@Lithium said in Something similar to WoD, but not quite:

I retract any suggestion of Dark Spires. Magdalen (head staffer) in her infinite wisdom just decided to remove a wizard's ability to advance magically. At all.

Can't get more potion slots. Can't get new enchanted items. Can't improve your enchanted items. Can't learn the two elements you can't start with, at all.

Ever.

It's the SILLIEST knee jerk I've seen in a long long time.

Her reasoning? There are PC's who are more powerful than some of the NPC's /AS THE NPC'S WERE WRITTEN IN THE SOURCE MATERIAL/.

Instead of limiting the problem children, or capping advancement at a reasonable level, now Wizards are just fucked. Any magic user is just fucked.

If someone tells me how to spoiler this I will edit and fix:

=============================== Announcements ================================
Message: 1/99 Posted Author
Refinement Sun May 01 Magdalen

For a while now, Dark Spires has been struggling with an increasing imbalance of power levels on the grid. In part, this is due to the fact that the site has been up for over 2 years and we have PCs that have been an active part of our community for that entire time. As we do not intend to reset our environment, create alternate locations for higher power levels, nor do we intend to place an XP cap on our players, Staff has had to come up with a way to keep our balance functional.

A huge cause of the imbalance on grid has been determined to be the Refinement power. As it stands, we have people walking the grid that can, in one shot, kill the Merlin, easily cripple the Gatekeeper, and even take down the Blackstaff. Obviously, this isn't a viable situation.

Staff has been discussing a solution to the balance problem for over a month now and the only resolution to this issue that we can see is to remove the Refinement power entirely. We know this will have massive repercussions for our Wizards and other magic users but it is an essential move to maintain the balance of power and PCs on grid.

Going forward, we will be opening jobs for each person to reformat their characters. This will require adjusting any rotes/foci/enchanted items as necessary.

In addition, due to the lack of cohesion between the delineated PC templates, we will no longer be allowing the Powers From Magic option.

Magdalen

TL;DR

Dark Spires is now the world of Scions and Faithful/Artifact Users. All hail the children of the gods.

Should be called British Rick Riordan World now.

Wow... sounds like most people's reactions to Mage from nWoD >.>

I love the Dresden verse but I could see where that could get out of hand. More so with how they handle "XP" over there. Seems like a cap would have been one of the best options. Though... If we're talking the source material, a wizard could get level/power capped on the whole magic side of the house and then chose to be one of the fae Knights for a boost right? >.>

I've been reading "The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology" (fiction based on 2e Mage) and its pretty cool. I'm excited for the release. Hopefully we'll get something stood up to play mage in relatively short order.

One thing I've noticed about "people" who don't understand or know mage is they seem to focus on the high end / high XP side of things. They cry about game breaking powers and such while ignoring the other splats and their ability to "break games" at high xp as well. But low level mage is a blast to play. You can playing that unexperienced mage that is no longer a novice and out doing his thing, itching to call his mentor for an assist but knowing the answer will be something along the lines of, "I know you'll be able to figure it out".

I think if more people gave it a chance, and if more STs were a little more creative people would come to love the sphere.

@Derp said in PVP games/elements?:

One thing that has always bugged me about WoD PvP:

PvP != PK

It's possible to go up against a player and just beat the crap out of them without actually killing them. In fact, this should probably be the standard, with an actual PK being far less common. Having someone beat the hell out of someone is far less likely to result in blowback than if you kill a member of some faction.

But people just sort of naturally assume that death is the only outcome of combat. So weird. I have nothing against PvP, but I think that PK should be somewhat discouraged unless it's really the only logical outcome for the scene.

But then, people just come up with a reason to try and do mental gymnastics to justify why -their- character is some sort of frenzied maniac. It goes round and round.

I'd be interested in a game where PvP is actually encouraged, so long as actual PK is kept to sane levels.

Yeah I could see in Hunter the beat down being a bigger thing on the whole vs a straight murder. Maybe that's the key to the whole PK issue we've been trying to figure out. How do you stop just random PK by troublemakers that make no sense in the story? Maybe this is it? If you want to /finish him/ there is a tiny hoop to be jumped?

@somasatori said in PVP games/elements?:

@acceleration

So, what you would need to do with your metaplot would be to enforce some rationale as to why the characters would be against each other. The thematic aspect of the meta could literally be anything, from vampires and whatnot fighting hunters (like @ThatOneDude mentioned), or something like what we did on TR the first couple years when I was running it and have it stem from some kind of eldritch horror thing. Nonetheless, the meta needs to establish the animosity between PCs.

My suggestion would be similar to what was said before: have a few tiered Conspiracies in the area - pick three of them that don't work well together, like Task Force Valkyrie, the Cheiron Group, and the Ascended Ones, for example - and put them in a location that's highly anomalous. Your metaplot could be something as such: after a massive war between some extra-spatial beings (spirits and the like) and supernatural creatures in the mortal world, a section of the Amazon Rainforest has been cordoned off by the United Nations. Three groups of supernatural Hunters, one even funded by the United States government, have come forward to deal with the potential threat. Everyone knows about the existence of the supernatural now, as the Shadow now bleeds into the real world in the location where the last great battle was fought. Hunter cells are expected to travel into the Bleed Zone (B-Z) to take care of any obvious threat to the surrounding population, and most of the people in the area have been evacuated to safer locations. Each hunter conspiracy has its own reasons for being there, down to specific cells. Your orders from on high are to acquire any anomalous artifacts and equipment from the B-Z and bring them back to base camp in order to be studied and figured out to ensure that something like this never happens again. With luck and enough research and development, humanity may even be able to close the rift between the Shadow and Earth.

In this sort of setting, you could have supernaturals rounded up and captured, or in deep, deep hiding. They wouldn't be PCs, but you could throw just about any sort of PvE antagonist into the mix by using the stats from one of the splats. Vampires who have Blood Tenebrous interested in the Bleed Zone? There you go, now your Cell has to fight a Coterie of OD. Werewolf pack moves in while a TFV cell has an Ascended Ones cell pinned down with machine gun fire, and now the two groups have to fight off the werewolves. Then the one that takes the least casualties fighting off the theriomorphs finds that their former opponent is much less equipped to deal with them, so they take 'em out. The Cells are being run like a military op, with each other Conspiracy acting as a different military group, and therefore enemy combatants.

So PrPs could be something like: we're going into the B-Z to find this powerful fetish that was used in the big conflict. Word gets out to the other Conspiracies that this thing exists and they send in some of their own soldiers. Who can get to it first, and who can hold off long enough to get extracted? Or... We've recovered this artifact from the B-Z and now our best scientists are working on it back at base camp. But it seems like one of the other Conspiracies realized that we've got it, so now we have to defend our scientists from an all-out assault and push the enemy back. Even something like: we've figured out the properties of this vampire blood magic anomalous entity and we're about to have it extracted back to Washington D.C. so we can put it to use as best we can in defending humanity from the depredations of our supernatural enemies. Unfortunately, the Cheiron Group wants to take credit for its discovery and potential defensive abilities, etc., etc., etc.

Forgot to write out: So, the PrPs would push both the meta and they'd also theme themselves toward PvP, just by the nature of what sort of military operations are done into the Bleed Zone (or whatever you wanna call it).

Totally could be the "darkzone"... I think this idea has a lot of merit for something like that. Easy access for PRP fodder as well to have some zone that's just a nightmare...

@silentsophia said in PVP games/elements?:

It was a bit weird. I apped onto a totally open PK game (oWoD) and like, no one really actually killed each other.

That part is ok to me, its more the understanding that if you do something to a PC (ICA=ICC), he/she could respond with an action that could include trying to PK you.

Like if your PC had his henchmen come in and rob my PC in the middle of the night, kill his puppy and then laugh about it as they drive off in my badass oldschool mustang... Wait, that's John Wick... But you get what I'm saying

@somasatori said in PVP games/elements?:

@HorrorHound said in PVP games/elements?:

@ThatOneDude

Which is why violence solves all problems, and if it does not? You are not using enough of it. But, where I started, such things had a really simple solution. If you die, you die.

Yeah, I remember the old school WoD games with the OOC Masq thing going on, where if you found out that someone was Cam (I usually played Sabbat), they were dead as fuck ASAP. I kind of miss those days.

Yeah it can be a blast as long as everyone treats it as a game, there isn't to much of a painful way to get back into playing, ect.

I miss it.

@HorrorHound said in PVP games/elements?:

Have I been playing WoD wrong? All World of Darkness games are PvP. If your Splat interacts with my Splat, you die, sucka. If you have what I want, you die, sucka. If I fail frenzy, you die, sucka.

Oh I agree... but I harken back to TR where a vampire mouthed off to my werewolf...

The vampire was warned w/ a statement much like: "Keep it up and I'll feed you your fucking teeth."

It kept going, smash cut to 6 months later with PK still unresolved.

I'm hoping for a game where that's not the case.

@somasatori said in PVP games/elements?:

@ThatOneDude said in PVP games/elements?:

@somasatori said in PVP games/elements?:

This was tried once, as Depraved Creations. Originally it was supposed to be an open cgen PvP-focused WoD game (it was billed as a "PK-fest"), but we all ended up becoming friendly with each other and there was a sept with Bastet, Garou, a werebear, and a couple Rokea. Also the Traditions started working together with the Technocracy.

Not saying it can't work, but you'd have to probably enforce the PK-required policy, otherwise everyone will ignore it and do their own thing.

Like any policy on a MU*, really.

Yeah but that's cool. I mean the idea of that element always being there...

Like I was laughing playing Division like a week ago. Myself and 2 friends go in the dark zone, we're fighting enemies and then in comes 2 other agents. Suddenly its a mexican stand off, we're taking position to make sure they don't attack us, they're doing the same and then we start killing badguys together. Then at some point one team member got caught in a cross fire and we went into full PK mode...

The point is the threat/or ability for someone to turn on anyone at anytime adds some extra umf that most mu's don't have. Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah. That does make sense. It could potentially work, especially with an external adversarial group that's pushing at the players to fight them. There are several good systems that could work for this, all the way from D&D to CoD. If you did it as a D&D/Pathfinder game, you could make it so that dungeons and adventure are few and far between. Make it a relatively low-magic setting, where magic items are incredibly powerful and often storied and highly sought. If one group of adventurers catches wind of a +1 sword, it's a big deal and then word gets out, so you've got multiple adventuring companies trying to play king of the mountain for the item. This would more or less enforce itself, since D&D is definitely a game of He Who Has The Most Toys. Throw in some monsters to create the tension of "well, we have to work together to put down this Beholder," and then after the Beholder's dead, the fights break out over who gets the spoils.

CoD, you could do it as Geist-only, since Krewes can be generally antagonistic toward one another. Set it in a city or area where there's a large group of Sacrosanct that have taken up a lot of the city's resources and claim most of it for themselves, where initially Krewes might have to work together. But then they start to realize that Haunts and Cenotes are in short supply and one claims one, another claims it back, and there you go.

You could even do this with something like Exalted. Make a purely Dragon-Blooded game with the idea of the Wyld Hunt being around, so the players have some reason to try to work together at some points, but they're all trying to get their piece of the Creation pie, as it were. This way, you'd have one Circle of Dragon-Blooded fighting other Circles of Dragon-Blooded because they feel they're more worthy to receive, say, this particular Artifact that's been willed to members in either Circle, or the lands of their family, or whatever. Dragon-Blooded are incredibly political and will tend to kill each other if they can do it quietly instead of argue it out.

Alternately, you could probably even make a game similar to the Division, where you have a Dark Zone (or hell, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) and you'd have separate teams going in for their own reasons, and might end up in similar situations to the one you described. There are more than a few ways to cover that kind of thing.

Tension's the key there, though. Enforcing the tension that no one's really your ally unless you've specifically gotten them to join your crew (and even then, who knows), and everyone's kinda out for themselves, that'll create enough tension where the PCs shouldn't trust each other because they have no reason to trust each other. It'd be an interesting experiment.

Yyyyeeeessss...

Right on the money. Originally in the minds eye of a friend and I we thought Hunter w/ a capital H. That allows for tiered hunters to help and hinder based on territory, belief and goals. All the while the other splats are actually really badass vs Mortal/Hunter so there is all that as well. Keeping the game open to just Hunters though still makes them the small fish in the pond, the under dog so it still kind of instills that feeling to stories as well.

@Arkandel said in PVP games/elements?:

@ThatOneDude , @ThatGuyThere , your usernames are giving me a headache.

We need a ThatOneDudeNamedGuy

@Arkandel said in PVP games/elements?:

@ThatGuyThere said in PVP games/elements?:

Now I would not play on a game were I distrusted staff, but my default setting for staff or any other person is pretty much wary observation when it some to trust.

It still doesn't make sense to me, because most of the reasons I'd have to mistrust staff for would involve things that are impossible to observe. Are they looking at +jobs they shouldn't be? Giving their alts more XP than the rest of us?

Those are not actions which can be monitored by players, and issues like favoritism are extremely difficult to judge objectively even if you're watching very closely since you can't know what's going on in their head; did Bob become Primogen because they thought he was the best candidate or because of some ties to a staff alt?

I mean it still depends on the definition of 'trust'.

Agreed, but how can be transparent enough do people don't worry to much without giving away to much? I think a rule like: Staff doesn't take any positions of power or assigns them works or should go a long way right?

@ThatGuyThere said in PVP games/elements?:

@ThatOneDude
One big difference between any video game and a mush though. Get killed in a a video game and you might lose some gear or xp but you are back in things quickly.
In a MUSH you are looking at not being able ot play for four days minimum unless you have an alt already made.

Yeah, I kind of like the idea BITN did with the alt in reserve... but yeah for me I'd say most people should have an alt ready to go.

I'd like to think a game like this would make death semi painless but one topic that came up is how to deal with it. I'd be of a mind that you'd have to lose a bit to make it at least worth not having a revolving door of PCs that are ever stronger...right? You get ganked in PvP you roll in w/ a new PC with 50% XP of the last maybe even 75%. I mean if not the juggernauts would just keep staying as the big bad PCs/players. Right?

@somasatori said in PVP games/elements?:

This was tried once, as Depraved Creations. Originally it was supposed to be an open cgen PvP-focused WoD game (it was billed as a "PK-fest"), but we all ended up becoming friendly with each other and there was a sept with Bastet, Garou, a werebear, and a couple Rokea. Also the Traditions started working together with the Technocracy.

Not saying it can't work, but you'd have to probably enforce the PK-required policy, otherwise everyone will ignore it and do their own thing.

Like any policy on a MU*, really.

Yeah but that's cool. I mean the idea of that element always being there...

Like I was laughing playing Division like a week ago. Myself and 2 friends go in the dark zone, we're fighting enemies and then in comes 2 other agents. Suddenly its a mexican stand off, we're taking position to make sure they don't attack us, they're doing the same and then we start killing badguys together. Then at some point one team member got caught in a cross fire and we went into full PK mode...

The point is the threat/or ability for someone to turn on anyone at anytime adds some extra umf that most mu's don't have. Does that make sense?

I'm curious, if a game was designed with PVP or PVP like elements in mind, would people want to play? What I mean to say is that the whole ICA=ICC is upheld. You are a vampire, you spill the beans to a mortal and the news hits the Prince. Blood hunt is called and PC Sheriff shows up and takes you out.

Going a bit further, you are in a crime family and want to take over so you and your crew through various merits and jobs take over the support infrastructure of the family (goons, external support, ect.) and then take out the head of the family.

There is more and more to be said but is that appealing to players? High risk/high reward and such?

@Coin said in RL Anger:

@hedgehog said in RL Anger:

@Coin

Explain this weirdness of biking to me, if you could? We live along a major thoroughfare in our Chicago suburb, one that runs north-south. Bicycle riding is expressly forbidden along this corridor, because some civic planner, in their infinite wisdom, made a two lane street four lanes without actually widening them. Bike riding on the sidewalks parallel to this street is also forbidden for grown-ass adults; also, there are perfectly bike-friendly side streets a block east and west that they can ride on. This does not stop assholes from expecting pedestrians to move the hell out of their way while they barrel down the sidewalk on their fixed-gears. Why do they do this? Why not use the side streets with their four way stopsigns rather than ride illegally on the sidewalks and have to deal with stoplights, skateboarders, toddlers, dogs, strollers and bus stops? What is the logic?

[sigh]

Way to take a joke too seriously.

I don't live in Chicago, so I couldn't say. But where I live, for example, there are some streets (not enough) that have designated bike lanes upon which cars, buses, motorcycles, etc., cannot be.

Why, then, do I have to contend with motorcycles coming at me? Why do buses ride over the plastic divisors, blocking my path? Why do cars cross the street when the light is yellow and end up stuck by traffic in the midle of an intersection, not only blocking me, but everyone else? Why do dumbass pedestrians decide that because no cars are coming on a one -way street with a bike path, they can cross in the middle of the fucking street without looking both ways, almost making me crash into them? Why are some of these mother fucking idiots people with babies in strollers and old people with canes moving at about one mile every year of their overdue fucking life?

I don't know, man.

If I had to make an educated guess, I would say it's maybe because it doesn't matter how you commute, stupid is still fucking stupid.

Wait... aren't you in some third world country? <ducks>

@icanbeyourmuse said in Kinds of Mu*s Wanted:

To revive a dead topic because.. OMG! I would totally be into a Highlanders Style mu*.... Although, it might not work given the goal is basically pvp.

PVP game would be the best...

@Lithium said in Something similar to WoD, but not quite:

@ThatOneDude Scion was like a half assed mix of Aberrant + Exalted + WoD. It had some neat ideas but overall was to scattered and unfocused in my opinion. It was trying to be to many things at once.

Is this old scion or the current one?

Cause if you spoke about nWoD I'd ask 1e or 2e...

What about Scion... Was that system any good?

@Bug-In-A-Jar said in Something similar to WoD, but not quite:

I really, really like the theme of WoD. The theme being, it's real life, but there's vampires and werewolves and shit all over the place. That's cool. I enjoy that a lot.

But I think WoD is deeply flawed and, well, I'm not sure it's keeping well. Are there competitors out there with a similar theme? If not, how much fun do you guys think it would be if someone were to create one? (Or another one, if one already exists)

The real question is what do you think is flawed, because other systems may have the same flaws and/or with something like WoD you have the Classic flavor and the Chronicles of Darkness with that strange 1e rule set in the middle >.>

It was me <queues the scary / dramatic music>

Wait, no it wasn't...

@Duntada said in Finding roleplay:

Too much togetherness in here.

stabs ThatOneGuy in the back and quickly hands the knife to Derp.

Nothing brings people together like hating on a third party...