World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings

[surreality]

@Seraphim73's approach to creating crews for T8S is actually ideal for the pack problem in a MUX setting: establish pre-set, open-to-join packs with territories, a specific scope and theme/focus/founding intent, and you can have the large, sprawling packs described in the books that are factions on the game, but are NPC-led at the alpha level.

You end up with border squabbles (which can be awesome) but less active land-grab territory PK crusades (which are way less awesome), you have active and ongoing potential for team-ups for crossover focus area issues or regional concerns, and you have the kind of internal politics (which are realistic and can be compelling as hell) that are far less likely in a 'we're all buddies so let's make a pack!' environment.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

@Seraphim73's approach to creating crews for T8S is actually ideal for the pack problem in a MUX setting: establish pre-set, open-to-join packs with territories, a specific scope and theme/focus/founding intent, and you can have the large, sprawling packs described in the books that are factions on the game, but are NPC-led at the alpha level.

I suppose this is a good approach to how to make a Werewolf-centered game, and, maybe one day I might consider adapting what I'm currently doing to that kind of game.

But, to quote Aragorn, today is not that day.

[surreality]

@ganymede Exactly. I wouldn't suggest that approach for anything other than a werewolf-only game, to be honest.

It's not mentioned to try to pitch it -- I don't think anybody should expand their scope beyond where they want it to be, no matter what that scope is -- but as a comment on the tangent about how werewolf just can't work period on a MUX.

(@Scorn and I are on and off kicking around something like this using that approach, but so very slowly and as a 'mayyyyyybe some day'.)

[Jennkryst]

Not to derail or tangent too hard, but I feel obligated to point out that the whole pack/alpha mindset keeps getting debunked and ignored. CARRY ON.

[Lithium]

I love Werewolf 2e, but like most WoD I think it works best in a vacuum, so I am down with Vampire only, even if it's not a sphere I tend to enjoy much.

2E Werewolf only though? Hell yes.

[TaliesinSkye]

I wanted to make a game once that was set on Humanity's first extrasolar colony on a lush, habitable world. A variety of supernaturals had, of course, come along for the ride with the regular humans. Robots had built a walled settlement for the colonists to live in before waking everyone from cryosleep. Outside the walls are unexplored alien jungle containing who knows what. Inside, all of humanity's old demons and feuds. And Earth is a journey hundreds of years distant.

[Arkandel]

@taliesinskye Where do new PCs come from?

[TaliesinSkye]

I considered that, the idea I came up with is that not everybody is woken up simultaneously, they introduce more colonists over time as the city construction proceeds far enough to house them and so on.

[Распутин]

I'm surprised more Vampire games aren't set in the Orthodox World and Eastern Europe broadly, considering our history and lore has influenced Anglo literary interpretation of vampires; Vlad the Impaler was an influence for Count Dracula, as an example.

I could easily see a game being centered around a human trafficking operation that sells pretty, nubile Slavic girls as blood dolls for vampires and brood mares for werewolves. I could similarly see generations of werewolves and mages fighting over long-abandoned commie blocks for the loci and hallows that were generated there during the period where they were occupied, and agreeing to some vile arrangement after a while to avoid further bloodshed. Maybe the Masquerade in certain cities has evaporated where local Princes captured dirty nukes during the fall of the Soviet Union, and have clung bitterly to them, requiring local and national officials to allow their vile kind to drink peasants dry and run the aforementioned human trafficking operations uninterrupted across international lines.

There is a lot of potential for horror in Eastern Europe.

[Bobotron]

@распутин
Because Foreign City by Night inevitably becomes 'All Ameican Expats in Foreign City by Night'? People write what they know.

[Thenomain]

@bobotron said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

@распутин
Because Foreign City by Night inevitably becomes 'All Ameican Expats in Foreign City by Night'? People write what they know.

Even WoD games set in American cities become Generic Metropolis By Night. How quickly did this happen to The Reach, for example?

Two games I played that this didn't happen to: Paris:FdM and Haunted Memories (at least as long as Mozart was running it) because the game-runners were passionate about the setting, and so they helped make sure that the setting was part of the game too.

Which is central to so many "how do I engage people?" questions around here: Be Engaging. If you want people to engage with the setting, make the setting important. Setting can be just as much of a factor in events as anything else; use it.

[Taika]

Mozart also, iirc, living there or near there, so they had an advantage in helping to build a culture around their experiences in Vienna. Which was neat. Until, as Theno said, it changed hands and become 'generic place by night with funny accents'.

[Распутин]

@bobotron said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

@распутин
Because Foreign City by Night inevitably becomes 'All Ameican Expats in Foreign City by Night'? People write what they know.

I definitely see your point. We used to re-imagine Russian heroes as communists even though communism as an idea had not existed at the time these men were alive, nor did they in reality conform to communist ideals at all. To portray one of these men as both non-communist, and as a worthy historical figure to be honored, would invite serious consequences upon oneself. It was unthinkable that someone could contradict communism yet still be a valuable person.

I see Westerners repeating this mistake. All past heroes must be looked at through the lens of current ethical precepts, and if they err too strongly from them, you must stop honoring them, and destroy their monuments and their memory. Men who helped found your civilization must be denounced entirely because in addition to that they were racists, which is unacceptable now. It's a twisted and psychotic view of history.

Considering this carefully, I think that maybe enforcing setting involvement is the necessary limitation these users must accept: no, your character can't be above the human trafficking ring, because in order to get Vitae, they have to be actively involved in it. The people operating this ring are smarter than your character so whatever he attempts to do to bypass it will not work, and worse, might get him sent to some kind of gulag-like forced labor camp, where he will burn alive in the sun within a day, and be forgotten in less than a week. In order to survive, your character must be a bad person, and you as a player shouldn't be free to evade that.

[Selu]

Has anyone suggested the Paleolithic Age in Sub-Saharan Africa as a setting, yet? Like Far Cry: Primal?

Middle KIngdom Egypt? That was done in Assassin's Creed.

Mali Empire-era Timbuktu? The Achaemanid Empire? Jerusalem during the Israeli United Monarchy?

[Tinuviel]

@selu Anything that requires actual research is going to be a hard sell to many.

[Selu]

@tinuviel said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

@selu Anything that requires actual research is going to be a hard sell to many.

That's true, but two of those concepts are very basic.

The Stone Age game set in the Cradle of Humanity would be pretty lit and easy to play. You are a Black person who lives in a tribe and are enjoying yourself until these strange human-shaped Killer Vampires appear.

It should be a game where you get killed a lot, just like the real Stone Age. There would be lots of fun things to do, like group hunts or exploration.

Egypt is self-explanatory. Most people are familiar with that stuff. Mummies and pharaohs and Egyptian Princesses.

[Arkandel]

@tinuviel said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

@selu Anything that requires actual research is going to be a hard sell to many.

Yeah or worse, that research will yield different results (some people will go to wikipedia, others will watch a movie, or have read a book) leading to some pretty funky inconsistencies across the playerbase.

[The Sands]

@selu said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

The Stone Age game set in the Cradle of Humanity would be pretty lit and easy to play. You are a Black person who lives in a tribe and are enjoying yourself until these strange human-shaped Killer Vampires appear.

That's all well and good until someone wants to app a character who is a technological genius that runs around with bronze weapons.

[Saulot]

@the-sands probably a mage as perfected metals were supposedly a thing with atlantis, and that setting is shortly after the ladder "fell."

[Распутин]

@tinuviel said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

@selu Anything that requires actual research is going to be a hard sell to many.

The entire hobby of roleplaying is a hard sell to many.