Blood Sorcery

ThatOneDude

@Ganymede I think its way better. I'm not saying its less or more powerful but its way more useful.

Ganymede

The Carthians book made the Covenant a lot better and more useful, but that doesn't mean the shit in it isn't broken as fuck.

darksabrz

@Ganymede Like Carthian Law. I swear to God, Carthian Law as originally written was the bane of my existence as a staffer, because it was well and truly broken as-written.

Miss Demeanor

Thankfully, Carthian Law only works on Carthian Domain.

darksabrz

@Miss-Demeanor Small favor. The problems I faced were inherent in the fact that, at one point on Haunted Memories, it was being argued that Carthian Law could work throughout the entire Praxis because, when the Consulate came into power in the wake of Moritz's abdication of the throne following an assassination attempt (and I'll be nice and say nothing further on that front), the Consulate was -- at least in large part -- the brainchild of the Carthians (I think Laibah was the one who really pushed for the Consulate in the wake of Moritz's abdication, but EmmahSue can correct me if I'm wrong on that). In essence, the Praxis would potentially be considered Carthian domain. However, it wound up not working out that way.

Arkandel

@darksabrz said:

@Miss-Demeanor the Consulate was -- at least in large part -- the brainchild of the Carthians (I think Laibah was the one who really pushed for the Consulate in the wake of Moritz's abdication, but EmmahSue can correct me if I'm wrong on that). In essence, the Praxis would potentially be considered Carthian domain. However, it wound up not working out that way.

The Carthians' intentions not workout out in practice the way they should on paper is arguably the Covenant's whole point. But yes, the Consulate at the time was the product of trying to apply Carthian ideals to a larger scope following Moritz' fall.

On the OOC front at the time everyone was rolling Carthians. We had started out relatively small (Laibah, VAS/Shaft, Loewe, etc) but after a certain point the Covenant's population exploded since of course that's where much the RP was, plus it was the safest place to be since anyone attacking one Carthian would be zerged by the rest. In retrospect staff should have intervened before it got to that point but I'd say our OOC population affected or even shaped IC events.

I still miss those days though. It often left so some very fun RP.

Miss Demeanor

@darksabrz said:

@Miss-Demeanor ...at one point on Haunted Memories, it was being argued that Carthian Law could work throughout the entire Praxis...

To that, I would have said, most emphatically, NO. Domain must be claimed. You can't just say 'well the Prince is Carthian, so EVERYWHERE is Carthian Domain even though other groups have clearly claimed it first'.

EmmahSue

I vaguely recall taking a proposed New System to the other covenants and getting their various approvals as much as possible so that after Moritz, I was able to swoop in and say "and now we all agree to New System, tahdah!"

Which killed the sphere, from what I'm told.

I win!

ES

darksabrz

@Miss-Demeanor We did. Several times, as it turns out, because VASpider and Shaft were at the forefront of arguing the point and refused to accept "NO!" the first two or three times we said it.

@EmmahSue You didn't kill the sphere. The Consulate was a good idea, and it certainly got some good RP from my end, especially in those times when Luna disagreed with some of the early decisions (like letting Moritz stay when he likely should have been called as the target of a blood hunt, but that's me). What killed the sphere was when Elsa decided to take over as Prince and then treat it as the sphere's endgame, and had enough staff clout (despite me fighting it every step of the way staff-side) to make sure she was never overthrown.

As I put it to some other people recently when reminiscing, she basically did everything she could to avoid what happened to Moritz (who she bent over backwards to make sure didn't die from the destruction of his villa staff-side, over our protests -- but, I think that's why staff removed her as Vampire TL, because they knew she'd played major favorites with her main RP clique).

Miss Demeanor

Elsa's becoming Prince was certainly the most quoted reason I got when I would ask about Vampire. I even attempted to make a vampire and... bah. Just wasn't even worth it. There was nothing anyone could do. And it REALLY didn't help that when the complaint was made to many a staffer, the response was 'you can do it, if you just try harder'. Bull and shit on that. There was no way, short of the entire sphere hitting her with everything it had, simultaneously, to really bring her down.

I'm also somehow unsurprised that NO had to be repeated numerous times.

Chime

Honestly the best approach would have been to convince her it was boring and that there were more entertaining things to do if she delegated to someone else entirely.

Elsa was Captain Jack Sparrow in vampire form.

darksabrz

@Chime That would have required her to listen, and I know she certainly wasn't going to listen to me -- and she wasn't even bothering to try and listen to anyone else. She and I had discussions before about how the government setup was a turnoff to everyone who came in expecting something akin to... what was actually written in the book. It didn't help that she basically implemented aspects of a book that was explicitly mentioned as not being used for Haunted Memories (Damnation City) as part of her government setup.

My OOC disagreement with her over it got pulled into her ICly deciding that my Dead Wolf had to jump through additional hoops to obtain her "Citizenship", and then she had the gall to get OOCly pissed at me when I ICly responded with "Fine, I refuse to pursue this any longer" because I'd been waiting two months at that point, while other people were getting approved inside twenty-four hours. And I wasn't the only one who decided that Citizenship wasn't worth getting, because she wasn't interested in applying her "law", much less dealing with players who weren't part of her clique.

As it was, like Miss Demeanor alluded to, what was the point of trying to do anything at the end? Elsa was unwilling to accept that her IC and OOC actions were what pushed most of the Vampire sphere to TR in the first place, and the sheer number of players who weren't willing to try and do anything because everyone knew Elsa lacked any sort of ethics when it came to dealing with jobs that might affect her in some way (the Moritz example is a prime one, given all the "rerolls" she made Xenobia's player do under the pretense that Zombie and I were too lenient, while then turning around and making certain that Moritz and company survived what happened with nary a scratch -- and then gave Moritz and Helmut 12xp to replace Retainers (each had lost a level 3 Retainer, knew they had because they'd been informed, and then blatantly lied about it and got away with it).

Chime

Well, it was a mess. No disagreement there.

I think her imagined goal was stirring up RP by being a tyrant that people would HAVE to overthrow, but the OOC encouragement/followup was utterly lacking because she was still focused on that whole ooc-masq nonsense.

Also, Elsa didn't replace Moritz; Laibah did. Moritz was a fantastic villain. Laibah was a great leader and administrator and really did assemble something close to a perfect society. Unfortunately, it's a mush, and Vampire: The Bureaucracy can only entertain people for so long. Elsa's crew put her in charge for shits and giggles-- and there were many, many giggles-- but awkwardly everyone was so dang powerful or had so many friends in all the most convenient places that it created an even more stagnant mess.

Ah well, mistakes were made, and it's a shame things happened the way they did. Hopefully we don't do that again.

In re the staff-side stuff, I have no idea; was never on vampstaff.

disclosure: My werewolf was unarguably part of her 'clique' and probably had better treatment than the so-called citizens

2012-10-02.log:<+feed> Elsa would like to feed on you for 8 points of lethal damage.
2012-10-02.log:        If you would like to accept, please type +feed/allow Elsa.
2012-10-02.log:        If you would like to deny it, then you may type +feed/deny Elsa.
2012-10-02.log:<WARNING:> Accepting this feed will completely drain you of blood. Unless you have a means of reflexive regeneration, you are almost certain to die.
2012-10-02.log:<+feed> You allow Elsa to feed on you and take 8 lethal damage.
2012-10-02.log:<+feed> As a result of this feeding (possibly in conjunction with previous feedings), you have lost a total of 8 points of blood, which equals or exceeds your total unmodified health boxes. You are considered to have no blood, and will die if you are not embraced or do not receive a blood transfusion quickly. Staff has been notified of this action with a +job; please consider yourself timestopped until they have replied to the job.

darksabrz

I wasn't trying to say Elsa took over for Moritz; if anything, what I meant was that she seemed to be doing everything in her power, IC and OOC, to make sure that her position as Prince was so unassailable that it wasn't funny. She was, in effect, making sure that what had led to Moritz's downfall was not going to lead to hers. It was the fact that she did so through OOC means as well as IC that discouraged the people that did try to stick it out and figure out what the heck they were supposed to do.

Viveca (my Dead Wolf@HM) lost pretty much her entire Vampire coterie because of this sort of thing. Elsa's Mage alt sought out one of them specifically, blew his Masq, the works -- all because she wanted the Mage alt to be a Vitae junkie, from what I understood of the situation. Afterwards, she tried again with another member of the coterie, who turned her down. At that point, my coterie went public to the Praxis IC, warning the rest of the Vampires that there was a Mage who was hunting them because she wanted her Vitae fix. At that point, Elsa went ballistic OOC, railing that they didn't know her alt was a Mage (debatable, but I don't recall if there was actually any proof -- we did, at least, know she was a supernatural entity of some kind), Then turned around ICly and summarily removed one or two of the coterie who had positions within the government and "fired" them. By then, there was some talk about trying to do something about Elsa, but it went nowhere due to OOC issues -- specifically, the players didn't trust staff to either not blab to Paprika what was in the wind, or worse that Paprika herself would snoop on the job and read it herself. Virtually the entire coterie decided to just freeze and leave instead.

About a year or so later, there was someone who apparently brought in several players with her (can't recall the name, only that at one point early on, she asked if she could "share" being Scarlett's regnant with me -- Scarlett being Luna's ghoul -- and was disappointed when Luna said no). She and others tried to breathe some life back into the sphere (maybe went about it the wrong way, but they did try), and the result: they all left because Elsa used the rather nebulous phrasing to justify giving that character a permanent -5 to all actions for the rest of their existence (unless they could have gotten the scrap of cloth that both of them made the blood oath for the Oath to Kalfou that she used, and by then it was established fact that such a thing would never occur). It didn't help when the staff who got involved in that blindly supported Elsa... made all the worse by the fact that they decided in their own self-interest because their alts were also part of Elsa's inner circle.

It was stuff like that which was why the Vampire sphere died completely at that point. Between being Prince, having a staff-alt and being good friends with several other staff-alts who were also her IC friends, people gave up because it was clear there would never be a fair shake of trying to remove her from power, especially since doing so through NPC means was explicitly banned (which made the fact that she was hiding her knowledge of Kindred Vodoun from Luna laughable, since then Luna would have been unable to do anything -- when your sole Axesworn gives every indication of being more loyal to her coterie-mate than to her covenant, there was nothing that could be done, particularly to a character who's far more mentally-inclined than martially-inclined, and really, who would have followed the neonate in a potential coup bid?).

HelloRaptor

Instead, in every online game I've seen you're often stuck with those, and the word "custom" is treated as anathema.

This is entirely the fault of nMage presenting magic as if you're just glorified hedge wizards.

Answer this question: why did anyone need to tinker with Cruac/Theban/Other?

Certainly sounds more interesting. People used the same arguments you are when Thaumaturgy for Tremere was essentially just a discipline with a handful of attached rituals. Expanding it into numerous paths wasn't strictly necessary, but it did make playing a Tremere way more fun/customizable.

And more powerful, sure, but that's almost always going to be the case when you give something more versatility.

Ganymede

@HelloRaptor said:

People used the same arguments you are when Thaumaturgy for Tremere was essentially just a discipline with a handful of attached rituals. Expanding it into numerous paths wasn't strictly necessary, but it did make playing a Tremere way more fun/customizable.

It also made more sense in context; Tremere were Mages turned vampires. And I would concur that, for the non-Tremere, having more paths coincided with the "sorcerous" natures of the Serpents and Assamites.

But in nWoD, for better or for worse, Cruac and Theban Sorcery are presented not as "magic disciplines," but as a level of knowledge or internal corruption necessary to utilize rituals or "miracles." There is no confusing the Acolytes or Sanctified as Tremere analogies. I can deal with and understand creating homebrew Cruac rituals and Theban Sorcery miracles, but the Blood Sorcery system essentially turns the Acolytes and Sanctified into sects of vampire-mages. And, in practice, it breaks whatever balance previously existed between the Covenants.

So, there was nothing wrong to begin with, and the development led to perversion of the underlying, original theme behind Cruac and Theban Sorcery. Sort of like what they did with the Carthians.

Alzie

I would just like to address something. Specifically, the idea of 'telenuking' with blood sorcery. Allow me, if you will, to regale you with how this actually works based on the rules in the Blood Sorcery book. Let us define our situation.

First, in order for you to deal direct lethal damage with blood sorcery, you require Destruction 4. Direct Aggravated would require you to hold Destruction 5. In either case, that would require you to hold Cruac or Theban 4 or 5. So let's begin by saying that it would take someone a very long time and lots of beats/XP to get there.

Second, we will assume that you cast this ritual from 3 miles away. So your range is now at +4 successes needed.

Third, I will assume we are dealing with someone with a 5 in stamina. This makes their health 10. This means that in order to 'telenuke' you would need 10 damage for aggravated level and 20 for lethal level. I will run through it at both levels.

Fourth, I will assume this is an improvised ritual at first, then I will run through as a custom created ritual (Because there are no pre-defined direct damage rituals that would cause insta-death in the books. Wrathful judgment was axed in blood sorcery).

Fifth, I will assume that the other person has 5 in their associated skill and attribute and per the reach's rules, 3 applicable specialties. (Why am I using reach rules? Because primarily this is where I hear all the bitching from.)

Now then, as improvised cannot be changed after rolling, we must pre-define this ritual. Let us define each of these real quick.
Ritual: Lethal Telenuke
Themes: Destruction 4
Base: 4 (Total of themes)
Potency (Damage): +19 (Remember, we got 1 damage from our base sux)
Range: +4
Duration: +0
Radius: +0
Total Needed: 27 Successes

Ritual: Agg Telenuke
Themes: Destruction 5
Base: 5 (Total of Themes)
Potency (Damage): +9 (1 damage from base)
Range: +4
Duration: +0
Radius: +0
Total Needed: 18 Successes

As you can see, the agg option lowers it by a total of 9 successes. Now dice pools.

In terms of the lethal ritual, a person's dice pool would be: (Does TR even use B&S Dice pools or does it still use differentiated?)
Cruac: Manipulation+Occult+Cruac-Stamina of Enemy (Manip+Occult+Theme-Stamina if blood sorcery rules)
Theban: Intelligence+Academics+Theban-Stamina of Enemy (Int+Occult+Theme-Stamina if blood sorcery rules)

This is a standard extended roll, so at most they have 12 rolls to do it (Assuming patient bonus and 5 in skill and attribute).

So that would mean, you'd have to hit 27 or 18 successes in 12 rolls of 13 dice (Assuming 5's in skill, attribute and 3 specialties)

So basically, the point of this is:

Telenuking with blood sorcery is stupid and takes a lot of successes
Only stupid STs let it happen
It requires a huge investment
Only stupid STs let it happen
For the love of all that is holy limit potency in some way
Edit: 6) Actually, limit all the factors in some way for sanity, even mage has some limits on their rituals

Saulot

Small correction. Per the extended rules in GMC your maximum rolls aren't limited by changes in your dice pool. It's always the number of whatever is being rolled short of ST fiat.

Alzie

@Huzuruth You are incorrect. GMC P. 187 - The unmodified Attribute + Skill + Specialty (if any) determines the maximum number of dice rolls allowed before the action fails.

Edit: So if anything my estimate was short, but in general most ST's i've seen use Attr+Skill and not Attr+skill+spec.

darksabrz

@Alzie I'm assuming they're using the differentiated dice pools for Themes -- at least, my Gorgon Ventrue Crone concept is built with that in mind (which, for the Creation theme, really works out because I plan for her to be a sculptress).

However, I'm just about positive that Patient won't work with Blood Sorcery -- I believe it's specifically in regards to mundane actions, not anything overtly supernatural. And knowing TR, if Patient were to work on supernatural dice pools, it would immediately be HR'ed so that it wouldn't work.