Rewards in WoD

[TNP]

googles Eclipse Phase

Sure, something like that. Hmm. That looks interesting.

[Sunny]

Eclipse Phase is REALLY REALLY cool.

[Thenomain]

@Sunny said:

Eclipse Phase is REALLY REALLY cool eh.

Fixed.

Sorry, I think the concept of EP is interesting enough, but the game itself is like flossing with barbed wire.

[HelloRaptor]

@Arkandel said:

@HelloRaptor The hell is E6?

E6 is D&D stripped of its fun levels past 6, more or less.

It aims to do with D&D what was being discussed here re: WoD, where you're never more than one crit from a spear away from dying and a downgraded Cone of Cold is the most epic spellcasting you'll ever see.

[Olsson]

People keep saying they want 'low power' stuff and such, but has any such place really ever managed to attract people? The only one I can remember I have played that was like that was that mage game some year ago set in Scotland, Revelation or something.

Which well, didn't last long.

[HelloRaptor]

@Olsson
No. It ranks up there with the two dozen other ideas that a handful of forum posters jump on like hipsters on artisanal kale where they enthusiastically masturbate one another over what an awesome idea it is until it finally sinks in that the pool of people interested in playing that shit is essentially the people posting, plus or minus two people.

Other examples include:

• Games set anywhere further back than the middle ages (see: ancient Egypt, Babylon, Rome, etc).
• Games set during any kind of mass social upheavel where it would take a strong focus (slavery, suffrage, etc)
• Any example of "I'd like to run XYZ but using Fate instead of XYZ.", because fuck off.
• Promethean <insert absolutely anything here>.
• Games set anywhere that isn't predominantly US or Eurocentric. (You could maybe get away with Russia, as long as you accept that it'll be the more European sort regardless of whether you're setting it in the west or not, and that absolutely everything will be filtered through youtube videos of Russians engaging in completely insane shit all the time, sprinkled with a lot of 'In Soviet Russia...' stereotypes.)

There's more, but if you've been around a while you've probably seen them crop up. It's nice to have dreams, I guess, but the reality is that none of this shit is going to actually draw enough people to be even remotely self-sufficient or worth the time and effort it'd take to put it together.

[Coin]

Unless, of course, tons of people isn't the point and it's more like a large tabletop game where the small amount of people playing are having fun.

But no, that couldn't happen. Raptor thinks it's silly!

Thbbbbbt.

I'm sorry, theorycrafting is kind of fun for me. I didn't know everything had to have a solid, identifiable, realistic goal. Sometimes I just like to chat about what I would do if I did something, and never really do it. Gasp, right?

(And for the record: yes, I've seen small games with niche themes that have lasted upwards of a year. And a year, really, is a decent run for a small game; or any one instance of a hobby in which people are having a good time, especially now that we're not in our teens or laid-back twenties anymore.)

[Arkandel]

I agree with both of these fools.

@HelloRaptor is right (gah, it makes me feel dirty typing that) not because people lamenting about the evils of higher-powered characters are so few, but because they quote it as the reason something else's downfall. "TR's declining popularity is because XP was so readily available" is hilarious, for example, since giving players a liberal amount of it and allowing others to catch up is one the main reasons it's still standing.

And @Coin is correct in that if something floats people's boats... whatever, run it. You want an ultra-accurate depiction of Sisily in the wake of the Athenian invasion in 415 BC as seen through the eyes of its local Kindred? Nothing wrong with that. And occasional even successful games have tried non-US settings - HM comes to mind as it was set in Vienna, Germany.

[Ganymede]

@Coin said:

I'm sorry, theorycrafting is kind of fun for me. I didn't know everything had to have a solid, identifiable, realistic goal.

Setting novel policy should have an articulable goal in mind, over and above "wouldn't that be grand?"

Unlike Raptor, however, I don't agree that a greaser-game (my term) is a bad thing. And I don't agree that using the World of Darkness as a setting and system is a bad thing for such a game. If you make it clear what you're trying to do, people will come or they won't.

I think Kingsmouth does a decent job of ensuring some parity between PCs. They do this by altering the number of beats that you need for an experience; the more beats you accumulate, the more you need for an experience. Alternately, you could modify the cost of raises as you gather more experiences.

If you don't have a goal in mind, then you end up with The Reach, five years after it started.

[Olsson]

@Arkandel said:

And occasional even successful games have tried non-US settings - HM comes to mind as it was set in Vienna, Germany.

Vienna is in Austria.

Carry on.

[Coin]

@Ganymede said:

@Coin said:

I'm sorry, theorycrafting is kind of fun for me. I didn't know everything had to have a solid, identifiable, realistic goal.

Setting novel policy should have an articulable goal in mind, over and above "wouldn't that be grand?"

Setting it, sure; but we're not setting anything, we're liberally discussing "what ifs".

[Arkandel]

@Olsson said:

@Arkandel said:

And occasional even successful games have tried non-US settings - HM comes to mind as it was set in Vienna, Germany.

Vienna is in Austria.

Carry on.

What are you, some kinda factist?

[Coin]

@Arkandel said:

I agree with both of these fools.

@HelloRaptor is right (gah, it makes me feel dirty typing that) not because people lamenting about the evils of higher-powered characters are so few, but because they quote it as the reason something else's downfall. "TR's declining popularity is because XP was so readily available" is hilarious, for example, since giving players a liberal amount of it and allowing others to catch up is one the main reasons it's still standing.

And @Coin is correct in that if something floats people's boats... whatever, run it. You want an ultra-accurate depiction of Sisily in the wake of the Athenian invasion in 415 BC as seen through the eyes of its local Kindred? Nothing wrong with that. And occasional even successful games have tried non-US settings - HM comes to mind as it was set in Vienna, Austria.

I agree that TR's downfall was not necessarily the XP bloat, but rather what was done with it and the setting it was presented in (and not even that, really; TR's downfall, such as it was, was a whole shitload of different things, all interacting with each other). If you can even call it a 'downfall'.

[Ganymede]

@Coin said:

Setting it, sure; but we're not setting anything, we're liberally discussing "what ifs".

That's right, you are. But even politicians have a goal when they start discussing and proposing policies, even if that goal is "let's fuck up people we don't like!"

[Arkandel]

@Ganymede said:

I think Kingsmouth does a decent job of ensuring some parity between PCs. They do this by altering the number of beats that you need for an experience; the more beats you accumulate, the more you need for an experience. Alternately, you could modify the cost of raises as you gather more experiences.

See, I don't like that. It essentially sounds like what they're doing is take 2.0's removal of diminishing returns by making XP costs flat then reverting it by re-introducing a different method of diminishing returns.

Only, instead of doing that per stat (reflecting the fact, say, it takes a whole lot more time and effort to gain the training and experience for Medicine to go from 3->4 than it does from 1->2) they are doing it universally; but why would being very good at something mean you're having a much harder time learning the rudimentary basics of another?

[Ganymede]

@Arkandel said:

... but why would being very good at something mean you're having a much harder time learning the rudimentary basics of another?

I'm not sure what the official reason is, but I've always felt that the time I devoted and still devote to the practice of law makes me a better lawyer, but a crappy Call of Duty player.

[Arkandel]

@Ganymede Well, you might not have been a fantastic top ladder player since you're lawyering and that doesn't give you sufficient time to devote to perfecting your gaming, but you'd not have a demonstrably harder time in learning the basic controls, moving around, etc (which is what going from 0->1 would reflect).

However these diminishing returns don't differentiate in what dots you're increasing - which is something the previous system got right. They're across the board, and thus, a regression compared to 1.0 while not taking advantage of the simplicity 2.0 offers instead.

[Coin]

@Ganymede said:

@Coin said:

Setting it, sure; but we're not setting anything, we're liberally discussing "what ifs".

That's right, you are. But even politicians have a goal when they start discussing and proposing policies, even if that goal is "let's fuck up people we don't like!"

But I'm not a politician. My goal was "chat about what I would like if I did X, without necessarily diving deeply into it". Do you feel better now?

[Templari]

@Coin said:

I agree that TR's downfall

Thanks, now I want more TR Hitler Downfall Videos.

[Coin]

@Templari said:

@Coin said:

I agree that TR's downfall

Thanks, now I want more TR Hitler Downfall Videos.

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