Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Rapid Thought Tournament Rules

Rapid Thought is alternative (unofficial) tournament format for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. It was proposed by Scott L. Johnson and was introduced during GenCon 2002. Afterwards it was modified to the current revision by Kevin J. Mergen. Basically it follows the general VtES rules as well as the VEKN tournament rules, but has very few (yet significant) changes to the aforementioned general rules:
All V:EKN rules are in effect, see below.
  1. TOURNAMENT SETUP
    1. 3-player tables only, minimum 6 players
    2. 45 minutes per round

  2. SPECIAL RULES
    1. LIBRARY = 40-90 cards
    2. CRYPT = 6 cards minimum
    3. BANNED CARDS
      Vampire:
      • Una
      Minion:
      • Blood Doll
      • Minion Tap
      • Tribute to the Master
      • Vessel
      • Villein

      1. Burn Option for Banned Crypt Cards
        If any of the above crypt cards appear in a deck, then the player is not penalized; instead, remove the card from the game (do not redraw).
      2. Burn Option for Banned Library Cards
        If any of the above library cards appear in a deck, then the player is not penalized; instead, the card is treated as if it has the "burn-option" symbol.

    4. WATCH LIST
      Vampire:
      • Tupdog
      Minion: ALL pool-gaining votes
      • Gran Madre di Dio, Italy
      • Kindred Spirits
      • Reckless Agitation
      • Shared Nightmare
      • Taunt the Caged Beast
      • Voter Captivation
The watchlist (see above) is a list of cards which may be moved to the banned list if they prove to be problematic for the format. I have omitted the third and fourth paragraph of the rules (which deal with seating order and tournament point distribution) in this post since they are rather technical. For full reference of the Rapid Thought rules see Kevin Mergen's website.

The format is currently in discussion on VEKN.net.

Update: As result of the above-mentioned discussion, there's a revised version of the Rapid Thought rules. For specific points were changed:
Four things were changed:
  1. Rules for "found" Banned Crypt or Library cards' was updated.
  2. Ashur Tablets and Liquidation were added to the Watch List.
  3. Tournament Points were expanded, allowing for all possibilities.
  4. Pascal Bertrand was given credit for his help.

5 comments:

Kerath said...

" Blood Doll
Minion Tap
Tribute to the Master
Vessel
Villein"

These banned? Lol!

Meu said...

I don't like it very much, the characteristic part of vtes would be erased, without table talk vtes would become a "normal" ccg.

Mephistopheles said...

I would add Ashur Tablets and Liquidation to the banned list!

Unknown said...

I've played some 3:3 and there is table talk as well.

Juggernaut1981 said...

@Ishvalan:
Yes, pool gain via cards like Blood Doll and Minion Tap is one of the things which can cause games to run longer.

@Meu:
I'd be thinking the table-talk would change entirely. It's less about choosing which cross-table ally you want to have around at the end of the game and a more aggressive jostling for the limited VPs.

I think that Rapid Thought could be a very action-packed format. Which will suit some people but others will loathe it I'm sure.