Vampire: Elder Kindred Network Newsletter February 2023
Contents:
- What country has most VTES players?
- Baali and Daughters of Cacophony now on Drivethrucards
- 150 players registered for Spanish national championships!
- Great VTES content
- Worth a slot #1: Blood Tears of Kephran
- Recruitment exercise in Milwaukee
- Black Chantry summary: February 2023
- Recent news in the World of Darkness
- Calendar
Read the newsletter at
www.vekn.net/2-uncategorised/540-vampire-elder-kindred-network-newsletter-february-2023
"My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."
Not altogether clear in the Newsletter, I wanted to ascertain whether the upcoming Shadows of Berlin pack will be made available for retailers or not.
Finnish Politics!
Regarding VTES Time Tracker: what a great idea!
Often people have commented that some player(s) hog up much more time than other so this is a nifty tool to actually easily check if that is happening. I'll most definitely give it a try the next time I'll play! *
However the "A player is automatically ousted if they run out of time." feature is something I don't understand since it assumes that everyone has and is using only equal time to make their turn.
As, during a VTES game, the gameplay doesn't actually end for a VTES player if they manage to use "their" share of the gametime, having an option to ignore this to see how much more time a talkative / slow / whatever player is hogging up would've been even more beneficial.
Hmmm, but that would've required a different kind of approach to the app. Instead of dividing the available time to remaining players and counting down towards zero like in VTES Time Tracker, I think it would've been even more beneficial to have "normal" timers for all players. That is, when a player's timer is "on" it would be adding time to their total instead of racing towards zero. Also, in this kind of tracker when a player gets ousted their timer is made to freeze to the time they had used when ousted.
(ADDED THOUGHT: I now get what the app is trying to achieve -showing how much remaining gametime each player still have when all the remaining time is divided equally amongst the remaining players. What I think would be even more beneficial would be having five timers just showing how much time those players have already used.)
* Granted, it is certainly not only the player whose turn it is that is using playtime during their turn. Depending on game situation other player(s) can use _considerable_ amounts of time during someone else's turn, say, when blocking, or worse yet, when merely contemplating/ discussing whether to block or not, or during political actions, or having grand conversations how the game should go/ be played/ table should be split etc (looking at you "french" playstyle... )
Finnish Politics!
> Lönkka wrote:
> * Granted, it is certainly not only the player whose turn it is that is using playtime during their turn. Depending on game situation other player(s) can use _considerable_ amounts of time during someone else's turn, say, when blocking, or worse yet, when merely contemplating/ discussing whether to block or not, or during political actions, or having grand conversations how the game should go/ be played/ table should be split etc (looking at you "french" playstyle... )
>
You're supposed to deduct the time you spend on someone else's turn from your own time.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> Ankha wrote:
>
> > Lönkka wrote:
> > * Granted, it is certainly not only the player whose turn it is that is using playtime during their turn. Depending on game situation other player(s) can use _considerable_ amounts of time during someone else's turn, say, when blocking, or worse yet, when merely contemplating/ discussing whether to block or not, or during political actions, or having grand conversations how the game should go/ be played/ table should be split etc (looking at you "french" playstyle... )
> >
> You're supposed to deduct the time you spend on someone else's turn from your own time.
>
Not very feasible. How do you measure the time each player puts into, say, a debate about a political action. Or a tabledeal?
With Time Tracker, I guess you could try to press relevant players as they take their turn in discussing, however situations rarely are all that straightforward and some sometimes change in who is speaking is extremely rapid. Not all that easy and convenient.
Finnish Politics!
> Lönkka wrote:
>
> > Ankha wrote:
> >
> > > Lönkka wrote:
> > > * Granted, it is certainly not only the player whose turn it is that is using playtime during their turn. Depending on game situation other player(s) can use _considerable_ amounts of time during someone else's turn, say, when blocking, or worse yet, when merely contemplating/ discussing whether to block or not, or during political actions, or having grand conversations how the game should go/ be played/ table should be split etc (looking at you "french" playstyle... )
> > >
> > You're supposed to deduct the time you spend on someone else's turn from your own time.
> >
> Not very feasible. How do you measure the time each player puts into, say, a debate about a political action. Or a tabledeal?
>
> With Time Tracker, I guess you could try to press relevant players as they take their turn in discussing, however situations rarely are all that straightforward and some sometimes change in who is speaking is extremely rapid. Not all that easy and convenient.
>
It's not very convenient indeed, but feasible. I experimented it yesterday.
If the acting Methuselah is having a lengthy discussion with another player, only the acting Methuselah should be credited.
Otherwise, two players discussing about something shouldn't prevent the acting Meth from going on, unless he wants to join the conversation. In any case, it's his time he chooses to spend.
And if someone really wants to say something and politely you decide to listen to him, you can always say: "ok, i will listen to your arguments, but I will deduct it from your time."
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> Ankha wrote:
>
> > Lönkka wrote:
> > And if someone really wants to say something and politely you decide to listen to him, you can always say: "ok, i will listen to your arguments, but I will deduct it from your time."
> >
> Ooooo, scary!
>
Finnish Politics!
Timers favor decks that have larger payloads and more direct lines of attack. Those decks are more efficient with their actions in terms of ousting.
Combat takes time. Lots of minions or lots of actions takes time. That's true even if you efficient with declaring actions and moving through combat steps.
Last thing we need is more encouragement to play big bleed at stealth.
> kschaefer wrote:
> Timers favor decks that have larger payloads and more direct lines of attack. Those decks are more efficient with their actions in terms of ousting.
>
> Combat takes time. Lots of minions or lots of actions takes time. That's true even if you efficient with declaring actions and moving through combat steps.
>
> Last thing we need is more encouragement to play big bleed at stealth.
>
Paradoxically, when I used the time tracker for the first time, the bleed and stealth deck in the game ran out of time before anybody else.
V:EKN Website Coordinator
> kschaefer wrote:
> Timers favor decks that have larger payloads and more direct lines of attack. Those decks are more efficient with their actions in terms of ousting.
>
> Combat takes time. Lots of minions or lots of actions takes time. That's true even if you efficient with declaring actions and moving through combat steps.
>
> Last thing we need is more encouragement to play big bleed at stealth.
>
Have you tried it guys? The two games I played (a small sample indeed) didn't show this.
In the first game, I was playing a multi-action bleed stealth and spent more time than the other players (mainly because of the multi-action part, but also because I had to think a lot about the correct course of action)
On the other game, I was playing multi-rush Enkidu. I was ousted in 1h15, but I was the player with the less time spent.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director