Web saavy version at http://whitestar.ddg.com/vtes/newsletterarchive.html 8/5/2000 Editors Corner - Ethan Burrow, Prince of Austin I just got several more players interested in the game. Guess how. TheLasombra and I gave them enough free cards to be able to play their own deck. Once they knew the game mechanics, they wanted to build their own decks to do different things. So they bought cards. So I've recently become very sold on the promotional thing. If you give a gamer a free deck, chances are they'll play. If they're a gamer, chances are they'll keep playing. If they're not a gamer on a tight budget, they'll buy more cards because the game is so addictive...how could they not want to build several decks. Incidentally a *lot* of Austin players are anxiously awaiting the Sabbat War Pre-Constructed decks. I salute you White-Wolf, this was a grand idea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vampire of the Month - Donatien I'm going to be honest with you, Donatien is my least favorite Toreador- Antitribu. I'll start by giving you his bad points : - His 'special' ability sucks. It rarely would be useful, and when it would be is when your predator is *successfully* bleeding you. If someone can find a consistent good use of his ability, please let me know. - He lacks superior celerity, which for an in clan skill for a vampire of capacity 9 is questionable. I mean, he has potence...let him fight! - I feel he's overcosted for what you get with him. But he doesn't completely suck as a vampire, here are his good points : - He's the cheapest Cardinal in the game, the only one at 9 capacity. - He get's +1 bleed. - He has potence, which would be *very* nice if he had superior celerity. He should be in any voting deck that you play with Toreador-Antitribu, but other than that I'd be hard pressed to put him in any other deck. Shelia is cheaper and better suited for bleed decks, and he's overpriced to try him in combat. If it wasn't for the fact that there are only 11 Toreador-Antitribu vampires, he'd see even less playing time. This is the last Toreador-Antitribu in print for me to talk about, so this feature will retire until such time as we have more Toreador- Antitribu in the set. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Card of the Month - Bribes A lot of people overlook the usefulness of this card. This card has 3 big points I want to bring up : - It is pool gain. If you play this after the political action is not blocked, you gain one pool guaranteed. It doesn't matter if the vote fails or passes. Other methuselahs get the pool if they vote for it, but theirs isn't as absolute as yours is (Demonstration, Quentin, Pulled Strings, etc.). So if it helps, Bribes = Ascendance (with respect to pool gain) if you can consistently call political actions. - It requires no skill. Caitiff, Pander, Gangrel, Giovanni, etc. can all use this card. In fact, this is one of a handful of cards that make voting decks possible for clans without any vote cards in their skill mix. - Above all, know that a lot of people will do amazing things for one pool. Some votes you never thought would pass, will...simply because enough people needed or wanted the pool. Most players vote against out of indifference thinking 'what do I gain?'. With bribes, you offer them a gain for voting in your favor. Most of the time it works. And if it doesn't, see #1. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Design Notes and History of Austin : Expansion This section will be even more 'stream of consciousness' than I normally write, but my intent is to convey as much information as possible, not convince you of anything :-) 2 years ago, back in the Ryan Dancey era, we started getting the itch for new cards. We had seen Justin Fang's expansion, and the Canberra cards, and decided that with our experience in the Sabbat playtest we could make our own set of cards. With R. Brian as our graphics designer, and using my network to collaborate files and information, we set out to create the Austin : Expansion. Why wait till now to release it on the web? Several factors kept us from announcing it publicly in the past - most notably was WOTC's policy regarding cards posted to the net. While this is for fun, we'd like to think that if one of our cards is *REALLY* good, that it should be added to the official set of printed cards. We don't really want the money, just the fame ;-) Also, the newsgroup was quite harsh and unforgiving during the period we started, so we felt it was best to just keep it to ourselves and have fun. Jump 2 years later, and now TheLasombra is actually making CD's of all the online material (including ours) and giving it out to Princes in other cities. The Prince community has grown tremendously since White- Wolf has started supporting us, and meeting everyone at DragonCon was the ultimate in validating the community we've started. Well, TheLasombra wanted feedback on how to improve the CD before he made the trek to GenCon to seed more CD's to other Princes around the Continent. Most of the feedback was European princes clamboring for the CD :-). That coupled with White-Wolf's open policy on putting cards on the web, started our group deciding on whether to finally post our URL on the web for everyone to access. After the positive response to Damnan's cards, we finally decided we should go public. So Non-North Atlantic Princes rejoice, everything on the CD is now available through the web. We're currently working with White-Wolf to get the playmat posted to their website. Anyways, back the expansion. Our goals were as follows : - Improve the Clans and Skills introduced since the original set. - Make allies more useful. - Keep the game fresh to maintain playgroup instead of disbanding. - Introduce a storyline that follows some of the WoD themes. - Have fun. Initially we also included some of Justin Fang's and Canberra's cards, noting the original ownership. But eventually decided to omit them for simplicity...even though we still play with some of them from time to time. Other cards of theirs insprired our own versions, so if some cards seem very similar, it is a nod to the previous online expansions before us. For example, I liked the Canberra concept of 'Investments'. So I created a rule that errated existing cards and included their cards plus a few of my own. Others in our group didn't care for some of the investment cards however...so most if not all of the cards didn't make it. :-( After a year, Kelly Nine moved to Austin from Houston. With Kelly Nine's help, we managed to make a lot of the cards fit the theme of the WoD setting. He basically helped us fix existing cards, and then set out to create a bunch of cards for his favorite clan Ravnos. This is why there may seem to be a lot of Ravnos material compared to the other clans. Our next clan to tackle was Giovanni, but with the White Wolf announcement and subsequent VEKN initiatives (and tournaments), we've kinda held off on making new cards. We still play our playtest cards on Sundays, and continually update the cards based on how we play them. Just so everyone knows, there are still a few cards that need attention that we haven't resolved yet. And probably plenty of cards that do have issues that we haven't uncovered yet. We don't know if we can modify the card and keep the intent, or if we should remove the card entirely. Here is our current list of questionable cards : Daylite Actions - Some of the interaction between vampires that actually blocked daylight actions didn't sit well with some people. We may need to look at this further. Daytime Desecration - May be too powerful to mix Computer Hacking and Mortal Sanctuary into one card. Bujo - We haven't tried to abuse it yet, and it may turn out to be too powerful. Doppleganger - yes we know.... Wraith - We're unsure if removing the bleed will bring this into line. Kumpania of Shining Springs - This coupled with Ravnos lockdown may be too much. Feel free to give feedback, but please play with the cards before you argue they need changes. ;-) We've also attempted to make sure every Austin player had their own vampire. With our ranks swelling recently we haven't had time to create new vampires for everyone....but it is our intent. We also plan to have this expansion fluid in the sense that cards will be dropped and added as time goes on. It'll never be *complete*, since it is after all just for fun. If you ever happen to come to Austin on Sundays, you are free to play and build decks using the cards from the Austin : Expansion. Eventually over time we planned on making labels and replacing Appolonius, Gird Minions and Up Yours! with Austin : Expansion cards. Who knows, if you win a tournament in Austin you may win a promotional 'Ethan' :-) ------------------------------- Ethan Burrow - Prince of Austin ethan@ddg.com http://whitestar.ddg.com/vtes/