Posts made by Coin

@Admiral, I disagree entirely as there are no differences when it comes to how it applies on an OOC level.

Your examples are inaccurate, too. That Red Talon can just as easily sit in the wilderness doing jack shit about the Wyrm. The Blood Talon has to deal with spirits crossing the Gauntlet and starting shit, Bale Hounds, Pure packs trying to take his territory, other Forsaken trying to take his territory, the Hosts, the Ridden...

How immediate any danger is to the player characters is directly proportionate to the person running the chronicle, regardless of which of these games you're playing. At best, I'll agree that the oWod was much more specific regarding what was dark about it, but that's just what I like more about the nWoD: it gives me more room to customize.

I agree with @Thenomain in essence. If you're not going to play the hunting and gaining of Renown, if you're not going to play the Pactmaking, deaddrops, and information brokering, if you're not going to play the politicking, backstabbing, and manipulations, then, in my perhaps elitist way, I don't really see how you're playing Werewolf, Demon, or Vampire.

I can understand someone's motivations for wanting to avoid those things so they can just have the ossum powahz, and I can definitely understand not wanting to be beholden to them on a strict basis on a medium like a MU, which is time-demanding and may limit them.

It's my opinion and the subsequent understanding of a separate point of view that makes me want to find a point in between.

@Arkandel, I get it. I actually do.

But at that point, I can just say my character did a bunch of things and ... forego roleplaying the themes of the game I allegedly wanted to play.

"My vampire goes out and manipulates people. Give me Status!"

"My Demon makes some Pacts and trades information. Give me more Cover!"

"My Changeling goes on an epic adventure and gets a super-nifty Token sword that flays enemies alive!"

"My Mage reaches deep into his Oneiros and finds his True Core, discovering hitherto unknown depths of his being, becoming a better person, and attaining higher levels of mystical understanding! Give me Arcane XP!"

I'm not really playing in the game at that point, am I? I understand the need to compromise for those that can't spend as much time in the hobby as others, which is at the forefront of how I'm going about considering this stuff. But at some point I just have to ask "why?" Especially since this is the sort of thing that turned me off of The Reach.

@Arkandel, my main issue is that Vampire isn't necessarily about "learning Cruac", even if you are an Acolyte. But the majority of Werewolf, its core theme, is The Wolf Must Hunt. It is that hunting that becomes Renown. So as the person deciding this, I have to find a way to strike the balance between letting people advance with minimum actual activity that would warrant it, and getting people to actually put forward the effort to play the game they apped a character into.

If all you're doing as a player is putting your werewolf in a bar and posing taking shots, then you're not really playing werewolf, and thus your rise in Renown becomes hard to swallow for me. If all you are doing as a player is having wild monkey TS in your Haven, then you're not really playing vampire, and thus shouldn't expect to rise in Status.

I get that Status and Renown are different in some fundamental ways, though, which is why I am putting so much thought into ways to ameliorate the situation.

@Arkandel said:

I'd be happy with a similar implementation. Or, to reverse it, if someone is active and playing but can't get Renown in a reasonable amount of time, something's seriously broken.

I guess that depends on what you consider "active and playing". I have no issue with people mostly playing relationship RP or bar RP, but that doesn't mean I think that them not getting Renown in a reasonable amount of time is a symptom of there being something broken.·

That said, I have some ideas on how to handle it and offer some compromises between choices, but I am still going to wait until I have the book to read. God dammit, it needs to come out already.

· I suppose this might be precluded by the term "reasonable". Maybe.

@The-Tree-of-Woe
Yes, but my point was that he was meant to steal the show. It was intentional, IMO.

To be absolutely fair, Dracula is about, you know, Dracula. It's the title of the book. It's hardly a surprise that he's the most compelling character.

or you have to request someone run the scene specifically for that Renown. Which, as Ark mentioned earlier, takes the spontaneous fun out the RP.

Curiously: how does being able to buy Renown without having to do anything to justify it qualify as "spontaneous fun"?

I'm not trying to nitpick, I'm just sort of curious as to why A is preferable to B when A does not alleviate the problems found in B.

@Wizz, yeah, I'm super excited about some of the stuff I've seen for Werewolf, too.

Sure, you can pimp smack a Pure for a low level dot of Glory, but there's no reason (in my opinion) that you can count something you did pre-grid towards a higher dot of renown.

Can or can't? You post is a quite ambiguous.

@Arkandel, it is a leap when doing barbell squats or whatever the fuck you weirdo lifting healthnuts do is a commonplace event, and doing something that earns you something as specific and important to your society as Glory is... well, specific and important to your society. So, at the risk of repeating myself, yes, it is totally a leap. Or at least, it's too much of one for me to just handwaive.

It is my hope that we will have enough plot to go around. It is my hope that people won't need to request Renown scenes, because werewolf plot (and metaplot) will give sufficient chances for werewolves to be fucking awesome, as they should.

So we'll see!

At the same time, @Arkandel, accepting that someone who does nothing but sit around talking OOC can, be sheer dint of having accumulate enough passive XP, buy a Renown trait at 5, without doing anything in-character to justify it, makes my blood boil. If it were Arcana? Bah, whatever. If it were a Discipline? Bah, whatever.

But Renown is specifically tied to doing shit, to actual deeds, so that's something I need to account for when I end up figuring out how to handle it.

We'll see. I'm going to try for something that strikes a balance, I can promise that.

@Luna, I actually want to be able to get on from work because I usually have a boatload of free time in the morning before work starts filing onto my desk, and I'd like to be able to use it to get through Eldritch's +jobs. So, you know, constructive use of time I'd spend reading webcomics and forums anyway.

Works for me, @Admiral.

@Arkandel, we're honestly not sure how Renown will work, as of yet. I need to see the book before I can decide. I have some ideas on how to handle it that involves less hoops than usual, but isn't "just spend XP with absolutely no service paid to Renown being an act-dependent stat".

So we'll see. I'll give it the consideration it deserves and requires when I've got the full-scope.

Hopefully Cheesegrater's will get me on from work. If not, I'll have to find a different way.

@ThatOneDude, if you liked it then you shouldda put a meme on it?

@HelloRaptor, this is relevant to your interests. I set it to start when the relevant part does, but you should watch the whole thing as I think you'd like it.

@Arkandel, you essentially start from scratch. We know this will likely be unpopular, but yeah. There are exceptions, among which "if you character dies due to plot/PK, and it wasn't planned", you can transfer a certain amount of XP.

Yeah, we know it's difficult to adjudicate. But that's the idea at the moment.

The God-Machine Chronicles is a must have for anyone playing in Eldritch. Requiem 2nd Edition (i.e. Blood & Smoke) for anyone playing Vampire. There are no more books in 2nd Edition besides those and Demon.