Posts made by crusader

There's also an issue with each new pack app on a grid believing they have a god given right to their own loci in their own private building project, or else they're getting fucked. And then when they're gone, the loci is forgotten.

The best way to do loci, would have been like you said...already predetermined leylines that had to be claimed and protected on the grid. Not nestled away inside someone's home (how convenient!!). Loci should be in somewhat awkward places to perfectly control or contain. That's probably how they became loci in the first places.

It just seems so much cleaner to tie it into territory (how many grid spaces a pack can claim and patrol) and how large their numbers are.

@Alzie said:

Bunch've a stuff

Some good feedback here. You sort've misread what I meant on a few points, (judging by the rebuttal to 4, 5, 6, 7 and ), but I get where you're coming from. I know what the ideal is (and you have done a very good job articulating what the ideal is).

Generally speaking, I think storytelling 'spirit content' as opposed to actually running a werewolf-focused game, doesn't provide the same exposure.

Not because this makes your opinions anymore or less valid (I find your objections perfectly valid), but because I think there are certain elements in each game or splat, that are not as readily apparent or more easily overlooked without that focus. And I don't think it merely boils down to bad staff or bad players, because it's just so common.

I'm going to pose a few questions to you. They do not align with the points above, but are a new list.

1. How many storytellers have you seen ever consistently bring a pack's totem to life? Or was it mostly ignored and its existence/demands/activities handwaved, except where brought to life by one of the players?
2. How many storytellers have you seen consistently play up the spirit drama, scavenging and predation around a loci? Do you acknowledge that no game has ever coded a logical loci? The Reach is a great example of completely silly and illogical loci which amass hundreds of essence points and are never needed anyways (cause of the chron).
3. How many times have you RPd a scene, where you had to hunt down a spirit for its essence?
4. Do you acknowledge that on most games, the whole concept of essence maintenance is more or less coded into a completely handwaved, non-issue? There's actually a few highly specific ways that werewolves gain essence, and in tabletop, players are rarely if ever topped up, but its such a bureaucratic nightmare that no known MUSH has ever done anything but set it on a chron.
5. Have you ever ST'd a scene where a player tracked down a spirit to learn a gift, or had one run for you? Was it a common experience, or was it virtually always handwaved?
6. Instead of speaking in broad terms, do you have any realistic or pragmatic experience with a werewolf sphere's Renown issues? It's a constant hotbed of discontent, as to who deserves what renown, and why Glory 4 was approved for Bill but not me. Keep in mind, I wouldn't remove Renown, but I would treat it more like a focus than earned from merit.
7. Kingsmouth is a vampire only game, and Humanity at least, is a very clear cut theme. Do you acknowledge that Harmony is completely overdone in Forsaken 2.0? There's literally a potential for dozens of rolls a night, and it's extremely easy to return to the 'optimal' baseline of 4-6 (such as simply by having intercourse with a human, or not shifting for a bit, etc).
8. Do you not acknowledge that on many games, perceived unfairness in Morality check demands often makes for +job drama? It makes many players feel that their agency is being taken away from them or enforced arbitrarily. It often devolves into rules lawyerings as to what people can get away, and is often either pushed for little things, or ignored when it should've been a huge deal. There's no consistency.

It's true that a lot of these points can be answered with a hypothetical ideal staff or player substituted, but you have to be realistic about what bar the majority of staff is capable of meeting. If something vital in the books is mostly handwaved or ignored on a MUSH, or done extremely inconsistently, it might be doing more harm than good.

Lastly, re Primal Urge. That really wasn't what I was talking about at all, but perhaps it was more my fault at not conveying it very well. I love drawbacks, and I don't know how you got the impression that I didn't like Primal Urge's drawbacks. I just didn't like players being too obsessed about the power stat, and wanted them to see it as something they needed to raise to remain competitive, but as more of a roleplaying decision.

Other things, are less worth hashing over. But I thought I'd clarify that. (I still think if anyone actually liked werewolf, played werewolf, and ST'd werewolf, they'd see an improvement in the game's dynamic by focusing on three forms rather than 5, but there's not much more to be said on that).

@Alzie said:

@crusader Before I answer that. Am I answering them in the context of Forsaken 2.0 or in the context of a non-forsaken 2.0 game that just happens to draw some rules from Forsaken 2.0?

In the context of either Forsaken 1.0 or 2.0, and in your experience, what most players (not the hardened vets) seem to struggle with comprehending or doing justice. I'd also be curious if your perspective was as a fellow player observing other players, or if you've ST'd or helped people through Werewolf chargen, and what they might've struggled with there.

I think my solutions might not be the best, or right for everyone, but I do think Werewolf has a disparity vs some of White Wolf's other splats, in how comfortable the majority of casuals are with its highly intricate lore. Whereas say for Vampire, they just need to have seen Blade or Interview with a Vampire, to get like 90% of its main tropes.

What I've noticed is that for a surprising number of players (probably 1/3rd to 1/2) even after years and years, they never make any real progress with it.

@Alzie said:

Chapter 5, P 200. Spirits. All about spirits and how werewolves hunt them.

I didn't say it was entirely de-emphasized. Just that it wasn't emphasized as much as Forsaken 1.0. Clearly, we have differently nuanced barometers for judging such things.

I respect your opinion on it.

What did you think about the other eight points, purely from the perspective of introducing casual people to the game? (Those who will probably never own a White Wolf book, but will still play it).

@Thenomain

Tangental Ad Homenem Theatre has ended.

Tangential Ad Hominem Theater begins.

Can't you find someone else's thread to troll?

http://i.imgur.com/fhUtdpI.jpg

Honestly, if you weren't a decent coder, website builder and community organizer, I don't think anyone would have a use for you.

@Wizz said:

Why have you been referring to 2.0 in the thread title, even before the edit, if you were talking about 1.0?

What?

I said the Shadow isn't as emphasized in Forsaken 2.0 as it is emphasized in Forsaken 1.0. I already described how. It was in response to a post someone else made, which mostly relied on Forsaken 1.0 assumptions.

Just out of idle curiosity, has anyone else in this thread even read the Forsaken 2.0 pdf, and compared it to the first book? Has anyone in this thread even storytold a game of werewolf? Aside from Glitch.

@ThatGuyThere said:

So things being done badly on a mush is only a reason to get rid of something if you don't like it?

You've nailed it.

@Thenomain said:

Follow up: I asked, he refused. Made my night. Tangental Ad Homenem Theatre comes to close. Thanks to everyone who enjoyed this, if anyone did.

To be fair, I didn't refuse outright. I gave an extremely reasonable precondition.

I guess this means we won't be friends, after all.

@ThatGuyThere said:

Ok now I have a question, you mentioned before one of the reason to get rid of the Shadow is that few people in your mind do it right.
But then you play up the theme of the primal horror of shape shifting which granted is in the books but I have never seen touched on a mush except for first change/ becoming plots. So wouldn't by your own arguments mean that should be cut as well?

Perhaps if things were streamlined a bit, one could sustain focus in areas closer to werewolf's theme. Shapeshifting, and the act of changing itself (often involuntary, frightening and violent) is supposedly as central to the werewolf experience as drinking blood is for a vampire, or avoiding sunlight.

@Alzie said:

Again, you're reading far too much into the shapeshifting thing. The book does not spend that much time on the shapeshifting hurts bit.

I didn't go on about it 'hurting'. I just said that it repeatedly advises the storyteller to play up the drama of the transition.

Forsaken 2.0 emphasizes the shadow to an extreme. The entire origin story is about the shadow. You realized this right?

It's not as emphasized as in Forsaken 1.0. You realize that was the point I was trying to make, right? I came to this conclusion by various means, such as there no longer being spirit children from taboo matings, its harder to step over into the Shadow and more discouraged, and only Bone Shadows are as focused on spirits as all uratha were in Forsaken 1.0.

Thanks for the feedback.

@Ganymede said:

Why not just let us all know?

For the same reason HR already brought up. No one actually gives a shit (except Theno), and it's tangential at best.

@Thenomain said:

@crusader said:

@Thenomain said:

I think I missed it in the long thread; Where has he Headstaffed? Thanks.

Contrary to how HR presented it, I actually didn't attempt to prove anything I said, based merely on headstaff experience anywhere.

That's ... unexpectedly paranoid.

If you want more ammunition

... creepily paranoid, even.

You, Theno, have yet to offer anything even mildly constructive.

I'm not your monkey on the end of the rope here to dance when you grind your box. If you have the time to bang out five paragraphs of reading into the three lines I've said all thread, cool. I have work to do.

---

For everyone else:

@Thenomain said:

I think I missed it in the long thread; Where has he Headstaffed? Thanks.

Anyone know where Crusader has headstaffed? Dinos being dinos and all, some of us should know. Thanks.

It's a well worn truth in the MUSH community that a decent coder can get away with more than their fair share of dickery.

If you're really curious, send me a private message. Otherwise, try and follow your own policies. I know that's a bit tough for you, sometimes.

@HelloRaptor said:

Is 'shapeshifting = primal horror' even a thing for werewolves, or just something you think should be a thing? A quick glance through Werewolf didn't find me any answers one way or another.

Edit: No sarcasm/mockery here, I'm interested in the answer.

In all seriousness, the books, or at least the Forsaken 2.0 pdf, goes on at some length (even more than I have!) about the need to play up the horror and the surreality between flipping the switch from 'man' to wolf, or terrifying wolf-man...with all of its attendant sensory overload and savage violence.

I'm stepping entirely outside whatever opinions I have on the matter. This is simply a sincere summary of what the book itself says.

One of the main themes discussed is that for a werewolf, half of the horror/violence is not external but internal. That the damage you can wreak on those around you should be as terrifying, in some ways, to the character/player as to those that might be on the brunt end of it. That this violence should be heightened and called attention to by the violent, bone-cracking, gut-churning contortions of their shape changing. Something so inhuman, that it drives onlookers to mindless fear. A werewolf character and its player should be equally horrified at the risk of losing self-control. (A favorite White Wolf trope).

Death Rage, which is further emphasized in Forsaken 2.0, and made even easier to slide into, and given much more consequences (and even mechanically tweaked as to make it more attractive, with many gifts that cost essence becoming free while in death rage), is the central game mechanic behind this theme. Forsaken 2.0 actually gives us two stages of death rage...the full berserk rage itself, and when you're on edge, and needing to constantly make self-control rolls or fly into it.

Again. If you think I have a tendency to repeat things ad nauseum, then you haven't read the Forsaken 2.0 pdf. They pretty much hang their hat on the conceit of in werewolf, the greatest horror being one's own terrible capacity for blind, unthinking violence.

My opinion begins below:

The primary risk of flying into death rage - provided you're not overly liberal on demanding resolve+composure rolls for every little insult - is that a player will try and eke out an extra turn of gauru form in combat. I like this way better, because the player then has no one to blame but himself. It's his agency at work, and his choices. He made the conscious decision to try and stay in his 'Wolf-Man' form longer, and the consequences ring truer for having no one to blame.

They go on mechanically at some length, to make gauru as attractive as possible. To make it a first resort. The Wolf-Man battle form in Forsaken 2.0 is vastly more powerful (on an order of exponetial magnitude) vs the Forsaken 1.0 form. You heal all non-agg damage a round. Enemies get like half their Defense. It's intense.

But it's still undercut by the inclusion of dalu/urshul who serve very little purpose in the grand scheme of things. They are 'safe' forms, with only benefits attached and no real risk of losing self control. It encourages a more blase, toolbox like approach to one's shapeshifting. It becomes banal, and rings hollow when they devote repeated paragraphs to how storytellers should play up the bone-cracking, flesh-displacing horror of changing forms, and how players should always be reminded of how bizarre and strange it is. That's hard to do when they're changing forms 20+ times a night. Ultimately, hishu and urhan lose out. The two forms that DO have immensely strong thematic components. Why be a wolf, when you can be a big strong wolf?

In the same way, I think they undercut the conceptual theme of the werewolf's true monster being themselves, by adding a bunch of even more horrific Shadow-related monsters for them to fight.

It's true that Forsaken 2.0 does mitigate this aspect of the game already. In fact, the Bone Shadows are the only tribe with a duty to hunt spirits and most werewolves will never enter the Shadow. In many ways, Bone Shadows are the Uratha of Forsaken 1.0. You can't even step over at loci anymore.

So Forsaken 2.0 already emphasizes Wolf-Man and de-emphasizes the Shadow. I pretty much just took it to a Mountain Dew-esque extreme. So as to not clutter up my player's brain bandwidth with themes that felt already half left by the wayside, and only lingering for the benefit of veterans.

I don't think my groups were exceptional in one way or another, either the one I grew up with storytelling for until I moved away, or the group I play with now.

The first group was purely what you would expect from guys that had grown up playing owod, D&D and even West End games together. There's always a few combat hoss types, one or two social and a sneaky one.

Most such groups have 1-2 players that tend to monopolize all combat situations, and build solely around excelling at them. It wasn't that the rest sat it out, it's just that they clearly brought less to the table when everything got pushed towards violent solutions. But come on, HR. I know I don't need to explain this to you.

In any case, it's true I might have pushed them out of their comfort zone, but they all came around to liking the game more without dalu and urshul. That's purely anecdotal evidence, but I think a few skeptical people would be surprised if they gave it a try. And again, having the dalu or urshul safety net does dilute the primal horror of shapeshifting.

The group I storytell for now, is mostly RPG newbies. They did great at vampire, because it's more or less exactly what you expect from being familiar with various media, as has been telegraphed to us our entire lives (more or less). They did not need to radically immerse themselves and memorize new and unfamiliar concepts that were layered onto vampire (what if all vampires for example, were also ghost hunters, and learned their disciplines from ghosts? And if the ghost world had an incredibly complex hierarchy they had to navigate and understand) They could focus on the mechanics and their character's own struggles.

What struck me is that the 'newbie' group was not appreciably different from half the people you find in any given MUSH online. Especially those that haven't been doing this since owod was a thing.

We need a thread just to pitch WoD settings. I still want to see 'Dubai Nights' somewhere. (Doesn't quite roll off the tongue as Dubai by Night').

@Coin said:

For what it's worth, the Changing Breeds book actually presents non-uratha werewolves (The Vargr, IIRC) as "non-Uratha wererwolves". So, yeah.

I went and found it. It's deliciously vague; totally bland enough to do whatever with it. Like they were literally aiming it at people who wanted to play 'werewolves without all that other stuff'. Changing Breeds, p. 156:

Time and mystery obscure the origin of the Vargr. They have no ties with Father Wolf, and claim none. Some speak of a time when sound became form and a great howl spread throughout the young world and coalesced into the first werewolves. Others claim descent from Fenris Wolf (particularly if they favor Germanic or Scandinavian descent), while still others cite the legend of Asena, the small blue-maned wolf who nurtured a lost baby and then birthed a half-human/half-wolf cub that founded the Turkish people. Others simply shake their heads as if to say, “I’m here, and that’s all I know.” The Uratha call themselves the Forsaken; the Vargr claim their legacy as the Forgotten.

Little on the nose at the end, but whatevs.

The interesting thing about the Vargr, is that their only other form, IIRC, was something like urshul. What I didn't like, was that they could stay in that form as long as possible.

In my own ancedotal, circumstantial and freely discardable experience...the most interesting and exciting werewolf combat comes with presenting the players with a stark choice:

They could conceivably overwhelm virtually any foe they might come across - even a police SWAT team, or trade blows with a vampiric elder - but it's a matter of timing, or else they'll suffer hideous consequences. When left with only hishu or urhan forms, they have to time when to go battle form, because then they have 6-8 turns to do what needs to be done.

If they can't resolve the situation in the next 6-8 turns, then they're potentially fucked. They either shift back and find themselves out-stretched (and potentially naked in ripped and torn clothes), or else go on a death rage, with all its unspeakable fade-to-black esque consequences.

With Urshul and Dalu (especially Dalu) it's more a matter of building up fighting merits and methodically taking apart the opposition. Without Dalu, I noticed that players rarely took any fighting merits, beyond the firearms one, for use in hishu.

EDIT: Another great thing about forcing players to rely on Wolf-Man as their primary battle form, is that fights go so much faster, in a Down and Dirty fashion. I really hated the elaborate 2-3 hour combat scenes with the Dalu Rahus pulling out every obscure fighting style merit, Kung Fu or Krav Maga (complete with punch daggers of course), from the Armory pdfs. It also, strangely enough, seemed to make the auspices more equal. With more time spent in social situations, the Elodoth and Cahalith had more to do. The Irraka player had always been a stealth maestro (they had no Ithaeur).

I want combat to be a 'Zero to Sixty' type experience, flipping the switch from normal to supernatural savagery. Not a gradual escalation from 'small man' into 'big man with punch dagger'. And maybe, once or twice a chapter, into gauru. When the players took gauru before, it was almost as if they were admitting defeat, as dalu/urshul couldn't cut it.

@HelloRaptor said:

An ass reaming

Fair enough.

@Thenomain said:

I think I missed it in the long thread; Where has he Headstaffed? Thanks.

Contrary to how HR presented it, I actually didn't attempt to prove anything I said, based merely on headstaff experience anywhere. I've been around too long to see the dead end that is, and I think HR only resorted to it out of reflex. (He did have a point about me bringing up the Chronicles pdf more than once). I simply acknowledged doing it, and that it influenced a lot of my opinions about the majority of casuals. I then asked if anyone else had ever staffed or headstaffed a sphere, and what their experience was with the majority of players.

If I'm going to use anyone's headstaff experience as an example, it would be AQ, since I think he did it as best as could be unrealistically expected. I've been unimpressed with everyone else since. Including my own efforts.

If you want more ammunition, you're going to have to look for it somewhere else. I might have chosen a bad title, and I might be on the wrong side of history, much like Truman at Yalta, when it comes to the Shadow debate, but I'm not as out of touch as you'd like to believe.

Which I find especially amusing, since you think removing the Shadow from Werewolf would make it more combatty, when the Shadow pretty much only exists to set up owod style battles with monsters worse than werewolves. (Which again, Vampire doesn't suffer from, and which further dilutes werewolf as the pinnacle or apex predator in the roleplaying experience).

HR had some good points, and even though he's off about a couple things, I'll gladly accept my lashes because I know where he's coming from. You, Theno, have yet to offer anything even mildly constructive.

@EmmahSue said:

It's cool that's what you do, sounds like it ought to be something done more often. But common sense is rarely actually common. We have no way to know if that's how the WW writers meant this to be done, so we shouldn't assume it's the case. Better to go with 'all equally important' and let it go, since arguing about this particular point isn't productive. Any ST/game-runner can then add their own personal weight as above, no harm no foul. In this instance, what the writers intended is not germane because we don't know what they intended.

ES

I have no problem with that.

@EmmahSue said:

I'm confused why it matters which order they're in? All the themes together make up Werewolf. You can slant in certain directions if that's your gig, but all of them prolly ought to be there. Why worry about what order or importance they have?

ES

You are right. All of the themes together make up werewolf, (and there are about five or six major ones, of which the cosmology represents only one), and people can and should slant or emphasize as best fits the situation, and which best suits the majority of their players. I completely agree.

That said. Professional writers who typically expect casual readers to get distracted or put the book down at any moment, do front load what to them is most important or exciting to them, in order to hook the reader. It's like how a lot of movies start out with an action sequence. Writing a splat, or a research paper, is not dissimilar.

I do a lot of writing in my job, where I have to break down accounting concepts to more or less ignorant clients, and it's really not entirely dissimilar from explaining an RPG rules system to a complete newbie,.

@Miss-Demeanor said:

I feel the need to address something, because I feel you're placing more importance on this than anyone that did the writing or editing for the books did.

The order in which themes are enumerated in the book does not always equate to the level of importance the writers place on those themes. It's just as likely that the people who wrote the book simply put them in the order that the themes were suggested and agreed upon. Or some other completely random reason. Numerical order does not equate to importance.

That could be true, but it also means they're probably not a professional writer, or have never taken a creative writing course.

Actual writers and authors know, that when dealing with a new audience, you front load and emphasize the most important themes right off the bat, to draw people in. Not unlike a thesis statement.

Typically, professional writers do have reasons for where and when they present content that is not completely random. It's usually quite calculated.