Game Idea

[Coin]

@ShelBeast said:

I'll say that I've been on Reno for almost a year or so now, and my sheet looks nowhere NEAR that example, at 2xp a week. My character is strong, but there's simply no way that I could have afforded to buy as much as the sheet presented had. Is this showing the effects of the 2XP for PRPS a week, in addition to the 2xp a week flat base? Otherwise I'm inclined to call shenanigans.

You can call all the shenanigans you want, but @surreality actually went through all the characters at one point and did the rartio math of percentage regarding how much of each character's XP was from autofgains and how much from PRPs, and the latter was a pittance compared to the former in even the most active of people.

Regardless, it's simple math. If the accepted conversion rate of Xp from nWoD to CofD is about 5:1 XP, then 2 experience every week amount to 104 experience per year, which multiplied by 5 nets you 520 nWoD XP. Depending on how you spend it, this makes CofD experiences much more valuable, too. For example, the higher you go on a single Merit, the more you're economizing, whereas if you have a lot of low-level Merits, you're not getting as much bang for your buck as with the older XP system.

In any case, I'm sure @surreality has her math tucked away on a spreadsheet somewhere. We'll wait.

[Ganymede]

@ShelBeast said:

I'll say that I've been on Reno for almost a year or so now, and my sheet looks nowhere NEAR that example, at 2xp a week. My character is strong, but there's simply no way that I could have afforded to buy as much as the sheet presented had. Is this showing the effects of the 2XP for PRPS a week, in addition to the 2xp a week flat base? Otherwise I'm inclined to call shenanigans.

It's not shenanigans; it's just someone who's planning on focusing their XP spends in a place where there are no limitations to what you can raise (just a limitation on how quickly).

Remember: CoD is a linear XP progression system, not an exponential one. It is a feature, not a bug, and one that I have already griped about ad nauseam. Simply, 50 XP can result in a beast of a PC to start with, unless you implement caps.

Eldritch's system works well. On Reno, we are capping weekly XP gain via code. XP gained via Aspirations or PRPs is not capped. So, basically, once you're over a threshold, the weekly XP gain shuts off, unless we decide to raise the caps.

[ShelBeast]

@Ganymede said:

Eldritch's system works well. On Reno, we are capping weekly XP gain via code. XP gained via Aspirations or PRPs is not capped. So, basically, once you're over a threshold, the weekly XP gain shuts off, unless we decide to raise the caps.

What was Eldritch's system? And I thought that XP from PRPs was capped at 2 a week, as well, and Aspirations were removed?

[Taika]

One of the things I'm trying to keep in mind, since I don't have a coder is: what is already in the Theno-code that can easily be tweaked. So stuff that graduates or shuts off after X goal/time is probably a ways out of my reach, whereas existing code I can change a numeric payout amount in could be doable without pestering someone.

(It also means a lot of little things will be handled by +jobs for a while, until I can lure in a coder.)

And I really don't mind st's pulling ahead in xp. Go forth, sow stories, work your butts off and reap the rewards. There are precious few people that st out there.

[Ganymede]

@ShelBeast said:

What was Eldritch's system? And I thought that XP from PRPs was capped at 2 a week, as well, and Aspirations were removed?

You could get Beats from STing and PRPs, but your weekly XP gain slowed as you got more XP.

[Arkandel]

@Taika said:

And I really don't mind st's pulling ahead in xp. Go forth, sow stories, work your butts off and reap the rewards. There are precious few people that st out there.

Pretty much - if only your problem would be that giving all those rewards means you get an excess of Storytellers around trying to reap them. That'd be one sweet problem to have.

[surreality]

@Ganymede said:

On Reno, we are capping weekly XP gain via code. XP gained via Aspirations or PRPs is not capped. So, basically, once you're over a threshold, the weekly XP gain shuts off, unless we decide to raise the caps.

Are aspirations going back into play? They're currently not in play there. (Sorry for the derail, but that's something you may need/want to address.)

[Taika]

Speaking of aspirations, what is the general census on them? Do people enjoy having them? Do they help staff keep tabs on game development or insight to happenings?

[surreality]

@Taika Aspirations have been well-received in my experience.

Caveats:

• Some people are confused by them.
• The book allows for some that are fairly simple on a MUX but hard in tabletop, and vice-versa. You'll want to look at that and address it.
• The book allows for some that are simple; some staffers I've seen take major exception to this. If you want to restrict it more than the book examples (which include things like 'go out partying' and 'get laid' -- no, really) you're going to want to say so up front somewhere.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said:

Are aspirations going back into play? They're currently not in play there. (Sorry for the derail, but that's something you may need/want to address.)

Last time I checked, yes.

[Taika]

@surreality. - Did you find that they aspirations helped tailor plot to pcs?

And wow. 'Get laid'? I will definitely have to check the book and work on a write up.

[Coin]

this is because the book and the writers of the book assume that it's understood that each Aspiration, even short-term ones, are supposed to further the character's progression.

For example, "get in a fight" can be an Aspiration. But why? Is it just to get in a fight? Is this something your character does all the time? If it is, then it shouldn't be an Aspiration. It's commonplace.

But if your character is someone who's never been in a fight and the player wants a reason for the character to get better at physical confrontation, then "get in a fight" is an excellent Aspiration: because it will lead to further characterization.

The "get laid" example, also, has reasoning. Did your character just break up with someone and their friends convince them that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else? Then "get laid" is an excellent Aspiration. It furthers character progression. But if the character runs around getting laid all the time, then it's worthless, there's no progression, no reason for it to be an Aspiration.

"Go partying". Is the character a shut-in that needs to get out more or that might benefit--characterization-wise from being outside of their element? Good. Is the character a weekly rave-a-holic? Bad.

Context is king in Aspirations and treating them with binary judgment is ill-advised.

[Taika]

Context is King - very true! Perhaps instead of worry about nitpicking from the book, I should have people include a bit of that context? Maybe a line or two about why this goal is furthering their development?

[Ganymede]

@Coin said:

The "get laid" example, also, has reasoning. Did your character just break up with someone and their friends convince them that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else? Then "get laid" is an excellent Aspiration. It furthers character progression. But if the character runs around getting laid all the time, then it's worthless, there's no progression, no reason for it to be an Aspiration.

Precisely.

I had such as aspiration, but it was "get laid by <X>." Wanting to lay up a particular person seems to be the epitome of a "short-term aspiration."

[Coin]

@Ganymede said:

@Coin said:

The "get laid" example, also, has reasoning. Did your character just break up with someone and their friends convince them that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else? Then "get laid" is an excellent Aspiration. It furthers character progression. But if the character runs around getting laid all the time, then it's worthless, there's no progression, no reason for it to be an Aspiration.

Precisely.

I had such as aspiration, but it was "get laid by <X>." Wanting to lay up a particular person seems to be the epitome of a "short-term aspiration."

Unless it's a different person every week, at which point, it's really not worth an aspiration. But yeah.

[Ganymede]

@Coin said:

Unless it's a different person every week, at which point, it's really not worth an aspiration. But yeah.

Why not? If I were a Daeva that wanted to hop into bed with every neonate I saw, why should it not be an aspiration to do so?

[Taika]

@Ganymede - As long as you can explain how it enriches the pc beyond needing to shower, it'd be fine

[Coin]

@Ganymede said:

@Coin said:

Unless it's a different person every week, at which point, it's really not worth an aspiration. But yeah.

Why not? If I were a Daeva that wanted to hop into bed with every neonate I saw, why should it not be an aspiration to do so?

Because it's a commonplace ocurrence of your Requiem and, while important inasmuch as establishing the night-to-night activities, it doesn't actually further your characterization--it simply marks the status quo of it, much like the "dude who goes fighting every saturday" or "rave-a-holic". If it's part of your every day life, it's not progression, it's reinforcing the status quo.

I would, on the other hand, accept a Long-Term Aspiration of "sleep with all of the Ordo Dracul's neonates to gain a foothold in their organization as an outsider". If you're using your status quo to further some other aspect of your Requiem, that's different.

In short: if the Aspiration reinforces a character's current status quo, it's not worth being as Aspiration.

[Coin]

Doublepost to exemplify:

If you are a fighter, "get in a fist-fight" is a horrible Aspiration.

But if you are a fighter who just got his ass kicked for the first time, or in a way that was humiliating enough, then "get in a fight and beat someone to a pulp" is a worthy Aspiration--because there's a reason: your character needs to prove to themselves that they still are who they were before they got their ass handed to them.

In the case of your Daeva, "get laid" cvan be an Aspiration if they have been courting someone for a month and when the time came, the object of their desire said "naaaaah" and left them wanting. I can see the aspiration of "get laid right now" as worth something because it goes back to furthering characterization: when the character gets rejected, they go out to reestablish their sense of self as quickly as possible.

Again, context. "Get laid by every neonate" without any context is no better than "take a shower every night".

[Ganymede]

@Coin said:

Because it's a commonplace ocurrence of your Requiem and, while important inasmuch as establishing the night-to-night activities, it doesn't actually further your characterization--it simply marks the status quo of it, much like the "dude who goes fighting every saturday" or "rave-a-holic". If it's part of your every day life, it's not progression, it's reinforcing the status quo.

While I would agree that all Aspirations should represent a change in the status quo, I disagree with your conclusion that setting short-term aspirations for each of the people you want to sleep with is not reasonable, especially if they are PCs. On a MU*, this could have profound consequences. While "getting laid" with mortals is likely inconsequential, shacking up with every neonate may very well be.

I would likely require "Get laid by <PC name here>" as a short-term aspiration. I don't think "Get laid by every neonate" is a good long-term aspiration.

Regarding a fight, "getting into a fistfight with <X>" doesn't ring right for me either. "Defeat <X> in a fist-fight" is more appropriate, even if you want to defeat everyone in a fist-fight. Seems to be perfectly within theme to want to dominate all other vampires physically, if you're a physical vampire.