Posts made by Arkandel

@Roz Most spell-checkers let you add new words, though.

@Bobotron said:

Does anyone have any thoughts?

My only thought is that constantly managing resources isn't that much fun. I can see it belonging on sporadic, occasional thematic PrPs (feeding gone wrong, for example) but it'll turn into a chore in no time flat since you have to keep doing it. The first time you botch a feeding it's fun! The second time that month it's eh, okay, fun! The third? Forth? Where does the madness end?

And if it's not there for RP but just a command (+feed <place>=<amount>) then what's the point? How is that entertaining?

What is fun is managing the sources themselves. Struggling to keep domain, toeing the line between too little and enough to piss someone bigger than you off, etc. But that's a different beast altogether.

All problems come from players.

Ultron was right.

I think most people simply neglect to do it, rather than not log on (although obviously that's a thing too).

I remember many times in the past being the proud player of a starving vampire who's theoretically near frenzy because he forgot to eat.

The main question here (for me) is, if you forget to, don't participate in the system or just don't find gathering scenes appealing - a likelihood when it comes to something your character is, after all, engaged in all the time - do you die from hunger/be drained to nothing eventually?

@Coin said:

And all I'm saying is that if I am using a system in a game, I'm not using it because there was no other choice; I'm using it because that's the system I wanted to use.

Then you are having a unique experience because that's never an option I ever had and I can't imagine it is the case for many players. What the case usually is is that unless you (the generic 'you') are specifically making a game, you are looking at what someone else put together and have to compromise between what you wish they had done and what they actually did.

For example while I played on HM I disliked those gigantic scenes +vote encouraged or the custom PrPs I had to run every single time I wanted to raise Cruac or a Devotion; however I had friends to play with and ongoing RP which I enjoyed more.

I figure that's the case for most people but I can't claim to speak for anyone else.

I'm only in the minority inasmuch as the majority is apparently 'people who want to play X theme without the accompanying mechanics'. But those people aren't making those games. Those that are making those games are out there playing them.

While that's a misrepresentation - I explained earlier that there are plenty of system parts almost everyone is using quite willingly - that's still fine; as long as you know you are catering to the latter and are open about it then I don't see a problem with that.

@Glitch Essentially what I'm saying is that a game should know who it caters to. The "WoD" is a collection of mechanics and systems, some of which are better suited for MU* and others which are ... less so. Different games have emphasized (or not) those parts differently with a variety of results.

All I claim here is that the way to determine if a subsystem translates well to a game or not is to see if people are actively avoiding it or not.

@Coin said:

See, I see the mechanics as a help towards making the story less predictable and adding a level of chance to it. When people typically complain about mechanics I find that it's because they want to do something their stats don't allow if they have to roll for it, to which I say: maybe build the character you want to play, instead of playing without consideration of the mechanics.

Obviously this is veering off-topic (a true novelty for these forums, I realize) but I think what people enjoy about a system is the chance to pick their powers and veer their general build toward a specific direction. Powers are quite popular, I've never met anyone who doesn't like'em.

So the WoD allows people to pick 'invisibility' in Obfuscate (I know it's not real invisibility), scary-fu in Nightmare, extra-sensory perception in Auspex, etc. That's appreciated because it makes things uniform; your second dot of Protean and mine are the same, so there's consistency across the board and we all know what it can/can't do. So what do I need to use that second dot of Protean? Oh, it's that roll; gotcha. How much does it cost? Oooh, that much, so now my hard-earned XP go towards stuff I already like, and thus I have incentive to get more.

That's what I assert the system provides most people. It's not the randomness or chance of failure, but then again it's not because they don't like to lose (they do, but that's not the reason); it's just the unifying framework for their abilities.

Few people - and I count myself among them - will change the way they roleplay to accommodate the mechanics. The mechanics are there to serve roleplay, not the other way around. Whenever the implementation of a system significantly alters gameplay bad things happen; what comes to memory is HM's olden days when +vote was the primary/only way people have XP so gigantic scenes became prevalent. No one liked that shit and it was horrible, characters were coming in and idling to farm +vote/all eligibility.

So how do you know if a system is good? People use it on their own because it improves their gameplay. How do you know if a system is not? People don't use it unless they are forced to, and stop using it when they aren't.

That's the only benchmark that matters. A great super-fun mechanic that's unused is neither, no matter how it looks on paper.

The guy lived a kickass life, had a hell of a career, and possessed the voice of a higher-level being.

@Goldfish said:

I love nWoD because it's all I know. ...
But really, it's what I know. I have no intention of learning another system. I have no desire.

I wanted to put extra emphasis on this because I know - KNOW - some people won't really get it. A lot of players (I won't say the majority, as I have no metrics or way of proving it, but I suspect it's the case) quite literally don't care to learn and barely use mechanics for anything other than to mark down their characters' abilities ('I have Obfuscate X so I can be invisible').

Many players learn the bare essentials and read the powers their PCs will actually use or just seem cool, but that's it. So they'll eventually become familiar with different aspects of the game through sheer osmosis over time - it's hard to not get used to "wits+composure" being a perception check after the 12th time a ST asks you to roll it - but they're not going to bother with more than a cursory look at parts of the book which aren't fun for them to flip through. At most they'll be forced to, briefly, to answer questions and finish CGen ("what are your Breaking Points?") then never revisit them.

Yes, someone will come up - possibly the gentlemen I just name-dropped - and mention what vast goodness would come to everyone's RP if only everyone would adopt these hallowed systems but, really, it's an uphill battle at best. A fair number of otherwise perfectly good players don't like learning systems, reading through mechanics or understanding the nuances of the fighting system - in fact many will never +roll anything through a scene unless they must, including some of our community's most celebrated roleplayers.

WoD has succeeded somewhat merely through persistence. Enough people use it that it became convenient for its players to learn the broad strokes, then they won't change because fuck learning another set of rules from scratch and especially if it's not widespread enough for that knowledge to be transferable to a different game if something goes wrong with the one they're on at the time.

I guess if we're talking oWoD... a lot.

I loved the metaplot in Vampire. Loved it.

@Roz said:

What would you actually constitute as a large enough game?

It's not an exact science. Consistently more than 20-25 unique, active players in the evenings, at the very least. Just enough that things keep happening outside of your immediate circle of friends and there are faces around to meet you never have before.

I only love one thing: I can find (relatively) enough players so I can play long-termly if I want to.

I like investing in a game, and it's hard to do that on home-grown or not as well known systems that'll invariably end up having a very small number of players. Roleplay tends to be incestuous and limited in these cases and momentum is very difficult to build.

Furthermore I like knowing who's running games, and such oversight is only possibly if I have 'sources' to consult. Outside of the WoD community I know few (trustworthy) people who can tip me off in advance that the owners are craycray or good people; all I could do is search the forums here in case anyone's played there and hope for the best. The other alternative is being there for weeks until I can find out for myself, and that's way less appealing.

If I found a large, well-ran non-WoD MU* I'd happily consider it, but alas.

I don't think anyone minds waiting on things like Renown while you're overworked as it is. Well, no one sane.

That seems like a good approach to opening up spots. I think you should at least consider offering non-Becoming openings as well to people who're actively playing, simply because they're proven to be active. So if they've been playing a mortal but would consider rolling a new vampire, I think you guys can't go wrong with that.

Conversely, how high is the workload now since (I assume) the wave of game-opening CGen +jobs has subsided somewhat? Do you think sphere slots will open in the foreseeable future?

I had a question about the process of opening sphere spots. I have little skin in the game since I already have a supernatural character (and am not really looking for an alt), but what are your guys' thoughts about prioritizing their selection in any way other than first-come first-served?

In other words, do you prioritize players who rolled mortal/mortal+ characters and are currently active - roleplaying, being on the grid, etc - for contributing to the game over others who will come and open a +CGen job when new spots are announced? And what's the reasoning behind either approach?

@Jaspar said:

Force Users are selected by the admin, to fill limited slots, the number of which scales with the size of the active playerbase. Being a Force user is a responsibility that comes with a few caveats, the long and short of which is that you must be active, submit quality logs, be regularly nominated by your peers, and generally prove that your selection as a Force User would be a boon to the game, not a hindrance.

I know nothing about you or your game but this caught my attention, so I hope you're willing to answer a couple of questions about it.

When the issue with feature characters (which it sounds like Force users would essentially be) with unique abilities and special powers the rest of the playerbase can't have, how are you planning to avoid the possibility these are viewed as either staff-alt or staff-friend only spots?

This is not necessarily to slight your intentions or perfect willingness to be fair in the selection of who has one of those rare, coveted positions. It's just a matter of human bias - we value what we perceive, so if a perfectly great player just happens to not have been seen by a member of staff then their chances of landing this are pretty low - unless of course you have a devised a smarter system to select these, in which case I'd be quite interested in hearing about it.

Generally speaking I dislike feature PCs. I hated them ever since we were using 'book characters' back in the day - they represent a manufactured, often arbitrary two-tier system between your 'good' players and the rest; but who wants to be placed in the plebs-pile? However I also understand if a game wants to keep some things rare - obviously claiming Force users are extra rare is redundant if the grid is full of Force-using PCs. So if an implementation manages to balance these two factors correctly it'd be something to look at.

http://marvel.com/news/tv/24699/jon_bernthal_cast_as_frank_castle_in_the_netflix_original_series_marvels_daredevil

@Royal Excellent. Now every time I'm bored I'll feel better about it, because it's only because I'm too good for you all.

@Ganymede I can't talk for anyone else, but for me it wasn't being LS, it was the assumption ES would have stuff happening all the time so I didn't wanna bug.

@Misadventure said:

@Arkandel Where is the Copenhagen wheel?

I am the Copenhagen wheel.