Potential Buffy Game

[Arkandel]

@faraday Not that I never debated whether something is legit or not. Only what I think would be distinct and different than approaches we've seen before. I also clearly marked everything with an IMHO tag.

In other words the argument is that a Buffy MU* isn't carefully designed it will end up virtually indistinguishable from a WoD MU*. In my eyes that's a failure, but it doesn't make it illegitimate.

[faraday]

@Arkandel You said:

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

That's the thing though. What makes Buffy Buffy is a very specific blend of themes without which it is just a generic urban fantasy game.

That's a pretty strong statement that without some special blend of themes it somehow isn't a Buffy game, it's just generic urban fantasy.

I disagree. As long as there's some tie to Buffy it's a Buffy game. Whether it's a Buffy game that would interest you is of course entirely for you to say.

[ixokai]

Lots of little responses....

@coin said in Potential Buffy Game:

Unisystem would lend itself really well to Teen Wolf, although honestly, that show's lore is such a fucking weird mess that making a system out of it would take some bullshit amount of work.

Yes, unisystem would fit Teen Wolf very well. Adding Teen Wolf werewolves into Buffy would not better make a Buffy game. That unisystem could do TW doesn't matter when we're talking about a game that's just not TW though, to me.

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

@ixokai said in Potential Buffy Game:

Oy, personally, nothing would kill my interest more quickly then turning it from a Buffy game into a generic urban fantasy game.

That's the thing though. What makes Buffy Buffy is a very specific blend of themes without which it is just a generic urban fantasy game. It needs the drama, the camp elements, and IMHO the teenage factor else what separates it from being a Hunter MU* is precious little.

In fact unless the game is carefully designed to specifically cater those tropes it would feel very generic.

It doesn't need the "teenage factor", it needs the "young adult factor" -- it grows out of teenage at a point and continues both in the last two seasons and in Angel without the "teenage factor" and continues to be itself. It does need a bit mix of serious and lighthearted, but it also has a remarkably consistent theme. While almost anything can happen in a Buffy game, why that happens is actually usually clear: the loner is a witch or makes a robot or turns invisible.

But a lot of that ties into the high school stuff which is not essential. Remember Angel.

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

@coin But I did watch Angel. Those are two very different shows, and they'd lead to (or should) different kinds of MU* altogether.

To me - and obviously YMMV - when we discuss a Buffy game we mean a Buffy one, and if not we need to make that clear.

Oy. To me when someone says they're making a Buffy game, its a Buffy/Angel game unless they explicitly say otherwise. If your tone is going up or down in age, it can still can cohabitate on one game.

@coin said in Potential Buffy Game:

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

@coin But I did watch Angel. Those are two very different shows, and they'd lead to (or should) different kinds of MU* altogether.

To me - and obviously YMMV - when we discuss a Buffy game we mean a Buffy one, and if not we need to make that clear.

The thing is, it's clear to pretty much everyone. so far I think you're the only one who's watched both shows and who thinks there needs to be a distinction.

I could be wrong, I guess? But while I do think they are different shows, I think their core is the same, which is why they can co-exist in a MU.

100x what @Coin says here.

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

I mean it's possible I'm alone in this, sure. But - again, IMHO - Angel is basically every WoD MUSH ever with maybe fewer politics; good guy monsters fighting the good fight with their friends who sometimes have powers, magic, etc of their own. It would be way harder to create something which stands out thematically so that its players would go "oh yeah, this totally feels different than that City by Night MU* I played a dozen times already".

I... don't even see where you're coming from with this. Gunn, Wesley, Fred, Cordelia, are 'good guy monsters'? There's one (or two) 'good guy' monsters (both of which are 'good guy monsters' in the Buffy series for years), otherwise its just another scooby team.

First of all I don't see this big distinction between the two. Angel's out of school and the tone goes a little more serious and dark, but not a lot. Angel's primary difference is the team is a little more formalized: the scoobies on Buffy are her friends, on Angel they're kinda employees, but since he's usually just employing any friend who can handle knowing anything.

The only serious difference between the two shows, to me, is that Buffy happens in high school and the main character makes a lot more jokes.

Buffy is not like that. It could turn generic very easily, mind you, especially if staff aren't careful about the direction it takes but it stands a fair chance of standing out, for better or worse. That's why I'm making the distinction.

Yeah to me the distinction you're making isn't actually real. What would make Buffy 'generic', to me, would be to allow anything under the sun without regard to the Buffyverse metaplot and setting.

Let's say a character is a werewolf, and they want to find out the source. They wanna run a plot, get a friend-witch and friend-watcher involved and do magic blood tests.

Generic Urban Fantasy: A million years ago the spirit of wolf was blah blah and this stole its essence and blah blah
Buffy Fantasy: In the time before time, the followers of the Lord Wolf would drink the blood of their lord to become his guards, and in time this would be passed on. Oh, when we say Wolf we do mean that guy who is one of the three founding partners that were the Wolf, Ram and Hart.)

Not a big difference. One though plays up that that Buffy has an actually coherent cosmology and setting and world. (One where, for example demon power is the source of the vast majority of things-- including Slayers themselves.)

@faraday said in Potential Buffy Game:

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

That's the thing though. What makes Buffy Buffy is a very specific blend of themes without which it is just a generic urban fantasy game.

Like @Coin said - what makes a show special is different to different people.

Agreed-- I think what I'm getting through all these million little replies is that how I experience Buffy (and especially Angel) and what factors make them distinct to me, are not what @Arkandel experiences.

[ixokai]

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

@faraday Not that I never debated whether something is legit or not. Only what I think would be distinct and different than approaches we've seen before. I also clearly marked everything with an IMHO tag.

In other words the argument is that a Buffy MU* isn't carefully designed it will end up virtually indistinguishable from a WoD MU*. In my eyes that's a failure, but it doesn't make it illegitimate.

In no ways was I think anyone arguing this at all. Your 'in other words' conclusion is IMHO so completely unfounded its hard to refute beyond saying 'pffffftftftftft---' I've played Buffy games. There's no conceivable way to confuse one with a WOD MU*. Not for half a second.

You'd have to work your ass off and write a lot of theme completely disregarding Buffy history/story/tone/theme to end up with a game which made someone go: Oh this is just another WOD game, IMHO.

[Coin]

@ixokai said in Potential Buffy Game:

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

@faraday Not that I never debated whether something is legit or not. Only what I think would be distinct and different than approaches we've seen before. I also clearly marked everything with an IMHO tag.

In other words the argument is that a Buffy MU* isn't carefully designed it will end up virtually indistinguishable from a WoD MU*. In my eyes that's a failure, but it doesn't make it illegitimate.

In no ways was I think anyone arguing this at all. Your 'in other words' conclusion is IMHO so completely unfounded its hard to refute beyond saying 'pffffftftftftft---' I've played Buffy games. There's no conceivable way to confuse one with a WOD MU*. Not for half a second.

You'd have to work your ass off and write a lot of theme completely disregarding Buffy history/story/tone/theme to end up with a game which made someone go: Oh this is just another WOD game, IMHO.

For example, on Devilshire, I remember that it was almost tradition at one point that the ST give a little "intro" to any one-shot scene--something horrifying happening to some victim--long before the scene starts.

Like--the ST might describe mannekins being brought into the school late at night for the CPR classes the next day, and the delivery guy gets mauled by the CPR dolls... because that's wghat the scene is about and that's how Buffy and Angel episodes started a lot.

You hardly ever see that in WoD MUs, if at all.

[Arkandel]

@ixokai said in Potential Buffy Game:

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

@faraday Not that I never debated whether something is legit or not. Only what I think would be distinct and different than approaches we've seen before. I also clearly marked everything with an IMHO tag.

In other words the argument is that a Buffy MU* isn't carefully designed it will end up virtually indistinguishable from a WoD MU*. In my eyes that's a failure, but it doesn't make it illegitimate.

In no ways was I think anyone arguing this at all. Your 'in other words' conclusion is IMHO so completely unfounded its hard to refute beyond saying 'pffffftftftftft---' I've played Buffy games. There's no conceivable way to confuse one with a WOD MU*. Not for half a second.

You'd have to work your ass off and write a lot of theme completely disregarding Buffy history/story/tone/theme to end up with a game which made someone go: Oh this is just another WOD game, IMHO.

Jeez, you guys are playing rough today. I'm stepping out and taking my opinions with me!

[Coin]

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

@ixokai said in Potential Buffy Game:

@arkandel said in Potential Buffy Game:

@faraday Not that I never debated whether something is legit or not. Only what I think would be distinct and different than approaches we've seen before. I also clearly marked everything with an IMHO tag.

In other words the argument is that a Buffy MU* isn't carefully designed it will end up virtually indistinguishable from a WoD MU*. In my eyes that's a failure, but it doesn't make it illegitimate.

In no ways was I think anyone arguing this at all. Your 'in other words' conclusion is IMHO so completely unfounded its hard to refute beyond saying 'pffffftftftftft---' I've played Buffy games. There's no conceivable way to confuse one with a WOD MU*. Not for half a second.

You'd have to work your ass off and write a lot of theme completely disregarding Buffy history/story/tone/theme to end up with a game which made someone go: Oh this is just another WOD game, IMHO.

Jeez, you guys are playing rough today. I'm stepping out and taking my opinions with me!

It's Buffy.

[Wizz]

@ixokai said in Potential Buffy Game:

First of all I don't see this big distinction between the two. Angel's out of school and the tone goes a little more serious and dark, but not a lot. Angel's primary difference is the team is a little more formalized: the scoobies on Buffy are her friends, on Angel they're kinda employees, but since he's usually just employing any friend who can handle knowing anything.
The only serious difference between the two shows, to me, is that Buffy happens in high school and the main character makes a lot more jokes.

I don't think you understand the thematic differences of the show if you think you can break it down with "one's set in high school and has a higher joke ratio." Like, at all.

Angel has a completely different tone, a different message, a different storytelling style (can you tell me with a straight face that you think Buffy is noir?). Angel goes to very, very dark places and stays there, where Buffy dips its toes occasionally. The shows end on completely different pages.

That's what Ark is referring to, they're set in the same universe but they're capital-letters Not The Same Kinds Of Stories.

From an article that kind of highlights this point:

Unlike Sunnydale, Los Angeles actually exists, and the real-world setting completely changes the subtext of Angel’s fight against the demonic. In Sunnydale, demons are outward manifestations of universal anxieties and fears, preying on the vulnerable but otherwise remaining hidden. In Los Angeles, they walk among us, smiling as they take what’s ours and lure the opportunistic and amoral into their service.
Angel finally finds away to confront the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Heart. Accompanied by the undead lawyer Holland Manners, Angel enters an elevator that will presumably take him to Hell, where he can win the fight once and for all. But things aren’t so simple in the Angel universe.

“We have no intention of doing anything so prosaic as ‘winning,'” says Manners, scoffing at Angel’s efforts. “For us, there is no fight. That’s why winning doesn’t even enter into it. We go on.”

And then the elevator doors open, and Angel is back where he started: Los Angeles. Earth. Hell.

If Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show about becoming, then Angel is about something far more challenging: existing. There is a rot to the world, one that threatens to infect us all—not in grand, dramatic ways, but mundane ones. Entropy and inertia are the natural order of things. According to Holland Manners, the world doesn’t work in spite of evil—it works with it.

I think we disagree about whether or not they can coexist on a game, because a game is going to have more than one storyteller and a whole heck of a lot more points of focus than one insular cast, but to dismissively handwave away the differences is really weird to me.

[Cupcake]

I went from being super excited about this project to questioning whether or not I should leave the genre be. Would trying wind up drawing me back into old unconscious behaviors, or are the changes I've made merit trying again, given the difference in who I am now?

Either way, I'd love to see a Buffy themed game out there, regardless of whether I play on it or not. And while we're thinking about it, a Teen Wolf game, on its own, could be awesome. Both shows are inclusive in terms of female empowerment and LGBTQ themes, though TW has a slight edge when it comes to racial diversity. But Buffy was a stepping stone for Teen Wolf to get where it got.

(Seriously though, banshee powers make NO sense at all.)

[Apos]

@wizz said in Potential Buffy Game:

I don't think you understand the thematic differences of the show if you think you can break it down with "one's set in high school and has a higher joke ratio." Like, at all.

Angel has a completely different tone, a different message, a different storytelling style (can you tell me with a straight face that you think Buffy is noir?). Angel goes to very, very dark places and stays there, where Buffy dips its toes occasionally. The shows end on completely different pages.

I think the point about tone might be one of the hardest things for games to pin down, because it can be so subtle, and just an even slightly different outlook from one GM to another can completely subvert it. Like you take two GMs with an identical game, and one likes to tell very grim stories, and the other does light hearted, and the game is going to get subverted one way or the other from it. And these might not even be conscious choices, just what mood the person is when they decided to create. And I think these can be the most jarring for a player too, and what quickly will make them feel alienated if they had a different idea for the feel of a game. See beach party in post apocalyptic or whatever.

I think it would just be important to state what kind of mood they are looking for in the overall theme, and what kind of stories, and really hammer that home early, because otherwise it's setting up for misunderstandings and people being upset when it's not what they are looking for.

[Sunny]

I feel like people who are not Buffy fans and are not interested in Buffy as a project (save in being invested that it's not another WoD game) are trying to turn it into something that it isn't. @ZombieGenesis has a good, solid idea/plan, and I don't know why the waters need to be muddied, why 'we want buffy but not...' is a place people are going to. @ixokai sums up my viewpoints pretty much entirely, on what appeals to me about this genre and why, and while I can see other interpretations, what he's pointing out as important to him, Buffy-wise, is where I am at as well. I don't see a conflict between Buffy and Angel, they're the same setting/story/world/lore, just slightly different takes on tone that can (and do) absolutely co-exist without any sort of difficulty. Saying it's a difference between HS and college is only accurate if you discount the final seasons of Buffy AND disregard Angel's actual setting (which wasn't monsters going to college, I'll note). There is a huge cosmology. There is a huge amount of lore. There is very distinct stuff about this setting of interpersonal drama against the backdrop of saving the world.

[Hella]

@wizz said in Potential Buffy Game:

@ixokai said in Potential Buffy Game:

First of all I don't see this big distinction between the two. Angel's out of school and the tone goes a little more serious and dark, but not a lot. Angel's primary difference is the team is a little more formalized: the scoobies on Buffy are her friends, on Angel they're kinda employees, but since he's usually just employing any friend who can handle knowing anything.
The only serious difference between the two shows, to me, is that Buffy happens in high school and the main character makes a lot more jokes.

I don't think you understand the thematic differences of the show if you think you can break it down with "one's set in high school and has a higher joke ratio." Like, at all.

Angel has a completely different tone, a different message, a different storytelling style (can you tell me with a straight face that you think Buffy is noir?). Angel goes to very, very dark places and stays there, where Buffy dips its toes occasionally. The shows end on completely different pages.

That's what Ark is referring to, they're set in the same universe but they're capital-letters Not The Same Kinds Of Stories.

From an article that kind of highlights this point:

Unlike Sunnydale, Los Angeles actually exists, and the real-world setting completely changes the subtext of Angel’s fight against the demonic. In Sunnydale, demons are outward manifestations of universal anxieties and fears, preying on the vulnerable but otherwise remaining hidden. In Los Angeles, they walk among us, smiling as they take what’s ours and lure the opportunistic and amoral into their service.
Angel finally finds away to confront the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Heart. Accompanied by the undead lawyer Holland Manners, Angel enters an elevator that will presumably take him to Hell, where he can win the fight once and for all. But things aren’t so simple in the Angel universe.

“We have no intention of doing anything so prosaic as ‘winning,'” says Manners, scoffing at Angel’s efforts. “For us, there is no fight. That’s why winning doesn’t even enter into it. We go on.”

And then the elevator doors open, and Angel is back where he started: Los Angeles. Earth. Hell.

If Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show about becoming, then Angel is about something far more challenging: existing. There is a rot to the world, one that threatens to infect us all—not in grand, dramatic ways, but mundane ones. Entropy and inertia are the natural order of things. According to Holland Manners, the world doesn’t work in spite of evil—it works with it.

I think we disagree about whether or not they can coexist on a game, because a game is going to have more than one storyteller and a whole heck of a lot more points of focus than one insular cast, but to dismissively handwave away the differences is really weird to me.

I'm with you and Ark. I think they are VASTLY different shows with completely different tone and focus (and Buffy clearly had way better writing cough).

[Wizz]

@sunny

Just to be clear, I'm not against it being a Buffy game and I think ZG said pretty clearly earlier that that is his intention, as a GM he wants to tell Buffy-style stories. Ain't nothin' wrong with that. Personally I love both shows very dearly, even if I love them for different reasons.

I just wanted to make sure we cleared up early on, like @Apos said, what the game is about and what kind of atmosphere the game is going for. There're not a ton of things less fun than feeling like you are not coming into a gaming group with the right expectations.

[Ganymede]

@sunny said in Potential Buffy Game:

I feel like people who are not Buffy fans and are not interested in Buffy as a project (save in being invested that it's not another WoD game) are trying to turn it into something that it isn't.

Well, I did convince him to use Dayton as a venue.

I'll play there just for that.

[Sunny]

@ganymede

We'll end up on the same game again for the first time in eleventy billion years, amazing. We will have to play.

[Bad at Lurking]

Gamers are worse than strict constitutionists in their ability to nitpick and argue a thing until the soul of the thing is crushed under pedantic disagreement.

[Ganymede]

@bad-at-lurking said in Potential Buffy Game:

Gamers are worse than strict constitutionists in their ability to nitpick and argue a thing until the soul of the thing is crushed under pedantic disagreement.

They remain the highest court of law in the MUSHing hobby nonetheless.

[Wizz]

@bad-at-lurking said in Potential Buffy Game:

Gamers are worse than strict constitutionists in their ability to nitpick and argue a thing until the soul of the thing is crushed under pedantic disagreement.

[Quinn]

Dibs on playing Dawn.

[SunnyJ]

@bad-at-lurking Announcing games here before they are at least 90% formed is a death sentence. I wish less people did it.