What locations do you want to RP in?
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@Ganymede said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
No more businesses for individual PCs.
If you're going to make a location, make it significant. A tur; an Elysium; a sanctum.
And then, make it something cheery or mundane as a veneer. Like an Olive Garden Elysium. Or a Chuck-E-Cheese Tur.
And then have people die in it.
My TableTop group used to have an inside joke that the OWoD (2pt) Nightclub Merit was actually a (2pt) Guaranteed Firebombing Flaw
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My takeaway is that indeed you SHOULD play WoD so dark that players do in fact lose their sense that they have anything in common with these people in the game.
Enjoy.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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@Misadventure I dunno. I think there is a viable happy medium (albeit not for EVERYONE) between sunny happy vampire romance land and crapsack shitstain world of neverhappy.
I would definitely like to see a WoD game that played up how fundamentally corrupt the world was, without making it 'and everyone is always miserable forever'. There should be regular disappearances - largely framed as 'another disobedient run away' or 'deadbeat dad abandons family' in the press. Police solve rates for crimes should be, like two thirds of their real world counterpart in the better areas, and less than one third in the worst areas; there should even, in urban areas, be areas that the police have simply written off. There will be no police response here, although someone might eventually drive through and pick up any bodies lying around, make an cursory effort to ID them, and let their families know, probably by certified mail.
On the other side, in the affluent areas, police response should be /fantastic/, and if you're a resident of the area (and you LOOK like what the cops and other residents think a resident should look like), you have a great time with that. Hello, Mr. Friendly Policeman. If you aren't a resident, or you don't look like someone other residents want in their neighborhood, though, you're police patrolled out, pretty quickly, and if you mouth off or get frisky, you'll be left bleeding. Doesn't mean there aren't good cops, and that a PC can't BE a good cop, but there should always be an implicit pressure to let things go, to not make waves or turn traitor on that fellow boy or girl in blue who's taking the bribes from the drug dealer on the corner.
Suburbs should be more like mini-cities (see the outskirts of Louisville, KY, where a lot of what are essentially housing developments have incorporated and have their own police forces) - pleasant and even welcoming for people who belong, but cold and even hostile to 'outsiders'. Some of them should just be people with means clumping together for shared safety, sure. But some of them should have secrets - rites and cults and deals with dark masters to keep THIS place bright, and THIS place safe.
Entertainment districts should be bright, beautiful, and over the top - but sometimes, it should feel like everyone is just trying a little too hard, partying less to have fun and more to not think about things. The best, most glamorous, and most wild good times should happen right after tragedies, even just small ones. Another wacko killed her family for no good reason. Seven schoolgirls made a suicide pact to drown themselves in the park.
I'd love it if room descs and locations in a WoD game really brought in that kind of stuff. Pointed out the places where the police just will not arrive. Made mention of suicide rock in the park, where every year on the longest night, someone kills themselves, and somehow, the police are never in time to stop it or able to keep it from happening. The other 364 days of the year, of course, it's a LOVELY place. Here's Compton's Vegan Delites, and it's got great selections; let's just not talk about the fact that the last restaurant in this spot closed down because the proprietor was found adulterating the hamburgers with bits of his missing wife. But the fried tofu is fantastic.
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@Misadventure said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
My takeaway is that indeed you SHOULD play WoD so dark that players do in fact lose their sense that they have anything in common with these people in the game.
Enjoy.
Then you misunderstood me. The only thing I said you SHOULD do is understand that an undercurrent of darkness running through everything is pretty much the premise of the games, it's right there on the tin. I also said that I don't think everything should be 100% soulcrushing grimdark 100% of the time, like @Coin pointed out that doesn't even make narrative sense. @Pyrephox pretty much nailed what I'd like to see, but a lot of people seem to want to play Twilight Barbie dream house instead so idefk
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@Pyrephox said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
I would definitely like to see a WoD game that played up how fundamentally corrupt the world was, without making it 'and everyone is always miserable forever'.
People should try making characters with some depth, then.
Or learn how to perform improv.
Or, you know, have a wit of awareness for the world, which is pretty corrupt as it is and makes many of us miserable forever.
The conceit in the World of Darkness isn't that it's different; it's that it's not different.
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The books say a lot I always feel like people skip over. I think the point that was trying to be made earlier on was in ref to passages like:
These are the Chronicles of Darkness, tales of a world like ours, but just slightly wrong.
A place we recognize, but where our fears take on lives of their own.
The Chronicles of Darkness Rulebook is the key to exploring that world, a guide to storytelling encounters with the uncanny and a foundation for tales in which the monster becomes the hero.
I always liked the way VtR broke it down:
This World of Darkness can be said to be our own seen through the looking glass darkly. With regard to barbarism, the world of the vampires is like our own, but with a significant upturn in violence and decay. The streets are more brutal, with the desperate eyes of the unfortunate ever watchful for someone more privileged from whom they can steal something to make their own bleak lives more comfortable.
Gangs are more active and violent; vagrants are bolder or they obliviate themselves even more. Even those with vast resources are more fearful of those who would harm them — or more jealous of those who rival their own wealth or power. Their actions can turn fierce with the slightest provocation.
Then when it's all over and the rest of you are ready for Dead Animal Pickup, I'm gonna go balls deep into Dahl. But only because she asked me to. Sweet-like. - Riddick (2013)
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@Wizz said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
I don't think everything should be 100% soulcrushing grimdark 100% of the time, like @Coin pointed out that doesn't even make narrative sense.
This. I see too much of an emphasis on this. When the game is nothing but a series of compounding losses, it is not fun; people lose hope and playing feels futile to all but the hardcore masochists. Likewise, a game without any losses or struggle is not fun; it grows stale and boring, fast.
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@ThatOneDude That's precisely what I was referencing, thank you. I didn't have it on hand.
When I run WoD for my tabletop groups I like to think of how Underworld has been shot near entirely over a blue lens filter, or the sequences in Blade when Traci Lords was driving to the Blood Bath with that douchebag, how the camera would cut to an alley where someone was having their throat ripped out.
All in all, I don't think (my personal opinion, here) WoD works entirely well under the filter of our own reality. I think the social/political enemies, while topical, aren't good enough to put the setting into the right mindset.
In my head, the World of Darkness is one where it's just not safe enough to go into town after dark, where it rains all of the time, like just around the corner Eric Draven is killing TomTom and Funboy, and another block down, graves are being dug for fresh Sabbat bodies, and while no one knows entirely what is out there, the only safe time is during the day...is never.
That in stepping over from being mortal to whichever monster-splat you're playing, you gain a modicum of ability to survive the blue-filtered nighttime, only to find that there are still darker and scarier things than what you've become...
...which I feel is the basis for why so many of the WoD creature types all have some stat to try to hold onto who they are. Because before it all began was a more innocent, more pure time that you can never go back to, but if you lose yourself to this new life, you'll become that which used to prey upon you.
Very poetic, IMO.
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My answer to the original question on location would be "Anywhere where we're playing the game..." People can say all day you make your own fun, blah blah whateves but this is a game that requires story and more than one player. A lot of the games don't want to focus on that aspect which is fine. But I'd bet the metrics would show that's why they don't last.
Goals, story, conflict and the like are all things players mostly strive for (character growth, playing in the rules of the game, sessions, etc.).
Then when it's all over and the rest of you are ready for Dead Animal Pickup, I'm gonna go balls deep into Dahl. But only because she asked me to. Sweet-like. - Riddick (2013)
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@ThatOneDude I agree that location on a MU* means very little to me most of the time. Unless significant effort is taken on a regular basis not even the city is that important - most of the time it's just flavor text for a game set in Boston but really it could have been New York or Chicago and no one would have noticed - let alone if there are three bars or two on the grid.
The only time grid is important is when a game is already very well populated as then the chances of running into people randomly are vastly increased; in those cases yes, you want to encourage your players to be out and about instead of stuck into inaccessible RP rooms.
In fact I would even claim in smaller games it's often an undesired trait to be findable. When there are 8 people online stalking +where looking for RP and you start a small meeting at a bar then very often you end up with a gargantuan scene as everyone flocks there; in a larger game things scale up more smoothly (unless they don't, such as for public PrPs, but that's a different story).
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@ThatOneDude I agree that location on a MU* means very little to me most of the time. Unless significant effort is taken on a regular basis not even the city is that important - most of the time it's just flavor text for a game set in Boston but really it could have been New York or Chicago and no one would have noticed - let alone if there are three bars or two on the grid.
The only time grid is important is when a game is already very well populated as then the chances of running into people randomly are vastly increased; in those cases yes, you want to encourage your players to be out and about instead of stuck into inaccessible RP rooms.
In fact I would even claim in smaller games it's often an undesired trait to be findable. When there are 8 people online stalking +where looking for RP and you start a small meeting at a bar then very often you end up with a gargantuan scene as everyone flocks there; in a larger game things scale up more smoothly (unless they don't, such as for public PrPs, but that's a different story).
Some of this is what we're really aiming for with Vegas. We want the game to have Vegas-inspired everything. I personally didn't want to have Vegas as the setting but I did say, when it was decided, that if we were gonna do Las Vegas as a setting, then we needed to go all in on the Vegas stuff. And we are.
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@Arkandel said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
The only time grid is important is when a game is already very well populated as then the chances of running into people randomly are vastly increased; in those cases yes, you want to encourage your players to be out and about instead of stuck into inaccessible RP rooms.
In fact I would even claim in smaller games it's often an undesired trait to be findable. When there are 8 people online stalking +where looking for RP and you start a small meeting at a bar then very often you end up with a gargantuan scene as everyone flocks there; in a larger game things scale up more smoothly (unless they don't, such as for public PrPs, but that's a different story).
I feel like this is important. I find the games that I get most invested in are the ones where I can hop on grid and find RP quickly and easily. However, in the vast majority of games, people don't use the grid/being IC as a tool for finding RP, instead electing to sit in the OOC Room. In fact, I am doing this right now.
I have mixed feelings about OOC rooms, but I think they key here is to make sure the grid is someplace that is usable and is where people are encouraged to be, either through carrots or sticks or whatever other forms of player manipulation you wanna use.
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@Arkandel said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
The only time grid is important is when a game is already very well populated as then the chances of running into people randomly are vastly increased; in those cases yes, you want to encourage your players to be out and about instead of stuck into inaccessible RP rooms.
I actually think this is pretty relevant, though it's actually more relevant when the population is small. A small population means even fewer options open to all on the grid for random meetings and getting involved, because people will still be off in RP rooms. On a small game, this can be crushing, because then there's never any action on the grid itself.
You really want some viable, cool options on the grid. Temprooms have a purpose but I think they've sometimes been overused and have definitely contributed to the empty grid syndrome more than any private home or business do. This ends up making it ultimately harder for people to connect up IC, in the long run.
I actually support player-owned businesses a lot, but I do think it's reasonable to put a cap on certain kinds. Building a whole business for someone not playing the owner of it, just so they can have a backdrop for their day job (which I have also seen) is, I think, a lot more frivolous, by contrast. (Either talk someone into playing the owner, or pick a job at an existing place.)
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I like to be sure that my grid does a few things:
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Builds on theme in some way. I LOVE writing little traditions or plot hooks into the description. For example, when I built a Mutant Town, I decided it had a graffiti culture, and that went into a lot of rooms and later characters wrote it into their concept. When I built a space station, I decided that the elevators were gang-controlled, and we had plots around them later. We once had a projectile space-cactus in an office that became the center of a number of scenes. Little details that hint at things about the setting, theme, and culture can go a long way. I'd rather some color of that nature than a strictly descriptive paragraph or two. The locations you choose should build the theme, too. Are the majority of your rooms in the rough part of town, or the upscale one? Are you highlighting ritzy night life or dive bars? You probably want some of each, but where you focus will affect how your game feels.
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Provides easy reasons to RP with people randomly. Bars and coffee shops are the usual go-to for this, but sometimes there are more creative ways to go. Grocery store is a good one. Laundromats, if appropriate for your theme. A plaza or park filled with food trucks. Maybe a bookstore or a library. A gym. A pool. Anywhere strangers might make small talk.
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Provides places for a variety of 'moods'. I once built a grid that I realized a few months in was GREAT for group hangouts and drinking and debauchery, and great for private scenes in private rooms like apartments, but didn't have a lot of space for quiet, introspective characters or RP in public rooms. So we added a chapel, a botanical garden, an dimly lit observation deck filled with stars.
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Gives people places to become 'regulars' at. These are usually your bars and coffee shops, but could also be a book store or a much-loved food truck or something. They should also build your theme, but in my experience, these are the places where player-created traditions are born. That place loves us because we tip well, this place hates us because we got into a bar fight and broke a table, etc. So on a WoD game, these are probably your 'safe spaces', but it's nice to be thinking about variety and mood for these, too. Where do we go to get into trouble, where do we go for a quiet drink, etc.
Finally, I almost always revisit the grid with player input about 6 months in. They usually have suggestions for things they've wished they had but don't, or maybe temp rooms that are getting more RP than grid rooms because of some unexpected IC hook. If you do logs, you've probably also noticed trends and things that work or don't.
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@Pyrephox said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
I'd love it if room descs and locations in a WoD game really brought in that kind of stuff. Pointed out the places where the police just will not arrive. Made mention of suicide rock in the park, where every year on the longest night, someone kills themselves, and somehow, the police are never in time to stop it or able to keep it from happening. The other 364 days of the year, of course, it's a LOVELY place. Here's Compton's Vegan Delites, and it's got great selections; let's just not talk about the fact that the last restaurant in this spot closed down because the proprietor was found adulterating the hamburgers with bits of his missing wife. But the fried tofu is fantastic.
These are my favorite kinds of room descs. They don't just tell you what's there, they give you suggestions to fuel your RP. And sometimes they turn into plots.
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@Tat said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Pyrephox said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
I'd love it if room descs and locations in a WoD game really brought in that kind of stuff. Pointed out the places where the police just will not arrive. Made mention of suicide rock in the park, where every year on the longest night, someone kills themselves, and somehow, the police are never in time to stop it or able to keep it from happening. The other 364 days of the year, of course, it's a LOVELY place. Here's Compton's Vegan Delites, and it's got great selections; let's just not talk about the fact that the last restaurant in this spot closed down because the proprietor was found adulterating the hamburgers with bits of his missing wife. But the fried tofu is fantastic.
These are my favorite kinds of room descs. They don't just tell you what's there, they give you suggestions to fuel your RP. And sometimes they turn into plots.
I tried to do this on Eldritch a bit.
The Siren was a large hotel building which people randomly requested rooms in and then threw themselves off the top, etc.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Coin Yeah, Eldritch had a lot more 'character' as a city, albeit a fictional one, than real ones used as models for typical WoD games.
But then again you spent a lot more time developing and maintaining theme. Most game runners just slap this stuff on a wiki and they call it a day.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Coin Yeah, Eldritch had a lot more 'character' as a city, albeit a fictional one, than real ones used as models for typical WoD games.
But then again you spent a lot more time developing and maintaining theme. Most game runners just slap this stuff on a wiki and they call it a day.
Part of making it an original, fictional setting was being able to come up with all that stuff. I mean, there's stuff in there that was never explored. Admitedly there's stuff that was and it ended badly.
Ashtown, for example, was technically named Ashtown (Lower and Upper) because that's where the lumber mills used to be. But the rumor (and the truth) was that they were called that because during the late 1700s and early 1800s, witch hunts and burning alleged witches on pyres uphill was done all at once like once every two months or something and the resulting ash from all the wood (and bodies) burning up made those neighborhoods feel like it was snowing ash.
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As several people have noted, I find that the location doesn't matter so much as the hooks that are built into the room desc. It could be a simple laundromat, or a bar, or a park, or whatever... but as long as there are 2-4 hooks built into the description, I'm happy.
Like, does the laundromat have one washer that always turns whites pink? Is there one corner that's always colder than the others, even though it's right by a dryer? Are there posters up for bands -- and missing people -- on a bulletin board?
Each of these gives me something to have my characters do, and something that they can do obviously so that they can use these as hooks to draw in other characters. My character can be cursing at the Pink Machine as he pulls a load of dress shirts out, or kicking it, or warning another player about it. He could be stepping in and out of the cold spot, trying to figure out where it stops and starts and why it's there. He could be putting up a poster for his garage band, or sadly perusing missing kids on the board -- or taking down missing kid posters (very creepy or very sad).
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@Tat said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Pyrephox said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
I'd love it if room descs and locations in a WoD game really brought in that kind of stuff. Pointed out the places where the police just will not arrive. Made mention of suicide rock in the park, where every year on the longest night, someone kills themselves, and somehow, the police are never in time to stop it or able to keep it from happening. The other 364 days of the year, of course, it's a LOVELY place. Here's Compton's Vegan Delites, and it's got great selections; let's just not talk about the fact that the last restaurant in this spot closed down because the proprietor was found adulterating the hamburgers with bits of his missing wife. But the fried tofu is fantastic.
These are my favorite kinds of room descs. They don't just tell you what's there, they give you suggestions to fuel your RP. And sometimes they turn into plots.
Yeah! To me, the absolute best location desc is one that as soon as I read it, I have a scene idea that's uniquely suited to THIS place, and isn't just another generic scene in Anywhere, USA. Back when I desced a grid for a game that never got off the ground, I tried to make each location distinct and meaningful like that, including brief mentions of mysteries, plot hooks, and police response times or atmosphere.
