Twinking in RP MU*

[Thenomain]

@Bennie said:

@Thenomain agree to disagree.

I don't agree to disagree. I agree to points even if I disagree with the result. In your case. I find no benefit or truth in agreeing to disagree. I find your entire thesis to be off.

When people have things to do

Having something to engage your interest helps, but it isn't the cause. I've lacked things to do and refrained from PKing anyone. In fact, I've never PK'd anyone in my entire online-RP life.

Let me contrast @HelloRaptor, who has PK'd but it was always because of normal consequence or self-defense. That is, he was engaged but it happened anyway.

The problem is that people are jerks, not that jerks must be entertained else oh no! PKs!

I used to call this "The Technocracy Effect", mainly because Techno players wanted to play up the Supernatural Cops, not because they had to. Sure, they had nothing else from staff challenging them, but they sure as hell didn't have to go after PCs. It wasn't entirely antithematic, but it sure was a dick thing do to.

[ThatOneDude]

@Bennie I waited 4 months to PK someone... no screaming or yelling on my end. Just a lot of sad face when I figured out I wasted 4 months of my PCs time to not kill someone.

[surreality]

@Thenomain said:

I think, @surreality (& others), my question in response to those is: Whose responsibility is it that your character be useful in a scene? A lot of people take it upon themselves to make sure that their character is useful for the game, though they still want to role-play a character with different traits.

I think this is why you ultimately get two things: First, the people who cripple their socials and mentals for combat, then still play as if they have high social and mental stats (which is rightly called 'cheating', really). The second is 'we need ridiculous levels of XP' because people want not just to be able to do things, but to be able to do all the things, and do all the things well.

In today's PrP-Driven scenarios, where is there a place for a dwarf who works at Baskin Robbins and takes care of his invalid mother? Where in WoD does it tell you that it's okay for your Eternal Spring 2 (Heal Everyone) to be powered by a mere Medicine 2? Would your average Mu*er go to you, or go to Tammy Twinkery who tho her character concept is "flower girl" has Medicine 5?

I think the answer is actually simpler: if you can explain and justify the why, stat what you can effectively for what you want to be and what you want to do. To address @Bennie as well, there's nothing especially 'pure RPer' or 'pure Rules Lawyer' about it, from my perspective. It could be argued that the 'pure RPer' isn't bothering to flesh out their mental and social stats because 'I'm just going to RP that, not roll it' as much as the 'pure RPer' in the example would stat up the things they RP without dice and then have no points left over for physical stats, for instance. The 'pure Rules Lawyer' may argue that you can't RP being charming when you have manipulation 1 on your sheet as easily as they might insist that 'who cares how you got Manipulation 4, you totally need that to use PowerX really well, so buy it.' Most players are a mix of most of those things, really.

Use specialties, and use them a lot, if that healer flower girl's medical skills are not broad-based, but uniquely tied to that one permutation of 'medicine' that comes from using that power. It's a realistic reflection of the circumstance: she doesn't know All The Things about medicine, but she may know the ins-and-outs and conditionals of using that application of it like the back of her hand, and there's a way to reflect this in the stats without needing medicine 5/intelligence 5. When there's a mechanism to do this that doesn't require the huge core stats, it also means there's less XP required to effectively create that more realistic character build. On games that don't allow or limit spec stacking, you'll see more XP bloat desired because the stats have to go up instead; sadly you can't exactly put it in place later in the game once the bloat occurs, because then people will just do both to an unintended extreme.

Also, the 'bestest baker of cakes' (old example that serves well in this case) might suck in a fight, but their skills are, realistically speaking, survival skills in an abstract sense. When you see a zombie going after that guy who made you the best birthday cake ever vs. a random stranger, you're probably going to remember that chocolately goodness and come to the baker's aid faster. Weird, roundabout, but still realistic in that on some level, we're selfish creatures: we like baker dude more than we like random stranger. (Swap out 'somebody we're screwing' for the baker, and it becomes more obvious, it just needn't be the actual case.)

Also, if going for a 'less obviously useful' character type: if you're going to show up for a plot that doesn't involve your specific skills, you must think creatively. 'I'm going to gun the engine and ram it with my car', 'While they investigate the trap in the tomb, I'm going to see if there are spirits in the area and ask them if they've seen anything strange or know how to disarm the traps', etc. Sometimes, there's not a lot you can effectively do. Sometimes, 'run away' is a real option! It's entirely valid. It adds story to the scene if nothing else, and while some folks won't enjoy that, others will. Just let the ST know in advance, if they're limiting player quantity in the scene especially: "I'm not a fighter, Joe the Baker might just run for it if it looks too hairy, but I'd like to be there to become involved with the plot this scene is a part of in whatever way I can, even if that means having seen what horrors my buddies faced and making them a good meal after the fight to get their strength back up and talk with them about what happened as everyone gathers their thoughts after the conflict." Depending on the game, that can be a real niche for a character to fill.

I have no answer, but the waters are very muddy, and the games we play tend to force us to have the maximum stat for our power stat possible. Maybe if WoD wasn't designed to do that, or if we didn't have XP coming out of the ground in fountains.

My general impression is that the scale is not quite what or where it was intended to be. While I'm the worst person to comment on anybody else's math, HR's point about what WW pegs as their 'professional' level of a skill (3) always seemed off to me, generally for the reason cited: the chances of success at that 'professional' level wouldn't keep an actual professional in their job for very long in the real world. I'd call 3 'apprentice', 4 'professional', and 5 'expert' -- but that's just me. It's a small scale that needs to cover a very broad range, which in itself is difficult and limiting.

[Thenomain]

@surreality

First, the people who cripple their socials and mentals for combat, then still play as if they have high social and mental stats

But what do you do about this? You are on the cusp of recommending open sheets, or sheet summaries. I'm all for a sheet summary being visible: This person has Very High physicals, this person has Low socials, et al., but a Mu* by necessity self-polices. Yet we have no self-policing tools. Why not?

The second is 'we need ridiculous levels of XP' because people want not just to be able to do things, but to be able to do all the things, and do all the things well.

This is half the reason you play an RPG. If the RPG didn't want you to do this, it wouldn't make it so easy. Having no advancement barriers means WoD encourages this.

Actually, this is not true. WoD has one advancement barrier: You get 1-3 XP per session, plus more if you were extremely active or created a certain amount of chaos (dramatic failures) or played up your character to the hilt (conditions, aspects, so on).

On average, WoD gives you 1-3 XP per session.

WoD used to have a second advancement barrier: Decreasing returns on investment. GMC removes this.

Again, what do we do? Almost all of this is cultural to Mu*ers. I think the most important thing is that we're aware of it, that we encourage the "character first" mentality you're espousing, Sess, and kindly dissuade the "game mechanics first". WoD is not designed for the latter. It says it's not designed for the latter. It's said it's not designed for the latter since the first printing of the first Vampire book.

Maybe it's just less fun to follow some of those rules.

[JinShei]

@Thenomain said:

@surreality

First, the people who cripple their socials and mentals for combat, then still play as if they have high social and mental stats

But what do you do about this? You are on the cusp of recommending open sheets, or sheet summaries. I'm all for a sheet summary being visible: This person has Very High physicals, this person has Low socials, et al., but a Mu* by necessity self-polices. Y

We have open sheets on Darkspires. Seems to work well, and it helps players use the strengths of the fate system - less powergaming, more cooperative play, where losing can be amusing.

[Thenomain]

Yeah, @JinShei, but you're using Fate Core, a fairly simple system that has some internal checks that prevents people from, e.g., putting everything at 5/Excellent. To be good at something, you have to give up something.

[Chime]

@Thenomain said:

Yeah, @JinShei, but you're using Fate Core, a fairly simple system that has some internal checks that prevents people from, e.g., putting everything at 5/Excellent. To be good at something, you have to give up something.

So hopefully we'll start to see more people using Fate instead?

[surreality]

@Thenomain said:

Again, what do we do? Almost all of this is cultural to Mu*ers. I think the most important thing is that we're aware of it, that we encourage the "character first" mentality you're espousing, Sess, and kindly dissuade the "game mechanics first". WoD is not designed for the latter. It says it's not designed for the latter. It's said it's not designed for the latter since the first printing of the first Vampire book.

Maybe it's just less fun to follow some of those rules.

I would say yes and no on this one. The game also steers people very hard to combat-centric characters, or at least those very capable of violence in some form.

Even things like crafters for mystical objects? The 'best' or most potent sources of power for them, thematically, in WoD are all tied to violence and negativity, even if it doesn't necessarily make sense for the object itself. (Not all objects are weapons, after all -- you're going to get a magic healing widget powered up in theme faster from some relatively mundane horror show than you are from the surgeon's kit that saved thousands of lives in a crisis.) It's a built-in bit of conceptual railroading, from my perspective, in ways 'it's a dark world' doesn't cover well enough to pass a laugh test; one would imagine that the most powerful lights in a dark world would have equal strength (if not greater, being so rare) but thematically, they do not and cannot.

To even make a character focused in those areas, you either need to be a badass yourself, or surround yourself with them to get those things for you. It skews things up somewhat, to say the least.

[JinShei]

@Chime said:

@Thenomain said:

Yeah, @JinShei, but you're using Fate Core, a fairly simple system that has some internal checks that prevents people from, e.g., putting everything at 5/Excellent. To be good at something, you have to give up something.

So hopefully we'll start to see more people using Fate instead?

We've had a number of people ask for code base for it so I hope so

We're using Dresden Files RPG, but I'm waiting on the DF core to come out, to review and consider it.

[Ganymede]

@Wretched said:

Then there are the folks that have the stats but don't actually play them. I'm talking to you every Str 5 waif out there. Under 5 Foot with Maxxed physicals and the scrawniest PB in the world, really?

And ninjamau5 is still a glass cannon, correspondingly.

[Wretched]

@Ganymede said:

And ninjamau5 is still a glass cannon, correspondingly.

And a pain in the taint.

[Biggles]

@surreality said:

Even things like crafters for mystical objects? The 'best' or most potent sources of power for them, thematically, in WoD are all tied to violence and negativity, even if it doesn't necessarily make sense for the object itself. (Not all objects are weapons, after all -- you're going to get a magic healing widget powered up in theme faster from some relatively mundane horror show than you are from the surgeon's kit that saved thousands of lives in a crisis.) It's a built-in bit of conceptual railroading, from my perspective, in ways 'it's a dark world' doesn't cover well enough to pass a laugh test; one would imagine that the most powerful lights in a dark world would have equal strength (if not greater, being so rare) but thematically, they do not and cannot.

I am going to disagree, not because you're wrong, because I do indeed believe that a lot of ST's and Staff will railroad people into combat plots because they're 'easier' to evaluate and plan for.

Plus, a combat scene is probably one of the easiest things one can run from an ST point of view. I won't name names, but there is one person on TR that runs nothing but combat scenes, often these scenes end up being a page or two long, and they do this because it is a quick way to net themselves 2xp a pop. But that's a whole other kettle of fish.

But where I disagree is that it doesn't have to be that way. My argument would be, you're running with what TR has created as the status quo, for PrP's. There are plenty of other ways one can advance, gain an item, explore, solve puzzles, etc. The ST just has to be more involved. To be honest, if tomorrow TR said, no more XP for combat scenes, you may find that the shift would happen naturally.

Or all PrP's would ceases to exist... one or the other.

[Darinelle]

I hate running combat-only scenes. I've run one on TR and it turned into a nightmare of agony and despair. I was so mad at the end of it, I basically washed my hands of the whole nightmare and didn't do it again.

Which isn't to say I've not run with combat in scenes? But combat-only scenes can go fuck themselves sideways.

[Biggles]

@surreality said:

Sometimes, there's not a lot you can effectively do. Sometimes, 'run away' is a real option! It's entirely valid. It adds story to the scene if nothing else, and while some folks won't enjoy that, others will.

This needed to be bold for emphasis. A friend and I just joined a new mush, and the intro scene consisted of us helping an already established player run away. They weren't combat oriented, and they chose to run away as the only sane thing their character could do. But they were crippled and it was more of a hobble, which then turned the scene into a beautiful chase/run to save your lives and theirs and it turned into one of the most exciting and enjoyable scenes I've done in a long time.

So yes, even running away can be awesome!

[Darinelle]

Brave, brave, brave Sir Robin....

[Coin]

On the topic of running away.

[Jennkryst]

I'm the weird player that min-maxes her XP, rather than +sheet effectiveness, which is really more an issue with decreasing returns.

I would have no problem with decreasing returns/scaled XP costs, if the chargen itself wasn't linear. You can put all four dots into one skill (making them 30 XP total), or you can spread them across 4 separate skills (making them 12 XP total).

This happens with everything. Everything

Be they attributes, supernatural powers, merits... it is universally cheaper to just buy values at higher ranks. It leaves your character a bit one-sided out of chargen, but it gives them, not only a mechanical benefit to their chosen skill, but also an effective 18 extra XP over people who make something more believable.

In short, I think GMC did the complete wrong decision. Scaling XP costs should have remained, and players should have been given a pile of XP, had their attributes set at 1, their skills set at 0, and had free reign over where their points should be spent.

[Misadventure]

This post is deleted!

[Bennie]

I don't see the difference, truthfully. Whether you are given 85 and 0 in all 3 categories, and told to go forth and be fruitful. Or whether you are given a spread. I kind of lean towards the fact that you could certainly make a more compelling specialist, if you could forego having to take things like Athletics and Survival on your doctor with a terrible bedside manner who is a fantastic neurosurgeon in residence. Why do I want to jog? I want to be fat with 20 dots in Mentals dammit.

[Jennkryst]

It's not to say that twinking will not happen. Because it will. They will find a way.

What I mean to say is, don't reward it with that bonus 18 XP. Reward the people who want to be generalists. While the twink will take one skill at four, let the generalist take ten skills at one, instead of only four skills. Wasn't the reason behind 'book chargen, plus some more XP' to help round out characters, because book chargen is so tricksy?

See also: the vampire who takes 3 dots in a clan discipline (30 XP) vs another who spreads them out (15 XP if all in-clan, 17 if the third dot is out-of-clan). I did the math for this for the lolz when I was making a vampire, and it became very un-lolz-y when I finished chargen.

Edits: I cannot math tonight. Or word.