Eh. Kickstarter is just a thing. As far as Kickstarter, most OPP projects get a kickstarter for ONLY the deluxe editions. Like Dark Eras currently for NWoD, and Demon and many others. Kickstarter gives them the ability to do more than the baseline book, but even if the kickstarter doesn't fund the base book is still going to be released.
@tragedyjones said:
Also, I don't believe OP markets to brick and mortar stores at all. The only products they ship to them, AFAIK, are demos for Free RPG day. And I don't think they even do that every year - don't see them on the list for 2015.
Their business model doesn't support this, no. Considering I've heard horror stories from buddies in the old WW about an order being a day late, and the order itself getting cut by half (and so books are left on a pallet in a warehouse because they have no buyer at that time), or overprinting and having scads of books left over, I can't blame them. Plus the PoD business model seems to work, and we get good print books, which allows them to try something different here and there.
Free RPG Day also probably just doesn't have an offering this year; they had a Blood & Smoke demo that went out last year, but without something immediately on the horizon, they may not have anything they want to put out that's in that level of readiness. They also have a pilot program/beta test thing for FLGSes to order PoDs with a discount to get new WW stuff on the shelves.
Alright, second trick question with a little follow-up then. Do you think they know we exist? If so, do they care?
I'd say they know about WoD MUing and just don't care. It's like WoD chatgames; people advertise their chat games (and I think I've seen MU ads too) on their forums, both when it was WW as an entity and now as OPP. Chatgames and such are listed on various meetups, facebook groups and tons of other sites.
It's not a blip on anyone's radar, CCP or otherwise, really. We are not violating their IP (typically) and are using it for the intended use. I don't think they have enough time or care to really go 'here are rules for crossovers for those games that want them'. They had a hard enough time with OWoD books trying to do tabletop stuff and then cram MET stuff in them when MET took off.
@tragedyjones said:
They know we exist - or at least that we did. I know there was mention of MU way back when in SOME book, probably oWoD. And during the Golden Age of WWGS, they of course had a much larger online gaming presence. A Palace Chat, New Bremen, etc. Hell I remember they used to have newsgroups.
I know of at least one of the MET Journals that I have a copy of, which was an MET publication, that talked about a couple of WoD MU*s in conjunction with making a Shining Host (Changeling LARP) MUSH and that was more or less it that I can recall from OWoD books.
@The-Tree-of-Woe
CCP might fold as a company in that instance, but they'd still own the IP unless they sell it outright. WoD books make them a small chunk of money, nowhere near as much as The Space Spreadsheet Simulator, but still a chunk. I don't think much would happen unless CCP immediately tries to offload all IPs they own.
@The-Tree-of-Woe
That's more or less what happened. CCP mandated that it couldn't be 2nd Edition, which is why it originally came out Blood & Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (and the plans for the others). Then last year they said 'oh, hey, you can do them as 2E now'.
As far as deadlines? Eh. That's why they have the model they have now; so they can actually get their product done and handled, rather than having to rush things through (and we ALL know what the rush causes in other games). Remember, it's three fulltimers and a bunch of freelancers.
@Ganymede said:
I concur with Raptor in that I don't recall Pyrephox's interpretation from my readings of C:tL's main book.
Changelings can bargain with the Gentry after their escape, at their own peril. That's fine. But when you consider that the Gentry reap humans to create air, trees, and stone, it seems clear to me that they aren't truly interested in getting anything tangible from humans. They likely only bargain to eventually fuck with someone else, that's all.
It's actually a lot more than that. The book Equinox Road goes into a lot about the True Fae, and their makeup; they are essentially living aspects of story, and so their bargains and such are all about aspects of their story. They don't have to do the bargaining at all, but like Rumplestiltskin or other fantasy creatures who deal in riddles and deals, they are bound by the narrative they create through their manifestations of Actors, Props, Wisps and Realms (which are all just ways for one True Fae to be visible and have representation and people working for it). And in order to have meaning of some sort to their lives, they do this.
Anyone looking to expand on the why and what of a True Fae from Lost, I'd recommend giving those sections a read. The rules from there should also really be adhered to in any type of Lost-based MU*, as it details the methods for making all their stuff from Titles through investments, as well as what happens when a True Fae runs out of Titles and such things. It's a really good and really informative read.
@Insomnia said:
Snow. (62cm yesterday)
It's a four letter word for a reason.
Snow sucks. We gout about 12inches here (not as much as you, but), and I ended up stuck on the highway. For 20 minutes. As people drove past me because my car didn't get traction in the poorly-plowed snow. Part of this driving was also two cops, a county sheriff and a city cop. Who just drove on. It took me an hour to get home because of that, on what should have been a 20 minute drive even WITH the snow.
@Thenomain
I don't think you'll get much early access to the WtF2e book unless you go beg OPP for it.
@The-Tree-of-Woe
Heck, you could already play a Vizier who's in the city, and get to experience that crazy firsthand. 
I came across this link once: http://chromud.whiteraventechnology.com/
It works pretty well, and for those who would like an automatic connector for a game, you can set it up like so:
http://chromud.whiteraventechnology.com/client/?mhost=address.goes.here&mport=9999
@Admiral said:
I know nothing of MET systems and as you are more knowledgeable than I on the subject I will take your word for it. I look forward to the success of your project and wish you the best.
I'd offer to help out but I'm almost totally burned out on MUSHing at present and one little push would be enough to burn me out completely.
Thanks for the well-wishes. So far, things are looking up, definitely. And I get that; hopefully you won't burn out completely and can enjoy what you're doing now.
The Tremere thing really only applies to the new MET version anyway; one of the design goals of the system was 'everyone gets cool stuff, but not one guy has all the cool stuff'. Which is a design goal I got behind real quick; it's worked out great in play.
@Admiral
One thing that the MET system does for Tremere (and really anything with Blood Sorcery, which is why most bloodline/variants with Sorcery like the Assamite Sorcerers), is it balances them. Powers are... well, Thaum is still powerful, but Tremere can't just buy Thaumaturgy forever and ever. It's a 1 point Merit to have an additional Path of Thaumaturgy beyond Path of Blood. So a Tremere could get all the Paths, but that would be ALL he is. No Talismans, no extra Focus, no extra Influence stuff, no nothing.
Tremere are designed this way in order to offset 'swiss army Tremere' syndrome, as well as promote cooperation and actual need for other people to do other things for you. So it makes them a lot more bearable to play with.
@The-Tree-of-Woe said:
I'll swear up and down, right and left, that the schism was the best thing that happened to Camarilla genre. The Gangrel were a non-entity, and are better as independent individualists who join the Camarilla if they feel like it but usually can't be arsed. The Assamites bringing a huge fraction of their sorcerers to the Camarilla, on the other hand, meant the Tremere don't have a bullshit monopoly on mojo, forcing them to be competitive. Which makes them much more interesting to play.
And this is one of those things that I am aiming to actually have as an in-game event for the game, the Assamite Schism; I want to allow the Vampire players to be able to interact with the greater WoD. And even if we have zero assamite players, that doesn't mean PC Prince, PC Primogen or high-rankers won't get to deal with those as events and such.
I figured I might add one thing on here to clarify something, as someone asked about it long ago.
The Rarity stuff. Essentially it's a setup to allow a player to play something uncommon to the setting like antitribu, or odd bloodlines. These cost Merits, of which you have 7 points total (it's essentially best described as 'the cool factor', so you can have 'some of the cool' but not 'all of the cool'). So certain Clans, Bloodlines or Clan/Bloodline combos require you to buy a Merit to play.
So to play a Carpathian Tzimisce Antitribu (which are the Koldun essentially) takes 4 Merit Points. To play a modern fleshcrafter Tzimisce would require you to do the 4 Point Merit, plus another 2 Point Fleshcrafter bloodline Merit. This cost is in place to represent rare things in the setting.
I have been using this for nearly 2 years in a LARP now, and it has worked out nicely. It has kept things within the expected capabilities for the chronicle, buti f someone really wants to play something odd and outlier, they have the option to do so without me having to finagle or place other limitations.
@Sunny
Classic/Old World of Darkness. Masquerade.
I have gotten into the use of the acronym CWoD rather than OWoD lately, sorry for the confusion..
If this doesn't need to go here, please move, @Glitch or @Thenomain.
I figured it's time to put my money where my mouth is. I want to open up a CWoD MUSH. I have a fair bit of development done, but I'm now at the point where I need a couple of dedicated staffers, in addition to my idea bouncing board guy, to finish developing aspects of the setting that I have baselines for, as well as people generally interested in a CWoD MUSH to help out. So, a little bit about the MUSH...
The plan for the MUSH is to have two avenues for play:
In this, I hope to present a set of focused venues with plots for each (you could consider Vampire, Family, and Hunters separate venues, with reasons to interact and reasons to NOT interact, in the case of 'hunters do not just go murder all the vamps').
The setting is set up to be a fictionalized deep water inland port, taking the place of Stockton California and altering the history and setup of the area to account for the founding family, the Camarilla's presence and Anarch Movement's inward momentum. I want to pull elements from a lot of supernatural media sources, including The Vampire Chronicles, Dark Shadows, American Gothic, Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel and others.
As far as the initial setup, I plan to start out with a set of NPC leadership in place amongst the organizations (so an NPC Prince and Primogen; an NPC family head for the family; NPC triumvirate for the hunter group) and as the game grows, allow players to slide into those slots if they so choose. These will likely be played by staff or staff-appointment in order to handle consistency, but likely just by staff.
Characters will be apped in two ways: simple online chargen that makes a base build character per the book (which is build + 30 XP). I am also weighing the idea of adding in Advanced Slots, or characters that start with higher XP but are beholden to the game to help push things IC.
Otherwise, characters are apped using the book build, including all rarities. So if someone wants to be something odd like a Lasombra Antitribu or a Daughter of Cacophony, they can; they're already paying points to do so, and it's not going to break the setting.
For a server, we'll be using the latest version of PennMUSH ('cause that's what I'm familiar with and what I'm comfortable using).
I have developed this to use the new Mind's Eye Theatre: Vampire the Masquerade. I have been using it in LARP for nearly two years now and I feel that, as much as it supports a large-scale game like a LARP, it would be great to use in a MUSH. For those concerned, this is not Laws of the Night MET, this is the new Mind's Eye Theatre system put out by By Night Studios. Some major changes include: no more deprecating traits, no more Retest ad infinitum (generally there is one retest per challenge, with two specific exceptions when there are more than just that one, and only for the challenge loser), and new mechanical benefits based on the Generation/Social Class you play (Neonate, Ancillae, Pretender Elder, Master Elder, Luminary Elder), and a really cool (and mechanically useful!) update to the Status System.
For Vampire itself, there's also a method of 'you can have cool stuff, but not ALL the cool stuff' in the form of Merits and Rarity Merits; you have limitations of how many Merit points you can have, and things like Uncommon and Rare clans (so playing a Lasombra Antitribu, for example) is covered in that; it allows for people to play those things, and I plan on using it. It has shown to hold up in a 20-30 person LARP without having to add additional limitations, and I feel it will work well for a MUSH. Other awesome stuff is in Merits too, such as extra Disciplines, visions of the future, Thaumaturgy training and a lot of other stuff. It also promotes cooperation, as one guy can't have ALL THE THINGS to do everything by himself. For those curious, players will be able to use the Alpha and Beta documents to play; if you buy the book, that's awesome and my plan is to float people who do that extra XP as well.
I feel like there's space out there for a CWoD game with a specific focus and a specific goal. One of those goals for this game is the word focus.
There are plenty of 'play anything you want' games, and I would like to present an option with a focus, both for Vampire and Mortals, to allow people to play out focused stories and plots, without the necessity of cross-venue interactions, but also allowing for those inevitable cross-venue interactions.
So, this is my goal. I'm looking for a couple of individuals who would be interested in assisting with this (particularly in additional development for the Mortals venue). I can code without issue (and more or less everything needed is done as far as custom code, either planned and installed or planned and a few steps from done), and common systems are just a click-install away.
The grid is mapped and being installed (though it needs to be desced beyond placeholders of lists of general area and 'what is there'). Many newsfiles are already written (character creation transcription, mortal/near-mortal expansions from the baseline mechanics, policies for alts, staff alts, character age, and others).
If this sounds interesting to you from a staff perspective, please feel free to PM me. If you're interested but want to talk more about the staff positions and my thoughts on that, PM me (or plug me here). If you just want more info on the game, plug me here. I'll see what I can throw out that might sound neat and cool.
I have been shoulder-deep in wiki design, setup and wikifu recently for the LARP I'm involved in.
Is there something particular that you are looking to do? I'm not really capable of, say, making a wiki work with a MUSH (I do not know enough SQL or the processes for that, even with various tutorials and theno's guides and such), but wiki setup, extensions, options and design I've gotten pretty good at. If you want, PM me or post 'em here.
@Cobaltasaurus said:
@Thenomain said:
FF8 it is.
... Next time Squeenix has a sale, you slowpokes.
Once Steam processes the request to give it to me, you can always use ahem "friends and family" permissions to play my FF8 copy.
FF8 was the first FF game I played and shall forever remain my favorite. FOREVER. Though I have a soft sport for FFX-2 (~dress up time~).
Is it terrible that my impression of FFX-2 was strong enough that I wanted to somehow run a TTRPG with the 'super magical dress up in combat' angle?
@Arkandel
Geist may get a 2E revision, but it was supposed to be a limited line and didn't become the money-funnel that Lost was (which is why Lost got so many extra books anyway).
@Thenomain said:
@tragedyjones
When I get my hands on a copy of the Idagram Chronicles (Idiot Chronicles? I seriously cannot remember any Werewolf pseudo-language nonsense), I will start the long process of converting it to code.The sooner the better, if anyone wants to help in that regard.
I salute you. Good luck! 
@tragedyjones said:
The chances of Spider-Man appearing in a Whedon-directed film are close to 0%. Whedon is doing Avengers 2, and that is likely it. I believe the Russo Brothers, directors of the best Marvel film of 2014 (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) will be handling Cap 3 and Avengers 3.
The guys who did Cap:Winter Soldier doing Cap;3 and Civil War
SIGN ME UP.
OH GOD SIGN ME UP.