White Wolf and VEKN News and Info

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White Wolf and VEKN News and Info

A few announcements and some information:

First, we have found our candidate for the Organized Play Coordinator job
here at White Wolf. Oscar Garza (Prince of College Station, Texas) has
accepted the job. Many players who have been to NAC's at Gen Con will know
Oscar. He is a long-time player of the game and Prince. I am grateful to
have someone with Oscar's knowledge, experience and enthusiasm for the game
coming into this role.

Because it is a natural fit with Oscar's job, he will take over the V:EKN
Membership Director role and will be the primary point of contact for VEKN
players, princes, and national coordinators.

Oscar can be reached at orgplay ["at" symbol] white-wolf [dot] com

Second, as Robert Goudie has already announced, Robert suggested to me and I
accepted the idea that I would take over as V:EKN Chairman. To those newer
on the VTES scene this will probably seem like no big deal, but to me at
least it is.

The biggest reason we decided to reverse the license for V:TES with WOTC and
to try to restart the "dead" game of V:TES was because there was clearly an
organization of players who were still playing the game and were
self-organizing events for the game. Without the efforts of people like
Robert Goudie (and Carl Pilhatsch and many others) there would be no V:EKN
and therefore White Wolf would never have published Sabbat War and restarted
this great game.

I take it as a vote of confidence and faith in the job we are doing so far
with V:TES that we be allowed to officially caretake the player
organization.

Third, Robert Goudie will now become the Storyline Director for V:EKN, which
just formalizes the role he has already been filling as the person who
oversees the storyline for V:TES and more specifically the storyline (and
Build-Your-Own-Storyline) special events. This makes Robert the inheritor of
14 years of classic World of Darkness storytelling as the stories told
through V:TES are now the only official chronicles in White Wolf's classic
setting.

Finally, before leaving office, Robert assembled a short FAQ (which LSJ will
also put on the VTES website) to answer some questions for new and old
players alike about how V:EKN runs and about the Design Team and Rules Team.



V:EKN/V:TES Organizational FAQ

V:TES players are fortunate that their game isn't controlled by some
monstrous, out-of-touch corporation. The game is developed and maintained by
people who are long-time players and supporters of the game. Players also
have a direct line to the people making the decisions. Everyone, whether
they are National Coordinators or casual observers, can have a suggestion or
opinion that we, the V:EKN, may adopt. Many of the great ideas we've
implemented over the years originated with players' suggestions.

Q. What is the V:EKN?
A. Vampire: Elder Kindred Network, or V:EKN, is the name of the official
player's organization. Founded in 1997 by Robert Goudie, its two-fold
mission was to support the game in the absence of corporate support and to
encourage its owners to actively support the game again. In 2000, when White
Wolf obtained the V:TES game license and began actively supporting it, they
chose to adopt the organized play and volunteer structure created by the
V:EKN.

Q. What's a V:EKN Prince?
A. V:EKN Princes are volunteer game promoters and organizers and local
contact persons. They relay news about the game to the players in their
local communities. They share ideas with each other on how to promote the
game. Princes are the ambassadors of the game to new players in their
communities.

Q. Do V:EKN Princes have authority over people?
A. No. The prince is a volunteer who works hard to promote the game and
receives little more than the thanks he or she receives from the local
players and from White Wolf. The prince is oftentimes the person who sits
out of a game to teach a new player who shows up. The prince is the person
who does all the legwork to setup your events and maybe doesn't even get to
play in them. The prince mops the floor when someone spills a drink. The
prince is a hard-working servant of his or her players.

Q. What's this private conclave mailing list that the princes are on?
A. Its primary function is to be a place for the game's volunteer
organizers, the princes, to communicate with each other about ways to
promote the game in their local communities. It's also a convenient way for
White Wolf and the V:EKN to contact princes, either to give them news or to
solicit information from them. There's nothing secret or special going on
there. If you'd like to monitor the conversation there, join the
ConclaveMonitor Yahoo group.
You can read the Conclave discussion in the Yahoo group directly here:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/ConclaveMonitor/
For those of you who can read RSS feeds, recent messages can be seen here:
http://rss.groups.yahoo.com/group/ConclaveMonitor/rss
Lastly, the RSS feed can be viewed on the web at:
http://www.vtesinla.org/conclave.asp

Q. What are National Coordinators?
A. Some places are just so big that they need someone who is devoted to
thinking about "National" concerns. While princes devote their time to local
events, National Coordinators are primarily concerned with National Events.
They are also unpaid volunteers who work hard to promote the game and are a
resource to the princes in their geographic area. Like princes, the NCs have
no special authority over the players (nor over other princes).

Q. What is the V:EKN Inner Circle?
A. Another name for the guys and gals who put a good portion of their waking
hours supporting the V:TES community. There's not really any special powers
or prizes that come with it-they just work hard because they love the game.
Their job responsibilities are similar to that of the princes, serving the
community, though their area of service is usually pretty specific and may
involve committing many hours of their time each week. The current Inner
Circle jobs are: Chairman, Membership Director, Ratings Coordiantor, Rules
Librarian, Storyline Director, and Clan Newsletter Coordinator.

Q. Who's this Chairman person? What's he do?
A. Robert Goudie served as chairman from the beginning of the V:EKN. In
2005, he stepped down to become Storyline Director, and Steve Wieck (of
White Wolf) took over as Chairman. The Chairman selects reliable volunteers
to join the "Inner Circle" for help with various support functions. He sets
the general direction of the organization. You can reach the Chairman at
stevew ["at" symbol] white-wolf [dot] com.

Q. What does the Membership Coordinator do?
A. The Membership Director (MD) receives, reviews and approves applications
from new Princes and National Coordinators (though approval of National
Coordinators is just "rubber-stamping" what the Princes of that Nation have
decided). The MD helps train new Princes in how to run demos and
tournaments; helps active Princes serve their local player communities, and
removes inactive Princes from office.
Currently, the MD also sanctions and approves all non-storyline events
submitted to the White Wolf event calendar.
The current MD is Oscar Garza, a White Wolf employee, who can be reached at
orgplay ["at" symbol] white-wolf [dot] com

Q. What does the Ratings Coordinator do?
A. The Ratings Coordinator is a volunteer member pulled from the ranks of
the players. Her current responsibilities include: 1) Receiving all
tournament results from around the world. 2) Collecting manual reports sent
via email and converting them into ratings on the V:EKN web site and/or
keeping an archive of all files sent. 3) Assisting with maintenance of the
Event Calendar on the V:TES website. 4) Maintaining the player database on
the V:TES website, updating current information on request, making
corrections, consolidating duplicate player records, and similar tasks. The
current Ratings Coordinator, volunteer player Robyn Tatu can be contacted
through email at Vtesratings ["at" symbol] white-wolf [dot] com

Q. What does the Rules Librarian do?
A. Maintains the official rules under which all sanctioned V:EKN events will
be played. You can reach the current Rules Librarian, L. Scott Johnson at
vtesrep ["at" symbol] white-wolf [dot] com.

Q. What does the Storyline Director do?
A. The Storyline Director coordinates special events that revolve around
fictional happenings in the V:TES world. These special events may take the
form of themed tournaments or leagues and the outcome of these events will
often times be incorporated into an ongoing storyline. In addition, the
Storyline Director administrates the Build Your Own Storyline events. These
special events allow players to create their own storylines, possibly
resulting in cards being printed based on their submissions. You can reach
the current Storyline Director, volunteer player Robert Goudie at rrgoudie
["at" symbol] earthlink [dot] net.

Q. What does the Clan Newsletter Coordinator do?
A. The Clan Newsletter Coordinator administrates the production of Clan
Newsletters by assigning volunteer editors to each clan. These newsletters
discuss the game from the point of view of devotees of a particular clan and
provide tips, deck-building advice and strategy. You can reach the Clan
Newsletter Coordinator, volunteer player Peter Bakija at pdb6 ["at" symbol]
lightlink [dot] com.

Q. What is the Design Team?
A. L. Scott Johnson is the game's lead designer and therefore heads up the
Design Team. He hand-selects his team members to work on various projects.
He designs cards and rules for expansion sets and designs new text for cards
(and rules) that need fixing. The Lead Designer, L. Scott Johnson, can be
reached at vtesrep ["at" symbol] white-wolf [dot] com. Note that the Design
Team is independent of the V:EKN, ultimately answering to White Wolf, the
publisher of the game.

Q. What's the Rules Team?
A. The Rules Team is the group of players selected to work out the answers
(rulings) to the trickier aspects of the game and, occasionally, to instate
functional changes to selected cards by way of errata. L. Scott Johnson is
designated as the final rules authority for all rules and card rulings. For
general rulings, he will issue on-the-spot rulings (via email, the
newsgroup, or any of several web forums where the game is discussed). For
the more complicated or far-reaching rulings, though, he chooses to use a
Rules Team to provide a more thorough evaluation and analysis of the rulings
(to avoid conflicts between rulings and achieve a set of rulings that is as
consistent, for example). The Rules Team's leader, L. Scott Johnson, can be
reached at vtesrep ["at" symbol] white-wolf [dot] com.
The rest of the Rules Team is anonymous to keep debate over rulings to
public forums rather than directed at individuals. Note that the Rules Team
is independent of the V:EKN, ultimately answering to White Wolf, the
publisher of the game.

Q. How can I get on the Design Team or Rules Team?
A. In general, both bodies (the Design Team and the Rules Team) are not
"open". When there is an opening or need for additional input, however, then
L. Scott Johnson will fill the position with an appropriate candidate chosen
typically for exhibiting, in the public forums, the qualities sought (rules
or background knowledge, critical thinking and analysis of rules variants,
candidates from a diversity of countries and player communities, or whatever
the needs of the team are at that time).

Q. Card X is too powerful. What can I do to get it changed?
A. Post your concerns to one of the public forums. Discuss it. If you make a
convincing argument, the Design Team or Rules Team may address the card, as
appropriate. Also, winning tournaments helps if you really want people to
see how powerful the card is.

Q. How do cards get banned in tournaments?
A. The Design Team is presented with a proposal to address a card from
various forums, public and private. If the Design Team agrees with the
proposal and cannot find any other way to "fix" a card that needs to be
fixed, one option is to place the card on the banned list. Other options are
reprinting the card with updated (altered) card text in an appropriate
expansion (as a part of the booster assortment or as a part of one of the
non-random starter decks) or issuing errata to address the problem.

Q. What is errata? Isn't it the same as a clarification or a ruling?
A. No. They are all different. A clarification is made to make something
that is clear from card text, even more clear. If an easy question is asked
enough times, a clarification may follow. A ruling tells how a card should
officially work when its text is not clear, and more than one interpretation
can be logically supported. Errata effectively changes the card text by
edict. It is also used to fix typos.

Q. Then what's a text migration?
A. A card that receives new text during reprinting and that new text changes
the way the card functions.
 
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"Steve Wieck" <stevewNOSPAMPLEASE@white-wolf.com> wrote in message
news:0eQOd.356287$8l.275850@pd7tw1no...
> White Wolf and VEKN News and Info
>
> A few announcements and some information:
>
> First, we have found our candidate for the Organized Play Coordinator job
> here at White Wolf. Oscar Garza (Prince of College Station, Texas) has
> accepted the job. Many players who have been to NAC's at Gen Con will know
> Oscar. He is a long-time player of the game and Prince. I am grateful to
> have someone with Oscar's knowledge, experience and enthusiasm for the
> game
> coming into this role.
>

I just want to give a shout out to the community. I am very excited about
this opportunity. I hope we keep this game
going long and strong. I am very open to suggestions and comments, so feel
free to contact me at any one of those email
addresses.


--
Oscar J. Garza III
Organized Play Coordinator
White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
1554 Litton Drive
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
 
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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Steve Wieck wrote:
> White Wolf and VEKN News and Info
>
> A few announcements and some information:
>

<snip>

Thanks for the update.

And thank you Steve and Robert and everyone else who has been so
important in keeping this great game alive and well and better than
ever. Its been a lot of great years, a lot of great expansions, and lot
of great games.

Here's to many more!

Oscar! Congratulations on the new job. Its great to hear that the new
Coordinator is one of our own. I can't imagine a more enthusiastic
advocate for the great game.

-Ben Swainbank
 
G

Guest

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Steve Wieck wrote:
> White Wolf and VEKN News and Info
>
> A few announcements and some information:
>

<snip>

Thanks for the update.

And thank you Steve and Robert and everyone else who has been so
important in keeping this great game alive and well and better than
ever. Its been a lot of great years, a lot of great expansions, and lot
of great games.

Here's to many more!

Oscar! Congratulations on the new job. Its great to hear that the new
Coordinator is one of our own. I can't imagine a more enthusiastic
advocate for the great game.

-Ben Swainbank