Why not simply limit players to 1 supernatural template?
Man, I wish.
At the very least, somebody somewhere mentioned maybe giving priority on the waiting list to people who don't have a supernatural alt already. That sounds like a good idea. >_>
Ultimately, as is always the case, it boils down to staff structure and capabilities. Broadly speaking, you've got your STs, who run scenes and occasionally assist with admin, and you've got an Admin person who handles the gruntwork of +requests. Arguably, its the staffing levels that affect whether you have to kick in a sphere cap.
I've always felt that the players have a certain level of responsibility beyond "Don't be a dick" and "Be as active as RL allows". Several games have allowed players to be quasi-staff story-tellers (lower case st) and nearly every game grants some sort of xp incentive for player run plots.
Rather than focusing so heavily on limiting the sphere based on what staff can support, maybe a different way to view it is to ask, "What can staff do to facilitate/empower/incentivise players to entertain themselves, regardless of sphere levels?" Granted, you've got metalplots (lower case m, as noted in the wiki) that staff will be running, which I'm sure can be broken into smaller scenes rather than the sphere-wise scenes I've attempted to run. But there's no reason some stuff can't be handled by the players themselves to lighten the load and allow for higher sphere caps.
So @Coin and @Eerie, in an ideal world, you've got 30 players in one sphere, an admin staffer and lets say 2 STs (staff ST). There's 2 really solid players that are dependable which you can ask to run smaller scenes. Give us an example of how you'd operate and link it back to why you'd need to set a sphere cap utilizing that normal operation method. That analysis may better inform your policy (or at least entertain me).
I really like the idea of sphere slots being announced a week in advance then accepting apps for the lottery to be drawn. It suggests that preference would be given to the people already active on the game (and thus invested in its continuing to thrive). You can still give preference to people who have no super slots taken already, and it should lead to less complaints of 'UGH, I've been on this list for MONTHS and Character Z over there is just sitting around doing nothing all the time!'.
Plus, good surprises are good. 
I hate that White Wolf seems to have dropped Geist like a hot potato. I really like its themes and mechanics - plus it's the only splat in the nWoD which is truly fundamentally disorganized, so one can do away with all the drama of chasing after ranks.
Even if they offered a good conversion guide to use as a frame of reference at least. If you guys ever did feel tempted and needed help implementing the sphere please let me know.
@Arkandel, Demon is pretty disorganized. It still has a Y-Splat, true, but they are largely more classifications of attitudes than organizations with Ranks. More like Changeling Courts, but without a Mantle stat.
@Arkandel
Geist may get a 2E revision, but it was supposed to be a limited line and didn't become the money-funnel that Lost was (which is why Lost got so many extra books anyway).
I love Geist. I ran Geist for a while. I still play my Sin-Eater.
I hope we get a second edition. I really really do. If Onyx Path replied to my application I would even sit down and write the fuck out of it myself.
But I am not going to house rule the entire line just to fit with 2e for Eldritch. I'm just not.
@Eerie said:
I agree, but at the same time I’ve been on staff channels with staffers who were convinced they ‘couldn’t’ do anything about this or that thing because technically it wasn’t against the rules. Most of us are pretty conditioned to follow ‘rules’ as normative concepts.
We are conditioned this way, which is why there ought to be fewer rules in place. The important rules relate to responsibility: e.g., if a player has a problem with a staffer, go to Staff X. Everything else should only be considered expectations; staff should have free rein to react to situations, and, if they do not do so reasonably, the game operators should step in and ameliorate.
I do like the idea of giving priority to someone who doesn't have their 1 supernatural alt. Alt-madness tends to cause problems. Like, I dig the idea that one wants to play a variety of things but it rarely ends well.
@silentsophia said:
I do like the idea of giving priority to someone who doesn't have their 1 supernatural alt. Alt-madness tends to cause problems. Like, I dig the idea that one wants to play a variety of things but it rarely ends well.
+1. Also it's unfair if one person only wants one alt but actually has zero, and another has two.
@silentsophia said,
I do like the idea of giving priority to someone who doesn't have their 1 supernatural alt
I'm going to echo something that came up in conversation about this:
What if someone joined a difference sphere waiting for their preferred sphere to open up? They are being active and engaging the game, so why punish them when the time comes?
I also have the desire to reward people who aren't engaged at all, but is it worth alienating those who are involved? From this perspective, my personal answer is "no, it's not".
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
@Thenomain Then they can be interesting and engaging in their new sphere. It's not punishment. They're getting the character they really wanted.
@Glitch said:
@Thenomain Then they can be interesting and engaging in their new sphere. It's not punishment. They're getting the character they really wanted.
Maybe I misspoke. If someone makes a Vampire because Geist*[1]* isn't open yet, then Geist comes along, they're at a disadvantage because they're already playing a Vampire. Making them drop the Vampire just for a better chance at playing their preferred sphere seems like kind of a dick move.
The same would be true for a sphere that is closed because it's closed, not because it isn't around yet.
That is, someone with a supernatural slot, someone who is engaged and helping the game but would rather take a different supernatural slot, would be at a disadvantage. This is something to consider while fussing around with ideas.
[1] At least, not until the coder gets the Geist v2 book.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
The answer seems simple: If that person wants priority for the new sphere they can drop their first alt. It's not a dick move, any more than making someone else wait with no alts is.
No one said sphere caps are supposed to be liked.
Granted, @Arkandel, but that doesn't mean if the policy is implemented we won't try for something that will feel exclusionary to the least amount of people possible.
"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.
@Arkandel said:
The answer seems simple: If that person wants priority for the new sphere they can drop their first alt. It's not a dick move, any more than making someone else wait with no alts is.
Telling someone to drop what they are doing for a chance to do something else seems, yeah, like a dick move.
Players who aren't engaged with a super sphere aren't necessarily not doing anything, either, but the suggestion doesn't affect them at all. Keep in mind the suggestion doesn't affect those without a major template.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
@Thenomain It shouldn't be a chance. Another reason the lottery is meh.
@Coin said:
Granted, @Arkandel, but that doesn't mean if the policy is implemented we won't try for something that will feel exclusionary to the least amount of people possible.
The moment sphere caps go into effect, as long as even a single person has to be excluded from a sphere they wish to play, you're already looking for the reason why it was them as opposed to someone else who did get in. To that one person it will feel exclusionary.
On the other hand the person who already has an alt - albeit in a different sphere - and wants to keep them is already included; they are part of the game, they can play.
I don't see why it's a bigger dick move to give someone the choice of where to play than to give someone else no choice that gets them playing at all.
@Glitch said:
@Thenomain It shouldn't be a chance. Another reason the lottery is meh.
There's always a chance. The chance that you apply "in time", the chance that you know that it's coming, the chance that your @mail gets through before someone else's. I am in no way trying to be pedantic about the word "chance" here, but to stress what @Coin is also saying: The goal is to minimize shittiness.
I'd say to ignore the fringe cases, but there are so many of them that a different problem-solving philosophy needs to take place, even if just to determine which cases are actually fringe.
I'm currently still leaning toward: 1 or 2 week notice, 2 days application, lotto. I personally want people with no supers to get first pick in a supers sphere, but I have been convinced that this is not a de-facto good thing.
In HM's Changeling, it was largely: Open, accept a few apps, close. That this didn't cause too much headache informs me that we're over-analyzing the problem, but IMO it's a problem worth over-analyzing, in case shaking the tree makes something interesting fall out of it.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
@Thenomain said:
There's always a chance. The chance that you apply "in time", the chance that you know that it's coming, the chance that your @mail gets through before someone else's. I am in no way trying to be pedantic about the word "chance" here, but to stress what @Coin is also saying: The goal is to minimize shittiness.
You are being pedantic, even if it's in service to trying to make a point.
I'd say to ignore the fringe cases, but there are so many of them that a different problem-solving philosophy needs to take place, even if just to determine which cases are actually fringe.
There's really not. Accounting for every fringe case with a variety of philosophies is ten steps too far in over-analyzing. Besides, @Eerie and @Coin continue to stress that no rule is "concrete" and they'll "re-evaluate" decisions after some given time-frame, so all of this conjecture about the possibility of some fringe cases is overmuch.
I'm currently still leaning toward: 1 or 2 week notice, 2 days application, lotto. I personally want people with no supers to get first pick in a supers sphere, but I have been convinced that this is not a de-facto good thing.
The impression I'm getting is that these big requests for discussion go up, but they've already hunkered down. They certainly don't need anyone's approval, but it's the impression I'm left with and I think there's too much cart before the horse decision-making in the name of "preparation".
Why not simply limit players to 1 supernatural template?
Man, I wish.
At the very least, somebody somewhere mentioned maybe giving priority on the waiting list to people who don't have a supernatural alt already. That sounds like a good idea. >_>
