Posts made by Thenomain

@Miss-Demeanor said,

Keepers may not be CONSCIOUSLY monstrous or horrible to their captives, they ARE alien beings incapable of empathizing with their charges.

And yet, Empathy is the key stat for manipulating the Hedge. Tres interesting.

However, I have to twitch at your description of a "deeper" Hedge. There is no meaningful distance in the Hedge after you leave sight of Earth and until you reach sight of Arcadia. The books do say this outright once, and imply it a number of occasions.

Not to pick on this, but it's a peeve of mine in how they assume otherwise,

@Rince, do you have the soft code available in a text file format, or only on the live server?

If the latter, please send me a chat to a sample site where I can see how you approach the logging. Thanks.

See, I don't see that from Werewolf. The Werewolf I see has little option but to "be a Werewolf, oh and you can do some other things". The way Changeling is written and presented the option is "to be a person, oh and you're also a mental rape victim with the possibility of magic powers". The focus of the rules and the theme tell us these things, which is why I started this thread.

I see nothing about this in Werewolf to insult, but to explain what it seems to be. I have found nothing in any of the nWerewolf books to say:

regular dude/dudette who has some bizarre part-time obligations

Nothing. Not even the core book, which I believe is the only book that should really matter.

I don't mean this as a bad thing, but as simply how it is. I've also said (perhaps repeatedly? this discussion feels like it's gotten circular more than once) that if you want to not engage the primary theme and setting of a game, go for it, but that you're not really playing that game unless you're using it as the exception to prove the rule.

My brain has tangented from the concept of the "toolkit". I recall when WoD 2.0 (sigh, the original "official" name of the nWoD set) came out, the goal was to let each table create their own game. The stigma of the metaplot was huge and each table was supposed to be its own world with its own conditions and social politics and so forth.

I buy that. I do. I was excited about it back then. But a few things happened.

First: White Wolf's business model relies on pushing out books at a certain rate. This is probably true of all full-time RPG companies. What I saw filling the books reversed this promise. X-Axis group is A, B, and C.

"Toolkit", I would counter myself by saying. Well, yeah, but no, Armory was a toolkit. Spelling out the history of a bloodline from day 1 and who's currently leading it and so forth ... is not. It's deep, and it's entertaining, and it fills the pages, but it takes the butterfly of freedom that toolkits are meant to be about and pins it down.

"Father Wolf" is not a toolkit element, but honestly I don't mind because it answers the "what is a Werewolf" question. A toolkit that's too open is not useful, and I've complained about Changeling similarly.

Secondly: Take the above and throw about 50 strangers into the mix. Someone above mentioned it, but you can't really afford to explain every detail of what the game is about if the books didn't already say it.

I mean, we're back and forth enough about it that I'd be tempted to say that Werewolf is about ... nothing. When Basic D&D, the blue box, can be more certain about what it's about than the fifth version of a single game line, that's horrible.

(Werewolf, Werewolf 2nd Ed, Werewolf Revised, Werewolf 2.0, Werewolf Chronicles.)

And sure, it's a bonus, too. Part of the draw of Changeling is that it's not about anything, but it's also it's largest weakness. A Werewolf can say, "Hey, let's go fuck up some spirits, because that's one of the things that gets us power and power's awesome." What can a Changeling say? "Hey, you want to go fuck up Arcadia?" What, are you mad?! "Okay, the Goblin Market?" Stop it; you're insane. "Want to hang out at the mall and drop pennies on people until the security guards chase us out, so we can get some power pool points and mess with them tomorrow?" Okay.

I don't believe Werewolf is a game about nothing. If's a game about something, then all the characters in it are geared to do that something. A Werewolf is a Werewolf. And for Mu*s, that's a good place to be.

@Wizz said:

Fairest are the Faces.

Are they? Hm. A small Social advantage ... mmmnnhhhh. A tiny xp discount. Nnh. I mean. Yeah, I see what you're getting at, but it's ... well, it's this:

Darklings are the Sneaks

Some of the most game-breaking builds have Elementals as the Tanks and Darklings as the Strikers and Wizened as the Healers, and these builds are so easy even I can make them. What you're saying aren't roles, they're ... well, they're options.

In D&D, Elves gets a +1 Dexterity, but they're not the Sneak. Halflings get a stealth bonus, but they're not the Sneak. Nobody's "The Sneak". It's not a class, and it's not a role. In D&D, "race" is an option to enhance the role, with some theme/setting fluff as a rider.

in Changeling, Seeming is an option that may lead you to a role (Kith, and barely even that) but itself is just an option. I feel informed by the game that Changeling is meant to be a game of a hundred lego blocks of pluses and minuses to create whatever you want, using the glue of "Arcadia Has Everything".

And that's the thing. If you want to play Changeling as "this Fairest is a damn fine Tank", you're breaking no boundaries or assumptions. If you want to play Werewolf as "this Irraka is a damn fine Tank", you're going to have people looking at you funny. Because an Irraka is an Irraka, while a Fairest gets +1 Social and some hints at what they once were.

Which is cool for making up character histories, but isn't what I'd call a "role".

(edit: I'm coming off more antagonistic that I'm intending, probably due to being tired. Consider how much support that most of the game lines give in defining the role of a character. Changeling barely has that until you hit Entitlements. I consider this almost a weakness in Changeling, but likewise I consider it a weakness in Mage, as most options seem too rigid. Not enough waffles.)

• Irraka: There's a role these people are expected to fill. This is a facet of the core game, its settings and its rules and its abilities.
• Fairest: There is not a role these people are expected to fill. Neither the setting nor the rules reinforce this point, save for a very slight xp savings on otherwise common powers. (The only exceptions are Beasts and Elementals, who are reinforced due to some potent xp savings available mostly just to them.)

Yup, that's it. That's about as close as my point as I think I can make. In the classic debate, it's Nature vs. Hammer.

Waffles.

@Wizz said:

And aren't you penalized? Not doing Changeling stuff and raising Clarity means your Wyrd falls and keeps falling, IIRC.

What? No it doesn't. First: Raising your Clarity in Changeling is moving away from the unusual and strange.

Secondly, your Wyrd can't fall unless you do so intentionally, outlined in the very last seasonal book: Equinox Road. (There were three books after it, but ER was the last planned one.)

The Storyteller system is supposed to be a toolbox.

I have never seen the core rules used as a toolbox. As these are the jumping-off points of all major templates in the Storytelling System (yay, I get to know something! 'storyteller' was oWoD), I'm going to assume that the writers were blowing smoke.

Maybe you meant all the books, but I think it's a dick move to consider anything but the core book as a requirement for an online game, just as I think it's a dick move to tell people who know the core rules to shove off because they don't know something buried in a splat somewhere.

(Or even buried in the core rules. Did you know that there are rules for finding portals in the core Changeling rules? And yet people get pissy if you want to "wing it" with combat. Why isn't hard to imagine. Consistency, as @Ganymede would say, is king.)

There was a point to this not having specifically to do with Changeling, but I can't remember what it was.

edit: Interestingly, I have a personal rule when judging scenes: What I remember or think is interesting is the rule at the moment. If you have a problem with that you can tell me once, and I will make a decision and then the scene will move on. I am not a fan of all-or-nothing consistency because it's nearly impossible to attain. but I more than understand the reasoning behind it.

I am all for breaking rules as long as it fits the requirements of "it's internally consistent to the game" and "it's interesting for those involved". (Notice I didn't say fun. Fun is what we want before our tastes become more nuanced. Engaged, interested, those are the classifications of "fun" that I want.)

@Miss-Demeanor said:

Look at the years long debate on how Separation 5 works. >.>

Hey, I told Gany at the time that I could abuse it either way she wanted to rule it. And abuse it I did.

@Wizz said:

So how is that really different from nChangeling, where True Fae/Privateers and Clarity loss can and do interrupt your barrista's every day life and drag them back into the weirdness?

Werewolf v2's is codified; you cannot escape it any more than you can escape not having a "Cast Fireball" ability as a thief in D&D. It's encoded as what your character is.

Changeling's is a decision of the GM or the players based upon what part of the setting they want to engage. You're not penalized—in fact, you're rewarded—for not engaging in the weirdness. This should tell the GM: All Weirdness, All the Time, but it's a decision of the table, not of the game.

In a bit I'll explain some of where the game doesn't particularly care.

There's nothing forcing you to participate in Uratha society other than mutual protection and strength, which is really the same idea behind Freeholds and Courts, right?

Theoretically. The number of times I've read the Changeling book, the whole Freeholds & Courts idea lives in a duality, ideas hidden in larger sections. Others obviously needed edited out but never were.

Did you know that where trods lead to the real world is where glamour tends to pool? Which should immediately set off alarm bells, as this has nothing to do with how glamour works, but this artifact is still in the fluff text about Freeholds.

Did you know that you could tell which Court's territory you're in by the psychotropic nature of the part of the Hedge that you're in? If you went "buh, what?", then you're right. This, plus the way the Fealty Pledge is written, and you can tell that the game at one point was a tweaking, not a re-writing, of oChangeling.

nChangeling also suffers a lot of telling-but-not-showing. Privateers and Madmen! They are briefly talked about, supported by one Entitlement, and Madmen themselves are pretty much ignored in the Autumn Nightmares book, the one about antagonists.

What I'm saying here is that, more than the other books, Changeling needs read with a grain of salt. If you distill down the engagable parts (not the parts we engage, but the parts that we even can), and the "Freehold = Protection" is a boogyman, Courts are either purely social or a mix of social and metaphysical, and there doesn't seem anything in particular to fear or fight.

It's not until one of the last books written, Lords of Summer, before we're given a clear idea of why Freeholds, and even that's mostly to help us write our own settings, to give us ideas what they intended.

That it took over three years for them to say anything about that, well, I love Changeling but I don't think it's well-written as a rulebook.

@Wizz said:

You are actually encouraged to be Joe Blow.

It looks to me like you're encouraged to be Joe oChangeling, neither too much in the Dreaming nor too much in the Banality, pulled in two directions at once. This, also, informs "what the game is about".

To me, Joe Blow is an everyman. Already it looks like nWerewolf v2.0 Chronicles (kidding) is making it even harder to be fight the role given to them by simply being a Werewolf.

@Miss-Demeanor said:

you can very much play a Vampire without engaging overmuch in the politics

@The-Tree-of-Woe said:

everybody plays. Or gets played.

That these two statements are not exclusive nor contradictory means I think you two are onto something.

@Olsson said:

Now maybe I am missing something here, but to me those roles are just as prelevant in Changeling The Lost as in any other gameline, instead of Clan, Auspice or Path you have Seeming. A Fairest is inclined to be a spesific way, there's sections of books dedicated to describing how Fairests are, just like there are for the others mentioned above. It's the attributes/qualities that are inherent to the thing you were turned into.

This is probably what I knew was missing from the post. I did say "more open", too, putting a subconscious holder there.

In Changeling, Seeming (and Kith) is presented as, "You experienced x." There are no expectations or social groupings based upon it, and one oft-ignored bit of rule-slash-fluff is that you can barely remember what happened in Arcadia. Seeming doesn't turn out to be your role as much as your attitude. Fairest are pretty and social divas. Ogres are big and ugly and strong. These are encouraged by their power sets, but because anyone can take their power sets the idea of role becomes pretty muddy.

Kith, on the other hand, is pretty straightforwardly a role, but a role in the same way that "what you went to school for" informs your job in the wide world. Again, there is no internal thematic pressure for you to follow it. A statue becomes a violent gun-nut. A mouse becomes a maven of the movie night. You can do these things and still exemplify the character.

@Ganymede said:

@Thenomain said:

My question is basically: How do you know what a game (edit: a game line, a specific set of rules in the RPG sense) is about?

You only know what you're told about it, by the book, the GM, or the other gamers.

I realize I'm not helping, but that's the jist of what I'd say.

This is, in fact, why I find Changeling a much more open-ended game than Werewolf. And my hate-on for Mage's tepid "Atlantis" history. It also underlines the point that I tried to make and that I think Ark was getting to: Some of the rules are social decisions.

The expectations of the books, the rules are the only thing that connects our understanding of games. I am, tangentially, constantly disappointed that games don't make more effort introducing their take on things to new players, or even to older players looking for a refresher.

So. Yeah.

@Arkandel said:

No one used it.

What you're referencing here is something we tend to call a house-rule. They tend to (and in my definition, must) support what the game is about and therefore are also informed by the game's existing rules. Not every single rule defines a game, but instead the purpose of those rules as a complete system defines what is known as "the game".

@Arkandel said:

The point of games is to have fun playing them.

Yes. Yes. But. But no.

No, the point of a game is to have fun within the constraints put upon you. Maybe you think throwing the Monopoly money into the air and stuffing the pieces up your nose is fun, but you're not playing Monopoly.

Who benefits from forcing players to play out a particular aspect of the game they don't find enjoyable?

You might as well ask, "Who benefits from forcing players going to jail when they draw the 'Go to Jail' card?" The question does not, to me at least, have a connection to what a game is. The benefit is that you agreed to it, you made a social contract to engage in the game and therefore tacitly agreed to follow the rule.

If I can find it, I will link to it, but one of the classic ludologists, one of those people who made a point of running statistics and exploring what makes a game a game, says this of a game:

First and foremost, a game must be voluntary. You cannot force someone to do something and still call it a "game". If you don't find something enjoyable, you don't do it. If you are forced to do it, it's not a game.

Finally, this is not meant to be a thread about Eldritch. You guys want that, there's a thread about it. Or get a room and hate-screw each other already. My question is basically: How do you know what a game (edit: a game line, a specific set of rules in the RPG sense) is about?

Let me, now, contrast Changeling: The Lost. In Changeling, you are playing someone who was kidnapped and escaped. They agree to hang out with other survivors and they have one of four basic philosophies on what to do as a survivor. There is also no substantial penalty on not choosing a philosophy. As Courtless, a character has fewer super-powers to choose from. It doesn't have any roles besides that. The game is about being a survivor, and that makes Joe Blow, Sudden Scarecrow, a lot more open.

I don't know Vampire, so I can't speak for it. I really have spent almost no time trying to read the theme, so I'm at a disadvantage here, but one of the things I liked about Masquerade: Bloodlines was that it started off with: Whups, you're a vampire! You are Joe Blow, Sudden Malkav-- oh, I see where I'm going. Malkavian. There's your role. Are you going to play it? Do you need to involve yourself in politics as a Malkavian? No? Then that's what the game is about. Ventrue, Gangrel, and others don't always have that luxury. oVampire was a very political game, and you would run into it sooner or later because that was what the game was about. You can ignore it, but then you're not quite playing the game you bought.

@Admiral said:

I think the lines get very, very blurry in nWoD in terms of 'what you are playing'.

There's very little 'setting' at all really when you get down to it.

This doesn't matter. There is very little 'setting' to core D&D, yet people know exactly what to do in it even if they've never played before. "You are a Thief in a quasi-medieval high-fantasy world. What do you do?" What do you do?! You steal shit. You backstab people. You are a Thief in a quasi-medieval high-fantasy world. Thief. Medieval. High-fantasy. GO!

The core WoD rulebook gives you about as much information, but suddenly there's an uncertainty about it. There's no more uncertainty than there is about D&D; you will have arguments about whether or not technology is advanced enough to have the concept of leaded glass, and how fragile potion bottles are. There are examples, real and humorous, about people filling tons of three-ring binders full of world-building.

Why should WoD be any different? Could it be—and I suspect that it is—because we're applying a tabletop to an online social gathering? Something for the back of your head.

(Pulling this over from an advertising thread that is, really, about classic Changeling. As you can see in a moment, this isn't.)

@Wizz said:

@Thenomain said:

I like playing nChangeling because it offers a low-power campaign type that I miss, where what you are messes up what you want to do. Vampires are Vampires. Werewolves are Werewolves, Mages are Mages. These are their job descriptions.

Just as an aside, this is definitely true of oMage/Vamp/Werewolf, but nWerewolf-- to me, when it's played well-- definitely dials back on "I am noble monster, I fight evil" and is more "regular dude/dudette who has some bizarre part-time obligations, struggles to find a normal place in society against new and unfamiliar instincts" as well.

Really, they all have exactly as much depth as you give them.

That is interesting (honestly interesting, as the kind that makes me want to respond), considering that in another thread someone (@Coin) said that in nWerewolf, you were either doing the things that Renown demands or you aren't playing Werewolf.

I think that's more true than what you state. You can play someone who is Joe Blow, Sudden Werewolf. You can even play in a troupe with the same goal, just like you can play a Changeling chronicle about storming the gates of Arcadia, but I don't see these games being about this. It's an option, not the thrust.

This is one of the things that makes World of Darkness simultaneously popular and pointless. You can reasonably argue that you can "do anything", and "anything" includes things outside the key word in the title up there: Things that are dark, and foreboding. The corner bar and movie nights are not dark unless they are exceptions that prove the rule. And they're not.

D&D (any of them) is about being Adventurers. You're forced into it. Your character is assumed to seek out trouble, else are you playing D&D? Are you? I don't think so. In Traveller, you're assumed to be explorers; a suggestion that is in the title. Fading Suns: You're going to play politics and religion.

World of Darkness, the core game without playing creatures, still has you playing a role, but instead of telling you what the role is, like the games above, it tells you what the setting is. As long as you are engaging in that setting, you're playing World of Darkness.

Then the supernatural game-lines pop in and we merge that idea back into the first games. You're not a werewolf, you're a werewolf of a particular philosophical bent with a particular role, even if your character didn't get to pick it. You as a player did pick it. You now have a character with a philosophy and a role in a setting.

If you want to say—and it is legitimate to say—"I'm not going to engage with the philosophy/role/setting", then I don't think it's unreasonable to say, "Then you're not playing the character/game." Even if it's Joe Blow who didn't want to be a Rahu, if you're not playing "Joe Blow who didn't want to be a Rahu", then you're not playing Werewolf.

This is my take on it, however.

@Arkandel said:

In this case it's pretty hard to please everyone. Even a compromise stands the risk of not being acceptable by either type of player. So it's not a truism; sometimes you got to make a choice for your game even if it means some players really hate it.

Thus making the score in this thread: 7-nil.

Short story, relating to the scoring of this game: There once was a horse, noble and proud. It had a race-horse's name, which are always silly but may shed some light on this story. That horse's name: Not Everyone Is Going To Be Happy With Your Decisions.

Cutting to the chase, horse, dead, beat, dead, horse, beat, etc.

I don't really understand why we need to be reminded how things don't need to conform to every possible world-view What's the purpose? To make people feel okay with their decisions? Wanting to make things as solid and as clean as possible isn't a valiant goal? It doesn't have to be for everyone to do this. But this is what I'd like, what I think @Eerie and @Coin would like, among others.

I'll even posit that it's not okay to simply accept it, but like idealism, one musn't go too far. The horse is dead at either extreme. The best, fastest horse lives somewhere in between.

This is true.

Only Mage truly sucks. This is fact.

@Arkandel said:

You can't make a game that will appeal to everyone

That doesn't stop people from saying what is and isn't, what should and shouldn't, and other forms of academic entertainment. The number of times someone has said "you can't please everyone" should be a score-counter at this point.

I feel that it's becoming cliché, in the true sense of the word: A phrase repeated often enough that it's becoming meaningless. Idealism leads us toward seeking out better solutions, as long as it doesn't overwhelm us.

@The-Tree-of-Woe said:

Why do some people like NChangeling? I find them to be horrifying, manipulative emotional parasites.

This may be the players.

I like playing nChangeling because it offers a low-power campaign type that I miss, where what you are messes up what you want to do. Vampires are Vampires. Werewolves are Werewolves, Mages are Mages. These are their job descriptions. Changelings are baristas and taxi drivers and lost mothers and have to decide, themselves, what they are. Are they monsters? Are they heroes? To me, a ton more interesting than another revisiting of Victorians telling us what we are and who we can be. That's just me, mind.

Sega? Sega. 50 games. $3.