New CWoD MUSH Seeking Staff
-
If this doesn't need to go here, please move, @Glitch or @Thenomain.
I figured it's time to put my money where my mouth is. I want to open up a CWoD MUSH. I have a fair bit of development done, but I'm now at the point where I need a couple of dedicated staffers, in addition to my idea bouncing board guy, to finish developing aspects of the setting that I have baselines for, as well as people generally interested in a CWoD MUSH to help out. So, a little bit about the MUSH...
Basics
The plan for the MUSH is to have two avenues for play:
- Vampire the Masquerade, focusing on Cam/Anarch/Independent in a modernized update of the pre-Revised timeline (so Week of Nightmares, Assamite Schism, and a number of other events haven't happened). For those interested, sorry, Sabbat will be limited to NPCs only; I feel that having Sabbat and Cam/Anarch/Independent in the same city is just asking for the game to die in fire and napalm. C/A/I also gives us a good political base to play with, with a heavily Camarilla city, with some Anarchs moving this way after successful control of areas in nearby Los Angeles, and Independents playing wildcard to everyone.
- Mortals focusing on a large mortal family in the vein of Dark Shadows or the anime When Seagulls Cry, dealing with the family's expansive business and deeply disturbed supernatural history; and an experimental conglomeration of the three major CWoD hunter groups dealing with a shared set of apocalyptic omens. This gives us focus without having to divide mortals up into crime/law/etc. which can sometimes dilute focus. Within mortals there is also the option for Psychics and Hedge Wizards (handled in the same manner that NPCs of those types are handled, by using Disciplines for those powers' mechanics)
In this, I hope to present a set of focused venues with plots for each (you could consider Vampire, Family, and Hunters separate venues, with reasons to interact and reasons to NOT interact, in the case of 'hunters do not just go murder all the vamps').
Setting
The setting is set up to be a fictionalized deep water inland port, taking the place of Stockton California and altering the history and setup of the area to account for the founding family, the Camarilla's presence and Anarch Movement's inward momentum. I want to pull elements from a lot of supernatural media sources, including The Vampire Chronicles, Dark Shadows, American Gothic, Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel and others.
As far as the initial setup, I plan to start out with a set of NPC leadership in place amongst the organizations (so an NPC Prince and Primogen; an NPC family head for the family; NPC triumvirate for the hunter group) and as the game grows, allow players to slide into those slots if they so choose. These will likely be played by staff or staff-appointment in order to handle consistency, but likely just by staff.
Characters will be apped in two ways: simple online chargen that makes a base build character per the book (which is build + 30 XP). I am also weighing the idea of adding in Advanced Slots, or characters that start with higher XP but are beholden to the game to help push things IC.
Otherwise, characters are apped using the book build, including all rarities. So if someone wants to be something odd like a Lasombra Antitribu or a Daughter of Cacophony, they can; they're already paying points to do so, and it's not going to break the setting.
System
For a server, we'll be using the latest version of PennMUSH ('cause that's what I'm familiar with and what I'm comfortable using).
I have developed this to use the new Mind's Eye Theatre: Vampire the Masquerade. I have been using it in LARP for nearly two years now and I feel that, as much as it supports a large-scale game like a LARP, it would be great to use in a MUSH. For those concerned, this is not Laws of the Night MET, this is the new Mind's Eye Theatre system put out by By Night Studios. Some major changes include: no more deprecating traits, no more Retest ad infinitum (generally there is one retest per challenge, with two specific exceptions when there are more than just that one, and only for the challenge loser), and new mechanical benefits based on the Generation/Social Class you play (Neonate, Ancillae, Pretender Elder, Master Elder, Luminary Elder), and a really cool (and mechanically useful!) update to the Status System.
For Vampire itself, there's also a method of 'you can have cool stuff, but not ALL the cool stuff' in the form of Merits and Rarity Merits; you have limitations of how many Merit points you can have, and things like Uncommon and Rare clans (so playing a Lasombra Antitribu, for example) is covered in that; it allows for people to play those things, and I plan on using it. It has shown to hold up in a 20-30 person LARP without having to add additional limitations, and I feel it will work well for a MUSH. Other awesome stuff is in Merits too, such as extra Disciplines, visions of the future, Thaumaturgy training and a lot of other stuff. It also promotes cooperation, as one guy can't have ALL THE THINGS to do everything by himself. For those curious, players will be able to use the Alpha and Beta documents to play; if you buy the book, that's awesome and my plan is to float people who do that extra XP as well.
Why?
I feel like there's space out there for a CWoD game with a specific focus and a specific goal. One of those goals for this game is the word focus.
There are plenty of 'play anything you want' games, and I would like to present an option with a focus, both for Vampire and Mortals, to allow people to play out focused stories and plots, without the necessity of cross-venue interactions, but also allowing for those inevitable cross-venue interactions.
In Closing...
So, this is my goal. I'm looking for a couple of individuals who would be interested in assisting with this (particularly in additional development for the Mortals venue). I can code without issue (and more or less everything needed is done as far as custom code, either planned and installed or planned and a few steps from done), and common systems are just a click-install away.
The grid is mapped and being installed (though it needs to be desced beyond placeholders of lists of general area and 'what is there'). Many newsfiles are already written (character creation transcription, mortal/near-mortal expansions from the baseline mechanics, policies for alts, staff alts, character age, and others).
If this sounds interesting to you from a staff perspective, please feel free to PM me. If you're interested but want to talk more about the staff positions and my thoughts on that, PM me (or plug me here). If you just want more info on the game, plug me here. I'll see what I can throw out that might sound neat and cool.
-
I know I'm going to cringe and facepalm when I get the answer to this I'm sure, but what does the C stand for? It's not an acronym I'm familiar with.
-
@Sunny
Classic/Old World of Darkness. Masquerade.I have gotten into the use of the acronym CWoD rather than OWoD lately, sorry for the confusion..
-
Ah! Okay. I'm used to oWoD! Thank you.
-
I figured I might add one thing on here to clarify something, as someone asked about it long ago.
The Rarity stuff. Essentially it's a setup to allow a player to play something uncommon to the setting like antitribu, or odd bloodlines. These cost Merits, of which you have 7 points total (it's essentially best described as 'the cool factor', so you can have 'some of the cool' but not 'all of the cool'). So certain Clans, Bloodlines or Clan/Bloodline combos require you to buy a Merit to play.
So to play a Carpathian Tzimisce Antitribu (which are the Koldun essentially) takes 4 Merit Points. To play a modern fleshcrafter Tzimisce would require you to do the 4 Point Merit, plus another 2 Point Fleshcrafter bloodline Merit. This cost is in place to represent rare things in the setting.
I have been using this for nearly 2 years in a LARP now, and it has worked out nicely. It has kept things within the expected capabilities for the chronicle, buti f someone really wants to play something odd and outlier, they have the option to do so without me having to finagle or place other limitations.
-
I'll swear up and down, right and left, that the schism was the best thing that happened to Camarilla genre. The Gangrel were a non-entity, and are better as independent individualists who join the Camarilla if they feel like it but usually can't be arsed. The Assamites bringing a huge fraction of their sorcerers to the Camarilla, on the other hand, meant the Tremere don't have a bullshit monopoly on mojo, forcing them to be competitive. Which makes them much more interesting to play.
“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn -
@The-Tree-of-Woe said:
I'll swear up and down, right and left, that the schism was the best thing that happened to Camarilla genre. The Gangrel were a non-entity, and are better as independent individualists who join the Camarilla if they feel like it but usually can't be arsed. The Assamites bringing a huge fraction of their sorcerers to the Camarilla, on the other hand, meant the Tremere don't have a bullshit monopoly on mojo, forcing them to be competitive. Which makes them much more interesting to play.
And this is one of those things that I am aiming to actually have as an in-game event for the game, the Assamite Schism; I want to allow the Vampire players to be able to interact with the greater WoD. And even if we have zero assamite players, that doesn't mean PC Prince, PC Primogen or high-rankers won't get to deal with those as events and such.
-
I just hate playable Tremere. I hate them so much.
-
@Admiral
One thing that the MET system does for Tremere (and really anything with Blood Sorcery, which is why most bloodline/variants with Sorcery like the Assamite Sorcerers), is it balances them. Powers are... well, Thaum is still powerful, but Tremere can't just buy Thaumaturgy forever and ever. It's a 1 point Merit to have an additional Path of Thaumaturgy beyond Path of Blood. So a Tremere could get all the Paths, but that would be ALL he is. No Talismans, no extra Focus, no extra Influence stuff, no nothing.Tremere are designed this way in order to offset 'swiss army Tremere' syndrome, as well as promote cooperation and actual need for other people to do other things for you. So it makes them a lot more bearable to play with.
-
I know nothing of MET systems and as you are more knowledgeable than I on the subject I will take your word for it. I look forward to the success of your project and wish you the best.
I'd offer to help out but I'm almost totally burned out on MUSHing at present and one little push would be enough to burn me out completely.
-
@Admiral said:
I know nothing of MET systems and as you are more knowledgeable than I on the subject I will take your word for it. I look forward to the success of your project and wish you the best.
I'd offer to help out but I'm almost totally burned out on MUSHing at present and one little push would be enough to burn me out completely.
Thanks for the well-wishes. So far, things are looking up, definitely. And I get that; hopefully you won't burn out completely and can enjoy what you're doing now.
The Tremere thing really only applies to the new MET version anyway; one of the design goals of the system was 'everyone gets cool stuff, but not one guy has all the cool stuff'. Which is a design goal I got behind real quick; it's worked out great in play.
-
@Bobotron If you do it, I'll play a Vizier. Not even a sorcerer.
“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn -
@The-Tree-of-Woe
Heck, you could already play a Vizier who's in the city, and get to experience that crazy firsthand.
-
Why does everybody love Vampire?
-
@Spitfire said:
Why does everybody love Vampire?
Why do some people like chocolate and some don't?
-
@Arkandel said:
@Spitfire said:
Why does everybody love Vampire?
Why do some people like chocolate and some don't?
Because some people are monstrous, blood-sucking freaks of nature who need to be staked and left out in the sun.
...to clarify, I'm talking about people who don't like chocolate.
-
I could give you a whole academic rundown ranging from exploration of the taboo to repressed sexuality to Dracula as an indictment of the masculinity of men in Victorian England.
Why do some people like NChangeling? I find them to be horrifying, manipulative emotional parasites. I don't want to play one.
“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn -
@The-Tree-of-Woe said:
Why do some people like NChangeling? I find them to be horrifying, manipulative emotional parasites.
This may be the players.
I like playing nChangeling because it offers a low-power campaign type that I miss, where what you are messes up what you want to do. Vampires are Vampires. Werewolves are Werewolves, Mages are Mages. These are their job descriptions. Changelings are baristas and taxi drivers and lost mothers and have to decide, themselves, what they are. Are they monsters? Are they heroes? To me, a ton more interesting than another revisiting of Victorians telling us what we are and who we can be. That's just me, mind.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
I also like nChangeling. To me it offers choices. More choices than any other splat I've played in. You can be, literally, whatever you want to be. You can play up the horror aspect if that's what you want. You can play pretty princess if that's what floats your boat. Much like what Theno said... hero, villain, and anything in between. It has a very visceral sort of decision-making aspect to it. Choose Your Own Adventure.
-
Pet theory: Most players who aren't @HelloRaptor (and thus know ALL THE SYSTEMS) find themselves learning the mechanics and inner workings of spheres slowly over time. So once they've mastered Vampire or whatever that's what they find themselves playing the most.
I know it's hard to believe but some people don't enjoy learning mechanics. It's true!
