Posts made by Arkandel

I can't look at most of those IP ranges without cringing.

@Ganymede Speaking for myself, I was answering a direct question.

@Taika said in City of Shadows:

Okay, so how many?

How many is interesting? And have thematic things to do? Cool things that differentiate them completely from the rest?

Don't do it by the numbers, do it by the engagement factor. You don't want elements thrown out there without considering first what they can do for your game - why are they neat?

Ideally I'd want to agonize a bit over picking a faction - there should always be some buyer's regret after, too. Sure, this one is great but that one fits, too.

And they all need to be led and populated. How many people are you expecting to have on day 1? You don't want them spread out so much factions (such as families) are deserted since the whole point is to help people find each other and form coherent, meaningful ties.

What applies to families applies to spheres too, for much the same reasons. If you have 5 spheres and (say) 25 individual players that's 5 players per sphere. Is that enough? That's not a rhetorical question. And people attract people, so if from those 25 you get 9 in a sphere they will be a reason for others to join, so another might get 2-3 players. Are you prepared for that? Again, not a rhetorical question.

No need for drastic measures (and especially ones that make you unable to play with your friends - that's a terrible idea man ).

The easiest and more intuitive way is to create a game with more emphasis on factions than small groups; for example it means more to be a Crone than to be in a certain coterie. Done.

If you want something more radical you could experiment with cross-factions enabled in CGen you can opt out of. Use families, for example; certain ones default to factions unless you explicitly opt out. Are you a Smith? You're considered part of the Invictus greater group even if you're not even a vampire, unless your character specifically didn't want any part of them. Then you have Silver Ladder/Invictus/Storm Lords crossovers for even more arrogance.

How to do things is the easy part; figuring out how to integrate what you just did into your game thematically, then thinking it through to figure out the negative aspects so you can tackle them preemptively is a much harder task since it's ongoing.

@Sparks Is it watchable/enjoyable by someone like me who never watched or played Pokemon growing up?

@Taika said in City of Shadows:

The problem is that ST's are getting harder to find. And -good-, flexible, non-railroady ST's are harder. Not -here-, of course. But on games, they're like unicorns and pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

That's part of why ST'ing is so heavily incentivized on CoS.

Base xp: 1.4/week
ST a scene: +.4 for the scene, +2 for ST'ing it.
ST a scene from +plots? Have another +.2

Also groups are hard to find.

Look, we're antisocial people as a whole. We don't easily form coteries, packs, etc - that's why for everyone willing to put one together there are 8 people instantly trying to join, but without that someone there are 8 people sitting on their thumbs instead of... well, forming two groups.

A 'single sphere approach' might work conceptually if it can automagically herd people into organic factions but you need to figure out your IC carrots. What's in it for the them? Why are werewolves, mages and vampires allying with each other and what are they all after that's worth so much?

Then you can give bonuses to the STs running plot, give rewards to the characters in those plots, etc.

@Taika said in City of Shadows:

@arkandel Which is interesting. And I don't think you mean 'just plot', either. I think you're more referencing that sense of /investment/. Shoving plot at people isn't the magical fix-all. When I can catch @Ganymede I'm going to pick her brain and show her what I've got in my head and what the grid is looking like.

What I mean is what I've observed in several WoD games in a row. They all fall within a pattern of a spike of activity right at the beginning, followed by this weird dance where everyone tries to fit in a group (find a coterie, a romantic partner, etc) while the only plot offered is either made up of these massive scenes there's nothing personalized and little agency to be found - which in a scene with 9 people is understandable - or really generic. A birthday party, yay. So slowly anyone who hasn't gotten into those early groups loses interest, and then the groups themselves come to realize there isn't anything happening outside of their own circles, so attrition continues until the game is dead in the water.

I'm suggesting to break this circle by giving people things to do. It's that simple. Things to pursue and to oppose. I should have a reason - a tangible one - to get out of my room and try to play with that new Mekhet since I need their support.

Staff's role in this would be twofold:

1. Figure out what tangible benefits the Mekhet's support conveys.
2. Give me something meaningful to get utilizing that support.
3. Make it so there's a limited number of things to be gotten, so it's a zero-sum game. We can't all have the great things, but we should all be able to get them.

If you implement those then no matter the system and its specifics you've already done your job because RP will perpetuate from that point on. Factions will continue to look for ways to get more people involved, shifting the political map each time back and forth as they make gains or lose them.

What's even better is then any other kinds of plot through coteries, romantic entanglements but also PrPs or staff-ran scenes will enrich all that instead of being the only options without which you resort to just sitting there checking out +where to see everyone idling for 35 minutes+ in their own separate rooms.

@Admiral I agree. There should be a progression for WoD to make sense in a MU* context, which is why neither bucketloads of XPs right after CGen nor starvation from that point on would work. You need to be looking forward to the cool things you'll get in 2-3 weeks, and then in 2-3 weeks after that.

But let's be clear here. The deathbed of WoD MU* has little to do with mechanics. These games die for lack of things your character can get involved and have some meaningful agency in.

@WildBaboons If I'm right this is George Martin's twist as well. I agree there's no way in hell they'd divert enough from the intended plot (whatever it is) to introduce it.

@tek

***=It would also explain the actions of a certain character in Episode 3...***

Watchmen.

I've long now had a theory by the way - which isn't a spoiler since I have no insider info or anything - which I'm now 90% sure is about to come true. For that I'll put it behind a spoiler tag.

***=Don't click!***

@Ganymede I dislike the Warriors and I dislike KD's choices and personality but I really, really hate the idea of injuries deciding outcomes.

But yeah, Giannis is a stone-cold killer. And Kawhi is an unstoppable machine. If the Raptors get to the ECF it will be amazing.

@Lisse24 However staff in this game have expressed the desire to not change systems and introduce HRs as much as possible.

As for XP starvation that, too, has its side-effects which most of its supporting arguments don't consider. It is an important factor for players driving their activity without waiting for months for the next raise, and a carrot incentivizing character participation in plot.

In other words it's not an improvement to go from "Renown is artificially slowed to a near halt" to "everything is slowed down to a near halt". People, well, like buying toys.

@Ganymede said in City of Shadows:

If there is a concern as to how fast someone can buy themselves up, throttle the Renown gain over time by enforcing a cooldown period for a particular Renown equal to the last level of that Renown purchased in months. So if you wanted to go from Wisdom 0 to 5, you'd have to take 10 months to do it.

That's still not reasonable. I'll explain why.

For starters stretching disbelief for gameplay reasons is done regularly. Do we check if years have passed between raising Medicine from 3 (medical school graduate level) and 4 (experienced doctor level)? No, although it'd take that long. Likewise we don't require a neonate Vampire to spend years understanding the secrets locked in their vitae or a newly Awakened to study their Arcanum.

In fact attempts have been made in the past and failed very miserably because that's a shitty playing experience.

Think about it this way: Who benefits from such tactics?

So sure, if staff wanted a long story to explain why or how a Wolf earned their brands? Sure, that's fine. But don't artificially put hurdles in the way or timegate spends just to make your players 'prove' something. Let them play the game at their pace like literally every other sphere already can.

@Taika Since we're just throwing things around - this might be controversial (actually I don't know) but here it is.

I quite dislike how many MU* have handled Renown so far, either by copying each other's policies on justifying spends or putting hurdles no other sphere has to deal with.

How it should be done: "You need to explain why you have Glory 4. Write a note."

How it is actually done: "You need to justify why you have Glory 4, which we as staff will scrutinize and throw hoops for you to jump until you either say fuck it or if you're lucky and connected enough you can have an obligatory PrP ran whose outcome is predetermined just to check that checkbox in the least organic way possible. Also literally no other sphere in the game has to do this for their spends, just Werewolves, lol."

Let the poor wolves buy Renown. They can say how in ways that it makes sense for them and be done. Hell, give them incentives (make the spend cheaper for example) if they have matching IC logs but remove that bureaucratic procedural relic from your game.

So, a few more suggestions.

Keep the highest rank levels as NPCs until some latter point in the game's lifespan when you think they'd be more useful as PCs. There are multiple reasons for it:

1. IC continuity. Players drop out or become inactive all the time, do you want the Prince to be constantly toppled every few weeks? Let us vie for other positions though, as well as there are tangible agencies to go with the responsibilities.

2. Plot hooks. It's such a simple, effective way to kick start plots by using important figures to hand out tasks.

3. Rewards are easier to met out in the same fashion in an objective, systematized fashion relatively free of complaints. It's one thing to have a Winter Queen whose player can be accused of being partial and that's why she handed out that sweet plot of forest glade, and another to have it controlled by having factions or individuals bid on them using their Status (or whatever other metric). Plus that way you can offer different kinds of rewards, too.

4. The big one... there's less OOC jealousy and bickering that way. You'll have it even with lower positions but not to the same degree. Ranks drive MUSHers nuts, but as unfortunate as that might be there are significant upsides to having them if the game is set up right. You just need to have the tradeoff be worth it.

Finally I can't stress this enough but I'd strongly suggest to offer multiple power ladders to climb in your game.

XP is just one way to track power but status, territory, rank can and ought to all be formidable ways to exert influence over the game. Sure, I might be playing the powerhouse Gangrel loner who can punch through walls but if you can fuck me over - not just theoretically but in a quite real fashion - by using your Status to kick me out of my territory so now I have to work much harder to replenish my vitae supply after using it like it's going out of fashion then things are far better balanced. If my punching abilities convey to demonstrative, amazing benefits - easy inclusion in PrPs, mouthing off to people I don't like - and your political connections are just some figures on your sheet with theoretical upsides that never actually do anything in practical terms, that's not the case.

Same thing in Werewolf. Spheres are often full of Rahu death machines because that pays off much better than mastery over spirits. It's, on a very fundamental level, a matter of returns for the investment.

TL;DR: In games like these offering characters multiple ways to advance is a good idea.

@Taika said in City of Shadows:

Oh, and as a side note, cause my mind wanders a lot: staff gets xp, same as pcs, when they st stuff. Dangles bait

That ain't bait! Read it this way: "I can get the same amount of XP as a regular ST but without people bitching at me 24/7".

@Royal said in City of Shadows:

Can we not? I'm tired as fuuuuuuck of this conversation. Let's move on from this 'Mage is OP' thing early, shall we?

I agree, especially since at some point staff has made a decision. Let's work with it instead of revisiting it.

Territories. That right there is what brought me to The Descent 1 and 2. @Ganymede hit it dead on. Give folks something to fight for, not against.

For and against. That's the beauty of territories, they can be imperiled by external threats and foes as well but also other characters. There are a few key concerns here, IMHO.

1. Making resources truly limited. If everyone gets to have amazing territory it invalidates the whole premise; why bother taking Gany's when I can build a new abandoned factory staff just gave me which is just as good?

2. Making it dynamic. If it plays out like a game of dancing chairs where the good spots go out in a first-come first-served fashion then it screws everyone over; if I already have great territory why put in any effort, and if I can't get it (or I 'theoretically can, but...') then why put in any effort either?

3. For all that is holy figure out a system where it's not all about punching people out of their territory. Sure, some things could come down to a brawl but that shouldn't be the primary way of taking it by any means; for example base it on Status, distribute it aspart of quest rewards, etc to encourage continuous engagement.

Just some thoughts.