Archon Help

The Archon is the platform managing both members of the VTES players association, and VTES events throughout the world. Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (VTES) is a card game produced by Black Chantry Productions (BCP). The VTES players association is known as the VEKN (Vampire Elder Kindred Network).

Members and profile

Users who create an account on the Archon have access to limited information: the list of upcoming VTES events and a very limited list of VEKN representatives known as National Coordinators (NC) and Princes, together with their contact information.

To be become VEKN member, a user must be sponsored by a VEKN representative so, if you desire to join, please reach out to the nearest Prince or NC. VEKN membership is free.

VEKN ID Number

Members of the VEKN are attributed a 7-digit VEKN identification number (VEKN# in short) when they join in. This number does not change throughout their membership. You'll need a VEKN# to participate to official VEKN events, like most VTES tournaments.

New Members must be sponsored by a Prince or NC, who can attribute them a VEKN# after having checked their information and, usually, met them in person. Most members simply get sponsored when they join their first event.

Existing Members logging in on the Archon for the first time need to “claim” their VEKN#. Just click on the “Existing VEKN#” button in your profile, and provide your number.

Member roles

The VEKN has set up different roles in the organization to support players around the world. All roles are occupied by voluntary VEKN members of at least 16 years of age.

• Admin are the Inner Circle of the VEKN, in charge of promoting VTES as a whole by supporting and caring for the VEKN. They designate all other roles.
• NC National Coordinators support organized play at national level, and appoint Princes.
• Prince Princes support VTES in their locality. They organize regular gaming sessions at a store or public location, demos, and tournaments.
• Judge Elder Judges maintain cards rulings and advise the Inner Circle on rules changes and Judges designation
• Anc. Judge Neo. Judge Ancilla and Neonate Judges answer players questions about the rules, and arbitrate issues during organized events.
• PTC Playtest Coordinators advise the Inner Circle on playtest procedures, and Playtesters appointments.
• Playtester Playtesters advise the Inner Circle on new cards design by testing candidate cards in actual play, under NDA.
• Ethics Members of the Ethics Committe are responsible for upholding VEKN's Code of Ethics.

Inner Circle (IC / Admin)

• Chairman: Hugh Angseesing
• Community & Social: Henrik Klippström
• Rules & Ratings: Vincent Ripoll
• Website: Ginés Quiñonero
• Organized Play: Orian Gissler
• Playtest: Norman Brown

National Coordinator (NC)

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 promote the game and are a resource to princes in their geographic area.

National coordinators represent their players at an international level. Each country should have one National Coordinator. If a country does not have a National Coordinator yet, Princes in that country advise the Inner Circle on the appointment.

Responsibilities of a National Coordinator include:

• Representing their players and Princes, and being available to them as their representative
• Maintaining a national communications platform for VTES players in their country
• Organizing national tournaments and qualifiers, as well as continental championships
• Advising the Inner Circle on organized play
• Translating rules and advertisements
• Appointing Princes
• Making promotional items available to Princes for demos and tournaments
• Promoting VTES to retailers and supporting a good relationship between distributors and retailers
• Sponsoring new VEKN members, registering and protecting their personal information

They can enlist help from their Princes to care for these Responsibilities as they sit fit, with their Princes' accord.

Prince

Princes are active VTES players in charge of promoting VTES. They organize regular play in their domain, be it weekly gaming events at a store or a public place, or regular online sessions or leagues. They actively promote VTES through public demos and tournaments, and coopt new VEKN members. They uphold the VEKN tournament rules and rating system, as well as the VEKN Code of Ethics.

A Prince responsibilities include:

A Prince is appointed by the National Coordinator of their country, or a member of the Inner Circle. They can enlist voluntary players in their area to support them in their efforts.

Princes have access to exclusive communication channels with other Princes, National Coordinators, and the Inner Circle. Their efforts in promoting the game through regular play, demos and tournaments constitute the essential core of the VEKN, and what keep the game running and growing. They can count on their National Coordinator's help and mentoring in doing so, and can apply for promotional support, in the form of cards, bundles and accessories.

Judges

Official VEKN Judges are VTES players recognized for their knowledge of the game rules, tournament rules, Judges guidelines, and cards rulings. They should be preferred as Judges in VEKN sanctionned tournaments, although for now, there is no obligation for a tournament judge to be an official VEKN judge. Official Judges make themselves available to events organizers (Princes and NCs) to act as tournament judges when needed.

VEKN Judges have successfully passed the relevant exam. The period of Judge accreditation is valid for three years, or until the release of a new rulebook, whichever comes first. Upon completion of this term, accreditation is automatically renewed provided the Judge continues to judge and/or play at VEKN-sanctioned tournament events regularily.

There are two types of Judge exams: the Elder Judge exam has 100 questions, 35 easy, 35 medium and 30 hard. The Ancilla Judge exam has 50 question, 35 easy, 10 medium, and 5 hard.

• Neonate Judges have reached a 60% score on the Ancilla exam, or 50% on the Elder exam.
• Ancilla Judges have reached an 80% score on the Ancilla exam, or 60% on the Elder exam, and they have been appointed judge at at least one sanctionned VEKN tournament.
• (Elder) Judges are appointed by the VEKN Inner Circle. They should have reach an 80% score on the Elder exam and have been appointed judge at multiple sanctionned VEKN tournaments.

Elder judges have additional responsibilities:

• Maintaining and improving the judges exams
• Maintaining and improving the cards rulings database
• Advising the Inner Circle on VTES rules, tournament rules and Judges guide evolutions.

Ethics Commitee

The VEKN Ethics Committee is appointed by the VEKN Chairman. Its responsibilities and procedures are detailed in the VEKN Code of Ethics.

Personal Information

Users of the Archon can register their personal information, like their Name, Email, and various social networks identifiers, as well as the deck lists they use in tournaments. This information is made available to VEKN members under conditions detailed below, and users have a right to access, modify and delete it as they wish.

Their Name can be displayed to any Archon user. Their rating at official VEKN tournament, specifcally, is public information.

Their Contact information like their Email and social networks identifiers, is only accessible to Princes and NCs in their country, except if they're a Prince or NC themselves, in which case their contact information is made publicy available as part of their responsibilities.

The deck lists of VEKN members, when provided and recorded for an event, can be made available to archiving projects and initiatives selected by the Inner Circle and run by VEKN members.

Tournaments

The primary goal of the Archon platform is to allow for easy tournament organization and reporting.

Configuration

Only Princes, NCs and Admins can create a Tournament.

• Format: Whether it's a Standard, Limited or Draft tournament.
• Rank: Only for Standard tournaments, whether it has a National or Continental rank.
• Proxies: Only allowed for unranked tournaments, it means players can use proxies in their decks.
• Multideck: Only allowed for unranked tournaments, it means players can change deck between rounds.
• Decklist required: Requires players to upload their decklist before they can check-in to participate in any round (see below).
• Online: Indicate the tournament is an online event: the Venue URL is the meeting place.
• Venue: Provides information about the venue.
• Start: The start date & time is mandatory and used for ordering and displaying events, the finish is facultative.
• Description: Markdown can be used to make a good-looking appealing description for the event.
• Judges: List of judges and organizers who will have access to the Tournament Management console.

Registration & Check-In

VEKN members can register to a tournament from the moment it is published until it is finished. This allows organizers to estimate the number of attendees prior to the event. Registration stays open throughout an event because some organizers might want to add players while an event is running, for example still welcome late comers for the second round.

Players can also drop, or be dropped, from the players list at any time. They still appear in the list of players for the event to avoid bugs and complications, and ensure proper tracking. However, they will not score any rating nor contribute to the tournament players count if they have not played at least one round.

To participate in a round, a player needs not only be registered, but also to check in, or be checked-in by the organizers, just before the round begins.

Check-In and Barriers

A player need to be checked-in to participate in an upcoming round. However, there are cases where the Archon will not allow for a player to check in:

• If the tournament requires a decklist and the player has not uploaded one. In that case, organizers need to either ask them to upload their decklist, or relax the requirement in the tournament configuration (Info tab).
• If the player was banned by the VEKN or disqualified from the event

Players self-check-in with QR code

In smaller events, the organizers can operate the check-in directly as players come in, and even use the Check everyone in button after they've reviewed the list of registered players and dropped any absentee.

In bigger events, though, the check-in desk operation is a time-consuming step that organizers might want to accelerate. In that case, they can use the check-in QR code to allow players to check-in by themselves. The QR code can be displayed as a separate (printable) page before the tournament starts, or organizers can simply present this QR code on their own mobile device, for players to scan. Players can only scan this QR code from the tournament page: this is not a link, they need to be logged in the Archon and have a VEKN#.

After the first round is played, the Archon still asks for a check-in on each following round. This is a step that should be expedited by clicking the Check everyone in if the round is taking place the same day. Organizer should make sure that if any player has left the tournament, they have been dropped before proceeding.

Round management

Once a round starts, players are assigned tables and seat and can start a game. The round seating can be modified by organizers if needed, for example to add a late joiner or remove an absentee. When they are done, players can record their table results.

Round seating

The Archon optimizes a round seating in accordance to these VEKN guidelines for preliminary rounds seatings:

• No pair of players repeat their predator-prey relationship. This is mandatory, by the VEKN Tournament rules.
• No pair of players share a table through all rounds.
• Available VPs are equitably distributed.
• No pair of players share a table more often than necessary.
• A player does not sit in the fifth seat more than once.
• No pair of players repeat the same relative position^*.
• A player does not play in the same seat position.
• Starting transfers are equitably distributed.
• No pair of players repeat the same relative position group^**.

• * Relative position: prey, predator, cross-table (4 players), grand-prey, grand-predator.
• ** Relative position group: Adjacent or non-adjacent.

When modifying a round seating, organizers will see a display of rules violations, so they can try and keep their modifications optimal. Seatings violating rule 1. will not be accepted.

Results reports

Players can report their table results on the tournament page by themselves, while the round is ongoing. Organizers and judges can also input and change tables results at any time, after which they cannot be modified by players anymore.

The Archon validates that the result are consistent with the seating and number of players, and will not allow a round to finish with incomplete or invalid results. Judges can, however, override this check in case they are faced with an odd situation: for example if they award no VP or only half a VP after a player's urgent departure in the middle of a round.

Finals

After two preliminary rounds, organizers can either proceed with more rounds, or with a finals. The finals will select the top five players in terms of Game win (GW), Victory Points (VP), and Tournament Points (TP), as per the VEKN tournament rules.

Organizers should make sure all top players are available for the finals, and drop those who cannot attend prior to launching the finals in the Archon, so those players can be ignored.

Toss for finals

In case of a tie for the top five seats, a random method must be used to break the tie. The Archon provides a button to do just that, but the organizers can opt for any other method they see fit, and input the results in plain numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.), the lower number being the better score.

Seating

Finals follow a specific seating procedure, indicated in the VEKN tournament rules. Organizers and judges should alter the table seating to reflect the actual seating after this procedure has taken place.

Results and Winner

Once the finals have been played, organizers can input the results as usual, declare a tournament winner, and finish the tournament. Note that winning the tournament finals, even with less than 2 Victory Points, counts as a Game Win. All other finalists rank as second, regardless of their results.

Sanctions

Throughout an event, organizers and judges can sanction players in case of any issue, whether they fail to follow the game rules, tournament rules, or ethical requirements of the VEKN. Sanctions can be added by clicking the button next to a players' name anywhere in the console.

• Caution: Cautions are only tracked during the event. They are especially useful during big events so judges can keep a track record of what has been going down on each table and for each player, even if different judges intervene at different times.
• Warning: Warnings are recorded for the event, but also on a player's profile, and will be displayed to organizers during future events the player participate in. Repeated offenses, even at different events, should be examined by organizers.
• Disqualification: Disqualifications immediately drop the player from the tournament and prevent them from checking in in further rounds. The attending judge should make sure their table result is set to zero for the round, if any round is ongoing. As for warnings, a disqualification is recorded on a player's profile and displayed to future events organizers.

Although the tournament rules make provisions for a Game Loss penalty, this penalty has been deemed too disruptive and impractical to be included in the Archon platform. In practice, organizers are advised to opt for a Warning or a Disqualification instead. A player should not be barred from a single game, then allowed to play a further round.