Rewards in WoD

[HelloRaptor]

@Coin said:

@HelloRaptor said:

@Coin

As a staffer, I don't necessarily look for "shooting yourself in the foot". But I do look for, for example, Attribute+Skill combinations that seem hinky and that, when I look at the person's sheet, are the two stats they have at 5, whereas more logical/easily explained combinations would net them a significantly smaller benefit.

This might be more palatable to folks if white wolf/onyx path didn't so frequently abandon anything resembling logic when it came to coming up with many of the dice pools they do.

I don't really see that as a reason not to be discerning myself, and can't possibly give a single fuck less than I do if people's reason for shitty design is "it's shitty in the books, too". That is a horrible excuse.

Cool? Good for you? Rah, rah @Coin? My point was more that there's a lot of ways to look at some shit, and 'most logical' isn't the only one. Presumably whoever decided on Attr+Skill for this or that had some reason for doing so that made sense to them, even if it wasn't the most obvious choice, so weighing what you think makes the most logical, easily explained combination rather than just requiring them to explain why they chose what they did, just makes you an asshole not necessarily a diligent staffer.

That there are some other assholes out there who can't come up with a reason other than 'My Stat X is higher than my Stat Y.' doesn't really change that.

[Coin]

@HelloRaptor said:

@Coin said:

@HelloRaptor said:

@Coin

As a staffer, I don't necessarily look for "shooting yourself in the foot". But I do look for, for example, Attribute+Skill combinations that seem hinky and that, when I look at the person's sheet, are the two stats they have at 5, whereas more logical/easily explained combinations would net them a significantly smaller benefit.

This might be more palatable to folks if white wolf/onyx path didn't so frequently abandon anything resembling logic when it came to coming up with many of the dice pools they do.

I don't really see that as a reason not to be discerning myself, and can't possibly give a single fuck less than I do if people's reason for shitty design is "it's shitty in the books, too". That is a horrible excuse.

Cool? Good for you? Rah, rah @Coin? My point was more that there's a lot of ways to look at some shit, and 'most logical' isn't the only one. Presumably whoever decided on Attr+Skill for this or that had some reason for doing so that made sense to them, even if it wasn't the most obvious choice, so weighing what you think makes the most logical, easily explained combination rather than just requiring them to explain why they chose what they did, just makes you an asshole not necessarily a diligent staffer.

That there are some other assholes out there who can't come up with a reason other than 'My Stat X is higher than my Stat Y.' doesn't really change that.

I never said I don't talk to people about it and see where they're coming from, that was an assumption you made. My point was more that as staff, when approving custom stuff that's going to be available for everyone, my inclination is to go with the most logical and consistent choice in those instances because it shouldn't be designed with just one person in mind.

[Arkandel]

@Derp said:

@Coin said:

Demon and Werewolf both support a lot of custom shit via Fetish and Gadgets, too.

Everyone always goes for the magic items. Lulz.

Speaking for myself, it's awkward to apply for magical items. I'm never sure what a consistent way to look at their effects and relative power levels is, or if something is too much - or too weak - for the dots it costs. And bonus points to people who want their stuff to be unique and detest anyone making similar things, although the number of things a splash often wants or its powers which can be replicated are all drawn from a rather shallow pool, of course.

Perhaps if games posted an item-crafting guide with actual in-game examples of some Fetishes/Gadgets/whatevers for players to know where staff draw their lines and what is considered fair.

In fact that's a peeve for any kind of custom content. The player-made Legacies on TR at some point were a terror with some of the most powerful spells picked as reflexive, free Paradox-free effects (and that's Mage, so they were really potent). So after they got them, campaigned for the Legacies to remain exclusive to them alone. Grumble.

[Tempest]

As somebody who's never really dived into all of the WoD, magic items kind of aggravate me. In part because I don't understand them really, and in part because my only experience with them was on The Reach, and they all seemed to revolve around just giving more dots/bonuses to rolls. And there are already enough ways to stack rolls without 'magic relics' that give +5 to brawl or whatever.

[Arkandel]

@Tempest said:

... and they all seemed to revolve around just giving more dots/bonuses to rolls. And there are already enough ways to stack rolls without 'magic relics' that give +5 to brawl or whatever.

There are two ways to see this.

One is to correctly say that people use magical items to twink. Sometimes (often) it's for combat but really, it can be just about anything.

The other is to assess it as part of the game's balance - a built in advantage. Some spheres - like Demon - have glaring holes in their capabilities and Gadgets can help patch them... for a price. Other sphere, such as Vampire, have very little if any item-crafting in general by design.

Now, they have been practices which truly cross the line from cheesy to downright cheating. A common example includes people making magical items, paying the XP costs from throwaway characters then handing them out to their friends (with whom they play as their 'real' PCs).

Otherwise your peeve is a valid one and I agree with it - and think that, as long as staff is willing to deal with it on a game-wide basis, it should work. The problem is usually that one or two people begin a practice and create an arms race. That's why transparency is needed by listing (at least samples if not all) existent items; not only does that ensure consistency but it makes it easier to catch the most blatant exceptions.

[Tempest]

Even though it makes sense to allow it, I do not at all think anybody besides the owner/user of a relic should be able to pay the xp cost for it. And no, they can not lend it to a friend for a little bit (coughforevercough). That's one glaring flaw that is easily fixed, even though I imagine it'd spawn whining. Throw in some BS houserule about the XP spend representing the artifact 'attuning' to the user or something.

[Coin]

@Tempest said:

Even though it makes sense to allow it, I do not at all think anybody besides the owner/user of a relic should be able to pay the xp cost for it. And no, they can not lend it to a friend for a little bit (coughforevercough). That's one glaring flaw that is easily fixed, even though I imagine it'd spawn whining. Throw in some BS houserule about the XP spend representing the artifact 'attuning' to the user or something.

I need to actually finish writing the guidelines for this stuff on Eldritch, but essentially, if you give someone else an item, they have to spend XP for it, yes.

[HelloRaptor]

@Arkandel

A common example includes people making magical items, paying the XP costs from throwaway characters then handing them out to their friends (with whom they play as their 'real' PCs).

While this was brought up as a doomsday scenario, I was unaware of anyone actually doing this, at least while I was handling relics. Who actually did it?

@Coin

I need to actually finish writing the guidelines for this stuff on Eldritch, but essentially, if you give someone else an item, they have to spend XP for it, yes.

As long as the first person gets their xp back, I guess, under sanctity of merits or whatever. Double dipping is pretty lame.

@Tempest

That's one glaring flaw that is easily fixed, even though I imagine it'd spawn whining. Throw in some BS houserule about the XP spend representing the artifact 'attuning' to the user or something.

Or you could just not worry about it. You don't really see people scrambling to fix the zomgsoglaring cheatery (sarcasm, yes) of one person with Resources buying a gun and giving it to someone without. Or staff telling them they can't because the recipient doesn't have the Resources to purchase it themselves.

In my experience it was a lot of concern over very little actual problem. There wasn't some vast underground market of throwaway item creators who never roleplayed, just churning out stuff to their alts, or even for other peoples alts until they ran low on XP and recycled over to a new item creator char with a fresh start (and xp catchup), which was the doomsday scenario proposed that somehow never materialized.

[Arkandel]

@HelloRaptor I'm not aware of it happening on TR. It did on HM (I remember people freaking out in the VampSphere about some Mage who was handing theirs out to Sleewalkers attached to bloodsuckers - but don't ask for names, it's been too long).

[HelloRaptor]

@Arkandel said:

@HelloRaptor I'm not aware of it happening on TR. It did on HM (I remember people freaking out in the VampSphere about some Mage who was handing theirs out to Sleewalkers attached to bloodsuckers - but don't ask for names, it's been too long).

I'm generally of the opinion that a couple of assholes shouldn't ruin it for everybody else, no matter how often that seems to be the case. >_>

[Derp]

@Arkandel said:

The player-made Legacies on TR at some point were a terror with some of the most powerful spells picked as reflexive, free Paradox-free effects (and that's Mage, so they were really potent). So after they got them, campaigned for the Legacies to remain exclusive to them alone. Grumble.

I would laugh at them. The rules themselves don't support it. Someone else can come and make that very same legacy at +1 Gnosis costs, just like they did. IF they teach it to someone, that's a different story and they can buy at at the regular gnosis costs. Either way, there is no such thing as a legacy that can't be gained by someone else, ever, if they're willing to sink all that xp into it and wait longer for it.

[HelloRaptor]

@Arkandel

The player-made Legacies on TR at some point Legacies straight out of the books were a terror with some of the most powerful spells picked as reflexive, free Paradox-free effects (and that's Mage, so they were really potent).

Fixed that for you. As somebody who had a Legacy that routinely got whined about by some folks, this is a pretty bullshit complaint. While I realize your literal phrasing is just stating that they were potent, it's an echo of a common complaint.

Given that the books include Legacies that let you do shit like sit in your rocking chair on your porch while engaging in paradox-free transmutation of energy and matter on a large scale at a range of twenty-one miles while perfectly seeing across the entire distance, oh and you can also teleport anywhere in that range, or ones that give free reflexive teleportation, or a host of other truly crazy shit, I didn't see anything (in mine or others) custom Legacies that even reached the bar for Legacies, let alone raised it.

So after they got them, campaigned for the Legacies to remain exclusive to them alone.

I can't speak for others, but my character developed his Legacy in game. He was literally the only person with that Legacy. I was not adverse to inducting other Thyrsus into it, but it was not a Legacy that existed 'out in the wild'. There was even a note saying as much included in the job submission for the writeup that went on the wiki, which was approved, staff just screwed up when they were formatting it for the wiki and didn't copy anything below a certain point, and then other staff let somebody else start with it without even looking into it. A simple glance at my +notes would have shown I was picking it up at the +1 Gnosis requirement that meant it wasn't picked up elsewhere.

@Derp

Someone else can come and make that very same legacy at +1 Gnosis costs, just like they did.

While this is true on a purely technical level, as a staffer I'd probably look at it with a pretty critical eye if someone tried to do that. There are Legacies that are explicitely never taught to anyone outside of a particular group, which make a point of what 'carefully guarded secrets' they have, and others that are noted to only be possible through learning them from a particular item or by exposure to blah blah blah entity. All of which becomes moot if you can just exactly duplicate another Legacy because your player thinks that shit is cool. Even if it does cost you more.

I wouldn't flat out say no, mind, but I'd probably ask that they change some shit up rather than just duplicating an IC Legacy (especially one they had no real insight into IC) word for word because they OOCly saw something they liked.

[Misadventure]

PCs are always special, I thought?

[HelloRaptor]

@Misadventure said:

PCs are always special, I thought?

Like most rules of thumb, that doesn't need to get applied completely without any sense of restraint. As I said:

I wouldn't flat out say no, mind, but I'd probably ask that they change some shit up rather than just duplicating an IC Legacy (especially one they had no real insight into IC) word for word because they OOCly saw something they liked.

[Derp]

@HelloRaptor said:

There are Legacies that are explicitely never taught to anyone outside of a particular group, which make a point of what 'carefully guarded secrets' they have, and others that are noted to only be possible through learning them from a particular item or by exposure to blah blah blah entity. All of which becomes moot if you can just exactly duplicate another Legacy because your player thinks that shit is cool. Even if it does cost you more.

Potentially true in the fluff of the writeup, but not true according to the base rules of the game. Other than what was already mentioned above, teaching a legacy to someone that shouldn't have it costs you a dot of status. Secrets don't tend to stay secret for long in mage. It's one of the things the whole game is based around. They're the Anti-Demon.

So you looking at it with a critical eye is fine, but asking them to change something that there are already mechanics for in not one but two different ways is sort of lame.

[HelloRaptor]

@Derp
Does it actually explicitly call out being able to exactly copy another Legacy, one you can't get inducted into, as a thing? Or are you just extrapolating from the rules on creating your own Legacy technically allowing you to?

I acknowledged that the latter was true, but I don't recall seeing the former. It's been a long time since I looked at it. And like I said, I wouldn't say no to getting something very much like it, but I'd feel a direct copy on an OOC level would just be a type of cheese I'd find unpalatable.

I do get where you're coming from, though. I feel much the same way about people coming up with 'secret' spells that they then want to pitch fits about other people 'coming up with' via creative thaumaturgy. I can see not wanting them to be able to buy a rote you came up with if they don't have the means of making that rote themselves, but spellcasting is basically just clever ideas, and you don't have a patent on clever ideas.

[Derp]

@HelloRaptor

Well, it says any legacy that you don't meet the restrictions for you can be taught anyway, your teacher just loses a dot of status with whatever group is keeping it exclusive to themselves. I mean, technically, every legacy is exclusive to something, path, order, subgroup. Something. So there is no such thing as not being able to be inducted into a legacy if you find a teacher that's willing to teach you. The requirements listed in the legacy are just those that they commonly look for (i.e., the ones that a teacher won't take a status hit for teaching).

Edit to Add: There are also, if memory serves, examples of people having a legacy that they otherwise wouldn't meet the requirements for but developed themselves (which is how many of your offshoot legacies get formed in the first place), but I can't remember where I saw that in.

[HelloRaptor]

@Derp said:

@HelloRaptor

Well, it says any legacy that you don't meet the restrictions for you can be taught anyway, your teacher just loses a dot of status with whatever group is keeping it exclusive to themselves. I mean, technically, every legacy is exclusive to something, path, order, subgroup. Something. So there is no such thing as not being able to be inducted into a legacy if you find a teacher that's willing to teach you. The requirements listed in the legacy are just those that they commonly look for (i.e., the ones that a teacher won't take a status hit for teaching).

I think you misinterpreted what I was asking. I'm not talking about someone teaching you a Legacy you don't have the Path/Order/whatever for, I'm talking about:

Bob's player wants Bob to be a Legacy Superdude, but the only Legacy Superdude is Dude himself. Dude is unwilling to induct/teach Bob his Legacy, so Bob is out of luck.

Technically Bob doesn't need shit from Dude, because by the technical reading of the Legacy creation rules, Bob can create a Legacy of his very own, and because there's no rules against it, it could just duplicate Dude's Legacy in every possible way, except that the Gnosis requirements would be one higher. Bonus points if Bob-the-character doesn't even know the exact specifics of Dude's Legacy and the copypasta is 100% purely OOC and Bob is just ICly lucking into it.

Despite technically correct being the best kind of correct, I'd still frown at somebody doing that.

Edit: Your previous post seemed to indicate that doing that was not only technically possible, but mentioned in the books as a thing-that-gets-done-no-big-deal, and I didn't recall seeing that be the case.

[Derp]

@HelloRaptor

There are ways of determining what someone's legacy is all about. I don't remember what the exact specifics of that are, but it has something to do with Soul Marks. Other than that, though, a legacy is just soulshaping with a specific purpose in mind, so just because Bob and Superdude shape their souls in the same way doesn't really amount to much. Superdude might have been taught his legacy, or come up with it on his own, but either way, one mage figured it out through whatever patterns of arcane ritual and introspection they do, and so could another.

I get what you're saying. It's just irrelevant. One mage did it. That means that another mage can do it too. If one mage wants to become a Tremere Lich and doesn't have a teacher, he could go and torture some poor vampire just like the very first ones did.

Especially since the Orders all teach a generally codified method of magical technique and examination, which gets disseminated across generations and countries, oceans, etc.

So while it might seem cheese to you, that doesn't make it an invalid method of doing it. If you wanna talk about lucking into it, shit, Fate 2 would let you 'luck into it'. It's -magic-.

[HelloRaptor]

@Derp
I guess if somebody wanted to go through the effort to figure out exactly what the soul marks (or whatever) are, exactly what they did to get their Legacy, and ICly try to deliberately duplicate every last exacting detail the way someone else did it, more power to them.

I usually encounter it more as an OOC matter of Bob's player wanting XYZ and so handwavium applied, Bob does some nebulous shit and just happens to come up with that exact stuff, because he happened to OOCly see the writeup. More specifically, they don't want to ICly 'copy' anybody, so the idea of doing any of the above would probably put them off way more than just asking them to come up with a variation on the same.