no deck (theoretically) should be : so good that it always wins, so always having the same deck shouldn't be : that much of an advantage anyway. No need to apologize, I didn't mean to be in yer face again here. As you say, and Steve Wampler also says in the other post to this thread that I saw, no one deck can really dominate play over the course of any number of sessions, just because if it does, people will start preparing for that deck in particular. And after all, no deck is so good that it can't be dealt with by the right kind of strategy. And since I think everyone agrees at this point that by-player, rather than by-deck, is the best way to score, retiring a particular deck (rather than a particular player ;) would probably not be very useful. : [snip Josh: unwritten house rules] : I agree that we do these things. In some part, it's talking smack. : There's : this whole "honor" thing going on in our group, and we've got to break : out of it. : This started off as me getting annoyed at Peter's "I Immortally Grapple : you, and punch you for 17 aggravated damage and prevent all your damage" : deck. But as effective as it is in combat, it's not the most versatile : of decks. Yes, entirely true. : > I don't think it's good for our play group, or for anyone's peace of mind, : > to have unwritten rules like that. I think if we want to have rules limiting : > the effectiveness of allowable decks - for example, disallowing weenie decks : > cause we don't want our "cool" decks to lose to them every time we play - : > we should admit that we have such rules, and write them down. : But if we do that, I don't see how Peter's deck won't always win. If we : reduce the game to "who's the most effective in combat", then Potence : and Fortitude will seemingly always win, modulo your theoretical bizzaro : Tremere deck. : Why don't we just make it clear that we're just talking smack, and start : playing the game? Pretty much what I was trying to get at here - I didn't mean that we should take the unwritten house rules that I alleged we have, and write them down and play with them; I meant that we should admit that we've been using those as unwritten rules, and that we should confront them, tell them how much of a bad idea they are, and banish them forever from our play style. heh, heh. :p : > "Oh look, I've been Bum Rushed, Immortal Grappled, and hit for twenty. : > Again. Whee." : I don't know, maybe you meant this as a joke, but maybe there really is : a little bit too much of this. Well, if one believes that there really has been too much combat, and especially too much combat-without-the-intent-of-winning, then there has certainly been too much of this. But I just meant it as a humorous comment on the traditional "oh look, I was bled for six at plus three stealth. again. whee." comment. As for Steve's comments on the thread (I don't feel like doing an actual follow-up to his post too, sorry Steve, you did go and leave in the entire text of James' reply that I would have to delete...), I also think we ought to go ahead and try implementing the clever method of scoring by players, and see how it works. It may very well turn out to be self-correcting, which would be cool. And if not, we'll see about doing something else about it. Josh "well, now that that's settled, what about that darn Tomb of Rameses?"

>> > Step 3: Enter combat with another vampire; preferably a combat monster >> > type. Before range, play enough weather controls so that they enter >> > torpor, no more. This will torporize your tremere. Luckily, that >> > Tremere happened to be roreca Quaid. Laugh at the poor fool who can't >> > play any fortitude. >> >> Isn't there a limit to how many combat cards you can play in a round >> similar to the limit on reactions and action mods per action? >> >No. >You can use 8 Unflinching Persistence to prevent 8 damage, >for instance. >Or, you can play 8 Weather Controls to deal 8 damage to each minion >at the start of the first round. Agreed, but maybe you missed the little example tacked on to the end there. Wouldn't each Weather Control resolve immediately? Roreca Quaid wouldn't be able to play more than three Weather Controls before she went to torpor. And the damage done from Weather Control is unpreventable, so it doesn't matter if the opposing minion has fortitude; he still has to take the damage.

ni...@rci.rogers.com writes: >>> > Step 3: Enter combat with another vampire; preferably a combat monster >>> > type. Before range, play enough weather controls so that they enter >>> > torpor, no more. This will torporize your tremere. Luckily, that >>> > Tremere happened to be roreca Quaid. Laugh at the poor fool who can't >>> > play any fortitude. >>> >>> Isn't there a limit to how many combat cards you can play in a round >>> similar to the limit on reactions and action mods per action? >>> >>No. >>You can use 8 Unflinching Persistence to prevent 8 damage, >>for instance. >>Or, you can play 8 Weather Controls to deal 8 damage to each minion >>at the start of the first round. >Agreed, but maybe you missed the little example tacked on to the end there. >Wouldn't each Weather Control resolve immediately? No. That was exactly the point the original poster was making. Each Weather Control sets up an event which will happen at the start of each round. The damage isn't part of Weather control's resolution. Setting up the effect is the sum total of Weather Control's resolution. You could play as many Weather Controls as you like to set up that many start-of-round damage dealing effects. Roreca is the perfect minion for the job, since she only loses two blood (and goes to torpor for lack of blood) while the opposition loses much more. >Roreca Quaid wouldn't be >able to play more than three Weather Controls before she went to torpor. And >the damage done from Weather Control is unpreventable, so it doesn't matter if >the opposing minion has fortitude; he still has to take the damage. That again was the point of the original poster. Laugh at him *because* he can't even play fortitude. [ quoted text not captured ]

Chris Shorb wrote: > > Alec Chang wrote: > > > > Step 3: Enter combat with another vampire; preferably a combat monster > > type. Before range, play enough weather controls so that they enter > > torpor, no more. This will torporize your tremere. Luckily, that > > Tremere happened to be roreca Quaid. Laugh at the poor fool who can't > > play any fortitude. > > Isn't there a limit to how many combat cards you can play in a round > similar to the limit on reactions and action mods per action? > Nope.

On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, James Hamblin wrote: > Joshua Duffin wrote: > > I think James probably was thinking of deck tinkering in the milieu of us > > playing with a scoring system like the one Steve and Adrian S. referred to. > > Maybe he was thinking that we would be essentially playing a sort of ongoing > > tournament, and as such, playing only one deck (?) and not messing with it > > during the scoring period, or some such. > > It's not what I was thinking of though - I was thinking that people would > > have scores, rather than decks having scores, and as such they would score > > points for the games they play, regardless of what deck they're playing, or > > how altered it is from the last time they played it. > Hmmm... you're right; I was thinking of attributing scores to decks, not > people. It tends to work better in many different ways if your ranking is _yours_ and not your decks. The bookwork involved is easier, the rationale is better (some players simply cannot play a deck, it doesn't mean that the deck is bad). While I can see advantage in ranking a deck ("I have a class 1543 deck!"), it doesn't seem as nice. > > There is no point to retiring decks for being too good, if you've decided > > that playing "to win" is where it's at. But I don't know that we've decided > > that, and I don't even know if we're going to. > Geez... Sorry. I was just thinking (with points for decks in mind) that > once a deck got too many points (say, above 2000) it might be good to > rotate it out. Why not? Even though we might be playing "to win", do > we want to play the same exact game over and over? An interesting point. If this is your intention, ranking decks makes sense. It is harder to handle bookwise, however. > Then again, I can see the point that no deck (theoretically) should be > so good that it always wins, so always having the same deck shouldn't be > that much of an advantage anyway. I tend to agree with this. [Re: "honorably" not playing certain "cheesy" too tough decks] > I agree that we do these things. In some part, it's talking smack. > There's this whole "honor" thing going on in our group, and we've got to break > out of it. > This started off as me getting annoyed at Peter's "I Immortally Grapple > you, and punch you for 17 aggravated damage and prevent all your damage" > deck. But as effective as it is in combat, it's not the most versatile > of decks. :) There's a similar feeling by many players in my group about a friend's Ravnos combat deck (Trap/Drawing out the Beast/Apparation). It is one of the best combat decks I have seen, but dies horribly to vote, to S:CE, and is usually too slow to get enough VP to win. > > I don't think it's good for our play group, or for anyone's peace of mind, > > to have unwritten rules like that. I think if we want to have rules limiting > > the effectiveness of allowable decks - for example, disallowing weenie decks > > cause we don't want our "cool" decks to lose to them every time we play - > > we should admit that we have such rules, and write them down. > But if we do that, I don't see how Peter's deck won't always win. If we > reduce the game to "who's the most effective in combat", then Potence > and Fortitude will seemingly always win, modulo your theoretical bizzaro > Tremere deck. I don't know. Maybe you just don't change the decks you play enough in a night. I tend to change from game to game, to keep people on their toes. > Why don't we just make it clear that we're just talking smack, and start > playing the game? :) > > "Oh look, I've been Bum Rushed, Immortal Grappled, and hit for twenty. > > Again. Whee." > I don't know, maybe you meant this as a joke, but maybe there really is > a little bit too much of this. Not seeing your playgroup, I can't really judge, but my intuitive bias is that you're wrong. [ quoted text not captured ]

First off - I like the playgroup ranking idea, but its value might be questionable given the wide disparity in group talent and dedication levels. Weak groups will have one or two players with artifically high totals. Sure, they can only go so far, since the returns diminish as they beat the same people over and over again. But a fairly weak player with one (or more) good deck could easily accumulate several times his starting total if he never left his (very weak) playgroup. This should be addressed, but I'm not sure how yet. Cross-pollenation is the obvious, but difficult solution And I would suggest implementing a deck-replay restriction of some type. Only play a deck X times, or you cannot play the same deck X times in a row, or you must randomly select from a deck collection of at least X (different) decks. That will help to allay some peoples concerns and will discourage stagnation. Now - for some other topics: >"I've tried to re-gear my decks to primarily play to win, and I think that >it'd be a lot better for everyone involved if we all played to win. >Unfortunately, the big problem is weenie decks. They're always going to >be successful, so do we disallow them?" snip >If we intend on making as killer decks as possible (i.e. "I'm playing to >win!"), then we are all going to end up with high speed weenie decks, at >least for a while, until everyone starts making anti weenie decks. If >there is a limit on "weenie decks", then everyone will end up with as >close to said "weenie deck" as possible in the realm of the rules. Sure, I'll agree that weenie decks are very effective, especially if your entire table uses them. But I think you'll find that there are a number of viable, winning solutions to the weenie problem, and there's no need to be intimidated unless your deck is unstructured or depends on slow combos. For example - anything that allows direct attacks on vampires, especially as a global, continuing effect is tremendously effective at eliminating the weenie horde and controlling the table - especially if you have untap effects. You can wack several minions in a turn without only minimal damage. And if they are packing SCE to avoid your combat, the have altered the heavy bleed component, so the deck is slow or dilute enough to control, And as soon as you off a few of those weenies, most horde bleeders get stuck playing defensively, since they have no highly efficient pool engine. Another slowing factor. In last weekend's tournament, my Nosferatu (yes - I played ugly guys throwing sewer lids and cars in a tournament) deck stopped a weenie steath vote deck and weenie dom bleed deck (sorry Robert). I had watched both those decks sweep tables, but they were held in check with Beast and a few Forced Awakenings. And beast is easy to get out in the 2nd round (7 capacity) The biggest thing that kept the combat deck from controlling the table was a well-constructed Minion Tap/Golconda/Soul Gem pool engine sitting as its prey - another 7-10 blood minion deck. It couldn't keep the minions down, or develop enough pool to stay even. The pool engine eventually took the tournament. So please don't complain that weenie vote or bleed decks are just too fast to stop. It can be done easily and you don't even need to focus on weenie-stopping. Just take a chance and explore some new deck combinations. Darby Keeney dke...@vcnet.com, dke...@amgen.com "Adaptability is the mark of an educated person" It's the ONLY thing my freshman engish teacher ever said that made sense.

The "oust at all cost", or burn as many vampires as possible styles of play ("to win" vs. "for fun" respectively) both seem to be missing the major point of the game, which is "to play". By that I'm not suggesting we should hug each other at the end of play, or have consistently warm feelings about our opponents. Nor am I suggesting our card selections should be arbitrary-but there are A LOT of cards that have been excluded from the debate. My example would be "Society of Leopold", a card that is great but has virtually NO tactical value. A well pruned bleed deck, vote deck, or combat deck will drop that card immediately, and I think that is a problem. I rarely play with it, and I have never been able to use, try as I might. It's a cool card that will never see the light of day if I have to play every deck for maximum effect. Which brings me to my real point, how can Jyhad grow as a game if everyone is entrenched in a style of play that will obliterate decks that we once thought were passable. I remember my first deck; a Ventrue/Malkavian combo that never succeeded in doing much. It was low on stealth, and had maybe one conditioning, but because the game was new I did okay. But for a new player today, this is a really rough games unless people are playing "to play", to see what can happen when you actually don't have every card picked for maximum effect. Each play group has it's own style but I think we do have a need to welcome in new players, which means sometimes having less goal oriented decks.

James Hamblin <je...@cornell.edu> wrote: : Then again, I can see the point that no deck (theoretically) should be : so good that it always wins, so always having the same deck shouldn't be : that much of an advantage anyway. It isn't. In my group, folks can usually shut down a winning deck pretty effectively within 3-4 weeks (we play one night per week). Occasionally somebody will build a deck that will dominate for longer, but that just inspires the rest of us to build decks that counter it. In this way, the group's strategies are constantly evolving, and most of us typically have several decks built at any given time in order to avoid being predictable. -- joeg...@umich.edu * I am nothing special, nothing pure. I am mud and flame.

Daniel Frey <Danie...@bcpress.com> wrote: > The "oust at all cost", or burn as many vampires as possible styles of > play ("to win" vs. "for fun" respectively) both seem to be missing the > major point of the game, which is "to play". > > By that I'm not suggesting we should hug each other at the end of play, > or have consistently warm feelings about our opponents. Nor am I > suggesting our card selections should be arbitrary-but there are A LOT > of cards that have been excluded from the debate. My example would be > "Society of Leopold", a card that is great but has virtually NO tactical > value. A well pruned bleed deck, vote deck, or combat deck will drop > that card immediately, and I think that is a problem. I rarely play with > it, and I have never been able to use, try as I might. It's a cool card > that will never see the light of day if I have to play every deck for > maximum effect. My play group certainly plays to win (we play for ante), but we also play to have fun. It's always fun to play cards you haven't been able to use before. I went to Dundracon this weekend and saw the following cards played effectively for the first time: Business Pressure, Memory's Fading Glimpse, Life Boon, and Hostile Takeover (we just don't have many Hostile Takeover cards in my group). It's always great to play a card where everyone at the table, friend and foe alike, just goes "Wow!". The Life Boon play was particularly amusing -- it was in a game where the predator/prey relationships came completely unhinged. It was a 6 player game where my predator was a weenie horde using Computer Hacking, some Obfucate, Tribute to the Master, and Autarkis Persecution. Also Info Highway and the Gangrel prince that gives two extra transfers. I was playing small Tremeres with little intercept. I mostly stayed up on defense to prevent (or at least slow down) a weenie bleed blitz. My prey was a Ventrue vote deck that was getting in the way of my predator's Persecutions and Praxis Seizures. My prey was my _best_ friend. :-) Anyway, my predator went over my head with 6(!) Computer Hacking bleeds to oust my prey for me. I played Life Boon!!! Unfortunately, my predator had a seventh Computer Hacking to finish the job. That whole sequence was very cool. --- Eric Pettersen pe...@cgl.ucsf.edu (NeXTmail capable)

[ quoted text not captured ] Hi Joe, this is pretty much what happens in my group, it just keeps evolving. Errol T

This is pretty much the same with us also except for one kind of deck. STEALTH & BLEED.....Unless we are prepared for a all out stealth and bleed deck (which is near impossible) these decks will run the table 9 out of 10 times. For the most part no one plays with this kind of deck cause its frowned upon ( its the easiest deck to make, takes no thought to build it).....So losing to a stealth and bleed is hardly considered a loss in our group.

[ quoted text not captured ] I can't entirely agree with this position. My political deck avoid combat, etc. like the plague, so there are some misdirect's, etc. If the S&B guy is my preditor, I know that my misdirect's will not last forever, so I'll expend some of energy in helping my preditor's preditor oust him (ie. with directed bleeds, or good votes). Our group has few S&B decks because 1) They're damn boring! 2) People gang up on the offending Meth. 3) They can be easily countered. I do agree that they're the most beginner of decks to build and play, so the taunting by the other players when one plays a S&B deck is also usually enough to get him to build better decks. -- rob. (rfle...@ix.netcom.com) NOTE: If you wish to respond to me via email, please remove the * from the return address!

On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Shane wrote: > This is pretty much the same with us also except for one kind of deck. > STEALTH & BLEED.....Unless we are prepared for a all out stealth and > bleed deck (which is near impossible) these decks will run the table 9 > out of 10 times. For the most part no one plays with this kind of deck > cause its frowned upon ( its the easiest deck to make, takes no > thought to build it).....So losing to a stealth and bleed is hardly > considered a loss in our group. Really. I wonder if you are playing with self-imposed Card Limits, because most No Limits groups (the official way, for as long as the game has been around) have no problems with S&B. The standard defenses are pretty easy to integrate into any deck (Bleed Bounce, Intercept, Rush, Race, Blood Gain). With the Sabbat, more defense against S&B in Card Limit environments is possible (nearing NL in quality), but to have a game group in which S&B runs rampant usually speaks of one of three things: a new group, a CL group (without Sabbat), a bad deck. [ quoted text not captured ]

sbe...@isomedia.com (Shane) writes: >This is pretty much the same with us also except for one kind of deck. >STEALTH & BLEED.....Unless we are prepared for a all out stealth and >bleed deck (which is near impossible) these decks will run the table 9 >out of 10 times. It's not at all impossible. There are three basic defenses for S&B: intercept the bleed, bounce the bleed (deflection or Telepathic Misdirection), or rush the bleeders (Bum's Rush or Haven uncovered, thebn torporize the target). You can also extend your life with blood gain or outrace the bleeder and oust your prey first (with a weenie bleed or fast aggressive vote deck). A couple of points: If you aren't playing intercept, *don't* intercept his bleeds. Ever. You'll never block them; all you'll do is use his stealth cards so he draws more bleed cards and bleeds you for more. Use defense techniques which are uncommon in your group. If everybody plays intercept, use rush; if everybody plays rush use intercept (bounce always works, though). Everybody can defend vs. S&B. However, it does take up a lot of your deck. With any deck I build the #1 question and the #1 use of cards is my deck's offensive goal; but my defense for S&B is almost always #2. >For the most part no one plays with this kind of deck >cause its frowned upon ( its the easiest deck to make, takes no >thought to build it).....So losing to a stealth and bleed is hardly >considered a loss in our group. Weenie bleed is easier to make, but takes a little more guts as you lose weenies all over the place. S&B is the standard starting deck. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

There is only 1 sabbat deck in our group (about 9 of us), a few sabbits mixed in here and there but only 1 pure sabbat deck and yes when we are expecting a stealth and bleed deck we do the Bleed Bounce, Intercept, Rush, A investigation, etc, etc. And we are not a bad group at all, actually five of us attended the jyhad tournment (WOTC) here in seattle about a year ago and four of us ended up in the final game and one of our members was the winner. (not myself-grumble grumble) Its just that unless you know and prepare for a stealth and bleed deck it will run the table most of the time. And because its such a simple minded deck to play and build its frowned upon. Thats all......... The Corrupter <sull...@cslab.uwlax.edu> wrote: >On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Shane wrote: >> This is pretty much the same with us also except for one kind of deck. >> STEALTH & BLEED.....Unless we are prepared for a all out stealth and >> bleed deck (which is near impossible) these decks will run the table 9 >> out of 10 times. For the most part no one plays with this kind of deck >> cause its frowned upon ( its the easiest deck to make, takes no >> thought to build it).....So losing to a stealth and bleed is hardly >> considered a loss in our group. >Really. I wonder if you are playing with self-imposed Card Limits, [ quoted text not captured ]

Shane (sbe...@isomedia.com) wrote: : This is pretty much the same with us also except for one kind of deck. : STEALTH & BLEED.....Unless we are prepared for a all out stealth and : bleed deck (which is near impossible) these decks will run the table 9 : out of 10 times. For the most part no one plays with this kind of deck : cause its frowned upon ( its the easiest deck to make, takes no : thought to build it).....So losing to a stealth and bleed is hardly : considered a loss in our group. My group plays enough rush combat that S&B decks seldom oust more than one or at most two people before they run out of vampires. In one recent four player game, there was one Malk S&B deck, one Toreador intercept/gun/blur deck, one Nossie combat deck, and one Brujah combat deck. The Malks deck was the first one ousted, and none of the other decks were designed to counter a S&B deck. S&B is rarely played in our group not as much because it is frowned upon but because it is little fun to play. Wallpaper Paste for all those useless cards