Resource Scarcity System

iceshinagami

Three or four botched hunts in a month? Well that person might want to change the hunting style.
Granted I have only been on two mushes that had coded hunting, Kingsmouth and Darkmetal way back in the day.
Both documented what stats go into each hunting style so unless you are determined to do something you come up with botches don't come up often.
I understand some players do not like the resource management aspect of games, and while Vampire is the only game that you have it for survival it is baked into all the WoD games and serves as a limited factor to power level. Not a I can't do it limit but a is this worth using precious energy on. I think the loosening of that constraint is one reason Mage gets such a bad rep on mushes. When energy/ammo is effectively limit-less there is little disincentive to throw the biggest gun at every problem.
And if the resources from the source do not matter then what does the source? If I can be at fell blood whenever which is how most games handle it, then why work to maintain all herd or domain it has no real benefit.
I know on games where i have to do more to refresh fuel, I tend to me more careful about things and likely more in theme then those where it is type a command get stuff with no risk.

This, right here. That's why I was musing about this. Any game that lets you have unlimited energy pools , while that can be fun (i enjoy it!) Has that built in flaw as said above

lordbelh

@Arkandel said:

And if it's not there for RP but just a command (+feed <place>=<amount>) then what's the point? How is that entertaining?

I find that it influences the RP indirectly. The choices you make depend on your access to blood. You know you can't heal yourself all that easy if you go into Agg, you know you can't engage in a fight if you're low on blood, or just casually waste it on the Blush. Doing Blood Sorcery ca be a massive undertaking if you need that extra blood sacrifice to have a shot at success.

I find having to make all those adjustments entertaining. But that might just be me.

Thisnameistaken

I've played games with a coded +regain/hunt/whatever system, games with an auto-regain system, and games with a scene-required system. Personally, I prefer the coded but not automated system.

I dislike auto-regain because it doesn't take into account failed rolls. I dislike scene-required regain because it forces casual/limited time players to basically do nothing except regain scenes in order to stay alive, and that cuts into time that could be used for a lot of other fun things (many of which are just as thematic).

I agree with @lordbelh in that a coded (but not automated) system will cause most players to think twice about reckless spending. This is especially effective when there is a regaining roll limit, such as one roll per day. You can feel the pain and need to conserve without having to make every single scene a regaining scene.

Also, I like the idea of a scene bonus for dramatic failure at a regaining roll, but I think that regular regaining scenes should be treated by the same standards as any other scene/PrP when it comes to bonuses.

Just my two cents.

lordbelh

@Thisnameistaken I agree with most of what you say. I don't want to have to go into scenes to regain my blood. That will become onerous after a while; what rp time I have I want to dedicate to scenes that interest me. But just typing in a hunt roll takes 2 seconds. When you combine that with a limited supply of blood, and a limited amount of time to hunt, then it becomes meaningful but unintrusive. The last part is important.

Bobotron

@Arkandel
And that's where I'm torn. I would like to keep the baseline method for feeding and herd for the MUSH, I'm just not sure exactly what to do that's a good fit for MUSH (it's one of the few LARP rules that doesn't translate greatly)

Still pondering, but we shall see.

Arkandel

@Bobotron The suggestion I made ... somewhere in these forums a while ago was to go hybrid.

Allow a baseline automatic feeding, something very minimal. Say, 1 vitae/night for vampires - basically whatever it takes for them to break even if they do very little else than simply exist.

Then make resources very dependent on the kind of domain you have access to. That way it's not just the scenes themselves, it's the entire politics around maintaining something that's yours against others who want it, because it's actually useful.

That way if you actually want to spend 3-4 vitae to pump your pools and heal up that lethal damage you might need to make some deals, take some risks, or be proactive beforehand about having access to easier, safer pools of fresh blud.

Thisnameistaken

@lordbelh That's basically what I was getting at. People still experience the need to manage and question their expenditure choices while at the same time freeing people up to RP in a variety of scenes. Repetition gets boring.

Derp

@lordbelh said:

@Thisnameistaken I agree with most of what you say. I don't want to have to go into scenes to regain my blood. That will become onerous after a while; what rp time I have I want to dedicate to scenes that interest me.

But again, isn't this -exactly- the reason that you maintain a Herd/Domain/whatever? So that you don't have to go actively hunt the shit down all the time, and can devote your time to other things? I don't think a coded system that allows people to skip over this rather important and thematic bit is a good system, either. Sure, you might not get that fourteenth dot of discipline that you really want, but you can skip the hunting scenes to a degree. Seems like a fair trade.

Ganymede

@Derp said:

But again, isn't this -exactly- the reason that you maintain a Herd/Domain/whatever? So that you don't have to go actively hunt the shit down all the time, and can devote your time to other things? I don't think a coded system that allows people to skip over this rather important and thematic bit is a good system, either.

It isn't. This is my hold-up on Fallcoast's vampire sphere. I don't think it'll work without code changes, and without a dedicated coder, I don't know if I'll be the one heading it up.

Deleted

I think it'd be nice to just set up an old school encounters chart for Hunt rolls. If you succeed you get your blood.

If you fail, you roll a couple dice and refer to a chart. Something like....

2-3 - Attacked by Hunters.
3-6 - Something less bad than Hunters
7-12 - Nothing happens.
8-whatever - etcetera

It's not a hard fix for scarcity but it does make the actual hunting a bit more entertaining rather than just 'you roll dice and get blood and if you fail you roll again. And you still get blood.'