Imbuided - Dead or Alive?

Imbuided are loved by ones and hated by others. Do you think we can see more imbuid cards in short time ? (powers, convictions and minions)

Honestly, I hope not. To make Imbued work, the designers had to bolt on a lot of "Similar, But Different" rules, to make them work the way they were intended. Like, an extensive amount of rules. For all the trouble that the rules and interactions provide, I personally don't feel that they add enough to the game to be worth the extra complexity. Maybe if Imbued had been supported in the four years after the release of Nights of Reckoning, they might be more accepted by players. The nail in the coffin for me, though, is the anecdotal evidence that the most common playtest comment was "Please don't release this."

> self wrote: > Honestly, I hope not. > > To make Imbued work, the designers had to bolt on a lot of "Similar, But Different" rules, to make them work the way they were intended. Like, an extensive amount of rules. For all the trouble that the rules and interactions provide, I personally don't feel that they add enough to the game to be worth the extra complexity. Maybe if Imbued had been supported in the four years after the release of Nights of Reckoning, they might be more accepted by players. > > The nail in the coffin for me, though, is the anecdotal evidence that the most common playtest comment was "Please don't release this." > "similar but different" is a terrible idea in game design, in my opinion. It makes these things difficult to remember. Personally things that differ only slightly from each other are the most difficult things to remember for me.It doesn't help that each conviction card have a wall of text on them, the imbued ability symbols are impossible to differentiate from a distance at a gaming table, and once the conviction cards get stacked high enough the imbued also have bazillion abilities that other players are supposed to keep track of during a game. Its not like the abilities are too strong or complicated, its that everything related to imbued is made as hard to remember as possible. Whenever there are imbued at our local weekly game table, I just completely ignore the actual cards and just ask the player what a particular imbued is capable of, as there is no way I'm able to keep track of his cards myself. They never make the game more fun to play, mostly they just durdle playing solitaire until they lose. Reminds me of the name of that shakespeare play, much ado about nothing. I really don't like imbued. The idea of a hunter faction is sort of nice, but the actual rules and mechanics surrounding them are terrible as I strongly dislike complexity that doesn't add any strategy or tactics to the game. (If hunters, why not werewolves, changelings, etc though?) Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

For me the real question is why they should stay. By now I haven't heard any valid reason not to drop them. NC Russia

As I bought imbued cards, I would like to play what I paid for. Reason enough for me. Prince of Dallas Toreador Grand Ball: Dallas August 13, 2022

> ruiza97 wrote: > As I bought imbued cards, I would like to play what I paid for. Reason enough for me. > Yea, I would like to, but when there are imbueds at the table the crap happening there is not a game of VtES. NC Russia

i mean, - by definition it IS a game of vtes. Youre going to need reasoning beyond 'no true scottsman' ...

> narpassword wrote: > i mean, - by definition it IS a game of vtes. > Actually until the NoR expansion it even wasn't a game of VtES "by definition". For me it's like "you should play this game naked with carrots in your rear hole" suddenly added to rulebook after 12 years of game history. You are free to think that by now it's the right way to play, but sorry, I (and, as i understand, many other playgroups across the world, as imbueds are universally not welcomed at the tables) am not with you on this. NC Russia

Don't diss it until you give it a try... Finnish Politics!

> elotar wrote: > > > narpassword wrote: > > i mean, - by definition it IS a game of vtes. > > > Actually until the NoR expansion it even wasn't a game of VtES "by definition". For me it's like "you should play this game naked with carrots in your rear hole" suddenly added to rulebook after 12 years of game history. You are free to think that by now it's the right way to play, but sorry, I (and, as i understand, many other playgroups across the world, as imbueds are universally not welcomed at the tables) am not with you on this. > In all honesty, I could careless how yours and other playgroups play Vtes, just don't infringe on mine by trying to control what cards my playgroup and I are allowed to play. Imbued are part of the game, please just accept it. I mean, your desire to remove imbued from the game is like, "you should play this game naked with carrots in your rear hole." Prince of Dallas Toreador Grand Ball: Dallas August 13, 2022

> Lönkka wrote: > Don't diss it until you give it a try... > Idea is not that there is no merit in them, just that appearance of imbued at the table changes game dynamic to state, which is not liked by the absolute majority of VtES players. Especially it's true for the new players, who even without them struggle to process what is happening. I still think that new players are much more important to the health of the game than others. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > > > Lönkka wrote: > > Don't diss it until you give it a try... > > > Idea is not that there is no merit in them, just that appearance of imbued at the table changes game dynamic to state, which is not liked by the absolute majority of VtES players. Especially it's true for the new players, who even without them struggle to process what is happening. > > I still think that new players are much more important to the health of the game than others. > You mean to static or stale? I think that when theres imbued at the table, too much time is wasted trying to figure out what the cards are capable of every turn (since they are impossible to remember, and situation changes every turn when new conviction cards are played). They really are the antithesis of dynamic play. I think that IF a new version of the game would be created, I'd want to see imbued dropped as they are, or heavily revamped. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Bloodartist wrote: > You mean to static or stale? > To strange. Players can't evaluate them properly in reasonable time, so they drop real game strategy and go with something like "kill them asap"/"ignore them"/"just move forward" and random player who just collect their game win when table collapses or go full other way and start overthinking their moves so game just ends because of time limit. Nature of our game demands as little as possible tolerance to such nonsense - when you got stupid game of MTG you lose 10 minutes, in VtES you lose 2 hours, after which you have a good chance to lose a fellow player as well. NC Russia

> after which you have a good chance to lose a fellow player as well. > Sorry to hear that. Here in Dallas, we may have a new player, and I can guarantee you that none of my veteran players will play imbued as to confuse the new player and therefore, "lose a fellow player." Prince of Dallas Toreador Grand Ball: Dallas August 13, 2022

> elotar wrote: > > > Bloodartist wrote: > > You mean to static or stale? > > > To strange. Players can't evaluate them properly in reasonable time, so they drop real game strategy and go with something like "kill them asap"/"ignore them"/"just move forward" and random player who just collect their game win when table collapses or go full other way and start overthinking their moves so game just ends because of time limit. > What you explain here is less a problem with the Imbued and more a problem with inexperienced players. The whole "kill/ignore" default strategy and the idea that the Imbued player can collapse the table/timeout a game is the players' fault for doing these things, not the Imbued. These things are not peculiar to imbued: people kill Malk 94 asap or completely ignore combat all the time, and "poorly" played rush deck can collapse a table.

For me thie biggest issue with imbued is the amount of additional rules they bring to the game just for them. Imbued are playing a game with different rules than others. It's probably the worst design I've seen in card and board games. This game is already complicated which makes it very hard for new players to start playing.

I don't like the Imbued. Imbued set the precedent for "why not have Mages and Werewolves and Changelings and Wraiths etc as special crypt cards as well?" There were already ally cards that represented Hunters within VTES, why go out of the way to incorporate them as special crypt cards? I want my game about Vampires to be a game about Vampires - all the other Supernaturals are tangential. If I wanted a game where all the Supernaturals (and Hunters) were playable 'factions' I would beseech WW to make that game. Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

> alek wrote: > For me thie biggest issue with imbued is the amount of additional rules they bring to the game just for them. Imbued are playing a game with different rules than others. It's probably the worst design I've seen in card and board games. > This game is already complicated which makes it very hard for new players to start playing. > The biggest issue with Malk 94 is that it is so simple and boring. Should that be called bad design too? People play Imbued. Therefore, they are successful design.

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > ..."poorly" played rush deck can collapse a table. > Combat and bleed are key parts of the game - if you don't understand how you should play with it than you are really inexperienced. Imbued are like 2% of decks pool with totally different rules, comparable with some obscure interceptor/trohomancy combos or smth like it. Knowledge of them is expert level, as well as mentioned earlier excessive mental capacity just to keep in mind abilities of each hunter and his present convictions and powers. And you need all 4 non-imbued players on the table to be on such level, or stupidity will prevail. It's totally not comparable with M94 or rush combat (except, maybe, tupdogs, which are also quite stupid, but it's just one card). NC Russia

I agree with both: > alek wrote: > For me thie biggest issue with imbued is the amount of additional rules they bring to the game just for them. Imbued are playing a game with different rules than others. It's probably the worst design I've seen in card and board games. > This game is already complicated which makes it very hard for new players to start playing. > > elotar wrote: > Combat and bleed are key parts of the game - if you don't understand how you should play with it than you are really inexperienced. > > Imbued are like 2% of decks pool with totally different rules, > Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> elotar wrote: > It's totally not comparable with M94 or rush combat (except, maybe, tupdogs, which are also quite stupid, but it's just one card). > So, like, it totally is. If I'm an inexperienced player, then Malk 94 is no different than an Imbued deck. It's all going to be complex and a lot to keep track of, because VTES is a game with a lot of complexity and moving parts. It's definitely the player's fault for not knowing how the Imbued deck works, same as it's the player's fault if they don't know how a Malk 94 deck works. There's a handy section of the rulebook devoted to Imbued, so there's really no excuse.

Mwuhahahahahaha! They said it couldn't be done! They claimed that my theories were unsound, my math riddled with errors, my conclusions hopelessly naive! They laughed me out of the academy! But who's laughing now, eh? Who's laughing now? My time machine, you see, it works! It works! Mere moments ago, I was alive in the year 2018, and now, I've traveled backward in time a full dozen years, to the year 2006! Spacetime itself has become my plaything!

tbh as a new player (1.5 years), imbued give me a hard time. but no more hard time than half of the other cards that our group discovers and plays for the first time. or trap, which i still have to read 6-7 times when its played. or nephandus, which i remember about 1/18 of its abilities.

> narpassword wrote: > tbh as a new player (1.5 years), imbued give me a hard time. > > but no more hard time than half of the other cards that our group discovers and plays for the first time. > > or trap, which i still have to read 6-7 times when its played. > or nephandus, which i remember about 1/18 of its abilities. > Right. Someone made an argument earlier in this thread that Imbued are not "good design" because their rule set is too much trouble for players to figure out. This argument makes no sense to me because there are any number of things in VTES that take some attention to understand. I get that lots of players don't like imbued because of the separate rules set that affect 2% of the card pool, making the imbued deck hard to deal with in a game. But this is a subjective opinion and is not a hard example of bad game design. Some people play Imbued and enjoy playing Imbued. Any arguments about "bad game design" end right there for me. The game doesn't need to be redesigned to cut the Imbued out, players need to step up their game and be prepared for those times imbued show up.

> self wrote: > As you've correctly deduced, the only negative side effect of my marvelous new device is that I've been turned into a dog. Still, totally worth it.

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > Someone made an argument earlier in this thread that Imbued are not "good design" because their rule set is too much trouble for players to figure out. This argument makes no sense to me because there are any number of things in VTES that take some attention to understand. I get that lots of players don't like imbued because of the separate rules set that affect 2% of the card pool, making the imbued deck hard to deal with in a game. But this is a subjective opinion and is not a hard example of bad game design. Some people play Imbued and enjoy playing Imbued. Any arguments about "bad game design" end right there for me. > > The game doesn't need to be redesigned to cut the Imbued out, players need to step up their game and be prepared for those times imbued show up. > While "good game design" is subjective in the sense that what qualifies as 'good game design' varies from player to player, as a general rule, good game design is elegant, conveying as much information as possible with as little hassle and effort as possible. When the game uses player's real world knowledge to help bridge the gap between rules and expectations, then it's generally considered good design. 'Auspex' is a weird word, but seeing the 'eye' icon and learning that it is on cards that generally do things related to sight and intercept, eases the burden of knowledge on players. Same goes for most of the other discipline icons, IMO. But with the Imbued, for example, none of the icons readily mean anything to me, besides the scales of justice. Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

Yeah, it is pretty hard to remember a couple of card's worth of rules. Or 20 Crypt and 40 Library cards. Really really hard. Biggest problem with Imbued is the extremely limited cardpool available for them so there is very little variance. A pure new Imbued set would be a PR catastrophe, but I think adding one new card to every new set would slowly give more variance without hogging too much space. Designvise, I think LSJ did magnificent job incorporating a new faction that works in a unique way but still interacts very well with the remainder of VTES! Finnish Politics!

> LivesByProxy wrote: > While "good game design" is subjective in the sense that what qualifies as 'good game design' varies from player to player, as a general rule, good game design is elegant, conveying as much information as possible with as little hassle and effort as possible. > What you're describing can't be a "general rule" of good game design because VTES would be considered very poorly designed. VTES is very inelegant when conveying how cards interact with the rules as written in the rulebook. Lots of people play and love VTES anyway. Conversely, a game can be easy to understand but not fun to play. The not fun to play part would be an indictment on poor game design; whether the rules and their interaction with card text are elegantly conveyed isn't really a reflection of how well a game is designed. > When the game uses player's real world knowledge to help bridge the gap between rules and expectations, then it's generally considered good design. > This also has nothing to do with game design. Almost every new player I come in contact with taps a minion after they enter combat via another player's rush. This never results in these players leaving on the spot because it's not fun (AKA, poor design) to not tap minions when entering combat via another player's rush. Now, it would be "elegant" if minions always tapped when entering combat to align with inexperienced player's expectations of tapping minions whenever combat occurs. But that this is not the case is not bad game design. This is just poor explanation of rules in the rulebook (combat via rush needs to be more clearly described in the rulebook, and if it were, perhaps people would not automatically think to tap minions upon entering combat from another player's rush). > 'Auspex' is a weird word, but seeing the 'eye' icon and learning that it is on cards that generally do things related to sight and intercept, eases the burden of knowledge on players. Same goes for most of the other discipline icons, IMO. But with the Imbued, for example, none of the icons readily mean anything to me, besides the scales of justice. > But this is not something peculiar to Imbued. Does an asterisk clearly represent a minion's supernatural charisma? And does a white circle with a piece missing clearly represent shapesifting ability? I don't think so. But these symbols work because all symbols are clearly defined in the rulebook. It's unfair to pick on the imbued for having symbols you don't wish to look up in the rulebook.

To expand RE disciplines, the only ones that are fairly straight forward (in terms of what they might contribute towards, not how the power is lore wise) Big punch icon - looks like it might hurt people Eye - you can see things Sword: might hurt things more Theme ones i can guess easily with no prior knowledge, but dont indicate game area used: Paw print: might do stuff with animals Devil fork: fire or demon summoning Skull: necromancy (pretty common theme for any rpg) Snakes: snakes Brain: confusing cards Things that are basically meaningless: Dominate (didnt know this was a chain for a long time) Obf (had people ask if the card's icon was a misprint) Fortitude: "are these mountain things - what do they do" Protean: is this a cats eye? Celerity: electricity? Qui/VIC/VIS/Thn/tha/spi/chi/...... lot of these tell me nothing

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > What you're describing can't be a "general rule" of good game design because VTES would be considered very poorly designed. VTES is very inelegant when conveying how cards interact with the rules as written in the rulebook. Lots of people play and love VTES anyway. > I think VTES is poorly designed for the most part. For every thing it gets right, it gets another thing wrong. Some of this isn't entirely Richie G and Co.'s fault, as some of it is baggage from the WoD. > Conversely, a game can be easy to understand but not fun to play. The not fun to play part would be an indictment on poor game design; whether the rules and their interaction with card text are elegantly conveyed isn't really a reflection of how well a game is designed. > There are many things that factor into 'good design'. Are the rules clear and concise? What about the component quality (card art, card material, etc)? Do the cards do what you would expect a card with that name and artwork to do (aka flavor)? Is it fun? I think elegance in game design is a combination of clear and concise rules, good graphic design, and solid flavor. It should go without saying that a game can be beautiful and well made and not fun, or have clear and concise rules, and not be fun. > LivesByProxy wrote: > When the game uses player's real world knowledge to help bridge the gap between rules and expectations, then it's generally considered good design. > > TwoRazorReign wrote: > This also has nothing to do with game design. > It has everything to do with game design, your example is far from what I was talking about, almost being the opposite of what I was talking about (things doing X because the rules said they do X in most circumstances). A better example would be the 44 Magnum. That's a gun, and I know IRL guns fire bullets. That aligns with my expectations of seeing the card deal 2R damage. It makes sense. There would be a disconnect if the 44 Magnum said, "Target player skips their next turn." or "Draw 2 cards." Why would a gun do that? Richard Garfield, when he designed Magic, tried to design cards based on what he thought players would expect. Why can a Giant Spider block creatures with flying? Because normal spiders catch and eat flying insects. Ergo, a giant spider could probably catch a dragon in its web. It seems our definitions of elegance differs, but I think VTES would be far more elegant if it didn't have 22+ clans, 30 disciplines, and 9+ card types. I think VTES would be far more elegant if stealth and intercept were merged into just 'stealth' and bleed and strength were just 'bleed' and blood and pool were just 'pool'. I think VTES would be more elegant if the cards graphic design were overhauled to present the important information better, like making the discipline icons bigger, the set symbol smaller, having full-bleed card art, and having a 'type line' were relevant clan and sect information were written. A good many of the discipline icons could and probably should be updated for clarity and readability - saying 'most' of the symbols was an overstatement on my part, but that only works to show how poorly designed VTES is. And just because I think VTES is poorly designed does not mean I think it is on par with games like Monopoly, Sorry, Yahtzee, and Go Fish. It is obviously in a different league, being far better than those games and many, many others. And yeah, 'better/worse' and 'good/bad design' is subjective and relative, but I still think there is room for improvement. Also, me thinking VTES is relatively poorly designed isn't a slight on the designers of the game past or present. The table-top and CCG landscape is is a graveyard full of dead and dying games - having a game succeed and achieve massive success is what is truly unusual. Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

> LivesByProxy wrote: > ...but I think VTES would be far more elegant if it didn't have 22+ clans, 30 disciplines, and 9+ card types. > I strongly disagree. VTES is a game designed for people that wanted more complexity than MtG. and was a brilliant port of a RPG setting to a CCG, there's simply no equal. MtG is elegant for people that prefer simplicity whereas VTES is elegant for people that crave complexity. Tossing 20 odd years of expensions in front of a newbie is indeed mind boggling and I can see why you'd think VTES is too complex, but that's simply the mistake of viewing the base set plus all expansions as a single entity. Expansions are supposed to add new stuff, add more depth and some extra complexity. The big mistake was in how it was sold, Sabbat should never have been added to the base set (3rd edition) and each expansion adding a sect should have been labelled 'for advanced players'. Explaining VTES with just the Jyhad cards isn't as mindboggling as explaining 20 years worth of VTES expansions. Each sect (and imbueds) can be considered an addon and like for example the board game Settlers, a playgroup could select which addons to use and which not. And of course you need to allow all addons in a tournament, it's not 'casual' play afterall... > LivesByProxy wrote: > I think VTES would be far more elegant if stealth and intercept were merged into just 'stealth' and bleed and strength were just 'bleed' and blood and pool were just 'pool'. > No, simply put; wrong market. Any simplifying on this scale would encroach the MtG market and that would be a losing battle. Not to mention you'd lose depth, I want the WoD experience, not some weird abstraction. Keep VTES enjoyably complex, just label better and fix some mistakes (like too liberal use of keywords, a lot of keywords have no purpose). -1 Strength

> GreyB wrote: > > > LivesByProxy wrote: > > ...but I think VTES would be far more elegant if it didn't have 22+ clans, 30 disciplines, and 9+ card types. > > > I strongly disagree. > > VTES is a game designed for people that wanted more complexity than MtG. and was a brilliant port of a RPG setting to a CCG, there's simply no equal. MtG is elegant for people that prefer simplicity whereas VTES is elegant for people that crave complexity. > You're welcome to disagree, and I am not trying to hijack this thread with my ideas or opinions, but saying MTG is less complex than VTES is inaccurate to say the least. MTG and VTES have similar amounts of complexity, but it comes from different sources and varies with the phase of the game. MTG's complexity arises from them creating 3-5 new keyword abilities to put on their creatures every year, for example. The majority of VTES' complexity arises from it being a 5 player game and what that does to the board-state. MTG can also achieve such a complex board-state if the game goes long enough, and even in the first few turns of a 5 player game. It seems you're confusing elegance and simplicity / complexity, or our definitions differ. A game can be elegant and still be complex, but elegance in design will make the complex seem simpler than it is. Elegance is the quality of being graceful, stylish, neat, clean, etc. VTES having 22+ clans and 30 disciplines makes it more complex that it would be otherwise, but my criticism is that those things make it ugly: the opposite of stylish and clean. Real complexity would be something like giving each clan or discipline associated rules for players to remember, which ironically, is what the Vampire For Kids! variant format does. Disciplines have no rules tied to them innately, which is simple and clean. > GreyB wrote: > Tossing 20 odd years of expansions in front of a newbie is indeed mind boggling and I can see why you'd think VTES is too complex, but that's simply the mistake of viewing the base set plus all expansions as a single entity. Expansions are supposed to add new stuff, add more depth and some extra complexity. > Again, VTES isn't too complex, it's mostly just ugly. Unattractive. Of course adding any new material will increase the complexity, which we hope will add to the depth of the game, but that's not a guarantee, and most of the material added to VTES primarily served to make it even more unappealing to anyone who wasn't familiar with (and a fan of) the oWoD. > GreyB wrote: > > > LivesByProxy wrote: > > I think VTES would be far more elegant if stealth and intercept were merged into just 'stealth' and bleed and strength were just 'bleed' and blood and pool were just 'pool'. > > > No, simply put; wrong market. Any simplifying on this scale would encroach the MtG market and that would be a losing battle. Not to mention you'd lose depth, I want the WoD experience, not some weird abstraction. > I'm curious to know how such changes would make it more like MTG, when things like 'strength' and 'blood' are the MTG equivalent of 'power' and 'toughness' (a creatures stats) and MTG is a game about dudes fighting whereas VTES is, supposedly, a game about underhanded tactics like blackmail, bribery, subversion, intrigue, veiled threats, and such, where exerting social leverage and political control, damaging assets and reputations, is more common and valuable than dudes throwing trash cans at each other and fighting in the streets. Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

> LivesByProxy wrote: > MTG is a game about dudes fighting whereas VTES is, supposedly, a game about underhanded tactics like blackmail, bribery, subversion, intrigue, veiled threats, and such, where exerting social leverage and political control, damaging assets and reputations, is more common and valuable than dudes throwing trash cans at each other and fighting in the streets. > ! NC Russia

> GreyB wrote: > VTES is a game designed for people that wanted more complexity than MtG. and was a brilliant port of a RPG setting to a CCG, there's simply no equal. MtG is elegant for people that prefer simplicity whereas VTES is elegant for people that crave complexity. > Magic comprehensive rules Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Bloodartist wrote: > > > GreyB wrote: > > VTES is a game designed for people that wanted more complexity than MtG. and was a brilliant port of a RPG setting to a CCG, there's simply no equal. MtG is elegant for people that prefer simplicity whereas VTES is elegant for people that crave complexity. > > > Magic comprehensive rules > In all fairness, I stopped playing MtG in 1996/1997, so I have no idea how that game evolved since then, but VTES was way more complex than MtG in 1995 and we loved it. -1 Strength

> LivesByProxy wrote: > It seems you're confusing elegance and simplicity / complexity, or our definitions differ. > Not confused at all, I for one have played the game since 1995 at least You should really try it. > LivesByProxy wrote: > Elegance is the quality of being graceful, stylish, neat, clean, etc. VTES having 22+ clans and 30 disciplines makes it more complex that it would be otherwise > New clans and disciplines after the Jyhad release, was not what added more complexity, it just added more content and depth. What really added more complexity was new keywords and cards (or even rules) that interacted with them, events, new titles (and ways of tallying votes) and imbueds. Thing is, once you know how and when to play card types (action/combat/master/etc.) then all you need to know about disciplines is that it's just a prerequisite for certain cards. Once you know what A discipline is, it doesn't really matter how many different disciplines are added to the game. Same applies to clans and sects, once you what either are and cards interact with A clan or A sect, it won't matter how many there are. When you want to reduce clans and disciplines, you'd be reducing content, depth and overall richness. When you want to merge Strength with Bleed you are indeed reducing complexity but also creating a weird abstraction that might be prone to powercreep, it would also be a dilution of RPG elements. Not saying VTES can do without some elements, the game needs some revision and nurturing afterall, but overall the system is good and an elegant port of a RPG game and has enough flair for people to still play it after being discontinued for quite some time. -1 Strength

> GreyB wrote: > > > LivesByProxy wrote: > > It seems you're confusing elegance and simplicity / complexity, or our definitions differ. > > > Not confused at all, I for one have played the game since 1995 at least You should really try it. > TOUCHÉ! Finnish Politics!

> Lönkka wrote: > > > GreyB wrote: > > > > > LivesByProxy wrote: > > > It seems you're confusing elegance and simplicity / complexity, or our definitions differ. > > > > > > > > Not confused at all, I for one have played the game since 1995 at least You should really try it. > > > TOUCHÉ! > Really try to play the game since 1995? Lol. NC Russia

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > The biggest issue with Malk 94 is that it is so simple and boring. Should that be called bad design too? People play Imbued. Therefore, they are successful design. > People eat poop. That means poop is an acceptable food. Your logic is false. Imbued break several major tenets of game design, in a multitude of ways. (Consistency, Immersion, Continuity, Experience to name a few.) Garfield's design considerations for Jyhad was that it would have none of the card flow power of MtG, and remove the mechanistic nature of a game that only ever has two participants. Introducing a segmented Win condition allowed for the meta game of what VtES is now to be created, where your ability to play a table is as important as your ability to play on that table. Imbued go directly in contradiction to this by essentially creating a pseudo offshoot with it's own separate rule set,and a masturbatory play style. It has none of the fragility built into your pool and vampires. It does not interact with vast swathes of the game. That is the logic, imho, of why Imbued are an example of execrable game design.

> Blooded wrote: > Imbued break several major tenets of game design, in a multitude of ways. (Consistency, Immersion, Continuity, Experience to name a few.) > I like how you capitalized the first letter of each "tenet of game design" that you totally just made up. > Imbued go directly in contradiction to this by essentially creating a pseudo offshoot with it's own separate rule set, > Imbued bleed to the left the same as any other deck. The rules aren't that much of a deviation > and a masturbatory play style. > Malk94 has a self contained play style > It has none of the fragility built into your pool and vampires. > Ever see an imbued cast a vote? Or play a Blood Doll? There's fragility there. > It does not interact with vast swathes of the game. > Again, Same can be said about Malk94.

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > > > Blooded wrote: > > It does not interact with vast swathes of the game. > > > Again, Same can be said about Malk94. > Not to the same extent. Being an ally makes you immune to a lot of cards (staple or not). The few cards that Imbued are vulnerable to as allies are mostly countered by a Conviction they come into play with. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > TwoRazorReign wrote: > > > > > Blooded wrote: > > > It does not interact with vast swathes of the game. > > > > > Again, Same can be said about Malk94. > > > Not to the same extent. Being an ally makes you immune to a lot of cards (staple or not). The few cards that Imbued are vulnerable to as allies are mostly countered by a Conviction they come into play with. > Again, you ever see an imbued vote? Or Villein? They have other weaknesses that make up for what you describe above.

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > > > > TwoRazorReign wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Blooded wrote: > > > > It does not interact with vast swathes of the game. > > > > > > > Again, Same can be said about Malk94. > > > > > Not to the same extent. Being an ally makes you immune to a lot of cards (staple or not). The few cards that Imbued are vulnerable to as allies are mostly countered by a Conviction they come into play with. > > > Again, you ever see an imbued vote? Or Villein? They have other weaknesses that make up for what you describe above. > I haven't seen a Malk '94 vote neither, nor play Villein. Is it a "weakness"? I think not. The real question is not "can the deck play those cards ?" but "does this hinder the deck ?". They have those same "weaknesses" as many other decks, but they have the unique "immune to everything that targets blood or vampires" ability that disables a lot of cards that would affect those decks. The reverse isn't true as the cards that would affect them but not those decks are very few, and the most frequent ones (Entrancement, Far Mastery, ...) are not very effective against them (because of React with Conviction). So basically you end up in a game with very few interactions between Imbued and other decks which is lame in a game of interactions. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > TwoRazorReign wrote: > > > > > Ankha wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > TwoRazorReign wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Blooded wrote: > > > > > It does not interact with vast swathes of the game. > > > > > > > > > Again, Same can be said about Malk94. > > > > > > > Not to the same extent. Being an ally makes you immune to a lot of cards (staple or not). The few cards that Imbued are vulnerable to as allies are mostly countered by a Conviction they come into play with. > > > > > > > > Again, you ever see an imbued vote? Or Villein? They have other weaknesses that make up for what you describe above. > > > I haven't seen a Malk '94 vote neither, nor play Villein. Is it a "weakness"? I think not. > Well, it is a weakness. What happens to the Imbued deck when an Ancient Influence or Reins of Power hits the table? Nothing good. But, I understand your point that there's still vast amounts of cards that don't affect Imbued. I'm just not sure if this is really a problem. > The real question is not "can the deck play those cards ?" but "does this hinder the deck ?". > They have those same "weaknesses" as many other decks, but they have the unique "immune to everything that targets blood or vampires" ability that disables a lot of cards that would affect those decks. The reverse isn't true as the cards that would affect them but not those decks are very few, and the most frequent ones (Entrancement, Far Mastery, ...) are not very effective against them (because of React with Conviction). > So basically you end up in a game with very few interactions between Imbued and other decks which is lame in a game of interactions. > Right. And if I understand you correctly, by "lame" you mean there's something wrong design wise with this. I'm really not smart enough of a VTES player to truly understand if Imbued are a design problem. All I do know is there are things in the game that can counteract Imbued decks. So to me, and my (very feeble understanding) of what a design problem is, the presence of things that counteract Imbued decks makes me think Imbued are solid design wise. The problem is less with design and more with personal taste (eg, too much of a deviation from "normal" decks). Now, if by "lame" you mean simply "not fun," that's personal taste. While it may not be fun for you, the person playing the Imbued deck is having loads of fun not interacting and winning, right?

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > Now, if by "lame" you mean simply "not fun," that's personal taste. While it may not be fun for you, the person playing the Imbued deck is having loads of fun not interacting and winning, right? > No, by lame I mean that it ruins a basic principle of V:TES which is interactions between players. Not being able to interact with an Imbued deck (apart of blocking) because most of the cards interact with vampires, not allies, is against the core of the game. (This can be extended to other decks for other reasons, for instance decks where the player plays alone or with just another player for 30 minutes [Turbo Una, Reversal of Fortune, etc.] but that's outside the scope of Imbued). The fact that players get bored (not fun") of it is a consequence of the lack of interactions. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > Now, if by "lame" you mean simply "not fun," that's personal taste. While it may not be fun for you, the person playing the Imbued deck is having loads of fun not interacting and winning, right? > Here is something interesting and pertinent to the conversation: From League of Legends' VP of Game Design, Tom 'Zileas' Cadwell's Game Design Anti-Patterns : > Zileas wrote: > > [When] Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun > Anti-fun is the negative experience your opponents feel when you do something that prevents them from 'playing their game' or doing activities they consider fun. While everything useful you can do as a player is likely to cause SOME anti-fun in your opponents, it only becomes a design issue when the 'anti-fun' created on your use of a mechanic is greater than your fun in using the mechanic. > This reasoning behind 'anti-fun' is the same reasoning that prompted Wizards of the Coast to basically cut 'land destruction' as a strategy from modern-day MTG, and to nerf their counter-spells as well. They felt (and heard from player feedback) that a game wherein one player is playing solitaire while the other player is more or less locked out of playing the game is lame. It should be noted that in MTG, decks that are basically anti-fun still exist in the Legacy and Vintage formats, but survive because everyone is generally playing such a deck. Decks that kill or combo for the win on the 1st or 2nd turn, or establish a lock on the opponent (i.e. a 'prison' deck) that prevents them from interacting for the next 6 turns while they lose, are the norm. And in League of Legends, some anti-fun design patterns still exist, but Riot Games is working on updating, reworking, and / or patching out those abilities in hope of improving the player experience. Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

> Ankha wrote: > No, by lame I mean that it ruins a basic principle of V:TES which is interactions between players. Not being able to interact with an Imbued deck (apart of blocking) because most of the cards interact with vampires, not allies, is against the core of the game. > This is baffling to me. Aside from minion theft cards which are restricted to targeting vampires, which aren't a good example since there are also minion theft cards which are restricted to targeting allies, what are the forms of interaction that are available to vampires but not imbued?

> Ankha wrote: > No, by lame I mean that it ruins a basic principle of V:TES which is interactions between players. > I've been hearing this theme a lot, that VTES is all about interactions between players, anything that prohibits this interaction is "bad design," and that somehow Imbued introduced this bad design element. (Correct me if I am twisting your words). The problem that I have with this viewpoint is that Sudden Reversal and Delaying Tactics were both included in the first set ever released for the game. These cards essentially cancel interaction between players, the same way React With Conviction does in Imbued decks. Canceling interaction was always a part of the design of VTES, and Imbued are just an extension of that design element. So, if Imbued are bad design, is the "cancel a card as it is played" mechanic also bad design? If not, why is cancelling cards as they are played good design?

I'm not speaking for Ankha, but I'm guessing he means something like: * Imbued cannot or don't have titles or votes and can't participate in referendums? * Imbued are not part of a clan, and so cards that check for or use clan affiliation are null? * Imbued don't have disciplines, so cards that check for or use disciplines are null? IDK, I'm not super familiar with the Imbued. My dislike of them is mostly aesthetic (I don't see why a game about Vampires has Hunters as a playable mini-faction, but not Werewolves or Wraiths or Mages, etc.) And that they're what MTG's Mark Rosewater would call 'parasitic design' meaning that they encourage very insular or incestuous card combinations, basically requiring you to play with a tiny subset of cards and not much else. As far as cards like Sudden Reversal and Delaying Tactics, remember that Alpha MTG had cards like Time Walk, Black Lotus, Winter Orb, CounterSpell, Stasis, Ancestral Recall, The Moxen, Balance, Armageddon, Drain Power, Circle of Protection, Wrath of God, Mind Twist, Contract From Below, Fast Bond, and many hosers, all of which were wildly OP and-or created / enabled uninteractive game-states once on the board. Richard Garfield may have made an great game, but he seems to be prone to making 'power cards'. If VTES were ReVamped as a similar but different game, maybe cards like Sudden Reversal and Delaying Tactics would make an appearance but offer more interactivity built-in, like, "A player may burn 3 pool to cancel Sudden Reversal as it is played" or something. Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

Canceling cards is obviously a bad design. It's fine for CCG to experiment with different concepts, but then mistakes are unavoidable, and there should be a way to fix them. VtES tries to incorporate crap into basic game and because of solid core it works somehow, but not so well as we see by declining player base. NC Russia

> Kushiel wrote: > This is baffling to me. Aside from minion theft cards which are restricted to targeting vampires, which aren't a good example since there are also minion theft cards which are restricted to targeting allies, what are the forms of interaction that are available to vampires but not imbued? > Taste of vitae is a great example. The ruling that they are allies that are not affected by their cost if you cast an anti ally vote? sheesh I understand why it is that why, but it is frustrating. Almost all contracts. Many rush cards. "Pillow Facing" is another major gripe.... They get free conviction, and can can do 2 dfamage each if i end them? wtf?????????????????

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > I've been hearing this theme a lot, that VTES is all about interactions between players, anything that prohibits this interaction is "bad design," and that somehow Imbued introduced this bad design element. (Correct me if I am twisting your words). The problem that I have with this viewpoint is that Sudden Reversal and Delaying Tactics were both included in the first set ever released for the game. These cards essentially cancel interaction between players, the same way React With Conviction does in Imbued decks. > Random noise: Canceling a persons card is ALREADY interaction by definition. One person does something and another reacts and interacts with it. If one player does something (like vote) and nobody reacts or does anything, there is no interaction. You doing pool damage unopposed is not interaction. Solitaire combo decks are NOT interactive. > LivesByProxy wrote: > I'm not speaking for Ankha, but I'm guessing he means something like: > > * Imbued cannot or don't have titles or votes and can't participate in referendums? > * Imbued are not part of a clan, and so cards that check for or use clan affiliation are null? > * Imbued don't have disciplines, so cards that check for or use disciplines are null? > There is also this little detail that Imbued are not vampires. There is a HUGE number of cards that interact with or affect only vampires. Therefore huge number of cards (Im referring to cards that Imbued's opponents would like to play) are simply unusable vs Imbued. All the while Imbued doing several things that vampires do (like bleed, block, etc) Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Bloodartist wrote: > > > TwoRazorReign wrote: > > I've been hearing this theme a lot, that VTES is all about interactions between players, anything that prohibits this interaction is "bad design," and that somehow Imbued introduced this bad design element. (Correct me if I am twisting your words). The problem that I have with this viewpoint is that Sudden Reversal and Delaying Tactics were both included in the first set ever released for the game. These cards essentially cancel interaction between players, the same way React With Conviction does in Imbued decks. > > > Random noise: > Canceling a persons card is ALREADY interaction by definition > Right. React with Conviction interacts with a whole lot of Ally stealing cards by canceling them, and thus interacting with them by your definition. that's why I think Imbued are not flawed design wise...

> Blooded wrote: > The ruling that they are allies that are not affected by their cost if you cast an anti ally vote? sheesh I understand why it is that why, but it is frustrating. > Fair, but seriously? Isn't Kindred Segregation the only card that this affects? One card that's already highly cornercase. > Blooded wrote: > Taste of vitae is a great example. > Almost all contracts. > Many rush cards. > > Bloodartist wrote: > There is also this little detail that Imbued are not vampires. There is a HUGE number of cards that interact with or affect only vampires. Therefore huge number of cards (Im referring to cards that Imbued's opponents would like to play) are simply unusable vs Imbued. > > All the while Imbued doing several things that vampires do (like bleed, block, etc) > These are complaints about all allies, not imbued. > Blooded wrote: > "Pillow Facing" is another major gripe.... They get free conviction, and can can do 2 dfamage each if i end them? wtf????????????????? > One damage. And doing so strips the imbued of their most important resource, the one which it's very difficult for them to replenish any more rapidly than via slow accrual, and with the worst-case scenario result that your vampire will end up in torpor. Compared with diablerie and blood hunts, pillowfacing is way less harsh on the acting vampire.

> Kushiel wrote: > > > Blooded wrote: > > Taste of vitae is a great example. > > Almost all contracts. > > Many rush cards. > > > > Bloodartist wrote: > > There is also this little detail that Imbued are not vampires. There is a HUGE number of cards that interact with or affect only vampires. Therefore huge number of cards (Im referring to cards that Imbued's opponents would like to play) are simply unusable vs Imbued. > > > > All the while Imbued doing several things that vampires do (like bleed, block, etc) > > > These are complaints about all allies, not imbued. > But allies are generally supplements to existing clans and can utilize disciplines in a lot cases. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Imbued, while they can be played or mixed with Vampires in the Crypt, are basically only played with other Imbued, no? And them requiring and having Convictions and their Virtues makes blending Vampire and Imbued Library cards together undesirable, as you're dividing your strategy rather than having a cohesive one, no? Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

LivesByProxy and Bloodartist got what I meant. A brute search of "a vampire" returns 607 occurrences in library cards, and "a minion" returns 185 occurrences. VTES is a game of vampires, and cards are mostly designed so. By having a crypt composed of allies only, an Imbued deck substracts itself to those cards, that is a great part of the game (thus the recurring feeling of not playing to the same game) Considering that: 1/ detrimental cards are played by other players 2/ beneficial cards are played by yourself Then 1/ The Imbued deck avoids a lot of detrimental cards played by other players. 2/ The Imbued deck doesn't have access to all the beneficial cards, but can use only those that are Imbued-compatible (no Blood Doll, but Liquidation for instance). The advantages outshine the disadvantages. Typical allies decks are not the same since they rely on vampires to bring out allies. Imbued decks don't have to. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

So, in summary, the same unconvincing arguments from 2006. > Ankha wrote: > A brute search of "a vampire" returns 607 occurrences in library cards, and "a minion" returns 185 occurrences. > Not a useful number, since that will include cards that aren't affected by the presence of an imbued deck at the table (the Govern family, the Blood Doll family, etc) and cards whose power is increased against imbued as a result of the "vampire" text (Ancient Influence, Smiling Jack, etc). But please don't waste time on a more thorough search for my sake - I was only wondering if there was more convincing evidence to support the "different game tho!" arguments in the last decade, and I'm not seeing anything new here.

> Kushiel wrote: > These are complaints about all allies, not imbued. > In order to have allies, you're supposed to have a vampire that recruits them. Interacting with said recruiter makes all the difference for ally decks. This is not the case with Imbued. > Kushiel wrote: > But please don't waste time on a more thorough search for my sake - I was only wondering if there was more convincing evidence to support the "different game tho!" arguments in the last decade, and I'm not seeing anything new here. > You can choose to ignore arguments. Then we can ignore yours. Its not like constructive discussion is a thing on these forums. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Kushiel wrote: > So, in summary, the same unconvincing arguments from 2006. > Nothing really changed from 2006 - imbueds was crappy addition to the game than as they are now. Main argument, for me, is people leaving the game because of them (see "VtES history" topic). It may not be convincing, but I think people are missing the point here - goal is not to convince anybody, goal is to keep game from dying. By now we, as a minor part of the community who cares not only about playing, are doing kind of a bad job in this regard. Maybe the overbloat of crapy mechanics is not a problem, and obviously it's not the only one, but then do you have alternative convincing theory what is and what we have to do about it? Just please, do not tell me "back in print" cool story. The game is actually in print now - we got both one "real" printed expansion as well as allowed proxies nearly everywhere, but speed of shrinking of players base is the most rapid in history. NC Russia

> Ankha wrote: > LivesByProxy and Bloodartist got what I meant. > > A brute search of "a vampire" returns 607 occurrences in library cards, and "a minion" returns 185 occurrences. VTES is a game of vampires, and cards are mostly designed so. By having a crypt composed of allies only, an Imbued deck substracts itself to those cards, that is a great part of the game (thus the recurring feeling of not playing to the same game) > > Considering that: > 1/ detrimental cards are played by other players > 2/ beneficial cards are played by yourself > > Then > 1/ The Imbued deck avoids a lot of detrimental cards played by other players. > 2/ The Imbued deck doesn't have access to all the beneficial cards, but can use only those that are Imbued-compatible (no Blood Doll, but Liquidation for instance). > > The advantages outshine the disadvantages. > > Typical allies decks are not the same since they rely on vampires to bring out allies. Imbued decks don't have to. > I'm also not convinced by the support you give for your argument that the "advantages outshine the disadvantages." Kine Resources Contested is one of those "detrimental cards played by other players." It gets played way more often then about 90% of the cards that say "a vampire" (thus not affecting imbued). Imbued have little going for them to do anything about this card and the ensuing referendum. This is a major disadvantage and pretty much makes up for Taste of Vitae (another commonly played card) not being able to be used on Imbued. > Bloodartist wrote: > In order to have allies, you're supposed to have a vampire that recruits them. Interacting with said recruiter makes all the difference for ally decks. This is not the case with Imbued. > Now, this touches on where I can start to understand the argument that Imbued are bad design: they are crypt cards but also considered allies. It's odd that Imbued are considered a term that was introduced in NoR (Imbued) and also an old term that works differently mechanically (Ally). It's even more odd when juxtaposed against the new term that was introduced in NoR to refer to any non-mortal/non-animal (Monster). Was having the Imbued be both "Imbued" and "Ally" a good idea when NoR was clearly introducing new terms to circumvent problems with existing terms? I don't know, but it does seem to introduce a lot of confusion. That said, even if this was a design mistep, I'm still not convinced that the symptoms of Imbued also being considered allies are a problem. Imbued have weaknesses because of this.

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > [quote="Ankha" post=85675 > I'm also not convinced by the support you give for your argument that the "advantages outshine the disadvantages." Kine Resources Contested is one of those "detrimental cards played by other players." It gets played way more often then about 90% of the cards that say "a vampire" (thus not affecting imbued). Imbued have little going for them to do anything about this card and the ensuing referendum. This is a major disadvantage and pretty much makes up for Taste of Vitae (another commonly played card) not being able to be used on Imbued. > Cross-table voting is indeed a way to get rid of Imbued, but 1/ it's also true for many non-Imbued decks (many decks without votes don't include Delaying Tactics) 2/ it's resources spent against someone who is not your prey, which is not an optimal thing at all. If you're the predator, you'll have to go through 2+ intercept each time (Unmasking + Second Sight), if you're lucky enough not to have the vote action cancelled by Determine. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > If you're the predator, you'll have to go through 2+ intercept each time (Unmasking + Second Sight), if you're lucky enough not to have the vote action cancelled by Determine. > And Determine takes away an extremely useful, but very limited and slow-to-replenish resource. Not much different than Power of All or Rewind Time or any other effect that cancels a card. For The Unmasking, that means you didn't pack a Gehenna hoser, like Fourth Cycle or The Uncoiling. That's just an event arms race like any other arms race in the game. The game has plenty such races. Why is calling this one out important? How many will the Imbued deck pack? How fast will the deck get to one? Is there a window when it is not available? It's not like they start the game with an event in play. The Imbued's other intercept is via Second Sight. If you make continued pressure every turn then, they have to burn it every turn. That means the Imbued is not playing his game (ie, going forward). It's a slow to replenish resource, easily defeated by Change of Target, Crypts' Sons, Majesty, Tangle Atropos' Hand, superior combat, etc. If your vote deck failed to have a plan to encounter a wall built with some permanent and some transient stealth, then you didn't plan to succeed. Vote decks need real stealth or "European" stealth in most metagames to succeed. Even then you can't expect all of your actions to be successful. Why is this such a sore point? How is this "wall" really any different than !Ventrue, Tremere, or !Tremere deck types? A Bowl of Convergeance with a tons of wakes is likely more threatening than the Imbued variant.

Why you are suddenly discussing how to deal with imbued? Yea, they can be dealt with, it's even not wery hard - they are totally not tier 1 and in some mutchups can die horribly. Problem lies in completely other dimension. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > Why you are suddenly discussing how to deal with imbued? Yea, they can be dealt with, it's even not wery hard - they are totally not tier 1 and in some mutchups can die horribly. > > Problem lies in completely other dimension. > Then why are people bringing it up? I'm only responding. It seems pretty clear that most folks conflate how to play against Imbued with the design of them.

> kschaefer wrote: > It seems pretty clear that most folks conflate how to play against Imbued with the design of them. > How to play against them is somehow connected with their design problems. Average vampir on the table got 1 strength and 1 bleed, most his abilities comes from hand of the player, so his opponent has to evaluate possibilities, analize their table position and mange risks accordingly. Imbueds got most of their abilities on the table. All surprises there is Determine and Angel of Berlin. So you have to "solve a puzzle" with only real challenge here is to physically differentiate half a dozen identical cards (with different abilities) on each of identical dudes (with also completely different abilities) across the table. That sometimes this "puzzle" will be unsolvable for your deck because of imbued immunities is just an icing on the cake. All this is manageable, just not fun, especially for those, who like VtES at the first place. Making addition to the game, which makes it less fun, is a bad design. NC Russia

> Ankha wrote: > Cross-table voting is indeed a way to get rid of Imbued, but > 1/ it's also true for many non-Imbued decks (many decks without votes don't include Delaying Tactics) > 2/ it's resources spent against someone who is not your prey, which is not an optimal thing at all. > If you're the predator, you'll have to go through 2+ intercept each time (Unmasking + Second Sight), if you're lucky enough not to have the vote action cancelled by Determine. > Right. But what if a deck that is built around vote lock, stealth, and Kine Resources Contested has an imbued deck as prey? The Imbued are dead. Major disadvantage for them. This is what I'm talking about, not anything cross-table. > elotar wrote: > Why you are suddenly discussing how to deal with imbued? Yea, they can be dealt with, it's even not wery hard - they are totally not tier 1 and in some mutchups can die horribly. > Because discussion of how to easily deal with "non-tier 1" Imbued basically proves that there is not a design issue with the Imbued. > Problem lies in completely other dimension. > Yeah, the problem is personal preference. Some other players find them boring. All of the "problems" with the imbued brought up in this thread are not problems for those who play Imbued. > Imbueds got most of their abilities on the table. All surprises there is Determine and Angel of Berlin. So you have to "solve a puzzle" with only real challenge here is to physically differentiate half a dozen identical cards (with different abilities) on each of identical dudes (with also completely different abilities) across the table. That sometimes this "puzzle" will be unsolvable for your deck because of imbued immunities is just an icing on the cake. > > All this is manageable, just not fun, especially for those, who like VtES at the first place. Making addition to the game, which makes it less fun, is a bad design. > "Fun" is subjective. A lot of people who like VTES in the first place find Malk 94 manageable to deal with, but not fun. Same with most weenie decks. This does not point to a design problem with these decks, so why would Imbued not being fun be symptomatic of a design problem? Maybe you personally just don't find them fun. Which is totally reasonable, and it seems like you're not the only one to have this opinion. The people who play Imbued are likely having a blast if they're winning. Have you tried playing them yourself?

> elotar wrote: > How to play against them is somehow connected with their design problems. Average vampir on the table got 1 strength and 1 bleed, most his abilities comes from hand of the player, so his opponent has to evaluate possibilities, analize their table position and mange risks accordingly. > > Imbueds got most of their abilities on the table. All surprises there is Determine and Angel of Berlin. > The difference becomes less and less relevant as people build better decks, and have enough copies of their key cards to play them reliably whenever they need. By now I am convinced that the real reason Imbued have such a bad rep is not due to them, but to Gehenna events. Imbued on their own are fine to play with and to play against, if a bit predictable. Imbued Gehenna are a waste of the other 4 players' time.

Also it would be good to remember that you can easily include, say, one Inbued to most of the decks. As a supporting character. A deck that features imbued doesn't have to be be pure Imbued deck... IANLSJ, but that is the design vibe I've always gotten from them. Finnish Politics!

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > "Fun" is subjective. A lot of people who like VTES in the first place find Malk 94 manageable to deal with, but not fun. Same with most weenie decks. This does not point to a design problem with these decks... > No, it points to the design problem of these decks too. "Subjective fun" is the only real reason, why people play (or stop playing) games. Possibility to build unbalanced deck is one of the problems of VtES, but problems of imbueds are "one level" more serious. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > Possibility to build unbalanced deck is one of the problems of VtES, but problems of imbueds are "one level" more serious. > Wait... I genuinely do not understand this statement. Do you mean that unbalanced decks that are super focused are problematic? Here balance suggests strategic balance: S&B without a combat module is a great example of unbalanced strategies, as well as rush combat without a reaction module. Or do you mean that unbalanced decks that cross the line with power level compared to others are problematic? At the moment master spam decks powered by Ashur Tablets and Liquidation are a good example, as well as well built tupdog decks. Or something else entirely? Some would say that the possibility of building unbalanced decks is one of the strengths of VtES. When considering the latter, there will always be strategies and resources that are better than others. No game will achieve perfect balance. The short list of banned cards (relative to any other game, basically) is a testament of pretty good internal balance. The interaction of many players actually enable more powerful builds while retaining balance. When someone brings the 'best' deck, it's up to others to deal with it. Of course the most abusive builds have to be addressed by further design of cards or other means, if they dominate tournament wins by a vast margin. As for the former, the possibility of building super focused, unbalanced decks can - once again - be seen as a strength of VtES. If it's a good strategy depends on plenty of things. Without balance in your build, you sacrifice elements of surprise and reactivity for consistency. It's really up to your playstyle how you want to approach the game, and none of them are strictly inferior. Balance is not shoehorned into people's playstyles, but it is a valid option. As an example, a Cybele Aksinya Ashur Tablets deck can be extremely balanced with their strategy, but at the same time super unbalanced compared to almost anything !Nosferatu can do with all of their tricks. I'm not sure which (if either) you mean here. Also, how does this address imbued? They're not really dominating the power curve, as has been discussed, but they are actually super versatile, and as such, balanced - they are relatively good at action compression, intercept, stealth and combat, so their strengths spread out, even if they are completely lacking in some areas of play (diablerie for example). They can even interact with votes through Poison Pill and stuff like that. Krausedit\\ Personally I find them infuriating, but that's mostly because of the gehenna spam, and that their tool up turns can be stupid efficient if their neighbours did not draw into their 2 intercept in time to disrupt the most crucial Powers. The unlock after EVERY Power is the problem here, I feel. It creates the illusion of them kinda cheating. Krausedit\\ A final note on inbalance of power levels as a part of game design: in some cases it can be beneficial to create 'overpowered' effects, if they are spread out evenly. Duelyst is a great example of this. They have insanely powerful effects that have to be built up, and are available at earliest on turns 4 or 5 into the game. The over the top effects assure that games don't drag on, and are 'fast and furious'. This is part of their design philosophy. The problem isn't with imbued, I think, but with gehennas, as others have noted. Imbued aren't a deterrent to the speed of games (which is already an issue in VtES), but gehenna are. Their effects mostly disrupt player actions, and often require time consuming effects to be remembered and resolved. Games of VtES need to be sped up. Powerful effects enable that. Imbued are grindy in nature, but ultimately play Vampire at it's core. "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

> elotar wrote: > > > TwoRazorReign wrote: > > "Fun" is subjective. A lot of people who like VTES in the first place find Malk 94 manageable to deal with, but not fun. Same with most weenie decks. This does not point to a design problem with these decks... > > > No, it points to the design problem of these decks too. "Subjective fun" is the only real reason, why people play (or stop playing) games. Possibility to build unbalanced deck is one of the problems of VtES, but problems of imbueds are "one level" more serious. > So what about those people who play Malk94, weenie decks, and imbued who have fun doing so? Are they too clueless to realize they're playing flawed decks and should stop, or do they just have a different definition of fun than you do? I believe it's the latter. You're also contradicting yourself here. Earlier, you said in your experience that gentlman's agreements lead to everybody bringing boring toolbox decks. So balance was a problem for you in the previous post, and here you're saying unbalance is a problem. Which is it?

By unbalanced in context of M94 and weenies, I, obviously, mean maximizing one aspect by sacrificing the others. This leads to some matchups being unwinnable by one side. It's fine in two player game like magic, where you can spend 10 minutes for a match and then switch decks/sideboard, it's very bad for 2-hour game of VtES, where loser will be sitting there doing nothing for a long time while 4 others will have suboptimal game on table with one player having free VP and 6 pool. But this problems are mostly manageable by, like, playing VtES - there are countless ways to defend against bleed and to punish small vampires at both deck construction level and in actual play. Imbueds, with some exception to allies vulnerabilities and weaknesses, are mostly balanced in this regard - some bleed, some combat, some defence. But you are playing with them in completely different way (I've already elaborated on this). Have you played Preferans? Very popular in Russia (and very boring) card game. And this is even worse, because with imbueds not only one not ready/unlucky player is out of normal game, but all four of them. Actually imbued player is also kind of out of normal game - he can't rescue crosstable, play politics and usually don't rush, so he is generally interacting only with his prey and predator. Gehenna spam just make things worse, but it fits imbueds really well. NC Russia

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > gentlman's agreements lead... > Gentlman's agreements (as well as balance) got nothing to do with this topic - imbueds should go because of their alien to VtES way of playing. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > > > TwoRazorReign wrote: > > gentlman's agreements lead... > > > Gentlman's agreements (as well as balance) got nothing to do with this topic - imbueds should go because of their alien to VtES way of playing. > No, you said imbued were "one level more than" unbalanced previously. So, I'm saying in that thread about gentleman's agreements (a completely different thread about a completely different topic), you intimated that toolbox decks are a problem. Here's the exact quote: "What problems with gentelmen's agreement I've witnessed - if you agree to not bring "aggressive" decks than the field start to dwindle to some slow useless tolboxy-combat monstrosities, which lazy hit each other for two hours with no satisfying result." So unbalanced and aggressive Imbued decks are a problem, and balanced toolbox decks are a problem. What about this game is not a problem?

Balance problems is one level, imbued problem is other level. What is so hard to understand? First one is easier, because it can possibly @be solved within frame of the game, imbueds can't - interaction with them breaks the flow of the game and there is nothing to do with it then remove them completely or continue suffering. NC Russia

> Balance problems is one level, imbued problem is other level. What is so hard to understand? > Well, that whole sentence. That's why I asked. Thanks for clearing that up though. My final note here would be that imbued are problematic at the moment, but not for balance reasons per se. There are more problematic builds, but none of them rarely see tournament wins. Some reasons are hard to get original copies of cards (tupdogs for example), some are that people are (forced to) countering them with hate cards and silver bullets. The latter is not doing the game a favour, as silver bullet design is not the best, but here we are. There was some discussion once I recall when we were fiddling around the idea of a sideboard of five(ish) cards for tournaments, so that you could fiddle around with your silver bullets. It might give you a boost on 3rd round or final if you're playing against decks you've already seen. Another topic though... "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

VtES is sort of better than others for silver bullets - with discard phase and all. It's, obviously, not an ideal way to make the game balanced, but for me it's better, than sideboard NC Russia

> Kraus wrote: > There was some discussion once I recall when we were fiddling around the idea of a sideboard of five(ish) cards for tournaments, so that you could fiddle around with your silver bullets. It might give you a boost on 3rd round or final if you're playing against decks you've already seen. Another topic though... > Ha! I just had an idea. What if such a "sideboard" did exist, and your minion, during a game, could take a normal undirected action to move a card from that sideboard to your hand. (discard down to handsize afterwards). This would go around the fact that sideboards the way they are in Magic, do not work in VTES due to the fact that we likely play only one game against a specific opponent. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Bloodartist wrote: > ...your minion, during a game, could take a normal undirected action to move a card from that sideboard to your hand. > There is a "wish" cycle in MTG which does something like it. It can be implemented in VtES. I'm not sure it'll be a good idea, thou. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > > > Bloodartist wrote: > > ...your minion, during a game, could take a normal undirected action to move a card from that sideboard to your hand. > > > There is a "wish" cycle in MTG which does something like it. > It can be implemented in VtES. I'm not sure it'll be a good idea, thou. > "You're down to 4 pool? Let me get my Conditioning from my sideboard..." Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > elotar wrote: > > > > > Bloodartist wrote: > > > ...your minion, during a game, could take a normal undirected action to move a card from that sideboard to your hand. > > > > > > > > There is a "wish" cycle in MTG which does something like it. > > It can be implemented in VtES. I'm not sure it'll be a good idea, thou. > > > "You're down to 4 pool? Let me get my Conditioning from my sideboard..." > You have X card in play? Here, let me fetch hard counter Y

> Blooded wrote: > "You're down to 4 pool? Let me get my Conditioning from my sideboard..." > > You have X card in play? Here, let me fetch hard counter Y > Actually in real play it's not very different than fetch from library. NC Russia

> Ankha wrote: > "You're down to 4 pool? Let me get my Conditioning from my sideboard..." > So Sibyl's tongue for conditioning is now somehow broken? ps. I wouldn't waste the few sideboard slots for something like conditioning, but thats me. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

IMO, silver bullets / hosers / hard counters wouldn't be so bad if VTES didn't have 20+ clans and / or had developed the Camarilla / Sabbat / Anarchs (no Imbued please! ) equally from the start. VTES also gets away with it better than other CGs because most VTES cards have two options thanks to the Inferior / Superior discipline format. Other CGs with silver bullets / hosers are devoted to an entire card. But, IMO, silver bullets / hosers / hard counters are generally indicative of poor design or creator oversight ("this card was more powerful than we thought") which is poor design by another name. Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

> LivesByProxy wrote: > IMO, silver bullets / hosers / hard counters wouldn't be so bad if VTES didn't have 20+ clans and / or had developed the Camarilla / Sabbat / Anarchs (no Imbued please! ) > I hate vegetables because of climate change. -1 Strength

> GreyB wrote: > > I hate vegetables because of climate change. > This is meant to be some kind of mockery, but I don't get it. My dislike of the Imbued is purely personal opinion, I've said as much. But it's inarguable that the value of silver bullets / hosers / hard counters decreases dramatically as the odds that you'll ever see their intended targets decreases. In other words, the more clans that are added, the lower the odds you'll see a specific clan at a table, the less valuable any silver bullet / hoser becomes. Notably, Amaranth only reveals one card that directly hoses the Imbued - Break The Code. Of course, if the game only had 4 playable factions (Vampires, Mages, Werewolves, Imbued), then such a card would probably see much more play. As it stands, I can't imagine anyone adding Break The Code to their deck. :/ Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

The clan hosers used to work quite well in '95. Also some of them were more effective than others. Finnish Politics!

Malkavian dementia is still good. Then again malks are one of the best clans and it has combo support in Derange... No one uses Brujah hosers because they are not a prelavent clan. Also easier to deal with your main game plan as well. True silver bullets include Scourge of Enochians, Uncoiling, Fear of Mekhet and that location that taps tupdo-- minions as they enter play, to name some. I mean out of those that see any play these days. "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

> Lönkka wrote: > The clan hosers used to work quite well in '95. > Also some of them were more effective than others. > And as I like to point out: Magic the gathering has moved away from hoser-cards over the years. (I don't agree with this writer btw) The opinions on whether its for better or worse is debatable. But I NEVER want the ONLY counter strategy to be a hoser card. That is simply poor design. Deck strategies need have play against each other without a handful of one-of hosers. Hoser cards should also never be so strong that "I play this against this particular deck and I automatically win." Then the game becomes a coin-toss of whether you draw that card or not. Who would want that? What I am saying is: We shouldn't be thinking that "As long as a hoser card exists against this archetype, everything is fine and balanced". > LivesByProxy wrote: > > Notably, Amaranth only reveals one card that directly hoses the Imbued - Break The Code. Of course, if the game only had 4 playable factions (Vampires, Mages, Werewolves, Imbued), then such a card would probably see much more play. As it stands, I can't imagine anyone adding Break The Code to their deck. :/ > Likely the best hoser against Imbued is Fourth cycle , which I got to windmill slam against a crosstable Imbued that was messing with everybodys game in last weekends tournament (hopefully we see a TWD report soon). It burned 3-4 gehennas and a bunch of convictions. Imbued tend to rely heavily on gehenna cards because imbued dodge pretty much all negative aspects of these cards that mess up everyone elses game. It would be tempting to say it was fun, but I'd rather not have played against Imbued OR gehennas OR included fourth cycle in my deck. Admittedly Imbued wouldn't be as annoying if they didn't play Gehennas. Maybe Gehennas are the problem.. Such loathsome cards. ps. Break the code is a blank that you include in a deck if you want to play other gehennas that require gehennas to already be in play. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> LivesByProxy wrote: > > > GreyB wrote: > > > > I hate vegetables because of climate change. > > > This is meant to be some kind of mockery, but I don't get it. > My appologies, I am growing tired of the 'because VTES has 20+ clan' argument, it's really irrelevant. Back when there where only 9 clans, clan hosers where bad. They where fine when someone actually played the clan in a game, you know; abuse the meta, but my group liked to play several clans so you where always stuck with some useless anti clan cards. Anti clan cards are not worth it unless you build a deck around it (ie. Malkavian dementia/derange), Specific cards against allies where always better than clan specific hosers, since there's always at least 1 person that has at least some allies in a game. Those ally hosers work against imbueds as well and it IS a massive weakness, so imbueds got some defence against those cards. Without that defense, imbueds would've been crippled from day one. The problem with imbueds is that a lot of cards don't interact with allies in general, burn blood effects, taste of vitae, events, etc. A simple fix would be to make burn blood effects/taste of vitae interact with allies, but then recruited allies would become too fragile. A more complex fix is to elevate imbued to a seperate category, so you can burn their blood/life only because their imbueds. The easiest fix would of course be to ban imbueds and forget they existed. As for minority (clan/sect) hosers, no more new cards should be designed unless they also have a secondary more generic function. -1 Strength

> What I am saying is: We shouldn't be thinking that "As long as a hoser card exists against this archetype, everything is fine and balanced". > A good thing I can't think of this mind set being present in VTES. I can't really recall the whole of the topic here, but was that ever stated? ...it's funny how I almost instantly felt the need to add 'genuinely asking', as if that would be warranted on these forums in particular. Nah, but I don't think that total silver bullets have been a thing in VTES game design for quite some time. Most hosers have other uses as well (Trochomancy against Ashur Tablets and Imbued), and the silver bullets I mentioned above are few and far between, as well as older design. Uncoiling might be more recent. Most stuff you can deal with in VTES as long as you build a roughly balanced deck. Silver bullets are just kinda there. Scourge of Enochians and that wee location (still can't remember) against Tupdogs are a thing, sure, but Tumnimos swarms and Tupdogs are odd ones out. They're here, and we'll at the moment kinda have to live with them. Let's see the next step of game evolvement and if people will find better ways to deal with them. If there even is a need for it. Those, too, can be dealt with full table pressure. Back to the topic at hand: this includes dealing with imbued as well. You don't have to prepare to deal with allies to be able to deal with imbued. Not exactly. "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

> Kraus wrote: > A good thing I can't think of this mind set being present in VTES. I can't really recall the whole of the topic here, but was that ever stated? > > ...it's funny how I almost instantly felt the need to add 'genuinely asking', as if that would be warranted on these forums in particular. > Well "everything is fine and balanced" is definitely a mindset that is prevalent on these forums.. And one I don't necessarily agree with. Unrelated to Imbued though. I never claimed that Imbued are unbalanced, just that they are not fun and annoying to be in same table with. > Scourge of Enochians and that wee location (still can't remember) against Tupdogs are a thing, sure, but Tumnimos swarms and Tupdogs are odd ones out. > Gran Madre di dio, Italy? That at least always does SOMEthing, so its a good design for a hoser. The narrowness of hoser cards in VTES is an issue in my opinion. Take for example my fourth cycle. You can't even play it out of your hand to cycle unless someone is heavy into Gehennas. The interaction of allies with the rest of the game leaves quite a lot to be desired in my opinion. But its what we are saddled with. For example, flavorwise it makes no sense whatsoever that you cannot use seduction on an ally. If anything, allies should be more vulnerable to dominate/presence. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Well "everything is fine and balanced" is definitely a mindset that is prevalent on these forums.. And one I don't necessarily agree with. Unrelated to Imbued though. I never claimed that Imbued are unbalanced, just that they are not fun and annoying to be in same table with. > That's true. I'd rather say that overall VTES is balanced enough. The output claiming otherwise can be really... nnngh, at times, and we've a history of that output coming from players that don't really, seriously, play the game. So there's that. VTES isn't broken as some have a tendency to call it. Far from it. No denying there'd be work to be done, but aside from personal opinions, at least I'm willing to let the design team work with that. For most part with rulings and bans, as well as all of the .pdf sets designed this far, they've done a better job than I would've. I trust they have an eye on what's actually broken an what isn't. If anything, I'm feeling that many Combat End effects are a bit too easy to use, too cost efficient and stuff, stuff, and Villein should read "up to 5 blood". That's all, basically. We already missed the chance to revise Ashur's to read "minion cards" (rule out master spam), but that's that. These are, in a grand scale of things, just personal opinions (through a decade of tournament play), and not more refined than that. On imbued I have nothing. Without gehenna they would be pretty much okay, or if Powers let you unlock only on the first one or something. Annoying, sure. But I checked some imbued not seen that often yesterday for fun, and thought that many of them would work great as vampire supplements, like Maman and both 6-cost imbued whose names I can't remember. Many of their cards are even underpowered as single use powers (which is fine), while some are no-brainier level (which makes them super resilient and not so fun to play against, so not fine), so... As an idea and a design they're actually pretty interesting. Their (inner) balancing was slightly off, is all. "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

> LivesByProxy wrote: > As it stands, I can't imagine anyone adding Break The Code to their deck. :/ > I stopped counting when I reached 50 decks in the TWDA that included it.

Are those decks really using it as a hoser? It is also an enabler for cards that need a Gehenna event in play, e.g. The Rising.

> Non-existant user wrote: > Are those decks really using it as a hoser? It is also an enabler for cards that need a Gehenna event in play, e.g. The Rising. > Precisely. I am sure said decks are using it as filler so they can play gehennas that require another gehenna to be in play. Like I said before, this is what it's for, since it does nothing to vampires. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

It is indeed an excellent filler and occasionally a lucky break too when the table has Imbued. Heck, it happened to me at least once with my !Tor no discipline breed Boon Gehenna deck... Finnish Politics!

I'm way too lazy to go through them all. Here are the first ten decks that use it. 1) Event (2) 1x Break the Code 1x Fourth Cycle, The 2) Event (8 ) 1x Blood Weakens 1x Break the Code 1x Fall of the Camarilla 1x Fall of the Sabbat 1x Narrow Minds 1x The Rising 1x The Slow Withering 1x Veil of Darkness 3) Event [3] 1x Bitter and Sweet Story, The 1x Break the Code 1x Narrow Minds 4) Event Blood Trade Break the Code 5) Event (4) 3 x Break The Code 1 x Blood Trade 6) Event (10) 1 Recalled to the Founder 1 Veil of Darkness 1 Blood Weakens 1 Break the Code 3 Anthelios, the Red Star 1 Narrow Minds 1 Restricted Vitae 1 The Slow Withering 7) Event [6] 1x Anthelios, The Red Star 1x Break the Code 1x FBI Special Affairs Division 1x Slow Withering, The 1x Unmasking, The 1x Veil of Darkness 8 ) Event (5) 1 Anthelios, The Red Star 1 Blood Trade 1 Break the Code 1 Fourth Cycle, The 1 Thirst 9) Event (3) 2 Blood Trade 1 Break the Code 10) Event (5) 2 Blood Trade 1 Break the Code 1 Anthelios, the Red Star 1 Fourth Cycle, The So: Is anyone using Break the Code as a hoser? Yes. Are other people also using it to fuel the play of other cards? Yes. (Decks 8-10 in the above list are all Wolves Feed decks.)

Discussed the problem with my religious friend (home rules for CCG about vampires is ideal small talk topic with such person :lol). His idea was, that it's common for any cult that if something was not going "good" (in this context - not according to predictions, like end of the world failed to materialize in time) and membership start to dwindle, than first to left will be most reasonable members and as a result "median" cult ideology switches to even more radical ideas - in opposing direction to what it feels for onlookers to be reasonable reaction. All this got totally nothing to do with anything concerning discussions of VtES rule changes NC Russia

> Kushiel wrote: > 5) Event (4) > 3 x Break The Code > 1 x Blood Trade > I'm quite confused by some of these... since blood trade is basically also a filler gehenna (burn all boons yay). But there is nothing these are filling for? These decks must have some non-event card that wants you to play gehennas, so context is sorta obscured here.. Which ones of these are actually running break the code as a hoser? > > 3) Event [3] > 1x Bitter and Sweet Story, The > 1x Break the Code > 1x Narrow Minds > This one? No idea whats going on here, but if used as a hoser, it must be some specific metagame call.. In general I would consider running break the code as a hoser sub-optimal. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Kushiel wrote: > 5) Event (4) > 3 x Break The Code > 1 x Blood Trade > I'm quite confused by some of these... since blood trade is basically also a filler gehenna (burn all boons yay). But there is nothing these are filling for? These decks must have some non-event card that wants you to play gehennas, so context is sorta obscured here.. Which ones of these are actually running break the code as a hoser? > > 3) Event [3] > 1x Bitter and Sweet Story, The > 1x Break the Code > 1x Narrow Minds > This one? No idea whats going on here, but if used as a hoser, it must be some specific metagame call.. In general I would consider running break the code as a hoser sub-optimal. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Kushiel wrote: > 5) Event (4) > 3 x Break The Code > 1 x Blood Trade > I'm quite confused by some of these... since blood trade is basically also a filler gehenna (burn all boons yay). But there is nothing these are filling for? These decks must have some non-event card that wants you to play gehennas, so context is sorta obscured here.. Which ones of these are actually running break the code as a hoser? > > 3) Event [3] > 1x Bitter and Sweet Story, The > 1x Break the Code > 1x Narrow Minds > This one? No idea whats going on here, but if used as a hoser, it must be some specific metagame call.. In general I would consider running break the code as a hoser sub-optimal. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Bloodartist wrote: > I'm quite confused by some of these... > Watchtower: the wolves feed NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > > > Bloodartist wrote: > > I'm quite confused by some of these... > > > Watchtower: the wolves feed > Yes I guess, another case of break the code being ran as a filler (wolves feed requires a gehenna in play) I suppose thats it for most of them except the ones that are disciplineless weenie decks that are not imbued (who would run unmasking instead)? ps. Sorry about the multiple posts, I had some issues with posting, the forum got stuck after I clicked submit and the post got sent multiple times apparently. I cannot delete the posts myself... pps. happened again... this time I didn't click "submit" multiple times.. I wonder if these issues are related to those weird popup messages.. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech