Posts made by Arkandel

A setting full of pretty people? That would be a vast departure over the usual MU* average joe characters.

Given how prevalent zombie tropes have been over the last couple of years I'd be shocked if there are no MU* around already set in The Walking Dead universe or some such.

@tragedyjones said:

Y'all need some post apocalyptic pretty people in your life.

You must think I'm so shallow.

I don't need them to be post-apocalyptic, sir. Being pretty suffices.

@Cobaltasaurus said:

@tragedyjones said:

Trailer for The 100 Season 3

Man, I haven't even watched Season 2, yet. >.<

Man, I haven't even watched Season 1, yet.

To me a "hunter" isn't someone trained from birth, with a membership to secret organizations and access to high-tech vampire-slaying nanobot swarms.

He/she works at the supermarket register or is trying to make ends meet as a second year college student when they see something they shouldn't have or survive an encounter with something insane... and they just can't go back to hiding. They just can't ignore it, they have to Do Something About It even if they fully realize they're way out of their league. They aren't respected by their peers - they're the person you end up seeing on the news raving about their neighbors, leaping over fences and being chased by the cops for doing something really illegal, stupid and suicidal... only they happen to be right.

Obviously there are many ways to do it! Whatever is fun to you, @Cobaltasaurus .

@Insomnia said:

Of course I admit that I was raised kinda Catholic, so whenever I hear someone say "May the Force be with you." I answer, mentally, at least, "And also with you."

It sounds unlikely for someone prone to saying things like "May the Force be with you" to be offended if they're responded to in a similar fashion, though.

@Thenomain said:

@Arkandel said:

These forums are all about playing cowboys and indians with other people, which is a decisively non-adult thing.

Adults can't play viddya games? What are you, old?

Of course not. I am reminded this every time I have any conversation with adults.

Like our sales manager. I was chatting with the whole sales team about favorite books and he explained he's never read Harry Potter. When I asked how come he said that "well, I just think the real world is interesting enough, you know?".

... They all agreed.

@Thenomain said:

Here's to everyone who can manage to be an adult without being old.

These forums are all about playing cowboys and indians with other people, which is a decisively non-adult thing.

None of us here is old. No, if we manage to be adults... that's a whole different story.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

Where, as bad as this sounds, I felt like I spent the majority of my time being an outwardly-graceful loser because I inevitably didn't want to Internet Argue as long as someone else. It wasn't even so much, "I shot you! Nu-uh!" stuff as, "OK, well, it's their turn to be awesome this time, I can be awesome next time...or next time...or next time..."

That could have been a mileage thing but I can definitely see where you're coming from.

Since we're on a comic book tangent though, do you think it could be cool to adopt the comic book trope where certain heroes are simply better in their own books? You know, the classic Spider-man versus Wolverine thing where if you're reading a Spider-man title he wins but if you're reading a wolvie title Logan does, but on a MU*?

So when there's a plot it's thrown for a main protagonist each time whose powers are just more pronounced for its duration. Either the game is statless and their player gets to decide the baseline or there are dice involved and the character has a buff which lasts for the scene? It might help with the rotation of awesomeness you're referring to.

@Cobaltasaurus said:

Eeeh. That sounds super unfun. "You hunt X but you know nothing about X". Hunters should know things. I mean isn't that the point of a lot of Monster Hunting things/Serial Killer Dramas? "Those who hunt monsters should be careful least monsters they become"?

They do know things! They know vampires exist - they drink blood, they hypnotize people. There are rumors they even have long-term control over them.

But you don't know about the Camarilla or the Lancea Sanctum; some of them are priests or something but is it a cover? Were they just clergy when the got bitten? Why were those two fighting in the back alley?

Then the theme you mention can absolutely take place as Hunters enter the arms war. They're terribly outmatched in nearly every way so to catch up they start doing iffy things (which you can encourage through plot); burn down a building with some bloodsuckers inside but maybe some mortals get hurt.

Then they get access to supernatural weapons which, while potent, come with drawbacks and their use has consequences. How far are they willing to go to catch up? Who are they willing to ally themselves with to go toe to toe with the enemy? How long until their own former friends hunt them down?

That's how I'd do it. Well, one way of how I would.

@Bobotron said:

Don't make the monsters sympathetic except in situations where it works (think in terms of, say, the reluctant Werewolf chick from Season 2 of Supernatural).

I'd go a step further - don't make the monsters understood in any meaningful way. Hunters should know as little as possible about the mindset, goals, abilities or social structures of supernatural creatures, and what little they do have gets extrapolated from those they personally come into contact with, biased as their world-point of view may be, and then on top of it is contaminated again by misinformation and rumor.

If you have to, create a different mythos than expected so not even the players know what the hell is going on let alone the characters. Let them piece together what they can, and encourage (even reward!) mistakes in their estimates.

The worst mistake a Hunter-centric MU* can make is let the PCs get comfortable or comprehend what it is they are after. It's not just that the enemy is beyond them in personal power and resources, as that's a given, but they are nearly alien in their ways. Emphasize this gap and you already have characters off-balance - there's no guy with all the answer sitting at the bar dispensing his (or, often, his player's) wisdom like he's reading out of a manual.

Once that's in place you got a fertile ground to seed with paranoia. Every encounter can be your last, true, but that's not the end of it; even worse, every encounter can be the last in which there's a 'you'; these things can mess with your goddamn mind, or those of your buddies, so not only can't you trust them, you can't even trust yourself. Plant some rumors - Bob is one of those blood-controlled puppets. Or is he?

These are stories you can't tell in a traditional nWoD MU* where all you need to do is throw some supernatural powers around and settle most of these questions in a +job.

Ack! Who the hell is doing their voice acting and why are they allowed to?

@tragedyjones said:

@Arkandel said:

The new World of Darkness trailer. The voice acting is atrocious and the production values can only be described as cheap, but hey, they're not in the business of making videos I suppose.

Have you never seen any of their old trailers, with stock footage/pictures?

Is it possible my brain is simply blocking the trauma?

The new World of Darkness trailer. The voice acting is atrocious and the production values can only be described as cheap, but hey, they're not in the business of making videos I suppose.

@Ganymede said:

For me, it boils down to this. If you hire me as staff, you are giving me a set of expectations and a clear objective. I will follow those expectations if I am hired, and will meet that objective. But if what I do to meet that objective does not meet unsaid or irrational rules, I'm not going to follow them.

I sadly have to agree with Gany here - we're all volunteers, but if someone has to bear the responsibility of leading a sphere (rather than simply be a generic job monkey) they need to either be trusted to do it and thus be given a decent leeway, especially at first, or upper level staff need to be quite upfront about their expectation of having a figurehead onboard with specific limitations in mind.

I learned this the hard way many, many years ago when I was asked to lead a sphere but someone very close iRL to the owner had a vested interest in her alts; every action that could have made things easier for new characters to catch up to her was veto'ed, sometimes indirectly and using delaying tactics ("it's not the right time at the moment") or even being told the actual reason directly ("if I had to do it for my character everyone has to else it's not fair to me"). It happens.

In an ideal world people simply communicate to figure out where things stand. For example I had a pretty positive experience on TR where I never had an issue with being told 'no', but that was because asking for permission wasn't the nature or purpose of discussing things with Head Staff; it was always a brainstorming process where I brought ideas up and we worked them out. Then when interpersonal issues between players came up we all compared notes - is the guy responding badly an exception or does he have a history of it? Does this approach sound reasonable? Such back-and-forth wasn't only with HR but fellow staff as well since we were all on the same boat, and in the end I ended up having at least as many chats with Changeling or Builder staff about Geist as I did with anyone else.

Essentially it was never a lack of 'authority' which ever limited me - I was aware I could have done anything I liked - but making sure the sphere wasn't ran based on one person's views and preferences alone; if I alienated anyone who preferred a different playstyle than mine then why would they ever invest their time and creativity into it?

That's what I consider the best way to go for staffing in general though, looking at games (and all parts of them) as mutually co-opted entities where someone has to be making the decisions rather than a constant stream of my-way-or-the-highway. The resource healthy spheres run on isn't authority, it's trust. And trust has to go both ways.