Posts made by ZombieGenesis

Hellraiser Judgment wasn't terrible. It wasn't great either but it wasn't terrible. Unlike the last bunch of movies it actually moves the Hellraiser mythology forward, which was cool. Won't be for everyone but I don't regret having watched it.

This was a fun game I played on Facebook and thought I'd bring it here since we now have inborn gif powers. Just hit the GIF button, type in your birth year, and select the first gif that pops up!

@Ortallus I agree. I thought the final season of SGU was really well done.

OH SHIT!

If this gets overturned I'm gonna be super pissed.

I don't know if it's going to be good or not but I am super excited for Stargate Origins. Stargate is one of my all-time favorite movies and SG-1 is one of my all-time favorite TV shows so this has me super stoked.

As someone who has volunteered endless hours to other people in the form of coding, code base prepping, wiki setting up, and all that I don't find these prices unreasonable at all. I think it may also help weed out the people who are hopeful with good intentions but don't really have the follow through in them to actually open a game leaving only those who have a genuine interest in getting something legit off the ground. So +1 from me.

@Thenomain Most of the systems I use (Savage Worlds and A Song of Ice and Fire) actually have you set a social objective before you enter into the social conflict. Each player starts by stating what their goal is in this conflict and then the two players (or more) RP and roll around how to achieve those goals. I think it's just easy for combat because the implied goal is "I bring you to 0 health".

@ortallus said in Social Systems:

Again, maybe hyperbolic, but this is when using full on magic to influence someone's thoughts. Now, take the magic out of the equation and I don't care what your 'persuasion' skill is, if I think sending in my troops is a bad idea for me, them, or my homeland, and you've offered nothing to convince me otherwise, then yeah, I'm not going to budge either. If your character has seduction over 9,000, but my character doesn't like were-badgers, I'm not going to TS with you.

In the TT game the issue was the player would not listen to anything regarding being convinced otherwise. The Song of Ice and Fire RPG offers a fantastic intrigue system where each player picks their desired outcome (I don't want to commit troops vs I want you to commit troops) and starting stances (I forget what they are exactly but you can pick something like "Very Against" or something) and then the intrigue starts and it's like a mini-game with each player whittling down the other players intrigue points (like health points) to get their objective. It could include things like straight out convincing, intimidation, blackmail, etc and so on. No one had a problem with burning a fate point to not send troops we would have just like to have seen HOW the intrigue played out. We felt it could have led to some great RP and character defining moments. Instead all we got was "I want you to send in some troops" countered with "No!" Not very fun or exciting.

@wildbaboons I think most systems utilize some sort of "social combat" also give tools to ensure that something you absolutely do not want to happen doesn't happen. Let's say you're character is at a bar with the intent of socializing, leaving them open to being seduced by someone they may find attractive. You lose the rolls but just don't want your character to go THAT far...in WoD spend a willpower point, in Game of Thrones spend a destiny point, in Savage Worlds spend a benny, in Fate spend a fate point to redirect the outcome in some way. They resist at the very end, they get a phone call that calls them away, the other person gets a phone call, or whatever. Similar systems generally exist for combat after all. Struck with a death blow? Spend a benny to reduce it to just knocking you out.

@wildbaboons said in Social Systems:

Agency is the big one here. Social stuff against NPCs all day, but no, I don't care how high you rolled on your manipulation/persuasion/whatever roll. You're not going to convince my character that drowning kittens is a good idea.

I think that's a bit hyperbolic. I think people have a hard time separating themselves from their characters and it's not just online that this happens. In my TT group we had one player who refused to use the intrigue system when an NPC was trying to convince her to dedicate soldiers to some battle. Her stance was "My character would never do that" and that was that even though there was no reason why her character wouldn't aside from "I don't want her to". Which is fine but part of the fun we were trying to have with this game was rolling with all the punches, even and especially the social punches thanks to the intrigue system. Ultimately the GM said "Ok, spend a destiny point for the auto-win" and we all moved on but it left a stale taste in everyone's mouths.

No, no one could ever convince you to do something that goes against your moral character (drowning kittens) without supernatural powers but maybe a friend convincing you do make a bad decision in the heat of the moment? Maybe! To me that's part of the fun of playing a character that isn't me, using their various stats and in-game systems to determine what they would do. Maybe not all the time but some of the time, sure.

There are two systems that I like for their social systems. One is Savage Worlds, which I just love all around. It's quick, simple, and can be tailored however you need.

The second is the Song of Ice and FIre RPG. The intrigue system is fairly simple but still complex enough to give it some meat. It's very much a "social combat system". The SoIaF RPG is a great RPG all around but I especially love the intrigue system.

@Ganymede What you've done is fantastic, thank you! And absolutely invest no more time in this. You've already done more than I could have asked and I thank you for that!

RE: oWoD clans as bloodlines

• Those seem to be pretty popular on other games (Bruja, Toreador, Sangiovanni) so I figure why not? They're familiar and popular, sounds good to me.

RE: VII

• That's a good idea, I'll look into it. Thanks.

Thanks a lot everyone, I really appreciate the help.

Absolutely! Fire away!

Let me twist the question around now; based on what I'm going to describe to you about the game below, does anyone have any bloodlines they would suggest for the game?

Setting: Los Angeles
Theme: I'm hoping for it to be heavy political with a bit of a twist. We're borrowing from oWoD and splitting Los Angeles up into baronies, each being controlled by a local baron. The entirety of Los Angeles is controlled by a prince as normal, who is also a baron of a barony. The primogen (called a High Council on the game) is made up of the various other barons instead of the traditional "clan elder". This was mostly done because I'd seen, on other games, neonates being named to the primogen just because they were the only member of a clan on the game. I also thought this fit the theme a bit better (we wanted to take the CoD and infuse a bit of Game of Thrones into it).

The vampires of the city are rebuilding after a large vampire uprising (worked into and under the 1992 LA riots). Most elders avoid the city because of the instability making Los Angeles a very "young" city, kindred wise anyway. So there's a lot of power grabbing, domain claiming, and all that good stuff.

So when thinking about bloodlines I'm trying to think about the above theme and the city in general. We have the obvious notes of gangs (Bruja), international(so maybe some cultural clans like the Giovanni or Ravnos), celebrities, violence, overcrowding, and modern for the city itself. I was also thinking the perpetrators of the uprising in the 90's could be a oWoD Sabbat like group allowing for some old-school type oWoD clans (Tzimisce for instance).

Anyway, those are the thoughts we were working with and are now trying to use to suss out what bloodlines might work and/or be an interesting addition.

Thanks for all the feedback and help.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. And I'd love to see some examples, that'd be super helpful.

So I'm working on a game using Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition that is set in Los Angeles. When we started the project we set up some ground rules for us to follow; we only wanted to use Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition and the Chronicles of Darkness rule books and wanted to avoid any house rules. Here's the issue, bloodlines. The VtR2E book mentions them but that's it. Technically any bloodlines we include would be house rules. So, if we stick with our initial goals and guidelines, we would simply not include them. Vampire players are accustomed to having them, however, and they can bring about an oWoD sense of character that may otherwise be missing from 2E.

So my question, how important would bloodlines be in any Vampire game you were thinking about playing on? If they were not allowed, would that chase you away? Conversely, if they were included would that chase you away? We're just trying to get a gauge on if we should include them or not. Thank!