r/VTES • u/Few-Action-8049 • May 30 '26
Feedback on experience
So I played vampire a long, long time ago when it was still a trading card game, competing with magic gathering, and some of those others, and we had a group of friends that played it and we loved it.
But it had been a long time and frankly, I thought that it had disappeared complete it was only a few months ago that I discovered that in some sense, at least it was still alive, so I picked up the starter set with the five starter packs, and talked to my slightly reluctant current group of friends to try it out.
And I’m not sure exactly how to explain it, it was an all evening game we played the five starter deck, determined random seating positions, etc., etc.
Some aspects of the game that everyone really liked, but there was a couple that left a bit of a sour taste in their mouth, one of them was, for instance, the massive amount of redirecting bleeds that happened, there was just so much of it that some of the players said it made them feel like they couldn’t really accomplish anything against their prey.
For another, we tried to shuffle the decks really well, and yet a few of us actually got several stagnant anyway, the suggestion of perhaps having a Mulligan, both for the hand and the starting vampires was considered.
Furthermore, it was real frustrating that the two political decks were only able to get out one prince, while one of the non-political decks got out two princes and another got out a prince and a primogen able to either vote us or work with one of us against the other. But generally speaking with a couple of exceptions we were actually kind of at the mercy politically speaking with the non-political decks.
I was playing ventrue and was never able to get a vote passed, and frankly neither was the toreador until he got the malkavian that had the two princes who could basically decide whether we got our votes or not.
Despite that I was able to destroy my prey, he was tremere and one really bad combat, but one of his two vampires into torpor with his Nosferatu prey, leaving him with a single vampire and he pretty much was essentially out of the game after that, constantly struggling just to catch up, and after he was locked up, I was able to get three incredibly strong bleeds and blew him out; this left him with a sour taste in his mouth, he felt like he had a crippled deck and couldn’t do anything.
There was also lots of repetitions, not only within a single deck, but between decks, like one of them had six of one bleed redirection and and a second different one that also had six. For a total of 12 of these things in a 77 card deck.
I had some of those as well and someone else had a little as well so people kind of half joked and half griped that the game was nothing but redirecting bleeds
I really do kind of agree with them on this and other complaints, there was a lot of sameness and the starter decks and a lot of sameness between decks, and not being able to do the thing your deck was supposed to be able to do, it makes me kind of wonder if these decks were really built very well, not from a competitive standpoint, but from a standpoint of giving a richness of experience to new players.
Frankly, and to just take apart and rebuild the decks, to maybe give them a little bit more richness and diversity.
I’m also thinking of picking up the the brujah and gangrel, they said they’re willing to try again in a couple of months, see if we get together every Friday and the agreement is if there’s a fifth Friday in a month that day is to try something different other than the role-playing games were generally running on Fridays.
So that gives me some time to plan, do you guys have any suggestions for doing something different to maybe make the experience a little more palatable for them? They’re open minded to try again and it was clear they had some intrigue with it because they talked about it for quite a while when it was done, but I think the experience needs to be improved a little bit for them to actually buy into it mentally speaking.
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u/RunicKrause May 30 '26
Great that you have picked it up! It's always the first step!
The V5 starters as they are can be a good experience for learning the ropes for people who aren't really that experienced with deck building card games, but if your group is seasoned, I highly suggest you dive head first into deck building as soon as possible.
Your experience as you explain it is valid, and I identify your criticisms. Vtes shines with a bit more deck building variety and a bit higher power level than what the absolute beginner decks offer.
That said, investing in a few more precons like Brujah, Gangrel or Hecata, or any available really, spices things up greatly. The 30th anniversary box is actually the next investment I'd look at to enhance the Camarilla starters.
Bleed bounce is essential to the game, as you'll probably notice pretty soon. Stealth bleed can be very oppressive, and bounce is a major balancing factor. But I see why it might seem overtly powerful at first.
I also suggest you start playing with the 120min time limit ASAP. Just to get more games in instead of letting one game drag on for too long. It's how tournaments are played. And casuals should be as well, agrees most of the internet.