Origins Reportage #3: Overcrowding At the Polling Booths

Bonus Round: Tribalmans
I arrived at the convention hall several hours before the VTES tournament of the day was to begin, having arranged the night before to participate in a game of Battlestar Galactica in the morning. Apparently there was some kind of miscommunication, because when I arrived there were already five players ready to accuse each other of being cylons and I had a sixth with me, Karl. He hadn't ever played the game before, and I'd been pimping it to him for the past few days, so I figured I'd sit out and let him play. I sat near him and Eric, who was also new to the game, and did my best to give impartial advice and rules tips to the two newbs.

The Tatus arrived, as they always do, in a corona of perfect light accompanied by an seraphic chorus, and asked if anyone wanted to play a game. I did, so I left the Galactica to her fate and joined Robyn and David at another table, where they were already setting up Stone Age. I'd never played before, so Robyn and David ran me through the rules. We'd gotten about halfway through our second turn when an extraordinary event occurred: the very atmosphere around us suddenly hummed with classiness. Startled, I looked behind me at the other table, but I was astonished to see that Hugh hadn't suddenly left the room. (Zing!) I then realized that the quiet dignity in which I was unexpectedly awash was emanating from a well-spoken young gentleman whom Robyn introduced to me as Matt Green. I knew of Matt Green from the internets, where his reputation is that of a...well, a Mind Raper, not to put too fine a point on it.

In spite of that infamy, Matt threw a monkeywrench into my cultural assumptions about Britsh players of V:TES. Previously, I'd only met Hugh, and I'd assumed that all of his countrymen would be the same kind of leering reprobate whom I'd gotten to know all too well, that this was some kind of Musashi-esque affect all Brits had adopted in order to unnerve their opponents with their vile, capering antics. Yet in Matt I immediately detected the reserved confidence of a man licensed to operate any number of automobiles, mopeds and lorries, the kind of person you instinctively know you can trust. I was surprised, albeit in the best possible way, to find him so affable when I made his acquaintance.

But enough of this pointy little diversion. You're here to read about games, not my process of judging the character of foreign visitors to our proud American soil. Stone Age is a worker-placement game in which each player is attempting to make their tribe of mans better than the other players' tribes. This betterness is judged via recourse to a somewhat vague system of points, which can be gained from a wide variety of sources. They're "my tribe is cooler than yours" points, I suppose? There are four different resource-gathering spaces on the board, which can hold a limited number of mans, and a few spaces on the board which can only hold mans from one tribe at a time. I can see why nobody would want anyone else in the sexy times hut while they're in there, and I guess the toolmaker and farm-maker are just overbooked? There's also an eats-gathering space, which can hold all the mans in the world.

I got excited when I saw the stone axe tokens, thinking that I might be able to inflict bodily harm on other players' mans, because I'm a jerk like that. Turns out that those aren't axes but Swiss Army tools, able to help with everything from gathering food to quarrying stone, but as this game is apparently set in the time before violence had been invented, you can't use them on the members of other tribes. Unlike other worker-placment games, there's randomness involved in Stone Age, in that you roll dice to see how successful you are at harvesting food and resources. You can use your tools to slightly modify those dice rolls, making it a bit more likely that your lackeys understood when you were trying to explain to them the concepts of "wood" or "gold." I appreciate this bit of randomness, and the accompanying mechanic to mitigate it, as I'm not a fan of games which lack an element of chance, since their math phases always seem to last forever during play.

Gameplay involves trying to balance the your mans' need for eats against getting them out there to partake in activities which can earn you points. Since there are so many different ways to gain points - using resources you've gathered to build huts, buying artistic objects, improving your tool technology, increasing the size of your tribe - it seems like your path to victory will usually be determined somewhat haphazardly, as the big points at the end of the game are earned via multipliers which appear randomly. There's a lot of strong interaction between these different elements of the game, as you need to balance your eats-gathering with the number of your mans and what you do with those mans. There were some choices that seemed very obvious, such as building farms, which I think every player did when they got the first option to do so. Many of the other options are murkier, given that the higher-scoring resources are also more difficult to gather, which leads to interesting choices about whether or not tools are worth making, babies are worth having, and whether it's better to take a chance on the more valuable resources or bottom-feed the cheaper ones.

Though I enjoy this style of game, I'm usually terrible at them, so I was surprised to come in second once we'd tallied all our points. I had been maknig tools every opportunity I got, and also managed to pick up a number of tool point multipliers, though I'm unable to judge how much of that was my successfully following a strategy and how much of that was the luck of those modifiers being made available to me, both due to coming up in the deck and my opponents not choosing to buy them when they did. I quite liked Stone Age, though not quite as much as Eketorp, and would definitely give it another play. Once we'd finished the game, the V:TES tournament was going to start soon, so we packed it away and prepared ourselves for much more cutthroat competition about to ensue.

Because this was the big day! The US championships, moved away from GenCon where it was poorly attended and lacking in prestige, and transplanted to glorious Origins, where the creme de la creme of VTES society hob their nobs while starry-eyed spectators scream for autographs. Or something.

I knew I was either going to play my !Brujah breed/boon deck or my Ventrue princes for this tournament, since they were the two best decks I've got. I'd seen very little in the way of vote decks in the previous two tournaments, and since this was supposed to be the Big One, I thought I'd encounter mostly stealth/bleed and weenie swarm bleed. The !Brujah deck bloats like yo mama and generally builds its ousting ability as the game goes on, meaning that if my metagame guess was right, I'd be able to get my first prey around mid-game and then overwhelm my opponent in the endgame duel. I really should learn to start ignoring my instincts and just roll a die to pick which deck to play before any given tournament.

(Note: I should have pointed out in the first chunk of reportage that all of the Daves you see in these reports aren't the same person - the Archon wasn't falling asleep on the job. It's just that there are a lot of different guys playing V:TES whose parents all had the same idea.)

Round One: My Strategy Begins When I Cut Your Deck
me (Cornbread, Earl and Me) -> Bob (Lasombra bleed and vote) -> Connor (Kindred Spirits stealth/bleed) -> Hugh (Eurobrujah) -> Dave (!Brujah bruise/bleed)

When Bob asked me to cut his deck, I saw that there was a Jyhad card on top, so naturally I cut the deck so that it would be on the bottom. If he's been playing with the card for 16 years, it's probably pretty good. To make light of my cruelty, I told Bob that I'd cut his deck in such a way that the Homunculus ended up on the bottom, and he looked at me like I was a complete weirdo. Well, he wasn't wrong, I guess.

My opening hand contained three Unexpected Coalitions, which isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but then my predator's first vampire was Sela. The upside was that this development freed me from having to expend any strategy-think during my discard phase for most of the game. The downside, apart from the obvious, was that Dave was playing a bruise/bleed deck which apparently relied on hope as its primary defensive mechanism, and Narrow Minds as its weak secondary layer of protection. This meant that Dave spent most of his game bleeding me for four or six with each of his vampires, being unwilling or unable to rush Hugh's minions, and then eating a lot of pool damage during other peoples' turns.

My bloat was able to keep pace with Dave's bleeds, after a somewhat scary opening game during which he got me rather low before I was able to start seriously gaining pool, but the relentless assault combined with Hugh's three princes meant that I wasn't much more than a plaything for that savage trans-Atlantic brute. It occurred to me that the kind of bruise/bleed deck which Dave was playing acts like a playground slide for its predator, in that it initially generates very little friction and then actually speeds you up as you near its end.

Hugh decided that he should share some of Connor's bleeds with Dave, and once he saw what a good time Connor was having making Dave pick up and throw away beads, he decided to join in on the fun and bled Dave himself. Dave had an untapped Jacko who attempted to block, whom I was really hoping was going to mess up Constanza's day something fierce, but Hugh had developed this technique whereby he added stealth to a bleed that his prey was trying to block. It worked so well that I was amazed no one had ever thought of it before. I'm sure it'll become all the rage, now that I'm making it common knowledge.

Bob ousted Connor and used the bonus pool to buy a new vampire. That new vampire was Tabitha Fisk. I pointed out that she has Protean, because I've got some kind of weird OCD whereby I always point out the useless disciplines on vampires that people bring out. I dunno what that's about, but it seems like I thing I can't help but do. After bringing Bob's attention to Tabitha's worthless waste of a design point, without considering what we'd talked about before, I said, "That's why she's so good, the Protean. That's what makes your deck work." Without missing a beat, his face fell into weary despair, and he replied, "Yeah, but you put the Homunculus on the bottom of my deck." I was laughing so hard that I barely noticed when Hugh ousted me. I don't remember who won the endgame or if the table timed out, but I'm assuming Hugh won since he made it into the finals.

Round Two: Armin Brenner Gets Laid Off
me -> Jeff (Lasombra and Marcus Vitel vote) -> Dave (Kiasyd stealth/bleed) -> John (Sergei Voshkov and friends)

I brought out Armin and Jeff brought out Marcus Vitel. I'd already Villein'd Armin for something like eight blood, so I didn't want to take the chance of contesting the DC title if Jeff didn't Tap or Villein Vitel. I assumed that Jeff was playing Obfuscate Ventrue, and that Hektor's priscus title would be enough to beat the prince title of whomever else Jeff brought out. (I assumed he wasn't going to influence out Arika, as he would've done so as his first minion for the Govern chain.) Imagine the way my face fell when Jeff's second vampire was Gratiano. That made it two games in a row where that snide super-priscus had made Hektor feel totally underdressed at the priscus convention. What an arrogant prick that guy is.

John had brought out Sergei Voshkov, presumably just to change my worries from "what will I do once I reach referendum during my political actions?" to "will I even reach referendum during my political actions?" He's just thoughtful that way. He's a giver, John is. Luckily for me, Dave was unafraid of what The Eye might do to his elves if he managed to catch the twisty little buggers, and kept the pressure on. Stone Travel goes a long way toward alleviating the kind of fear that The Eye generates, even once he's Heroically Mighty.

This was a tense game. There were any number of times when it seemed that the table might fall in any direction. John was low on pool but had a lot of permanent bleed, fight and intercept, as well as some bounce. I had three vampires, but one of them had no title and another had a title that didn't matter. Jeff was making forward progress into Dave, but had to fight for every inch, thanks to my attempts to vote down his offense and some Covincrafts that Dave wisely held onto for vote defense. Dave had the least worries of the four of us, but he was concerned that pushing forward too hard would oust me via redirected bleeds.

Eventually Jeff discarded a Minion Tap, because there were six Villeins in play at that point, explaining that his other copies of Villein were scattered throughout his other decks. I Golconda'd Armin Brenner, which gave me a enough pool to bring out a new copy of Armin. Having accepted Jesus as his lord and savior, this time around he possessed the inner strength to hang on to his title. Vitel had almost no blood left, so suddenly Jeff's votes were unable to pass. Dave's Omme and Hektor were enough to nullify Gratiano's sneer, and Vitel's title was soon to be handed over to Armin, so Jeff went for a third vampire. He brought out Alvaro, but the Scion didn't have time to abstain in even one vote before I ousted Jeff. I was able to mop up the rest of the table shortly thereafter, as Dave didn't have any way to stop my damaging votes and John had run out of transient defense.

Round Three: And Lo, The Table Did Groan 'Neath the Weight of Their Beads
me -> Darby (Daughters anarch vote) -> Rob (!Gangrel Shattering) -> Matt (Zombo Combo) -> Brian (Assamite anarch vote)

Wow. The amount of pool gained during this game was unreal. There were times when I wanted to just stop and start a new game, because trying to do the math was killing my brain. A lot of that was just low blood sugar and sleep deprivation, but...damn, there were a lot of beads on the table.

I did a lot of saving during this game, calling Con Boons for !Gangrel and Assamites to try to keep Darby from gaining six more pool and to keep zombies from ruining my neighborhood, respectively. I also Golconda's Matt's Baron when Darby was about to oust him. At one point I got faux-exasperated enough to yell, "I'm not Jesus! I can't save all of you!" It was that kind of game.

Early on, Rob Shattered a lot of Darby's Daughters, and I was fully expecting to hear a Crescendo echo back at the !Gangrel, but Darby wasn't playing that kind of deck. He was playing another of his decks where all of his minions take lots of actions every turn, so I got to trot out my tired old joke about how long imbued decks' turns take. Matt got out a lot of Corpses that bled into Brian, who was mostly ineffective because I kept being a fascist and removing his baronies before he had much chance to do anything with them. There was a lot of math during each of my turns as I counted how many of Darby's Daughters were untapped and therefore singing extra-loud thanks to their Conductor, but I was too much of a moron to come up with the idea of making a deal with Rob for him to Shatter the Conductor into torpor and then eating her.

I realized that Brian had out enough minions that a successful Revolutionary Council would vaporize me, so I stopped keeping him afloat and Matt got a victory point. Darby was now at ten pool and effectively unable to stop me from doing whatever I wanted. He turned to look at me and said, "Ah, okay, I'm ousted now." While I appreciated this vote of confidence in my manly virility, I wasn't actually able to close the deal. He gained a bunch of pool during his turn, closing the window on my chance of gaining a VP, and then ousted Rob using bleeds boosted by Rob's own Club Illusion. It seems that Rob forgot industry rule number four thousand and eighty: record company people are shady.

Darby kept grinding away at Matt's pool, and ousted him in spite of my attempts to keep him around. While this was going on, I stopped worrying about how much pool Darby had left and learned to love the bomb, instead just doing my best to make as much of it go away as quickly as I could. I did oust him eventually, somehow, but with the way the table had fallen that didn't give me a game win, and I didn't make the finals.

I hadn't had a chance to eat much of anything all day, and the fine beer, finer food, and even finer ladies of Barley's Brew Pub were calling to me, so I grabbed some folks and slipped away before the finals. I've squeezed a promise out of a very special eyeball witness to write up a report of that final round, but it's not prepared yet, so I'll add that to the blog once I get it. Watch this space.

Decklist
Deck Name : Cornbread, Earl & Me
Author : John Eno
Description : !Brjuah breed/boon, with some help from their pal on the other end of the political spectrum, Dmitra. Bleed me all you want, I'll make more.

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 9 max: 10 average: 9.33333
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4x Armin Brenner 10 CEL FOR POT PRE ani obf archbishop !Brujah:4
4x Dmitra Ilyanova 9 CEL FOR POT PRE obf justicar Brujah:5
4x Hektor 9 CEL POT PRE QUI for priscus !Brujah:4

Library [72 cards]
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Master [12]
1x Creepshow Casino
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Giant's Blood
1x Golconda: Inner Peace
1x Monastery of Shadows
1x Powerbase: Madrid
5x Villein

Action [6]
6x Creation Rites

Action Modifier [20]
6x Forced March
4x Forgotten Labyrinth
2x Freak Drive
2x Iron Glare
2x Perfect Paragon
4x Voter Captivation

Action Modifier/Combat [5]
5x Resist Earth's Grasp

Action Modifier/Reaction [6]
6x Unexpected Coalition

Combat [6]
4x Majesty
2x Pushing the Limit

Political Action [17]
6x Consanguineous Boon
7x Kine Resources Contested
2x Neonate Breach
1x Political Stranglehold
1x Reins of Power

In the past year I peformed a bunch of experiments with unusual crypts. With this deck, I knew that these were the three vampires I wanted to have in play, so I figured I'd eliminate any chance of not seeing them. The crypt has worked just about perfectly in that regard, but this deck tends to end up with a great stonking pile of pool in the endgame, which it can't find any use for since it's literally got its entire crypt in play already. With that in mind, it's time to send the findings from this experiment off to the Scientific Crypt Draw Society and diversify the selection of vampires in the deck.

Mostly, this is The Armin and Dmitra Show, so I definitely want to keep at least three copies of each of them. Hektor's main use is that when people see him, they often assume that they're going to see me play cards that have words like "enter," "combat," "with," "a," "ready," and "minion" on them and plan accordingly. While that's amusing, I don't think it's nine pool worth of amusing. Well, much less pool than that thanks to our friend Villein, but you get the point. There are enough other vampires in this pair grouping with decent titles and similar discipline spreads that I'll likely use one copy of Hektor and one more of some of those guys, which will in turn result in the knock-on effect of forcing the library to be much less of a breed/boon affair, since few of the vampires I'll be using will be !Brujah any more.

After the third round was over, Darby said, "If that was my deck you'd been playing, you'd have ousted me that turn that I was down to ten pool." True, but ouch. This was the second year in a row that I'd played this deck in Boston, felt like it had plenty of ousting power, and then took it to Origins and felt like it didn't have nearly enough. Darby mentioned adding more Iron Glares, which I initially didn't want to do because I want to avoid having my bleeds of three hurt my grandprey. He pointed out that they're easy enough to cycle on votes that I call if that's something I'm concerned about during a game, and that for games when I need the bleed boost that's might handy as well. He's totally right, of course.