Timeouting as increasing trend

For my personal experience it seems like that games nowadays tend to timeout more than before. There could be few reasons for that: 1) The level and skills of the average player have risen and due that the vigilance for recognizing an oust have increased. The level of gaming has grown better and more complicated. 2) Game development by cards like Villein and Ashur Tablets have lenghtened gaming time by providing more careful allocation of pool and more options to bloat. 3) Increased variety of cards have created more complex game as a whole. Do you agree?

No, it does not seem like this to me. Judging from my own experience it seems to have been around the same amount of games going to timeout since I started playing a few years ago. There are of course some variation like the tournament where everyone randomly happens to bring walls decks, but overall no. There was also a study made some time ago, based mainly on the data from the 2010 EC I think, that showed no indication of more timeouts. But it was of course far from complete. 1) No, in general I have the feeling games take more time with inexperienced players. If an experienced player is holding the game up he is more likely doing it intentionally. 2) Yes, I agree, better bloat and more card shuffling probably has some effect. 3) Yes, but this does not necessarily make the games last longer.. however it does make deckbuilding last longer Overall I think local meta has had more impact on game time the last few years.

> Oskar wrote: > 1) No, in general I have the feeling games take more time with inexperienced players. > Yes. Imbued played by or against multiple semi-experienced or inexperienced player(s) deserve special mention in this category imho. totally horrible experience last tournament. everyone: break the code! of course, inexperience can also cause tables to be swept in no time in some cases as a single mistake against an Una or weenie-dementation deck can prove fatal for all.

You should think also what kind of your metagame is. I guess Finland can be a violent place for vampires and that kind of play makes games go longer. Combat just controls the minions and doesn't necessary make game go forward. Table with lot of combat decks will resolve very rarely.

Oskar: The analysis of 2009 - 2011 ECs indicate that there were indeed more timeouts in Poland in 2011. Whether it's significant difference is a separate matter. Extrala has the numbers somewhere on hisw ebsite.

> Whether it's significant difference is a separate matter. > > Extrala has the numbers somewhere on hisw ebsite. > They're here: extrala.blogspot.com/2011/11/ec-gamewin-timeout-statistics.html Some ballpark and fairly simply math (that I did in the comments) shows that there is no significant increase in time-outs since 2009, and not even a upwards trend. I ran the numbers in SPSS for a more thorough analysis, but unsurprisingly the results weren't different. Unlike Juggernaut claims in one of his comments to that Blog, 2-3% differences are not significant in any accepted statistical model, even if the sample size is only 200-300. On the side, 200-300 is by quite a large margin a large enough sample size for this specific analysis, because the chance of a table actually timing is fairly high (it's over 30%). That said, I think (but that's just a hunch) high-stakes games (such as finals or some third-round games) have a tendancy of timing more often, because some people at the table benefit from it timing. My gut feeling says that finals time more often than they used to do (but I'm just guessing), but I wouldn't attribute this to anything but the rule changes that disallowed table splits. Would be interesting to collect data on that, actually.

FWIW: www.vekn.net/index.php/forum/9-event-reports-and-twd/7361 Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

Based on empiric experience I'd be inclined to agree with Mika. Am not sure what has caused the increase though. Prime candidates could be Villein & Lilith's Blessing? Finnish Politics!

a tear in the time-space continuum has caused all clocks to run slightly faster than before

I agree with mika, too. I am not very fond of blaming Villein & Lilith's Blessing "alone" and "by default" (but, of course, these cards have a significant impact on the game). Nowadays, it seems to be easier to have a "good" deck, plus more players have a better knowlegde of the game (but since I started playing 2007, I cannot recall "old times"). And maybe the level of "awareness" of what is going on during the game has risen. National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

If players and decks are better, and players have a better knowledge and awareness of the game, they should be PLAYING BETTER and not letting games time out. How they can make games not time out has been discussed at length before so I will not repeat it here. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> Lönkka wrote: > Am not sure what has caused the increase though. > Prime candidates could be Villein & Lilith's Blessing? > Most likely, it is Villein being a prime contributor. A couple of years ago (say, before HttB starters), Villein was more scarce. More people were playing small minions with more Blood Doll / Vessel at that time. The "big cap metagame" wasn't as universal. These "horizontal" pool management cards can't convert blood at the same rate that Villein does in today's game. Blood Doll on a 5 cap might might net 4 pool from 4 blood over 4 turns, Vessel nets 3 pool from 4 blood over 5 turns the same minion. So minions influenced at turn 5 might still be "hanging onto" a large part of the initial investment that you want in your pool, right up to the point where you get ousted in turn 8-9. Contrast that to everyone and their brothers playing Villein and netting all the recursion that intend to receive from that minion in a single turn. In effect, we're both having to bleed though more recurred pool, and facing more emergency blood conversion than was ever seen before Villein. Then multiply the blood conversion by however many times you get minions partially refilled (true gain after exceeding the minions capacity in pool return). All in a single turn, instead of trickling it too little too late with Vessel. Lilith's Blessing might contribute by allowing deeper Villeins, but there are plenty of other ways to get from 1 blood to 3 (or full) quickly, so it really only amounts to a few pool in the overall scheme and only if its drawn early in the game. Honestly, I don't like LB, but its not really the problem actor in this situation. > KevinM wrote: > If players and decks are better, and players have a better knowledge and awareness of the game, they should be PLAYING BETTER and not letting games time out. > As for players playing better or building better decks, bleed offense hasn't scaled up. Ever. There are more options, but the the gold standard for scale is still 1994's Govern+Conditioning. Pool recursion has improved since 1994. Simple mathematics suggest a net longer time-to-oust. Of course, this isn't meant to suggest everyone should just play Malk '94 or Vignes Tap-n-Bleed.

> TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote: > > > KevinM wrote: > > If players and decks are better, and players have a better knowledge and awareness of the game, they should be PLAYING BETTER and not letting games time out. > > > As for players playing better or building better decks, bleed offense hasn't scaled up. Ever. There are more options, but the the gold standard for scale is still 1994's Govern+Conditioning. Pool recursion has improved since 1994. Simple mathematics suggest a net longer time-to-oust. > > Of course, this isn't meant to suggest everyone should just play Malk '94 or Vignes Tap-n-Bleed. > Derail! Shouldn't everyone play Vignes or Malk '94? If not, what should they play?

> TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote: > > > KevinM wrote: > > If players and decks are better, and players have a better knowledge and awareness of the game, they should be PLAYING BETTER and not letting games time out. > > > As for players playing better or building better decks, bleed offense hasn't scaled up. Ever. There are more options, but the the gold standard for scale is still 1994's Govern+Conditioning. Pool recursion has improved since 1994. Simple mathematics suggest a net longer time-to-oust. > Since the days of Malk94 we have added Revolutionary Council and Reckless Agitation as well as Palla Grande, Week of Nightmares and and Club Illusion to just name a few. There's no problem with offense. There are two reasons games time out. One is that you get the wrong combination of decks. !Ventrue stickmen can do just fine until you put them next to two other wall decks. Now is there any way that game won't time out? The other is players not thinking about how to end the table. Ancient Influence? Oh boy 5 pool. Somebody getting ousted? Must stop that! Now if I lunge I might get my prey, but I might not and if I fail I'm ousted for sure so it's best to just sit here and get my .5. So vote down the table bloat vote, let the dead weight die and always go for the VP. Last year's NAC final took under an hour.

> TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote: > > > KevinM wrote: > > If players and decks are better, and players have a better knowledge and awareness of the game, they should be PLAYING BETTER and not letting games time out. > > > As for players playing better or building better decks, bleed offense hasn't scaled up. Ever. There are more options, but the the gold standard for scale is still 1994's Govern+Conditioning. Pool recursion has improved since 1994. Simple mathematics suggest a net longer time-to-oust. > No, but they could freaking play Sudden Reversal. Seriously, someone should start a new thread about how Villein is more powerful than it should be due to it being a "must play" master card, thereby taking space away from Sudden Reversal, the card that could stop it. I think that the dearth of Sudden Reversal, more than any other factor, has allowed decks that rely on Villein to become very powerful. But what can be done? Not playing Villein in favor of Sudden Reversal, in order to stop others' Villein'ing means that you yourself don't get the power of Villein. Oh, what a devil's choice! Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> KevinM wrote: > > > TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote: > > But what can be done? Not playing Villein in favor of Sudden Reversal, in order to stop others' Villein'ing means that you yourself don't get the power of Villein. Oh, what a devil's choice! > > > Yeah, but I'd fancy playing other masters myself as well. Like, a path for my Ravnos from time to time, or a Pentex, or bloat a wee bit myself if there's a stealth+bleed behind me. And I can assure you those guys do play Suddens... > > If the best strategy against Villein is to play cards only to cancel it (and other masters, granted), I'd say it shuts down a lot variety from the game. > > Villein's strong as hell. You can't really argue that. Of course there are ways to deal with it, but there's a way to deal with anything in this game. The question is if it's really in the spirit of the rest of the game or not, and does it add to or substract from the verstaility and interactivity of the game. > > I'll be leaning towards multiple Suddens myself (or washs), but I'm not really sure if that's what I'd like to see happening in the game. > "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

When people find themselves pushed towards bounce or bloat -- or god forbid, both -- eventually that arms race will have a final result. Perhaps it's time to democratize bounce and other aggression redirecting reactions (like a switch up "Major Boon" that works partially on vote damage), instead of encouraging either bounce graft or shoring up. More reactions that judo deflect aggression, please! (That isn't to say there's several cards, namely masters, that seem to be encouraging this trend...)

Well, I for one would like to have not redirection democratized, but something as useful as redirection for (more or less) every clan. I don't know, being unbleedable for a turn with conditions disallowing doing it every turn, or any other more balanced way to deal with predator without hurting him nor using too much action.

> KevinM wrote: > If players and decks are better, and players have a better knowledge and awareness of the game, they should be PLAYING BETTER and not letting games time out. > Nohing personal, but you as well as other people seem to think that a timeout is a bad thing (since you state that if they were playing better, games wouldn't time out). Why? Many tables with excellent players will time out because they neutralize each other. The best player will try to maximize his points anyway. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

The game wasn't designed to time out it was designed for people to die!

In my experience tables that finish in timeouts are usually the ones with wall deck(s). If there is more than one on the table it's almost always a case. If there is any increase in timeouts (which I doubt) I would blame Eyes of Argus not Villein + Lilith blessing

> Ankha wrote: > Nohing personal, but you as well as other people seem to think that a timeout is a bad thing (since you state that if they were playing better, games wouldn't time out). Why? > > Many tables with excellent players will time out because they neutralize each other. The best player will try to maximize his points anyway. > Timeouts are bad things and I don't mean for vtesdom at large so much as for the players who are denied the opportunity to take the table. Excellent players they may be, but they aren't playing their best when the table goes to time. The only time you want to go to time is if that's the only way to get the win.

> Squidalot wrote: > The game wasn't designed to time out it was designed for people to die! > The game wasn't designed with a time limit.

> vtesocrates wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > Nohing personal, but you as well as other people seem to think that a timeout is a bad thing (since you state that if they were playing better, games wouldn't time out). Why? > > > > Many tables with excellent players will time out because they neutralize each other. The best player will try to maximize his points anyway. > > > Timeouts are bad things > Why? You give no argument. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > vtesocrates wrote: > > Timeouts are bad things > > > Why? You give no argument. > Because then you don't get sufficient game wins and VPs to make the final and win the tournament obviously. I didn't think it needed to be said.

> vtesocrates wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > > > > vtesocrates wrote: > > > Timeouts are bad things > > > > > Why? You give no argument. > > > Because then you don't get sufficient game wins and VPs to make the final and win the tournament obviously. I didn't think it needed to be said. > If there are more and more timeouts (which is the starting assumption of this thread), then it won't change anything for accessing the final because most tables will timeout (and players will score less points). The final threshold will be lower (and as much as hard to attain than today). If there are no more timeouts than before, this topic is moot. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > vtesocrates wrote: > > > > > Ankha wrote: > > > Nohing personal, but you as well as other people seem to think that a timeout is a bad thing (since you state that if they were playing better, games wouldn't time out). Why? > > > > > > Many tables with excellent players will time out because they neutralize each other. The best player will try to maximize his points anyway. > > > > > > > > Timeouts are bad things > > > Why? You give no argument. > Timeouts results in unfulfilling games. I like to play games to the end but a timeout just cuts the game short and leaves doubt as to how it would've played out had it reached it's conclusion. A bit like watching a movie three fourths of the way through or reading a book and stopping before the end.

> Lemminkäinen wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > > > > vtesocrates wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Ankha wrote: > > > > Nohing personal, but you as well as other people seem to think that a timeout is a bad thing (since you state that if they were playing better, games wouldn't time out). Why? > > > > > > > > Many tables with excellent players will time out because they neutralize each other. The best player will try to maximize his points anyway. > > > > > > > > > > > Timeouts are bad things > > > > > Why? You give no argument. > > > Timeouts results in unfulfilling games. I like to play games to the end but a timeout just cuts the game short and leaves doubt as to how it would've played out had it reached it's conclusion. A bit like watching a movie three fourths of the way through or reading a book and stopping before the end. > There were an experiment in France with a tournament with no time-limit during the final. It lasted something like 4 hours and a half. I'm not sure it's a better experience. Are you sure the trouble is a timeout? Wouldn't it be the fact that the game doesn't end fast enough (which is slightly different, thus my remark about the almost never-ending final above)? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> KevinM wrote: > I think that the dearth of Sudden Reversal, more than any other factor, has allowed decks that rely on Villein to become very powerful. > > But what can be done? Not playing Villein in favor of Sudden Reversal, in order to stop others' Villein'ing means that you yourself don't get the power of Villein. Oh, what a devil's choice! > Now, we're on the same page, brother. There is plenty of action denial (wall decks) these days. But not much Master denial. But it makes a kind of twisted sense. Part of it is rampant M-MPA - if you don't have a 1:1 correspondence between your cancellation and their blood conversion, there's no reason to pack cancellation. Library recursion compounds that problem, you don't even permanently strip the resource. I've experimented with Bleeding the Vine, but even a hanging "wash" effect is insufficient every time I get next to any M-MPA deck, running 50% Masters. Some is, as you say, opportunity cost of not even having that in-turn Master Phase, which might be not just your own Villein, but something deck-enabling. And I expect some is the current vogue of 70ish card decks - Enablers remain but Suddens get trimmed as the deck shrinks in overall size.

The biggest timesink is the players who go to any length to improve odds. Each phase must absolutely be carefully considered to be really over before moving to the next phase. Cards drawn from Heart of Nizchetus, Dreams of the Sphinx, Tablets and similar must be carefully considered one-by-one before finally finalizing. Each methuselah's ash heap must be scrutinized before any moderate to major decision can be made. Diplomacy is oh-so-important as well since you have a chance to escape any danger if you just manage to find the correct words to say - even if you have to lie. The threat of a timeout does not affect these players because speeding things up means they can make a critical mistake and they know a mistake can cost them the game. In tournaments, most people turn into this obnoxious creature.

> Chaitan wrote: > The biggest timesink is the players who go to any length to improve odds. > > Each phase must absolutely be carefully considered to be really over before moving to the next phase. Cards drawn from Heart of Nizchetus, Dreams of the Sphinx, Tablets and similar must be carefully considered one-by-one before finally finalizing. Each methuselah's ash heap must be scrutinized before any moderate to major decision can be made. Diplomacy is oh-so-important as well since you have a chance to escape any danger if you just manage to find the correct words to say - even if you have to lie. The threat of a timeout does not affect these players because speeding things up means they can make a critical mistake and they know a mistake can cost them the game. > > In tournaments, most people turn into this obnoxious creature. > Yes, some players play like this and some also want to discuss every card played. In my opinion this is not good play but rather a substitute for good play. The clock is your enemy as much as any player at the table. Quick and accurate play will always triumph.

> Non-existant user wrote: > > > Squidalot wrote: > > The game wasn't designed to time out it was designed for people to die! > > > The game wasn't designed with a time limit. > or a card limit but both the first tournament WOTC rules had both time and card limits in place and it seems like a reasonable assumption that those guys were close enough to Ricky G to make some none arbitrary rules. Anyway as my great friend vtesocrates says time is your enemy so play the game

> Ankha wrote: > > > KevinM wrote: > > If players and decks are better, and players have a better knowledge and awareness of the game, they should be PLAYING BETTER and not letting games time out. > > > Nothing personal, but you as well as other people seem to think that a timeout is a bad thing (since you state that if they were playing better, games wouldn't time out). Why? > Let me be more clear: Timeouts where the Game Win is lost, and nothing is gained by the table participants, is a bad thing. Sure, there are some scenarios where a timeout is a good thing. > Ankha wrote: > Many tables with excellent players will time out because they neutralize each other. > If players are playing to "neutralize each other" and they aren't predator/prey, then they are, generally, bad players, or less-good than they could be. > Ankha wrote: > The best player will try to maximize his points anyway. > Then tables shouldn't be timing out "as much as they are", should they? Certainly, Darby is correct, in that the metagame has shifted so that Villein is a (the?) prime reason for timeouts nowadays. But that's no reason for mentally-alert, psychologically-aware good players to lose focus from their prey. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> Ankha wrote: > If there are more and more timeouts (which is the starting assumption of this thread), then it won't change anything for accessing the final because most tables will timeout (and players will score less points). The final threshold will be lower (and as much as hard to attain than today). > What actually would happen is: The final threshold for players who do not focus on VPs and GWs will be lower (and as much as hard for those players to attain than today). Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> vtesocrates wrote: > Yes, some players play like this and some also want to discuss every card played. In my opinion this is not good play but rather a substitute for good play. The clock is your enemy as much as any player at the table. Quick and accurate play will always triumph. > There are also players who are just painfully slow. Not because they want to discuss everything or because they ponder every possible option. They are naturally slow. If given the choice of who I let die on the table, those players are often the preferred ones for me, even if slightly less good in terms of actual game state. One possible reason for the strongness of Villein and the (probably, not sure) increasing timeouts could also be the relative demise of Stealth&Bleed. A couple of cards (for example Eyes of Argus, Carlton, ..) have made S&B difficult , and those decks tend to avoid timeouts.

I used to take notes on game state but stopped a few years back. I am thinking of having a small dry-erase board with me. I would divided it up into sections for each player to keep track of things like: Number of votes Table actions available Standing intercept and maybe a few other things (stuff in ash heap when I have a way to get it). Basically game state info that I find I have to keep asking about and stuff I don't want to have to ask about. It would speed up my game by not having to keep asking and allow me to do a little more advanced planning. David Tatu V:EKN Scribe

A lot of good points in this thread. For five players, 2 hour time limit gives only 24 minutes of time per player (if divided equally). In tournaments, a lot of players seem to be content with timeouting instead of taking a risk with getting ousted. I suggest that if the game time-outs, the participants won't get half the victory point anymore. That could encourage more dynamic and faster gameplay since stalling and timeouting wouldn't advantageous. The game is called Eternal Sturggle but i wouldn't want to sit in table for two hours with no ousts...

Tournaments are slow already so adding time to especially preliminary rounds is a no-go. Besides a longer game changes the meta. In past we've sometimes used, IIRC, 2,5 hour time limit (or was it unlimited?) for the finals. Not being what you'd call a good player I unfortunately often tend to take too long to play my turn. I'm trying to improve but often there's too many choices... Finnish Politics!

It's fairly trivial to speed up your own game - start planning you turn the moment you end your own discard phase instead of when your predator ends his discard phase.

> Izaak wrote: > It's fairly trivial to speed up your own game - start planning you turn the moment you end your own discard phase instead of when your predator ends his discard phase. > Yes exactly. Your hand will not change much most of the time. You should have at least some idea what you want to accomplish on your next turn. Since most decks fit into archetypes, you can even plan your turn well before the tournament. This requires some flexible thinking, but you simply cannot count on having even 24 minutes to play. I would be happy enough with no VPs on timeouts, but I don't think that would fix the problem because then some players would play to deny VPs to others. I've seen that in tournaments. We get close to time and I go to oust my prey and somebody, who has no hope of gaining VPs and isn't going to be ousted, stops me because the oust will cost him 12 TPs (or whatever it is - I could care less). This is valid in a way, but that kind of thinking is very self-defeating. If you are playing for TPs, you have the wrong priority on multiple levels.

> Lönkka wrote: > Tournaments are slow already so adding time to especially preliminary rounds is a no-go. Besides a longer game changes the meta. > > In past we've sometimes used, IIRC, 2,5 hour time limit (or was it unlimited?) for the finals. > Last couple of tournaments we've played 2:15 for preliminaries and 2:30 for final. It somehow goes better than just 2 hours. NC Russia

> Squidalot wrote: > or a card limit but both the first tournament WOTC rules had both time and card limits in place and it seems like a reasonable assumption that those guys were close enough to Ricky G to make some none arbitrary rules. > Except that Richard Garfield has explicitly said that, after him, the WotC product guys made changes that: a) he didn't want, and b) he fought (in some cases - specifically, the free-for-all bleeding introduced by the weird-ass changes on the meaning of actions). www.vtesinla.org/articleGarfieldInterview.asp > > That wrote: > Goudie: Speaking of "only attacking your neighbor", I imagine you were still close enough to the game to see changes made via rulings or errata that went against your original vision. I mean, its understandable that few people will actually truly recognize all of the subtleties of your design choices but how do you, on a personal level, deal with negative changes to your games that occur after you have moved on to other projects? > > Garfield: I remember that in particular and I was in there fighting the changes! Typically though I let the people responsible for the product make the changes they think they need to make with my advice remaining advice, and not becoming commandments. This way they learn firsthand, and those lessons are always more powerful, and seldom is a mistake so bad it can't be undone later. Also, their attention is fully on the product and the players, so there is every chance they are making a sensible decision even though I don't appreciate it at first! > So it's not a reasonable assumption that the guys at WotC were close to him.

Not really sounds like they were close but just that he was a 'consultant'. Anyway as he sometimes forgets which game he designed when (has been known to state Netrunner in articles referring to VTES) anyway a more useful quote given what we're talking about is: Goudie: After looking at the finished product, is there anything you wish you did differently with Jyhad? Garfield: I have no specific changes, though if I could travel in time and redo the game I would think about ways to shorten it. I don't regret its length, because I believe the best information of the day indicated it was fine, and also because its players didn't mind much (in a lot of ways if you like a game then the longer the better!) I would definitely see if the epic quality of play could be maintained if it were shortened. If it couldn't - and it may not be - then I would leave it the same length. Other than that, mostly I would just make new cards. I have had a lot of practice since Jyhad in figuring out how to get a lot of variety out of a game system. Which I hope indicates he thought it shouldn't take all day to play

I was wondering if a random time limit wouldn't prevent players to play with the time-limit in head (though it can't prevent people from playing slowly anyway). Eg. the judge (can't be a player for obvious reasons) secretly roll 100 min + 1d30 minutes before the game starts, which apply to all tables. Maybe it would be worse, I don't know. Preventing players from having access to the time is also an option (though harder to enforce). Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > Preventing players from having access to the time is also an option (though harder to enforce). > Babylon 5 tried this - hidden clocks and/or hidden round lengths. The reports I hear are that it was pretty dumb. In many cases, a player doesn't need to know precisely that there are 4 minutes 30 seconds left or 8 minutes 45 seconds because they'll continue to play for a timeout anyway - and presumably aim for the higher value! It could have some positive benefits for the specific type of behaviour found in mutual withdrawal deals ("Quick, we have three minutes left, everyone discard a card each turn"), but that's mostly been addressed by things like the change to VPs for withdrawal. Also, on a practical level, random length rounds (such as 2 hours +/- 10 minutes, or whatever) has some knock-on effects for practical arrangements. Your round might end at 2 o' clock, or it might end at 2.20. The guy who's been ousted wants to know what time he needs to be back from the sandwich store.

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > Babylon 5 tried this - hidden clocks and/or hidden round lengths. The reports I hear are that it was pretty dumb. > Heh heh. Babylon 5, which was a very entertaining game with a lot of good things to recommend it until the wheels fell off with the last expansion which made the game really stupid, tried implementing some of the most insane tournament procedures you could possibly imagine like the hidden clocks with soccer timing (i.e. the game was 2 hours, +/- some random amount of time that no one but the judge knew what it was) and the "as soon as your game is over, you need to put a bag over your head and be escorted from the room" measures to attempt to prevent scouting of other decks (which is only being slightly exaggerated). Hilarious.

> Squidalot wrote: > Garfield: I have no specific changes, though if I could travel in time and redo the game I would think about ways to shorten it. I don't regret its length, because I believe the best information of the day indicated it was fine, and also because its players didn't mind much (in a lot of ways if you like a game then the longer the better!) I would definitely see if the epic quality of play could be maintained if it were shortened. If it couldn't - and it may not be - then I would leave it the same length. Other than that, mostly I would just make new cards. I have had a lot of practice since Jyhad in figuring out how to get a lot of variety out of a game system. > > Which I hope indicates he thought it shouldn't take all day to play > Sort of. Reads more to me like he thinks he could have created a slightly different game incorporating many of the same mechanics/themes and made it shorter. Which you can probably think of a dozen ways of doing - a different ratio between minion cost and pool total; more aggression; weaker/more expensive defence; built-in pool damage (e.g. perma-Antediluvian Awakening). Some such variants were suggested when V:TES was printed, which were mostly too overpowered / unbalancing, but the concept is fairly easy. If you read the WW book (which is currently at home), his initial playtesting involving him personally had games running at 20-40 minutes, but other people took longer. (Obviously, in early alpha testing, there are always issues with learning the rules, rapid rules changes, not having experienced people to learn off etc.) He also says, explicitly, that for a 5-7 player game, he's pretty content with that lasting a few hours, because similar games take comparable lengths of time. He makes no reference to tournament play, but tournaments at conventions for games like Diplomacy and Star Fleet Battles - both weighty and lengthy games - were not altogether unknown. The problem with time-outs, though, is somewhat separate to the concept of game length. In a two-player game, like Magic, a time-out is bad for me because I don't win. In a multi-player game set up like V:TES is (with points scored along the way, rather than last-man-standing), the game can time-out and I can win. That could potentially happen at 30 minutes game length or 2 hrs game length - except that a 5 player game expected to end in 30 minutes might be more brutal than a 2 hr game, and so possibly more unstable. The obvious way to resolve that issue is to make a timed-out game worth less than a proper game. So, for example, I might get 1 GW for winning a complete game, but only 0.5 GW for a timed-out game. Alternatively, I might have got 3 VPs on the table but it timed-out, so I get 1GW (no change) but only 1.5 VPs on my score. You do have to be careful, though. Any such tweak would give potentially give another player an incentive to make the game time-out. You made a deal with me and back-stabbed me on it? Well, I'll make the game time-out so you do worse than you could have. (And if I can't improve my position any other way, timing the game out to get 0.5 VP is a perfectly ordinary and legal thing for me to do. Just now I have even more incentive to do it.) You then get into "Well, should we have a penalty for the winner if the game times-out, and not give anyone any VPs for the game timing out?" Which might be an interesting option, but you start getting into the situation where more people are in a lost position (no chance of getting a VP any other way, and now no half-a-VP for time-out). Or maybe I have 1VP, but now can't get any more, rather than the usual "0VP and can't oust anyone" situation. Which might be acceptable collateral damage, but I wouldn't want to bet on it without some decent analysis.