The Descent MUX
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Cull them regularly.
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@Taika said in The Descent MUX:
People can play what they want. But! If the grid is 90% specialized combat monkeys...
Who will grow their food?
Who will be able to try and get electricity on?
Who will be able to purify water?
To get people to work together?A fighter might be able to bully people, but a starving fighter won't win many fights. A thirsty man will do anything for a drink, if they get thirsty enough.
I don't want to have to implement stat systems, but down the road if needed?
But that ties back into a cooperative storytelling experience, one that will (hopefully) have more than enough to do to keep players from boredom induced pvp and dickwaving.
Edit: The first line is said with heavy sarcasm...
I'd play a vampire to eat all the humans then the questions above are moot >.>
I like what @Coin said, it makes a lot of sense in thinking how things would logically play out. People are known to be more trusting of the monster that looks like them aside from the one that looks a monster (well in most stories). If faced with a ravage group of draugr that attack "the settlement" at night and kill people, turning to the combat heavy vampire or the group of vampires that can better protect you seems like the only logical solution. More so since humans wouldn't really understand that one is really the other...
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If all the people are gone, then that vamp would starve, too. I think, in a lot of ways, the survival aspect of the theme will help 'gently force' people to spread out and not be a ton of combat monsters.
Cahalith will have dreams of Things To Come.
Crones will see portents in reflections.No seers? Then people get blindsided. No farmers, then people starve, etc.
An overabundance or a lack will definitely have a felt impact.
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In truth, I'm still looking at options and searching for ways to prevent the whole idea of nothing but combat oriented characters. Like I said, this kind of setting DOES lend itself towards that aspect easily. So, I'm looking at ways to provide incentive for diversity, rather than looking at ways to restrict undesired behavior. As Taika has pointed out, there's a lot of different things that need to be done. Playing a combat heavy vamp might have it's place, but the reality of the situation is that it will only take you so far in a world like this.
I only have to point to the Governor and Neagan from TWD to prove my point in this. The guys who want to rule through violence wind up not being as secure as they thought they were going to be and also even they couldn't do it on the backs of just other combat oriented characters. They're just not self-sustaining.
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@ShelBeast said in The Descent MUX:
In truth, I'm still looking at options and searching for ways to prevent the whole idea of nothing but combat oriented characters. Like I said, this kind of setting DOES lend itself towards that aspect easily. So, I'm looking at ways to provide incentive for diversity, rather than looking at ways to restrict undesired behavior. As Taika has pointed out, there's a lot of different things that need to be done. Playing a combat heavy vamp might have it's place, but the reality of the situation is that it will only take you so far in a world like this.
I only have to point to the Governor and Neagan from TWD to prove my point in this. The guys who want to rule through violence wind up not being as secure as they thought they were going to be and also even they couldn't do it on the backs of just other combat oriented characters. They're just not self-sustaining.
Well I've learned if you have plots and events where the combat heavy (focused only on combat) aren't effective then you'll have players that will make balanced characters.
So if events consist more of things like: OH SHIT THE DAMN IS FALLING APART! We need crafts, we need science we need stuffs! With some light combat and other exciting things, you can have a blast. Most games don't do that and instead focus on the combat part. "You've killed all the guys that were fucking up the damn, FTB and in the aftermath you repair everything."
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I'll start messaging you privately once I get my laptop, but:
What you have with your theme is something akin to Dark Metal, but, with this particular theme, and a different system, you have the ability to play Vampire just as you would in a Dark Ages theme. How is that?
Knights aren't a one-man army. A Knight has weapons, armors, beasts and things that need tending by multiple people.
A Vampire is no different, really, if you strip away the awesome that is Bloodlines and look at the Clans, each Clan uses the world in a different way, and offers the world a unique face. Gangrel can be as bestial as Beast from Grimm Fairy Tales...or can be as intelligent and terrible as Khan, from Star Trek. Nosferatu. Lords of Terror, who project that terror outwards -- or let their lands degenerate into properties of paranoia. Ventrue manipulate the world as if it was machinery, and they have a whole shop to fix things how they need. Daeva, who could easily use passions such as Faith, Charity or even Greed and Gluttony to rule.
Vampires are Masters of their Domain. End of story. That is why politics is so important, because they are also solitary predators...unless, you have Bigger, Badder, Bullies present -- and you do. Draugr. Draugr are no joke. Some can be terrible monsters of terribleness, and some, you'd never know, until it was too late.
So, to my point, enforce a particular edge to both views: You want to be Cowboy Carl, or wish to emulate Candy Cane (American Vampire, guys. Look it up.) Go ahead -- but you have zero resources, because your ass has zero squire's, zero serfs, zero homesteads, zero, zero, zero.
...which sort of enforces your idea for cooperative roleplay. I am Billy Badass, and you are Duke Dollar. We work. Except all of our shit is useless, because we have no idea what this loot is useful for, without Smith Sanders.
Modern vampires are mostly parasitic. Dark Age vampires must be symbiotic, otherwise, how do you know your herd isn't also carrying Spanish Flu?
The Center Cannot Hold.
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I really like that way of thinking of it, @HorrorHound . Knight's need Squires and stable boys and the like.
There are plans for Mystery plots, survival plots (go get that coffee!), merchant plots, making stuff plots, resource plots. The setting really opens up aspects that I feel get lost on other games, sometimes. Plus, one can go play Lewis and Clark to open up more grid.
That's one of the most exciting things, to me, as a Storyteller. Just the incredibly huge range of possibilities for plot. Big plot, little plot, personal horror. I can challenge ethics and morals.
Your pc is a mortal. Do they: keep the last bit off food for themselves? Share it with the orphaned child? Or give it away?
Or do they take the child to the vampire that rules that section of the grid to curry favor?
Or to the wolves to have it tested for Azlu taint when it bleeds black sludge?
ETA: Because ic masq only seems to go so far, especially on multi-sphere games. I don't expect every mortal to be in the know, OR in the dark.
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I agree with @HorrorHound.
In fact, this sort of thing works best if you let werewolves and vampires mesh together far more than other games would.
"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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You nailed it on the head. That is EXACTLY the kind of scenario that I'm looking to emulate. But my experience with MU*s is that I, as a staffer/storyteller/TL/whatever title you wanna put on it, can write that all day long and the vast majority of the players of the sphere will not emulate it, without some sort of framework to back it up. I think that the backbone of that would need to be a political system that includes territory, and with that, blood. Like I had stated in a previous post.... Mechanics should reflect intent. Sadly, this is one of those situations where I fear that mechanics need to be used to enforce the intent in some manner.
I do have the idea of stripping Feeding Grounds and Herd right out of the game from the standpoint of "purchased" merits. Rather, make them like Status is on some (most?) games, where you have to earn it through IC actions. It will make having that territory, or being Billy Badass who works for Duke Dollar who has said territory, all the more important.
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Stripping Feeding Grounds and Herd as purchasable Merits is probably not the best idea. But you can definitely make them contingent on upkeep; maybe even contingent on doing something to be able to buy them. Sanctity of Merits helps players swallow losing dots in something if they don't play the upkeep.
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@Coin Werewolves and Vampires can and SHOULD mesh together more than most games allow them to. This has always been my standpoint. There is no stigma between the two. That is a holdover from cWoD that the playerbase has never let go of, and perpetuates with new people coming into the games from the POV of MU*s. I want to see Pack/Coterie hybrids, and see cooperation among playerbits on all sides of the spectrum.
The hiccup is... really what can vampires offer wolves? Vampires are woefully inadequate when it comes to matters of the Shadow, and without Blood Tenebrous (not going to be a thing here, unless/until it's officially redone for CoD rules), or certain bloodlines (Also not a thing here until they're being published in official books, or more are released on the OP blog), it makes vampires of limited function. I'll end that with a disclaimer that I am very much a newb to Wolf. I'm primarily a vamp player.
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Vampires have more to offer Wolves than visa versa. Blood Tenebrous outlines why Vampires and Wolves never really get involved:
There is no Blood in The Shadow, and there is nothing worth controlling in The Shadow.
"But I am Kane, ruler of All Nosgoth!"
Except Kane had a bleak understanding of anything not Of Nosgoth.
"But what can Vam-"
Vampires control, everything.
You know how you kill a whole Pack of Uratha? You buy their land, intimidate lawmakers, bribe cops, and bulldoze their precious trees and stones. Then you sell it all to Wal-Mart. End.Now..
..@DnvnQuinn, @thebird and I have seen a game where such interactions in an Apocalypse setting worked. Sort of. But as you said, it needs a backbone, and I think that is where you need to enforce mechanics, and also present Covenant's.
The Invictus controlled three Hunter splats. Lancea controlled two. Circle of Crone was responsible for two. Ordo Dracul, openly, worked with probably all of them.
The Covenants know where all the toys are, guys. You might be Billy Badass and Duke Dollar. But we have fucking Fat Man's and Plasma Rifles.
Now, @Coin is spot on, too. Don't nuke anything. It just ends poorly. I would actually suggest going over to Fallcoast, and cgen a vampire. Then a werewolf. Look at your sheet, and then, redo it with -30xp. Barebones. Because at 50xp any supernatural Splat no longer gives a shit about your Deathclaw Nest. Not the Rahu's, not the Irraka's, not the Nosferatu, not the Gangrel.
The Center Cannot Hold.
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I wouldn't take the merits away entirely. Instead they would have to be earned ICly, like status. It makes sense. Feeding Grounds implies that you have a place you can go that is your hunting ground alone. In a setting where there's just a few small scattered camps of survivors, and the like... you're not really going to have easy access to a place to call your own. Not until you carve something out of nothing for yourself, at least. Herd, even more so, because there aren't millions of people living in a city anymore. There's small clusters of 10-30. Maybe a few hundred at the upper end of things.
Central to this premise is the idea that resources, of all kinds, are scarce and valuable. Blood is as rare as gold. Bullets are as valuable as diamonds. Essence that isn't tainted or something is something elusive as the shadow itself.
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50xp? Oh heavens no! I had been considering like.. 10xp. Just enough to flesh out a bit or get that one merit that someone couldn't quite juggle the points for.
With juggernauts on games, I'm taking a cautious 'less is more' and 'it's easier to add things later than take them away' approach to a lot of things.
Slow xp gain, favoring ST's and trying to give them liberty and tools to be flexible and run what they want to without giving up all control of plot and theme. That's part of trying to avoid homebrew bloodlines, too. Remember the nightmare Reno had when they had to rip out homebrew wolf and put in real wolf?
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THEEEEES I LIIIIKE.
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@HorrorHound said in The Descent MUX:
Vampires have more to offer Wolves than visa versa. Blood Tenebrous outlines why Vampires and Wolves never really get involved:
There is no Blood in The Shadow, and there is nothing worth controlling in The Shadow.
"But I am Kane, ruler of All Nosgoth!"
Except Kane had a bleak understanding of anything not Of Nosgoth.
"But what can Vam-"
Vampires control, everything.
You know how you kill a whole Pack of Uratha? You buy their land, intimidate lawmakers, bribe cops, and bulldoze their precious trees and stones. Then you sell it all to Wal-Mart. End.Doesn't really work that way. The Shadow isn't really a "nature" thing anymore. Wal-Mart and corrupt cops and intimidated lawmakers still have a lot to offer the werewolf setting and, I don't know if you've read Forsaken 2e, but they're very, very good at the social shiznit now.
Now, @Coin is spot on, too. Don't nuke anything. It just ends poorly. I would actually suggest going over to Fallcoast, and cgen a vampire. Then a werewolf. Look at your sheet, and then, redo it with -30xp. Barebones. Because at 50xp any supernatural Splat no longer gives a shit about your Deathclaw Nest. Not the Rahu's, not the Irraka's, not the Nosferatu, not the Gangrel.
Fallcoast operates on a different XP system. 50 XP on Fallcoast is like... 10 experiences in a CofD 2e game.
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@Taika said in The Descent MUX:
Remember the nightmare Reno had when they had to rip out homebrew wolf and put in real wolf?
...I could write a dissertation on this. Please don't make me. I'm wordy enough as it is. But I could write a dissertation on this. It is for everyone's benefit that I beg and plead that no one makes me explain because it would be one.
Trust @Taika and me also when I say: no truer words have ever been uttered.
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@ShelBeast said in The Descent MUX:
I wouldn't take the merits away entirely. Instead they would have to be earned ICly, like status. It makes sense. Feeding Grounds implies that you have a place you can go that is your hunting ground alone. In a setting where there's just a few small scattered camps of survivors, and the like... you're not really going to have easy access to a place to call your own. Not until you carve something out of nothing for yourself, at least. Herd, even more so, because there aren't millions of people living in a city anymore. There's small clusters of 10-30. Maybe a few hundred at the upper end of things.
I've had really good experiences with post-apoc games, but they were never run as tabletop MU*s, instead having a lot of scripted downtime stuff for scavenging and crafting. Post-apoc in my experience is very resource heavy and having self-running modules for support players/actions took a huge burden off staff shoulders.
While I understand and agree with the reasoning behind making merits, well, merit-based, what's your plan for staff burnout and dealing with a playerbase larger than 10? It sounds like you guys are getting quite a bit of interest in the game from a player side, but a post-apoc game needs a lot more staff work than a standard game due to outlining setting quirks. I've seen post-apoc games die very quickly without a metaplot to hold it together. Making merits go through staff approval sounds like it's going to put extra burden on your staff.
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That's a good question, and the answer I have is complicated. And I, of course, can't speak for @ShelBeast.
Let me start with how I see my role as headwiz/owner/whatever you want to call it.
I'm there to support my staff. I'll help idea bounce, process jobs, do apps, vet ideas, bring up things, etc. If someone is burning out, it's -my- job to step up and help them until they can catch their breath, or until they can find someone they want to work with. If they need to step down (no shame in it!), then it becomes my job to make sure plot balls don't get dropped and things chug along the best I can keep them going until another staffer is found.
It's part of why I want to keep things HR-lite and book-simple. I also have a vision of hooking plot and the grid vs grid system into +jobs so that facets off these are automated (For instance: having grid system queries go out automatically, beginning at X time on Y day, to collect the actions people want to do for the week), or having +plots generate a job automatically. (I have hot fantasies of a +query going out when a plot is +plot/claimed that contain all the juicy details of the plot, so a vague synopsis is what anyone can see without all the twists and good bits hanging out.)
Part of my mindset is that keeping gears turning is my job. I support my staff in all ways, the best I can. And I try to make sure that there are tools in place to help relieve some of the grindy gruntwork that is not as fun to do..
I also realizing that I might bee aimingg too high. But hey, if I aim for the stars and only hit a mountain top, I'll still count it a win.
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Man, I tell you what... self-running modules would be amazing, but I r teh stupidz when it comes to the technical side of this hobby. Literally, I am just a tabletop gaming nerd. I know absolutely zilch when it comes to setting up such stuff, and barely more about actually even playing on a MU* beyond the very basic commands. If you know someone who could help out with some stuff to make more of our resource system stuff be automated in some way, please send 'em our way.
In the meantime, I figure I'm already going to have to deal with status merits. I don't imagine dealing with Herd or Feeding Ground merits will be all that much more paperwork to handle. I could well be wrong, though. Time will tell.
And, since I took a break from this conversation to beat Wasteland 2, finally, I'll respond to some of the other stuff mentioned.
To what @HorrorHound said about Vampires controlling everything:In a normal setting, this is true. Vampires can do all the social stuff that Wolves don't usually get up to. @Coin is sort of right, but overstated it. Weres can do social now. They're not really good at it. And they can never hope to be as good as vampires at it. But they're more adept at it than they ever have been in 2nd Ed. And that's something. But mostly, it comes down to... There is no Wal-Mart to sell that land to. Hell, you can't even buy it, because the world doesn't operate in that kind of way anymore. There might be some corrupt lawmen to bribe, but even their influence will be mostly minimal, just by the sort of village/mob mentality of groups in a setting such as this one. The vampire influence mainstays have to be re-evaluated, their tactics need to evolve. Another note is that @Taika is setting this very shortly after the rods dropped from the heavens. Like a few months afterwards. So social and economic infrastructure would not really have had a chance to rebuild, yet. Which is cool because that allows for the playerbase to develop their own methods of it, if they were so inclined. Create their own economy, and social/political structures. Neat stuff, if you ask me.
