Would it hurt VTES to lose Contesting Titles??

SO, put simply... Do you think we would lose anything of significance if we removed Title Contesting from VTES? Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > SO, put simply... > > Do you think we would lose anything of significance if we removed Title Contesting from VTES? > A breed-boon deck being able to solidify its vote lock by making all its weenies Clan Justicar seems more than a little curious. All of your independent vampires can become Liaison by taking an action. All your big Sabbat vampires can become Regent , because the card isn't unique. Seems like it makes it massively easier for sufficiently-motivated vote decks to solidify their vote lock, and much more annoying for a deck that wants to pass a few votes to do so (e.g. a mostly bleed deck, with a a handful of voting tech in the whole deck). Even with the usually-solid vote-push of Awe, you can now be facing massively unpleasant walls of opposing votes, having meant that - say - every Ravnos Tumnimos or Setite Waters of Duat now has easy access to four votes. If the next iteration is "Well, you'll contest titles with yourself still" or "We'll find all the problem cards and errata them", why is that added complication a good thing?

It is not the contesting machanic that is bad, it is the sheer number of unique titles, and the culprit for that is the unicity of city titles. It does nothing for game balance but adds more randomness and a lot more misplay opportunities since city contests are very easy to miss.

Vampire contestation is far worse. You are both playing Nakthorheb decks? Too bad for you! Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

Vampire contestation is probably one of the more important aspects of the game in my opinion. It influences players away from siting down at a table and having everyone playing Nergal decks (sorry, I just hated this time period). While I would agree that this can be somewhat troublesome for random scenario purposes, killing the rule completely doesn't sound great either. I feel this rule isn't broken as it is, but if someone were trying to somewhat rework it, I would be interested in contributing to it.

> TheLich wrote: > Vampire contestation is probably one of the more important aspects of the game in my opinion. It influences players away from siting down at a table and having everyone playing Nergal decks (sorry, I just hated this time period). While I would agree that this can be somewhat troublesome for random scenario purposes, killing the rule completely doesn't sound great either. I feel this rule isn't broken as it is, but if someone were trying to somewhat rework it, I would be interested in contributing to it. > Biggest reaso for vampire contestation? Imagine a deck with a crypt made from just Arika, and they all come out

> Blooded wrote: > > > TheLich wrote: > > Vampire contestation is probably one of the more important aspects of the game in my opinion. It influences players away from siting down at a table and having everyone playing Nergal decks (sorry, I just hated this time period). While I would agree that this can be somewhat troublesome for random scenario purposes, killing the rule completely doesn't sound great either. I feel this rule isn't broken as it is, but if someone were trying to somewhat rework it, I would be interested in contributing to it. > > > Biggest reaso for vampire contestation? Imagine a deck with a crypt made from just Arika, and they all come out > I'd rather have plenty of Montano to give stealth to each other. Of course, this would be trumped by a deck full of Maris Streck But aren't we talking about titles here? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > Vampire contestation is far worse. You are both playing Nakthorheb decks? Too bad for you! > Vampire contestation is awesome. You are playign anything? Look I only have Nakhtorheb.... ^ of them, and oh look, you have corruption counters, suck the bleeds, beeaitch!

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > SO, put simply... > > Do you think we would lose anything of significance if we removed Title Contesting from VTES? > I think it's better to ask what would be gained by removing it. As Bonnie McFarlane says, "Change is only good when it makes things better."

actually I really enjoy the struggle for city titles.... Just think at all the vampires fighing through ages for washington D.C. or the inner fighting between Sela and Constanza for Rome... it's also for the flavour I think Lurking in the underground of Bologna, Italy

> Kushiel wrote: > I think it's better to ask what would be gained by removing it. As Bonnie McFarlane says, "Change is only good when it makes things better." > For once: not realizing after 5 turns that a city title should have been contested and that the game state is now FUBAR. It is generally very poor design to clutter the game with keywords whose only effect is to interact with less than 5 cards in the entire game, cards most likely played your opponents. If you want to make title contest worthwhile, at least print a prince and an arcbishop of Seattle in every grouping

> Kushiel wrote: > > > Juggernaut1981 wrote: > > SO, put simply... > > > > Do you think we would lose anything of significance if we removed Title Contesting from VTES? > > > I think it's better to ask what would be gained by removing it. As Bonnie McFarlane says, "Change is only good when it makes things better." > To be honest, other than the above comment about spamming Justicars, Regents and Liaisons there seems to be little strategic or tactical benefit to the game in having contested titles, let alone the vagaries of contested Domains. Maybe a 'one J/IC/R/L per player' would work, but that feels quite clunky. Contesting those might be the best option... but even then, it doesn't add much strategic depth. It just throws a 'screwball negative' into the game. Contesting Vampires is a more interesting option, but removing that adds complications of two people using exactly the same vampires or the same vampire fighting itself. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Obviously present contest rules are dumb - city contests are just missed, contesting star vampires just made random players lose for no reason and both of them don't matter in 95% of games. And obviously they must not be just removed - self contest must still not be allowed. NC Russia

Contestation and 'Unique' is one of the core concept of the game. Contesting unique recources/vampires/cities/allies/etc was done to make vtes a self balancing loop. Look at the current meta of other cardgames: You have 3-4 archetypes that are tournament viable. Say Yu-gi-oh(yugiohtopdecks.com/top_decks) As you can see over 50% of tournament decks are made up of only 3 archetypes. (36% is Nekroz, 17% BA, 13% Shadoll) Contesting is what balances vtes by making these decks immidiatly less tournament viable. You play something too popular and contest your star vampire on a table? You probably lose that round and lose out on the final. This make vtes games more unique and interesting each time. It also rewards the players that go out of their way to find something unique. As for city titles It is a part of the balancing unique recources aspect of the game it's a penalty for the title You want to run an 8 cap with a prince title and all the prince benefits? Not the 7 cap primogen? because 1 vote doesnt cut it and it doesnt get 2nd trad and parity shift? Not the justicar or the IC because they are 10-11 caps and take too much turns too influence? Well, then you get the minor inconvenience of having to contest the city you are a prince of with other clans and sects trying to move in to take your spot. This is the drawback of your title, you don't want the drawback? Play a vampire without the title or with a different title.

Yay, lose contesting and it is Ivory Bows for everyone -hooray! Finnish Politics!

> Lönkka wrote: > Yay, lose contesting and it is Ivory Bows for everyone -hooray! > I'm not against the idea of Methuselah's contesting important places or equipment... but it seems like title contesting is quite haphazard. Nobody seems to have a strategic reason (i.e. there is no particular way to plan to use it as an ousting method). Nobody seems to have a tactical reason (i.e. there is no particular way to enact the strategy). So it seems to exist for theme, 'game flavour' and to prevent everyone using the same cards. But as the pool of cards grows, the 'preventing similarity' fades. And Game Flavour feels like a code for nostalgia. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Vampires with contesting titles were designed with that concept in mind. Casino Reeds and Fee Stake: Seattle were designed after Anson, and I'm pretty sure the title contest was voluntary to make Anson less reliable. Hardestadt and Rafael's special are designed to screw old Arika and Alexandre (not the weakest g2 Inner Circle, mind you). That's the risk of playing popular vampires. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

in my opinion contesting titles is not an issue worth changing. Vtes could lost or gain something in the process but the impact is to small to bother. On the other hand... Costesting vampires have BIG impact. If we wan't to change some rules about contesting let's talk about this!

The contesting of titles is a strong part of the game. It really shows the Struggle for power in a city. Changing it would effect the game. We had two title contests last playsession with my group. Added some tension on the table because they were cross table allies and it really dampered their decks because they were both voting. (Funny thing it was Anson and Casino Reeds!) Contesting vampires should stay as it is. If you draw a table where you and someone else is playing the same thing then that is what happens. With so many vampires and deck types out there, there is so much to choose from but there is contesting. Otherwise everyone would play 12 Arikas or 12 Nergals without having to Soul Gem them.

Dear all, I would say the "Contesting ruls" make VTES a bit different from most of other games. It is a multiplayer game where you have to look at other players' board. If you want to a play a unique card, then you'll work on it by playing more copies in order to put it on the table before other players, negociate with other players to explain that you have to control it and they do not. I am definitaly against thise change. Regards, Rémi. I am Rémi Cavaillé (), Barcelona (Spain). I was the Prince of Lyon (France) around 2003. I am now Official Judge and the 5th Prince of Barcelona. Enjoy VTES, Marvel Champions, L5R and more gaming activities in Khan Jugar: sites.google.com/view/khanjugar/

> Ankha wrote: > Vampires with contesting titles were designed with that concept in mind. Casino Reeds and Fee Stake: Seattle were designed after Anson, and I'm pretty sure the title contest was voluntary to make Anson less reliable. > The data you quote show the exact opposite of your point. Praxis: Seattle is one of the 9 printed in Jyhad. One for each city with a printed Prince, no more, no less. And if you look at those princes: -Rake: 4 contests. -Gilbert Duane: 4 contests. -Sir Walter Nash: 5 contests. -Tatiana Romanov: 3 contests. -Timothy Crowley: 1 contest. -Anson: 1 contest. -Emerson Bridges: 4 contests. -Selma the Reupgnant: 1 contest. -Cardano: 1 contest. Anson is actually in the least contested batch. Good luck finding any correlation between in-game power and the number of contests.

> Non-existant user wrote: > The data you quote show the exact opposite of your point. Praxis: Seattle is one of the 9 printed in Jyhad. One for each city with a printed Prince, no more, no less. And if you look at those princes: > -Rake: 4 contests. > -Gilbert Duane: 4 contests. > -Sir Walter Nash: 5 contests. > -Tatiana Romanov: 3 contests. > -Timothy Crowley: 1 contest. > -Anson: 1 contest. > -Emerson Bridges: 4 contests. > -Selma the Reupgnant: 1 contest. > -Cardano: 1 contest. > > Anson is actually in the least contested batch. Good luck finding any correlation between in-game power and the number of contests. > If it was me with a magic wand, I'd quite like it to work in that way, even if it doesn't. I'd have preferred to keep the number of cities fairly small, some with lots of vampires claiming the city in different clans, groups and sects, and others less so. Perhaps one city is only available to Archbishops and Barons, while another has five Princes, four Archbishops and two Barons claiming it. And when Bobby the Brujah (Prince of Bowling Green) turns out to be pretty darned good, there's the opportunity to print Larry the Lasombra (Archbishop of Bowling Green) and Rachel the Ravnos (if untitled and anrch, she can call a referendum to become the Baron of Bowling Green) to take the shine off a bit. That sort of thing.

There is a fundamental problem with using contest as a balancing mechanism: the new vampires need to be on the upper side of the power curve as well or they will not see play. All parties lose in a contest, so all things considered equal you do not want to set yourself up for high contest probabilities with a popular vampire. Taking the Anson example again: when you invest 9 pool into Casino Reeds, you need his title to get the value back, but you cannot count on it due to the popularity of Anson. So you play Gr 1-2 instead.

> Non-existant user wrote: > There is a fundamental problem with using contest as a balancing mechanism: the new vampires need to be on the upper side of the power curve as well or they will not see play. All parties lose in a contest, so all things considered equal you do not want to set yourself up for high contest probabilities with a popular vampire. Taking the Anson example again: when you invest 9 pool into Casino Reeds, you need his title to get the value back, but you cannot count on it due to the popularity of Anson. So you play Gr 1-2 instead. > There are swings and roundabouts here. If you know you face a world in which Stevie the Setite (Archbishop of South Bend) is a very popular and very good vampire, and you know that he turns up all the times in your local games and tournaments, it might well be the case that you view the ability to use Gabriel the Gangrel (Prince of South Bend) to unsettle my deck as a positive boon. Sometimes you get a vampire with 2 votes, and sometimes you get to screw with my ability to play Second Tradition. With dozens of contestible cities, the chances of you hitting one that's useful to you is pretty small - but with a smaller pool, this might be a very significant strategic choice you're making. Additionally, in the magic wand parallel universe, such titles are inherently less stable - you wouldn't be able to build a deck around them in quite the same way as you could now, because there's a greater likelihood of you contesting the title. Such titles would probably be, in naive design points terms, worth a little less than they are now. There are other ways you can ameliorate the issue, though. For example: - the new vampire(s) might be a vampire who's desirable for other reasons than just power. For example, if your new Archbishop of South Bend is Ash the Ahrimane and there are only 6 Ahrimane you can play in that group, Ash might well feature in Ahrimane decks even if her title is considered an annoyance. Doesn't have to be an actual bloodline - if you wanted to make a good clutch of Warrior Setites (actual Setites, but with good Potence and combat capabilities), there might only be a few of those, so leaving out Frankie the Follower of Set would hurt your crypt too. - the title doesn't have to be perfect. The Maxwell option (can become the City Title of City by doing a thing) could make a title cheaper in design terms. Or a title that's not as good: Terry the Tremere is Prince of South Bend, but cards requiring a Prince cost Terry an additional blood to play; Andy the Assamite is Baron of South Bend, but his title is worth two fewer votes - so he can play Fifth Tradition, but doesn't give you standing votes