World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings

RedMeadow

@lithium I played this one and it was a really good concept. Definitely one of the better MU* experiences I've had!

Lithium

@redmeadow What is good in concept doesn't always work well in practice. Every time Mage is involved in a game, it dominates the game, sometimes that is intended, sometimes not. But Mage's as PC's will overshadow what anyone else can do, cuz once a Magi gets to Arcana 5, stuff is seriously broke.

RedMeadow

@lithium I certainly won't argue with that. Saw quite a few places that went out of hand if you had a Mage sphere that gets to crazy power levels with vampires and other spheres. The old "turning vampires into lawnchairs" trope exists because it happened quite a bit!

Arkandel

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

@redmeadow What is good in concept doesn't always work well in practice. Every time Mage is involved in a game, it dominates the game, sometimes that is intended, sometimes not.

I don't like that argument. It's like saying Batman is a useless character because Superman is way more powerful.

But power is not the vector that decides a character's relevancy.

Coin

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

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

@redmeadow What is good in concept doesn't always work well in practice. Every time Mage is involved in a game, it dominates the game, sometimes that is intended, sometimes not.

I don't like that argument. It's like saying Batman is a useless character because Superman is way more powerful.

But power is not the vector that decides a character's relevancy.

It is not like that, because in a story, Batman and Superman are written by the same person and their relevancy is decided by the writer, who can adjudicate who does what in ways that don't overshadow each other (not always the case, since writers love to make Batman de center of everything but I disgree).

In a game, different people control different characters and their relevancy is dictated by several players who may or may not want to have the same level of cooperation. So power level doesn't decide the character's relevancy IF THE PLAYERS DON'T USE IT TO ASSERT THEIR RELEVANCE OVER OTHERS'. This is easy in story writing, but often very difficult in roleplaying.

Your analogy is bad.

Arkandel

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

In a game, different people control different characters and their relevancy is dictated by several players who may or may not want to have the same level of cooperation.

What you are arguing is that uncooperative players - which I read as 'bad players' - are bad. True, but that's a separate issue that we'd be running into if one person is playing a maxed out Gangrel and the other is a Mekhet who put all their dots in social fluff. One would be easier to overshadow than the other, but that's on the player.

Your analogy is bad.

But your mom is good.

Coin

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

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

In a game, different people control different characters and their relevancy is dictated by several players who may or may not want to have the same level of cooperation.

What you are arguing is that uncooperative players - which I read as 'bad players' - are bad. True, but that's a separate issue that we'd be running into if one person is playing a maxed out Gangrel and the other is a Mekhet who put all their dots in social fluff. One would be easier to overshadow than the other, but that's on the player.

In the same way that making Batman not overshadow Superman is on the writer.

It's always on the people controlling the narrative.

Your analogy is bad.

But your mom is good.

Better'n yours, anyway.

Ganymede

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

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

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

Your analogy is bad.

But your mom is good.

Better'n yours, anyway.

Some people like bacon and some people don't, but it's still not good for you, you perverts.

Lithium

@arkandel No, that's not it at all. You maybe do not play a lot of WoD, I don't know, but if you have multiple sphere's, and you are running a plot it goes something like this:

Player A: Vampire, tries to use dominate to social his way into a thing to assassinate the bad guy,
Player B: Werewolf, has a wolf blood ally who is also a locus get into the building disguised as an employee and then comes out of the Shadow inside.
Player Changeling, glamours up someone who's supposed to be there in order to get onto the invite list.
Player Mage, Telenukes the bad guy.

Player A, B, and C, can all do things to get everyone involved in the plot, but player D who could /also/ do stuff that brings people in simply does it all, because they can.

This applies to practically every plot line possible. I have /seen/ Magi bow out of plots because they couldn't just roll their 30+ dice pools and magic the win.

The only way Mage works, is on an only Mage game, because if there's one thing that being in this community for over 25 years (Egads I am old) has taught me, is that people who are genuinely interested in including others, and not playing their +sheet, are pretty damned rare.

Especially in WoD/CoD.

Arkandel

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

Player Mage, Telenukes the bad guy.

There really is a tendency here (?) to extrapolate behaviors and trends from the worst people who display them.

What you are saying is that bad players are bad. Yes, they are. The fact that in a different sphere they are more limited in the ways they are allowed to be bad doesn't make Mage a bad sphere; I've had great experiences with Mage players perfectly willing to share, and I would like to think others who played with my own PCs didn't have a horrible time.

Blaming it all on the sphere is taking it to the symptom, not the cause. IMHO, of course.

Zz

@lithium Fuck. I love fate. I know it is not for everyone but it is so easy to teach people and get them playing quickly. Also it allows for vast forests of player ridiculous and fun.

@Ganymede Those both sound interesting to me. I kind of love the idea of a dynastic wod game as mentioned earlier where you move forward in time - either keeping your immortal or within their bloodline.

Lithium

@arkandel What I am saying, is that Mage, as a sphere, tends to call to those players that you are calling 'bad' because it is, without a fucking doubt, the most powerful sphere in WoD.

Lots of people say Geist or Beast is more powerful, but really... no.

When you have /that much power disparity/ in a game with a wide swath of users you /must/ account for the so called 'bad players' that you are saying ruin things.

The easiest way to account for them, is to remove their tools to be bad.

Why? Because to not remove it, means your staff will be effectively stuck policing just the bads.

ALL THE TIME.

Mage.

Breaks.

Multisphere.

Games.

Deleted

There are three character groups.

One has handguns.
Another has single shot rifles.
The third has miniguns and rocket launchers and can call in airstrikes.

Also the third group has access to single shot rifles and handguns as well.
Maybe the third group is far more abuse-able than the first two.

Or for another one...
You have three groups.
One specializes in stealth.
One specializes in fighting.
One can do stealth and fighting just as good as the other two but is also good at many other things.

The third group can easily walk all over the other two. Thus the third group needs a lot more policing than the first two.

Maybe instead of saying 'OMG ALL SPHERES CAN HAVE BAD PLAYERS!' we should be saying..... 'Hey, all spheres can have bad players but bad players in Mage are a much, much, much bigger problem than in other spheres and maybe we shouldn't include Mage in multi-sphere games.'

Mage is this song 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0' but sung from only one perspective towards a room full of people who are tied to chairs and forced to listen.

Aaaaaaanything you can do, I can do better. I can do aaaaaaaanything better than you.

Saulot

I've done quite a few shards over the years. I'll try to list off what I remember.

Mass Effect
Dragon Age (twice)
*Shadowrun (with the Changeling Seemings being the races)
Bleeding Edge Cyberpunk
Dungeons and Darkness (what it sounds like)
Several low fantasy games
X-Men
Werwolves at War (werewolves in the "military" - blame Dogs of War and Dog Soldiers)
Star Wars
High "Fantasy" in Space
Steampunk
Victorian Horror
1920s noir lowercase-m mage
Way too many high fantasy shards (14 attempts, 3 "completes")
Wild west lowercase-m mage
Empyrean (I know it technically doesn't count, but I had to make all 42 powers my damned self)

Misadventure

@lithium @Arkandel

re: mage

It's also because the system is built that way. One of the first topics on magic is how to you target with it, and it goes from line of sight to targeting through infinite distances, time, etc. It's built right in, and it's akin to saying you just won't use a Discipline or nothing over 3 dots.

That doesn't mean it is wise,or makes for good game place.

But if you tell someone "you can roll 6 dice while being attacked to do a few damage, OR you can sit at home and build up 80 dice via a ritual" most players will say why aren't I doing what is most effective etc.

So its really I have this power but I should never use it. Even if the fiction and so on are full of it.

Maybe someone could try writing it, redirecting the higher end targeting (time, space) into something more interesting. Heck replace it with the ability to make slightly better spells on triggers to use in a fight, with limits on how many.

If you look at the Sorcery system in old Runequest, they allowed very distant attacks, but targeting was a bitch, and everyone always had the ability and IC knowledge to build up defenses (power and magic shields for a contest to see if you resist).

mietze

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

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

My core problem with WoD is the players play the monsters, but rarely monstrously. What in Mars is a threat to Werewolves, Vampires and Mages?

Could be a number of anything, if one's creative enough and willing to put some thought and time into it. Aliens is the first thing that comes to mind, but what about a disease that hits the supers, requiring them to work for a cure.

Well, I suppose alien viruses/bacteria/environmental hazards are less of a concern for vampires and high level
Mages (Werewolves get the shaft for sure there)...it might be interesting to explore (or deal with the aftermath of earlier NPC first contacts) what happens the first time vitae is given to an alien plant/creature. What happens to the spiritual world once you leave the planet, is the new one totally hostile/alien as well? Do the same reality rules that effect what you can/can’t/get hurt by by doing something magey that would be out of place with earth physics or environment be negated/amplified/have new implications when you are off planet and in space? Do the advantages your powers gave you on earth lessen in some circumstances with a lower g environment or when relative time passes differently due to space travel?

It could be really interesting. But I’m pretty sure a large scale open WoD in space would just turn into space prostitues and the like.

Sockmonkey

Am I crazy in that I kinda wanna see a WoD game that doesn't have any supers? It would use the game mechanics but it's all mortals (not even mortal+ -- just plain ol' mortals) and have them function within a metaplot scenario. Not just .. here's a city, go make your own stories but that there is an overarching story that is building toward something.

I dunno. I just finished watching The Leftovers (I know, I know, I'm late to that party) and I think it would be so cool to have a game set in that world (for those who haven't seen the show: it deals with how people cope with the aftermath of an event where 2% of the world's population suddenly and inexplicably vanished). Granted, I'm an angst monster who loves RP that's all emotions and rip-my-heart-out drama.

deadculture

@sockmonkey Actually that would be somewhat interesting to see. So you're not crazy at all!

Arkandel

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

Am I crazy in that I kinda wanna see a WoD game that doesn't have any supers? It would use the game mechanics but it's all mortals (not even mortal+ -- just plain ol' mortals) and have them function within a metaplot scenario. Not just .. here's a city, go make your own stories but that there is an overarching story that is building toward something.

It was done. I of course forget the name right now but there was a MU* where all characters were mortals in a supernatural world, and it was fun while it lasted... but it definitely belonged in that generation of sandboxed games that didn't make a splash and died quietly after a while.

No matter the genre people need to have stuff to do outside of plots, or when no Storytellers are throwing things for them to feast on. That's where a mortal+ MU* would need to prove its worth... what else is there to do than find someone to TS when there are no monsters around? Are there politics? Is there something to meet and talk about other than the monsters?

faraday

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

No matter the genre people need to have stuff to do outside of plots, or when no Storytellers are throwing things for them to feast on.

I don't really believe that's true. There have been countless "successful" (eye of the beholder obviously) games where the only thing filling the time between plots is plot-aftermath or social RP. TGG, pretty much every Battlestar game, most post-apoc games, etc. It works as long as the plots are frequent enough and accessible enough to provide a break from endless BarRP.

That said, I think such a pace would be hard in a Mortal-only WoD game because it would be tough finding plots that could involve a bunch of people at once. With TGG/BSG it was easy - look, a battle! Everybody fights! But with a modern game it'd be, like... "So a preacher, a cop and a musician walk into a dark alley..." You can make that work once or twice, but it's just not sustainable. Westerns have that same problem.