POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme
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Well I'd argue that if you're only RPing for XP than there's something wrong to begin with. I RP for fun, XP and advancement is connected to that but not my driving goal for RP.
I think having tiers of play could help with the dinosaur problem and maybe diminishing XP gain as a character progresses through those tiers till you just stop gaining XP entirely (60XP? 70?)
Granted, I come primarily from superhero games where I've played the same version of a character for years. I get the wanting a character to grow and expand but if you ONLY rp to get that XP then...I dunno. I think you're doing something wrong.
I'd rather find a balance so players don't feel overshadowed by other players than commit to a system that just feeds the XP hunger machine.
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Introduce diminishing returns on XP gained? Keep costs the same for things (1st dot the same as 5th dot), but autoscale XP rewards based upon total XP? Dinosaurs still gain XP, but where a newbie might get 5 xp, they'd get 1.
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@zombiegenesis said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
Well I'd argue that if you're only RPing for XP than there's something wrong to begin with. I RP for fun, XP and advancement is connected to that but not my driving goal for RP.
I think you should try @Tempest's proposal. Why not give every PC 50 XP, period? And then let them play together. Every now and again, if it feels right, move that up. Everyone starts the same; everyone places the same; but not everyone will have the same build.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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Yeah, that is looking like it might be the fairest way to approach things.
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As much as it pains me to agree with Tempest it really is a good idea I think.
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@ganymede As much as /I/ like my idea, I am well aware that WoD players are very...adamant about the ability to be able to gain XP.
If you do that, I could be wrong, but I suspect you'd severely crippling your potential pool of players to draw from.
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I'm torn here. On the one hand, yeah, a 2 XP weekly cap seems insufficient to motivate people to play.
On the other hand, in 2e, even 2 XP is a lot. 2 XP every week means two dots of Disciplines (if they're in-clan) every three weeks. No scaling costs means people are running around with multiple five-dot powers within a couple of months. I'd contend that the game isn't meant to be played that way.
For gameplay purposes, I like something similar to @Tempest's proposal as well. Use a fairly high floor and a fairly low ceiling. I also want to explore the idea (similar to what we did on CoFaB toward the end) of having deliberately asymmetric starting points. If you want to play an older vampire, you start with higher BP and more discipline dots, but also lower Humanity etc. That only work if it's paired with slow and/or capped XP gain - if everyone gets a ton of XP, then the different starting points don't actually differentiate much because people can just buy whatever they want to level the playing field anyway.
The goal, then, is to find something other than XP to motivate people to play. In Vampire? Make people work to earn blood, or territory, or Status (it seems like every Vamp game eventually decides to make Status stop costing XP anyway). Create opportunities for advancement that A) aren't tied to XP and B) aren't permanent - you have to work to maintain them, which means newer characters have a fighting chance to catch up.
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What I'm leaning more and more towards is tiers of starting characters so players can choose what they want to do. Young and up and coming with the greatest ability to gain XP, mid level with modest starting XP and gain, or end level with 60 flat XP and never gaining any again. This way players can choose how they want to play. That's what I'm thinking but we'll see. I'd still need to hammer out the exacts.
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@zombiegenesis Speaking for myself, I like the rat race. It gives me something to work for, and although I will always run PrPs for the games I'm excited about it's nice to feel incentivized to do so.
If I have everything I might still get hooked, as there are more reasons to be on a game than the progression, but it takes one of those reasons out of the equation.
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I get that as well. I like the idea of c-gen tiers and alternate incentives (possibly in the forms of background dots or something; territory, cool retainers, or unique items).
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@tempest said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
If you do that, I could be wrong, but I suspect you'd severely crippling your potential pool of players to draw from.
Maybe.
Or you could potentially attract people that aren't interested in playing with "typical" WoD players.
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@tempest said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
35-40 XP is a fair bit in 2E. It lets you build a complete character though.
The problem with WoD is 'starting' characters are never complete. So unless everybody in the game is a babyvamp, it feels weird.
I like 40xp. But I also like zero further XP gain after that. You get 40xp. Make your character. The end.
My preference is not popular though.
On a different note, please don't ever let people go past 100xp.
100+ xp in 2E is just off to la la land.
Agreed. Also, if any character has over 100 XP it just gets into an arms race of comic proportions, which, frankly, sucks.
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@tempest said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
Or every Comic MU ever.
I've never understood the dire need for 'growth' on WoD games.
I think a lot has to do with what drives you as a Mu* player.
For me it is definitely two fold both story and mechanical advancement, ideally the two will work together, I think this is why I rarely stick long to comics games, when the story is the only source of entertainment I will wander off when RP slows down simply because there is nothing else to do. While on WoD games or other games with mechanical advancement I can entertain myself more with building the character during the slow times and when the cycle of RP picks up I am still around to enjoy it.Though I will also freely admit I see MU*s as an extension of and partial substitute for table tops so that definitely colors my attitudes on things like this. Yes I would play and have played a TT with no advancement, my requirements for the quality of story would be significantly higher than in a game where mechanical advancement was part of the fun.
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... 35 XP is HUGE in 2e though... 35 is okay in 1e though.
One thing you could also do is up the general competency. I love the new MET for that. New MET, your dots are much different, and you have a different spread. You start with one skill at 4 dots, two at 3 dots, three at 2 dots and four at 1 dot, then you have 30 XP on top of that. XP is generally incremental though, so it doesn't 'stretch' as far as 30 would in 2e.
It provides what I feel is a good level of competency and spread, and you don't have as many min-max options so you get things a bit more organic (someone can min max, sure, but it's more difficult to do s0). At least that's how it feels to me.
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If you can automate beats from Conditions, etc, your xp will be a lot easier.
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@bobotron said in POLL: Vampire Requiem 2E Settings/Theme:
... 35 XP is HUGE in 2e though... 35 is okay in 1e though.
One thing you could also do is up the general competency. I love the new MET for that. New MET, your dots are much different, and you have a different spread. You start with one skill at 4 dots, two at 3 dots, three at 2 dots and four at 1 dot, then you have 30 XP on top of that. XP is generally incremental though, so it doesn't 'stretch' as far as 30 would in 2e.
It provides what I feel is a good level of competency and spread, and you don't have as many min-max options so you get things a bit more organic (someone can min max, sure, but it's more difficult to do s0). At least that's how it feels to me.
Well, I am a fan of Tempest's model more so than any others. I don't really mind if 35 XP is huge in 2e or not.
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You set a WOD game in 80's L.A. and I think all the people would show up. This could be good or bad.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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To disagree with @derp, and not because of the 80s angle...
It's a very long held myth that the setting itself, barring extreme examples ("we'll set this game in 1950s Iran") bears nearly as much importance to WoD as how it's executed. Again and again we've seen threads trying to nitpick which cities and exact timeframes, only for yet another generic sandbox-by-night variation to come out of the gates.
A robust political system - I've literally seen Vampire games where, for weeks after they were open, we had no idea which Clan the Prince was from, or what the IC power structure even was - and some sort of plan for what characters will be able to get into during their first couple of months is a lot more important than something like 'oh we'll set it in the 80s' other than cosmetically picking different hairdos or having Duran-Duran playing in your local bars.
- 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 For the record as someone familiar with the period, I think a game in 1950s Iran would be all sorts of awesome oink
