A online version of the fresh, illustrated Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition rulebook has been created. It is currently hosted by the player community VEKN at www.vekn.net/rulebook. Check it out, and please give VEKN or Black Chantry your feedback!
Rule Change: Default sect Clans do not have a default sect anymore. This means that if a vampire changes clan, they keep their sect. For instance, a Derange played by Malkavian antitribu on a target vampire who is Camarilla Ventrue changes the target into a Camarilla Malkavian antitribu (not a Sabbat Malkavian antitribu as before).
The following cards have changed: Becoming, The: Inherits the sire’s sect. Brother in Arms: Inherits the sire’s sect. Creation Rites: The vampire is now explicitly Sabbat. Dual Form: Inherits the sire’s sect. Nosferatu Bestial: Inherits the sire’s sect. Third Tradition: Progeny: The vampire is now explicitly Camarilla. Trophy: Progeny: Inherits the sire’s sect.
Drawing Cards (p. 7) Whenever you are asked to draw from your crypt, move the top card from your crypt to your uncontrolled region.
Requirements for Playing Cards (p. 7) Unless explicitly stated, costs you pay must be paid with resources you control: your pool, blood on vampires you control, cards in your ash heap, etc. For instance, you cannot play Enticement if you do not control the Edge, since you must burn it as part of its cost.
An exception is the “Rescue a Vampire from Torpor” action (p. 23) whose cost can be paid by the acting vampire or the rescued vampire, or the cost may be split between them.
Performing an action (p. 16) The term “perform” applies to the entire course of the action, from the moment it is announced to the moment it is resolved. An action that is “performed” can end up by being successful or not. “Performing an action” does not imply that the action is successful.
Political Action Cards (p. 27) Those cards simply say “1 vote”, rather than “worth 1 vote” (which was the wording used in older sets).
Quick Reference (p. 53) The Discipline Blood Sorcery is also called Thaumaturgy in older sets. They are exactly the same.
The clan Banu Haqim is called Assamite in older sets. They are exactly the same.
Similarly, the clan Ministry (whose members are called Ministers) is called Followers of Set in older sets.
For instance, if a card requires a ready Banu Haqim, any ready Assamite will fulfill this requirement (and vice versa).
Rulebook, p. 15 The 30 pool displayed as your pool do not necessarily reflect the state of the game at that moment (since you have spent some of them to bring vampires into play), unless you have found a way to regain enough pool to reach your initial 30 pool. Also, please note that there is no limit to the amount of pool a Methuselah can have.
Fifth Edition Helpsheets errata Leave torpor The cost of the action is missing: “Action cost: 2 blood”.
Diablerise a vampire in torpor The word stealth is missing in the following sentence: “Undirected +1 stealth action if you control both vampires.”
Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition is available for all stores and distributors. For more information please visit the Products section at www.blackchantry.com. Contact us by mail or social media.
Vincent Ripoll is the very busy Rules Director for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle at Black Chantry. We asked him some questions about his role and what is going on ruleswise with the game:
Vincent, what do you do as the Rules Director? – My role is quite technical, since it consists in ensuring the consistency of the rules with the existing rules – notably by taking into account all the existing rulings that complete the rules – while continuing to develop them. This includes among other things eliminating certain unnecessary complications, introducing new concepts to reunite certain rule points, and adapting the rules to the needs of game designers, for instance to follow some evolving aspects of the World of Darkness. I also spend a lot of time ensuring that cards we reprint follow those rules and use consistent patterns, not only in English but also in the various languages our game is printed in.
TheVampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition box set is now in stores. Were any particular rules changed for this set? – The Fifth Edition is a perfect example of how the evolving lore has an impact on the game design, and by capillary action, on the rules themselves. For instance, Anarchs have taken a predominant part of the course of events in the World of Darkness. This was a perfect occasion to make them a sect, rather than a trait that behaved like a sect. Another example is that clans are no longer tied to a sect by default. Previously, you had to know the default sect of a clan in order to properly play cards such as The Embrace, and some interactions were odd. For instance, if a Gangrel Prince created an Embrace, that Embrace would have been Independent, since clan Gangrel became Independent with the release of the first Anarch set in 2003, with no retroactive effect on the printed vampires. In both cases, removing those unnecessary details makes the game easier to play for all players, old and new. Finally, some clan symbols were changed as well as some clan names – Assamites become Banu Haqim, Followers of Set become The Ministry, etc. These are cosmetic changes with no impact on the rules. For instance, the Assamite clan is now called Banu Haqim, but they are strictly equivalent: an Assamite is a Banu Haqim and can use cards requiring that clan, whatever name is used on the card.
Fifth Edition has a brand new, illustrated rulebook. What differs from the old rulebook? – The previous rulebook was very thorough but needed some refreshment. It is a good, solid, technical document, but not a very user-friendly one. We wanted a new illustrated version as complete as the old one but easier to dive into, especially for new players. We used the services of Gaming Rules!, a company specialized in the writing of rulebooks for board games, since Vampire: The Eternal Struggle is very similar to a massive board game, and of Elisabet Pérez for the graphic design who both did an amazing job. It took us more than a year to create it, with a lot of feedback from everyone, and we cannot wait for everyone to be able to use it.
You also answer rules questions online. What are the most common questions? – Many questions are from new or returning players, which is a good sign despite the pandemic situation. Some questions are about recent changes in cards, and some are about exotic situations that happened in the game. It is quite varied, but most of them already have an answer – I strongly advise everyone to use the search button on the VEKN forum or to use Codex of the Damned, a wonderful tool that collects all the rulings about the cards!
PDF downloads (also in ‘Utilities’ at Blackchantry.com): – Fifth Edition Rulebook (English, Spanish, French) – Helpsheets(English, Spanish, French)
In May, Black Chantry Productions declared an open playtest concerning the crypt card contest rules. Now the playtest period is over, and reports and survey forms have been collected and assessed by Rules Director Vincent Ripoll.
He has concluded that the rules will not be changed. In his own words: “The overall opinion is that changing the rule would be detrimental to the game and that the cons overweight the pros, but with no statistical evidence. There are also some real rule issues with the proposed change. Therefore, the proposed change is discarded. There were some interesting alternative suggestions that we will consider in the future.”
1. Black Lives Matter I want to make it clear that Black Chantry Productions firmly supports the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
The game we are honoured to publish, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, is a social game where friendships have been developed over the decades bringing people across the world closer.
We want everyone to have an equal opportunity to live, learn and love in life without being marginalised or having the fear of abuse, violence or death hanging over them due to their skin colour or race.
2. What does VTES or Black Chantry have to do with this? Vampire: The Eternal Struggle is set within the World of Darkness and this is a world that has been designed to be a monster filled, alternate reality of our own. In filling this world with monsters, the original designers took many horrors and caricatures from our own world. This includes a whole host of things that are offensive by 2020 standards. I think the quote below encapsulates WoD very well.
The World of Darkness has always been about pushing back that darkness. That’s the -punk part of gothic-punk: the rejection of misuse of power and rebellion against it. That’s why the Riddle is A Beast I am lest a Beast I become. The player stands against monstrosity.– Justin Achilli June 2020
3. What practical things are Black Chantry or the VEKN doing?
VEKN
Rules Team Ruling – RTR 05/07/2020 From 1st August 2020 the following five cards will be banned in Vampire: Elder Kindred Network sanctioned Vampire: The Eternal Struggle tournaments: Gypsies Rom Gypsy Tarbaby Jack Terrorists Tsigane
There may be other changes as the VEKN evaluates the card pool. Where possible we will design new cards to fit those spaces.
It is partly there to ensure that no players are bullied or harassed whilst playing and particularly because of their race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability among others.
BLACK CHANTRY PRODUCTIONS
Here’s a brief overview of some of the ways Black Chantry works and how BCP thinks about inclusivity in the day to day work.
Art We commission art to reflect the world around us, there will continue to be a spread of gender, race and other characteristics in the vampire characters we use in the game.
We try to ensure groups and cultures we know less about are accurately portrayed on artwork as we want the vampires to feel authentic. We do this through detailed conversations and research with a wide range of people.
Artists We have a core group of artists who work on Vampire: The Eternal Struggle but are interested in working with more. We enjoy meeting with new artists and seeing if their style could work within VTES and often receive contact inquiries about work opportunities. We are keen to see a range of artist visions be portrayed in the World of Darkness rather than just our own.
There are some key things to note: VTES has a specific set of style constraints that we need artists to be able to work to, much of this is governed by World of Darkness art guides which looks for darkly horror-based art.
We have also taken steps to replace artwork from the game that we consider unsatisfactory due to depiction on the card or due to disagreement with an artist’s philosophy on life.
Design We have a limited design team to the limited nature of what we do (one game), we do however take submissions via the VEKN forum.
Additionally, we operate with a diverse range of playtest groups and players, about 100-150 persons depending on the set. We are always looking for more playtest groups to encourage a wider set of opinions to help the testing.
Distribution Black Chantry has deliberately used a range of distributors to help get VTES moving again, many of these are players of the game and the majority will be local to the countries they distribute in. This doesn’t make everything as smooth as it could be by using larger more established distributors or by selling to a larger online company or direct to customers but it does help us connect to retailers who are passionate about the game and talk to them directly.
We have so far avoided Kickstarter as we’d rather support retailers as much as we can.
We do enjoy using DriveThruCards to allow print on demand and by doing so also contribute to other, smaller, creators being able to use this mechanism to get their games out there.
Language When we initially reprinted VTES we were asked on a number of occasions about getting the game in non-English languages. We have tried to provide cards in languages where it is economically viable as we want to be inclusive even if this means printing a limited volume of expansions for a specific playgroup.
Mistakes I’m sure Black Chantry will make mistakes and has made mistakes. My intent is for mistakes to come with the best of intentions and for us to learn from any mistakes we make.
It may not be possible to please all of our community with the artwork and cards we produce or with some of the changes we have made to the game, but that won’t stop us from playing with you and being ousted cross table…
