New expansion and card ideas

This is basically to follow up on a thread started by Aaron Clark on googlegroups that I found pretty interesting but which didnt get the attention it deserved (and got trolled to oblivion for some reason): groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/browse_thread/thread/a70b1bd471ba51ce What would you like to see in a new expansion? Now that the development of the game is 100% community driven, it would be great if we could get a good and structured dialogue with input from as many players as possible in connection with the creation of a new edition. Looking at it from a general perspective (rather than individual cards) we discussed the below points in the thread, which I think provides a good framework for discussing any expansions (additional suggestions are welcome of course) - at least this is my attempt at such a framework. Its necessary to look at this before making new cards, I think... Framework for new edition (in random order) 1. any revisions and loose ends? 2. new game mechanics? 3. WoD background 4. format 5. practical stuff 1. Revisions and loose ends Bahari being the most obvious. As for revisions, could be new cards adressing old problems (like Two Wrongs vs bounce) or re-writes (like when the revised Anarch Revolt came out). 2. New mechanics This is the most interesting I think, but probably also the most controversial. This would cover the ideas floating around re incorporating Mage etc. in the game. In the thread above, we discussed if new ways of gaining VPs should be introduced. I have suggestions to three new cards below. 3. Background New editions should follow/develop the World of Darkness background. I dont have so much to add here, but I am sure that others have. 4. Format So far, new expansions have followed the tried and tested format (boosters, starter packs of a certain size). I think a serious discussion should be had about this now though. There are so many formats out there now (Living Card Game etc.), and we have complete freedom to structure new expansions as we like. We could have expansions of 3 new cards every 3 months, e.g. only vampires or only non-vampires etc. And how often should new editions come out? 5. Practical stuff Are we free to develop new cards? (rights etc.). What will it cost, who can print it etc. I know that the people who were previously involved in the development of the game know tons about this, but it would good to have a discussion about this, Im sure there are lots of players spread across the community who can contribute to this. If we lift together, the burden isnt so heavy. So anyway, hope this gives some food for thought. Here are my three suggestions for cards that provide new ways of gaining VPs. The Greater of Two Evils [Unique] master, pool cost [not sure] Choose a methuselah other than your predator. A methuselah cannot be chosen unless both you and that methuselah have less pool than the chosen methuselah's prey. From your next turn, if the chosen methuselah's prey is ousted during your turn, you gain half a VP and the chosen methuselah gains half a VP less for ousting his or her prey. Any minion can burn this card as a action. Might is right Master, pool cost [not sure] Put 2 counters on this card when it comes into play. Add a counter to this card if a minion you control burns a minion controlled by another methuselah. Remove a counter from this card if a minion controlled by another methuselah burns a minion controlled by another methuselah than that methuselah. Burn this card if it has no counters. Burn this card if it has [10] counters to gain a VP. Back against the wall Master, pool cost (not sure) If your predator is ousted during your next turn, you gain a VP instead of your predator's predator. (alternatively "..., you gain half a VP and your predator's predator gains half a VP less for ousting his or her prey.")

I would want to see very minor changes only if any. Those proposed cards can change game too much. i wouldn't want to see any "offical" expansions like mage or kindred of the east. I wouldn't want to see any errata on old cards either. Just continue adding cards for existing themes like more cards for anarchs, black hand, red lists to make them more interesting. Sabbat needs some cool and brutal version of parity shift. Add vampires to group 5-6 etc. EDIT I also heard that VEKN is planning to do more cards? Has there been any offical announcement in this site?

> cnislev wrote: > 1. Revisions and loose ends > Bahari being the most obvious. > I don't get the point. What's wrong with Bahari? We're not going to print new cards just to re-use a keyword, are we? > cnislev wrote: > The Greater of Two Evils > > [Unique] master, pool cost [not sure] > > Choose a methuselah other than your predator. A methuselah cannot be > chosen unless both you and that methuselah have less pool than the > chosen methuselah's prey. From your next turn, if the chosen > methuselah's prey is ousted during your turn, you gain half a VP and > the chosen methuselah gains half a VP less for ousting his or her > prey. Any minion can burn this card as a action. > > Might is right > > Master, pool cost [not sure] > > Put 2 counters on this card when it comes into play. Add a counter to > this card if a minion you control burns a minion controlled by > another methuselah. Remove a counter from this card if a minion controlled by > another methuselah burns a minion controlled by another methuselah > than that methuselah. Burn this card if it has no counters. Burn this > card if it has [10] counters to gain a VP. > > Back against the wall > > Master, pool cost (not sure) > > If your predator is ousted during your next turn, you gain a VP > instead of your predator's predator. > (alternatively "..., you gain half a VP and your predator's predator > gains half a VP less for ousting his or her > prey.") > Interesting ideas, though one may say that the first and last both "affect prey-predator relationship" (to quote LSJ about the ban of Dramatic Upheaval + KR). Might is right creates a VP from nowhere, leading in games where 6 or 7 VPs may be awarded. This would be a first time. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> cnislev wrote: > Here are my three suggestions for cards that provide new ways of gaining VPs. > Implicit win conditions (Khazar's Diary, Spell of Life, 419 Operation) are a lot more interesting than explicit win conditions (Brinksmanship).

I think the most obvious loose end is probably the research area, and I'd really like to see something done with that. I'd also like to see more G5 vampires printed for Sabbat as the next 'set'. I'd be very wary about introducing new mechanics into the game. If this is done at all, it should be somewhere down the line after new developers have gotten experience designing within the existing game.

My input in this: No change in mechanics. No nerfing or wallpapering existing cards. New group 6 Sabbat Vampires, specially Montano (Camarilla Lasombra Inner Circle?) whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Montano If people do think something needs to change, the Alastor / Trophy mechanic needs improvement (maybe in a third release?). Tiago Brum

> Brum wrote: > My input in this: > No change in mechanics. > No nerfing or wallpapering existing cards. > New group 6 Sabbat Vampires, specially Montano (Camarilla Lasombra Inner Circle?) > whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Montano > > If people do think something needs to change, the Alastor / Trophy mechanic needs improvement (maybe in a third release?). > > Tiago Brum > We need more group 5 sabbat vampires first before group 6, there is currently only two group 5 sabbat vampires per clan (1 for !nos), there should be at least 6 more for each clan which is quite nice amount for an expansion (comparable to black hand in size)

> 4. Format > So far, new expansions have followed the tried and tested format (boosters, starter packs of a certain size). I think a serious discussion should be had about this now though. There are so many formats out there now (Living Card Game etc.), and we have complete freedom to structure new expansions as we like. We could have expansions of 3 new cards every 3 months, e.g. only vampires or only non-vampires etc. And how often should new editions come out? > What I would love to see is an expansion of roughly 20-30 cards or so, but published in short intervals. These cards would be then distributed amongst princes (or other organizers) as promo cards, with "unofficial VEKN publishment" tag or something in the bottom edge of the card. With distributing I mean selling with prices to cover printing and posting. We have two major advantages regargind this approach: quality of printing and focus on game driven communities. The former should be clear. With some monetary input the print quality of cards would easily reach professional standards, and increase the popularity of the set; and thus, the game itself. The expenses need investments, obviously, and this is quiet a problem, but if people pay their share of the expenses for the packs, a part of the dilemma is solved. The latter is rather important too. To have something to wait for is very important to a CCG audience, and new promo cards would obviously fill that vacuum. It also encourages people to engage in social gaming, rather than forming collections of their own. The collectibility is thus back in the game. It also inspires tournament scenes, which is also a very important thing in maintaining gaming. It also improves chances of people getting hooked again the game from the start. Beginners would gain some goals to strive for. Obviously this approach would require much prince activity on the first glance. This is not the idea, however, but the packs should be delivered to anyone willing to contribute - and thus, the 'buying' aspect comes into play. An option for princes to gather stacks of these promos for tournament play or other activities is maintained easily, but those without a tournament group or something should have an option to 'buy' those packs too. Think about it. I don't think it's a bad idea. Obviously we need someone to take care of the printing and such, and to have some money to invest in this. I'll leave it to those people (if there are any) to judge if they should be paid for their endeavour (as in, the price of a promo pack would extend over the print and post expenses) or not. Ideas? I think it's a good idea. Quiet problematic to pull off, though. But possible. "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

Hi again, sorry for the delay in getting back on your feedback (on holiday without internet) @Surreal and Mael: I probably agree with you re following existing themes and no new mechanisms, at least for now @Ankha: Re Bahari, it just seems obvious that there was going to be more to this mechanism, would be good to see this expanded. Re my card suggestions, I dont agree that they change the prey/predator relationship. You can still only bleed your prey and be bled by your predator. However, it gives you the change (effective with one turn delay) to gain VPs from ousting someone else than your prey. @Brum and Klaital: Agree regarding G5 and G6. Generally I think its a good idea to look at the areas that need to be improved/expanded, such as crypt groups. @Krause: very interesting post. I agree re community driven and not for profit development of cards. Im not sure regarding the distribution method you suggest, i.e. via princes. Direct sale would also be good I think. One thing thats important though is funding. We need to find some mechanism for this, e.g. players prepaying for cards and using the amounts received to pay for printing. Otherwise it would be too big an investment/risk. As for cost of cards, it should be fairly easy to get a quote from a publisher for production and shipping. As we do not need to make a profit, I would hope that the price per card would be reasonable (i.e. about the same as it is now...) I have updated the list based on your input (now in ordered format) and inserted your comments: Framework for new edition/new cards 1. Theme for expansion? e.g. develop WoD background? -- follow existing themes 2. New game mechanics? -- not for now 3. New cards: crypt and library - any areas that need additions/improvement? any revisions required? -- no revisions. More G5 Sabbat vampires, more G6 vampires, expand research area mechanism, improve trophy mechanism, e.g. expand Bahari mechanism 4. Format and practical stuff -- size of expansion(20-30?), frequency of publication, production, funding (prepaid by players?), distribution (via princes/direct sale?), status of new cards (promo? unofficial/official?), price, rights to publish new cards. Hopefully community input (such as this thread) will be used by VEKN when developing new cards...

> cnislev wrote: > @Ankha: > Re my card suggestions, I dont agree that they change the prey/predator relationship. You can still only bleed your prey and be bled by your predator. However, it gives you the change (effective with one turn delay) to gain VPs from ousting someone else than your prey. > Gaining 1 VP from ousting someone else's prey is exactly an effect that "changes the predator-prey relationship". The exact quote from LSJ is: "they undermine the foundation of the game (namely, the predator-prey relationship)." speaking about Kindred Restructure/Dramatic Upheaval which, basically, used to allow you to steal someone else's VP. groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/browse_thread/thread/fc5a2ef8643032ac/778a62c05a4268dc?q=dramtic+upheaval+relationship&lnk=ol& Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Hi all, Revisions and loose ends G5 Sabbat is a loose end, but I'll get into that below. The research area needs at least 2 more cards, I'd say. Without getting too much into solution mode, I'd think a vampire who could let you use a discard phase action to move a card from your hand to the research area would be nifty, as would an effect that let you move the top X cards from your deck to research area for a certain effect. If the rules team wanted to revise any text on cards (say, Villein only targeting a vamp with 2+ blood), here's the place to do it. New text-boxes could then be easily slipped over the old cards in a sleeve, with minimal fuss and effort. Otherwise, steer clear of reprints (i.e., 'tourney-legal proxies'). New game mechanics None, except for potential 'implicit win conditions' as mentioned in earlier posts. WoD background The background could simply be 'The Sabbat', but if a tighter focus is needed then one of the Sabbat Civil Warss or a 'by Night' books could be used as a starting point. As it's the Sabbat we're talking about here, I'd love to see some cards that'd provide them with some more bruisey-burny options. We've had a focus on the Black Hand, why not open up the broader sect with Templars and Inquisitors? A card providing extra tech for Templar-keyworded Sabbat may open up some interesting combat-themed options (Trophies played as trifles? cancel strike:combat ends? extra bleed or hand size?), while Inquisitors could gain anti-Infernal specials, or new, more interesting burnination abilities. Re: the Bahari, if this was intended to play up the growing thread of Infernalism in VTES, this'd fit nicely in with the theme mentioned above. Providing 'Bahari value-add' text to a few of the infernal Sabbat from Montreal by Night would be a nice touch, for example. Format A 30 card set would be do-able, but I'd love a 60-card set to beef it up to true mini-expansion levels. While it's doubtful we'd ever look at making 'virtual starters' for such a set, the key four clans that would nicely define a Templar / Inquisitor theme would be !Tremere, !Nosferatu, !Gangrel and !Toreador (coincidentally, these four haven't seen starters for years...). cheers Disco Stu Prince of Melbourne, Australia

> Disco_Stu wrote: > Re: the Bahari, if this was intended to play up the growing thread of Infernalism in VTES, > As little as "Nod fragment" I think. > Disco_Stu wrote: > Providing 'Bahari value-add' text to a few of the infernal Sabbat from Montreal by Night would be a nice touch, for example. > It can be an option, but is not mandatory. There's no need to focus too much on it anyway. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Reading this thread again, Re: Contents I think it needs about 8 vampires per clan to "complete" G5 for the main sabbat clans, this is more than I think should be printed in a single expansion. So we're left with the question of whether to complete some clans or partially complete all of them. Another option, if there is some way to loosely tie together a few clans thematically (eg. the idea posted above for a Templar / Inquisitor based set), would be printing (for example) 5 vampires for each of 3 clans and 1 for each of the others. (Numbers obviously variable depending on the total number of cards in the set) Re: Funding Something akin to the kickstarter idea could be used to generate initial capital. It could be organised through there or directly by VEKN, whichever organisers found easier. I would certainly be interested in supporting such an endeavor. Re: Format Assuming we're talking about a printed product here, and not a PDF only print&play style expansion. I suspect trying to make new starters would drive the cost up significantly as you would have possible extra licensing issues as well as the obvious print costs, so I don't think it's worth doing. I think a fixed, non-random, box of (for eg) 5 copies of each of 20 'commons', 2 of each of 20 Vampires, and 1 of each of 20 'rares' would be a good way to distribute it. I don't think a completely even distribution would work as well. An alternative to the above is to use a service like Artscow where punters can print out a fixed 54 card micro-expansion (eg 5 x 6 commons, 2 x 6 vampires, 2 x 6 rares). But you would then be limited to their card size, which for that site is about 1mm to large in each dimension.

> Kraus wrote: > What I would love to see is an expansion of roughly 20-30 cards or so, but published in short intervals. These cards would be then distributed amongst princes (or other organizers) as promo cards, with "unofficial VEKN publishment" tag or something in the bottom edge of the card. With distributing I mean selling with prices to cover printing and posting. > > We have two major advantages regargind this approach: quality of printing and focus on game driven communities. The former should be clear. With some monetary input the print quality of cards would easily reach professional standards, and increase the popularity of the set; and thus, the game itself. The expenses need investments, obviously, and this is quiet a problem, but if people pay their share of the expenses for the packs, a part of the dilemma is solved. > > The latter is rather important too. To have something to wait for is very important to a CCG audience, and new promo cards would obviously fill that vacuum. It also encourages people to engage in social gaming, rather than forming collections of their own. The collectibility is thus back in the game. It also inspires tournament scenes, which is also a very important thing in maintaining gaming. It also improves chances of people getting hooked again the game from the start. Beginners would gain some goals to strive for. > > Obviously this approach would require much prince activity on the first glance. This is not the idea, however, but the packs should be delivered to anyone willing to contribute - and thus, the 'buying' aspect comes into play. An option for princes to gather stacks of these promos for tournament play or other activities is maintained easily, but those without a tournament group or something should have an option to 'buy' those packs too. > > Think about it. I don't think it's a bad idea. Obviously we need someone to take care of the printing and such, and to have some money to invest in this. I'll leave it to those people (if there are any) to judge if they should be paid for their endeavour (as in, the price of a promo pack would extend over the print and post expenses) or not. > > Ideas? I think it's a good idea. Quiet problematic to pull off, though. But possible. > In every way, I see this being awful. Unique promos are already bad for CCGs, yet you want to add more. They've never sold CCGs, only events where you could get them and only to people already invested in the games. Meanwhile, they are a rich get richer mechanic which becomes discouraging to new players and players with limited means. Limited distribution only makes it harder to play the game, with some players familiar with cards others aren't. While that can be true of groups already, at least the distribution of normal sets has been fair. If anything, fan sets/whatever should be easier for everyone to get than normal cards. It's a much harder sell to sell people on playing with unofficial cards than official cards. As for costs, costs aren't the problem. Last I heard, Shadowfist still comes out with new sets that are orderable directly, if you want a model for dealing with the printing costs. The problems, as stated at least, are legal. To get around legal issues, you don't sell anything. So, what do you do? I recall that one or more dead CCGs made stickers that could be put over coasters. Perhaps it's legally possible to just freely distribute unofficial cards for a dead CCG, which someone could eat the costs for if they really wanted. Or, just don't do anything. This CCG, like many, has plenty of cards. There are tons of decks that can be made and similar management of the game to what we have had will not see a major change in how the game plays, anyway, it will just increase game complexity. It's better for new players not to have to chase more and more cards. It's easier for everyone not to introduce new mechanics. Make up some storyline variants and you can get variety of play forever without ever printing another card. Would the strategy of leaving the game alone ever work for a two-player CCG? Probably not. Eventually, the game will become so played out, with a stale metagame, that it will essentially have no playerbase. But, a multiplayer CCG is different. V:TES went without new cards for years, previously. Whether that could be sustained forever, a multiplayer CCG just becomes more like an extremely complicated boardgame. I find it telling that so many want to fill out group 5 and go into group 6 for clans that have plenty of vampires when the clans that clearly need the most attention are the Laibon ones. Are Laibon unpopular because they haven't been given enough to work with or have they not been given enough to work with because they are unpopular? Traveller Card Game

> In every way, I see this being awful. Unique promos are already bad for CCGs, yet you want to add more. They've never sold CCGs, only events where you could get them and only to people already invested in the games. Meanwhile, they are a rich get richer mechanic which becomes discouraging to new players and players with limited means. > > Limited distribution only makes it harder to play the game, with some players familiar with cards others aren't. While that can be true of groups already, at least the distribution of normal sets has been fair. > > If anything, fan sets/whatever should be easier for everyone to get than normal cards. It's a much harder sell to sell people on playing with unofficial cards than official cards. > Definitely. Let's clear my message out a bit: The distribution should by no means be restricted only to VEKN Princes, but should be fundable (or "buyable), and thus reachable, by everyone. Being able to use those cards as promos is just a very nifty extra, but then again, princes would be able to do that anyways. At least around in here not everyone is up to ordering cards from the internet - especially when they're not exactly legal for game, unless some kind of an authority is telling them they are! And that authority vacuum is easily filled by princes. I understand that this rant does not exactly address the issue at hand, but glances so fiercly that I think contemplation is in order. Long story short, I too think that the cards should definitely be available to everyone. I was just promoting the importance of contact personnel, such as princes, in play groups. > As for costs, costs aren't the problem. Last I heard, Shadowfist still comes out with new sets that are orderable directly, if you want a model for dealing with the printing costs. The problems, as stated at least, are legal. To get around legal issues, you don't sell anything. > Sounds convincing enough. I'm sold. If it's really that much not a money issue, we'll just need someone to start taking care of the printings, and looking into the matter in further detail. As for the legal details, of course we're not exactly selling anyone anything. Doing some extra research about this would not hurt, however. What else needs there be? Some extra piece of text, like, "Not White-Wolf sanctioned." or "VEKN-legal play only." or something? "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

@Mael– awesome idea with Kickstarter (cool concept!), I think that could definitely work out, especially if what ICL says about production costs being manageable (at least for Shadowfist) is right. Also like the idea of a fixed set of cards, this is how I understand A Game of Thrones works these days. Players are probably more likely to be willing to fund cards if they know there is no risk of getting a terrible spread of cards (like we have had in some of the recent editions). The combination of a fixed spread and a few teaser revelations of cards prior to opening up for sale should be the best way to make new cards interesting for players, I would think. @ICL – first, I think the discussion here is based on the hypothesis that new cards will be made at some point, and if so, which considerations should be made in the process of creating those cards. Whether we should have any expansions at all is a different (but of course also very relevant!) question. As for the legal details, I am a lawyer myself – though not specialized in intellectual property rights, I have given a few thoughts to this (NB this is mainly speculation, so take it for what it is, my random thoughts): I would expect the publication of new cards to be a potential infringement of 1) White Wolfs rights to the WoD background, and 2) Wizards of the Coast’s rights to the game mechanics (this is my understanding of the current ownership of the rights to VTES). If new cards were produced in breach of these rights, the producers (i.e. designers, persons ordering cards from the printing company etc.) could potentially be sued for loss suffered (hmmm?), and court orders could be imposed to stop the production/distribution of cards, and e.g. to recover already distributed cards. Criminal penalties might also apply. There is even a risk that the company that actually prints the cards would be subject to liability, so they would probably demand documentation for the rights to VTES anyway before agreeing to print any cards. This is of course only the case if one of the abovementioned rights owners a) are aware that cards are being printed and b) decide to take legal action. In short, I definitely think legal rights needs to be thought through. Anyone from VEKN out there who knows more about this? I wonder how the shadowfist people do it - any ideas ICL? Of course, you can come up with all kinds of proxy ideas (incl. putting stickers on cards), but that just seems to me to be a bit too desperate and against the spirit of the way we play the game/tournaments now. I think there’s a lot of interesting ideas and it would be good to hear what people think about this, including the players that don’t normally participate in this forum. I was thinking I would contact someone like extrala to see if a poll could be run on that site e.g. on whether people would be interested in funding a new expansion through kickstarter, and what size/frequency of expansions they would prefer.

> Brum wrote: > My input in this: > No change in mechanics. > No nerfing or wallpapering existing cards. > New group 6 Sabbat Vampires, specially Montano (Camarilla Lasombra Inner Circle?) > whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Montano > > If people do think something needs to change, the Alastor / Trophy mechanic needs improvement (maybe in a third release?). > > Tiago Brum > NO MONTANO, Lasombra already have too many vampires that aren't sabbat. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.