Succubus Club

To continue a thread discussed on our forum there: http://mykadis.nexenservices.com/vampire/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4583 (sorry, but it's in french) Yes, we already heared lots of people argue that this card should be banned from tournament play (I'm in). If it's not possible, then why shouldn't it be errated? Proposals from our forum so far: - change it in an action at 1 stealth instead of master: location - change it in a one-shot master card, ie not put into play, and/or once a game a la Giant's Blood - stealable as a D action - burnable as a D action - usable only if the controler has got the edge any thoughts? Miller Delmardigan Sabbat Priscus http://sabbatinfrance.free.fr/en (english version)

"Miller Delmardigan" <sabbati...@free.fr> a écrit dans le message de news: 417cd13c$0$1164$626a...@news.free.fr... > To continue a thread discussed on our forum there: > http://mykadis.nexenservices.com/vampire/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4583 > (sorry, but it's in french) > Yes, we already heared lots of people argue that this card should be > banned from tournament play (I'm in). Hi Miller. Up until now, I hadn't seen how this card could be hated so much. But then, it was because we would never had thought of doing something so drastically unbalancing as "lending" or giving all your minions to someone for a kill, or that kind of shit. Having seen it used on every final table and in every optimized deck this week-end, and a few other times, I now stand among the disgusted people. And Succubus on top of my hate list ? Dunno, lost another 9-Cap to PTO yesterday (GRRRRRRR !!!!!), but... At least, not everyone can play PTO ; not everyone has to put it in his deck, if only for the contest, or find a way to steal it. So, yes, Succubus as it now stands is game-breaking and should not be allowed in tournaments. > If it's not possible, then why shouldn't it be errated? Why is it not possible that it be banned ? > Proposals from our forum so far: > - change it in an action at 1 stealth instead of master: location Breaks it, but still makes it possible at the crucial time ; but it avoids the "...and then you give it back to me" part. Still, it isn't the same card. Might as well ban it. Not to mention that a Club is a Location, not an action. > - change it in a one-shot master card, ie not put into play, All for it. Still potentially game-breaking, though, especially in the hands of bad players. and/or once > a game a la Giant's Blood > - stealable as a D action > - burnable as a D action > - usable only if the controler has got the edge > > any thoughts? Once a game : see above. Steal it could make things even worse, especially in presence of a weenie deck (Palla, weenie Aus, Cel guns etc...). Burn it doesn't change a thing in recursive (Anthelios !) decks. Remove from the game is better. The edge ? Madness Network anyone ? I prefer removing it. Anyway : something HAS to be done. -- ----------------- Orpheus "We can never know of what we are the seeds Until we flower." Lilith

Orpheus wrote: > Hi Miller. hi too, so sorry that I couldn't spare more time with you this WE =( > > Up until now, I hadn't seen how this card could be hated so much. But then, > it was because we would never had thought of doing something so drastically > unbalancing as "lending" or giving all your minions to someone for a kill, > or that kind of shit. Having seen it used on every final table and in every > optimized deck this week-end, and a few other times, I now stand among the > disgusted people. And Succubus on top of my hate list ? Dunno, lost another > 9-Cap to PTO yesterday (GRRRRRRR !!!!!), but... At least, not everyone can > play PTO ; not everyone has to put it in his deck, if only for the contest, > or find a way to steal it. So, yes, Succubus as it now stands is > game-breaking and should not be allowed in tournaments. happy you're in too =) > > >>If it's not possible, then why shouldn't it be errated? > > > Why is it not possible that it be banned ? I supposed that because it has been discussed several times on this NG, and nothing has changed so far... > > >>Proposals from our forum so far: >>- change it in an action at 1 stealth instead of master: location > > > Breaks it, but still makes it possible at the crucial time ; but it avoids > the "...and then you give it back to me" part. Still, it isn't the same > card. Might as well ban it. Not to mention that a Club is a Location, not an > action. agree > > >>- change it in a one-shot master card, ie not put into play, > > > All for it. Still potentially game-breaking, though, especially in the hands > of bad players. thanks, that's my idea =) > > and/or once > >>a game a la Giant's Blood >>- stealable as a D action >>- burnable as a D action >>- usable only if the controler has got the edge >> >>any thoughts? > > > Once a game : see above. > > Steal it could make things even worse, especially in presence of a weenie > deck (Palla, weenie Aus, Cel guns etc...). > > Burn it doesn't change a thing in recursive (Anthelios !) decks. Remove from > the game is better. yes, you're right, but the player in this case needs to waste a master phase action to retrieve it, and then another to put it into play, and a full turn of defense to block all the attempts to burn it again. IMHO, an erratum like that is similary to ban it. > > The edge ? Madness Network anyone ? > > I prefer removing it. so am I > > Anyway : something HAS to be done. seconded

I think the big problem with SC is the transfer of any card on the table including of course the minions and the SC itself. So broken... What about restricting the use of the Succubus Club only to pool and cards in hand ? 2ni aka Richter http://sabbatinfrance.free.fr

One more vote for the ban !!! Last weekend I attended the french chapionship, and Succubus club got a decisive role in half the games I saw. It allows a player to threaten self-ousting for favors, or to be part in a table splitting deal that will prove succesfull whrereas the player will do nothing in the game excpet giving all of his vampires, almost all of his pool and playing a DI from time to time. This cards really makes the game plain uninteresting.

"Emmanuel Martin" <e...@boursorama.com> wrote in message news:10c2c156.0410...@posting.google.com... > [Succubus Club] allows a player to > threaten self-ousting for favors, Not effectually. A threat to do something illegal (like self-oust when you're not yet in a lost position) is an empty threat. > or to be part in a table splitting > deal that will prove succesfull Not until someone is in a lost position, of course. And by then they typically have less to offer in the deal. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. V:TES homepage: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Though effective, appear to be ineffective -- Sun Tzu

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de news: 2u4ggkF...@uni-berlin.de... > "Emmanuel Martin" <e...@boursorama.com> wrote in message > news:10c2c156.0410...@posting.google.com... >> [Succubus Club] allows a player to >> threaten self-ousting for favors, > > Not effectually. A threat to do something illegal (like self-oust when > you're not yet in a lost position) is an empty threat. When a guy with 10 caïtiffs/panders and Succubus Club is about to die (because he cannot manage to have vote lock in turn 2) and propose all his minions to his predator, the game suddenly can loose all his interest. Too bad. Maybe your metagame is not yet Succubus-Clubbed but in Europe it is more and more difficult to play competitively without these card. At least for contest. Succubus Club is a kind of 2VPs(minimum)-passport. Add Anthelios to the metagame and you will see the not-so-nice picture. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <417d24fd$0$10126$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net>, Denis GERARD <dge...@noos.fr> writes: > When a guy with 10 caïtiffs/panders and Succubus Club is about to die >(because he cannot manage to have vote lock in turn 2) and propose >all his minions to his predator, the game suddenly can loose all his >interest. >Too bad. Potentially, this could put a deck into a no win position. However, many such decks (in my experience) have the capacity to fall back on swarm bleed which often makes their position far from lost, and the judge rules on the facts as he sees them, not based on "I didn't get vote lock so I'm screwed." A few cross-table suggestions can work wonders. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Who's ever heard of that, though! EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Designing a deck that just calls votes. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D That's crazy talk, there.

Miller Delmardigan wrote: > Yes, we already heared lots of people argue that this card should be > banned from tournament play (I'm in). Yup. Again, to clarify, the card is not Too Powerful. It is simply inappropriate for competetive play, as it makes it too easy to collude or do something legal, yet incredibly disruptive to play and screwup the game ("I'm not getting any more VPs! I'm gonna give my predator all of my pool, all of my vampires, all of my permanents, 6 more pool for ousting me, and a VP, just 'cause my prey is pissing me off!") > If it's not possible, then why shouldn't it be errated? People don't like errata. LSJ seems thoroughly unconvinced that the card needs fixing. > Proposals from our forum so far: > - change it in an action at 1 stealth instead of master: location That's be nice. But too much. > - change it in a one-shot master card, ie not put into play, and/or once a game a la Giant's Blood Also nice. Also too much. > - stealable as a D action > - burnable as a D action > - usable only if the controler has got the edge Any of these would be easy to errata on and would make the card much less abusable. But then, I'm easy. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "Mr. President, ask not what your rest home can do for you. Ask what you can do for your rest home." -Elvis

LSJ wrote: > Not until someone is in a lost position, of course. And by then they > typically have less to offer in the deal. Sure. But once they can justify themselves as being in a lost position, they have a great deal: "Dude across the table. Or my predator. Here is all my remaining pool, all of my minions, all of my permanents, whatever cards in hand you want in exchange for me getting out of this losing position and the joy of spite." Which can be incredibly disruptive to play, completely legal, and only possible due to the silliness of the Succubus Club. [ quoted text not captured ]

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> a écrit dans le message de news: flK0XVLq...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > In message <417d24fd$0$10126$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net>, Denis > GERARD <dge...@noos.fr> writes: >> When a guy with 10 caïtiffs/panders and Succubus Club is about to die >>(because he cannot manage to have vote lock in turn 2) and propose >>all his minions to his predator, the game suddenly can loose all his >>interest. >>Too bad. > > Potentially, this could put a deck into a no win position. > > However, many such decks (in my experience) have the capacity to fall > back on swarm bleed which often makes their position far from lost, and > the judge rules on the facts as he sees them, not based on "I didn't get > vote lock so I'm screwed." > > A few cross-table suggestions can work wonders. > I didn't say the weenie-vote will do that for free. This can be a way to maximise VPs by gaining one thanks to this deal. This situation comes into play last week-end during the French Championship final round. And the prey of the weenie-vote was playing an Anson-Huitzi-Parthenon-MinionTap-Golconda deck with terrific pool gain (and had a deal to help killing the weenie-vote). -btw Ruben said 'no' and keep his word given to another player- Imho this kind of deals can really screw games. (and seems legal to me) [ quoted text not captured ]

> People don't like errata. LSJ seems thoroughly unconvinced that the card > needs fixing. Does he ? Well, he should have seen the games we saw this week-end. And not only in the final rounds. Ugly. Not like the game we love at all. (no disrespect here for the players using it : it is, for me, a flaw in the rules, as Return to In-nonsense was ; good players may use and abuse any such flaw) -- Orpheus "Did you know that urine is sterile ? You can drink it." Tyler Durden

Other possibility : trading precise things. Example : trade a controlled card for another, a card in hand for another, a minion for another (a pool for a pool ;-) It still is interesting, but certainly no more abusable. Also, trading only one thing, or one sort of things each turn can be good. -- Orpheus ------------- "We're all living in Amerika / Amerika ist wunderbar We're all living in Amerika / Coca Cola, Sometimes War" Rammstein

Orpheus wrote: > Does he ? Apparently. Which isn't at all unreasonable, really. The card, in and of itself, is one that should be not that bad if: -All players are always playing to win. -All players are held to having to play to win. Sadly, that isn't always the case, and abuses of the card fall through the cracks all the time. And some abuses of the card can't even be stopped by virtue of "playing to win", but still, in a perfect world, SC wouldn't be a problem. But as we don't live in one, it can be. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Apparently. Which isn't at all unreasonable, > really. The card, in and of itself, is one > that should be not that bad if: > > -All players are always playing to win. > -All players are held to having to play to win. > > Sadly, that isn't always the case, and abuses > of the card fall through the cracks all the > time. I've always seen the Succubus Club as just another thing that a good deck / strategy has to plan for. For example, it's well known that a possible reaction to an aggressive combat predator is to stop transferring out minions (and it's contestable whether this is "playing to win"). A decent combat deck will plan for this, either by including bleed modifiers or being suitably subtle and giving their prey the illusion that they have a chance (and hence transfer out too many minions). Same thing with Succubus Club. Don't let a player with the Succubus Club get into a position where they think they could be a ding-dong with it and or construct your deck to minimise the effect of such behaviour. Anyway, Succubus Club is quite vulnerable (being contestable, arsonable, suddenable, subject to disputed territory etc). Not that this is a particularly good argument for keeping it as is. > And some abuses of the card can't even > be stopped by virtue of "playing to win"... What abuses of SC can't be prevented by enforcing a combination of "play to win" and "no collusion"? Do you mean a player in a "lost position" transfering their resources for spite? It's pretty much axiomatic that a "lost position" entails no significant resources. * lehrbuch

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Apparently. Which isn't at all unreasonable, > really. The card, in and of itself, is one > that should be not that bad if: > > -All players are always playing to win. > -All players are held to having to play to win. > > Sadly, that isn't always the case, and abuses > of the card fall through the cracks all the > time. I've always seen the Succubus Club as just another thing that a good deck / strategy has to plan for. For example, it's well known that a possible reaction to an aggressive combat predator is to stop transferring out minions (and it's contestable whether this is "playing to win"). A decent combat deck will plan for this, either by including bleed modifiers or being suitably subtle and giving their prey the illusion that they have a chance (and hence transfer out too many minions). Same thing with Succubus Club. Don't let a player with the Succubus Club get into a position where they think they could be a ding-dong with it and or construct your deck to minimise the effect of such behaviour. Anyway, Succubus Club is quite vulnerable (being contestable, arsonable, suddenable, subject to disputed territory etc). Not that this is a particularly good argument for keeping it as is. > And some abuses of the card can't even [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:BDA2E2F8.1A69E%pd...@lightlink.com... > LSJ wrote: > >> Not until someone is in a lost position, of course. And by then they >> typically have less to offer in the deal. > > Sure. But once they can justify themselves as being in a lost position, > they > have a great deal: > > "Dude across the table. Or my predator. Here is all my remaining pool, all > of my minions, all of my permanents, whatever cards in hand you want in > exchange for me getting out of this losing position and the joy of spite." Um, I don't see how self-ousting "gets (him) out of this losing position". I suppose it IS spiteful towards ones prey and/or predator but I've never understood that. Your predator and prey are supposed to be attacking you. I've run into a few guys who seemed to think there was some necessity to, for instance, "get back" at one's predator for being so successful at preying on them but I think most people realize that's silly. Just as easy to blame one's cross-table ally(ies) for not helping enough or putting enough pressure on the neighboring players. I've also seen this happen from time to time and it usually looks pretty silly and spiteful, too. If these people in Europe are just saying that the Succubus Club is bad because it facilitates more effective spite plays, I suppose that's true. But I'm more inclined to question the need for spite plays than to look at banning Succubus Club. This may be one instance where it really IS appropriate to consider social ostracism (well, perhaps a mild form) to discourage what is defined as lousy in-game behavior. Fred

"Denis GERARD" <dge...@noos.fr> wrote in message news:<417cfb44$0$11658$79c1...@nan-newsreader-07.noos.net>... [ quoted text not captured ] I have a Malk / FoS deck which uses 2 copies of Succubus Club. At first I ran one SC, and a bunch of Malkavian Time Auctions, but I traded for a second SC, cos it suits the deck better. The concept is to play Form of Corruption, then give it away to my predator's predator, to reduce the number of bleeds I take. In this deck, I also use SC for minor trades and favours - like buying a Blood Doll so I can put them on Hesha, or offering to rescue other player's vampires for a pool. I once got my cross-table buddy to give me a torpored vamp cos it was costing him pool (via Path of Lilith, or something), and I didn't want the effect to oust him. I feel that my use of SC is fine, and is entirely in the spirit of the game. ...but the errata you suggest would hose the main purpose of SC in this deck, and most of the minor uses too, so I don't like your proposal. Limiting the *size* of the trade rather than the type seems like it would stop the abuse that is being bemoaned, and still allow the card to be useful in kooky decks like mine. For example: +++ Succubus Club Master: Unique location During your untap phase, you may tap this card to trade with a Methuselah who agrees to trade. Each Methuselah may trade up to 3 cards from their hand, 3 pool, and 1 card they control. The trade cannot result in either Methuselah have fewer cards in hand than his or her hand size. Any additional terms can be established, but none are enforced by the rules. +++ PS - I also like succubus club in combat decks. I think deals like "give me your hunting ground, and I'll rush Arika for you" are quite viable, and are not bad for the game.

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> a écrit dans le message de news:BDA31927.1A6B9%pd...@lightlink.com... > Orpheus wrote: > > > Does he ? > > Apparently. Which isn't at all unreasonable, really. The card, in and of > itself, is one that should be not that bad if: > > -All players are always playing to win. > -All players are held to having to play to win. wait a sec ! you forgot to mention the "a player is free to loose the way he chooses" clause ;)

> If these people in Europe are just saying that the Succubus Club is bad > because it facilitates more effective spite plays, I suppose that's true. > But I'm more inclined to question the need for spite plays than to look at > banning Succubus Club. This may be one instance where it really IS > appropriate > to consider social ostracism (well, perhaps a mild form) to discourage what > is defined as lousy in-game behavior. > > Fred Yes, defining that : - transferring out - killing someone out of pure spite - some other stuff I'm not thinking about right now... are "unsportsmanlike conduct" and must be forbidden by judges would reduce a lot of problems. It wouldn't eliminate the table-breaking Succubus deals, though. -- Orpheus ----------------- Remove the Withdraw rule in the next booklet !!!

"Hollowboy" <icantbelievehollow...@hotmail.com> a > I have a Malk / FoS deck which uses 2 copies of Succubus Club. At > first I ran one SC, and a bunch of Malkavian Time Auctions, but I > traded for a second SC, cos it suits the deck better. The concept is > to play Form of Corruption, then give it away to my predator's > predator, to reduce the number of bleeds I take. > > In this deck, I also use SC for minor trades and favours - like buying > a Blood Doll so I can put them on Hesha, or offering to rescue other > player's vampires for a pool. I once got my cross-table buddy to give > me a torpored vamp cos it was costing him pool (via Path of Lilith, or > something), and I didn't want the effect to oust him. > > I feel that my use of SC is fine, and is entirely in the spirit of the > game. Great idea, man. Fun and all... Nice. > ...but the errata you suggest would hose the main purpose of SC in > this deck, and most of the minor uses too, so I don't like your > proposal. Ok. Now, if one errata prevented a few nice decks but eliminated a lot of ugly ones, we would adapt. Like if the withdraw rule was removed and Brinksmanship's text wasn't updated (one card in the trashcan ; lots of nicer games ; but the errata would be very easy). > Limiting the *size* of the trade rather than the type seems like it > would stop the abuse that is being bemoaned, and still allow the card > to be useful in kooky decks like mine. I'm all for it. > For example: > > +++ > Succubus Club > Master: Unique location > > During your untap phase, you may tap this card to trade with a > Methuselah who agrees to trade. Each Methuselah may trade up to 3 > cards from their hand, 3 pool, and 1 card they control. The trade > cannot result in either Methuselah have fewer cards in hand than his > or her hand size. Any additional terms can be established, but none > are enforced by the rules. > +++ I like the idea. I would prefer something more drastic, but this could do. We can also add : "a card they control *other than the Succubus Club*". And then the ugliness is dead. > PS - I also like succubus club in combat decks. I think deals like > "give me your hunting ground, and I'll rush Arika for you" are quite > viable, and are not bad for the game. KILL ARIKA !! B) [ quoted text not captured ]

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<2u4ggkF...@uni-berlin.de>... > "Emmanuel Martin" <e...@boursorama.com> wrote in message > news:10c2c156.0410...@posting.google.com... > > [Succubus Club] allows a player to > > threaten self-ousting for favors, > > Not effectually. A threat to do something illegal (like self-oust when > you're not yet in a lost position) is an empty threat. "Suppose" I play a deck with cross table potential, someone other than my prey is a obstacle between me and the GW. An interesting solution would be to take him out. Cross table ousting of your main threat is a perfectly respectable, and often usefull, way to the gamewin. If you cross table "would be" victim has succubus club, this move w<ill only result in him transefring all of his ressoucrces to spite you, which mean game loss. Immunity from cross table elimination seems a really powerfull insurance to me. > > or to be part in a table splitting > > deal that will prove succesfull > > Not until someone is in a lost position, of course. And by then they > typically have less to offer in the deal. Not that much less. Most of the time he will still have either pool or minions, master cards and the succubus club (which can be used to transfer all of the minions to the same player, thereby generating a swarm bleed effect). I experineced the situation in the CF. My pred had succubus club, Arika, pool. I took car of queen Anne, who thjreatened Kindred Restructure on me. My cross table guy had four CEL guys, two of which had guns. My prey had 5 !Tories, some of which were embraceS and a bazillon pool. I played a POT deck with enough grids and sewer lids to be even match again the CEL gun. So Ventrue player was in a lost position and made a deal with the CEL gun. I counterdealed with mister !Tore. We lost because the CEL guy got all pool but 2-3, thereby resisting the swarming Palla Embrace while they used the SC to cycle all cards in tehir hands. Without SC, their deal wouldn't have been possible.

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 20:57:11 -0400, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: > Orpheus wrote: > >> Does he ? > > Apparently. Which isn't at all unreasonable, really. The card, in and of > itself, is one that should be not that bad if: > > -All players are always playing to win. > -All players are held to having to play to win. > > Sadly, that isn't always the case, and abuses of the card fall through > the > cracks all the time. And some abuses of the card can't even be stopped by > virtue of "playing to win", but still, in a perfect world, SC wouldn't > be a > problem. But as we don't live in one, it can be. Well said. Ban the card. It has no place on tournaments. *angry mob-sound* -- Bye, Daneel

Miller Delmardigan <sabbati...@free.fr> wrote in message news:<417cd13c$0$1164$626a...@news.free.fr>... [ quoted text not captured ] Ban Succubus Club. It's the most powerful card in the game. No other card could do what that card does. It should be in two or three copies in each tournament deck. I could develop and argue for all these sentences, but I know that I will not convince people who don't see he things like me (and have seen SC played in about 85% of my games, and half of the time, by myelf, and saw its effects). The others are already convinced. kamel Senni.

Hey LSJ, Some people (perhaps just the vocal minority) have expressed an interest in banning Succubus Club from tournament play. What must be done to convince you that it should be banned? It's frustrating to feel extremely confident that a straightforward change would benefit the game and not see that change made, nor have any idea what the correct process is to effect the change. Ira

lehr...@gmail.com wrote: > I've always seen the Succubus Club as just another thing that a good > deck / strategy has to plan for. You can't really plan for someone randomly transfering themselves out, giving their predator (and your prey...) all of their pool, and then 6 more pool, and all of their vampires, and all of their permanents just 'cause they can't reliably oust their prey and want to spite them. > Same thing with Succubus Club. Don't let a player with the Succubus > Club get into a position where they think they could be a ding-dong > with it and or construct your deck to minimise the effect of such > behaviour. ??? That isn't anything you have any control over. People with the Succubus Club, when in arguably a "losing" position can oust themselves any way they want. Sometimes that means giving everything they own to another player to spite a third player. The lucky beneficiary of this wackness likely gets a *huge* benefit for, like, happening to be in the right place at the right time, and the whole table situation is mangled. This is not a good thing to be capable of. > What abuses of SC can't be prevented by enforcing a combination of > "play to win" and "no collusion"? My prey is playing an intercept/burn deck, say. I'm playing a deck that has limited stealth and has trouble dealing with, say, Breath of the Dargon. I'm sick of getting my vampires torpored, I arguably will never get a single VP, and I'm low on pool. So to get out of the game, I use my SC to give my predator all my remaining pool, all of my vampires, all of my permanents, and whatever cards in hand he wants. I get out of a sucky game that I wasn't going anywhere in anyway. My predator gets a *huge* material advantage. I get to spite my prey who has been foiling my every action, which is often reward in and of itself. How is this prevented by "playing to win" and "no collusion"? See, I fully realize that much of Succubus Club abuse can be foiled by virtue of calling a judge over and having them arbitrate a given situation. But this is a huge pain in the ass for the judge, as well as everyone at the table, and I for one am a big fan of *minimizing* the need for judges to make arbitrary calls by second guessing the thoughts of players. Removing SC would go a long way to minimizing this sort of thing. I'm thinking that the thing to do is for everyone to call a judge over every single time a Succubus Club is used and call for an arbitration until judges are so damned sick of the thing that they all want it banned too... > Do you mean a player in a "lost position" transfering their resources > for spite? It's pretty much axiomatic that a "lost position" entails > no significant resources. ??? You can easily be in a "lost position" with a reasonable amount of pool and a reasonable number of vampires. And permanents in play. I have 3 vampires, a hunting ground, the Succubus Club, KRCG, and 5 pool. If I can't get through my prey, I can claim a "lost position". So I give my predator that 5 pool (and then 6 more), my hunting ground, the SC, the KRCG, and my 3 vampires. He gets a huge boost. I get out of a sucky game. Everyone else at the table gets totally screwed. How is this good? [ quoted text not captured ]

"Kamel SENNI" <kamel...@yvelines.pref.gouv.fr> a écrit dans le message de news: > Ban Succubus Club. > It's the most powerful card in the game. > No other card could do what that card does. He knows what he talks about. Believe me. And Kammel isn't one who complains because a card makes him lose : he used it to WIN many times, because he's a good player and uses the rules as they are. Still, he wants it to disappear ?! I think that explains a lot about the effect of this card on the game. Thanks for your honesty Kamel. ------------------ [ quoted text not captured ]

Frederick Scott wrote: > Um, I don't see how self-ousting "gets (him) out of this losing position". You remove yourself from a crappy game that you aren't going to win, let alone get a VP from by giving someone else all your stuff. If it is your predator, they get your pool, vampires, permanents, and then 6 more pool and a VP. You get out of the losing position by *not being in the game anymore*. > I suppose it IS spiteful towards ones prey and/or predator but I've never > understood that. Your predator and prey are supposed to be attacking you. Sure. And if I am sucking, having the SC gives me the option of spiting whomever I want to spite most. > I've run into a few guys who seemed to think there was some necessity to, > for instance, "get back" at one's predator for being so successful at > preying on them but I think most people realize that's silly. Sure it is. But people do silly things all the time. [ quoted text not captured ]

Hollowboy wrote: > PS - I also like succubus club in combat decks. I think deals like > "give me your hunting ground, and I'll rush Arika for you" are quite > viable, and are not bad for the game. Sure. But there isn't really a viable way tomake the card work where you can do this while disallowing someone from giving their predator all their pool, vampires, and permanents in play 'cause they are in a "losing" position, and they want out of the lame game. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Ira" <ira...@gmail.com> a écrit dans le message de news: fa0c3aac.0410...@posting.google.com... > Hey LSJ, > > Some people (perhaps just the vocal minority) have expressed an > interest in banning Succubus Club from tournament play. What must be > done to convince you that it should be banned? Be in the finals of the EC and totally screw the game by randomly giving all your ressources to another player ? Climb on the table of the said finals, naked, and dance the Lambada ? Make a list of all the games screwed by this card ? Keep on asking for its removal ? I dunno which solutions would be most efficient, nor which ones I would personnaly enjoy the most... B) > It's frustrating to feel extremely confident that a straightforward > change would benefit the game and not see that change made, nor have > any idea what the correct process is to effect the change. > > Ira I know the feeling. Just read my sig... [ quoted text not captured ]

[Emmanuel Martin] in <10c2c156.0410...@posting.google.com> > "Suppose" I play a deck with cross table potential, > someone other than my prey is a obstacle between > me and the GW. An interesting solution would be to > take him out...If you cross table "would be" victim > has succubus club, this move will only result in him > transefring all of his ressoucrces to spite you, which > mean game loss. > > Immunity from cross table elimination seems a really > powerfull insurance to me. Why do you think that the "cross table potential" of your deck is acceptable, but that this (maybe effective) succubus club defence for it is unacceptable? Both are methods of interfering cross table. > I experineced the situation in the CF. > > My pred had succubus club, Arika, pool. I took car of > queen Anne, who thjreatened Kindred Restructure on > me. My cross table guy had four CEL guys, two of which > had guns. My prey had 5 !Tories, some of which were > embraceS and a bazillon pool. I played a POT deck with > enough grids and sewer lids to be even match again the > CEL gun. So Ventrue player was in a lost position and > made a deal with the CEL gun. > > I counterdealed with mister !Tore. We lost because the > CEL guy got all pool but 2-3, thereby resisting the > swarming Palla Embrace while they used the SC to > cycle all cards in tehir hands. Without SC, their deal > wouldn't have been possible. This seems to be more a problem of the Arika player deciding too quickly that he was in a Lost Position. Of course, I wasn't there, but nothing much about your description of the game state suggests that his position was lost. His despondency and despair seems to have been triggered by your dunking of Queen Anne. If this is the case, isn't it your fault for acting in this way? Why didn't you predict this reaction and play differently? Maybe you should have taken account of the SC and played a better game? Anyway, if his SC influence was so powerful, why didn't he make a VP earning deal with the !Toreador player? * lehrbuch

> Ban Succubus Club. > It's the most powerful card in the game. > No other card could do what that card does. > It should be in two or three copies in each tournament deck. > I could develop and argue for all these sentences, but I know that I > will not convince people who don't see he things like me (and have > seen SC played in about 85% of my games, and half of the time, by > myelf, and saw its effects). > The others are already convinced. What are you talking about? The Succubus Club adds so much to the game. 1) a way for players to share resources in effectly a zero sum game 2) a way for a head judge to be foiled by appearing on multiple tables 3) a way for games to go to time for even more incessant table talk beyond the already tedious blather. 4) a way for the mechanics of the game to be eliminated in favor of cool points 5) a way for LSJ to be constantly hounded morning, noon, and night from 4 continents. Hell, its the best thing since sliced wood. Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp

[Peter] > People with the Succubus Club, when in arguably a > "losing" position can oust themselves any way they > want. Sometimes that means giving everything they > own to another player to spite a third player. The > lucky beneficiary of this wackness likely gets a > *huge* benefit for, like, happening to be in the right > place at the right time, and the whole table situation > is mangled. So? Assuming you're the third player in this example propose a better deal, or don't do whatever caused the spite in the first place. [lehrbuch] > > What abuses of SC can't be prevented by > > enforcing a combination of > > "play to win" and "no collusion"? [Peter] > My prey is playing an intercept/burn deck, say. I'm > playing a deck that has limited stealth and has > trouble dealing with, say, Breath of the Dargon. I'm > sick of getting my vampires torpored, I arguably will > never get a single VP, and I'm low on pool. So to > get out of the game, I use my SC to give my > predator all my remaining pool, all of my vampires, > all of my permanents, and whatever cards in hand > he wants. I get out of a sucky game that I wasn't > going anywhere in anyway. My predator gets a *huge* > material advantage. I get to spite my prey who has > been foiling my every action, which is often > reward in and of itself. How is this prevented by > "playing to win" and "no collusion"? You have the SC. "Play to Win" and make another deal that does advance your game. For example, your proposed deal implies that your spite will cause your prey to lose. Therefore, they should be able to propose a different deal that lets you both advance. > See, I fully realize that much of Succubus > Club abuse can be foiled by virtue of calling > a judge over and having them arbitrate a > given situation. But this is a huge pain in the > ass for the judge, as well as everyone at the > table, and I for one am a big fan of *minimizing* > the need for judges to make arbitrary calls ... Yep, me too. In so much as we make judgements on this, our play group seems to have solved this by recognising that truly "Lost Positions" are rare. A bad position is not a Lost Position. > ??? You can easily be in a "lost position" with a > reasonable amount of pool and a reasonable > number of vampires. And permanents in play. I > have 3 vampires, a hunting ground, the Succubus > Club, KRCG, and 5 pool. If I can't get through my > prey, I can claim a "lost position". Not in our game you couldn't. You could claim to be in a "bad position" if you like. You have the SC. Surely, if it's so powerful, some game advancing deal can be made? If no-one else will deal with you, then sure give everything to your predator. That's then the fault of the other players for not being willing to deal. True, having the SC may mean that other players *have* to deal with you. What's wrong with that? You have to make deals with the player who has votes. You have to deal with the player who has an effective rush deck. You have to make deals with the player who has the SC. Why are these situations different? * lehrbuch

lehrbuch wrote: > This seems to be more a problem of the Arika player deciding too > quickly that he was in a Lost Position. Of course, I wasn't there, > but nothing much about your description of the game state suggests that > his position was lost. Yeah, see, and that is a problem. SC makes determining whether or not one is in a "lost position" really important. And possibly game destroying. I have a SC, I decide I am in a "lost position", and I oust myself with the SC, giving all my stuff and pool to someone else. Which is bad for the game. And all the prevents it from happening is people arguing that the player in question *isn't* in a lost position, which is a losing argument, and requires calling a judge over to say "you can't do that, you aren't in a losing position", which is a huge pain in the ass for everyone, especially as the guy in question is going to argue. It is all just stupid. Without the SC? What is the guy who is in the "lost position" going to do? Transfer himself out? That is gonna cause arguments enough on its own, without the possibility to giving all your pool, vampires, permanents, and hand to someone else. Succubus Club is simply inappropriate for competetive play as it currently stands. [ quoted text not captured ]

lehrbuch wrote: > So? > > Assuming you're the third player in this example propose a better deal, > or don't do whatever caused the spite in the first place. Don't do whatever caused the spite in the first place? If I am playing, say, and intercept deck, it is completely in my best interest to foil every action my predator takes, if I can. This will fill my predator with spite. If he feels he is in a lost position, and has a SC, he can just remove himself from play by giving everything he has to his predator, who becomes my much stronger predator. Your solution to this is "don't play your deck"? > You have the SC. "Play to Win" and make another deal that does advance > your game. For example, your proposed deal implies that your spite > will cause your prey to lose. Therefore, they should be able to > propose a different deal that lets you both advance. I am in a losing position. There is nothing preventing me from ousting myself. Are we going to stop the game and call over a judge to argue for half an hour about whether or not I am in a "losing position"? This strikes you as a good idea? And good for the game? > Yep, me too. In so much as we make judgements on this, our play group > seems to have solved this by recognising that truly "Lost Positions" > are rare. A bad position is not a Lost Position. And without the SC, the distninction isn't really important. Because the SC exists, the grey line that seperates "bad position" from "lost position" can be really important. And a huge pain in the ass for the judge and many players. To the point that the gain from having the SC available for play (it, um, makes a few fringe "extortion" strategies more viable? Itis kinda funny?) is vastly outweighed by the disadvantages of having it available for play (can casue rediculous and unwarranted swings of power in the game, can sorely overtax the arbitrating abilities of the judge). > Not in our game you couldn't. You could claim to be in a "bad > position" if you like. In "your" game? I'm not quite I'm sure I understand what that means. In competetive play, I can claim I am in any position I want, and likely I could argue as to how my particular position is a reasonable one to do what I want to do. Leaving my opponents to argue with me and call the judge, who is already overtaxed, to then argue with me. Because the Succubus Club allows me to do rediculous things based on my "losing" position. If there was no SC, the difference between a "losing position" and a "bad position" would be mostly unimportant, as there is only so much I can do based on my own perception of my position. When SC allows me to randomly and hugely swing the power of the game? The difference is very important. And stupidly so. > > You have the SC. Surely, if it's so powerful, some game advancing deal > can be made? If no-one else will deal with you, then sure give > everything to your predator. That's then the fault of the other > players for not being willing to deal. The game advancing deals aren't the problem. The "self ousting spiteful huge power swing completely one sided deals" are the problem. Which there is no way to realistically prevent. > True, having the SC may mean that other players *have* to deal with > you. What's wrong with that? If the SC was limited in its ability to swap things, then yes, it would be a matter of dealing with other players. But it isn't. And can be (and often is) used to make completely one sided, self ousting "deals" that simply completely demolish the table balance, 'cause the player with the SC is bitter, spiteful, and feels they are in a "lost" position. > > You have to make deals with the player who has votes. > with the player who has an effective rush deck. You have to make deals > with the player who has the SC. Why are these situations different? Hmm. You clearly seem to be misunderstanding what is being discussed here. No one has a problem with the SC being used to make rational deals (i.e. "I'll give you 3 pool if you vote for my next political action..."). The problem with the SC is its incredibly tangible effect at making irrational deals that completely swing the balance of the game, that are usually done out of spite, and usually result in someone self ousting, 'cause they are in a "lost" position. If the SC was limited in what it could do, these wouldn't be a problem. But it isn't. So it is. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <BDA43402.1A6F5%pd...@lightlink.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >Sure. But there isn't really a viable way tomake the card work where you can >do this while disallowing someone from giving their predator all their pool, >vampires, and permanents in play 'cause they are in a "losing" position, and >they want out of the lame game. Hmm. Completely random and pointless, but a) I'm bored and b) they're vaguely fun. (Not necessarily in good ways.) Anyway, a bizarre few somethings that come to mind. I should drink less coke. Succubus Club Master: Unique Location During your untap phase, you may tap this card to trade with a Methuselah who agrees to trade. You may trade pool. You may burn 1 pool to trade a card from your hand with a card in that Methuselah's hand. You may burn 2 pool to trade control of a card you control. The trade cannot result in either Methuselah have fewer cards in hand than his or her hand size. Any additional terms can be established, but none are enforced by the rules. Which still allows "abusive" pool exchanges, but you can't do both at once. Or, you can't give them everything you own, because they have to give you stuff back in return: Succubus Club Master: Unique Location During your untap phase, you may tap this card to trade with a Methuselah who agrees to trade. You may trade pool. You may trade cards with that Methuselah on a one-for-one basic - one card in hand for one card in hand, one controlled vampire for one controlled vampire, one controlled library card for one controlled library card. The trade cannot result in either Methuselah have fewer cards in hand than his or her hand size. Any additional terms can be established, but none are enforced by the rules. And the freakish: Succubus Club Master: Unique Location During your untap phase, you may tap this card and select a Methuselah who agrees: one of you may move pool to the Club that the other will receive; you may each move cards you control to the Club that the other will take control of; you may each move an equal number of cards from your hand to the Club face-up that the other will draw. These cards are out of play. Do not untap this card during your next untap phase: instead, the pool and cards moved, drawn and taken control of as appropriate. If, before that time, the selected Methuselah is ousted or control of the Club changes, burn the Club and everything on it. You know the sad thing? It's caffeine-free coke. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Who's ever heard of that, though! EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Designing a deck that just calls votes. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D That's crazy talk, there.

[Peter] > Don't do whatever caused the spite in the first > place? If I am playing, say, and intercept deck, > it is completely in my best interest to foil every > action my predator takes, if I can. This will fill > my predator with spite. If he feels he is in a lost > position, and has a SC, he can just remove himself > from play by giving everything he has to his > predator, who becomes my much stronger predator. So, clearly because your predator had the SC it was not in your best interest to foil every action he took. > Your solution to this is "don't play your deck"? No. To play it in such a way that your predator thinks they have a chance (until it is too late). Or play it so quickly destructively that any spite-fuelled move of theirs is ineffective. That is, to play your deck taking into account of the fact that their control of the SC means they can make a spiteful stab at you. Of course, this means you are not quite doing what you ideally want to be doing, but that's why the SC sort of works as defence against being rushed/intercepted or otherwise messed up too much. Sometimes your play has to take into account what cards the other players have or what they are doing, annoying as it is. > In "your" game? I'm not quite I'm sure I understand > what that means. I mean amongst the people I play with. My playgroup, my metagame or whatever term the cool kids are using for it these days. > I am in a losing position. There is nothing > preventing me from ousting myself. No, of course not. However, if someone proposes a deal in which you don't lose then you are no longer in a losing position. SC allows this to happen. The fact that you have the SC means that you are not in a losing position, assuming someone is willing and able to offer a deal. > [SC] can be (and often is) used to make completely > one sided, self ousting "deals" that simply completely > demolish the table balance, 'cause the player with the > SC is bitter, spiteful, and feels they are in a "lost" position. a) this means you have to pander to the SC holder to a certain extent, so that they don't feel like this. Just like if someone else has most of the votes at the table, you have to be nice to them if you want your own votes to pass. Of course, another response (possibly combined with this) is to make removing the SC a priority. b) if their position really is lost then the swing due to their self-ousting "deal" will be small. c) if their position isn't actually lost then they can't self-oust, which means it is a judging issue and/or an issue of sensible players. * lehrbuch

I have a > Malk / FoS deck <SNIP> > > Great idea, man. Fun and all... Nice. Cheers, but it's not my concept, I picked it up from a discussion in this forum. > > ...but the errata you suggest would hose the main purpose of SC in > > this deck, and most of the minor uses too, so I don't like your > > proposal. > > Ok. Now, if one errata prevented a few nice decks but eliminated a lot of > ugly ones, we would adapt. Of course. I just think that preserving the nifty decks while stopping the unfun ones is better than hosing both types.

James Coupe wrote: > Succubus Club > Master: Unique Location > During your untap phase, you may tap this card to trade with a > Methuselah who agrees to trade. You may trade pool. You may burn 1 pool > to trade a card from your hand with a card in that Methuselah's hand. > You may burn 2 pool to trade control of a card you control. The trade > cannot result in either Methuselah have fewer cards in hand than his or > her hand size. Any additional terms can be established, but none are > enforced by the rules. > > Which still allows "abusive" pool exchanges, but you can't do both at > once. Or, you can't give them everything you own, because they have to > give you stuff back in return: Reasonable. Kind of klunky wording, but certainly an improvement. > > Succubus Club > Master: Unique Location > During your untap phase, you may tap this card to trade with a > Methuselah who agrees to trade. You may trade pool. You may trade cards > with that Methuselah on a one-for-one basic - one card in hand for one > card in hand, one controlled vampire for one controlled vampire, one > controlled library card for one controlled library card. The trade > cannot result in either Methuselah have fewer cards in hand than his or > her hand size. Any additional terms can be established, but none are > enforced by the rules. I like this one, but is difficult to word correctly, I'm sure. > > And the freakish: > > Succubus Club > Master: Unique Location > During your untap phase, you may tap this card and select a Methuselah > who agrees: one of you may move pool to the Club that the other will > receive; you may each move cards you control to the Club that the other > will take control of; you may each move an equal number of cards from > your hand to the Club face-up that the other will draw. These cards are > out of play. Do not untap this card during your next untap phase: > instead, the pool and cards moved, drawn and taken control of as > appropriate. If, before that time, the selected Methuselah is ousted or > control of the Club changes, burn the Club and everything on it. Certainly entertaining change. Certainly freakish. But also not bad. > You know the sad thing? It's caffeine-free coke. Gahds! [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <417ebc13$0$30583$626a...@news.free.fr>, orpheus.13 @DEADSPAM.free.fr says... > I know the feeling. Just read my sig... > -- > Orpheus > ----------------- > Remove the Withdraw rule in the next booklet !!! While there are arguments that can be made either way on this one... this change would stop Brinksmanship from working and I somehow doubt they're going to wallpaper a so-recently-created ousting mechanic when it's not "broken". -- -Snapcase

lehrbuch wrote: > So, clearly because your predator had the SC it was not in your best > interest to foil every action he took. Saying "well, someone has a Succubs Club in play. I had better not do something perfectly reasonable that might make him act irrationally and arbitrarily destroy the balance of the game..." is not a defense of the card. It is a scathing indictment. > I mean amongst the people I play with. My playgroup, my metagame or > whatever term the cool kids are using for it these days. Yeah, see, what happens in your group is mostly irrelevant to this discussion. Maybe everyone in your group is perfectly rational and never does anything stupid. Maybe no one in your group has ever realized that they could do something spiteful and stupid. Maybe y'all are just lucky. Who knows? The experiences of a single play group aren't really relevant in and of themselves. The possibilites that the card allows for are. > No, of course not. However, if someone proposes a deal in which you > don't lose then you are no longer in a losing position. SC allows this > to happen. The fact that you have the SC means that you are not in a > losing position, assuming someone is willing and able to offer a deal. Which is an argument that could go on for days and days, and drive the most sane judge unsane. Your argument is "since you have the SC, you can never be in a lost position". That isn't going to fly, nor is it going to convince someone to not make a random, spiteful, game destroying move 'cause they think they are in a lost position. > a) this means you have to pander to the SC holder to a certain extent, > so that they don't feel like this. Just like if someone else has most > of the votes at the table, you have to be nice to them if you want your > own votes to pass. Pandering to a voter does not, generally, mean that voter can completely destroy the balance of the table if the pandering goes badly. Any "normal" dealing in VTES only has very limited tangible effect--I give you some vote support, I don't attack your guy, I lend you some intercept from my KRCG, I don't bleed you this turn, whatever. Succubus Club, on the other hand, gives someone the power to completely circumvent a good portion of the limits on the game (i.e. your ability to give things to people), as well as giving them the ability to completely throw the balance of the game out the window by virtue of a spiteful, one sided deal. Which is the problem with the card. All the rational discussion of how the card *can* be used for reasonable purposes, and can be dealt with through reasonable actions do not nullify the fact that the card can be, and often is, used for completely irrational acts that tend to destroy a given game. That usually are the result of spite. That the card *can* be used for such "deals" completely nullifies any of the reasonable effects that the card can have in the long run. > b) if their position really is lost then the swing due to their > self-ousting "deal" will be small. I give my predator 5 pool, 4 vampires, and a hunting ground. Your new predator now has 11 more pool, twice the vampires he had just a turn ago, and a new, free, hunting ground. This is a small swing? > c) if their position isn't actually lost then they can't self-oust, > which means it is a judging issue and/or an issue of sensible players. If I can't reasonably oust my prey any time soon? I can make an argument that my position is a lost one. It is unlikely that there will be any argument gaainst such a claim that can be made that can't be counter argued to the contrary. Meaning that the judge's life becomes a private hell. How is this good for *a* game, let alone *the* game? [ quoted text not captured ]

[Peter] > Saying "well, someone has a Succubs Club in play. > I had better not do something perfectly reasonable > that might make him act irrationally and arbitrarily > destroy the balance of the game..." is not a defense > of the card. It is a scathing indictment. Maybe. I'm not quite trying to say that though. I'm saying that to ignore the fact that your predator has a SC is stupid. The fact that they have a SC changes what is reasonable (to a certain extent). > Yeah, see, what happens in your group is > mostly irrelevant to this discussion... Absolutely. Any experience you've had is equally irrelevant. What's your point? > Maybe everyone in your group is perfectly rational > and never does anything stupid. Hardly. > Pandering to a voter does not, generally, mean that voter > can completely destroy the balance of the table if the > pandering goes badly. If you're a voter, that happens (due to the game state) to need to rely on another deck to pass votes and you don't pander sufficiently to this other deck, then your strategy collapses destroying table balance. Of course, I see the "generally" in your statement. Equally SC is not "generally" used in an effective, legal, spiteful stab at another player. > [SC gives] them the ability to completely throw the > balance of the game out the window by virtue of > a spiteful, one sided deal. Which is the problem > with the card. It's a player problem. Not a card problem. Players can equally easily screw up the game by standing up and leaving. Or by picking up their library and searching for the hand they want. Or by deciding to start with 40 pool. > ... the card can be, and often is, used for completely > irrational acts that tend to destroy a given game. That > usually are the result of spite. And completely nothing to do with the game. This is still a problem of players not cards. > I give my predator 5 pool, 4 vampires, and a hunting > ground. Your new predator now has 11 more pool, twice > the vampires he had just a turn ago, and a new, free, > hunting ground. This is a small swing? This was a lost position? > If I can't reasonably oust my prey any time soon? I can > make an argument that my position is a lost one. Not if you can hang around for the 1/2 VP for making it to the time limit. > It is unlikely that there will be any argument > gaainst such a claim that can be made that > can't be counter argued to the contrary. Meaning > that the judge's life becomes a private hell. Which is why player arguments are irrelvant to a judge's decision (ideally). * lehrbuch

"Orpheus" <orphe...@DEADSPAM.free.fr> wrote in message news:417ebc13$0$30583$626a...@news.free.fr... > "Ira" <ira...@gmail.com> a écrit dans le message de news: > fa0c3aac.0410...@posting.google.com... >> What must be done to convince you that it should be banned? ... > Make a list of all the games screwed by this card ? Here's a problem. I think it's likely many people have _never_ seen a game screwed by the card - at least not since it was changed and the game win rule incorporated. There's obviously a group of people out there who see problems but even in the wholly unscientific world of trying to guage opinion by Usenet posts, the group doesn't look terribly large or broad-based to me. This invites comparison to Protect Thine Own, which seemed to me to be the target of a much broader barrage of vitriol. It's also somewhat comparable in that like Protect Thine Own, the issue doesn't seem to be so much that Succubus is overpowered. It's more about the effect it has on its victims. That's a valid critism, but it does tend to blunt the importance of making quick conclusions and putting fixes on a fast track. Fred

[Peter] > Succubus Club, on the other hand, gives someone the power > to completely circumvent a good portion of the limits on the > game (i.e. your ability to give things to people), as well as > giving them the ability to completely throw the balance of the > game out the window by virtue of a spiteful, one sided deal. Further to this, I can see your point that SC allows a player an unusally large amount of freedom to be a dickhead. However, all these "irrational" uses of the the card are already covered by the anti-collusion, "play to win" and "unsportsman like behaviour" provisions of the tournament rules. Compare SC to the two banned cards "Madness of the Bard" and "Return to Innocence". "Madness of Bard" is banned, I believe, because it relies too much on out of game issues like mastery of whatever language is being used by the table. "Return to Innocence" is banned because it results in large, unpredictable pool swings (I believe). True, SC can also result in large pool swings, but the crucial difference is that the large pool swings from SC occur when it is being used in spite based, (probably) illegal "deals"- i.e. already prevented by "play to win" etc. There are plenty of other game advancing uses for SC. By comparison, "Return to Innocence" only has one use (large pool swings) and is perfectly legal from a "play to win" perspective. The "bad uses" of SC are already prevented by the rules. It's just a matter of enforcing them. If you happen to play in an environment where the rules aren't enforced, that's your problem. If that's the case, you're playing just as different and irrelevant a game from me as those playing in a "havok" environment. * lehrbuch

Ira wrote: > Hey LSJ, > > Some people (perhaps just the vocal minority) have expressed an > interest in banning Succubus Club from tournament play. What must be > done to convince you that it should be banned? Break it in tournament play. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 03:51:50 GMT, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > Ira wrote: >> Hey LSJ, >> >> Some people (perhaps just the vocal minority) have expressed an >> interest in banning Succubus Club from tournament play. What must be >> done to convince you that it should be banned? > > Break it in tournament play. > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com What constitutes breaking in this sense? Winning with it, or making others lose? I suppose the former, but I gather more people are concerned about the latter... -- Bye, Daneel

On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 20:28:44 -0700, Frederick Scott <dont...@mymail.com> wrote: > This invites comparison to Protect Thine Own, which seemed to me to be > the target of a much broader barrage of vitriol. It's also somewhat > comparable in that like Protect Thine Own, the issue doesn't seem to be > so much that Succubus is overpowered. It's more about the effect it > has on its victims. That's a valid critism, but it does tend to blunt > the importance of making quick conclusions and putting fixes on a fast > track. I agree. The parallel exists; less people whine about Dreams of the Sphynx (which is a powerful card) than about PTO or SC, even though Dreams lets more people win (though PTO causes more people to lose). I'm all for Dreams-type cards, by the way, when it comes to the Dreams vs. PTO angle. I'm not a big fan of grounbreaking, conditional effects that kill others' games; I'm more in for less powerful, less conditional effects that help your game (instead of screwing others'). -- Bye, Daneel

LSJ wrote: > Ira wrote: > >> Hey LSJ, >> >> Some people (perhaps just the vocal minority) have expressed an >> interest in banning Succubus Club from tournament play. What must be >> done to convince you that it should be banned? > > > Break it in tournament play. > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com > Done, at each tournament in Paris, at least. See Kamel's comments in this thread.

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<qXEfd.32173$OD2....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>... > Ira wrote: > > Hey LSJ, > > > > Some people (perhaps just the vocal minority) have expressed an > > interest in banning Succubus Club from tournament play. What must be > > done to convince you that it should be banned? > > Break it in tournament play. > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=aadbb36b.0311210638.b8159d3%40posting.google.com http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=nl&lr=&c2coff=1&selm=d9925496.0108060837.104acbdb%40posting.google.com http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=27f52a52.0109052300.79507201%40posting.google.com http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=15a537b3.0312081022.76e23980%40posting.google.com http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=40eae26e%240%2426333%24626a14ce%40news.free.fr http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=TvIQ6.17409%24Rh7.585267%40newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3C15F7C5.4060808%40netg.se -Bram Vink

X_Ze...@cox-internet.com (XZealot) wrote in message news:<607fd93.04102...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] I love you. But I'm not aggree : sliced wood is better for VTES. Kamel.

"Darky" <jja....@hccnet.nl> wrote in message news:93148a54.04102...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Mentioning that Succubus was played and disliked is not the same as breaking it. (I just read the first two links -- if there's actual evidence of legal use of the Succubus Club breaking the game, let me know).

"Frederick Scott" <dont...@mymail.com> wrote in message news:<GBEfd.44284$bk1.11457@fed1read05>... > There's obviously a group of people out there > who see problems but even in the wholly unscientific world of trying to > guage opinion by Usenet posts, the group doesn't look terribly large or > broad-based to me. Isnt the problem that those group would like to ban or change more than 20 cards (hello Orpheus). That makes the statement more of a personal attitude than the reflection of a real problem. As long as Arson isnt banned, i see no problem.

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<qXEfd.32173$OD2....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>... > Ira wrote: > > Hey LSJ, > > > > Some people (perhaps just the vocal minority) have expressed an > > interest in banning Succubus Club from tournament play. What must be > > done to convince you that it should be banned? > > Break it in tournament play. > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com Could you give me a summary of the reason(s) why Madness of the Bard was banned, or a URL that lists them?

"Emmit Svenson" <emmits...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:75bdf7ed.04102...@posting.google.com... > Could you give me a summary of the reason(s) why Madness of the Bard > was banned, or a URL that lists them? It was banned in the olden days, but here are two main arguments that would suffice were it to be banned anew today: 1) No effect, given the fluid definition of "rhyme", other than the cost of putting the card into play. 2) If any real effect is bestowed upon it (by imposing an artificial, arbitrary specific set of "allowed" rhymes and rhyme patterns), it would then have a much harsher effect on players whose native language was not the language in use at the table. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. V:TES homepage: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Though effective, appear to be ineffective -- Sun Tzu

"Darky" <jja....@hccnet.nl> wrote in message news:93148a54.04102...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Hi Bram, Based on your considered choice of posting links in reply to LSJ's link without any explanation or comment, one would assume that you think these stories somehow argue for the "brokenness" of Succubus Club. After looking at the first four, I'm at loss why you think that. Without going and rigourously checking dates, I believe at least two of the first four are stories that precede the game-win rule and the most recent change to Succubus Club that severly limited some of its problematic abilities so they clearly mean very little. The other two seem to be stories about players in the game using SC (either they controlled or someone else did) to make extremely questionable plays that affected other players. So what? That happens all the time. Jyhad is a multiplayer game - sometimes third parties do stupid things and hurt you as well as themselves. If you think Succubus Club is bad for the game, you're going to need to explain why. What you've posted wouldn't seem to mean anything. Fred

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de news:2u9srbF...@uni-berlin.de... > "Emmit Svenson" <emmits...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > news:75bdf7ed.04102...@posting.google.com... > > Could you give me a summary of the reason(s) why Madness of the Bard > > was banned, or a URL that lists them? > > It was banned in the olden days, but here are two main arguments that > would suffice were it to be banned anew today: > > 1) No effect, given the fluid definition of "rhyme", other than the > cost of putting the card into play. I don't understand your statement. please explain.

"Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:417fe63c$0$13910$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net... [ quoted text not captured ] Provide a complete, specific definition to encompass everything that is a "rhyme" and exclude everything that is not. When you've done that, you'll understand the statement above. [ quoted text not captured ]

>> There's obviously a group of people out there >> who see problems but even in the wholly unscientific world of trying to >> guage opinion by Usenet posts, the group doesn't look terribly large or >> broad-based to me. > >Isnt the problem that those group would like to ban or change more >than 20 cards (hello Orpheus). That makes the statement more of a >personal attitude than the reflection of a real problem. What's wrong with banning or changing 20 cards to address "real" problems? Isn't that what CE did? Why does PTO get to skate by when Weather Control, which wasn't producing abnormal amounts of wins and wasn't anywhere near as annoying, didn't? Seems to me that more people have won and annoyed people historically with Anarch Revolt than with Temptation of Greater Power. Of course there should be limits on how much you nuke cards to fix CCGs, but at the same time, it's necessary to do so some of the time, even necessary to do 20 at once sometimes.

"Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> writes: > "LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de > > 1) No effect, given the fluid definition of "rhyme", other than the > > cost of putting the card into play. > > I don't understand your statement. > please explain. Let me try... "Rhyme" and "time" do rhyme, we would all agree. But do "rhyme" and "try me" rhyme? Do "rhyme" and "dim" rhyme? Do "rhyme" and "home" rhyme? There simply *is not* a clear-cut difference between two words that rhyme and two words that don't. It's just a matter of degrees, and artistic merit. What if a metuselah, under Madness of the Bard, declared: "The Great Beast is an Antichrist, Now he also is an Anarchist." Does he burn pool or not? ;-) -- hg@ "If you can't offend part of your audience, iki.fi there is no point in being an artist at all." -Hakim Bey

kamel...@yvelines.pref.gouv.fr (Kamel SENNI) wrote in message news:<1b066664.04102...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Clearly, sliced wood is best in constructed decks. (rimshot) > Kamel. -John Flournoy

In message <1098848307.2...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> writes: >"Madness of Bard" is banned, I believe, because it relies too much on >out of game issues like mastery of whatever language is being used by >the table. That's not the *only* reason. Define rhyming sentences. Bear in mind that anyone who's done any significant literature study will be able to bring up legitimate rhyming schemes and archaic pronunciations that a random judge won't likely have even heard of. [ quoted text not captured ]

lehrbuch wrote: > Maybe. I'm not quite trying to say that though. I'm saying that to > ignore the fact that your predator has a SC is stupid. The fact that > they have a SC changes what is reasonable (to a certain extent). Sure. But that they have a Succubus Clud gives them a *rediculous* ability to affect the game that is unprecidented in relation to any other card. If, like, my predator is a vote deck, and can play Parity Shift, I have to take that into account when I generate extra pool. That is a reasonable modification of behavior based on what your opponents are playing. Having to modify your behavior to prevent your opponent from completely destroying the game, simply because he is playing the one card that really lets him do that is just silly. > Any experience you've had is equally irrelevant. What's your point? That I'm not talking about how *I* deal with Succubus Club in *my* playgroup. I am discussing what SC can be used to do. And sometimes is. And that is why it is wholly inappropriate for competetive play. > Of course, I see the "generally" in your statement. Equally SC is not > "generally" used in an effective, legal, spiteful stab at another > player. No. But it can be. And that it can be is a problem. That it isn't *usually* used for these purposes do not balance out that sometimes it is. Return to Innocence wasn't *always* used to bleed someone unblockably for 15. Sometimes it was used to bleed someone for 6 at zero stealth. That sometimes the latter happened didn't mean that the former was ok. So Return to Innocence was banned from play. Cause it was a completely inappropriate card. I fully realize that usually, SC is used to, like, say, extort someone for a few pool, or trade vampires or something. But occasionally it is also used to completely ruin games out of spite. Because it can be. If the card had safeguards built into it that prevented this sort of thing, then it would likely be just fine. Or if it had some disincentive to play (like a built in burn clause), it would be less likely to see play, and consequently, less of an issue. But as it stands, even if it is *usually* used for completely valid reasons, sometimes it isn't. And those times *completely* make the card inappropriate for competetive play. > It's a player problem. Not a card problem. > > Players can equally easily screw up the game by standing up and > leaving. Or by picking up their library and searching for the hand > they want. Or by deciding to start with 40 pool. Yeah, see, most of those are very easy to control, cut and dry, cheating. You can't search through your deck for the hand you want. 'Cause it is cheating. You can't decide to start with 40 pool. 'Cause it is cheating. You can get up and leave, but the result of that is much smaller than getting up to leave *and* giving all of your pool and vampires and cards to another player. See, the examples you give are *easily* avoided. Someone declaring that they are in a "lost" position and then using that as a justification to hose the whole table via a one sided suicide SC "deal" is not easily avoided. And then, to boot, there are no cards in the game that specifically give you an in game mechanism to get up and leave the table, search through your deck for the hand you want, or starting with 40 pool without a specific reason. Succubus Club, however, *specifically* gives you the mechanism to, should you feel warranted to do so, get up to leave *and* give all of your pool and vampires and cards to another player. It is a good idea to make rules that prevent people from searching their deck for the hand they want and to prevent people from starting with 40 pool. It is also a good idea to provide disincentive to get up and leave a game for no good reason (usually results in a DQ). Why isn't a good idea to remove from the game a specific mechanism that allows for incredibly disruptive behavior, that is *way* too difficult to make illegal? > And completely nothing to do with the game. This is still a problem of > players not cards. Succubus Club *gives you the mechanism* to do this in game. No other card does that. Yeah, you can play stupid, or spiteful, or just leave a game. But these have built in disincentive to them, and only very limited tangible effects. SC allows you to completely circumvent a main limiting factor of the game (i.e. you can't randomly give stuff to people) and in doing so, it also allows you to completely screw up a game if you want to. I realize that this is as a much a problem with players as it is with the card in question, but I have no control over how my opponents play--if they want to be spiteful or stupid, I can't really stop them. But I can suggest that a card that makes spite or stupiditiy a very concrete and game affecting motive be removed as it is just bad for the game. > This was a lost position? Sure. I have 5 pool and 4 vampires and a hunting ground. My prey has 15 pool, 5 vampires, a lot of intercept, and aggro damage. I don't have much, if any, stealth. I'm not getting through my prey ever. The concept of trying to keep the Succubus Club in check by arbitrating what is or is not a "lost" position is absurd, as someone is always going to be able to make a viable argument as to how they are in a "lost" position. I'd much rather be playing a game where whether or not someone is in a "lst" position was irrelevant. With SC in play, someone's position being "lost" or not can be a *huge* issue. Without SC? Who cares? What difference does it make? > Not if you can hang around for the 1/2 VP for making it to the time > limit. Yeah, see, I'm unwilling for the game to hinge on such an argument one way or the other. These "I'm in a lost position" vs. "no you aren't and here is why..." arguments are absurd. Especially when a game is actually going on. Remove the Succubus Club, and you remove the primary *need* to even have such an argument. That such arguments even exist is a problem. > Which is why player arguments are irrelvant to a judge's decision > (ideally). Again, overtaxing an already overtaxed judge. The whole saftey valve that keeps Succubus Club from being abused or cheated with is "judge discression". It strikes me as a patently bad idea to have a single card that is only kept in check by judges discression. If the Succubus Club had significant limits on what it could or could not do? It'd probably be fine--maybe if it allowed you to trade up to 2 pool in exchange for a single card in play. Or something like that. But without completely re-writing the card, this isn't going to happen. And I don't think the card is getting completely re-written. So removing it from play strikes me as a much better plan than leaving it there. [ quoted text not captured ]

Frederick Scott wrote: > That's a valid critism, but it does tend to blunt > the importance of making quick conclusions and putting fixes on a fast > track. People have been calling for Succubus Club to be removed from competetive play for, what, 9 years? I'd hardly call that a quick conclusion... [ quoted text not captured ]

lehrbuch wrote: > Further to this, I can see your point that SC allows a player an > unusally large amount of freedom to be a dickhead. However, all these > "irrational" uses of the the card are already covered by the > anti-collusion, "play to win" and "unsportsman like behaviour" > provisions of the tournament rules. But they don't stop someone who is in a "lost" position from being a dickhead. 'Cause once you are in a "lost" position, you can do whatever you want, 'cause you no longer need to "play to win". So what becomes the importnat issue is determining who is in a "lost" position. Which is a very difficult to define, let alone locate, position. I can't for the life of me see how someone could, when someone is in a viably "lost" position, argue that they actually aren't. I'd much rather that whether or not someone is in a "lost" position be comepletley (or almost completely) irrelevant, rather than the sole saftety valve that keeps a game from being destroyed by the Succubus Club. > The "bad uses" of SC are already prevented by the rules. It's just a > matter of enforcing them. But see, they aren't prevented by the rules. They are specifically allowed by the rules. You just need to be in a "lost" position. Can you gaurantee that every player who claims to be in a "lost" position is actually going to be in a "lost" position? Can you gaurantee that you'll be able to convince someone that their "lost" position isn't a lost position? > If you happen to play in an environment > where the rules aren't enforced, that's your problem. And again, it isn't a matter of the rules being enforced. It is a matter of the completely arbitrary concept of "lost position" being hugely important, yet impossible to define. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > Break it in tournament play. > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com Which is an impossible condition to satisfy, given the problem with the card. The broken/abuses of Succubus Club do not make you win. They arbitrarily ruin games and make other people win, specifically 'cause the person abusing/breaking Succubus Club usually ousts themself doing so, while arbitrarily making someone else win. [ quoted text not captured ]

[James Coupe] > That's not the *only* reason. > > Define rhyming sentences... True. (Not) having a common understanding of what rhyme means is also why "Madness of the Bard" is banned. It's still an out of game issue (arguably) revolving around mastery of language. * lehrbuch

[Peter] > Succubus Club, however, *specifically* gives you the > mechanism to, should you feel warranted to do so, > get up to leave *and* give all of your pool and > vampires and cards to another player. Except that it's not the objective of game to do this. As long as the players want to play the game then it's not an issue. A player could sit down with the objective of causing "Havok" and no amount of banning "Havok" promoting cards, like say "Bum's Rush", is going to make the game they're playing (canonical) jyhad. Equally I'm absolutely certain that a player could sit down and with the "Succubus Club" in play cause a different kind of "Havok". If a player is using the Succubus Club *to win* in a broken way, then maybe it's an idea to ban it (although I'm yet to see how it enables broken winning). If you can demonstrate a winning (and broken) strategy with the Succubus Club, then I'd absolutely back your call for banning or revision. However, if a player is using "Succubus Club" to king-make (which is, I think, your problem - especially spite based king-making), then they're either colluding (already illegal and banned), or they're a havok player rather than a jyhad player. You're never going to solve the problems that occur when havok and jyhad players sit at the same table by banning cards - if you go down that path, you'll end up banning "Bum's Rush", or at least revising it to target only predator or prey. * lehrbuch

lehrbuch wrote: > Except that it's not the objective of game to do this. As long as the > players want to play the game then it's not an issue. Until they can no longer win, at which point they are free to lose in whatever way the feel is appropriate. With Succubus Club, whatever way they feel is appropriate often means completely screwing the game over. > A player could sit down with the objective of causing "Havok" and no > amount of banning "Havok" promoting cards, like say "Bum's Rush", is > going to make the game they're playing (canonical) jyhad. See, but 'causing havok with a Bum's Rush, say, is wildly disadvantageous when you aren't in a "lost" position, and usually very minimally effective when you are in a "lost" position. On the other hand, Succubus Club, when used from a "lost" position can wildly, and without precident, swing the balance of the game. Way more so than a random cross table Bum's Rush. Way more. > Equally I'm absolutely certain that a player could sit down and with > the "Succubus Club" in play cause a different kind of "Havok". Sure. But much of that would be either cheating (and thus stoppable) or easily ignored as it isn't gainng anyone anything. Where the problem comes up, again, is when someone has 4 or 5 pool, some stuff in play, and a few vampires. And they aren't going forward ever. So they just give all their stuff to their predator or something. This doesn't come from playing "havok". It comes from being in a "lost" position and having the concrete mechanism at your disposal to do such a thing. Remove the concrete mechanism, and it ceases to be an issue. > If a player is using the Succubus Club *to win* in a broken way, then > maybe it's an idea to ban it (although I'm yet to see how it enables > broken winning). It doesn't. It enables broken making other people win. Far, far more so than any other card in the game. And the only safety mechanism to stop it is judge's arbitration. And if what is necessary to make the card fixed or banned is a demonstration that it makes people win too much, then it will never get fixed. As there is no concrete way to show data as to how it makes *other* people win too much. > However, if a player is using "Succubus Club" to king-make (which is, I > think, your problem - especially spite based king-making), No, no, it is the *extent* to which is enables king making. No other card in the game allows you to arbitrarily give away all of your pool, all of your vampires, all of your cards in play, all the cards in your hand, in exchange for nothing, while ousting yourself at the same time. Some cards can "king-make". This is *way* beyond king making. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Isnt the problem that those group would like to ban or change more > than 20 cards (hello Orpheus). Hi. You know what ? I never asked for that many modifications. But you're right, my sig should broaden out to reflect some more. Let's try : ----------------- - Remove the Withdraw rule in the next booklet !!! - Ban The Succubus Club and Protect Thine Own - Fix Anarch Revolt There will still be some cards I hate, but the game will be much improved from that. That makes the statement more of a > personal attitude than the reflection of a real problem. No real problem ? Man, you must be blind, or live in a place where people are so nice no one wants to hurt his prey or screw the table... > As long as Arson isnt banned, i see no problem. There is no reason for banning Anson. Fixing AR would be quite enough. -- ----------------- Orpheus "We can never know of what we are the seeds Until we flower." Lilith

"Snapcase" <capta...@yahoo.com> a écrit dans le message de news: MPG.1be8b4786...@news.optonline.net... > In article <417ebc13$0$30583$626a...@news.free.fr>, orpheus.13 > @DEADSPAM.free.fr says... > > > I know the feeling. Just read my sig... > > -- > > Orpheus > > ----------------- > > Remove the Withdraw rule in the next booklet !!! > > While there are arguments that can be made either way on this one... > this change would stop Brinksmanship from working and I somehow doubt > they're going to wallpaper a so-recently-created ousting mechanic when > it's not "broken". Well, it has been argued in other threads. To make a long story short : it wouldn't matter that much, but a game text modification of one card, no matter the length of the text, would be a small sacrifice for all the games that would become much more interesting... If you can't give just one VP, you have to go for 3/2 deals, and already we're talking another story : only between people having a chance to win, not just losers wanted to grasp a desperate last VP. -- Deadly yours, Orpheus

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:BDA5781B.1A754%pd...@lightlink.com... > Frederick Scott wrote: > >> That's a valid criticism, but it does tend to blunt the importance of >> making quick conclusions and putting fixes on a fast track. > > People have been calling for Succubus Club to be removed from competetive > play for, what, 9 years? I'd hardly call that a quick conclusion... Peter, did you happen to notice the card DID get changed a couple years ago?!? From your posts, one would assume not. And apparently you didn't notice - I've also been referring to the interaction between the game win rule and Succubus Club. If you disputed that the game win rule made any difference to what people were complaining about in terms of the prior problems with Succubus Club, you could have objected to that reference earlier rather than just ignoring it. Claiming that the current set of complaints are the same issues that have been under discussion for the last 9 years is ludicrous. You're suffering from some SEVERE amnesia, I think. Fred

[Peter] > Until they can no longer win, at which point they are > free to lose in whatever way the feel is appropriate. > With Succubus Club, whatever way they feel is > appropriate often means completely screwing the > game over. Until some one offers a game advancing deal to them (which is quite possible with the Succubus Club). If there is a method via which they can attempt to win, then they can't attempt to lose in whatever way they feel like, as their position is not lost. > Where the problem comes up, again, is when > someone has 4 or 5 pool, some stuff in play, > and a few vampires. (I'd still say, "not a lost position", but for the sake of argument we'll assume it is). If I decided that I was lost in this position (didn't have the Succubus Club) and hence packed up and left the game, I would still screw the game up. It would be screwed up in a different way to the way I could with the Succubus Club, but it would still be screwed. My prey, for example, would be annoyed that his 4 pool buffer defended by a few vampires and "stuff in play" had evaporated. Or a cross-table player with a "far mastery" in hand, might be annoyed that my "muddled vampire hunter" had evaporated, for example. The problem is king making (for spite). It can't be solved by banning cards. It's solved by judges enforcing the rules and players obeying the rules. * lehrbuch

> I love you. > But I'm not aggree : sliced wood is better for VTES. 10,000 beavers can't be wrong. Actually, it should be a blanket judgement that if you have the Succubus Club in play that you can never be in a lost position. Think about it. Potentially if you had 1 pool and no minions, your prey could give you all his vampires and all but 1 of his pool and let you bleed him out. Unlimited potential leads to unlimited freedom of play and if you have unlimited freedom of play then you can never be in a "lost" position as long as you control the Succubus club. End of Story. [ quoted text not captured ]

Frederick Scott wrote: > Peter, did you happen to notice the card DID get changed a couple years > ago?!? From your posts, one would assume not. The change that occured (tap, only usable during untap) did *nothing* to address the actual problems with the card. It didn't when it was made, and it doesn't now. > And apparently you didn't notice No, I noticed. And brought up how it didn't actually fix anything when it was made apparent. > - I've also been referring to the > interaction between the game win rule and Succubus Club. If you disputed > that the game win rule made any difference to what people were complaining > about in terms of the prior problems with Succubus Club, you could have > objected to that reference earlier rather than just ignoring it. I'm not quite sure what you are talking about here. The game win rule *also* does nothing to fix the real problems with the Succubus Club, as most of them revolve around people who are exempt from having to play to win. As they are in a losing position. > Claiming that the current set of complaints are the same issues that > have been under discussion for the last 9 years is ludicrous. You're > suffering from some SEVERE amnesia, I think. Uhh, no. The arguments I have been making about this card are the same ones I have always been making: -It allows for rediculous game power swings as the result of spiteful, losing players, over whom the "game win" rule holds no sway. -To keep the card in check, it requires constant moderation by an overtaxed judge. -It facilitates wild collusion, that while certainly illegal, requires even more judge arbitration. None of the benefits of the card (it is funny and possibly interesting) outweigh the vast disadvantages it brings to the game. New version or no. [ quoted text not captured ]

lehrbuch wrote: > Until some one offers a game advancing deal to them (which is quite > possible with the Succubus Club). If there is a method via which they > can attempt to win, then they can't attempt to lose in whatever way > they feel like, as their position is not lost. This is not an argument you are going to win in a tournament. If someone feels like they are in a losing position, they are going to act is if they are in a losing position. > (I'd still say, "not a lost position", but for the sake of argument > we'll assume it is). And someone would argue with you. And it would require stopping the game while the preposterous argument was articulated by both sides, and then the judge judging. And then the player declaring that they are in a losing position *now* as they have less pool than last time. And so on. > If I decided that I was lost in this position (didn't have the Succubus > Club) and hence packed up and left the game, I would still screw the > game up. It would be screwed up in a different way to the way I could > with the Succubus Club, but it would still be screwed. In a much smaller way. Leaving the game when you are in a lost position is little more than being ousted a turn or two early--minimal effect on the game overall. Giving all your stuff away to someone is a much greater effect. Giving someone 3 or 4 vampires, and some pool, and some permanents is a *much* larger wing than simply 6 pool for someone being ousted. > The problem is king making (for spite). No, no, it is the extent to which king making is facilitated by a single card. No other card gives you an unfettered ability to simply hand all of your stuff away to someone else, providing a very possible very significant swing in power. > It can't be solved by banning > cards. It's solved by judges enforcing the rules and players obeying > the rules. And again, there is nothing against the rules about being in a lost position and using Succubus Club to give all your stuff away. This cannot be stopped by enforcing and obeying of the rules. I'm losing. I can lose however I like. Without SC, I lose by transfering myself out, and provide a 6 pool bumb to my predator. With SC, I lose by giving my predator all my stuff, and provide a 10+ pool bump, a number of vampires and permanents bump, and a new hand of 7 out of 14 cards bump. No enforcement or obeying of the rules in the world is going to prevent that, and no other card that can be used in king making can do that. And it isn't a good thing. [ quoted text not captured ]

[Peter] > And again, there is nothing against the rules about > being in a lost position and using Succubus Club > to give all your stuff away. Which still means it is about players making preposterous decisions about whether they're in a lost position or not, not the Succubus Club card itself. Imagine we sat down for a game. You are my predator, let's say Derek Ray is my prey (sorry for using your name in vain). I can tell you that my position is lost before I've even dealt my opening hand. I know I'm crap and you are both good players. There is no way I'm going to oust Derek, no way I'm able to go forward in any meaningful sense. I'm going to lose in the manner of my choosing by ignoring Derek and doing everything in my feeble power to destroy your game. I don't need the Succubus Club to do this and I've effectively screwed the game by swinging 30 pool, my turns, library, crypt and ability (for what it's worth) in Derek's favour. This is the problem that you're trying to address. It has nothing to do with the Succubus Club. * lehrbuch

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:BDA59C8D.1A76D%pd...@lightlink.com... > Frederick Scott wrote: > >> Peter, did you happen to notice the card DID get changed a couple years >> ago?!? From your posts, one would assume not. > > The change that occured (tap, only usable during untap) did *nothing* to > address the actual problems with the card. It didn't when it was made, and > it doesn't now. I strongly disagree. At least some of the complaints about the cards were things like people switching hands with multiple opponents just to legally share concrete information that did not have to be shared with the table. This was one of the major complaints about the card: the endless and continual use of its powers caused a single turn to last forever and made it more powerful than necessary for the function it was intended for. >> And apparently you didn't notice > > No, I noticed. And brought up how it didn't actually fix anything when it > was made apparent. What are you talking about?!? Whose post objected my statement about the game win rule OR the card change? My news server doesn't seem to have received it. >> - I've also been referring to the >> interaction between the game win rule and Succubus Club. If you disputed >> that the game win rule made any difference to what people were >> complaining >> about in terms of the prior problems with Succubus Club, you could have >> objected to that reference earlier rather than just ignoring it. > > I'm not quite sure what you are talking about here. The game win rule > *also* > does nothing to fix the real problems with the Succubus Club, as most of > them revolve around people who are exempt from having to play to win. As > they are in a losing position. As I said, TOTAL amnesia! *MANY* of the complaints about Succubus Club revolved around how it allowed two players to split victory points. It was one the reasons - and in my opinion one of the most important reasons - given in support of instituting the game win rule. People don't split victory points, it's much harder to use a Succubus Club to any game-breaking effect. And indeed, places where I played, the use of Succubus Club dropped off dramatically after the game win rule. Before, people were throwing it in their decks just to contest other people's Suc Clubs. After, I've barely seen the thing played. >> Claiming that the current set of complaints are the same issues that >> have been under discussion for the last 9 years is ludicrous. You're >> suffering from some SEVERE amnesia, I think. > > Uhh, no. The arguments I have been making about this card are the same > ones > I have always been making: They may have been the arguments YOU were making. But in that huge ruckus that occurred two or three years ago and then finally died down, a lot of the other people were making much different arguments about the card - many of which have been addressed. I'm sorry you seem to have missed this nuance in the evolution of the use of Succubus Club, but it's a very important point. You can't make the statement that, "We've been complaining about the Succubus Club for nine years and nothing happened." Something DID happen. Something, IMHO, that made a huge difference. It may not have been enough of a thing, in your mind, but let's at least get our history right. Fred

lehrbuch wrote: > Which still means it is about players making preposterous decisions > about whether they're in a lost position or not, not the Succubus Club > card itself. Maybe it is a preposterous decision. Maybe it isn't. Someone using a SC to self oust by giving everything they own to their predator out of spite might be perfectly viable, given the players cruddy position. That is not a preposterous position. > This is the problem that you're trying to address. It has nothing to > do with the Succubus Club. It has everything to do with Succubus Club. If Succubus Club didn't provide the mechanism to give all your stuff away, it would *matter* if you thought you were in a lost position or not. 'Cause you wouldn't have the mechanism to give all your stuff away. [ quoted text not captured ]

[Peter] > It has everything to do with Succubus Club. > If Succubus Club didn't provide the mechanism > to give all your stuff away, it would *matter* if > you thought you were in a lost position or not. OK, it's my minion phase. I've got one pool. Four (empty) minions in torpor. One controlled minion. There is a Dragonbound in play. I've got a KRC in hand (and say some stealth cards). My predator has 2 pool (my prey has 10 pool). (The other players have been eliminated already. My predator and prey each have 1 VP, I have none). I'm in a lost position. I'm going to be ousted in my discard phase (by the Dragonbound). I can call the KRC and attempt to oust my predator for spite (as I'm lost I can do what I like). Directly ousting someone for spite screws the game more than transferring stuff around with the Succubus Club. Does this mean that KRC and Dragonbound should be banned? These are the cards that have provided the mechanism for this spite based oust. * lehrbuch

Frederick Scott wrote: > I strongly disagree. At least some of the complaints about the cards were > things like people switching hands with multiple opponents just to legally > share concrete information that did not have to be shared with the table. > This was one of the major complaints about the card: the endless and > continual > use of its powers caused a single turn to last forever and made it more > powerful than necessary for the function it was intended for. Sure. But the new version only addresses this somewhat--it doesn't reduce the table talk. Just the implimentation of the table talk. The actual talking that takes forever. > What are you talking about?!? Yeah, see, I'm not sure what you are talking about either. You brought up the CE change to SC. When that change occured, I rember specifically discussing how it didn't really fix the card to the extent that it needed to be fixed. I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. > Whose post objected my statement about the > game win rule OR the card change? My news server doesn't seem to have > received it. Yeah, see, losing me. > As I said, TOTAL amnesia! Yu-huh. > *MANY* of the complaints about Succubus Club > revolved around how it allowed two players to split victory points. If you say so. I guess it is my amnesia. > It was > one the reasons - and in my opinion one of the most important reasons - > given in support of instituting the game win rule. Succubus Club? > People don't split > victory points, it's much harder to use a Succubus Club to any game-breaking > effect. But not any harder at all to use Succubus Club for game spoling effect. > They may have been the arguments YOU were making. But in that huge ruckus > that occurred two or three years ago and then finally died down, a lot of > the other people were making much different arguments about the card - many > of which have been addressed. I'm not seeing many of them being addressed. A few, sure, in a half hearted way. But the card is still just as potentially disruptive as it ever was. > > I'm sorry you seem to have missed this nuance in the evolution of the use > of Succubus Club, but it's a very important point. You can't make the > statement that, "We've been complaining about the Succubus Club for nine > years and nothing happened." Something DID happen. Something, IMHO, that > made a huge difference. It may not have been enough of a thing, in your > mind, but let's at least get our history right. Something did happen, yes. Nothing particularly significant. But something. [ quoted text not captured ]

lehrbuch wrote: > OK, it's my minion phase. I've got one pool. Four (empty) minions in > torpor. One controlled minion. There is a Dragonbound in play. I've > got a KRC in hand (and say some stealth cards). My predator has 2 pool > (my prey has 10 pool). (The other players have been eliminated > already. My predator and prey each have 1 VP, I have none). That is a pretty lost position. I'm sure I can come up with many other "lost" positions that aren't that lost. > Directly ousting someone for spite screws the game more than > transferring stuff around with the Succubus Club. Yeah, see, I think you are incorrect on that assessment. Again. If Succubus Club was significantly limited in what it could be used to trade, it'd be just fine. Maybe like, say, Heidelburg in power level--you could tap it to trade something specific. Heck, give it options, but restricted options. It still could work just fine for its current "legitimate" uses, but would not have the absurdly game swinging spite options available to it. How would this be bad? [ quoted text not captured ]

[Peter] > That is a pretty lost position. I'm sure I can > come up with many other "lost" positions > that aren't that lost. That's not the point. This is a pretty unambgiously lost position. KRC is the mechanism that allows me to oust someone for spite. Following your Succubus Club logic this means that KRC should be banned. [lehrbuch] > > Directly ousting someone for spite screws the > > game more than transferring stuff around with > > the Succubus Club. [Peter] > Yeah, see, I think you are incorrect on that > assessment. ?? Hasn't your position been that Succubus Club is bad because it allows you to give unreasonable benefit to another player. In my example, KRC allows me to give the game win (and all the VPs) to another player. There is no greater benefit to be had in a game of VTES than the game win. > If Succubus Club was significantly limited ... > How would this be bad? Not bad. Unnecessary. * lehrbuch

"Frederick Scott" <dont...@mymail.com> wrote in message news:<3CRfd.44394$bk1.4156@fed1read05>... > "Darky" <jja....@hccnet.nl> wrote in message > news:93148a54.04102...@posting.google.com... > > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message > news:<qXEfd.32173$OD2....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>... > >> Ira wrote: > >> > Hey LSJ, > >> > > >> > Some people (perhaps just the vocal minority) have expressed an > >> > interest in banning Succubus Club from tournament play. What must be > >> > done to convince you that it should be banned? > >> > >> Break it in tournament play. > >> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com <snip> > > Hi Bram, > > Based on your considered choice of posting links in reply to LSJ's link > without any explanation or comment, one would assume that you think these > stories somehow argue for the "brokenness" of Succubus Club. After looking > at the first four, I'm at loss why you think that. Without going and > rigourously checking dates, I believe at least two of the first four are > stories that precede the game-win rule and the most recent change to > Succubus Club that severly limited some of its problematic abilities so they > clearly mean very little. The other two seem to be stories about players > in the game using SC (either they controlled or someone else did) to make > extremely questionable plays that affected other players. So what? That > happens all the time. Jyhad is a multiplayer game - sometimes third parties > do stupid things and hurt you as well as themselves. > > If you think Succubus Club is bad for the game, you're going to need to > explain why. What you've posted wouldn't seem to mean anything. > > Fred Link 1: People giving away all their stuff via succubusclub. Link 2: Person getting 2 more VP's then he usually would've, only by virtue of succubusclub. Link 3: Person using succubusclub getting indeterminate amount (1+) more Vp's then he usually would've only by virtue of succubusclub. Link 4: Succubusclub being used: Quote: "My only potential for response was to go cross-table early and often, so the whole predator/prey dynamic was (or should have been) thrown out the window." Link 5: Kamel getting at least 1 more VP than he usually would've only by virtue of succubusclub. Link 6: People swapping pool to make time and not be ousted. Quote: "Succubus Club was used by the book, so we all had a good time, but I have to admit to the card changing table-balance more than any other single card I have ever seen." Link 1 was probably a bad choice. Also I didnt devote much time to searching. Still it looks broken enough for me. Single card, scores VPs, unbalances tables. 0 opportunity cost (except for being a decent player). Free. Not saying it's all-powerful, or very easy to use. Just much too good, espescially considering it's cost. Just like old misdirection. Too big an effect for the cost. Hamstring it, please. -Bram Vink

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:33:47 +0200, Orpheus <orphe...@DEADSPAM.free.fr> wrote: >> Isnt the problem that those group would like to ban or change more >> than 20 cards (hello Orpheus). > > Hi. > > You know what ? I never asked for that many modifications. > > But you're right, my sig should broaden out to reflect some more. > > Let's try : > > ----------------- > - Remove the Withdraw rule in the next booklet !!! > - Ban The Succubus Club and Protect Thine Own > - Fix Anarch Revolt I think you are playing in a (mostly) event-free environment. I think everyone agrees that Anarch Revolts en masse unbalance the game (effectively turning it into a completely different game). The effect is otherwise mostly balanced... But some decks can get the upper hand by deliberately including insane bloat and possibly multiple MPA-s. The real destructiveness and annoyance comes when people who do not win with it still screw other people's game. Same thing with Events. I've seen mass-event decks that basically throw out an event every turn just to keep the counters changing on the few important cards like Wormwood and such. Those decks may not win too much, but tell me - what is VTES when: - your vampires have a capacity cut-off point (say 6) - there is no blood hunt - you may exchange a master card for another in your ash heap as an MPA - you do not replace cards that require disciplines until the action is over - superior discipline uses cost an additional blood - when playing the first discipline-requiring card each turn, you need to flip the top library card, and that may cancel the original card (if it is a master) I mean, it's only six, but this is still far-far further from VTES than "each turn you burn an additional pool during your untap, unless you take an action to vote it down". ...and I never went near the Falls or Recalled. To paraphrase, those make you wonder why you bothered. I mean, a mass-AR deck says to the table, "You all practically start at 20 pool". Some Events say, "Okay, you, you and you put away your decks and play without them. The rest of you, have fun!" -- Bye, Daneel

> As I said, TOTAL amnesia! *MANY* of the complaints about Succubus Club > revolved around how it allowed two players to split victory points. It was > one the reasons - and in my opinion one of the most important reasons - > given in support of instituting the game win rule. People don't split > victory points, it's much harder to use a Succubus Club to any game-breaking > effect. And indeed, places where I played, the use of Succubus Club dropped > off dramatically after the game win rule. Before, people were throwing it > in their decks just to contest other people's Suc Clubs. After, I've barely > seen the thing played. Well, what a strange coincidence. This is exactly what happens here and now. I've never put the damn card in any of my decks until now, but after what I've seen this w-e, I'll have to, if only to contest it ; or I'd better put some Kine Dominance / Disputed Territories !! And I don't think the reason might be that europeans / french dont play well enough. Let's see, the principal abuser at the CF was Kamel Senni... 5th mondial player ? Certainly more after these performances... Mmmmm... And the next day, another finalist (Kamel was 6th ?) could have given the table to any player when he was about to loose. All he'd have needed is for another player to break his deal. And there it was : YOU WIN ! This is a YOU WIN card. I only want to see once more what I saw there. At the EC finals. So that LSJ finally reacts. Maybe I should make a Anarch Revolt / Protect Thine Own / Succubus Club deck ? ;-) -- Orpheus "Did you know that urine is sterile ? You can drink it." Tyler Durden

On 27 Oct 2004 15:12:52 -0700, XZealot <X_Ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote: >> I love you. >> But I'm not aggree : sliced wood is better for VTES. > > 10,000 beavers can't be wrong. > > Actually, it should be a blanket judgement that if you have the > Succubus Club in play that you can never be in a lost position. Exceptionally witty and remarkable statement. I think that this is the next best thing to banning the card. One for... I'll probably include it in my "small booklet of judgement guidelines". ;) -- Bye, Daneel

Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:<BDA57A1C.1A756%pd...@lightlink.com>... > Which is an impossible condition to satisfy, given the problem with the > card. The broken/abuses of Succubus Club do not make you win. They > arbitrarily ruin games and make other people win ... I see two different and antagonist positions in the ban-SC-group. 1st. SC is so strong, that it makes you win. (Kamel) 2nd. SC is the card for the losing players to interrupt the game. (Peter) The first problem seems to me more the combination of Kamels diplomatic skill with the card. I have seen a player taking a Charnas the Imp from Kamel via the Succubus Club. These situation can be handled with better play. Nobody needs to make deals with Kamel. Nobody needs to make deals with the owner of the player with the SC, that gives this player all advantages. The second problem is only the extreme of a typical situation of VTES. Bad and losing players can disrupt the game. And they often do. And i am not sure, if its there job to simple die. There is a simple solution: kill the losing player that will disrupt the game. Its done with random attacking combat decks, its done with AR or Camarilla Segregation decks, its done to balance the table, its done against Smiling Jacks, Dragonbounds etc. Isnt the problem that nobody looks at SC like he looks at other cards. You play Delaying tactics against votes, you play Fear of Mekhet against Inner Circle. Why not play against the SC. Arson and Disputed Territory comes to mind. But the card has an build in steal option. Make only deals that give you the SC.

Decebalus wrote: > There is a simple solution: kill the losing player that will disrupt > the game. Its done with random attacking combat decks, its done with > AR or Camarilla Segregation decks, its done to balance the table, its > done against Smiling Jacks, Dragonbounds etc. It's not that simple. If the owner of the SC proposes you an easy GW, why should you refuse? The owner of the SC will always find somebody to help him/her for an easy GW. The other players now gain another player to oust, twice harder to achieve. > > Isnt the problem that nobody looks at SC like he looks at other cards. > You play Delaying tactics against votes, you play Fear of Mekhet > against Inner Circle. Why not play against the SC. Arson and Disputed > Territory comes to mind. But the card has an build in steal option. > Make only deals that give you the SC. Yes, contest it. Burn the SC won't work, since a SC player packs at least two of it in each of his/her decks, and Anthelios allows to retrieve it easily.

Hey Fred, I can't tell if you're playing devil's advocate. Do you think that VTES tournament play would be significantly improved if Succubus Club was banned? And since I'm bothering to post again, I also wanted to mention that I agree with Peter (and won't repeat what he has eloquently written.) Ira

Hey LSJ, > Break it in tournament play. > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com Thank you for this concise answer. Would you define "break" as used above? If I had to guess, I'd say it means, "Legally use it to affect the play or outcome of the game more than is reasonable for a no cost, master:location card." Of course, I'd rather hear and understand your definition, since my definition doesn't matter much when it comes to convincing you. :) As a note, are there any other paths to convincing you? It's an unpleasant thought to play with a card that I feel should be banned. Thanks for your seemingly endless patience! Ira

> > Let's try : > > > > ----------------- > > - Remove the Withdraw rule in the next booklet !!! > > - Ban The Succubus Club and Protect Thine Own > > - Fix Anarch Revolt > > I think you are playing in a (mostly) event-free environment. Not quite. I have seen good and bad events decks, and how just a random event can screw a precise deck. But then I have also seen a setite corruption / bleeds for 1 totally screwed just because he had Matthias as a prey. Random things can happen, just like you always have an anti-deck and may meet him on each table sometimes... I think > everyone agrees that Anarch Revolts en masse unbalance the game > (effectively turning it into a completely different game). Yes. > The effect is > otherwise mostly balanced... But some decks can get the upper hand by > deliberately including insane bloat and possibly multiple MPA-s. Such decks are optimized for MPAs. I did win at some AR tables because of massive bloat, but I also sometimes lost before getting my second minion out just because an ally "cycled" by putting all his ARs on the table while it wasn't interesting for him. The effect of en-masse ARs is mostly unbalanced. > The real > destructiveness and annoyance comes when people who do not win with it > still screw other people's game. Quite often. > Same thing with Events. It depends. Some events do exactly what they're supposed to do (Dragonbound for example), at least as much as a Master (Tension, Fame...). > I've seen mass-event decks that basically throw > out an event every turn just to keep the counters changing on the few > important cards like Wormwood and such. Those decks may not win too much, The problem is different : we're talking accumulation of different cards. None of them would be as disruptive as ARs, but it's the sum total which is. Not to mention that events can hinder your hand, some have special requisites, etc. > but tell me - what is VTES when: > > - your vampires have a capacity cut-off point (say 6) > - there is no blood hunt > - you may exchange a master card for another in your ash heap as an MPA > - you do not replace cards that require disciplines until the action is > over > - superior discipline uses cost an additional blood > - when playing the first discipline-requiring card each turn, you need to > flip the top library card, and that may cancel the original card (if it is > a master) LOL. > I mean, it's only six, but this is still far-far further from VTES than > "each turn you burn an additional pool during your untap, unless you take > an action to vote it down". Is it ? You talked of 6 Events. Are they really more disruptive than 6 AR in game, you think ? > ...and I never went near the Falls or Recalled. To paraphrase, those make > you wonder why you bothered. I mean, a mass-AR deck says to the table, > "You all practically start at 20 pool". Not quite. Because you can't plan it before you've some minions out, otherwise you'd make very different choices. > Some Events say, "Okay, you, you > and you put away your decks and play without them. The rest of you, have > fun!" You are right. I'm all against the randomness of some events : why in hell should the Lasombra suffer just because someone wanted to put an easy event on the table (to be able to play some which require other events for example) ?! But most events can be included in decks where they will benefit a precise strategy and be detrimental to the rest. Other difference : we know AR decks win (while Gehenna...) and therefore lots of players, good or bad, include them in their decks. Also : a second bad thing doesn't make the first good. -- Deadly yours, Orpheus

"Ira" <ira...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:fa0c3aac.04102...@posting.google.com... > Hey LSJ, > > > Break it in tournament play. > > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com > > Thank you for this concise answer. Would you define "break" as used > above? > > If I had to guess, I'd say it means, "Legally use it to affect the > play or outcome of the game more than is reasonable for a no cost, > master:location card." That would suffice, I guess. I'd have stopped at "reasonable" -- the rest of the sentence would be implicit. > As a note, are there any other paths to convincing you? It's an > unpleasant thought to play with a card that I feel should be banned. I have occasionally been swayed by well-formed and well-reasoned arguments on the public forums in the past on other topics. But that seems to be an even more difficult proposition. :-) -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. V:TES homepage: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Though effective, appear to be ineffective -- Sun Tzu

Peter D Bakija wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > >>Break it in tournament play. >>http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com > > > Which is an impossible condition to satisfy, given the problem with the > card. The broken/abuses of Succubus Club do not make you win. They > arbitrarily ruin games and make other people win, specifically 'cause the > person abusing/breaking Succubus Club usually ousts themself doing so, while > arbitrarily making someone else win. Apologies if this has already been brought up down-thread, but I'm on a tight usenet ration today. In order to break a card, you do not have to win inordinately with it. Reducing the game to a shambles also constitutes breakage, and it shouldn't be too much work to agree on minimum criterea for "shambles". -- David Cherryholmes

lehrbuch wrote: > Imagine we sat down for a game. You are my predator, let's say Derek > Ray is my prey (sorry for using your name in vain). > > I can tell you that my position is lost before I've even dealt my > opening hand. I know I'm crap and you are both good players. There is > no way I'm going to oust Derek, no way I'm able to go forward in any > meaningful sense. This attitude (which you may have manufactured to demonstrate a point, but still) is a foundational problem. Do you really believe you can say you are in a lost position so early? Everyone can lose; no amount of skill is going to save you when the Lords of Probability take a big old crap on top of your deck. You think you know how the game is going to resolve? In the overwhelming majority of cases you don't, so making decisions based on this "knowledge" is nothing more than a thin veneer used to justify an act that you know your peers will look down upon. Rule #3: You are not psychic. -- David Cherryholmes

Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: > And again, there is nothing against the rules about being in a lost > position and using Succubus Club to give all your stuff away. This > cannot be stopped by enforcing and obeying of the rules. I'm losing. > I can lose however I like. Without SC, I lose by transfering myself > out, and provide a 6 pool bumb to my predator. With SC, I lose by > giving my predator all my stuff, and provide a 10+ pool bump, a > number of vampires and permanents bump, and a new hand of 7 out of 14 > cards bump. No enforcement or obeying of the rules in the world is > going to prevent that, and no other card that can be used in king > making can do that. And it isn't a good thing. So then your argument isn't "SC is inappropriate as-is", your argument is "since the judge enforcing the tournament rules requires more time than is reasonable, and that since the judge enforcing the tournament rules will happen, essentially every time that SC is used, and since judges are overworked already, SC is therefore inappropriate"? If this is not the case -- and it certainly seems like it is -- then I'm not sure why you continue to use obviously non-losing positions to try to justify your point about SC. Instead, why not discuss the problems you have with overworked judges (a valid issue by itself) and how *that* problem relates to SC? > Peter D Bakija > pd...@lightlink.com > http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 > "Mr. President, ask not what your rest home can do for you. > Ask what you can do for your rest home." > -Elvis Kevin M., Prince of Henderson, NV (USA) "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

"lehrbuch" <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:<1098924478.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] You can never be in a lost position with Succubus Club in play. Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: > lehrbuch wrote: >> If you happen to play in an environment where the rules >> aren't enforced, that's your problem. > > And again, it isn't a matter of the rules being enforced. It is a > matter of the completely arbitrary concept of "lost position" > being hugely important, yet impossible to define. How is it impossible to define? The judge defines it. http://groups.google.com/groups?&selm=b2wcd.710632%24Gx4.406372%40bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net [LSJ] 'What you believe is immaterial. What the judge "believes" is what counts.' http://groups.google.com/groups?&selm=zj8cd.704292%24Gx4.556509%40bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net [LSJ] 'It's the judge's call... If the judge deems the position truly lost, then there you go.' http://groups.google.com/groups?&selm=2q926iFosibfU1%40uni-berlin.de [LSJ] 'You have to convince the judge (assuming not all of the players at the table agree with your decision, and one of the dissenters calls for a judge).' [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:<BDA57A1C.1A756%pd...@lightlink.com>... > LSJ wrote: > > > Break it in tournament play. > > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com > > Which is an impossible condition to satisfy, given the problem with the > card. The broken/abuses of Succubus Club do not make you win. They > arbitrarily ruin games and make other people win, specifically 'cause the > person abusing/breaking Succubus Club usually ousts themself doing so, while > arbitrarily making someone else win. > > > Peter D Bakija > pd...@lightlink.com > http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 > > "Mr. President, ask not what your rest home can do for you. > Ask what you can do for your rest home." > -Elvis False. This argument is not a good one, because, if you give all you have to another one, it ruining your chances for even one point. if you have a chance to give a point, you cannot suicide per tournament rules. This problem happens in casual games (in France, when someone is angry, even if its because the pizza at lunch was to heavily salted;-)) I have never saw a things like that in tournament. I have saw a lot of time the SC used to gve txwo points to a player just because he have it, and can give his minions (retaining his pool), to another one. Kamel senni.

> Actually, it should be a blanket judgement that if you have the > Succubus Club in play that you can never be in a lost position. > > Think about it. Potentially if you had 1 pool and no minions, your > prey could give you all his vampires and all but 1 of his pool and let > you bleed him out. That's almost true. You can still be in a totally lost position with the Succubus Club in play. Using your example of '1 pool and no minions', the Succubus Club does not save you at all if you're facing an Antediluvean Awakening, Anarch Revolt, Fame'd vampire in torpor, Contagion or any other 'lose your last pool during your untap' situation. Or more nastily, if you are staring down the barrel of the First Tradition locking down the entirety of your turn. Yeah, Succubus Club is a nice bailout, but only if your position will allow you to survive to the non-mandatory part of your own untap phase; the timing limitation helps limit this a bit. (There's also the whole issue of 'assuming you can find someone willing to help you'; I've seen several games where the entire table has simply vowed not to make Club deals that gave anything to the Club owner as a matter of 'why help your opponent' principle.) -John Flournoy

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:57:48 +0200, Orpheus <orphe...@DEADSPAM.free.fr> wrote: >> > Let's try : >> > >> > ----------------- >> > - Remove the Withdraw rule in the next booklet !!! >> > - Ban The Succubus Club and Protect Thine Own >> > - Fix Anarch Revolt >> >> I think you are playing in a (mostly) event-free environment. > > Not quite. I have seen good and bad events decks, and how just a random > event can screw a precise deck. But then I have also seen a setite > corruption / bleeds for 1 totally screwed just because he had Matthias > as a > prey. Random things can happen, just like you always have an anti-deck > and > may meet him on each table sometimes... Well, Matthias may screw Setites and Baali, but both clans have bleed disciplines _and_ other ways to inflict pool damage/deal with the problem. I mean, a corruption Setite could corrupt Matthias... ;) So I would draw a line between playing Matthias for his disciplines and Intercept, and as a side effect (somewhat) hosing a Setite or Baali predator, or filling your deck with cards whose sole purpose seems to be to screw other people's games (the Events in this case). >> The effect is >> otherwise mostly balanced... But some decks can get the upper hand by >> deliberately including insane bloat and possibly multiple MPA-s. > > Such decks are optimized for MPAs. I did win at some AR tables because of > massive bloat, but I also sometimes lost before getting my second minion > out > just because an ally "cycled" by putting all his ARs on the table while > it > wasn't interesting for him. The effect of en-masse ARs is mostly > unbalanced. That is, however, mostly a problem with multiple MPAs. I mean, playing 3 Golcondas each turn will be quite problematic to any prey with fatties, even though Golconda is seldom considered broken. >> Same thing with Events. > > It depends. Some events do exactly what they're supposed to do > (Dragonbound > for example), at least as much as a Master (Tension, Fame...). Yes. Dragonbound is the good example of an event that really works. Its effect moves along the lines of Fame and Tension, and supplements combat decks quite well. >> I've seen mass-event decks that basically throw >> out an event every turn just to keep the counters changing on the few >> important cards like Wormwood and such. Those decks may not win too >> much, > > The problem is different : we're talking accumulation of different cards. > None of them would be as disruptive as ARs, but it's the sum total which > is. > Not to mention that events can hinder your hand, some have special > requisites, etc. True. But AR does damage to you too. Plus you need a setup to play lots of them. There are direct and indirect costs for both cases. In one example you have a viable winning strategy that focuses on a single card that also happens to screw up the table, and in the other you have another (possibly) viable winning strategy that focuses on a set of similar cards that combine their effects (as some use counters, some require a set number of Gehenna cards in play) and likewise screws up the table. There was Strained Vitae Supply. It worked quite similar to how an event works now. Yet it was not too disruptive despite the global hoser effect, because you never really used it (maybe except in cornercase decks). The way Gehenna cards are dependent upon one another makes people use them for the major effects, trying to tweak their decks around the disadvantages. While that process is fun, the result is a deck that basically randomly screws a number of decks at the table. > Is it ? You talked of 6 Events. Are they really more disruptive than 6 > AR in game, you think ? Six events that can be burned by a single card that requires Black Hand. Versus six master cards that can be burned with a +1 stealth inherent vote. Sure, six ARs currently in play may be devastating. That's six pool each turn regardless of anything else. However, having the rougher events in play may be equally devastating. Consider the following Gehenna cards: 1. Wormwood. five counters. Maximum vampire capacity is 5. 2. Veil of Darkness 3. Blood Weakens 4. Fall of the Sabbat 5. Fall of the Camarilla 6. Recalled to the Founder - Note that maximum capacity is 5. Now imagine a deck with small bleeding vampires (not any more cornercase than an Anson deck). Or an Anarch Barons voter deck. Or a weenie Trap - Undead Persistance for deck. The sum of these six cards is that: - All vampires are independent and sect-based cards are basically unusable. - When you play your first discipline-requiring card, it may fizzle (note that if it was an action modifier or reaction, it still counts as having been played). - You do not replace discipline-requiring cards until the end of the action. - Every vampire is capacity 5 or less. Excess blood drained off long ago. - You burn a vampire each untap if you control 2 or more of the same clan. Since all vampires are capacity 5 or less, you never become immune to this effect. Now sure, this setup reduces your hand size by 4 cards, but you do not actually need all of these cards, depending on the table. I might be inclined to burn 6 pool than live with these. ;) Also, even though an AR deck can put out more ARs each turn, you may also vote them down. Whereas with the Gehenna cards, you do not really get a chance to destroy a Parthenon, Anson, or AR to end the effect. >> ...and I never went near the Falls or Recalled. To paraphrase, those >> make >> you wonder why you bothered. I mean, a mass-AR deck says to the table, >> "You all practically start at 20 pool". > > Not quite. Because you can't plan it before you've some minions out, > otherwise you'd make very different choices. True; you may start influencing out a fattie and realize too late that the tremendous pressure, combined with your predator's offense is too much. Same goes for some Gehenna cards, when you want to bounce a bleed and you flip a Blood Doll. Or when your fattie comes into play and immediately drops a point or two in capacity. >> Some Events say, "Okay, you, you >> and you put away your decks and play without them. The rest of you, have >> fun!" > > You are right. I'm all against the randomness of some events : why in > hell > should the Lasombra suffer just because someone wanted to put an easy > event > on the table (to be able to play some which require other events for > example) ?! > > But most events can be included in decks where they will benefit a > precise > strategy and be detrimental to the rest. > > Other difference : we know AR decks win (while Gehenna...) and therefore > lots of players, good or bad, include them in their decks. True. Time will tell how useful Gehenna cards will become for actually winning. > Also : a second bad thing doesn't make the first good. True too. I agree, I just thought that AR was the lesser of two evils when combined with the random crazyness the Gehenna Events seem to be. > -- > Deadly yours, > > Orpheus -- Bye, Daneel

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:BDA57A1C.1A756%pd...@lightlink.com... > LSJ wrote: > >> Break it in tournament play. >> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com > > Which is an impossible condition to satisfy, given the problem with the > card. The broken/abuses of Succubus Club do not make you win. They > arbitrarily ruin games and make other people win, specifically 'cause the > person abusing/breaking Succubus Club usually ousts themself doing so, > while > arbitrarily making someone else win. > > This bears strong resemblance to one of the arguments made for banning RTI. RTI compelled a bleed bounce-rich environment, where the person who runs out of bounce first loses. This is similar, in that SC enables a somewhat random dramatic shift in pool totals when a losing player throws their resources someone's way. In a sense, the fact that the losing player can control who these resources go to makes the effect _worse_ than that of a Day Op'ed RTIing Arika, which in the old (bounce-rich) environment wasn't nearly as controllable an effect. DaveZ Atom Weaver

"Kamel SENNI" <kamel...@yvelines.pref.gouv.fr> wrote in message news:1b066664.04102...@posting.google.com... > Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message > news:<BDA57A1C.1A756%pd...@lightlink.com>... >> LSJ wrote: >> >> > Break it in tournament play. >> > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com >> >> Which is an impossible condition to satisfy, given the problem with the >> card. The broken/abuses of Succubus Club do not make you win. They >> arbitrarily ruin games and make other people win, specifically 'cause the >> person abusing/breaking Succubus Club usually ousts themself doing so, >> while >> arbitrarily making someone else win. >> > False. > This argument is not a good one, because, if you give all you have to > another one, it ruining your chances for even one point. > if you have a chance to give a point, you cannot suicide per > tournament rules. You certainly can, if you are determined to be in a losing position... I'm with Peter on this one. A player with 5 pool can be easily determined to be in a losing position, based on cards in play (choose your circumstance). If that player uses Succubus Club to throw that pool to their predator in a self oust, it represents an 11 pool net effect (5, plus 6 for the 'oust'), and is in all aspects, a legal play. Part of the reason for banning RTI was that it was determined that even with tight restrictions (remember the RTI errata, which didn't ultimately help), a single card should not have such an effect within the game. It rises off the high side of the power curve. DaveZ Atom Weaver

Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message news:<opsgkiyf...@news.chello.hu>... > I think > everyone agrees that Anarch Revolts en masse unbalance the game > (effectively turning it into a completely different game). Then you think wrong. I do not now and have never agreed with this statement. What game do you think it turns V:tES into? Twister? D&D? Monopoly? Softcookie? Craps? > The effect is > otherwise mostly balanced... But some decks can get the upper hand by > deliberately including insane bloat and possibly multiple MPA-s. The real > destructiveness and annoyance comes when people who do not win with it > still screw other people's game. > Same thing with Events. I've seen mass-event decks that basically throw > out an event every turn just to keep the counters changing on the few > important cards like Wormwood and such. Many bad decks (and bad players, for that matter) tend to throw the game to someone else. Education is the key. Offer people suggestions about how to tune their Event decks and play them so that they increase their chance of winning rather than crippling their cross-table allies. > Those decks may not win too much, > but tell me - what is VTES when: > > - your vampires have a capacity cut-off point (say 6) > - there is no blood hunt > - you may exchange a master card for another in your ash heap as an MPA > - you do not replace cards that require disciplines until the action is > over > - superior discipline uses cost an additional blood > - when playing the first discipline-requiring card each turn, you need to > flip the top library card, and that may cancel the original card (if it is > a master) Yes, of course it is. It's not Euchre.

>> Here are Kamel's argument on SC. They were translated in English so that they could be posted here. My arguments for the banishment of Succubus Club : 1) with hindsight, Succubus club is now played in order to split tables easier. Splits are a great way to avoid time limit. However, SC may lead to a swarm of minions for one player, and players outside the winning deal simply can’t handle that. SC allows you to have the deal contracted because it answers in an obvious way to the question asked by any other player willing to deal : “can you help me ?”. The winning player has just to show the SC on the table, say yes and smile. 2) Ways to destroy succubus club are many, but Anthelios allows you to get it back easily. When a lone deck leads other competitive players to use a lot of slots to get rid of a single card (Succubus Club), the metagame is screwed, and that card should be banned. There are a lot of examples in other CCGs as Magic for example. 3) no other card in Vtes has for effect to give minions to any other player. All the other cards of the game have effects that many cards can achieve (pool/blood management, stealth/intercept…). But none can achieve SC’s effects at one time. 4) Split table deals are useful, but players may abuse of them. Succubus Club is the best way to abuse and bring overpower on a table. Therefore, it is denounced by people who find table split deals boring and unenjoyable. 5) On the final round, the weakest player may win the tournament thanks to that single card. A player, if not placed well on the table may finish fourth of the tournament. If he accepts and holds the deal contracted with the weakest who’s got the SC, he may finish second (which is legal. Imagine there’s only 10 minutes left. With minions of the weakest player, the fourth may be second). That’s exactly what may have happened to me on a 100 players tournament. It is quite funny for the guy who plays SC, and quite disappointing for the 95 beholders watching the game. It is definitely no good for the game. 6) Judging from this card’s advantages and merits (no other card has got the opportunity to give you an edge in an end-game deal, either in the winning or losing side of the deal whatever your situation on the table), it should be in every tournament decks in many copies. When the game is in a state where a single card is that much powerful or that much essential, it must be banned. Even blood doll isn’t that much essential… Kamel Senni, Prince of Paris, 2nd best French Player (perhaps not for long yet, lol) 4th best worldwide player Finalist 34 time in a year. (some refs, not to be boastful, but just to say : "hey, I’ve seen and played this card a LOT of time, and noticed its outbalanced power, please ban it")

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:BDA5C0C6.1A77B%pd...@lightlink.com... > Frederick Scott wrote: >> What are you talking about?!? > > Yeah, see, I'm not sure what you are talking about either. I was talking about THIS thread. Not two years ago. I specifically made the point that the game win rule and change to the card text in CE were a change to the card. You totally ignored these points by claiming there'd been complaints for 9 years with no action. I had already pointed out that action had been taken. > Something did happen, yes. Nothing particularly significant. But > something. "Nothing particularly significant" in your eyes, I guess. But from the behavior of both poth posters on this newsgroup and players that I've run up against in the interim, clearly these actions had a tremendous effect. If you haven't noticed it where you play, then I'm at a loss for words. I just don't believe local metagames can be THAT different. You're complaining about the effect of Succubus Club to empower people to act as spoilers. The huge controversy in the past has had to do with people using the card to advance their position in tournaments, particular through use of diplomacy at the expense of astute deckbuilding and card play. It's the latter complaint that I believe got the immediate attention of the designers and rightfully so. And it's the latter thing they addressed directly and effectively by changing the card and changing tournament rules. As I've said before, I have some sympathy for your complaints. But I object to misrepresenting or ignoring history just because the designers didn't directly address your complaints or address them as fully as they might have in the past. Fred

"Ira" <ira...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:fa0c3aac.04102...@posting.google.com... > I can't tell if you're playing devil's advocate. Do you think that > VTES tournament play would be significantly improved if Succubus Club > was banned? My problem with the whole issue now is that I haven't experienced what Peter and the Europeans apparently have. I don't want to dismiss it. It sounds like some annoying stuff may have happened in some mighty important games over there. If it's really problematic, then it's worth looking at banning or changing the card again, yea. This back and forth with Peter, though, has more to do with a side point. In my world, the game win rule and the change that was made to Succubus Club in CE really _effectively_ _noticably_ fixed all the issues I had with the card a couple of years ago. So I object to someone acting as if nothing's been done and making that statement in the course of their arguments. That's just flat wrong and I'm not going to let anyone get away with it. Fred

On 28 Oct 2004 09:48:30 -0700, Emmit Svenson <emmits...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message > news:<opsgkiyf...@news.chello.hu>... >> I think >> everyone agrees that Anarch Revolts en masse unbalance the game >> (effectively turning it into a completely different game). > > Then you think wrong. I do not now and have never agreed with this > statement. What game do you think it turns V:tES into? Twister? D&D? > Monopoly? Softcookie? Craps? Different as quality, not type. ;) Differing from "regular VTES", where you don't have to burn 5+ pool each untap. By the way, come to think of it I'm pretty positive that by simple virtue of numbers, statements like "everyone agrees that..." are more than likely false (because there will always be at least some people who will disagree). What I wanted to mean is probably along the lines of "most people would agree that", etc. Which is, given the limited access to newsgroup and local playgroup opinions, probably pretty much accurate, by the way. >> The effect is >> otherwise mostly balanced... But some decks can get the upper hand by >> deliberately including insane bloat and possibly multiple MPA-s. The >> real >> destructiveness and annoyance comes when people who do not win with it >> still screw other people's game. >> Same thing with Events. I've seen mass-event decks that basically throw >> out an event every turn just to keep the counters changing on the few >> important cards like Wormwood and such. > > Many bad decks (and bad players, for that matter) tend to throw the > game to someone else. Education is the key. Offer people suggestions > about how to tune their Event decks and play them so that they > increase their chance of winning rather than crippling their > cross-table allies. Which is easier said then done. My approach to Events (I'm a light Event user, putting only 0-4 Event cards in most decks): Take an event that does not Screw your deck. Put it into said deck. When you draw it, play it if it screws your prey enough to count without seriously impeding own chances to win. Otherwise, hang onto it for later use or simply discard it. However, that will not do for decks that *need* to have lots of Gehenna events out (because they focus on Wormwood or Nightmares Upon Nightmares for example). Such a deck needs the events, and will have little chance to choose which ones to play. It will inevitably unbalance the game in a mostly uncontrollable way. So I *could* give some advice to people trying to focus on Events, but that advice would be short and unhelpful (like, don't do it). -- Bye, Daneel

In message <1098924478.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> writes: >I'm in a lost position. I'm going to be ousted in my discard phase (by >the Dragonbound). I can call the KRC and attempt to oust my predator >for spite (as I'm lost I can do what I like). > >Directly ousting someone for spite screws the game more than >transferring stuff around with the Succubus Club. Does this mean that >KRC and Dragonbound should be banned? These are the cards that have >provided the mechanism for this spite based oust. You're confusing different things here. There's a difference between cards putting you in a losing position, and being able to do *BIG BIG* game-changing things out of spite when in that losing position. Cards can put you in a game-losing position, but that's rather different from cards being able to give you the ability Succubus Club does. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Who's ever heard of that, though! EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Designing a deck that just calls votes. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D That's crazy talk, there.

Kevin M. wrote: > So then your argument isn't "SC is inappropriate as-is", your argument is > "since the judge enforcing the tournament rules requires more time than is > reasonable, and that since the judge enforcing the tournament rules will > happen, essentially every time that SC is used, and since judges are > overworked already, SC is therefore inappropriate"? That is certainly part of my argument--that Succubus Club is a card that gives players a preposterous amount of freedom, that no other card in the game provides them. None come even close in their ability to allow players to wildly circumvent what are, generally speaking, hard and fast limits on the game (you can't give stuff to other players). Transfer of pool and items in play (and cards in hand) are certainly possible in other instances, but, compared to SC, incredibly difficult to pull off (in a relative sense) and much, much less effective. Compare, like, Succubus Club to, say, Entrancement (one of the cards that allows players, essentially, to swap stuff). They are very different cards, sure, but Entrancement is incredibly limited, requires a superior discipline, and requires a successful action. Sure, SC requires agreement between players, but given that agreement (and heck, given player agreement, Entrancement works just like SC, except that it requires a superior discipline and an action, and only lets you swap a single ally), this zero cost master card allows you to swap everything you have--vampires, allies, retainers, master cards in play, cards in hand, pool, whatever, without an action and without, well, anything really. This is a wildly uprecidented (in terms of other cards in the game) ability, and as such, can lead to huge problems in play. As mentioned elsewhere, the main limiting factor to the Succubus Club is having a judge say anything it is used for is either ok or not ok. Which, as you mention, is part of my argument--that a single card requires so much arbitration for its correct use is rediculous, in that judges have a lot of other stuff to deal with, and having to watch over (theoretically) every use of the Succubus Club is just absurd. But this isn't the whole argument (the overtaxing of judges), as even when used legally, the card and its absurd ability to circumvent one of the main limtits of the game can cause huge problems to the game. Even when done legally and judged an appropriate use of the card--see all the discussions on players being in a "lost" position. > If this is not the case -- and it certainly seems like it is -- then I'm > not sure why you continue to use obviously non-losing positions to try to > justify your point about SC. I'm not using obviously non-losing positions to try to justify my point. Which is part of the problem in the first place--"losing" positions are not necessarily obvious, one way or the other. If I were, like, "Ok, I have 20 pool, my prey has 3, no potential to bounce a bleed, limited potential to intercept me six times, and I have 6 Malkavians in play, and I want to give away my stuff as I'm in a lost position..." then yeah, I'd be using an obviously non-losing position to try and justify my point. But I'm not doing that. I have been in many, many games where I was in an identifyably "lost" position with, like, 5 or 6 pool, a few non torporized minions, and some stuff in play (hunting grounds, locations, whatever), and if I had a Succubus Club and some spite, I easily could have totally swung the game like crazy by, like, giving all my stuff to my predator for whatever reason. These are the examples I'm using, and I don't think they are necessarily obvious as "non-losing", much like they aren't when they occur in play. > Instead, why not discuss the problems you > have with overworked judges (a valid issue by itself) and how *that* > problem relates to SC? 'Cause that is a much harder position to articulate. But not at all an invalid one. I'm curious--you are a judge a lot (and the best one in town! :-) Have you, personally, found use of the Succubus Club to be a pain in your ass while judging a tournament? -Peter

Kevin wrote: >>How is it impossible to define? The judge defines it.>> Well, in the discussions you point to, the defenition of "lost position" seems to be "you are in a lost position if you think you are in a lot position and the judge agrees". Which is as nebulous defenition as I've ever seen. So while "impossible" might be a somewhat inappropriate word, it isn't *that* far off. You can't define a "lost" position in any quantifyable sense--only as "a position where it is incredibly unlikely that you'll get any VPs", or something like that. You can make a completely subjective defenition (as seen in the posts you reference) but what is or is not a "lost" position is never going to be completely quantifyable, and as such, will always be very subjective. Thus, nigh-impossible to actually define. -Peter

[lehrbuch] > [I'm in a lost position and can use KRC to oust someone] > Does this mean that KRC and Dragonbound should be > banned? [James] > You're confusing different things here. There's a difference > between cards putting you in a losing position, and being > able to do *BIG BIG* game-changing things out of spite > when in that losing position. Forget about the Dragonbound, you are right it is confusing things. That was just required to make the position (fairly) unambiguously lost. The KRC alllows me (in this lost position) to oust a non-prey player, handing the gamewin to another player. There is no bigger game-changing thing in VTES. Following Peter's argument for banning Succubus Club (which is that it allows game-changing swings by lost players), this means that KRC should be banned too. * lehrbuch

[lehrbuch] > I can tell you that my position is lost before I've even > dealt my opening hand ... [David] > This attitude (which you may have manufactured to > demonstrate a point, but still) is a foundational > problem. Exactly. My point is that this is the problem that Peter is trying to solve by proposing to ban the Succubus Club. That is, I don't think his solution really addresses the problem. I'd agree that his solution does address one of the symptoms - people being idiots with the Succubus Club. However, his solution still leaves many other cards that can be exploited by people wanting to be idiots. > Do you really believe you can say you are in a > lost position so early? No. Of course not. I would personally only rarely concede that I'd lost until I had been ousted. Do you believe the positions that Peter has described as "lost", but in which the lost player retains a significant king making capacity are really lost? * lehrbuch

> The KRC alllows me (in this lost position) to oust a non-prey player, > handing the gamewin to another player. There is no bigger > game-changing thing in VTES. Really ? So for you killing a player is equal to giving all your ressources to another, therefore hading him the whole table ? > Following Peter's argument for banning > Succubus Club (which is that it allows game-changing swings by lost > players), this means that KRC should be banned too. And all crosstable effects. I agree. Let's play2-players VTES. Nai, let's play *that other game* instead. Seriously, you are right on one count : Pete's formulation may have been wide enough to include such a preposterous interpretation. But you know fully what he meant, and you are of course aware that the impact KRC has on the game are very, very different from the Succubus'. A bad player can always screw the table. He will do so much more with the Succubus. But a good player, one who arrived in important finals, will be able to sway it even more (but more intelligently) with just that one card. It is way too powerful, has too much of an impact on a given game, and must be banned. -- Orpheus "Did you know that urine is sterile ? You can drink it." Tyler Durden

In message <1098994712.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> writes: >The KRC alllows me (in this lost position) to oust a non-prey player, >handing the gamewin to another player. There is no bigger >game-changing thing in VTES. Following Peter's argument for banning >Succubus Club (which is that it allows game-changing swings by lost >players), this means that KRC should be banned too. On the subject of which is nastier, it's arguable as to which is more game-changing. Someone gaining 6 pool (and a VP) can be hugely game changing, yes. However, someone gaining two torporised vampires, a Hunting Ground, a copy of Oxford University, and your remaining 2 pool *and* 6 pool and a VP as you oust yourself and give them what you have could also be game changing. Which is bigger? That depends on the game. For a weenie deck, an extra vampire or two might not be much against the 7 they have. For a Fatima Multi-Rush support deck, an extra couple might be really useful. For a deck with only one vampire itself, a couple more possibilities might be really good. However, you're also confusing KRC with Succubus Club in other ways too. Succubus Club is a unique, free, master location. You can either contest it or burn it or cancel the master card. (Bear in mind that one of the old 'definitions' of "broken" is turning the game into X or anti- X. This isn't quite the same, of course, but it seems sensible to think about it.) KRC can be stopped with intercept, which can stop any action (potentially). KRC can be stopped with vote cancellation, which can affect a huge portion of the game. KRC can be stopped by doing things like rushing vampires (a common strategy) before they can call it, or other vampire "manipulation" (also common strategies). KRC can be stopped by vote defence - titles, vote gaining and so on. One problem with Succubus Club is that it does allow you to do a *lot* with vastly reduced possibilities for interaction, relative to its power. Is that enough to think it broken? I don't know. [ quoted text not captured ]

[James] > Someone gaining 6 pool (and a VP) can be hugely > game changing, yes. However, someone gaining two > torporised vampires ....and a VP ...could also be game > changing. No question about that. The example I gave not only directly gives a VP but also directly gives the *game win* to my prey (I'm ousted in my discard phase by the dragonbound - obviously assuming it wasn't controlled by my predator - leaving only my prey in the game with 4 VP). There can't be a bigger game changing event than giving the *game win* away directly. The game ends with the successful play and passing of the KRC. Of course, this is a contrived example. But so are any examples that purport to show how broken the Succubus Club is. [James] > Succubus Club [can be dealt with by] contest it or burn > it or cancel the master card. ... KRC can be stopped with > intercept ...vote cancellation...rushing vampires...common > strategies No kidding. I even said this earlier myself. It's not a very good argument either way as the relative strength of arson/sudden reversal and vote/intercept/rush defences depends upon meta-game peculiarities. Also, all of these "common strategies" that deal with KRC can be argued to deal with the Succubus Club problem as well. They can be used to deplete the resources of the Succubus Club player, so that they don't have anything to trade away. * lehrbuch

Fred wrote: >>You're complaining about the effect of Succubus Club to empower people to act as spoilers. The huge controversy in the past has had to do with people using the card to advance their position in tournaments, particular through use of diplomacy at the expense of astute deckbuilding and card play. It's the latter complaint that I believe got the immediate attention of the designers and rightfully so. And it's the latter thing they addressed directly and effectively by changing the card and changing tournament rules.>> Changing the tournament rules certainly had an effect on use of the SC to be used to secure a wacky VP split, as well as making it specificlly illegal to use it for clearly collusive purposes. But neither the changes to the card or the changes to the tournament rules had any effect at all on the card being used as a total rediculous spoiler, which is mostly to what I currently and always have objected to about the card. >>As I've said before, I have some sympathy for your complaints. But I object to misrepresenting or ignoring history just because the designers didn't directly address your complaints or address them as fully as they might have in the past.>> I'm neither misrepresenting or ignoring anything. Yes. A change was made to the card. But that change was wildly insufficient to fix the really damaging aspect of the card. And yes, the tournament rules being changed to "game win" did away with a lot of wacky splits that SC tended to help encourage. But much like the card text change, this did nothing to affect the ability of the card to be used as a absurd spoiler. Which is what I'm addressing here. And was before. -Peter

lehrbuch wrote: > That's not the point. This is a pretty unambgiously lost position. > KRC is the mechanism that allows me to oust someone for spite. > Following your Succubus Club logic this means that KRC should be > banned. Well, no, as KRC doesn't allow you to give another player pool, vampires, cardsin play, and your hand. Succubus Club doesn't allow you to oust someone out of spite. It allows you to completely hose the game by ousting yourself out of spite. > ?? Hasn't your position been that Succubus Club is bad because it > allows you to give unreasonable benefit to another player. In my > example, KRC allows me to give the game win (and all the VPs) to > another player. There is no greater benefit to be had in a game of > VTES than the game win. Lots of things allow you to give a game win to another player. They don't allow you to do so in such a preposterous fashion as Succubus Club. And they are all vastly more limited than SC. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "Mr. President, ask not what your rest home can do for you. Ask what you can do for your rest home." -Elvis

Frederick Scott wrote: > This back and forth with Peter, though, has more to do with a side point. > In my world, the game win rule and the change that was made to Succubus > Club in CE really _effectively_ _noticably_ fixed all the issues I had > with the card a couple of years ago. As you said, you have never seen the card used like I have. Maybe you are just lucky--I don't know what to tell you. What I have seen the card do, multiple times, is totally hose a table based almost entierly on spite--someone is in a cruddy position, and they use their or someone elses SC to transfer themselves out of the game, perfectly legally, and totally hand the game (by handing over their pool, vampires, cards in play, cards in hand, whatever) to some other player, creating a rediculous power swing. Even if you have never seen this happen, can you not see that it is a possibility, and neither the game win rule or the recent errata have any effect on this possibility at all? > So I object to someone acting as if > nothing's been done and making that statement in the course of their > arguments. Nothing has been done to address the problems I have with the card. And the problems I have always had with the card. The errata makes it a bit harder to waste six hours using the card back and forth, yeah, and the game win rule makes it a bit harder to use SC to enable a table split. But neither does anything at all to address the preposterous power swing the card enables. So by saying "nothing has been done", I'm not trying to imply that there has been no errata. 'Cause there has. I'm implying that what has been done is, well, insufficient. > That's just flat wrong and I'm not going to let anyone get away with it. Umm, ok. I think it seems to irrationally be sticking in your craw, but if it makes you feel better, I officially retract my statement that "nothing has been done", and replace it with "nothing useful has been done" in regards to Succubus Club. Can we move on now? [ quoted text not captured ]

lehrbuch wrote: > The KRC alllows me (in this lost position) to oust a non-prey player, > handing the gamewin to another player. There is no bigger > game-changing thing in VTES. Following Peter's argument for banning > Succubus Club (which is that it allows game-changing swings by lost > players), this means that KRC should be banned too. KRC allows you to do a maximum of 3 pool damage to someone. And only if it works. Succubus Club allows you to give an indeterminate amount of pool, vampires, and cards to someone. Without an action. Or a vote. Or anything at all but the vague saftey valve of being in a "lost" position. Do you honestly not see the difference? [ quoted text not captured ]

lehrbuch wrote: > Exactly. My point is that this is the problem that Peter is trying to > solve by proposing to ban the Succubus Club. That is, I don't think > his solution really addresses the problem. You are correct. My solution does not really address the true problem. But the true problem isn't one that can be solved, where the Succubus Club is the one card that really, really exacerbates the problem. So remove SC, and the problem becomes much less of a problem. > I'd agree that his solution does address one of the symptoms - people > being idiots with the Succubus Club. However, his solution still > leaves many other cards that can be exploited by people wanting to be > idiots. No other card can be exploited as vastly as Succubus Club and do as much damage as Succubus Club by people being idiots. Succubus Club is *vastly* different than, like, KRC, Anarch Revolt, Dragonbound, and, say, Kindred Spirits. Those cards can be used by idiots to hose a game. But they have a much narrower effect, and a much smaller ability to hose things, and can only do so in a much smaller number of instances, and can only do so many things. These cards are abusable at the level of, say, 4. Succubus Club goes to 11. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:BDA71CB7.1A7EE%pd...@lightlink.com... > What I have seen the card do, > multiple times, is totally hose a table based almost entierly on > spite--someone is in a cruddy position, and they use their or someone > elses > SC to transfer themselves out of the game, perfectly legally, and totally > hand the game (by handing over their pool, vampires, cards in play, cards > in > hand, whatever) to some other player, creating a rediculous power swing. > > Even if you have never seen this happen, can you not see that it is a > possibility, and neither the game win rule or the recent errata have any > effect on this possibility at all? Of course I can see it. But without having experienced it and given that you admit that it's questionable whether a player truly trying to win has any extra interest in using the card, one has to wonder whether the problem is as pernicious as you say. To some degree, I agree with the point the person posting as "lehrbuch" is making: that there are lots of cards in the game that allow people to mess up the game, even if they don't do it in the special way Succubus Club does. I'm having to take your word for it that the current version of Succubus Club is specially evil. It's not a hard thing to imagine that it is, it's just hard to guess how often it happens. > Frederick Scott wrote: >> So I object to someone acting as if >> nothing's been done and making that statement in the course of their >> arguments. > > Nothing has been done to address the problems I have with the card. And > the > problems I have always had with the card. The errata makes it a bit harder > to waste six hours using the card back and forth, yeah, and the game win > rule makes it a bit harder to use SC to enable a table split. But neither > does anything at all to address the preposterous power swing the card > enables. So by saying "nothing has been done", I'm not trying to imply > that > there has been no errata. 'Cause there has. I'm implying that what has > been > done is, well, insufficient. Well put it this way, then. A few years ago, I did experience a period for about a year or so when many people were constantly using Succubus Club. At this same time, I also perceived there was a lot of discussion of it on Usenet. Both the discussion and my experience with the card in tournaments had almost entirely to do with table splitting, often predator/prey combinations who would swap their resources around to deal best with whoever was preying on the predator and/or the prey's challenges in ousting the prey's prey. The prey got to stop worrying about being ousted and just go full speed ahead. At a certain point, he then agreed to roll over for the predator. Such agreements were often very powerful without a Succubus Club. With a Succubus Club, they were far worse. The other complaint was the various artifacts that went with unlimited use of the Succubus Club. Sometimes the guy owning it would stop his turn and work out deals to allow two other guys to trade through him and collecting a middleman's fee somehow or just gain by helping a crosstable ally or something. Too much power to give the card. Even worse, I peronally watched games where every turn the guy with the Suc Club would hold up the game for 10 minutes or more trying to work out deals. Not that this can't happen now. But the possible deals that can be worked out have been limited a great deal by forcing the card to be tapped and used up with a single trade. Thus there's not nearly as much to discuss. (For instance, when the Suc Club owner gets done with one deal, he can't go about trying to retrade his newly acquired possessions the same turn. No three-way deals or anything.) These were the complaints I knew about. Others may have been complaining about what you're complaining about but they must have gotten drowned out. (Quite possible. At least, given that I miss much on Usenet.) The issues I experienced were and still are taken care of. So you'll have to forgive me if the statement that nothing's been done about the card seems overblown to me. That's 180 degrees the site of my experience with it. > Can we move on now? Sure. Fred

ira...@gmail.com (Ira) wrote in message news:<fa0c3aac.04102...@posting.google.com>... > Hey LSJ, > > > Break it in tournament play. > > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3B9E1B1C.9DDAFFA8%40white-wolf.com > > Thank you for this concise answer. Would you define "break" as used > above? > > If I had to guess, I'd say it means, "Legally use it to affect the > play or outcome of the game more than is reasonable for a no cost, > master:location card." > > Of course, I'd rather hear and understand your definition, since my > definition doesn't matter much when it comes to convincing you. :) > > As a note, are there any other paths to convincing you? It's an > unpleasant thought to play with a card that I feel should be banned. > > Thanks for your seemingly endless patience! Ira! I tried to use the Succubus Club in one of your recent tournaments, just to prove this exact point (that and so Curevei could actually see it in play for once in a tourney), and you SUDDENLY REVERSED IT! Next time, just let it hit the table so *everyone* can have fun with it. ;) Jeff

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de news:2ua7tbF...@uni-berlin.de... > "Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > news:417fe63c$0$13910$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net... > > > > "LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de > > news:2u9srbF...@uni-berlin.de... > > > "Emmit Svenson" <emmits...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > > > news:75bdf7ed.04102...@posting.google.com... > > > > Could you give me a summary of the reason(s) why Madness of the Bard > > > > was banned, or a URL that lists them? > > > > > > It was banned in the olden days, but here are two main arguments that > > > would suffice were it to be banned anew today: > > > > > > 1) No effect, given the fluid definition of "rhyme", other than the > > > cost of putting the card into play. > > > > I don't understand your statement. > > please explain. > > Provide a complete, specific definition to encompass everything that is > a "rhyme" and exclude everything that is not. > > When you've done that, you'll understand the statement above. provide me a complete specific definition to encompass everything that is a winning deal, a losing deal, a player playing to win or a player colluding without refering to "the referee's" natural deduction, and i'll take the time to open a dictionnary and search for "rhyme" =)

In message <1099003317.3...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> writes: >It's not a very good argument either way as the relative strength of >arson/sudden reversal and vote/intercept/rush defences depends upon >meta-game peculiarities. It would be an *extremely* odd game in which vote/intercept/rush was not much, much, much more available, flexible and usable than Arson/Sudden Reversal. Certainly, a large number of decks include a lot more of them, a lot more frequently. Arson is usually a prayer card. Sudden Reversal is usually low in number. Sudden Reversal (or Bleeding the Vine, potentially) needs to be there *right now* - drawing it late won't help. And location destruction is almost always low priority - unless you had something like Dominique on the table, perhaps. If you seriously think that arson/Sudden Reversal is going to be more powerful than multiple common strategies for dealing with actions and votes... I think you're clutching at straws. >Also, all of these "common strategies" that deal with KRC can be argued >to deal with the Succubus Club problem as well. They can be used to >deplete the resources of the Succubus Club player, so that they don't >have anything to trade away. In a cross-table spiteful give-away, no, it doesn't. It came from nowhere. Why would you have been spending resources to deal with someone cross-table giving everything to your predator, say? Unless you mean that Succubus Club means everyone has to turn against the Succubus Club player to stop this possibility - which is turning the game into X vs anti-X. [ quoted text not captured ]

e...@boursorama.com (Emmanuel Martin) wrote in message news:<10c2c156.04102...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Thanks for Emmanuel, Huruem, and especially Antoine "nagaraja" for the the translation (laziness and lack of capabilities are two side of the same coin ;-)) Kamel. (hey wait !! I was NOT finalist for 34 times in A year, but in FOUR years !! LOL). Last word : this card sucks so much...Ban it, for keeping the pleasure to play VTES.

In message <4181e9ed$0$16484$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net>, Reyda <true_...@hotmail.com> writes: >provide me a complete specific definition to encompass everything that is a >winning deal, a losing deal, a player playing to win or a player colluding >without refering to "the referee's" natural deduction, and i'll take the >time to open a dictionnary and search for "rhyme" =) I think you're missing something crucial here. A judge needs to be there for *everything* every player says or does, to see if it rhymes. And the judge needs to know a *lot* about things which are ordinarily nothing to do with the game. Do a search on what issues have been brought up on the group before. Brief ones that spring to mind are questions about words rhyming with themselves, whether you have to rhyme internally to a sentence or across sentences, whether it would need to have any rhythm to it (since it may not be rhyming sentences if you just happen to rhyme on the end word after an arbitrary length of words - certainly, that seems to violate designer intent), eye rhymes (visual rhyming), Irish rhymes (a perfectly legitimate rhyming scheme), how much you are allowed to mutilate the pronunciation of a word - bear in mind that in Pope's time, say, "tea" and "obey" were perfectly reasonable rhymes[0]. Can I go for that pronunciation in order to rhyme? Then, depending on which of these are allowed or not, consider the difficulties in a multitude of languages where they may or may not have sufficient scope to do such things, and where 'rules' on rhyming may be very, very different. Additionally (for extra credit), consider if it's desirable that a player with, for example, an extremely wide but obscure vocabulary could be rhyming perfectly legitimately under all the above rules - but unfortunately, no-one else on the table can understand a word he or she says. Can you do anything about that? Madness of the Bard specifically wants players to do rhyming sentences, and it seems unfair to require the player to say it again in some other format where he may or may not be able to come under the rhyming scheme you dictate in the rules. However, in brief, collusion is defined in the Guidelines. As has been gone over before, if you don't think it's verifiable Collusion, there are other rule-based avenues to deal with undesirable attempts to subvert the rule structure or disrupt a tournament. Things like proper behaviour are *always* judgement calls. A "losing deal", IMO, is one where a player is throwing away a chance at a game win for some other reward (typically, a VP or two). A "winning deal" is not really relevant, since a judge does not have to think about these in detail - and one might regard some deals as not being losing but possibly not being the best deal they could get. But that's not something the judge has to intervene over, since no player is (or can be) forced to make, offer or take certain deals. This requires a relatively laissez-faire but objective judgement of the table. You may care to discuss this with the player, so that they can talk to you about what they're trying to. This, then, isn't based on just the judge's intuition since they can determine a lot from other sources too. Certainly, a judge should not (IMO) be aggressively interventionist and have to deal with dotting every i and crossing every t in a deal else you end up preventing the players from playing the game and making their own mistakes - they just make yours, instead. IMO, a player playing to win is the default assumption. It's only when a player starts acting out petty real-life arguments (Unsportsmanlike Conduct), taking losing deals and so on that you have to really start worrying. Again, someone may not be taking the best options towards winning - but that doesn't mean the judge intervenes. Essentially, I almost never look at it from "Is this player trying to win?" but rather "Is the player trying to throw the game away, for whatever reason?" [0] http://www.kalliope.org/digt.pl?longdid=pope2003091504 - end of first verse [ quoted text not captured ]

How are you all not pursuaded by Peter's logic and eloquence? Sheesh, he's totally right! Aren't you listening to this man? Peter, thank you for taking the time to attempt to enlighten everyone. Also, to add one point that perhaps hasn't gotten much attention but I feel is relevant to tournament play: time. The Succubus Club adds a level of complex negotiation that is normally not possible, and unreasonably slows down the game. Certainly SC has some fun uses, but the bad far outweighs the good. Ira

Ok, apprently LSJ wants examples of how overpowered / borken this card is. Say : I'm playing a Marcus / Arika deck. Predator : Malk Obf / Dom stealth bleed. Prey : Cel gun. Grand'prey : Lasombra Embrace voter. Last one : Nosfie wall (perm intercept, lots of untap). My Marcus is in torpor. Arika doesn't have any sort of Secure Haven, and my Cel Gun prey threatens to send her to torpor if I move against it. My Kindred Restructure has been Directed (nice card...) so I have no hope to do anything before Time Limit. I have enough pool from bloating so that the Cel Gun isn't afraid of the Malks yet. He wants to go forward, and to that effect wants to deprive me of my last acting / redirecting minion. He will at his turn, no matter if I protect or banish one of his rushing babies. I've used most of my Obediences and he plays Psyche against Majesty. I'm screwed. I have no means in hand to oust my prey ebfore he kicks my ass. Either I act and get rushed and give the table to the Malk, or I don't act and the Cel Gun will probably hurt a lot his prey and more if he can. Anyway, I'm out. NOW : I have a Succubus Club on the table. It's my untap phase. I threaten who I want : - if my prey rushes me, I give all my pool, and my 2 minions to a stealth bleed who happens to play disciplines my vamps have. He wins. This would even be an argument against the Cel Gun : you'd better rush the Malks right now, just in case. Note that this could be a smart move anyway, except that I have way too much pool for the Malk to kill me before, say, 3 turns (with luck) if I can't redirect. Anyway, the Cel Gun is dead : he'd better deal with me right now !! Or maybe the Malk will have a better proposal ? Maybe his Muddled and his Secure would be useful ? - I could also ask the Lasombra, at his turn, to rescue Marcus ; in exchange, I lend Marcus and some pool to him : all his guys get +1 bleed, no one can block the rescue action, and he gets a new minion who can play all his disciplines !! In exchange for this, I can deal a 2/3, easy. Maybe even 3/2. This is enormous. No other card can allow this. I don't see how even a Parity Shift (the best vote EVER) could relate even closely to that. If such arguments, and the true (sometimes much worse !) examples we see in championships don't move you, I don't see what will. -- Orpheus ----------------- - Remove the Withdraw rule in the next booklet !!! - Ban Succubus Club and Protect Thine Own - Fix Anarch Revolt ...and let's PLAY !!!

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> a écrit dans le message de news:j6CLQjc3...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > Essentially, I > almost never look at it from "Is this player trying to win?" but rather > "Is the player trying to throw the game away, for whatever reason?" "Is the player trying to throw the game away, for whatever reason?" is not part of the judge's guideline, so i would think that your judgment is illegal and call another referee who sticks to the guideline edicted by LSJ himself. =)

If in a tournament a player tries to give me 20 pool and all his vampires via Succubus Club, and I'm sure accepting his stuff will increase my chances of winning, am I required to accept it by the game win rules?

[ quoted text not captured ] Sure it is. 152. Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Major Definition: Major Unsportsmanlike Conduct is defined as behavior that is disruptive to a player or players at the tournament, but does not cause delays or include any form of physical contact or significant emotional distress. Kevin M., Prince of Henderson, NV (USA) "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> a écrit dans le message de news:BDA44A76.1A701%pd...@lightlink.com... > lehrbuch wrote: > > > This seems to be more a problem of the Arika player deciding too > > quickly that he was in a Lost Position. Of course, I wasn't there, > > but nothing much about your description of the game state suggests that > > his position was lost. > > Yeah, see, and that is a problem. SC makes determining whether or not one is > in a "lost position" really important. And possibly game destroying. I have > a SC, I decide I am in a "lost position", and I oust myself with the SC, > giving all my stuff and pool to someone else. Which is bad for the game. And > all the prevents it from happening is people arguing that the player in > question *isn't* in a lost position, which is a losing argument, and > requires calling a judge over to say "you can't do that, you aren't in a > losing position", which is a huge pain in the ass for everyone, especially > as the guy in question is going to argue. It is all just stupid. > > Without the SC? What is the guy who is in the "lost position" going to do? > Transfer himself out? That is gonna cause arguments enough on its own, > without the possibility to giving all your pool, vampires, permanents, and > hand to someone else. > > Succubus Club is simply inappropriate for competetive play as it currently > stands. Totally agree with your statement. let's save time, saliva, groans and spite by banning the Sucubus club right away.

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> a écrit dans le message de news:CNsgd.82203$hj.13621@fed1read07... > Reyda <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > "James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> a écrit dans le message de > > news:j6CLQjc3...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > >> Essentially, I > >> almost never look at it from "Is this player trying to win?" but > >> rather "Is the player trying to throw the game away, for whatever > >> reason?" > > > > "Is the player trying to throw the game away, for whatever reason?" > > is not part of the judge's guideline, so i would think that your > > judgment is illegal and call another referee who sticks to the > > guideline edicted by LSJ himself. =) > > Sure it is. > > 152. Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Major > Definition: > Major Unsportsmanlike Conduct is defined as behavior that is disruptive to > a player or players at the tournament, but does not cause delays or > include any form of physical contact or significant emotional distress. can you definite it precisely please ? if a bozo puts himself at one pool by putting a Club zombie when his pred is arika, can't he argue it's because he want to cycle into a parity shift ? what about rushing Lazverinus with your famed vamp and not playing any prevention card, arguing you want to save it for later ? some players just play badly, and they are not throwing the game despite the apparences. some players can throw a game in a very clever way. I doubt you can draw any limits here, except the judge wit. And this same wit can be used to define what is a rhyme and what is not =P

pd...@lightlink.com wrote: > As mentioned elsewhere, the main limiting factor to the Succubus Club > is having a judge say anything it is used for is either ok or not ok. > Which, as you mention, is part of my argument--that a single card > requires so much arbitration for its correct use is rediculous, in > that judges have a lot of other stuff to deal with, and having to > watch over (theoretically) every use of the Succubus Club is just > absurd. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff for the last 30 minutes but I erased it all when I realized that this is the KEY to your argument. See below. > I have been in many, many games where I was in an identifyably "lost" > position with, like, 5 or 6 pool, a few non torporized minions, and > some stuff in play (hunting grounds, locations, whatever), and if I > had a Succubus Club and some spite, I easily could have totally swung > the game like crazy by, like, giving all my stuff to my predator for > whatever reason. These are the examples I'm using, and I don't think > they are necessarily obvious as "non-losing", much like they aren't > when they occur in play. As has been stated over and over, as long as the player can convince the judge that he is in a "lost" position, then he *IS* in a "lost" position, and can choose to get 0VP more in any way he chooses, including being spiteful. > I'm curious--you are a judge a lot (and the best one in town! :-) Well that's a nice thing to say, even if LSJ is still alive. I'm probably a better organizer than judge. Lasombra helps me out quite a lot, too. The only two errors I've made in 4 years were both against David Tatu, so I'm surised he is still my pal. ;) > Have you, personally, found use of the Succubus Club > to be a pain in your ass while judging a tournament? No, I haven't had any problems with it, for the reason that I believe your argument fails: your argument is completely THEORETICAL. I have never seen SC used in the way that you state it could/should be used, and I've seen it used a great deal, including David Buerger using it in the most appropriate manner I've ever witnessed -- to bully 8.5VPs out of an intensely strong field at the Last Chance GenCon Qualifier by allowing people to pay his Assamites protection money. I have only ever seen SC used in a reasonable, if extremely powerful and unique manner. I would be interested in hearing from Kamel -- or whichever of our European brothers wishes to speak on this -- about how *EXACTLY* *SPECIFICALLY* the SC is being used in tournaments to abuse the Play-To-Win rule or harassing judges or allowing collusion. Until I hear these details, I don't believe that SC is a problem, except on paper. And it definately LOOKS like a problem -- on paper. > -Peter This must be an important discussion for you, Peter, as you're posting from your *other* account! hehee;) [ quoted text not captured ]

pd...@lightlink.com wrote: > Kevin wrote: >>How is it impossible to define? The judge defines it. > > You can't define a "lost" position in any quantifyable sense--only as > "a position where it is incredibly unlikely that you'll get any VPs", > or something like that. You can make a completely subjective > defenition (as seen in the posts you reference) but what is or is not > a "lost" position is never going to be completely quantifyable, and > as such, will always be very subjective. Thus, nigh-impossible to > actually define. Entire paragraph moot, due to judges existing and following rules and guidelines. As I stated previously, perhaps you should turn your argument toward judges being overworked? > -Peter [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] You cannot accept it. [LSJ 20041025] "A threat to do something illegal (like self-oust when you're not yet in a lost position) is an empty threat." http://groups.google.com/groups?&selm=2u4ggkF26ib9mU1%40uni-berlin.de [ quoted text not captured ]

Frederick Scott wrote: > Of course I can see it. But without having experienced it and given that > you admit that it's questionable whether a player truly trying to win has > any extra interest in using the card, one has to wonder whether the problem > is as pernicious as you say. People certainly can use the card when trying to win. See, it is incredibly versitile. Can swing the game greatly. I mean, yeah, the days of using it to broker the losing side of a 3/2 split are gone, but it is still a good card to use in pretty much any situation. 'Cause there is always going to be someone who wants to make you a deal, and as SC makes deals very concrete (as opposed to the general "I'll do X if you do Y" verbal agreement), if you want to make deals, SC is the card to use. Meaning it is going to be used by people trying to win. But then it *also* lets you, when your winning strategy goes south, totally hose the game out of spite. As I mentioned elsewhere, I don't have a problem with the concept of the card, simply the implimentation--if the trades made possible were significantly limited in some way, such that judge arbitration wasn't necessary to prevent rampant abuse, it be a fine and interesting card. Maybe if it was, like, "Tap this card to give another player up to 3 pool or trade a card in play for another card in play or a card in hand for a card in hand" or whatever, it'd be fine. It would still have plenty of perfectly legitimate uses, it would enable the same decks it enables now, but it wouldn't have the ability to crazily swing the balance of thegame based on spite. Or stupidity. > To some degree, I agree with the point the > person posting as "lehrbuch" is making: that there are lots of cards in the > game that allow people to mess up the game, even if they don't do it in the > special way Succubus Club does. Sure. But it is that special way that makes Succubus Club so special. KRC can hose a game too if you oust someone cross table for no good reason. But the vast majority of KRC use does not require judge arbitration to determine if it is legal or not. And KRC can't, say, hand your predator pool, vampires, cards in play and cards in hand. Succubus Club *is* special. Specially wrong. > I'm having to take your word for it that > the current version of Succubus Club is specially evil. It's not a hard > thing to imagine that it is, it's just hard to guess how often it happens. I dunno. But that it even happens occasionally is bad, specifically because of what the card is and how it works. > These were the complaints I knew about. Others may have been complaining > about what you're complaining about but they must have gotten drowned out. > (Quite possible. At least, given that I miss much on Usenet.) The issues > I experienced were and still are taken care of. So you'll have to forgive > me if the statement that nothing's been done about the card seems overblown > to me. That's 180 degrees the site of my experience with it. That is perfectly reasonable. [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M. wrote: > As has been stated over and over, as long as the player can convince the > judge that he is in a "lost" position, then he *IS* in a "lost" position, > and can choose to get 0VP more in any way he chooses, including being > spiteful. Yup. Which is where a great deal of my problem with the card lies--it is perfectly legal, in the appropriate situations to use the card to completely and unreasonably swing the balance of the game. Usually for spite. > No, I haven't had any problems with it, for the reason that I believe your > argument fails: your argument is completely THEORETICAL. I have never > seen SC used in the way that you state it could/should be used, and I've > seen it used a great deal, including David Buerger using it in the most > appropriate manner I've ever witnessed -- to bully 8.5VPs out of an > intensely strong field at the Last Chance GenCon Qualifier by allowing > people to pay his Assamites protection money. Yeah, see, I don't know what to tell you on that level--I have seen it used to ruin games out of spite. I have heard people complaining that it has been used to ruin games out of spite. It is a totally viable possibility with the card, and even it if has perfectly legitimate uses (which it certainly does), they are balanced in the negative sense by the possibility of using it for completely absurd, unbalancing uses--and legally at that. As I mentioned elsewhere, I don't have a problem with the concept of the card, just the implimentation. It is simply *too* flexible and provides too much circumvention of the normal rules of the game. If it could be errataed/reprinted to limit the cards uses, I'd be fine with that. But it was reprinted with a fix which, for my money, was completely insufficient,and I don't think it is gonna get changed again, so I simply say ban the thing. I mean, yeah, if it was like "tap to either trade up to 3 pool with another player; swap one in play card for another in play card; swap a card in hand for a card in hand" or something, it be fine. But as it is, it simply provides too much possibility for tomfoolery. > This must be an important discussion for you, Peter, as you're posting > from your *other* account! hehee;) Heh. It was actually parent/teacher conference day, I was stuck at school for, like, 14 hours, and had a lot of free time on my hands... [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M. wrote: > Entire paragraph moot, due to judges existing and following rules and > guidelines. Well, my point is that you can't define what is or is not a "lost" position, such that someone can look at a player's stuff and say "Yes. That is a lost position" with certainty. So you need someone to come and judge the lost position. Which is absurd as a balancing factor. The less judgement a game needs, the better it is. > > As I stated previously, perhaps you should turn your argument toward > judges being overworked? Maybe. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Ban Succubus Club. > It's the most powerful card in the game. > No other card could do what that card does. > It should be in two or three copies in each tournament deck. > I could develop and argue for all these sentences, but I know that I > will not convince people who don't see he things like me (and have > seen SC played in about 85% of my games, and half of the time, by > myelf, and saw its effects). > The others are already convinced. Seconded. Once again things are different in Europe and the US. Here (Europe) deals are a much bigger deal than on the other side of the ocean (bunch of reasons, no need to explain), keep that in mind. SC is much more often heavily abused here than in the US, I have played 2 big tournaments and quite some casual games in the US this year and never saw it played, except when I played it. I played 2 tournaments and some casual games in France (just an example) this weekend and saw it played at about 1/2 of the tables. Don´t negate problems just because they don´t exist for your little view of the big world of V:TES. So far for the statistics, regarding the game mechanics SC has an obvious brokeness: It allows a player to force a deal giving him at least 1-2 VP even in a lost position. Why? Because he can threaten everybody with royally screwing him if he does not agree to the deal. See the examples from Orpheus how this can be done in reality. And he doesn´t act against the rules if he screws himself by screwing somebody else because if he doesn´t see any probability to win he can choose the way he wants to loose. Third argument, SC is not vital for any strategy/kind of deck in V:TES. The banning of this card would in no way harm any kind of deck played. It´s not the cause of many "game-improving" situations. Nobody here would complain if it is banned (even those who abuse it frequently like myself and Kamel). -- johannes walch who thinks he has seen quite a significant bit of the v:tes world and always tries to think beyond his own little scope (on va continuer le concours de zizi?)

> (There's also the whole issue of 'assuming you can find someone willing > to help you'; I've seen several games where the entire table has simply > vowed not to make Club deals that gave anything to the Club owner as a > matter of 'why help your opponent' principle.) Come over to the EC to see the exclusive "Masters of the Succubus Club" circle in action. -- johannes walch

Watch this : http://scramlings.de/~scram302/SC.jpg Could there be a better reason to ban it? LOL :-) -- johannes walch

It just seems like such a good opening to rant about how tedious events make playing the game. >Yes. Dragonbound is the good example of an event that really works. Its >effect moves along the lines of Fame and Tension, and supplements combat >decks quite well. Do we know what events were supposed to do? I think Dragonbound works as an event - random (really minor) annoyance to the table, but I don't think that's what you mean by "really works". BTW, to correct something I said a while back, I did see Dragonbound do one damage in that tournament game, to its predator. >The >way Gehenna cards are dependent upon one another makes people use them for >the major effects, trying to tweak their decks around the disadvantages. >While that process is fun, the result is a deck that basically randomly >screws a number of decks at the table. >Consider the following Gehenna cards: Rather, I'd point to just the three I see played far more often in "event" decks (since the others suck) - Blood Weakens, The Slow Withering, Veil of Darkness. I'm sure the obvious elements to playing with these in play don't need to be recounted. I will note that I fail to see why the Lasombra and, to a lesser extent, the Kiasyd needed a hoser that might actually see play. It's interesting that these help weenie decks. Something I realized about The Slow Withering is that it encourages people to play Dominate. Can't get more bang for your buck at inferior than Conditioning and Deflection. The alternative to Deflection, Telepathic Misdirection, becomes much less delightful at double the cost (when it works at all). >True. Time will tell how useful Gehenna cards will become for actually >winning. New sets will change the environment. How about deciding now that Gehenna events have much too much random effect on games? Why? Because you don't control what your opponents play. When I saw Recalled to the Founder hit play for the first time, it became obvious that this was by far the most important weakness of events. Sure, you could decide to not play an event because it's more likely to hurt the wrong player(s), but then, you built your deck a certain way for an environment that doesn't exist. Alternatively, if you buy into the idea that you can control what your opponents play by the very existence of events, they will either build decks that aren't as screwed by them or some decks that were previously viable cease to be. That last isn't all bad as CCGs should evolve and, as one thing becomes weaker, something else should become stronger, but because there's no guarantee that events will see play the possibilities of events seeing play and not seeing play lead to a more random or narrow play environment. This is much like why so many people hate AR decks. Decks that are viable with no AR deck at the table can be entirely screwed if there is one. The opposite is also the case. If you can't be too sure of whether you expect to see an AR deck, you play only those decks that function whether one is played or not, greatly limiting the field. Most Gehenna events are essentially hosers. Anthelios not so much. Hosers can help you win, otherwise no hoser would ever see play. They can also hurt one's chances for winning by being dead draws or being weaker than other draws. And, their global nature, requirements, and costs means that a lot of decks have to build toward them to take advantage of them. The deck that has the greatest advantage at a table with an event deck isn't likely to be the event deck but the deck that could have played the events and decided to spend those slots on better cards. Not sure the focus of this post was that great. I just haven't ranted much about events in forums.

>Ok, apprently LSJ wants examples of how overpowered / borken this card is. This may be an example from a real game, but I don't know that these sorts of things help the cause. There seem to be just too many ways to pick at them. >Say : > >I'm playing a Marcus / Arika deck. Predator : Malk Obf / Dom stealth bleed. >Prey : Cel gun. Grand'prey : Lasombra Embrace voter. Last one : Nosfie wall >(perm intercept, lots of untap). > >My Marcus is in torpor. > >Arika doesn't have any sort of Secure Haven, and my Cel Gun prey threatens >to send her to torpor if I move against it. My Kindred Restructure has been >Directed (nice card...) so I have no hope to do anything before Time Limit. >I have enough pool from bloating so that the Cel Gun isn't afraid of the >Malks yet. He wants to go forward, and to that effect wants to deprive me of >my last acting / redirecting minion. He will at his turn, no matter if I >protect or banish one of his rushing babies. I've used most of my Obediences >and he plays Psyche against Majesty. I'm screwed. I have no means in hand to >oust my prey ebfore he kicks my ass. Either I act and get rushed and give >the table to the Malk, or I don't act and the Cel Gun will probably hurt a >lot his prey and more if he can. Anyway, I'm out. > >NOW : > >I have a Succubus Club on the table. Let's say you don't. You have enough pool that your prey isn't worried about Malk stealth bleed. So, start transferring and make your prey afraid. If you get ousted quickly because your prey won't rush your predator, that's going to screw your prey on a similar level to you Clubbing your board to your predator. You can't oust in time with just Arika. Let's see, you are playing votes and your grandprey are playing votes. Assuming your grandprey can get off actions besides crosstable rescues, why can't someone swap seating positions? Why can't your grandprey vote your prey off the table in cooperation for Arika's votes (maybe bounce too) to help oust the Nos deck and no aggression after the sleazy rush deck is removed? Why wouldn't your grandprey rescue Marcus anyway, assuming nothing better to do to win, just because it forces the rush deck to look backwards? The other possibility is to get you dead quickly forcing the rush deck to rush backwards against its new predator, the game can be tricky that way. That players already have dealing and spite ability makes it more difficult to argue that SC is the problem, that instead its the nature of the game that's the problem. However, as correctly is pointed out, SC enables a magnitude of disruption to the game far in excess of what is possible without it.

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<dLhUsfZ4...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > If you seriously think that arson/Sudden Reversal is > going to be more powerful than multiple common > strategies for dealing with actions and votes... > I think you're clutching at straws. So on the one hand you (or at least Peter) is claiming that the Succubus Club is the Root of All Evil, The Thing That Must Be Banned, that is disrupting and destroying games. And on the other hand you are claiming that your metagame does not include significant quantities of the existing defences against the Succubus Club? Clearly, your metagame does not perceive the Succubus Club as a big enough problem to warrent bothering to include defences against it. [lehrbuch] > > Also, all of these "common strategies" that deal with KRC > > can be argued to deal with the Succubus Club problem > > as well. They ... deplete the resources of the Succubus > > Club player ... [James] > In a cross-table spiteful give-away, no, it doesn't. It > came from nowhere. No it didn't. It came from the state of the game, prior to it (lost positions, and all that). > Why would you have been spending resources to deal > with someone cross-table giving everything to your > predator, say? Because (despite the predator-prey relationship) it is always in your interest to be aware of what is happening crosstable. > Unless you mean that Succubus Club means everyone > has to turn against the Succubus Club player to > stop this possibility - which is turning the > game into X vs anti-X. The Succubus Club has been in the game since the Jyhad set. I haven't yet seen the game devolve in X vs anti-X surrounding the Succubus Club. * lehrbuch

Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:<BDA71D4B.1A7EF%pd...@lightlink.com>... > KRC allows you to do a maximum of 3 pool damage to > someone. So? It's effect, in this admitedly contrived situation is to give the game win to another player - directly. Your Succubus Club examples aren't that bad, and they can't beat that. > Succubus Club allows you to give an indeterminate > amount of pool, vampires, and cards to someone. > Without an action. Or a vote. Or anything at > all but the vague saftey valve of being in a > "lost" position. There's nothing vague about being in a lost position. There might be some vagueness about whether you are in a winning position or not, but that's not the same thing. The "lost position" clause tends to mean: a) the indeterminate amount of pool is "few" b) the vampires transferred are "of no use" c) the card transferred are "crap" It would be very rare for this not to be the case. If you had lots of pool, useful vampires and good cards you wouldn't be in a losing position. * lehrbuch

lehrbuch wrote: > So on the one hand you (or at least Peter) is claiming that the > Succubus Club is the Root of All Evil, The Thing That Must Be Banned, > that is disrupting and destroying games. No. It is not the Root of All Evil. But what it is is a *very* obvious outlier of card design, and a *very* obvious troubled spot for competetive play. Sure--lots of cards can hose the game if used stupidly. But every single use of Succubus Club is potentially cheatingor colluding, and Succubus Club as the unique ability to take all of one players stuff and *combining* it with someone elses. To an unparalleled extent. It is a wild extreme. It goes to 11. It is an over the top outlier. > The Succubus Club has been in the game since the Jyhad set. I haven't > yet seen the game devolve in X vs anti-X surrounding the Succubus > Club. Huh. Clearly you aren't paying attention to the discussion from Europe, where it seems, like, every player there has Succubuc Club in their deck, either to use it first or to contest someone elses. [ quoted text not captured ]

lehrbuch wrote: > So? It's effect, in this admitedly contrived situation is to give the > game win to another player - directly. Your Succubus Club examples > aren't that bad, and they can't beat that. But again, the vast majoruty of the uses of KRC don't require judge supervision to check for collusion. And your ability to use KRC isn't determined by a nebulous game position. Yes, again, KRC can be used to randmoly hose a game. But any random KRC hosing is going to be much less wide than Succubus Club use. Succubus Club is, as a whole package, just a wrong card for competetive play. > It would be very rare for this not to be the case. If you had lots of > pool, useful vampires and good cards you wouldn't be in a losing > position. Again, it is very easy to be in a "lost" position with 4 or 5 pool, 3 or 4 vampires, and stuff in play. Which is easily enough stuff to make a Succubus Club transfer incredibly game unbalancing. [ quoted text not captured ]

[Peter] > Huh. Clearly you aren't paying attention to the discussion > from Europe, where it seems, like, every player there has > Succubuc Club in their deck, either to use it first or to > contest someone elses. Maybe, but www.vekn.de lists 19 tournament winning (constructed) decks. Of which 1 includes the Succubus Club. Weren't you arguing before that what actually happens in a particular playgroup is irrelevant, anyway? * lehrbuch

"lehrbuch" <lehr...@gmail.com> a écrit dans le message de news: 1099185489.2...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com... > [Peter] > > Huh. Clearly you aren't paying attention to the discussion > > from Europe, where it seems, like, every player there has > > Succubuc Club in their deck, either to use it first or to > > contest someone elses. > > Maybe, but www.vekn.de lists 19 tournament winning (constructed) decks. > Of which 1 includes the Succubus Club. There is at least a Succubus deck in every important finals here. Either it wins or it makes second with a deal, or it throws the table. Anyway the impact of the card each time it hits the table is way too important. > Weren't you arguing before that what actually happens in a particular > playgroup is irrelevant, anyway? Thanks you to consider the European Qualifiers and National Championships as a "playgroup". Fortunately, VTES player statistics will show you otherwise. -- Orpheus --------------- Wer'e no longer the knights who say "ni". We are now the Knights Who Say 'Ecky- ecky- ecky- ecky- pikang- zoop- boing- goodem- zoo- owli- zhiv'

lehrbuch wrote: > Maybe, but www.vekn.de lists 19 tournament winning (constructed) decks. > Of which 1 includes the Succubus Club. Ok. > > Weren't you arguing before that what actually happens in a particular > playgroup is irrelevant, anyway? Mass trends are relevant. If an entire tournament is swarmed by decks, say, using the Succubus Club, that is a mass trend. What happens with 6 people at a single game is irrelevent. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote in message news:<8Htgd.82212$hj.52182@fed1read07>... > Emmit Svenson <emmits...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > If in a tournament a player tries to give me 20 pool and all his > > vampires via Succubus Club, and I'm sure accepting his stuff will > > increase my chances of winning, am I required to accept it by the game > > win rules? > > You cannot accept it. > > [LSJ 20041025] > "A threat to do something illegal (like self-oust when you're not yet in a > lost position) is an empty threat." That's not germaine to the question, Kevin. If the other player believes himself to be in a lost position, or if he believes that giving me the pool and vampires will increase his chances of taking a VP, he can make the offer. The question is, can I refuse it if I believe accepting it will increase my chances of winning?

In message <1022d6ec.04102...@posting.google.com>, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> writes: >So on the one hand you (or at least Peter) is claiming that the >Succubus Club is the Root of All Evil, Erm, I have explicitly said that "I don't know" - so even attempting to claim this about my view on these issues isn't helpful. I haven't claimed anything of the sort, and have explicitly said I'm not. It'd help if you paid attention. :( -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Who's ever heard of that, though! EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Designing a deck that just calls votes. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D That's crazy talk, there.

Orpheus wrote: > "lehrbuch" <lehr...@gmail.com> a écrit dans le > message de > news: 1099185489.2...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com... > There is at least a Succubus deck in every important finals here. > > Either it wins or it makes second with a deal, or it throws > the table. Anyway the impact of the card each time it hits > the table is way too important. Maybe. Do you have stats for that or is it just anecdote? I'd also note that in the 31 European winning decks for 2004 archived at http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm only 2 include the Succubus Club. If there's "always a Succubus deck in every important final" wouldn't you expect at least 20% of finals to be won by such decks? > Thanks you to consider the European Qualifiers and National > Championships as a "playgroup". No insult intended. It's still just a group. I doubt it's even the majority of players in Europe. (Although I don't know, maybe it is) How many people do you think should be in a group before their experiences are relevant? * lehrbuch

lehrbuch wrote: > How many people do you think should be in a group before their > experiences are relevant? There is no need to continue to misconstrue this statement. Individual experiences are not relevant to defending arguments about strategy/card issues, simply because there are too many possible reasons why a given individual's experience may not match the issue being discussed. Large trends are relevant. Individual experiences that contribute to large trends being large are relevant to discussion. [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorry if this shows up twice. Newsgroup thing is giving me grief. [lehrbuch] > > So on the one hand you (or at least Peter) is > > claiming that the Succubus Club is the Root > > of All Evil... [James] > Erm, I have explicitly said that "I don't know" - so even > attempting to claim this about my view on these > issues isn't helpful. I haven't claimed anything of the > sort, and have explicitly said I'm not. Which is why I said "or at least Peter". It did seem like you were agreeing with at least something that he was saying. Maybe you're not. Back to the point: Regardless of your unknown opinion of the Succubus Club, do you think that the relative absence of anti-Succubus Club cards / strategies (which you seem to have stated is representative of many environments) is evidence for or against the proposition that the Succubus Club is unbalancing? * lehrbuch

[Peter] > Individual experiences are not relevant to > defending arguments about strategy/card > issues, simply because there are too many > possible reasons why a given individual's > experience may not match the issue being > discussed. Large trends are relevant. Individual > experiences that contribute to large > trends being large are relevant to discussion Fair enough. I can't see any large trends in any tournament winning archive of European decks that suggest the Succubus Club is dominating games. Do you have stats on Large Trends that support your proposition of Succubus Club dominance? * lehrbuch

lehrbuch wrote: > Fair enough. > > I can't see any large trends in any tournament winning archive of > European decks that suggest the Succubus Club is dominating games. Me neither. > > Do you have stats on Large Trends that support your proposition of > Succubus Club dominance? Nope. Which is why I don't expect anything to actually happen. Doesn't mean I shouldn't try, though. [ quoted text not captured ]

[lehrbuch] > > Do you have stats on Large Trends that support your > > proposition of Succubus Club dominance? [Peter] > Nope. Which is why I don't expect anything to > actually happen. Doesn't mean I shouldn't try, > though. Of course not. If you find (or I found) evidence (massive proviso: that I find convincing), then I'd agree with you that it should be changed/banned. Not that this would mean anything in particular, as I'm nobody - playing with an irrelevant group of people. I'm just pointing out, at tedious length, that you have not presented any evidence (I find convincing) at this time. * lehrbuch

Emmit Svenson <emmits...@hotmail.com> wrote: > "Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote: >> Emmit Svenson <emmits...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> > If in a tournament a player tries to give me 20 pool and all his >> > vampires via Succubus Club, and I'm sure accepting his stuff will >> > increase my chances of winning, am I required to accept it by the >> > game win rules? >> >> You cannot accept it. >> >> [LSJ 20041025] >> "A threat to do something illegal (like self-oust when you're not >> yet in a lost position) is an empty threat." > > That's not germaine to the question, Kevin. If the other player > believes himself to be in a lost position, or if he believes that > giving me the pool and vampires will increase his chances of taking a > VP, he can make the offer. The question is, can I refuse it if I > believe accepting it will increase my chances of winning? <sigh> You're right Emmit. The only thing germaine to your question is to determine if all the players at your table are so stupid that they would not question such an *obviously* *ridiculously* *illegal* deal. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 31 Oct 2004 20:13:27 -0800, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm just pointing out, at tedious length, that you have not presented > any evidence (I find convincing) at this time. I think you are giving Peter a hard time. Because only tournament winning decks are archived in the tournament winning deck archives, and not, for example, second places. Succubus Club can well be in the second players deck, who kingmakes someone and gets in second, basically screwing the remaining three players. That will not be recorded in the TWDA. Nor will any action taken out of "spite", as that is most likely not done by a winning deck either. The evidence here cannot really be any hard statistically provable facts, because only first place decks are saved, and even if you would compare the results of the round with the contents of the deck, you would still be short of the narrative of exactly what occured. -- Bye, Daneel

"Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:4181e9ed$0$16484$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net... > "LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de > > "Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > > > "LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de > > > > 1) No effect, given the fluid definition of "rhyme", other than the > > > > cost of putting the card into play. > > > > > > I don't understand your statement. > > > please explain. > > > > Provide a complete, specific definition to encompass everything that is > > a "rhyme" and exclude everything that is not. > > > > When you've done that, you'll understand the statement above. > > provide me a complete specific definition to encompass everything that is a > winning deal, a losing deal, a player playing to win or a player colluding > without refering to "the referee's" natural deduction, and i'll take the > time to open a dictionnary and search for "rhyme" =) Sigh. The point was not that you cannot do it. The point was that the exercise you would get (mental exercise) in the attempt would illuminate the problem itself. If you cannot be bothered for such an exercise, try this: A: I bleed you for one. ... ... B: You didn't rhyme. A: I wasn't done. Or this: A: Nothing before range. No maneuver. I hit you for one. B: You didn't rhyme. A: My rhyme pattern is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789,.;:?"'/()[]{}`~!@#$%^&*[...ad inifintum] Or this: A: Nothing before range. Range. No maneuver. Maneuver. I hit you for one. One. A: Nothing before range. Fnord. No maneuver. Fnord. I hit you for one. Fnord. The point is, by the time you get around to wasting the effort to try to make "rhyme" understood, then the effect of the card becomes: no effect (save for pool loss of putting the card into play). -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. V:TES homepage: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Though effective, appear to be ineffective -- Sun Tzu

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 08:13:20 -0500, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The point is, by the time you get around to wasting the effort to try to > make > "rhyme" understood, then the effect of the card becomes: no effect (save > for > pool loss of putting the card into play). Nice examples and strong point. Madness of the Bard is fun for "fun play", when playing with like minded folks who take speaking in rhymes seriously (like, spitting their sentences in twain and making sure the last two syllables rhyme). As soon as people don't want to take part in the rhyme game they can just simply repeat what they say. It may be lame but it is rhyme nevertheless (and I never went near some pieces of contemporary poetry). -- Bye, Daneel

lehrbuch wrote: >>If you find (or I found) evidence (massive proviso: that I find convincing), then I'd agree with you that it should be changed/banned.>> Whether or not you agree with me isn't really the issue. Heck--it is much better than you disagree with me, really, as it gives me a reason to keep talking. >>Not that this would mean anything in particular, as I'm nobody - playing with an irrelevant group of people.>> Dude. That statement is, like, *sooooo* irrationally stuck in your craw. Let it go. >>I'm just pointing out, at tedious length, that you have not presented any evidence (I find convincing) at this time.>> Well, luckily, you aren't the person who I am actually trying to convince of anything, so there you go. -Peter

Johannes Walch wrote: > And he doesn´t act against the rules if he > screws himself by screwing somebody else because if he doesn´t see any > probability to win he can choose the way he wants to loose. Unless of course the judge exercises some judgement and disagrees. I am highly in favor of Xzealot's Axiom, "If you control the Succubus Club you are, by definition, not in a lost position." A neat, inkless solution. -- David Cherryholmes

"lehrbuch" <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1022d6ec.04102...@posting.google.com... > James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message > news:<dLhUsfZ4...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... >> If you seriously think that arson/Sudden Reversal is >> going to be more powerful than multiple common >> strategies for dealing with actions and votes... >> I think you're clutching at straws. > > So on the one hand you (or at least Peter) is claiming that the > Succubus Club is the Root of All Evil, The Thing That Must Be Banned, > that is disrupting and destroying games. > > And on the other hand you are claiming that your metagame does not > include significant quantities of the existing defences against the > Succubus Club? > > Clearly, your metagame does not perceive the Succubus Club as a big > enough problem to warrent bothering to include defences against it. You make that sound like a self-contradiction. However, anyone who truly understands game theory knows it is not. It is quite possible for an "X" strategy to be highly viable and successful and yet the "anti-X" strategy be quite poor. The result of such situations tend to create an awkward and undesirable metagame where most all players wind up just choosing to join the "evil" rather than fight it. From an individual standpoint, this solves the problem. From a collective standpoint, it's bad because it tends to limit choice. This viewpoint has been prove right time and again in collectible card games. Most people seem to have a tough time understanding it, though. Fred

> A: Nothing before range. Fnord. No maneuver. Fnord. I hit you for one. > Fnord. LOL This is my personal favourite... -- Orpheus "Did you know that urine is sterile ? You can drink it." Tyler Durden

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote in message news:<KZkhd.86640$hj.34534@fed1read07>... > Emmit Svenson <emmits...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > "Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > >> Emmit Svenson <emmits...@hotmail.com> wrote: > >> > If in a tournament a player tries to give me 20 pool and all his > >> > vampires via Succubus Club, and I'm sure accepting his stuff will > >> > increase my chances of winning, am I required to accept it by the > >> > game win rules? > >> > >> You cannot accept it. > >> > >> [LSJ 20041025] > >> "A threat to do something illegal (like self-oust when you're not > >> yet in a lost position) is an empty threat." > > > > That's not germaine to the question, Kevin. If the other player > > believes himself to be in a lost position, or if he believes that > > giving me the pool and vampires will increase his chances of taking a > > VP, he can make the offer. The question is, can I refuse it if I > > believe accepting it will increase my chances of winning? > > <sigh> > > You're right Emmit. The only thing germaine to your question is to > determine if all the players at your table are so stupid that they would > not question such an *obviously* *ridiculously* *illegal* deal. In a V:EKN tournament, at the beginning of his turn, a player has one card left in his library, the Succubus Club, 21 pool and a bunch of tapped vampires. His predator has Brinksmanship, a Slaughterhouse, and Le Dinh Tho in play. This player can legally make the offer I describe because he is in a lost position and may lose as he pleases. I'm asking for the third time: if he offers them to me and I believe the extra pool and vampires will help me win the game, can I legally refuse them?

> The question is, can I refuse it if I > believe accepting it will increase my chances of winning? If I was the judge, I would allow you to refuse it if I felt like you were trying to win on your own without the pool. You could make some Parity Shift arguments or sportsmanship arguments why you don't want the pool, so I think it'd be tough to force it on you. This is an interesting question for a case study. Maybe not particularly with Succubus Club, but generally someone taking a cross table action that helps you immensely (like a vote) and you not supporting it. Then again, maybe it's not such a good case study, because it seems like the refusing player can always come up with some acceptable reasons why to refuse (cryptic rider springs to mind.) Ira

In message <1099276444.7...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> writes: >Regardless of your unknown opinion of the Succubus Club, do you think >that the relative absence of anti-Succubus Club cards / strategies >(which you seem to have stated is representative of many environments) >is evidence for or against the proposition that the Succubus Club is >unbalancing? You're mis-reading what I'm saying. What I'm saying - on one hand - is that comparing the spite of a cross- table KRC to the spite of Succubus Club is apples and oranges. Votes have multiple defences which are very commonly used by decks and are multi-functional defence. Similarly spiteful, but basic, plays are similarly countered in many basic, necessary defences. If I decide to spitefully through a Fame at you and rush you, so you die before I do, you can Obedience the rush, or defend in the combat, or block with another vampire, or D.I. the rush, or hit me back harder, or tap The Elysium, or throw in Illusions of the Kindred, or have some weapons/guns which will let me go to long range, or have a Secure Haven, or... Similarly, votes have all the usual counters - block, cancel, vote down, pro-actively remove your votes, etc. All of these things can be very easily re-used if they don't come up against that specific play. Generic defences have a very wide-range of utility against a wide range of plays. It doesn't matter if that specific spiteful play doesn't come up. If, on the other hand, you play Sudden Reversal, Bleeding the Vine or location destruction. Sudden Reversal and Bleeding the Vine must both be in hand (or out) prior to Sudden Reversal being played which is a relatively high opportunity cost compared to the swing it can make. If you don't have Vox Domini/Delaying Tactics in hand or Vox Senis out when the KRC comes out, the worst that can happen is 3 pool. Similarly, you can play Arson - but location destruction rarely makes up a large portion of a deck. On the other hand, there may be reasons why a specific metagame doesn't need to account for spiteful uses of Succubus Club. For a start, it's not (as Peter has explained, at length) a case of people actively using Succubus Club to win. This isn't, say, a case of Return to Innocence being used and you MUST USE IT OR DEFEND AGAINST IT OR YOU DIE. The problem being discussed is that of spiteful use. Since spiteful use, in the "I'm lost, here, take my stuff" sense, is entirely a choice and not a sensible necessary decision in response to an escalation of power levels, some groups simply won't encounter it and have no need to encounter it. It's not like the RtoI experience (or Tomb or whatever) where playing it is better than not playing it. Similarly, it may be a particularly poor player who uses such "tactics" where the difference isn't that huge. Again, there's no need for it to be good players using it. Not encountering it because it's not a no-brain good play doesn't mean, well, anything really. On the other other hand, if a single card (or very small group of cards using similar effects e.g. a bunch of Corruption cards) requires groups to shift into particular defences against it, there may be a problem. This is not proof positive, but it is sufficient to raise eyebrows. [ quoted text not captured ]

[Fred] > You make that sound like a self-contradiction. However, > anyone who truly understands game theory knows it is not. > It is quite possible for an "X" strategy to be highly > viable and successful and yet the "anti-X" strategy > be quite poor. Absolutely. I agree. > The result of such situations tend to create an awkward > and undesirable metagame where most all players wind up > just choosing to join the "evil" rather than fight it. So are you trying to argue that (any) meta-game is totally dominated by people playing the Succubus Club? If so, what is your evidence? * lehrbuch

[Daneel] > Because only tournament winning decks are > archived in the tournament winning deck > archives, and not, for example, second places. > Succubus Club can well be in the second > players deck ...That will not be recorded in the > TWDA... So? If (as some people have claimed) every European Tournament final contains a Succubus Club deck, then at least 20% of winning decks should contain the Succubus Club, all things being equal. Obviously, we don't have a statistically large number of decks, but the statistics are nothing like that. > ...even if you would compare the results > of the round with the contents of the deck, you > would still be short of the narrative of exactly > what occured. That's a problem those arguing that the Succubus Club is a problem have to deal with too. Lack of a narrative saying one thing doesn't mean there is a narrative saying the opposite. * lehrbuch

Forgive the paraphrase... [James] > [KRC has] multiple defences which are very commonly > used by decks and are multi-functional defence. > [Succubus Club doesn't] There are 136 Political Action Cards. There are 119 location cards (unique, non-unique + loc-quipment). Locations are therefore roughly as generic as votes, and things that decks need to deal with. Master cards are even more generic elements that need to be defended against. Plenty of decks include no votes. Very few include no master cards. > If you don't have Vox Domini/Delaying Tactics in > hand or Vox Senis out when the KRC comes out, > the worst that can happen is 3 pool. Which could still directly influence the game win. That seems quite important to me. > On the other other hand, if a single card > (or very small group of cards using similar > effects e.g. a bunch of Corruption cards) > requires groups to shift into particular defences > against it, there may be a problem. > This is not proof positive, but it is sufficient > to raise eyebrows. No argument there. I am saying that your statements are evidence that whatever metagame you are describing, has *not* "shifted into particular defences against" the Succubus Club. This is not necessarily evidence that the Succubus Club isn't a problem, but it's hardly evidence *for* the Succubus Club being a problem. * lehrbuch

David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:<2un4ugF...@uni-berlin.de>... [ quoted text not captured ] Not having a chance for a VP is a lost position. Succubus club negates this, not only by definition but also by card effect. It doesn't negate not having a chance for a GW. This is where the trouble comes in. With sufficient negotiation skills you can get at least 1VP, if not 2, when offering an as-near-to-foolproof-as-don't-matter way for someone to win a game, who otherwise probably/possibly couldn't/wouldn't. Inkless solution: Succubus Club, by definition, makes you always have to play for GW even when you don't think it's feasible? Just axe the card already. -Bram Vink

"Frederick Scott" <dont...@mymail.com> wrote in message news:N4vhd.74057$bk1.3718@fed1read05... > "lehrbuch" <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote in message [clip] > > Clearly, your metagame does not perceive the Succubus Club as a big > > enough problem to warrent bothering to include defences against it. > > You make that sound like a self-contradiction. However, anyone who truly > understands game theory knows it is not. It is quite possible for an "X" > strategy to be highly viable and successful and yet the "anti-X" strategy > be quite poor. The result of such situations tend to create an awkward > and undesirable metagame where most all players wind up just choosing to > join the "evil" rather than fight it. From an individual standpoint, this solves > the problem. From a collective standpoint, it's bad because it tends to > limit choice. In the 2000 NA Championships I included 1 or 2 copies of Succubus Club. A neat benefit of it is that an Anti-SC strategy is just to be the first to bring it out - even if you don't plan on using it. In one round a player brought it out and I Rampaged it and then I brought out one of my own. In another round, right before I ousted Donovan Brouwer, he gave all of his stuff to his prey, David TAtu. I got a VP and six pool but Donovan's remaining pool and gifted minions were too many for me to overcome when they were added to Tatu's own. In the finals, time ran out with a SC in my hand. Had there been an extra 10 minutes on the clock, I would have proposed to Jared to give me all his minions so I could oust Peal quicker. We were already working together so the SC would have only added a little turbo to the alliance we had formed. -Robert

On 1 Nov 2004 17:08:18 -0800, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote: > [Daneel] >> Because only tournament winning decks are >> archived in the tournament winning deck >> archives, and not, for example, second places. >> Succubus Club can well be in the second >> players deck ...That will not be recorded in the >> TWDA... > > So? > > If (as some people have claimed) every European Tournament final > contains a Succubus Club deck, then at least 20% of winning decks > should contain the Succubus Club, all things being equal. If we assume that Succubus Club is indeed excellent to have you come in second, while it occasionally helps you to actually win, you might wish to consider not relying on data that is basically irrelevant. I mean, your 20% is just an assumption and as all statistical chances, it is probably quite irrelevant until the population [of the examined cases] reaches a significant amount. Say, like 100 or more. > Obviously, we don't have a statistically large number of decks, but the > statistics are nothing like that. > >> ...even if you would compare the results >> of the round with the contents of the deck, you >> would still be short of the narrative of exactly >> what occured. > > That's a problem those arguing that the Succubus Club is a problem have > to deal with too. > > Lack of a narrative saying one thing doesn't mean there is a narrative > saying the opposite. There is no lack of narrative saying that Succubus Club is "broken". In fact, even this thread has some decent, relevant posts on the matter. Accounts of players whose game was "destroyed" by SC. Narratives of players who witnessed others games being destroyed by SC. Even narratives of players who actually destroyed other people's games with SC. If you're looking for narratives, there they are; if you're looking for statistics, you're basically trying to avoid the issue, as statistics in this matter is highly irrelevant (because the population is so low). -- Bye, Daneel

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de news:2umqvrF...@uni-berlin.de... > "Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message (...) > > without refering to "the referee's" natural deduction, and i'll take the > > time to open a dictionnary and search for "rhyme" =) > > > Sigh. The point was not that you cannot do it. > > The point was that the exercise you would get (mental exercise) in the > attempt would illuminate the problem itself. > > If you cannot be bothered for such an exercise, try this: > > A: I bleed you for one. > > ... > > ... > > B: You didn't rhyme. > A: I wasn't done. in this case you are playing with liars. just move to another playgroup. > Or this: > > A: Nothing before range. No maneuver. I hit you for one. > B: You didn't rhyme. > A: My rhyme pattern is > ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789,.;:?"'/()[]{}`~!@#$%^&*[...ad > inifintum] This may happen if you invite Maximillian from The Black Hole fame. Else i doubt any player would say something like this ? but maybe you really play with robots ? =) > Or this: > > A: Nothing before range. Range. No maneuver. Maneuver. I hit you for one. > One. why not ? > A: Nothing before range. Fnord. No maneuver. Fnord. I hit you for one. > Fnord. why not ? (even, if , again, i suggest you should trade your robotic friends for more human ones =) ) > The point is, by the time you get around to wasting the effort to try to > make > "rhyme" understood, then the effect of the card becomes: no effect (save > for > pool loss of putting the card into play). It's the same thing as putting a momentum's edge into play and forgetting to tap it each turn. No effect.

"Johannes Walch" <joha...@scram.de> a écrit dans le message de news:cltv3b$lfp$1...@stu1id2.ip.tesion.net... > Watch this : > > http://scramlings.de/~scram302/SC.jpg > > Could there be a better reason to ban it? > > LOL :-) Gang of Sharks !! =D

emmits...@hotmail.com (Emmit Svenson) wrote in message news:<75bdf7ed.04110...@posting.google.com>... > I'm asking for the third time: if he offers them to me and I believe > the extra pool and vampires will help me win the game, can I legally > refuse them? The answer is very simple. The use of the SC is always a deal, because both players have to accept it. The to-win-rule NEVER forces you to accept a deal, even if the deal is in your benefit. Its the same like the offer of a losing deal. The to-win-rule can forbid the offer of a losing deal, but it will not force you to accept a losing deal. Frank

"lehrbuch" <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1099357210.2...@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Nope. You make a classically poor assumption when you presume that someone who disputes one of the lines of argument in a conflict like this must therefore agree with all the other arguments the other side is making or with the latter's understanding of the facts. Just as with Peter's assertion that nothing has been done about Succubus Club since the game was created, when I hear something that's wrong I take issue with it. Especially when, as with this case, it's a mistake I see people make time and again when looking at metagames and issues of how powerful a card or a strategy is. You were trying to suggest that it is incongruous to simultaneously hold that Succubus Club is overpowered yet that the local metagame does not contain sufficient amounts of anti-location cards to deal with it. In fact, it's clear to me that it's emmeniently possible for such a situation to exist. Whether it _does_ exist or not, I can't say. I'm just tired of hearing people say, "Card X can't possibly be overpowered because card Y exists to deal with card X." Such a view is simplistic, ignornant, and has been proven incorrect on many occasions. In fact, ultimately I suspect Succubus Card is not as bad as it's being made out to be. But certain people are citing recent evidence that I wasn't around to dispute so it makes sense to me to reserve judgment and see how things go in the future. It doesn't seem to me that anything should be done at this time. Fred

In message <41874bb7$0$25503$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net>, Reyda <true_...@hotmail.com> writes: >> A: I bleed you for one. >> >> ... >> >> ... >> >> B: You didn't rhyme. >> A: I wasn't done. > >in this case you are playing with liars. ??? Madness of the Bard doesn't say that the sentences have to rhyme within one piece you say. What magical words are you reading on the text that says you can't rhyme across several sentences where other players interject answers to your questions? Hint: They aren't there. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:56:29 +0100, Reyda <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > "LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de > news:2umqvrF...@uni-berlin.de... >> "Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message >> A: Nothing before range. No maneuver. I hit you for one. >> B: You didn't rhyme. >> A: My rhyme pattern is >> ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789,.;:?"'/()[]{}`~!@#$%^&*[...ad >> inifintum] > > This may happen if you invite Maximillian from The Black Hole fame. Else > i > doubt any player would say something like this ? but maybe you really > play > with robots ? =) Got a problem with that, pal? :D -- Bye, Daneel

[Fred] > You make a classically poor assumption when you > presume that someone who disputes one of the > lines of argument in a conflict like this must > therefore agree with all the other arguments > the other side is making ... I'm not assuming that's why I'm asking you. > You were trying to suggest that it is incongruous > to simultaneously hold that Succubus Club is > overpowered yet that the local metagame does not > contain sufficient amounts of anti-location cards > to deal with it. Yes. I fully understand that this is not necessarily true. It is not true when the cost (availability, pool, opportunity, etc) of the anti is not worth the benefit of disrupting the Succubus Club. That is my point. In the meta-game that James described the anti for the Succubus Club is, apparently, not significantly present. This means that the cost of the anti is not worth the benefit of disrupting the Succubus Club in the meta-game he describes. Maybe it's because the cost of the anti is very high in this meta-game, maybe it's because the Succubus Club is not actually that great - either way cost of anti is greater than risk of not playing the anti (in this environment). > In fact, it's clear to me that it's emmeniently > possible for such a situation to exist. Yep. I've got no problems with that. > I'm just tired of hearing people say, "Card X can't > possibly be overpowered because card Y exists to > deal with card X." Such a view is simplistic, > ignornant, and has been proven incorrect on many > occasions. This is a slightly different argument to what I'm saying, but yes. I agree. I've already said this on several occasions now in this very thread. * lehrbuch

In message <1099428184.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> writes: >In the meta-game that James described the anti for the Succubus Club >is, apparently, not significantly present. This means that the cost of >the anti is not worth the benefit of disrupting the Succubus Club in >the meta-game he describes. Maybe it's because the cost of the anti is >very high in this meta-game, maybe it's because the Succubus Club is >not actually that great - either way cost of anti is greater than risk >of not playing the anti (in this environment). You, again, ignore the obvious. Since Succubus Club's potential significant disruptive ability is *optional* - in that it requires players to be spiteful when in a losing position - and not a necessary good play, not everyone will play it like that. Hence not everyone will see it like that. Ignoring reality won't make it any less real. It'll just make your arguments more flawed. [ quoted text not captured ]

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> a écrit dans le message de news:6QRtqXy$O+hB...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > In message <41874bb7$0$25503$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net>, Reyda > <true_...@hotmail.com> writes: > >> A: I bleed you for one. > >> > >> ... > >> > >> ... > >> > >> B: You didn't rhyme. > >> A: I wasn't done. > > > >in this case you are playing with liars. > > ??? > > Madness of the Bard doesn't say that the sentences have to rhyme within > one piece you say. What magical words are you reading on the text that > says you can't rhyme across several sentences where other players > interject answers to your questions? > > Hint: They aren't there. hint : the "... .... " means silence to me. Am i wrong ?

[James] > Since Succubus Club's potential significant disruptive > ability is *optional* - in that it requires players to > be spiteful when in a losing position - and not a > necessary good play, not everyone will play it like > that. Hence not everyone will see it like that. Yes. Or in other words it is not seen like that in the meta-game you described. You still seem to be saying that the anti-Succubus Club type cards are not being played (much) in the meta-game you're describing. I'm saying that's nice. Surely, that is at least indicative of the Succubus Club not being played much, or perceived to be a problem, in this meta-game. Doesn't mean the Succubus Club isn't broken, I agree. Surely, doesn't mean the Succubus Club is broken either. > Ignoring reality won't make it any less real. > It'll just make your arguments more flawed. Love you too. * lehrbuch

In message <4187fbbd$0$26270$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net>, Reyda <true_...@hotmail.com> writes: >> >> A: I bleed you for one. >> >> >> >> ... >> >> >> >> ... >> >> >> >> B: You didn't rhyme. >> >> A: I wasn't done. > >hint : the "... .... " means silence to me. Am i wrong ? And? Where on Madness of the Bard does it not say you're allowed to have silence in amongst your rhyming sentences? There's no prohibition against that unless. You appear to be inventing restrictions out of thin air. You could be thinking of your next sentence, trying to decide if you play an action modifier and so on. Nor is there - as I said - any suggestion on the card that you have to rhyme in a given block. Perhaps A was intending to follow up with a rhyming sentence in the *next* thing he said. Again, unless you invent more restrictions out of thin air. For added fun, consider "one" and "done" as half rhymes - have you decided if half rhymes count as rhymes? In some accents, they're pretty close rhymes too. One of my maths teachers had a sufficiently weird accent that "one" was always pronounced as very similar to "won", and hence rhymed with "done". Have you considered the effect of accent and dialect? Also, bear in mind this entire discussion as an object lesson in why Madness of the Bard is ludicrously impossible to enforce. You start inventing new restrictions out of thin air which are not supported by card text. You also start to suggest that people are liars, for no apparent reason other than your own imaginings of what you think card text might be saying when it, in fact, doesn't support any of your imaginings. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <jPBbtH1x...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> mumbled something about: >For added fun, consider "one" and "done" as half rhymes - have you >decided if half rhymes count as rhymes? In some accents, they're pretty >close rhymes too. One of my maths teachers had a sufficiently weird >accent that "one" was always pronounced as very similar to "won", and >hence rhymed with "done". Have you considered the effect of accent and >dialect? If you speak with an American accent, "one and done" do in fact rhyme. -- Derek a host is a host from coast to coast and no one will talk to a host that's close unless the host that isn't close is busy, hung, or dead

"lehrbuch" <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1099428184.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com... > [Fred] >> You make a classically poor assumption when you >> presume that someone who disputes one of the >> lines of argument in a conflict like this must >> therefore agree with all the other arguments >> the other side is making ... > > I'm not assuming that's why I'm asking you. Oh, thhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhppppp! That was pointed question with a follow-up question that clearly expressed that assumption. Stupid thing to be disputing, I suppose. I just get tired of people who backtrack that transparently when an error is pointed out. >> You were trying to suggest that it is incongruous >> to simultaneously hold that Succubus Club is >> overpowered yet that the local metagame does not >> contain sufficient amounts of anti-location cards >> to deal with it. > > Yes. I fully understand that this is not necessarily true. > > It is not true when the cost (availability, pool, opportunity, etc) of > the anti is not worth the benefit of disrupting the Succubus Club. > That is my point. ... >> I'm just tired of hearing people say, "Card X can't >> possibly be overpowered because card Y exists to >> deal with card X." Such a view is simplistic, >> ignornant, and has been proven incorrect on many >> occasions. > > This is a slightly different argument to what I'm saying, but yes. I > agree. I've already said this on several occasions now in this very > thread. Well, it sure looks to me that you're making this assertion. Perhaps in kind of backhanded way, with some equivocations - but taking lack of location hosers as evidence for lack of a problem with Succubus Club isn't supported either. I'm saying you can take no evidence whatsoever from the lack of location hosers in a metagame. And that it's a perfectly valid argument that lack of location hosers in a metagame is part of the problem, not the self-contradiction I saw you suggest in one message a while ago. In this case, the implication would be that the location hosers that exist aren't good enough to be worth packing. (To emphasize, I'm saying this is how the argument WOULD go. I'm not really saying I agree or disagree - just that it isn't self-contradictory.) Fred

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> a écrit dans le message de news:jPBbtH1x...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > In message <4187fbbd$0$26270$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net>, Reyda > <true_...@hotmail.com> writes: > >> >> A: I bleed you for one. > >> >> > >> >> ... > >> >> > >> >> ... > >> >> > >> >> B: You didn't rhyme. > >> >> A: I wasn't done. > > > >hint : the "... .... " means silence to me. Am i wrong ? > > And? Where on Madness of the Bard does it not say you're allowed to > have silence in amongst your rhyming sentences? There's no prohibition > against that unless. You appear to be inventing restrictions out of > thin air. You could be thinking of your next sentence, trying to decide > if you play an action modifier and so on. can't you just prepare your rhyming sentence before playing the card ? ...must... use... brain... using long silences is in some way cheating with the rhyme process. The same way you cheat when you play a mind rape on a target, wait silently for the opponent to declare something, and when he declares a block, suddenly attempt to play a seduction, pretending you weren't done. Isn't that cheating ? Isn't that enforced by the rules ? How can this not also be enforced with Madnes of the bard too, really ? I can't see any difference here in the use of long pause for cheating. > Nor is there - as I said - any suggestion on the card that you have to > rhyme in a given block. Perhaps A was intending to follow up with a > rhyming sentence in the *next* thing he said. Again, unless you invent > more restrictions out of thin air. Then say it instead of waiting with your mouth open. The only complicated thing in shyming is to make the sentence fluid and elegant. Even if the rhyme is poor in itself, if you say it with majesty, it's a rhyme. -but maybe you are going to say that, then, the game will be closed to people who have throat cancer, and thus invent a new argument out of nowhere... I don't know if it's actually possible to have a discussion with you =) > For added fun, consider "one" and "done" as half rhymes - have you > decided if half rhymes count as rhymes? In some accents, they're pretty > close rhymes too. THEN FEEL FREE TO USE IT ! if it's rhyming in your mouth and with your accent, then it's a rhyme. Nobody would be picky on that if the rhyme is not 100% accurate as long as the sound is ok. > One of my maths teachers had a sufficiently weird > accent that "one" was always pronounced as very similar to "won", and > hence rhymed with "done". Have you considered the effect of accent and > dialect? Yes, and they are perfectly acceptable, even if the player imitates the said dialect for fun. Who would say the opposite ? > Also, bear in mind this entire discussion as an object lesson in why > Madness of the Bard is ludicrously impossible to enforce. You start > inventing new restrictions out of thin air which are not supported by > card text. You also start to suggest that people are liars, for no > apparent reason other than your own imaginings of what you think card > text might be saying when it, in fact, doesn't support any of your > imaginings. Oh my ! you are so wonderful when you say stuff like that =) i should print that and frame it !

In message <41885ced$0$11336$79c1...@nan-newsreader-05.noos.net>, Reyda <true_...@hotmail.com> writes: >> And? Where on Madness of the Bard does it not say you're allowed to >> have silence in amongst your rhyming sentences? There's no prohibition >> against that unless. You appear to be inventing restrictions out of >> thin air. You could be thinking of your next sentence, trying to decide >> if you play an action modifier and so on. > >can't you just prepare your rhyming sentence before playing the card ? >...must... use... brain... Why should you? Don't people play a card, draw a replacement and then play that replacement? It's surely more than possible to play, say, Govern the Unaligned and follow it up with a Seduction or a Conditioning or... You then have to stop and think of a new sentence, especially if what you've replaced it with demands a new timing slot. And, since they could have a plethora of different cards on the top of their deck which they don't know about (perhaps they're a new player playing a deck, and are only just learning the game, or someone playing a pre-con they've just bought and haven't even begun to think about what's in it properly) either due to having a wide and various number of cards in their deck or, indeed, they have Agitas in play and so *really* don't know what they're about to draw, they'll have to stop and think. >using long silences is in some way cheating with the rhyme process. Provide card text to support your position. Why cannot rhyming also have pauses? >The same >way you cheat when you play a mind rape on a target, wait silently for the >opponent to declare something, and when he declares a block, suddenly >attempt to play a seduction, pretending you weren't done. An opponent can happily ask "Anything else?" (Amend wording to taste.) Certainly, I've seen players on many occasions say "Gimme a sec, I'm just deciding over something" and "Wait, I'm considering stopping that." and "Are you playing anything before range?" in combat and so on and so on and - certainly - at a critical stage of the game, they can be weighing up their own ash heap, the opponent's ash heap, cards on the table, rough probabilities and so on. Particularly when they have critical redraws to consider. Pausing isn't cheating. In the situation of a long pause after someone has said something, it may be that they're waiting to see if someone DI's it. (Or whatever - multiple similar cards.) >Isn't that >cheating ? As Derek has pointed out (and as I mentioned myself), certain accents have "one" and "done" down as rhymes. The player did, in fact, rhyme their sentences. I don't see how a player rhyming his sentences would be cheating, re: Madness of the Bard. Additionally, a player exploiting timing sequences to find out new information about another player's position deceitfully is *very* different from a player stopping and thinking about a rhyme. Additionally additionally, a player is attempting to prevent himself from burning pool. He doesn't want to lose pool so he's stopping and thinking about what he says. >Isn't that enforced by the rules ? How can this not also be >enforced with Madnes of the bard too, really ? I can't see any difference >here in the use of long pause for cheating. The player could simply have finished what he was saying. That's not cheating. Why is that even beginning to be cheating? "I bleed you for one" is a perfectly legitimate thing for a player to say. Their prey could then respond by asking "Any action modifiers at this time?" (Of course, they may want to amend what they say to fit in with whatever arbitrary rhyming scheme they're using. But that's the gist of it.) >> Nor is there - as I said - any suggestion on the card that you have to >> rhyme in a given block. Perhaps A was intending to follow up with a >> rhyming sentence in the *next* thing he said. Again, unless you invent >> more restrictions out of thin air. > >Then say it instead of waiting with your mouth open. ??? There is *nothing*, let's repeat that NOTHING, let's try that again _ _ ___ _____ _ _ ___ _ _ ____ | \ | |/ _ \_ _| | | |_ _| \ | |/ ___| | \| | | | || | | |_| || || \| | | _ | |\ | |_| || | | _ || || |\ | |_| | |_| \_|\___/ |_| |_| |_|___|_| \_|\____| on the card text that says you have to rhyme in a given block. You could easily declare something, have a player interject and rhyme in the response to their interjection. A: I bleed you for one. <--- Note lack of rhyme in this block of text. B: A little interjection with a Direct Intervention. A: And now it is none. <--- Note rhyme with previous utterance. I cannot see that A has done anything that breaks the text of Madness of the Bard. You appear to have got it into your head that a player must complete his rhyming (whatever that might be) before his opponent interjects. This is clearly not supported by card text. >The only complicated >thing in shyming is to make the sentence fluid and elegant. Even if the >rhyme is poor in itself, if you say it with majesty, it's a rhyme. Would you care to define how a judge can guess at what "with majesty" means? >-but maybe you are going to say that, then, the game will be closed to >people who have throat cancer, and thus invent a new argument out of >nowhere... I don't know if it's actually possible to have a discussion with >you =) Reyda. Look. You're claiming something that isn't supported by *anything* on the card text. You're promoting this as though it's somehow relevant to anything. You then fail to respond to many of the criticisms raised with your position. If you want a discussion, you have to actually make some effort. Repeating an interpretation of non-existent card text when there is no card text to support your position doesn't make for a discussion. Which part of Madness of the Bard suggests you can use non-rhyming sentences or poor rhymes but say them "with majesty"? >> For added fun, consider "one" and "done" as half rhymes - have you >> decided if half rhymes count as rhymes? In some accents, they're pretty >> close rhymes too. > >THEN FEEL FREE TO USE IT ! if it's rhyming in your mouth and with your >accent, then it's a rhyme. But you've said the player was cheating. Since he's just rhymed and was, as you say, "free to use it", you've contradicted your own position. He rhymed. You claim he cheated. Now you claim it was a rhyme he was free to use. Erm? >Nobody would be picky on that if the rhyme is not 100% accurate as long as >the sound is ok. Why not? Getting it wrong can cause you to lose the game. Players will (quite rightly) ask that you play by the rules and not use Parity Shift when you're on the same pool. Why would players not want a level of consistency when losing pool with Madness of the Bard? It can lose them games (or win them games) if they can get the relevant people to burn pool. >> One of my maths teachers had a sufficiently weird >> accent that "one" was always pronounced as very similar to "won", and >> hence rhymed with "done". Have you considered the effect of accent and >> dialect? > >Yes, and they are perfectly acceptable, even if the player imitates the said >dialect for fun. >Who would say the opposite ? Certainly, in the past, rhyming dictionaries have been suggested. (You would be wise to re-read past threads on such matters.) These fail to take into account accents other than the ones they prescribe. Additionally, if there is some arbitrary cut-off point between a half- rhyme and a non-rhyme (or a true rhyme and a half rhyme), you're going to need to be able to define where these end, or that player over there burns a pool and that player on the other table doesn't. And in a competitive tournament environment, if it's a difference between my getting a game win and my getting 2 VPs and no game win, why the hell wouldn't I want a player to lose pool for something I think is extremely dubious? >> Also, bear in mind this entire discussion as an object lesson in why >> Madness of the Bard is ludicrously impossible to enforce. You start >> inventing new restrictions out of thin air which are not supported by >> card text. You also start to suggest that people are liars, for no >> apparent reason other than your own imaginings of what you think card >> text might be saying when it, in fact, doesn't support any of your >> imaginings. > >Oh my ! >you are so wonderful when you say stuff like that =) >i should print that and frame it ! Your position is based on entirely invented interpretations of card text, though, and using it as though your interpretation is somehow absolutely right. The point is that the card text doesn't support your position. It doesn't define rhyming. It doesn't define when you have to rhyme. It doesn't define "with majesty". Yet for whatever reason you continue to maintain a position which is entirely unsupported by the card. Why, exactly, do you expect people to not get frustrated when you maintain things that aren't supported or supportable? [ quoted text not captured ]

Can you point out a sentence that doesn't rhyme out of itself? Any similarities, no matter how convoluted, between words in a setence, or between words of multiple sentences, can be considered rhymes. Even rythym of words is a form of rhyme. So when you pronounce a set of words, with no similarities, madness will cost you pool. Good luck on trying. -Bram Vink

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> a écrit dans le message de news:E+9Chc$DiTi...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > >Isn't that > >cheating ? > > As Derek has pointed out (and as I mentioned myself), certain accents > have "one" and "done" down as rhymes. The player did, in fact, rhyme > their sentences. I don't see how a player rhyming his sentences would > be cheating, re: Madness of the Bard. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FROM MY PREVIOUS TEXT. please stop misquoting other contributors to serve your mischevious plans. if you mad it by mistake then correct the following : > > But you've said the player was cheating. I said a player who plays a certain card, then wait for a block attempt to play a seduction is cheating. I suggested that a player who cannot say a rhyming sentence, who is waiting with his mouth open and says " i didn't fish " when someone tells him he forgot to rhyme is cheating > Since he's just rhymed and was, as you say, "free to use it", you've > contradicted your own position. He rhymed. You claim he cheated. Now > you claim it was a rhyme he was free to use. Erm? I never contradicted anything. When you will have learned the fine art of quote TM, you can correct your post and post it again. thank you.

In message <41898d02$0$25174$79c1...@nan-newsreader-07.noos.net>, Reyda <true_...@hotmail.com> writes: > >"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> a écrit dans le message de >news:E+9Chc$DiTi...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > > >> >Isn't that >> >cheating ? >> >> As Derek has pointed out (and as I mentioned myself), certain accents >> have "one" and "done" down as rhymes. The player did, in fact, rhyme >> their sentences. I don't see how a player rhyming his sentences would >> be cheating, re: Madness of the Bard. > >THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FROM MY PREVIOUS TEXT. >please stop misquoting other contributors to serve your mischevious plans. There is a difference between misquoting and accurately quoting, mis- interpreting and/or following up to quoted text with things with a given person thinks is relevant but which may have been better placed elsewhere (in some people's view), and people going off on different tangents and so on. Since "Isn't that cheating ?" is a direct quote from your previous post, it is not being "misquoted" - though you may feel I mis-interpreted it. It is worth bearing in mind before anyone posts anything on the Internet that it *will* be mis-interpreted by EVERYONE, worst case scenario. You were claiming that the player was cheating by leaving pauses, per a parallel with a player leaving pauses so that someone else intervenes with new information about their hand and/or position and/or whatever. I was pointing out that simply leaving pauses isn't necessarily cheating (since another player can simply ask you a question) and that, per Madness of the Bard, there is nothing stopping you saying "I bleed for one" and then having a rhyme with the next thing you say *after* someone else has intervened. Further, the entire section below the quote (several paragraphs) included my thoughts on the cheating of the player (he rhymed, so how could he?) and the parallel with the exploitation of timing sequences with fishing for information (which as I said, I feel is a very different thing). That's why it was *all* under that particular quote - it was all relevant to my thought about how that was cheating and how/why I didn't feel it was a useful parallel to Madness of the Bard. Some of it responded to the parallel I thought you were drawing, and some of it responded to the specific example in the first place. So I fail to see why you're jumping up and down saying that I misquoted you when, frankly, I didn't. >> But you've said the player was cheating. > >I said a player who plays a certain card, then wait for a block attempt to >play a seduction is cheating. And were using it as a parallel for a player pausing to think of a rhyme. Additionally, you still haven't supported the position *in any way* that a player cannot go: A: One line. B: <whatever> C: <whatever> D: <whatever> ... A: One line that rhymes with his first line. Which is nothing to do with having your "mouth open". >I suggested that a player who cannot say a rhyming sentence, who is waiting >with his mouth open and says " i didn't fish " when someone tells him he >forgot to rhyme is cheating You entirely fail to support this with card text. His next sentence rhymed with the first (in some accents, dialects etc.). Saying "I bleed you for one" is entirely legitimate. Perhaps he's waiting for responses to his declaration from Methuselah B. Why isn't it Methuselah B that is cheating by leaving a huge pause instead of waiting with his "mouth open"? "I wasn't done" could very, very easily be "I wasn't done <finishing my rhyme>" rather than "I wasn't done <finishing my play>" - he's done so now, so he hasn't cheated re: Madness of the Bard. He was waiting for B to respond, and has rhymed. And nothing *anywhere* says you have to finish rhymes in a couplet or limerick type fashion before another player says anything. Certainly, I've seen at many, many games a player say "Dimple bleeds you one" and the opponent respond normally with "Any modifiers?" or ask cross-table if anyone can do anything if he bounces to them (hoping to get someone to beat up a vampire if he blocks it) or say "Hmmm, I think I'll try to block with..." and then select a vampire or throw down a bounce card to his prey or all sorts of other plays. None of which require >> Since he's just rhymed and was, as you say, "free to use it", you've >> contradicted your own position. He rhymed. You claim he cheated. Now >> you claim it was a rhyme he was free to use. Erm? > >I never contradicted anything. > >When you will have learned the fine art of quote TM, you can correct your >post and post it again. Well, you've provided absolutely no support for the idea that he was cheating by leaving pauses. He could be waiting for B to respond. This is perfectly legitimate play. You've provided absolutely no support that he had to finish his rhyme before B could say anything. I fail to see any way in which he's cheated, per the text of Madness of the Bard. However, there are two things you need to learn. One is the difference between misquoting and you not being happy with the way someone understands something (this is why people *do* quote, so people can see where mis-understandings come from), you misunderstanding why someone has quoted something and feels their response is appropriate. Yelling "MISQUOTE" at things which *aren't* misquotes is, frankly, likely to get you about as far as bursting into tears and banging your fists on the table. Here, have a lolly. The second thing you need to learn is that when you are attempting to assert how cards work, you need to base this in fact. You are *entirely* failing to provide any rules based or card based support for your position, yet continuing to maintain that it is right. Perhaps when you have learned the fine art of not behaving like a petulant child, you will be able to come back? [ quoted text not captured ]

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> a écrit dans le message de news:ONSwdPE8...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > Yelling > "MISQUOTE" at things which *aren't* misquotes is, frankly, likely to get > you about as far as bursting into tears and banging your fists on the > table. Here, have a lolly First, this *is* misquote, really. At least admit it. Second, It's not the first time you use the method. Tweaking your interlocutor's text is very bad in my book. > The second thing you need to learn is that when you are attempting to > assert how cards work, you need to base this in fact. You are > *entirely* failing to provide any rules based or card based support for > your position, yet continuing to maintain that it is right. yes, you know my brain may not function very well after all, i read many strange things those days. I try to talk with people, but they use strange demonstration to tell me that something that does not rhyme is still a rhyme, or that talking after several other peoples talk to finish a rhyme is okay because the card does not say the opposite. I just want to know why it's not possible to determine what is rhyming. you always come up with silly things, which after all is quite on topic since we're talking about Madness of the Bard. Or trying to talk about it. > Perhaps when you have learned the fine art of not behaving like a > petulant child, you will be able to come back? I love this kind of conversation. You misquote, i warn you that is not a way to continue a conversation, and now i'm the stupid and childish guy. Great ! In the future i will ask you not to answer my posts and then we'll both be pleased.

"Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:418a9ee0$0$14629$79c1...@nan-newsreader-05.noos.net... > > "James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> a écrit dans le message de > news:ONSwdPE8...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... >> The second thing you need to learn is that when you are attempting to >> assert how cards work, you need to base this in fact. You are >> *entirely* failing to provide any rules based or card based support for >> your position, yet continuing to maintain that it is right. > > yes, you know my brain may not function very well after all, i read many > strange things those days. > I try to talk with people, but they use strange demonstration to tell me > that something that does not rhyme is still a rhyme, or that talking after > several other peoples talk to finish a rhyme is okay because the card does > not say the opposite. I just want to know why it's not possible to > determine > what is rhyming. you always come up with silly things, which after all is > quite on topic since we're talking about Madness of the Bard. Or trying to > talk about it. > His 'silly things' are, quite simply, legitimate and accepted forms of rhyme. Sorry Reyda, but rhyme is in no way as clearly defined as, say, Haiku... Hence, its not a grounds for a card function in competitive play. The card is rightly banned.... DaveZ Atom Weaver

"David Zopf" <david...@snet.net> a écrit dans le message de news:xLLid.20308$NK.1...@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com... [ quoted text not captured ] I'll continue the discussion with you instead =) when judging for deals, we admit that the referee has what we will call "common sense" that may help him judge if a deal is good or not, if there is a hint of collusion and so on. why can't we assume that players have the same "common sense" that may help them judge if someone is rhyming or not ? Is rhyming clearly definite in the rulebook ? of course not ! but why the need for so much legislation for something we can just hear with the ears that momma gave ya ? =) I see here some people who only treat "card support" and "clearly defined by rules" as god's spoken words, and have no interest in the rest. But is it possible to use the cards between gentlemen, knowing that people who miss a rhyme will not whine and take the pool loss like a man ? I mean, this game is for a mature audience, and one can expect from a mature audience something better than "oh i wanted to rhyme but i didn't finish, you know, i'm using a pause as the rule allow me" or "my rhyme pattern is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789,.;:?"'/()[]{}`~!@#$%^&*[...ad inifintum]" You may of course think I'm trolling, but if you have a simple explanation i'll gladly take it, thank you for your patience. =)

"Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:418bccf8$0$31406$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net... > when judging for deals, we admit that the referee has what we will call > "common sense" that may help him judge if a deal is good or not, if there is > a hint of collusion and so on. Good so far. > why can't we assume that players have the same "common sense" that may help > them judge if someone is rhyming or not ? Is rhyming clearly definite in the > rulebook ? of course not ! That's the point, yes. > but why the need for so much legislation for something we can just hear with > the ears that momma gave ya ? =) Because, for instance, the examples given that you claim don't rhyme clearly do -- they aren't the ones that have to fall back on judgment. "One" and "done" rhyme, even with a great pause between them (at least in American English, which is the setting assumed in the examples). "One" and "One" rhyme in any language. "Fnord" rhymes with "Fnord" in any language. So the result, as stated, is that the card has no effect -- players simply rhyme all the time. > I see here some people who only treat "card support" and "clearly defined by > rules" as god's spoken words, and have no interest in the rest. But is it > possible to use the cards between gentlemen, knowing that people who miss a > rhyme will not whine and take the pool loss like a man ? I mean, this game > is for a mature audience, and one can expect from a mature audience > something better than "oh i wanted to rhyme but i didn't finish, you know, > i'm using a pause as the rule allow me" or "my rhyme pattern is > ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789,.;:?"'/()[]{}`~!@#$%^&*[...ad > inifintum]" You are adding arbitrary errata, not judgement, to the definition of "rhyme". The examples are examples of rhyme in an absolute sense. Once you add your arbitrary errata banning pauses and banning rhyming patterns longer than N, then the "mature" players will simply acknowledge the new environment and say "Fnord" at the end of every sentence (or some other equally "clever" rhyme). And so you can throw more errata at it. And the players, clever as they are, come up with other simple "dodges" for rhymes. And your errata trail gets longer as it chases them. And for what? For the goal of playing in silence, maybe? I don't know. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. V:TES homepage: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Though effective, appear to be ineffective -- Sun Tzu

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Reyda wrote: > I see here some people who only treat "card support" and "clearly defined by > rules" as god's spoken words, and have no interest in the rest. But is it > possible to use the cards between gentlemen, knowing that people who miss a > rhyme will not whine and take the pool loss like a man ? I mean, this game > is for a mature audience, and one can expect from a mature audience > something better than "oh i wanted to rhyme but i didn't finish, you know, > i'm using a pause as the rule allow me" or "my rhyme pattern is > ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789,.;:?"'/()[]{}`~!@#$%^&*[...ad > inifintum]" If you feel that way about it, I'm surprised you aren't opposed to the idea of judges in general. It is certainly possible for two people to legitimately disagree over what constitutes a rhyme without either of them being disingenuous in any way, just as it is possible for two people to disagree over a rule or the best way to correct the game state after an error. Consider that some languages are easier to rhyme in than others. Consider that some players have difficulty with English or whatever the local language is. Would you really want some players to take the extra few minutes considering each sentence to make sure they rhyme correctly? The card is inappropriate for competative play, but if you like it, why not have an unsanctioned tournament that allows (or requires) it? For that matter, you could make up new cards that require players to dance, sing and juggle as they take their turns. Better yet, how about a card that requires players to jump motorcyles through rings of fire? Now that would be exciting! :) Matt Morgan

"Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:418bccf8$0$31406$79c1...@nan-newsreader-06.noos.net... > > "David Zopf" <david...@snet.net> a écrit dans le message de > news:xLLid.20308$NK.1...@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com... >> >> His 'silly things' are, quite simply, legitimate and accepted forms of >> rhyme. Sorry Reyda, but rhyme is in no way as clearly defined as, say, >> Haiku... Hence, its not a grounds for a card function in competitive > play. >> The card is rightly banned.... >> >> DaveZ >> Atom Weaver > > I'll continue the discussion with you instead =) Keep it brief. I'm barely interested at this point... ;-) > when judging for deals, we admit that the referee has what we will call > "common sense" that may help him judge if a deal is good or not, if there > is > a hint of collusion and so on. > Its one of a judge's tools, yes. > why can't we assume that players have the same "common sense" that may > help > them judge if someone is rhyming or not ? Is rhyming clearly definite in > the > rulebook ? of course not ! Judge's guidelines and LSJ's continued work trying to get aspiring judges to understand proper application of the rules surrounding deals vastly narrows the scope of what can be construed as a viable deal (despite various Judge's reluctance to implement these restrictions). No such additional body of restrictions are present for Madness of the Bard, nor would I choose to participate in a TCG which sought to impose such for the purpose of making a single card functional. There is a question of what the additional benefit that such guidelines would bring to the game, which you have left unanswered (and/or unasked). In this case, regardless of how much additional legislation you would choose to bring, the benefit would only ever rise to the level of making ONE CARD functional, and even _that_ is a debatable result (cf. LSJ's post). Its hardly worth the words you and Coupe have put into this thread, nevermind the uselessness of seeking such prodigous changes made to the tournament rules set... > but why the need for so much legislation for something we can just hear > with > the ears that momma gave ya ? =) > Judging rhyme is no where near so straightforward as this implies. The broad scope of rhyme which Coupe has layed out for you is an accurate portrayal of most of the things which fall properly under the term 'to rhyme'. He hasn't even mentioned that alliteration and internal rhymes are also considred forms of rhyme... Its staggering that you cannot perceive that all of this would need to be somehow legislated by the Judge for implementation in tournaments. Judges need less involvement in toruament play, not more. Whats more, what improvement, exactly, would this bring to VTES? (thats part of the standard for rules changes) IMO, the answer is nothing. It wouldn't improve VTES in any significant way at all. > I see here some people who only treat "card support" and "clearly defined > by > rules" as god's spoken words, and have no interest in the rest. But is it > possible to use the cards between gentlemen, knowing that people who miss > a > rhyme will not whine and take the pool loss like a man ? I mean, this game > is for a mature audience, and one can expect from a mature audience > something better than "oh i wanted to rhyme but i didn't finish, you know, > i'm using a pause as the rule allow me" or "my rhyme pattern is > ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789,.;:?"'/()[]{}`~!@#$%^&*[...ad > inifintum]" > You may of course think I'm trolling, but if you have a simple explanation > i'll gladly take it, thank you for your patience. =) The simple explanation is that, despite your assertions to the contrary, the rules volume for proper implementation of rhyming in tournament play( for the purpose of including Madness of the Bard) is larger than what that card's contribution to VTES is worth. Alles klar? DaveZ Atom Weaver

"Matthew T. Morgan" <far...@io.com> a écrit dans le message de news:Pine.LNX.4.44.041105...@fnord.io.com... > On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Reyda wrote: > > > > I see here some people who only treat "card support" and "clearly defined by > > rules" as god's spoken words, and have no interest in the rest. But is it > > possible to use the cards between gentlemen, knowing that people who miss a > > rhyme will not whine and take the pool loss like a man ? I mean, this game > > is for a mature audience, and one can expect from a mature audience > > something better than "oh i wanted to rhyme but i didn't finish, you know, > > i'm using a pause as the rule allow me" or "my rhyme pattern is > > ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789,.;:?"'/()[]{}`~!@#$%^&*[...ad > > inifintum]" > > If you feel that way about it, I'm surprised you aren't opposed to the > idea of judges in general. there is a hint of truth here =) (snip most interesting and tempered post so far !)

Frederick Scott wrote: > > > Well, it sure looks to me that you're making this assertion. Perhaps in > kind of backhanded way, with some equivocations - but taking lack of > location hosers as evidence for lack of a problem with Succubus Club isn't > supported either. I'm saying you can take no evidence whatsoever from the > lack of location hosers in a metagame. I'll take some observations though. Some players got whacked by a location they don't like several times and aren't adding location hosers to counter it. Someone goes out in the rain a few times and maybe next time they'll think to bring an umbrella. Or in this case, maybe just get wet again. In NYC we just smack down whatever gets popular. Majesty was all the rage here until everyone started adding Immortal Grapple. Then everyone started having manuevers to negate the Immortal Grapples, then Drawing Out the Beast came to stop people from manuevering away and so on. Adjust! That's one of the things that makes this game great! :D And that it's a perfectly valid > argument that lack of location hosers in a metagame is part of the problem, > not the self-contradiction I saw you suggest in one message a while ago. > In this case, the implication would be that the location hosers that exist > aren't good enough to be worth packing. (To emphasize, I'm saying this is > how the argument WOULD go. I'm not really saying I agree or disagree - just > that it isn't self-contradictory.) For what it's worth, Arson, Rampage, Unnatural Disaster (a favorite of mine btw) and the like aren't the only option. There are many ways to head off that whole spite silliness. Any buddy-buddy dealmaking nonsense that gets out of hand usually falls apart if you Kindred Restructure or Dramatic Upheaval. Temptation of Greater Power could get a great minion out of their hands so they have one less awesome minion to trade. A well timed Kine Dominance can leave one of the two cohorts stuck with next to nothing (assuming they're doing the whole "you get everything then I get everything" deal). Or just contest it, Life Boon the guy doing the giveaway, etc. My point is there are many ways to take this down before the game hits the time when a spite giveaway makes sense, if it really is popular enough in your (the reader's) group or area to make so much ruckus about it. Anyway, none of this would matter if you'd all just play more combat like we do j/k ;) > > Fred > >

""Anti" Ray" <dont.bo...@myaddress.com> wrote in message news:v_Wdncfgb66...@i-2000.com... > Frederick Scott wrote: >> Well, it sure looks to me that you're making this assertion. Perhaps in >> kind of backhanded way, with some equivocations - but taking lack of >> location hosers as evidence for lack of a problem with Succubus Club isn't >> supported either. I'm saying you can take no evidence whatsoever from the >> lack of location hosers in a metagame. > > I'll take some observations though. Some players got whacked by a location they don't like several times and aren't adding > location hosers to counter it. Someone goes out in the rain a few times and maybe next time they'll think to bring an umbrella. Or > in this case, maybe just get wet again. Well, it depends on how it happens. You're positing this dichotomy where the situation is either, "I got bowled over by Succubus Club so many times I'd do better by packing Arsons to burn them down." or "I'm not getting badly enough affected by Succubus to ever worry about it." The truth may be somewhere in between. And the hoser card you play may not hose it enough to be an answer in any case to worry about it. If Succubus Club is the problem, the best answer may well be to pack your own Succubus Club so you can use it for the same advantages if your opponents don't play them and to have the option to contest their's if they do. A card you're afraid of that inspires you play another copy of the same card _definitely_ has the potential to be overpowered. (Whether this statement applies to Succubus Club or not is and whether it _is_ in fact overpowered if the statement applies are both acknowledged as diputable.) > In NYC we just smack down whatever gets popular. Yup. That's usually the intelligent thing to do if you can gain a definite advantage by using a hoser card (or a hoser deck type) when you'll encounter a thing predictably enough. I'm just saying that such satisfactory hoser don't necessarily exist. Especially if the issue is only _one_ particular location that exists when the location hoser cards are not that strong because it was assumed they're more general. That is, things like Arson are assumed to stop a number of different locations, like Hunting Grounds. So it players in your area don't use many locations but they do use an above average number of Succubus Clubs, Arson isn't as good a hoser as it was designed to be. > For what it's worth, Arson, Rampage, Unnatural Disaster (a favorite of mine btw) and the like aren't the only option. There are > many ways to head off that whole spite silliness. Any buddy-buddy dealmaking nonsense that gets out of hand usually falls apart if > you Kindred Restructure or Dramatic Upheaval. Temptation of Greater Power could get a great minion out of their hands so they have > one less awesome minion to trade. A well timed Kine Dominance can leave one of the two cohorts stuck with next to nothing > (assuming they're doing the whole "you get everything then I get everything" deal). Or just contest it, Life Boon the guy doing > the giveaway, etc. My point is there are many ways to take this down before the game hits the time when a spite giveaway makes > sense, if it really is popular enough in your (the reader's) group or area to make so much ruckus about it. Yea, agreed. Someone will else will have to argue with you about that as I was never that convinced about the whole Succubus Club problem, myself. But there's lots of messages here from other guys you can go back and read and respond to if you want to work that issue. Fred