Capricorn II – Zodiac I

Success.  Not to say Capricorns are going to be inherently any more successful, but the path towards success is a driving concept for the sign in my mind.

My thought here is to talk about how to be successful at games like CCGs and boardgames.  This is ironic to a degree since I have no particular desire for success nor have I been particularly successful, but I’ve always been motivated in my analysis of games to try to understand what does produce success.

Know The Rules

I find two things about this interesting.  The first is how often people get rules of boardgames, non-collectible cardgames, and whatnot wrong.  It’s a big advantage of playing with people outside one’s group in that gaps of knowledge are often discovered quicker or, sometimes, at all.

Why not surprise at getting CCG (or CDG or CMG) rules wrong?  Because they change.  Essential to the original concept of CCGs was that most of the “rules” were on the cards.  Sure, there were rules, but cards commonly broke them.  In theory, the complexity of CCGs would come not from the rulebooks but from the card texts and their interactions.

In practice, of course, CCGs are typically highly complex before you ever get to the cards.  Magic’s official rules is something you search on your computer not something you would print out.  Firestorm, if I recall correctly, tried to include a comprehensive rulebook with starters and was just so tedious to read that you didn’t particularly want to play it.  Ultimate Combat!’s rule … thing (foldout sheet) has a lot more rules than you would think would be covered, but I asked tons of rules questions when I was a sanctioned referee and still don’t know how certain things work in a game that’s been dead over a dozen years.

I actually quite dislike teaching CCGs anymore as I’ve seen the ones I played become incomprehensible gibberish with all of the mechanics bloat.  While V:TES always had problems with its complexity and I was never that enthralled with trying to teach it, I had a pretty good script going with Babylon 5 until so much stuff got added to the game that, with my personality of overexplaining things, I just couldn’t take trying to explain how the game worked anymore.  With Wheel of Time, the amusing thing was that the game actually lacked fundamental rules (timing speed on card plays) until our group created them.

I think when I was writing the paragraph above I had something else in mind for the second thing, *sigh*, but I guess a second thing would be how much disdain there is for learning the actual rules of games (as opposed to what you think they are).  I realize it’s a pain in the ass to try to keep up with rulings for games, especially CCGs where particular, unintended card interactions spawn all sorts of rulings, retractions, errata, or whatever.  But, lack of rules knowledge leads to unnecessary losses.

Know The Components

Also much harder with CCGs but not terribly easy with even a game like Agricola (memorizing all of the different decks) or Race for the Galaxy (memorizing the stats and commonality of all of the cards). 

I’m stunned by how many people don’t have a solid idea as to what most of the cards in CCG card pools do.  Do I know what every card does in its entirety?  No.  Do I even know the precise text on every card I play?  No.  Sure, there are plenty of people who don’t care what everything does and may even enjoy the surprise factor.  Certainly, lots of gamers aren’t trying to compete at the highest levels.  What amazes me about the lack of components knowledge when it comes to CCGs, though, is that the whole point of CCGs is to build decks and the only way you can build decks is by learning what cards do.

A good example of how lack of components knowledge (well, also rules knowledge) can screw you is when Nights of Reckoning was released for V:TES.  I recall someone playing a Dawn Op/WC deck at Gen Con right after the Imbued came out, and I just couldn’t believe how far behind the times players can get.

With boardgames and the like, because I’m not particularly invested, I’m fine with not trying to memorize all of the components.  I don’t feel that I actually gain anything from knowing the precise commonalities of tiles in Ra, or whatever.  But, with CCGs, I would think everyone would be enthused about knowing what cards do since you might want to play them.

Of course, a lot of cards in CCG card pools aren’t tournament viable.  I’ve known top level players of CCGs who didn’t know what a lot of cards did because they knew enough to know the cards weren’t good enough to have a significant tournament impact.  So, it’s not like we are looking for perfect knowledge out there, but it’s rather important to know what cards you should/will see played do.

Travel

It’s possible for one player or a few players to be big fishes in little ponds and have a lot of local success.  I’ve seen it with B5, V:TES, and possibly other CCGs.  But, it’s unusual for one’s local group to have the player quality that crossregional play will see.  So, if the goal is success on a national or international level, then it behooves people to mix with other groups.

I’d like to think that it’s obvious to most people that playing against better players is important, but I find from reading many e-mail groups, forums, or whatever that lots of folks seem to have grossly overinflated opinions of their abilities or their groups’ abilities.  Playing outside of one’s local group does quite a bit to help dispel such views. 

There are local/regional metagames, even for boardgames.  So, there are differences in the efficacy of various strategies to where someone may know more and have a better strategy in the abstract but less success in a particular environment.  Yet, one can’t distinguish between metagaming and true strategic knowledge unless one does face a variety of/top level challenges.

Play To Win

For some of us, there’s nothing particularly fun about winning, so we play games in such a way that winning is of lesser importance.  While games are supposed to be fun, playing to win has obvious correlation to success.  So obvious, you wouldn’t think it needs to be mentioned.

But, the concept has a certain level of purity to it.  Removing distractions is not always easy.  One of the tactics in games (and gambling) is to put another player on tilt to where the focus is on proving something rather than just the purity of striving for success.

I probably should have mentioned this earlier in this post, but I’m not going to help much, if at all, someone who is more successful than I am, which is quite a few folks.  To some extent, stressing playing to win is aimed at those players of games who get frustrated by lack of success and don’t realize that it may arise from not really trying to be successful.  Sure, I’m a player who sabotages himself by not trying to be successful, but, then, I don’t care about being more successful.  Some people do, even if it’s on a local level.

The purity of the concept can also be seen when it comes to playing to win at all times.  I have had some minor success in my gaming, was an original V:TES Hall of Fame member after all and ranked in the top 10 in the world in three different CCGs at one time or another, anyway, one area in which I’ve noticed that I seem to have a comparative advantage is that I don’t give up anywhere near as quickly as people I’ve played against.  Wins and losses are tallied when the games are over.  Losing isn’t the same as lost.  … And, other good sounding aphorisms.

Studentying

Touched on this in “Travel” – the concept is that we all have things we can learn.  Playing with other groups is the best way to do that, but there are others.  As painful as it often is to read forums, there are things to absorb or, at least, consider and try.  Strategic knowledge is something that should be confirmed.  With CCGs, where the components keep changing and, so, the game keeps changing, it’s important to constantly confirm one’s strategic knowledge.

Etc.

There’s far more that could be said on this topic.  I just wanted to hit a few things that resonate with me from my observations.  And, it was Capricorn’s time, you know, several days ago, when I should have written this.

Capricorn I – Zodiac I

Late again.  I even knew what I wanted to post about for a while.

Capricorn
“I use”
positive qualities: determination, stability, wisdom, dependability, sureness, tranquility
negative qualities: selfishness, narrowness, ruthless ambition, rigidity, snobbery, depression, loneliness

So, something I haven’t talked about with using astrological signs for character (personality) archetypes is general classes of characters (as opposed to specific examples).

Leaders

Leaders come in all types.  Something like an army general may be a character that comes to mind for a Capricorn, but what of a ship’s captain, a pilot, a head nurse, high priest, etc.

Going with a fantasy RPG bent, I can easily see a cleric with a Capricorn personality and a party leadership role.  With a militaristic RPG bent, such as BattleTech, any sort of officer in charge of the party’s unit would work, even a NCO would make sense if the possibilities for advancement topped out at that level.

Loners

Loners are popular … not in any real world sense as they wouldn’t be loners if they were popular but as characters.  Take Wolverine, Punisher, et al.  The thing about loners is that they need to be highly competent in order to get by on their own, and Capricorn is the sign of experience.

Going through different genres, what about a NPC scientist in a Call of Cthulhu game who is not only highly sciencey but competent in other areas (like fightyness)?  A (formerly) wayward student of a martial arts master who develops his own badass techniques and:  will only share them with PCs who prove themselves; will be a random force of beatage who gets in the party’s way; or, whatever?

Age

I occasionally think about age with other signs – the perpetual teenager that is Gemini or whatever.  But, once I read it, I could never get out of my mind, when it came to Capricorn, the idea that they age backwards.

Long before Benjamin Button, maybe before Merlin, there was the concept of the Capricorn child who acted much older than his/her years, who got older, and who eventually started to find the inner child.  There’s a lot of riffs on this that could be used, whether it’s adult-acting children or grandparenty types who are surprisingly childish at times (Doctor … Who?) or all sorts of metaphysical or superscience backwards aging story pieces.

Success

The key, to me, seems to be, see, okay enough rhyming, that the Capricorn character needs to either have achieved or be striving to achieve.  Fortunately, that’s something that is easy to relate to when trying to distinguish important characters.

More (Red) Rocks?

I actually had to look back to see if I had already posted about 2009’s Vegas V:TES qualifier.  So, 2010’s is coming up, weekend after DunDraCon, and I am not clear on whether I should plan on going or not.

If I did go, though, what would I imagine the metagame to be like?  As stated in my March 1, 2009 post, the miniqualifier was vote heavy and the qualifier was bleedier.  Come back to this in a moment.

The first thing I can do is dispense with set impact.  Far as I’m aware, Heirs won’t be legal.  Ebony Kingdoms is too specific a set to have meaningful impact.  So, that leaves the last meaningful set being KoT, which I’m sure people are still digesting.  Some cards from it that might finally get some stage time might include:  Horseshoes, Loki’s Gift, Old Friends, serious use of Rego Motus.  I could say that three out of four of those are cards that I would have played much more often back in the day when I built a high volume of decks.  Well, maybe not Horseshoes.  I wonder why I don’t hear more about Loki’s Gift, the evil zen robot of V:TES (assuming you ignore ultrarare weapon hosers).

So, it should be a pretty well defined metagame.  Well, it would be if there was such a thing with V:TES that mattered.

Bleed, vote, or combat?

I would imagine it might be fairly similar this time around.  Of course, it could just as easily flip, with bleed being the miniqualifier threat and vote trying to take the qualifier as people try to outthink … well, nothing really.  With only one qualifier in the first event, I expect the same sort of experimentation that cropped up in 2009.  I could see more combo decks and more questionable strategies, like rush, in the miniqualifier.

With the love for Parity Shift these days, there needs to be some answer for vote even if the qualifier ends up being well-suited for copious amounts of bounce.

Weenies?

How much do I fear weenie Auspex or Animalism?  Too much.  Especially the former produces such horrid matchups.  Still, I can’t see any sort of deck I would want to play being able to beat weenie Auspex, so I should probably just ignore it and look at ways to improve the weenie Animalism matchup while having some thought for surviving a weenie bleed predator.

Mesagaming

That’s not misspelled.  If metagaming is looking at the environment, I’m going to pretend mesagaming means looking within.  If I go, I would imagine I’d play something to my tastes, which likely means something that doesn’t stand up well to any particular focused archetype.

The reality is that I just like hanging around with other gamers and being in the crossregional milieu, whether I’m relevant to it or not.  It doesn’t hurt, though, to get more tournament play in, especially outside of the region.  And, lots of ideas always come from events like these, not that I followed up much, if at all, on the ideas that came out of last year’s trip.

Omissions

So, for our last V:TES tournament, I was bored and tired of trying to think up serious decks and decided to play a deck I’d hope I’d enjoy playing rather than something I’m supposed to try to win with.  The plan failed.  It wasn’t enjoyable playing a deck that didn’t do anything.

My strategy since 2002 or so has been to play clans that by TWDA numbers are crap.  At first, it was to prove points.  Later, it was a game to see just how bad a deck I could win with.  After the Osebo win, I lost a lot of interest in the “get the first winning deck for a clan” philosophy.  I even started playing deck archetypes I had played in other events (usually storyline, but still …), like !Salubri stealth bleed.

I just had a thought.  Has to do with how tired I am of playing Presence (even more so than Dominate).  For a while, let’s see if I can forget about clans and consider disciplines instead.  What haven’t I won with (standard constructed) in terms of disciplines?

Animalism – Rare in my decks, but Of Ghastly Dreams was Animalistic.  No, actually, it wasn’t.  Just looking at the decklist again, there’s a whopping one Animalism card in the deck.  Hmmm …

Auspex – Ha!  Next.

Celerity – “When In Doubt … Win.”  8 Celerity cards, 2 Auspex/Celerity cards.

Dominate – Samedi deck not in the TWDA had some.  DoC deck had a few Deflections.  Underrepresented, but that just proves I’m not lame.  Get it?  Crutch.  Lame.

Fortitude – DoC deck had 6, all damage prevention (surprisingly useful in the finals).  Wow!!  I just looked at the decklist for the Samedi win.  26 frickin Fortitude cards.  I totally don’t remember that.  This actually makes me less interested in doing weenie Fortitude, which I’ve been thinking about for ages.  Go, go, gadget looking up old decklists.

Obfuscate – Yeah, right.

Potence – Pale Panda Warriors is clearly the best deck ever as it ran 4 Iron Glares and 2, count them, 2 straight Potence cards.  Who can now deny that I worship at the altar of the big fist?

Presence – Absurdly overrepresented.

Protean – Don’t do Gangrel.  They win too much.  However, why I haven’t done !Gangrel (except that horrid rush deck that taught me that I can’t succeed with rush) is mysterious.

Thaumaturgy – I only whip out the !Trem in storyline play.  Looks like Protean/Thaumaturgy has to be my next deck … come on … think about it … you know why … if you don’t, search for vampires with those two disciplines … yeah, that one.

Chimerstry – See first TWD.

Necromancy – Close.  Very, very close.  Whether weenie Nec in 2001 or HoS in 2009.  There was also that hilarious !Salubri deck, not that it was getting into the TWDA.

Quietus – Bah.  Well, actually, she has this discipline, too.  Oh yeah!

Serpentis – Boring, not because of the cards which are not at all boring, but because of the prevalence of FoS in the area.  Still, it’s missing.

Dementation – Not in the TWDA – 9 player tournament – straightforward !Malk stealth bleed deck.  Besides, there’s not much to do with this that wouldn’t involve overrepresented disciplines.

Obtenebration – Interestingly enough, no.  Me likes it much, but it’s so often attached to Dominate.  I so want to do a real Matthew Romans deck, but there’s absolutely no point.

Vicissitude – The deck that started me upon the path in 2001.  I really should find a name for my Path.  Anyway, first TWD was weenie Tzimisce bleed.  When I posted the deck to the newsgroup, I got idiotic responses about how I should have made it an intercept combat deck.  12 of 13 possible VPs suggested otherwise.  Never did bother mentioning it had won a tournament or that it had won every game it ever played.

Daimoinon – Blessing of the Name 1.1, a deck that I grow more fond of over time.

Melpominee – Kind of hard to leave it out of Mellow-Yellow Drama.

Mytherceria – Dave S. won a tournament with a Kiasyd deck I lent him.  I really like to play with Kiasyd but don’t really see the point of winning with them.

Obeah – I doubt this will happen any time soon.  Heirs will likely see a glut of Salubri decks, which will just turn me off.  I don’t think I ever tried playing Salubri in tournament play.

Sanguinus – It burns.  I see my failure to come up with a competitive BB deck to be particularly notable.  Their decks are just so tediously similar to each other and so tediously inept at surviving serious decks.

Spiritus – Too many Ahrimanes wins for me to give a fig.

Temporis – Tried.  Failed.  Badly.  Why do they have to have Potence and Presence as other disciplines?  Still, trying some more wouldn’t be a bad idea since I only tried twice?, maybe only once.

Thanatosis – So, Weapon Not Found had 11 Than cards, that’s respectable.

Valeren – Storyline, finals of qualifier, but not really that close.

Visceratika – There was that Gargoyles with Presence deck that showed I was digging deep for awfulness which made a finals.  Lent out that Gargoyles with Dominate deck that John likes to mention (bitch about) as a lesson that real decks need to be able to defend themselves against bleed.

Abombwe – Forgot about this.  Have no Akunanse interest, similar problem to BB of being too similar to each other.  However, there are some cute grafting things that could be done I should consider.

So, besides Protean/Thaumaturgy/Quietus, I’ve got Temporis, and if I play out of the region, Serpentis to work with.  Given our rate of standard constructed tournaments, that should cover me for 2010.  Well, maybe I’ll make it to Vegas again.

MagnetX

For all of those last minute Christmas shoppers (I finished yesterday), here’s a possibility for a family game.

MagnetX is a game of placing magnets on a board.  The stones have varying magnetic fields and no two sets are alike.  Variations on the game are entirely possible, but the basic idea is to place more and more magnets on the board without having them touch or leave the board.

Additional information is available from:

• http://www.psyxgames.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagnetX
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/PsyX-Games/174643518387?v=wall

I was introduced to the game by the designers, whom I play V:TES and RPGs with.  They have also held tournaments at local conventions.

I see the nature of the game being two-fold.  Part of the game is strategy.  The Wiki article does a pretty good job of explaining some of this.  There’s a lot that can be learned about the different properties of different shaped pieces.  The other part is physical somewhat along the lines of Operation or Jenga where body (finger/hand) control helps immensely as you can start to feel the pull of the magnetic fields, can also see the other magnets start moving/spinning as you get closer to them.

While it helps to have some basis for your plan, some people just have a better feel for the game. 

For someone like me used to German style boardgames of resource management which often only appeal to gamer families, MagnetX is a game that should be just as accessible to kids as adults or is it adults as kids?

Sagittarius II – Zodiac I

Centaur deck.  As everyone knows, vampires and centaurs totally hang out all of the time.  Actually, given the way vampires are going in pop culture, vampires riding on unicorns is bound to happen soon to cover marketing to girls from younger ages to not as young ages.

Seriously, I should talk about half and half decks in V:TES given that Sag is the most half and half sign (the other dual signs like Gemini and Pisces have their own aspects of multiple natures going on).

I’m pretty sure it was a deck Ben Peal made – a Gangrel/Ravnos deck – that got me thinking consistently about decks predicated upon the idea that half of the crypt serves one function and the other half another.  Usually, one half provides the offense and the other half the defense, but it doesn’t need to be that.

Can build a deck where half of the crypt does the vote angle and half does the combat angle, or whatever. 

The problem I always have, though, is that’s it’s making things needlessly complex for questionable payoff.  Many times, one can find a single clan or set of 2-3 disciplines to handle enough of what a deck wants to do.  Anathema + stealth + beatdown – Nosferatu can do that … and have Second Traditions and Animalism for intercept.  As much as I’m into trying out questionable things*, I’m really about efficiency more than anything else (which is why my blog tries to focus on analysis).  I get annoyed by weenies who don’t have all of my disciplines, by anyone who doesn’t have my disciplines at superior, and the like, so the idea of devoting half of my minions to something that the other half might not be able to do is a personal struggle.

*  We just had a tournament, one in which I did hardly anything so I don’t see a lot of point to doing a tournament report even though we have tournaments so infrequently.  I play Soul Painting for, to my recollection, the only time in my life, and it gets DIed!!  I so got to play this card more since it’s so obviously a threat.

I don’t mind awkward decks per se.  I have played decks where not everyone can play all of my cards.  Why, just yesterday, I forgot J. Oswald “Ozzy” Hyde-White didn’t have Dementation for a couple of turns.  I just have a hard time mentally processing how to not make one cohesive deck.

So, first thing that pops into my mind when writing this is Daughters and !Tremere as one can do offense, the other defense, and they actually both rank high in my favorite clans in the game.  My inclination is to bleed with evasion with my DoC, but that’s kind of pointless.  !Trem can bleed with evasion by themselves, more so with Obfuscate or Obtenebration splashes.  Since Choir is silly (humorous in this case, maybe run 2 in the deck), it’s got to be vote from the DoC.

Sure, I could just build a !Trem vote deck, which works pretty damn well with Oriundus around, but let’s pretend I haven’t already won a tournament with DoC and really want to get a TWDA notch.  Or, let’s pretend I feel a compulsion to make use out of Tourette’s Voice.  So, I trot out Bastille Opera House, Conductor, Paris Opera House, some Madrigals to pass out some blood to my !Trem who are titled.  !Trem do some intercepting and maybe some fighting.

It could work.  It’s not terribly exciting since the combat would be kind of questionable.  Could do something with !Trem allies, which are cool, use Daughters for Siren’s Lure.  But, actually, I’m kind of intrigued by the idea of getting more use out of Spirit Summoning Chamber by running Concert Tours and/or Restorations out of DoC and Heidelberging or whatever blood over.  Of course, that would be way too much for the vote deck, so that’s a different possibility.

Is it the optimist in Sag that makes one think any of this will actually work?  The recklessness?  There has to be some effort to actually have something work.  Let me go on to some other ideas.

Who needs equipment the most?  Some people might say !Salubri, but really, they gain relatively little.  I find that Harbingers are a lot better off with guns and whatnot.  Why does this matter?  Because the game has an equipping specialist clan in Samedi.  HoS can be the defense that Samedi don’t need because they can graft Dominate or bloat with Little Mountain Cemetery, but we can pretend they need while the HoS can get tooled up from their stealthier and more Wrinkly friends.  Can even pretend that there’s a reason to play more than just Reg in the deck; play group 3/4 and can’t even play Reg, thus justifying playing half Samedi.  And, the beauty of all this is that it’s all bloodlinesy just in time for a new bloodlines set.

Sagittarius I – Zodiac I

Sagittarius
“I see”
positive: optimism, candor, cheerfulness, logic, honesty, daring, enthusiasm
negative: recklessness, emotional confusion, carelessness, lack of tact, rudeness, fickleness
- from Linda Goodman’s “Love Signs”

Sag is a natural personality for a role-playing game character.  Frequently, what RPGers want out of a game is positive adventure.  Why bring the negativity that everyone experiences in life into one’s fantasies (whether they be in a fantasy world or not)?  People are fairly risk averse and those that aren’t likely have on average shorter lifespans.  With someone else’s life, we can afford to be more daring and more reckless.

It should be obvious that sometimes I’m forcing the theme with this series.  In Sag’s case, though, I have what seems like a reasonably appropriate situation.  I have two characters in Heroes of Rokugan.  My main character has had to take a back seat since before Gen Con as I first needed to rank up my backup character for the Doom of the Crab event and, then, later he got involved in our (now quite extended) group’s storyline in ways I didn’t expect.

That’s likely to change after January 2nd.  The upcoming mod, Essence of Toshigoku, is one of the few mods that is consistently deadly to PCs.  And, I don’t really have any problems with my character dying in it.  His retirement goal makes more sense if he’s dead.  I need to get back to playing my main character as there’s less than a year left in the campaign.  It’s very appropriate to end things in a mod that is the sequel to the first mod I played him in.

Being described someone’s RPG character is often excruciatingly painful, so I’m not going to go into that.  But, suffice to say, he’s no Sag.  Optimistic?  Cheerful?  Enthusiastic?  Um, no.  Pessimistic, bitter, and disinterested certainly applied for most of his history.

Don’t fight human nature.  That’s something Magic’s lead designer has brought up reasonably often in the last year when talking about designing mechanics.  Don’t fight what people want.  Well, there’s also not fighting genre conventions, in this case, I’m thinking of conventions of fiction.  Extremes, in particular extremes within a family, make for more accessible stories than subtle contrasts.

So, an extreme.  Where one brother was a sad, bitter man who eventually found what he needed to get over that, the other brother is a cheerful contrast.  The other brother? 

Well, I likely need a backup character as something could always happen to my main.  I have a lot of options from character ideas I’ve already thought of, but they tend more towards trying to do wacky things mechanically.  A younger brother is far more meaningful from a story standpoint … and he’s wacky mechanically, too … of course.

While I think Sag is a personality type I can play better than most others, I still need a lot of help with fully realizing the entire personality and not just pulling out one aspect (bluntness would be the one most people would probably think of) and trying to hang a hat on that.  So, as per the mission statement of this series, I can study multiple dimensions of the character to really try to bring something authentic to the table (well, computer, since that’s where I play most these days).

Previews – Heirs To The Blood

December has come and I’ve been derelict in writing.  So many things I should be writing.  In addition to my appearing in December, so have V:TES previews of the Heirs To The Blood set.

Additional information is available at http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=Checklist_HeirsToTheBlood but I just wanted to do what everyone likes to do – comment on the new cards spoiled.  Card images are from White Wolf’s web site.

The most common reaction to a new card is to overrate it.  There were people arguing that Tortured Confession had uses when it was first spoiled.  I easily fall into the trap as well.  The trap comes from thinking about all of the possibilities and consider the best uses of the card.  The reality, though, is often that a card’s best uses aren’t any better than what already exists.

I’d play with this card.  It has three different uses, after all.  But, I’m not into playing Baali rockstar decks.  In those decks, cancelling Auspex becomes far more important while blood costs are more complex costs when doing Soul Gem tricks.  Makes The Textbook Damnation more useful.  Still, I’m not impressed.

Stars:  **

Then, anything to do with combat seems to enthrall a large segment of the player population.  Here we have someone who can easily Grapple + Disarm someone, Freak, and stealth through a built in Graverobbing.

Unfortunately, even with Presence – the second most useful out of clan discipline in general, I don’t see much use in anything like a good deck.

However, the second most common reaction is to underrate a new card.  This comes from not having full information on sets.  If Thanatosis stops being pathetic as a discipline, then maybe there’s some additional synergy in the disciplines that I don’t see.  If not, I see people trying to build really bad combat decks.

Stars:  ** (questionably, but Samedi seem to be underrated in general)

Combat … and combo.  There’s a reason that Magic categorizes players into Timmy, Johnny, and Spike psychographic profiles.  Johnny is the combo player, and while I tend to hate combo decks, I can appreciate the appeal of them (up to a point).

Choir is far too many players’ dream.  It’s a linear mechanic in a game without a lot of clearly linear mechanics.  It’s also boring as hell and completely awful as a strategy.  On the other hand, Choir doesn’t need to be boring or awful.  In my post about what I think Heirs should give, I consider developing the Choir mechanic by having cards key off of Choir.

As for this card, it’s a fascinating card for people who want to get deeply into probability in deck construction no matter how terrible a deck you may end up with.  While it has been pointed out on the newsgroup that it not being a Choir has advantages with Freak Drive (Change of Target would work, too).  It’s not itself a Choir and does absolutely nothing without Choirs.  Cards like that tend to be truly awful.  I don’t see how this makes Choir any better.  Three actions to do 6 pool damage is just not that impressive.  Sure, it can oust people.  But, then, so does bleeding or voting.  For all that decks prepare for bleed and don’t prepare much for these sorts of actions, relying entirely upon the combo is fragile where bleeding is not, and not relying entirely upon the combo means having to deal with one of the deck’s strategies being very awkward.

Stars:  *

Nine capacity is far too often where we find horrendously designed vampires.  This design is pretty bad.  Great, Kiasyd with Animalism.  That’s fine if there are at least two others with good enough discipline crossover.  +1 bleed, blah.  Look at top three cards, marginal.  The history of the game has been to play high caps for their titles, their superior Presence, and their specials.

Stars:  ** (Might be a weak Kiasyd, but Kiasyd have Dominate + stealth)

There so needs to be some cost reduction for Temporis.  It would be amusing if Temporis got stealth or other evasion out of this set as that would make this card even worse.  As it is, it’s an expensive comboish card that doesn’t do anything that wouldn’t be far easier to do with Obfuscate without paying any blood.  Now, if it weren’t a bleed action but an action modifier (just like Flurry of Action should have been an action modifier), it would be hawt with voting (Voter Cap your other votes to refill the engine).

Stars: *

Lot of folks are commenting on the combo potential.  It’s value add, sure, but if I squint at this card, I can ignore the completely unnecessary Necromancy and focus on a vampire who only has all of the best common disciplines in the game and the Freak Drive discipline.  Sure, inferior Dom and Pre are not the hotness, but you are getting all sorts of overlap possibilities with other vampires, and there’s that +1 stealth thing.  Presence (if loser Presence), Freak, quality specials, every bounce discipline – that seems more like a reasonable high cap.

Stars:  *** (especially if I factor in having a terrible group number, so want to do half stars in these ratings)

It’s interesting how much the value of paths vary.  The Path of Paradox is obscenely powerful.  The Path of Typhon not so much.  While Squirrel Balance is a strong card, and I’m sure there will be blood costing Spiritus cards in the set, this card is currently a waste of space.  To change that will necessitate seriously good, blood costing cards.

Stars:  * (in reality, it would be zero stars with what currently exists, but one must assume there’s a reason for this card)

Gargoyle cards just don’t make sense to me.  Visceratika gets stuff you don’t care about mixing with Fortitude and Potence, Tupdog is ludicrous, etc.  I’m struggling to see how this isn’t the anti-Tupdog – an awful card that has hardly any uses.  It’s similar to Aabbt Kindred only somehow actually worse.  The card would be properly designed by eliminating the (additional) drawback.  Still, as a challenge it will peak the interest of people … like me.

Stars:  * (it’s hard to give anything zero stars)

Wow, this is bad design.  Openended effects are just conceptually bad as they may be open to breakage.  If they aren’t open to breakage, it’s probably because what they do is weak.  This isn’t weak.  Yes, there’s a practical limit to how often you’ll untap even playing actions that untap you, a boatload of Freak Drives, and whatever.  But, it’s a big limit.  I actually don’t see it being so difficult to generate 20 pool off of this card.  Now, whether the deck that does that is any good is a completely separate issue.  The key with this card is either running a bunch of copies or searching it out.  Any of Magic of the Smith, Vast Wealth, Sibyl’s Tongue, Inconnu Tutelage, Drop Point Network, etc. come to mind.

Stars:  ** (building around it is questionable)

Bleeding successfully is easy, so that special will kick in most turns.  The combat special is a reasonable deterrent.  Whether it’s Flurry of Action, Dual Form, or any of the other ideas someone has mentioned on the newsgroup, it’s still playing a big vampire that isn’t game changing.  No bounce discipline, no Freak Drive discipline, no Rutor’s Hand discipline, too many combat disciplines leaves me to wonder whether there’s significant help for Baali in the set or whether there is some sort of Protean theme to pursue with them.

Stars:  ** (it could be so much worse)

What commenting on previews makes me want to do is go back and look at how I rated cards in the past and see how well my predictions for them turned out.  Maybe a return to the Ebony Kingdoms post, though I still haven’t seen enough people play with EK to clearly determine what is what.

[Classic] Durga Syn

I’ve posted a lot in a lot of CCG forums over the years.  One of the reasons I was motivated to do a blog was to consolidate my more verbose thoughts.  I’m currently looking through the UK V:TES forum – http://www.anarchfreepress.com/vtesuk - for my favorite posts.  Here’s the first “classic” post.

In response to Shroudfilm’s post about the preview of Durga Syn …

“Yeah LSJ,why hasn’t she got votes?!? Or Necromancy?!?!? Or Flight?!?!?!?! Why isn’t she 12-cap?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Why can’t she have an ability which wins me the game in one turn?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I hate VTES now, this one card means the game is doomed!!!!!!1111one!!”

… http://www.anarchfreepress.com/vtesuk/viewtopic.php?p=1729&highlight=#1729 …

I imagine the discussion went something like this:

[LSJ.1] Why don’t you give Durga some votes?

[LSJ.2] Too hard to become an anarch which would waste all of those disciplines. I’d piss off millions of anarch lovers.

[LSJ.1] You could make Orpheus happier if you gave Durga Necromancy.

[LSJ.2] Then he might notice how good Chimerstry is when you don’t pay full cost for it and would want highly flexible Necromancy cards … with no cost.

[LSJ.1] Durga seems to be lacking flight.

[LSJ.2] Does anybody even remember what any of the flight cards do anymore?

[LSJ.1] She could be a 12 cap.

[LSJ.2] Without PRE? Are you insane? Uh, don’t answer that.

[LSJ.1] Durga is a good choice for one of those win in one turn decks. You know, turbo, et al. You should give her FOR, a capacity increase when she’s in play, and NEC. And, the ability to play Baali cards.

[LSJ.2] What makes you think she can’t win in one turn? Besides, the text box font would be so small that no one would know that she would combo with every card in the game.

[LSJ.1] Aren’t people going to hate the game because of cards like this? Won’t Durga doom the game?

[LSJ.2] I keep trying, but they keep playing.

[LSJ.1] Local 1111?

[LSJ.2] Should be played by !Trem with Rutor’s Hands to see if it doesn’t suck. But, Eric Chiang keeps travelling.

Scorpio II – Zodiac I

I wish I were inspired more often to talk about play philosophy.  Well, let’s see if I can do something with Scorpio.

There are, of course, many common features of different gaming types.  While RPGs are typically very different from competitive gaming since typically they aren’t competitive, my hope is to have something to say that isn’t overly specific.  Below are the same traits I included in my other Scorpio post.  I’m going to talk about how they fit into competitive gaming based on my experiences.

Loyalty

Outside of the actual play of the game, loyalty is hugely important for keeping niche games (most of the CCGs I’ve played regularly, for instance) alive.  But, what about in play?  In two-player games, no real concept.  But, what about political games:  multiplayer CCGs, many boardgames, etc.?  While there’s certainly the capability of generating a reputation for trustworthiness and for being supportive to a cause, I’ve never found that it really mattered.  I’ve changed my stances frequently when circumstances altered, far more so in boardgames than in something like V:TES, as there’s really nothing else to do in most boardgames than try to win whereas CCGs have interesting card interaction to give someone something to do.

Willpower/Self-Control

How does willpower differ from self-control?  Maybe a bit broader, covering aspects of controlling things beyond oneself, but it’s simpler to lump them together.  Another difference I find between boardgames and CCGs is that players of boardgames seem much better at controlling themselves and at not doing crazy or self-destructive stuff.  Maybe it’s because boardgames are simpler and less personal.  It’s amazing how often players of CCGs snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (or, at least, competitiveness) because of lack of self-control.  Too greedy, too spiteful, too impatient, whatever.

Magnetism

Actually a trait useful for two-player gaming as you might get cut some slack.  But, really more of a multiplayer thing.  Magnetism is huge for manipulating people into improving your position or undermining someone else’s.  Can have the most logical arguments, but the people who get listened to are more likely to be the ones with more charisma.

Gentleness

I still find this so weird to be included since it’s pretty opposite to ruthlessness.  Well, whatever.  Occasionally, I see gentleness paying off as people rather lose to someone nice than someone who isn’t.  And, it’s an interesting approach in multiplayer play.  I’m incredibly gentle to my opponents in V:TES, except those rare instances when I whip out a deck of extreme prejudice in which the goal is more to nuke things with overkill than win, and it works okay for me.  The appearance of gentleness is certainly desirable, nice mix with actual but subtle ruthlessness.

Insight

Perceptiveness is hugely important.  Insight, I take to mean self-perception.  Certainly a good counter to losing self-control since you will realize you are losing it.  Frequently, the mind isn’t perfectly focused on the game and being able to realize that can save some grief.

Ruthlessness

Ruthlessness is awesome for winning.  It’s something I lack.  I said in my Eden Storyline post that the lack of interest in winning will keep me from ever being a great player of competitive games.  It’s the ruthlessness needed in things like optimal deck construction, ruining other people’s chances in games, and the like that comes out of a desire to win just to win that is missing.  I actually don’t have a problem with ruthless play, per se.  It’s possible to be ruthless without being obnoxious.  On the other hand, I don’t take my gaming seriously enough to be in favor of it and there’s little point in being ruthless unless players are of similar level.

Fanaticism

Fanaticism about wanting to play a game is often great for me since I need opponents.  Fanaticism within a game is very likely to turn people off and reduce one’s chances of winning.  “Why are you doing that?  It’s what my deck does.  Your deck … loses?”

Revenge

Revenge is interesting because there’s such a wide spectrum.  There are many multiplayer games where revenge is necessary to balance the game.  Even personal revenge I can relate to – if someone screwed up my game through bad play, then I understand screwing up that player’s game as I lose.  (One of the advantages of two-player gaming is you don’t get spite moves that affect the results of the game.)  But, there are obvious limits.  The point to competitive games is to try to win them.  When players cease trying to win, the game becomes pointless.  Also, sometimes players screw you because that’s the correct play in the game.

Sadism

I find lots of players to be sadistic.  Whether it’s enjoying playing prison decks in Magic, playing unrest decks in B5, cutting off people’s ability to expand in Settlers of Catan who are way behind, or whatever.  Lots of folks seem to enjoy inflicting pain upon their opponents.  Gaming can be an outlet for that that is less worse than other things (e.g. pranks).  But, it’s not conducive to my enjoying games.

Suspicion

Suspicion is what makes games like Diplomacy.  I happen to hate Diplomacy, but that’s pretty much neither here nor there.  Some level of suspicion is good as deceiving people is an important element in many games.  Excessive suspicion can backfire as you start believing something that isn’t the case.

Self-hatred 

Fundamental to life is self-hatred.  Without it, why bother getting up in the morning?  So, of course, it’s essential to good gaming.  Only by self-hating myself throughout games do I ever enjoy myself and have any chance of competing.