Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness

Coin · Jul 12, 2016, 2:50 PM

@Arkandel said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

And also not all police officers are beat cops... you could be a detective mainly involved in the hunt; tracking down clues, gaining access to crime scenes (which spirits may have had a part in), investigating murders... it doesn't all need to be done as per Hollywood full of car chases, and shootouts/fisticuffs with the perps.

Or just play it for the consequences. Yes, you lost your temper again and another suspect's scattered parts had to be buried in an unmarked grave outside town; IA is starting to get pretty damn suspicious, other wolves are pretty pissed off at your dumb antics but it was always your dream to be a cop just like your dad and his dad before him. How long can you keep this going? How long should you?

None of which makes it an important concept. I was just disagreeing with the adjective used. My gosh.

Arkandel · Jul 12, 2016, 2:51 PM

@Coin We're just talking, you ... person!

Arkandel · Jul 12, 2016, 3:18 PM

In case you're transitioning from nWoD 1.0 and you need a quick primer on the differences in systems this thread might prove useful.

ThatOneDude · Jul 12, 2016, 9:56 PM

In regards to a new game... I'm hoping someone(s) can inject some sanity into whatever shitshow of a Law sphere @tragedyjones is trying to put together.

Sounds like there are some sane people out there and I hope they get heard

Thenomain · Jul 13, 2016, 12:02 AM

@ThatOneDude

Foul. Begging the Question. 5 yard penalty. Second down.

tragedyjones · Jul 13, 2016, 6:47 AM

@ThatOneDude said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

In regards to a new game... I'm hoping someone(s) can inject some sanity into whatever shitshow of a Law sphere @tragedyjones is trying to put together.

Sounds like there are some sane people out there and I hope they get heard

Is the shit show the part where you want to have zero repercussions for being a dumbass?

Thenomain · Jul 13, 2016, 12:19 AM

@tragedyjones

Foul. Ad hominem. Five yard penalty. Still second down.

I did that to be fair. If you two have a grief, and we all know you do, we have boards for it. Please take the mud-slinging there.

I mean it. Please do.

I have my popcorn ready.

skew · Jul 13, 2016, 1:19 AM

@ThatOneDude said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

In regards to a new game... I'm hoping someone(s) can inject some sanity into whatever shitshow of a Law sphere @tragedyjones is trying to put together.

Sounds like there are some sane people out there and I hope they get heard

Just speak plainly. You want to steal from FBI agents and shoot cops and not go to jail, because you like a game where you can break the law and not go to jail. Get that out of the way, and the conversation might get more productive.

Jennkryst · Jul 13, 2016, 6:47 AM

@tragedyjones said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

Is the shit show the part where you want to have zero repercussions for being a dumbass?

It may be where you said you would build it, but then said...

@tragedyjones said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

I am not so great (in anyone's mind) great at being the [...] caretaker of a game.

surreality · Jul 13, 2016, 6:58 AM

@Jennkryst That really has been addressed repeatedly at this point in the thread.

Coin · Jul 13, 2016, 11:03 AM

@Jennkryst said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

@tragedyjones said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

Is the shit show the part where you want to have zero repercussions for being a dumbass?

It may be where you said you would build it, but then said...

@tragedyjones said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

I am not so great (in anyone's mind) great at being the [...] caretaker of a game.

What the fuck does one thing have to do with the other?

Botulism · Jul 13, 2016, 1:00 PM

Don't have time to Staff anything, but I'd play a Promethean.

ThatOneDude · Jul 13, 2016, 8:48 PM

@skew said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

@ThatOneDude said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

In regards to a new game... I'm hoping someone(s) can inject some sanity into whatever shitshow of a Law sphere @tragedyjones is trying to put together.

Sounds like there are some sane people out there and I hope they get heard

Just speak plainly. You want to steal from FBI agents and shoot cops and not go to jail, because you like a game where you can break the law and not go to jail. Get that out of the way, and the conversation might get more productive.

To be fair... there was plans and plot to be had for the PC in question that included what I can only assume was consequences. If we speak of my PC , the FBI thing while super lame was whatever, tearing away the plot in place was "criminal"

Just saying let PLOT be PLOT from STs.

skew · Jul 14, 2016, 1:40 AM

@ThatOneDude I'll take that as admittance. Some of us don't want a single player ST to have control over the tri-county police force, and agents of the God-Machine, and powerful vampires, (and time and space,) all played in a small realm where other PCs are unable to interact with the plot. For some players and staffers, that makes a game very uncomfortable, because one individual plot gets disconnected from the game.

On the other hand, some people like that. A lot of people do, and there's nothing wrong with that, but saying the one preference is inherently wrong or worse than the other is silly. It'd be like going into a MLP-only game and asking to play a carebear, then calling people names on MSB when you're not allowed to.

So, I say, if you want to play in a sandbox world, and you can't find a game that caters to it, start your own.

Otherwise?

mietze · Jul 14, 2016, 2:14 AM

I had a great time with my cop PC. By the time I played one there were not any metaplot things involving staff--the scenes (at least for beat cops) were nearly 100 percent player driven. (As in there was a cadre of us that took turns running beat cop scenes for the other beat cops). Occasionally we tried to involve the other police folks but aside from a really sweet ooc and enthusiastic detective I never got much nibbles outside of beat cops.

We never went after PCs. In fact, we often had to rebuff criminals wanting us to keystone cop for them (you guys will run a scene where I get to get away/defeat you with no risk right?) or to narc on other PCs (I want you guys to arrest this other PC but don't tell him I told you), because of the policy that cop pc vs. other pc had to be consentual in the sense that BOTH parties had to agree to the boundaries. Sometimes I was willing to let people get away in a scene, but after getting pouted and yelled at by a player because they wanted to not allow me to use any of my special abilities (my pc was a mortal+) to get a chance against them (it still wasn't a level playing field), I was pretty choosy about who I'd interact with in a "PvP" manner. (Read: only people whose RP I enjoyed and who were nice and respectful ooc, and weren't just using me as masturbation device and ignoring the fact that my PC was also a PC and I-player wanted to have some agency as well).

Law can be awesome. Maybe because of some of those restrictions (or I might have been lucky in time in that sphere), it tended to attract mainly mature players and low-drama (at least in-house) players in at least the beat cop sub-group. We played with each other a lot in scenarios and socially. It was really awesome, and we required absolutely nothing from staff other than reading logs.

So. I think law can work. I love law stories, especially of the beat cop variety and investigations. But because people can be very attitudinal (especially out of sphere, IME) it's probably a good idea to have a well-defined list of dos/don'ts and how PvP is to be worked out.

mietze · Jul 14, 2016, 6:54 PM

Because it's been asked several times, I'll kind of give a rundown of types of plots that I saw and/or ran during my time there, as well as how the multi-splat environment was handled.

First, the multisphere/rules challenge--to be honest as a beat cop this wasn't a big deal. Because of the nature of interactive with the public and in close quarters with other officers, hands down one of my FAVORITE things and source of enjoyment oocly was to see how players and PCs handled /keeping/ the IC masque. I realize that's kind of blah old school for a lot of people, but frankly it was really fun to see the creative ways that people would disguise or lowball things to avoid 'freaking the mundanes'. There was an informal "snowflake squad" of powered pcs (some supernaturals, some psychic) that were aware of each other because of things happening in game, but even then it was not a superfriends thing, I don't know that ICly I even knew what anyone was except for a few and that happened very organically. It wasn't important. An IC encouragement to keep the masque often helped give reasons for PCs to ICly moderate their use of powers as well. Those who refused or who really needed to wag their big dick around tended to not last long, at least not amongst the beat cop group, because honestly I don't think they cared for the player group ST styles, so they'd wander off to just do the RP of "I am a cop, but I don't really participate on screen with that," I assume.

I'm sure also some of the typical stereotypical bad behavior also was curtailed by the types of plots ran. They were very much slice of life. I think a lot of us pulled from old headlines of police action/older 'current events'. It wasn't guns blazing every 'episode'. I saw tense negotations/hostage situations, trying to find the location of a sniper/bomber, domestic calls, dealing with protestors, busting up prostitution/drug/domestic terrorist rings. Missing persons calls. Murder scenes. Sometimes there was a supernatural element involved, because, well...Aleswich. But most of the time when that took place it was subtle. Sometimes the plots were long/multilayered/twisty...sometimes it was just a crazy traffic stop or dealing with someone brandishing.

Because most of the players in the group I participated in not only enjoyed action as in fighty stuff, but also the psychological side of having to choose between no good choices, or the impact of making a very unfortunate choice, I think it probably bored/fended off some of the people who like to be OOC dicks who think they get to curbstomp people ICly.

But it wasn't a soap opera/monster of the week sort of thing. It was very much somewhere where the tension of covering up powers (if you had them) and the tension of being so part of the mundane world while having a secret came into play for the supers/M+s, and there was not really (again, just in the segment I participated in, the beat cops) a soap opera of bedhopping and relationships. Judging from channel behavior by new people now and then I think that probably some people who were very interested in the sexytimes soap opera (hey, it's been part of just about every long running cop drama that I've seen, so not throwing shade) or monsterhunters in blue might have felt a little ooc like they didn't fit in. But for me it was a very nice place to play with players that skewed genuinely no drama (At least in law ) and who were mature and supportive storytellers and participants.

Insomnia · Jul 14, 2016, 9:17 PM

When I play a PC cop, I want to deal with stuff like I linked in the Pokemon thread; NPC's brushing their teeth too loud and talking about God, not what PC #34 has done.

Templari · Jul 18, 2016, 2:45 AM

So in regards to banning cop-pc's it;s a bad idea.

Treating law enforcement like it is not it's own sphere is equally a bad idea. It's the one area solidly in WoD that will end up interacting with every single other sphere on one level or another, and on a consistent basis. It's a large encompassing area.

That said. LA does have a lot of alphabet soup letters in it's bowl. Simplify it, the county departments still have a lot of power, so that's one thought. Be all LACSD. Sheriff Agencies are huge in California.

Another idea mentioned is people are part of some sort of task force. You could really run with a few task forces set up per flavor, got your vice, your robbery homicide, your anti-cartel/drugs... I'd shy away from the anti-terrorism parts, though it could make a good cover for dealing with all things WoD.

Masq back in the day promoted the fact there were no patrol PC's, all were detectives. Why? Well 90% of the work involved in WoD policing, is actual investigations. So make PC's where the work is at.

Disallowing pc criminal vs pc cops doesn't work for me either. It always leads to asshats going "haha cant touch me even though I just murdered this baby" It's fucking idiotic, and also leads to these plots of MASSIVELY ATTENTION GRABBING ACTIONS... going on at will with zero consequences. (Yes. If you steal from cops you deserve to get your appropriate appendages slapped.)

At what point did we forget gaming has consequences for PC's for bad actions, or even bad luck on dice rolls?

The best RP I had in my life was chasing down a cop-killer, or trying to anyways. Mostly it wasn't any deus-ex that kept saving her, it was the dice. Occasionally some mutual agreement here and there. But in the end, my PC managed to win and there were consequences. But it all started with criminal pc was stupid and earned the pc cops attention, and it steamrolled from there. One could call it cross-sphere RP since said criminal was a vampire, and the cop was pure mortal.

Going after NPC's all the time gets boring after all while, in the end they are all some form of cookie cutter archetype. Other people tend to be less predictable on some level, and again. The dice are the ultimate equalizer, they don't always cooperate. Nothing like watching someone who normally beats people down get their ass whooped because their dice failed them so terribly.

Thenomain · Jul 18, 2016, 4:15 AM

@Templari

The thing about cops is that they enforce the law. That's their job. I've seen it more than a few times where the player doesn't let go of this to enjoy the rest of the game. These people are like the vampires who call for torpor because someone dissed them slightly. It's not fun.

Also not fun is getting in a situation where you can't do something because one side or the other is decrying how It isn't fun for them. Well now nobody is having fun.

I don't mean to not pick on the criminal characters, because this kind of person lives everywhere, but we have a far better vocabulary to say which criminal tropes are antagonistic, and we are otherwise okay with the music pirates and prostitutes, and sometimes even the mafia and tong characters.

But here's the thing about police: Their job is to stop things from happening. I thank many of them for being in the line of fire and doing some very hard shit, but in the broader perspective, on a role playing game about the dark horrors of our world where we're playing monsters, the cop is the antagonist. Not always, sure, but eventually it will be the morally questionable against the thin blue line.

Like any antagonist group, I'd be careful with who I'd let in, until we can rephrase their role on a game to something less absolute.

Ganymede · Jul 18, 2016, 4:41 AM

@Thenomain said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

The thing about cops is that they enforce the law. That's their job. I've seen it more than a few times where the player doesn't let go of this to enjoy the rest of the game. These people are like the vampires who call for torpor because someone dissed them slightly. It's not fun.

I'm going to nitpick to both concur and to differentiate my own opinion.

The average police officer spends very little time actually enforcing the law. The vast majority is spent patrolling, investigating leads, talking to potential witnesses and informants, and otherwise working as part of a team to bring charges. And then you go and get them, hoss.

Similarly, the average police officer isn't enforcing the law every second of their existence. They could be at the gym, with their family, hanging with their friends, etc. At these times, they are less likely to try and chase someone down and clap them with cuffs, if only because they may not have their cuffs at the time.

So, the fault lays on the shoulders of players: always have, and always will. Most don't have the slightest idea of what law enforcement requires and entails. So, yes, you need to be careful with keeping cop PCs around.

But the same can be said about criminals; that is, most players don't know shit about what career criminals do and go through.