@skew said in Shadows of Paradise: help wanted!:
@thatonedude Assuming that's an honest question...
Me and @SunnyJ found Mage was extremely difficult to ST for. Plot required a lot of thinking and a lot of adapting and it was really tiring. Add in that most mage plots ended up taking a very long time, due to the nature of mage (I have 30 different spells I could cast, let me think through each one, I take 15 minutes to do my turn in initiative).
I'll add that single sphere games are difficult to sustain. Few players means fewer people RPing means fewer people coming around means few players... you get the idea.
All that said, I believe 100% that Mage can be done in a multi-splat MU in a way that's fun and exciting, but requires a lot of house rules and modifications and, at it's core, nerfing mage either through mechanics or "IC Consequences".
I think we should split this off into a thread. I was reading on the Onyx path forums a thread about how to allow mage to play with other game lines. There was some good stuff that came out of that discussion:
http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-new-world-of-darkness/mage-the-awakening/1236317-crossover-issues-doubt
<I like this response>
The splats are made to be internally consistent, balancing them against each other would take a lot of homebrewing, experimenting, frustration and even then it might make certain players feel the powers they imagined fall short. A game like D&D is designed from the ground up to not only be there to tell stories, but also to be a war game, running the numbers, optimizing and seeing the ensuing absurdity is part of what builds the experience. CofD is designed to be more focused on telling great stories. So I propose a paradigm shift: seek perfect imbalance. Here are some thoughts about how to do it:
1- Have each player fill a niche. A werewolf Ithaeur and a Thrysus can both fill the spirit shaman role, yet the Thrysus will have a harder time because, even with an honorary spirit rank, because he is an outsider, so he needs to play a dangerous game of bribes, coercion and intimidation that the werewolf are much more equipped to deal with, but as he reaches Mastery this could invert. That would make it so one of them will always feel like a dead weight at some point. But if they each have a different focus, that changes entirely. The Eleventh Question can be the detective, the Daeva can be the face of the party, the Rahu can be the combat specialist, and so on, there are many ways to go about it, the splats are flexible enough to accommodate all types of builds. Now when their powers peak, each player will feel satisfied and you will have a balanced party, ready too tackle any complex problems you send their way.
2- One of the coolest things about the Chronicles of Darkness is that there is always a bigger fish. If the players go too overt with the power displays, then they have to deal with the consequences. Maybe you called the attention of an Stryx, or disturbed a Seer operation, or that artifact you stole belonged to a mummy's cult, maybe that street gang's operation was unknowing infrastructure to the God Machine or maybe an archmage saw some interesting new pawns. Let them be free to make their choices, but be bound by the consequences.
3- Remember that each splat comes with drawbacks. Mages are crazy flexible, but they are also very squishy if caught off guard. A werewolf can heal quickly or become a death machine, a vampire has a tough undead body, a Geist just comes back from death and a Promethean is a juggernaut that can heal with electricity. Sure you can kill werewolves at high Arcanum, but do you have the mana to keep doing it if things escalate ? What happens if the attacker is a vampire who sent armed Sleeper thugs or an Obrimos who also warded them with Prime ? Are you sure you should be Reaching that much ? The Paradox just keeps building. By the same token, the method a werewolf used to keep Harmony in balance might go against the Oath of The Moon, or it might be fine with it but be a horrendous act by human standards, certainly illegal. Having to deal with those helps flesh out a character.
4- What is good enough for the players is good enough for the antagonists. So they braved the Shadow version of the villain's hideout to get the McGuffin ? Hopefully they covered their tracks. Otherwise ghosts will slowly scout the city for it, and when they find it, the Geist behind it will slowly have them posses the neighboring people and, when the time is right, spring an attack on the player's base. While they are dealing with it, they sneak by Twilight and take the items back. Hold on, where is the Beast ? Your player's phone rings, its from their house, its going to be one of those night.