Random GMC game brainstorming

[tragedyjones]

There are numerous ways to gain beats in GMC without needing to add any, though you could. Depending on splat, there are 4-5 ways east. Conditions, Aspirations, Damage, Dramatic Failure, Breaking Points. The core rules also implement a system for "automatic" XP in the end of session beats, which I feel is a fine way to justify at least a trickle of auto-xp.

As for staff intensiveness, I know Reno has a +beat command that players can use to submit for a job and it automatically awards them the requisite XP. I am sure @Cobaltasaurus is at least skilled enough to copy that.

[Cobalt]

@Ganymede

Re: Spheres--
I actually don't want to run a single + mortal(+) game, be it mage or anything else. My experience with single-sphere games is that they don't pick up traction. Now, maybe this would be different with mage, but I don't think so. You invariably get a handful of players who are at the start dedicated and are around-- and then drop off the face of the planet and the game languishes and dies. (This is what happened the first time I did DW: The Magening.)

Also, selfishly, I like a variety in what I can story tell. Mage is really great for a lot (abyssal non-sense, spirt-stuff, astral realms, and just plan magic). But I do like my hedge adventures, and I do like crazy vampire beast monsters (I love The Unholy).

This is just me personally, and if anyone else gets brilliant ideas for a mage + mortal(+) game from this discussion (PLEASE MAKE THE GAME, I would play).

@Arkandel @Glitch @Coin
RE - XP: The more I think about it the more I really like the idea of a certain amount of XP each week going to the 'player'. (Like the way ST'd scene beats go to a player, and you can +Xp/transfer them on Eldritch). ST'ing a scene would also go to player XP. Then you can have character specific XP that is earned through activity on the grid in the following ways:

• Participating in Events (1 or 2 beats, unsure)
• Aspirations (completing a short term, making progress toward a long term)
• Conditions (resolving or when a specific thing is met)
• Taking dramatic failures
• Any other way laid out in the GMCRC

@Ganymede, again!

RE: Social System / Influence. Ugh. I'm sure it works really well on RfK, but that doesn't sound like something I'd really enjoy. Either as a player or a staffer, but then I only enjoy "politics" with a small group. I don't enjoy running political games. : /

But re: Status, the merit.

I have a pretty crazy idea of doing like a country-wide consilium / praxis thing. Where the most status a PC can get to is status 3 (because 4 and 5 means you're working at the national level rather than the local). They'd be like a huge council or primogen/priscus council going on, and stuff -- I haven't slept so I've not got many more thoughts worked out from there. There would be 'local' mini-domains throughout the country, but everyone ultimately had to obey the laws of the Big Wigs Outside The Area. The setting could be somewhere close to like the Mage/Vampire-Capital that they could brush up against the national level problems, but far enough away that they aren't in the thick of it.

This idea wouldn't work very well for werewolf. But I think it's kinda eat for mage/vampire. Also frees up the issue of approving new pcs like "are you a member of the consilium? Are you new? I NEED YOU TO PRESENT YOUR PAPERS!" 'cause everyone would be a member of the consilium/praxis already.

@tragedyjones I am!

ETA: I'm up ~24hrs at this point, so like. Whatever typoes and incoherency is in this post is staying.

[Tempest]

I hate RfK's xp system, and I am baffled by the people complaining about auto-xp.

Why do you care? If you're some pillar of awesome that does "so much stuff!" and are the one true hero of MUing, out there generating all kinds of RP and are so much better than everybody else! You are still getting more xp, especially in a GMC system. So stop worrying about how Joe idles 6/7 days a week and has a decent level of XP. Jesus. Try to remember we're all here to have fun.

[Cobalt]

@Tempest said:
Try to remember we're all here to have fun.

Tangent: When my ex removed autoxp from gamma one because "people needed to earn xp" it meant that it was almost impossible to get xp because it was all +vote based, and I knew then that I would never run a game without some amount of autoxp.

[Tempest]

On the topic of alts, also. I'm kind of torn. I used to be heavily in the 'oh god, why does this game let people play 3 or 5 or infinity characters?' But, when I was like that...I was actively playing 3+ games, with 1-2 characters on each, so it didn't matter to me. Currently, I have characters on a number of games. Reno, Eldritch, some star wars game, a couple others. But almost all of my playtime goes to Reno, and as soon as Hunter opens, I will have 3 characters there, and will be active on all of them.

Back to the XP thing briefly, I have a ghoul PC on Eldritch, who has 30xp currently, and has done 2 scenes, ever. (Literally.) Is that really hurting anybody? I guess you could make the argument of 'oh what if I suddenly start playing her, befriend Joe, and proceed to help PK poor Jane with all my idle-accrued RP', I think that is such an outlier, unlikely to happen situation that you shouldn't base your XP policies around things like that. How often do we seriously see PK these days?

[Arkandel]

@Cobaltasaurus said:

But re: Status, the merit.

I have a pretty crazy idea of doing like a country-wide consilium / praxis thing. Where the most status a PC can get to is status 3 (because 4 and 5 means you're working at the national level rather than the local). They'd be like a huge council or primogen/priscus council going on, and stuff -- I haven't slept so I've not got many more thoughts worked out from there. There would be 'local' mini-domains throughout the country, but everyone ultimately had to obey the laws of the Big Wigs Outside The Area. The setting could be somewhere close to like the Mage/Vampire-Capital that they could brush up against the national level problems, but far enough away that they aren't in the thick of it.

This idea wouldn't work very well for werewolf. But I think it's kinda eat for mage/vampire. Also frees up the issue of approving new pcs like "are you a member of the consilium? Are you new? I NEED YOU TO PRESENT YOUR PAPERS!" 'cause everyone would be a member of the consilium/praxis already.

As you say, this works better in some spheres and worse in others. 'Status' unfortunately isn't even comparable to Renown (how other Uratha/blooded feel about you doesn't necessarily reflect on how the Lunes do) so it's hard to draw an equivalence there.

How are you thinking status is gained, for starters? Obviously (?) it can't merely be bought in this context since, well, 3 XP isn't exactly hard to come by. Hell, people would have it in CG. On top of it keeping track of achievement may be hard - at least without making people jump through loops (publishing logs, etc) which I openly despise. So the method staff needs to have to decide who's worth that rise in influence should be debated as well.

The big question about status, other than the above, is what it does. Giving extra access to RP could be a unique enough way - letting your PC go have an one-to-one chat with a legendary NPC for example, or small things to gain face such as being allowed to sit with the Prince rather than the rest of those peons during sphere-wide activities - but ultimately it'd still fall into staff's laps to do something with it, and staff at least traditionally are overworked as it is. Especially in such scenes. It's not always possible to throw those extra bones to the high status people.

A final observation: A scale of 1-3 is limiting in practical terms. It's almost binary - offering characters more 'steps' (i.e. making it 1-5 before you break to the national level thematically) might be preferable so there is gradual advancement without reaching the cap after only a couple of jumps up. It's the same thing on a smoother curve.

@Tempest said:

I hate RfK's xp system, and I am baffled by the people complaining about auto-xp.

Why do you care? If you're some pillar of awesome that does "so much stuff!" and are the one true hero of MUing, out there generating all kinds of RP and are so much better than everybody else! You are still getting more xp, especially in a GMC system. So stop worrying about how Joe idles 6/7 days a week and has a decent level of XP. Jesus. Try to remember we're all here to have fun.

You may be confusing debating with complaining. Just because a thing can be improved it doesn't mean we hate it. Conversely, it is possible to like a system and try to make it better.

It's also not personal. We don't only discuss ideas which benefit 'us' here (in fact I don't know that's applicable, since debatably a character's best interests don't align with their player's).

[Tempest]

@Arkandel said:

You may be confusing debating with complaining. Just because a thing can be improved it doesn't mean we hate it. Conversely, it is possible to like a system and try to make it better.

It's also not personal. We don't only discuss ideas which benefit 'us' here (in fact I don't know that's applicable, since debatably a character's best interests don't align with their player's).

Debating it seems to imply that you think auto-xp to all characters is bad and forcing people to do specific things to acquire xp would be better.

I mean, unless you're just debating for the hell of it, then rock on.

I understand limiting alts, and part of me is even a fan of it, really. I even understand aiming for a low XP game. But why allow alts and then go 'only 1 gets xp, or you have to pick where YOUR xp goes'. Seems to be moving the focus away from just letting people have fun and to some psuedo-justification-but-not-really-justification for having a high powered character.

ETA : Gany mentioned them earlier...and I know we've done this particular dance before, but... +reccs/+squees/+iloves/+whatevers are just no no no no

[Arkandel]

@Tempest I've actually have no idea what you're talking about here.

For instance the idea of awarding automatic XP to the player, rather than the character, was brought up at the same time we were discussing whether alts should be allowed or not. Its purpose was also brought up - since we were talking about status, which is by definition tied to IC achievements and activity, so those two were possibly two systems whose goals were at odds. We also looked at its inclusion in games using GMC with built-in ways to earn XP. Etc.

There are no sacred cows. Everything ought to be on the table for a discussion. You seem to be looking for ultirior motivation which is not there (the idea @Cobaltasaurus might be considering these things for some kind of personal gain makes me giggle).

[Cobalt]

@Arkandel said:

@Cobaltasaurus said:

But re: Status, the merit.

I have a pretty crazy idea of doing like a country-wide consilium / praxis thing. Where the most status a PC can get to is status 3 (because 4 and 5 means you're working at the national level rather than the local). They'd be like a huge council or primogen/priscus council going on, and stuff -- I haven't slept so I've not got many more thoughts worked out from there. There would be 'local' mini-domains throughout the country, but everyone ultimately had to obey the laws of the Big Wigs Outside The Area. The setting could be somewhere close to like the Mage/Vampire-Capital that they could brush up against the national level problems, but far enough away that they aren't in the thick of it.

This idea wouldn't work very well for werewolf. But I think it's kinda eat for mage/vampire. Also frees up the issue of approving new pcs like "are you a member of the consilium? Are you new? I NEED YOU TO PRESENT YOUR PAPERS!" 'cause everyone would be a member of the consilium/praxis already.

As you say, this works better in some spheres and worse in others. 'Status' unfortunately isn't even comparable to Renown (how other Uratha/blooded feel about you doesn't necessarily reflect on how the Lunes do) so it's hard to draw an equivalence there.

How are you thinking status is gained, for starters? Obviously (?) it can't merely be bought in this context since, well, 3 XP isn't exactly hard to come by. Hell, people would have it in CG. On top of it keeping track of achievement may be hard - at least without making people jump through loops (publishing logs, etc) which I openly despise. So the method staff needs to have to decide who's worth that rise in influence should be debated as well.

Typically I don't think people should pay XP for status. I don't think it should be something that's purchased but acquired through play. Especially since it's really subjective. If people think you're an idiot, you're not getting above status 1. If people are afraid of you? You might have status 3 depending on how afraid of you are they are. If people think you're really helpful but not very powerful? You might have status 2.

I know people hate it because it becomes a popularity contest but I think that status should be something voted on by other players, and probably NPCs. (e.g. you can use social dice against NPCs, or favors, and etc to get them to support your PC for status.)

The big question about status, other than the above, is what it does. Giving extra access to RP could be a unique enough way - letting your PC go have an one-to-one chat with a legendary NPC for example, or small things to gain face such as being allowed to sit with the Prince rather than the rest of those peons during sphere-wide activities - but ultimately it'd still fall into staff's laps to do something with it, and staff at least traditionally are overworked as it is. Especially in such scenes. It's not always possible to throw those extra bones to the high status people.

I have ideas about having fleshed out NPCs all with different 'special' things to them, and one or two assigned to different staffers to play on a semi-regular basis, but reporting back to the Head Storyteller. On what happened in those scenes, etc. At which point status could be used to gain influence with these NPCs, etc.

And as @tragedyjones mentioned status itself does have some built in benefits in GMC. It can be used to reduce other people's pools, and idk. I think you can use it in social situations when it comes to rolling. (I might make 'gracefully handling a social roll' as an incentive for a beat.)

A final observation: A scale of 1-3 is limiting in practical terms. It's almost binary - offering characters more 'steps' (i.e. making it 1-5 before you break to the national level thematically) might be preferable so there is gradual advancement without reaching the cap after only a couple of jumps up. It's the same thing on a smoother curve.

That kind of misses the point of what I'm proposing. Which is probably my fault for not being able to express it. The point is to have a small scale amount of status. If the max status you can acquire is status 3, then being at status 1 or status 2 isn't really that bad. The majority of characters stay at status 1 in games, as it is. Status 2 then becomes "pretty active/respective/whatever", and status 3 is "paragon of activity/respect/whatever". Status 4 and 5 reserved for NPCs, or PCs that are transitioning into NPCs / retirement / death / whatever.

[Arkandel]

@Cobaltasaurus said:

Typically I don't think people should pay XP for status. I don't think it should be something that's purchased but acquired through play. Especially since it's really subjective. If people think you're an idiot, you're not getting above status 1. If people are afraid of you? You might have status 3 depending on how afraid of you are they are. If people think you're really helpful but not very powerful? You might have status 2.

Oh, sorry, I should have explained it better. What I meant/was implying is that I didn't think people should be able to buy status at will with XP, especially since that cost is too low. It'd be yet another I'm-so-pretty merit like Striking Looks. I think there should be some form of oversight and maybe a limited number of who has high status - I mean not everyone can be extra super special influential!

I know people hate it because it becomes a popularity contest but I think that status should be something voted on by other players, and probably NPCs. (e.g. you can use social dice against NPCs, or favors, and etc to get them to support your PC for status.)

The process for how to vote (I assume you mean OOC, as not all status is decided democratically IC) probably warrants discussion on its own, but I agree it's a good way in general. Potential issue: clique wars.

That kind of misses the point of what I'm proposing. Which is probably my fault for not being able to express it. The point is to have a small scale amount of status. If the max status you can acquire is status 3, then being at status 1 or status 2 isn't really that bad. The majority of characters stay at status 1 in games, as it is. Status 2 then becomes "pretty active/respective/whatever", and status 3 is "paragon of activity/respect/whatever". Status 4 and 5 reserved for NPCs, or PCs that are transitioning into NPCs / retirement / death / whatever.

Alright, fair enough.

[Tempest]

You ate the sacred cow, didn't you?

The idea of "Player XP" being the only XP seems to just be punishing people for having multiple characters on your game. It's like a weird alt-cap-but-not-really. You can play a vampire and a mortal, but your mortal is doomed to never rise above CG level abilities unless you are willing to let your vampire get less XP than other vampires.

It kind of reminds me of the common rule on superhero games where you can play 2 Superpowered people and then 1 Lois Lane type character. And it really only flies there because the 'normal' people have incredibly deep hooks with the setting/various characters.

The idea of player XP is great for like how Eldritch is using it, IE as rewards for stuff like Storytelling.

[Cobalt]

@Arkandel said:

The process for how to vote (I assume you mean OOC, as not all status is decided democratically IC) probably warrants discussion on its own, but I agree it's a good way in general. Potential issue: clique wars.

I was actually pretty okay with how we did on HM in vampire. Idunno how well the players liked it but --

Everyone in the covenant/clan got a vote. Their status was the weight of their vote, and the votes had to come out into the positive to pass. (I might suggest adding it has to be in the positive by that level. e.g. you need +3 to gain status 3. But that might be an extra layer of unneeded stuff.)

So for example:

LoKey wants to go from Consilium Status 1 to Consilium Status 2. He gives his reasons -- they can be laid out in an OOC manner: "I organize and run a lot of events, I'm actively out and participating in things that are run, and do my best to share that plot with other people. I try to help integrate new PCs. LoKey is available for all new comers, gives important information, and runs X events every Y weeks/months".

L-la has Consilium Status 1, she votes yes (+1).
D00m has Consilium Status 2, he votes no (-2).

That puts LoKey's vote at -1. He needs to get at least +2 more in positive vote/status. He can try and get someone with status 2 to support him, or he can try and find a couple of status 1.

@Tempest said:

The idea of "Player XP" being the only XP seems to just be punishing people for having multiple characters on your game. It's like a weird alt-cap-but-not-really. You can play a vampire and a mortal, but your mortal is doomed to never rise above CG level abilities unless you are willing to let your vampire get less XP than other vampires.

???

My model was ST'd XP + Auto XP = Player XP.
Beats gained IC/through activity = Character Specific?

e.g. Everything you do on a character goes to that character. Things that are OOC go to you as a player, and you decide who it goes to.

[Tempest]

Sorry, I should have said only 'auto-XP'.

I personally don't like having to worry about "collecting beats". And I do not do it. I am pretty active on Reno (or so I like to think), and I think I've claimed like 2 beats in the past 4 months. And it's not like it'd be /hard/. If you actually cared, you could milk the aspiration system to death. The short-term examples are literally things like "get laid, get drunk, buy a coffee, get out of bed, meet a new person, go to work". You could throw in a long-term aspiration like 'gain status in the city' and then claim every interaction with any Kindred or mortal in town is slowly helping you do that. It's just a very meh time-waster for both players and staff to constantly be doing things like that.

Hell, half of those you could reasonably claim your character is doing off-screen, and should get beats for. Would anybody who currently staffs anywhere allow that?

Seems much easier for everybody to just award auto-xp to each character. Or implement an alt-cap.

[Arkandel]

@Cobaltasaurus said:

I was actually pretty okay with how we did on HM in vampire. Idunno how well the players liked it but --

Everyone in the covenant/clan got a vote. Their status was the weight of their vote, and the votes had to come out into the positive to pass. (I might suggest adding it has to be in the positive by that level. e.g. you need +3 to gain status 3. But that might be an extra layer of unneeded stuff.)

We need to distinguish on whether this is an IC vote or an OOC one.

If it's IC then existent status should apply, since obviously characters are throwing their weight around. But it's hard to reconcile this in some cases where there's a non-vote based system for growth as, say, the OD presents.

If it's OOC then what's the significance of using ICly weighted votes? Is the idea that more established players should be given more of a say in sphere affairs?

[Cobalt]

@Arkandel said:

Is the idea that more established players should be given more of a say in sphere affairs?

Yes. No. I don't know. Maybe?

I need to think about that a little bit. On the one hand, yes more established players should have some say, but on the other hand that doesn't seem very nice to newplayers.

[Arkandel]

@Tempest said:

I personally don't like having to worry about "collecting beats". And I do not do it.

I used to do the same thing on Eldritch at first. And even now I don't always remember to set aspirations beforehand so I miss out on XP I could be gaining.

But that's the game. I don't know if it's preferable to just ignore major mechanics, since Beats/Aspirations/etc are simply a major part of the system. What's the point of using it if we won't play under it?

[surreality]

I'm generally keen on the idea of 'player XP' as well that players can farm out as they choose, and have generally been pondering ways and means to go about it. The easiest and most obvious option is an OOC/ST login per player that's the 'catchall' for things in some fashion, while the PCs get a standardized mini-trickle, but that doesn't necessarily make it the best option. (I'm musing on this one for a thing destined to be dinky enough that it might make a decent test case.)

It would have the side benefit of encouraging people to register their alts privately with staff to have things hooked up properly in that regard even on a voluntary basis, which isn't a poor incentive on that particular front.

Conceptually it isn't too far removed from the 'tier XP' idea on TR, save for the fact that the 'tier' is open to everyone and attached (privately) to any of their alts they properly register with it and can be used as a socializing/newbie helper/OOC meeting attendee/ST login or whatever proves necessary as it is needed.

Added benefit could be something along the lines of 'can apply saved up XP to new chargen characters' if someone wants to start off as an older, or more experienced character without freezing one of their others to cull the XP; I'm a lot more comfortable with people earning the XP for this anyway, and this could do that. (As a replacement for transfer or in addition to or whatever else, worth considering the possibilities.)

'Can only apply up to X to any one character at any one time' is not an unreasonable consideration either, but a lot depends on what X is and what the game's other policies entail.

[Autumn]

@Cobaltasaurus said:

@Arkandel said:

Is the idea that more established players should be given more of a say in sphere affairs?

Yes. No. I don't know. Maybe?

I need to think about that a little bit. On the one hand, yes more established players should have some say, but on the other hand that doesn't seem very nice to newplayers.

Perhaps:

1. Limit the amount of extra say established players get relative to new players, and

2. Have a relatively liberal definition of "established players."

[Coin]

@Arkandel said:

@Cobaltasaurus said:

I was actually pretty okay with how we did on HM in vampire. Idunno how well the players liked it but --

Everyone in the covenant/clan got a vote. Their status was the weight of their vote, and the votes had to come out into the positive to pass. (I might suggest adding it has to be in the positive by that level. e.g. you need +3 to gain status 3. But that might be an extra layer of unneeded stuff.)

We need to distinguish on whether this is an IC vote or an OOC one.

If it's IC then existent status should apply, since obviously characters are throwing their weight around. But it's hard to reconcile this in some cases where there's a non-vote based system for growth as, say, the OD presents.

If it's OOC then what's the significance of using ICly weighted votes? Is the idea that more established players should be given more of a say in sphere affairs?

There's no reason why it can't be both. The collective decision-making of the sphere OOC can easily be taken to represent the collective IC environment/organization, if that's what you want.

[Bobotron]

@Arkandel

Status/Social Influence

The LARP version for Masquerade from By Night Studios has a lot of actual good shit done with status, because it's meant to be a heavily player-driven system. When people ask me about how to do status, I point them at that (and if you like, I can print out that section to a separate PDF and dropbox it for you).

Ultimately, Status there is named traits for recognition; however, it has mechanical teeth. Each Status Trait has a Passive and Active Benefit, and the Active Benefit is when you 'pull your weight' with that Status trait.

For example, the Status Trait Defender allows a character to carry weapons on restricted areas (passive) or acting in defense of the city you can mitigate portions of degeneration (active). The trait Honorable makes it so people who openly wish to insult you must use one of their status traits (passive) and you can make yourself remain in or join into a political scene you normally couldn't (active). It works really well in my experience with it, and could be adapted for most any setting easily.

In our LARP, people weave the words of using their Status into their roleplay and discussions, which also helps people declare when they're spending it. ('As an Honorable member of the court, I would prefer to remain while we discuss the Sabbat's impending raids...')

This ALSO applies to Negative Status, which has some interesting benefits that mimic how Vampire status is supposed to work. Warned, for example, socially enforces your fuckup; if you are Warned, you can't talk to an officer of your sect in public unless that person gives you permission or talks to you first, or contradict them when they give you permission (censure), though an officer has leeway to make other punishments (don't grow back that hand you numbnut). If you break the censure, you gain Disgraced. And so on up the chain, until you fuck up enough to get Forsaken (which is kciking you out of your social group and stripping you of your protections).

ETA: Here's the base Status that goes between sects; there is also specific status for Camarilla, Anarch and Sabbat that could be mined. I can print those too if you want. https://www.dropbox.com/s/1t3t1c455rcnlcw/METVtM Status.pdf?dl=0