Posts made by ThatGuyThere

Yeah I am as anti-NWoD 2.0 as anyone. But mechanically it is superior to the previous editions.
I don't like the added fiddly bits for online play, and pretty much hate everything storywise about it to the point I would never play it, but it is mechanically superior and beat is just the term they use for xp. It is not like other games have not changes that term around to something that fit the vibe they were aiming for better better.
Edit to add: Before you claim calling xp something different is a new thing the TSR Marvel Superheroes game called it Karma and the Mayfair Games DC Heroes game called it Hero points both of which were created in the mid 80s.

Lets not forget the origin of the name Constantinople. The city of Constantine, they had just spent generations fighting the Eastern Roman Empire and I can definitely see the name change after the final defeat of them. After all the Russian communists renamed St. Petersburg after the Revolution. It is fairly common practice to change names of cities after replacing governments.

Not sure why I would need to. I might be missing something here.
If it is part of the pose that got obviously missed i would bring it up in ooc convo. If it was part of a description or an action I wanted to make sure folks paid attention to, I would focus on that and not detail other things to make sure they realized the important bits.

I too have never seen the wiki code thing.
i don't know if I would find it annoying just confusing as I would have to derail things to ask what that odd mark meant.
Though I am also the sort of bastard that is I empathized a word I would so it like so:
Jim Bob says, "People suck." emphasizing the word suck as he says it.
I know it is retro but just seems easiest to me.

there is one big difference between Fading Suns, Shadow Run and most games we mush and WoD.
You buy Fading Suns you get the rules to play all the various character types sure some options are added in supplements but you can play a noble, merchant clergy or alien with just the base book just fine.
Shadowrun is the same way you buy the base book and all the rules for mages, riggers etc are there. Again lots of options added in the supplements but the base book only can work.
For WoD you buy the base book it lets you play humans, to play vamps you have to buy vamp. to play Werewolves you have to buy werewolf etc. So it is not really the same. If you are staffing a Shadowrun game the base book at least gets you prepared to answer mage question and only odd things require more than that. If you are staffing a WoD game you need many books to be able to do it all and that from a financial stand point alone points to having spheres to ease the burden on perspective staffers.

It should be pointed out spheres are not necessary for people to carve out OOC fiefdoms.
I am not sure where I stand on spheres actually I think they can be a useful organizational tool but also think at times they promote a bit too much insularity, in the end i think I would default to them if running a WoD game if for no other reason then familiarity, enough of my idea flaunt the WoD Cultural norms I would stick with that one.

@Derp
The game runner/God/Coordinator or whatever title they have in place has the power to hire and fire the sphere staff.
For example if I was running the game I would talk with someone in depth before offering a sphere head position, make sure they were on board with the theme I had for the game as a whole and talk about how they planned to implement it in whatever they wold be running. If we had a meeting of minds with that then I would step back and let them run the show, if things occur where I disagree enough with what they do then you remove them.
I know there are many styles of running games that I would be completely unwilling to staff under, in fact most are that way. I know most game runners would look at what I wanted as far as authority to run a sphere and move right on to the next guy or gal. that is not a bad thing, in fact that is likely the best thing. It means I won't get put in a position that I would not be happy in and where my constant friction with the people in charge would make everyone else unhappy.

What I mean by authority in this instance if I was chosen to be a sphere wizard I would require the authority to decide who was in the sphere and freedom to run it how I saw fit.

@Ganymede
Then you were definitely not a fool. You were deceived, and when you found out the truth you left. Likely the wisest course of action to take at that time.

I am definitely in favor of dice to add randomness. I do play free form games but do like the random occurrences that dice can bring up. Oh my character who sis really good at this just messed up, ... On on the other side my utterly non-combat knocker just did five levels on damage with one punch because literally every die on both attack and damage succeeded and the npc baddie failed his soak. It was not something that would have every been posed free form but ended up having a major impact for that character.

Sor superhero games in particular, I would love to see it but know going into it that you are going to be swimming upstream against the prevailing superhero mu culture if you go that route.

Sureality summed up my thoughts better then I did. Yes if someone offers you a job but not the authority to do said job you should never take it.

The Wifely blessings that Misadventrue refers to, where first introduced in the first Edition of The Pendragon Campaign in 1985. I know they also appear in 3rd ed as well.
Not sure about any of the newer editions, though I don't think any of theme were significant enough either way to be cause for issues.
Edit due ot this thread and seeing an add for the game I was lookign through my copy of 5th edition, not sure if it is 5.1 or not had it a while but on page 41 it does list womens gift and provides a random roll for them.
Pretty (+10 APP)
Natural healer (+5 First Aid and +5 Chirurgery)
Good with animals (+5 Falconry and +5 Ride)
Beautiful voice (+5 Orate and +5 Sing)
Nimble fingers (+10 Industry)
Caretaker (+10 Stewardship)

@Arkandel said:

@Ganymede said:

Sometimes, the best staffers get a hold of spheres full of toxic people, get overwhelmed, and cannot get the situation unwound.

My experience is this is the product of higher-up staff handling the responsibility of running a sphere to someone but not the authority to sphere make changes there.

Anyone who takes a job, even a volunteer one like staffing where they are given responsibilities and not commensurate authority to accomplish the handling of those responsibilities is a fool.

Of your five options, option 4 is my go-to. If that's not a choice, option 5: elder NPCs. Otherwise, look at the totality of the circumstances.

I am in complete agreement with Gany here, unless it is a game where everyone is playing an elder which I think would be an awesome small game until the sure to be inevitable drama-splosion. The stories should be about the PCs. Maybe it is my tabletop roots showing but for the most part elders tend to be more forces of nature and there to kick off the story provide occasional nudges of direction as needed, not to be the focus.
Even in the Whitewolf novels the focus of the action is not on Elder level characters, they might be doing the big things behind the scenes but that is where they fit best behind the scenes.
What story purpose elders serve can easily be filled by NPCing them.
While that is not foolproof; I am sure we can all point to examples of Staff playing an NPC as a de facto PCs.

@Arkandel
Fallcoast does not have a lot of alternatives, no where else to play NWoD Mage, Changeling, Sin Eater , Immortal, or Changeing Breeds. I think that has a big deal to do with the popularity.
Also if is easy to get rp there, and it is not like quality of rp differs much from place to place so the reason I would choose Fallcoast over Reno or Eldritch would be simple lots more choices in things I like to play, never been a vamp fan on only play werewolf when the mood strikes me, and ease of getting to the point of the whole thing which is RP. And not just bar rp. I have been there since shortly after Spider was turfed and been in more plots and events then I really have been anywhere else but Oathcircle in a comparable amount of time.

What I would do would let everyone have free access to what was allowed. If there was something i thought was rare enough or overpowered enough to not allow into general population i would simply disallow it as a PC option.
For cases where you must have something higher powered keep it as an NPC; sept elders NPCs, Prince and Primogen NPCs. As far as IC leadership among the PCs I am a firm believer in let the PCs sort it out, don't give anyone extra stats or more OOC authority. If they use said IC position in ways detrimental to the game give them a slap on the wrist on the first instances and a boot in the ass on the second.
Of course I have never really seen IC or OOC faction leadership as a big thing, for the most part IC factions tend to be reasons you get stuck in boring ass meeting scenes and then rarely actually come up in the course of rp.

@Derp
And that is just one of the many reason i would never play anywhere you staffed.

And there is a difference between being bitchy and being against corruption.

I think the main benefit of a grid is having places that will make events matter. For example lets there the is an event at a grided Hangout and it gets the customary media post. I read that and can then use that information as something my character would talk about, hey something happened at the bar we go to in convos even if he was not there.Also if there is followup stuff my character would likely look into it at least after all it is his regular bar.
Now lets that that happens in an anywhere room,same post goes up but name of the Bar is some place I have never heard of, not likely to mention it or even remember reading it more the five minutes later, definitely not going to look into the matter.
To me the grid is one of the big things that keeps games connected instead of being many little sandboxes.

@Derp
First off never been scarred by staff i am pretty good at avoiding them just like avoiding cops when you are in college it is not hard.
But as for it being a limited experience with staff corruption in this hobby? Well lets see, Dark Metal, Tartarus, Shadowed Isles, Denver, all those had literally hundred of pages of various shenanigans on various old forms of Wora, most of it with good cause, Lets also add into the mix some of the newer games like HM and the reach, I never dealt with it any there either but care to tell me it wasn't around?

And the reason I posted this your soup kitchen analogy shows that you have never volunteered at one. I do on a regular basis and yes the people there getting the free food at just as prone to bitching about it and service they receive as human beings are everywhere.

@surreality said:

I'm not talking about a free for all with no rules for staff regarding CoI. I just think rules involving OOC behavior need to not bleed over into artificial IC restrictions that further an atmosphere of distrust.

Ok this is where I am confused, if you don't believe rules can stop the problem then why have the rules?
I do think while not stopping rules can help most people will tend to follow them out of wanting to avoid hassle if for no other reason,.
I agree with you on keeping the important roles as NPCs 100 percent, but there are many games where that is no the intended case such as RfK, the reason I didn't make a second char there when my first left town with his Regent was that an PC prince was chosen.
And it was not any more of an artificial IC restrictions then many characters had, there were three tiers of Characters,; Political, Support and Casual. When a player chose one that put IC restrictions on them.
Now I might be remembering wrong, the policy was that you could not have a Political PC while being staff.
So the restrictions on staff by the policy were no worse then what many players myself included set on themselves, I played a support character. There were also limited slots for political characters, if they get filled up by staff you have vampire Firan where all other players are essentially NPCs for the staff folks to show off to.
I get you don't like the rule but lets not make it sound like it is horribly crippling to staff pcs. Did it make finding staff harder, it likely did so the staffers in charge closed the game. rather then compromise it.