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Cabbit posted:Yeah, this sounds like the difference between 'the prince has put forward a persuasive argument' and 'the prince has persuaded you'. If I trust my ST to maturely and interestingly handle all the other hard/soft limitations (Disciplines, Frenzy, Lashing Out, Conditions, Combat, Character Death, etc.) to my roleplaying choices, I ALSO trust them to handle any social mechanics in exactly the same way. The... Kavak posted:I'd never run it that way and never accept being run that way ... philosophies really seem problematic to me. I really don't get the player who says "Yes, I accept that you are dominating my PC to never question this person's motives or to follow every command for the night. That you might inflict Entrhalled on my PC or an unwilling Vinculum. That you might use combat maneuvers to rip out my tongue or lacerate me with scars before the big soiree. That my PC can die or go into torpor. That my PC can be tortured or their secrets stolen with Auspex. That if I don't aggressively work toward my beast's frenzy goal, you may step in. BUT - I will only ever accept my PC being tricked, seduced, or intimidated if I, the player, am those things first." Instead I worry its a case of, "I had a bad ST/Experience in the past, so I will fight to have ultimate agency as much as possible in all cases going forward." - When I see that as a total illusion. It makes no difference to me if the obstacle/setback I am facing is a Vampire with Nightmare vs. a Biker Gang driving around my PC and shooting guns in the air. If I get scared off in either case because of a contested roll - all that ultimately changed was flavor. And yeah, I've certainly been talked into things I shouldn't have, trusted people just because I was attracted to them, been intimidated out of a course of action in real life where I don't believe magic is real (sorry Loomer), so why couldn't a PC? But then again, I guess I can see Night10194's escapism argument there. Why do that stuff if it isn't fun for you at all? I just want to be very careful to peel away from the idea that setback/conflict/loss can't be fun.
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Mar 16, 2017 12:39
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Kavak posted:All of those are done by combat, which the player has a fair chance to fight back, or loving vampire magic, which operates outside normal rules. Social skill rolls dictating (Not influencing or suggesting, dictating) character reactions interfere with the very basics of running your character- deciding how they feel, what they think, what action they are going to take. Situations where PCs have no chance to fight back / contest / struggle before their actions are dictated for them I don't find very compelling, regardless of the mechanics. Dominate as the vector isn't any more or less interesting than a social conflict to me (sans context).
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Mar 16, 2017 13:23
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Ferrinus posted:If I had a mind to put more defined and resource-intensive social mechanics into WoD I'd be very likely to add a "Limit" track or some other psychic resource for social rolls to work on that isn't just Willpower, just because it can be stifling to have your primary "get stuff done resource" also be your health bar or at least your plasma shields. However, putting a lot of Willpower into a social situation and, later, having less to spend in a fight or something is like... the point? That's the benefit of having multipurpose resources like that, it makes different situations in the game indirectly affect each other. Make it a benefit of the Status merit. Either a pool equal to City/Cov/Clan status numbers, or directly spend temp status dots for an effect. Effects being things like bonuses to immediate social checks, or avoiding the results of failed social contests for a scene. Regain temp points by engaging in thematic social scenes like attending elysium courts and clan moots or by winning conflicts like whisper campaigns and harpy salons.
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Mar 17, 2017 04:42
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Basic Chunnel posted:Do people here as a general rule try to incorporate that quieter, less propulsive aspect of the system into their games? Requiem 2nd ST. For new players I definitely do this, as it lets me dribble in the exploration of Vampire basics (hunting, the beast, degeneration, initial use of disciplines) and telling it through the lens of neonate-life lets me limit the consequences quite a bit so the explorations are more personal. For more veteran players, I look to their anchors to let me know where they want to explore these quieter sides of things. Mask/Dirge gives me the themes they want to explore on both sides of the Masquerade. I have them assign a descriptor to their Touchstone (Big Sister, The Mark, Angry Father, The Orphan, The Addict) and I use that to color the soft interactions that character has around their humanity. And then Aspirations are where they tell me exactly what kind of soft-play they are interested in (I want my first ghoul, I want to deal with criminal stuff.) Now - that doesn't mean I'm gonna spend an hour roleplaying out a conversation with a bus boy or whatever. And I will often link these softer-scenes into the greater picture (Drug Dealer touchstone might remark on certain products getting more expensive and dangerous to acquire, which is a hint at two Ancillae struggling to control the drug trade, for example.) But considering Touchstones scenes are mechanically rewarded with Willpower refresh and Condition Resolution bennies, I don't want to ever shut that door.
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Apr 18, 2017 19:20
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Soonmot posted:Revenants are the vampires that are spawned accidently from corpses right? Is there a book that goes into their condition, because that was one of the seemingly throw away lines from the core book that really seemed like a neat aspect to explore. Feeding Deaths and Ghouls can both come back as Revenants. And there's been at least one Bloodline with a greater connection to Revenants that I believe MachineIV worked out, but I'm not sure about additional book real-estate. Which I do think is a bit of an oversight. Like, I don't see how the Ordo at least doesn't just love Revenants and actively fold them into the Covenant. They get to choose their Clan, Dracula is sold as one, so you'd think it would at least seem less of a stigma if not celebrated in the Covenant. I really love the Revenant concept and that level of play for solo or slow games or as preludes. It really forces the player to focus on the horror of nightly life as a fresh turn. The 'mistake' embrace is a recurring theme among the various games and players I see - so people who like those should be drawn to it as a concept. The nightly need for blood makes hunting the most important aspect right off the bat. And because you wake up starving, frenzy is an everyday risk. It does so much to encapsulate that transition from human to vampire that whenever I have a player new to Vampire as a game, I recommend they go that route. After that is neonate level play where Clan/Cov/City politics starts to influence the PC more than the Kindred biological-state itself, and I think it's important that people don't skip that really focused turning experience.
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May 3, 2017 17:48
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Soonmot posted:Ohhh, I thought they were more like oWoD's Caitiff where it's a status issue. I'd argue it's still mostly a status issue. Revenants are just the Kindred template applied with a few of the vampire abilities paywalled until they get uplifted into a clan proper. Instead of losing one blood every daysleep, they lose all of it. The don't get in-clans. They can't learn blood sorcery or devotions (which doesn't make a lot of sense since ghouls can do that, but sure.) They can't make blood bonds, ghouls or embrace. Anything that affects a 'kindred' affects a revenant in the same way unless people are getting real semantic with mechanical arguments. Vampire 2e posted:When a wooden stake penetrates the Kindred heart, the vampire immediately enters torpor. Can revenants be staked? Pretty sure they go to torpor just the same, etc. In any case, they don't have different feeding mechanics or special abilities like Larva and the others vampiric entities get, nor any special immunities to any of the mechanics that 'Kindred Vampires' suffer. And when they get uplifted they just become normal Kindred. Terrorforge is correct about the fear Revenants should put on anyone with a Hunting Ground. They need a lot of blood every day. Most neonates need a lot of blood whenever they go adventure, but revenants are a constant drain and a constant risk. I also love the adoption vs. natural child themes that creep in. It takes a humanity to uplift a revenant into a full Clan. It also takes a humanity to embrace. Why would a Sire pay that cost for a random reject/accident when they could hand-pick a childe?
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May 3, 2017 20:46
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crime fighting hog posted:which one of you is this  Feel old yet?
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Jun 23, 2017 15:26
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neaden posted:I don't think it would really though, not for the kind of horror I think Vampire does well. To me Personal Horror should be about temptation. ... On the other hand if it's just something that God cursed you with that sucks. Like it's objectively terrible, but it's not really horror to me. There is no temptation, you were just unlucky and now you have to live with it. The temptation can come in other ways. Said unlucky Ventrue could spend a lot of money/favors to feed on Werewolf blood, for example. Or set up a robust trading network of Kindred blood - getting one-stage bonds to each of their clients. When their money runs out, what do they do? Is feeding on a sleeping child different? What about Forgetful Mind - is that still harm? What about feeding from sick children, then using their vitae to cure them in payment? Does the Ventrue Council eventually pull them in because preying on kids is one of the quicker ways to make hunters? Even if they go cold turkey - does a rash of missing children cause the Sheriff to turn up on their doorstep? If they relapse, does the Ventrue Council move them from Domain to Domain - a mirror of what the Catholic Church was doing? It can be done maturely. It wasn't done maturely.
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Jun 29, 2017 14:01
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neaden posted:I mean, you do you but that sounds awful to me. It looks like it would either fall into supernatural camp with werewolf and blood bonds or child molester: the metaphor. I would never allow the character as a ST. That's probably the better policy. It is absolutely Child Abuse the metaphor, I don't think you can get around that with that kind of a feeding requirement. I've never had a player want to portray that, nor have I ever wanted to myself. And yet there it is in 5e playtesting. But OPP shouldn't get a pass, either. One of the stock Humanity 6 sins in Req2E is 'Feeding from a Child' - so they felt it important enough to include a mechanic for. The difference is OPP lets the table decide how to handle it in a way that is good for them (and I suspect most tables take a pass entirely). nuWod infused it into the initial playtest and is dying on the "What? This is fine," hill for some reason - and it feels deliberate, like they think they need to shock poeple into remembering what the WoD is supposed to be, rather than trusting each table to craft a game that's good for them.
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Jun 29, 2017 15:28
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Now I choose to believe America freaking out over Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction was actually because they really witnessed Adept Timberlake releasing a Cosmic Horror on live TV.
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Jul 24, 2017 20:22
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My partner just forwarded me this:Storyteller's Vault posted:The Storytellers Vault is a program that allows you to create content (adventures, city or regional supplements, splatbooks, fiction; new powers and character types; backgrounds; character sheets, artwork, etc.) using White Wolf intellectual property (IP) and to make some money while you’re at it.
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Aug 11, 2017 15:58
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crime fighting hog posted:Interested in hearing how other groups deal with run-ins with law enforcement. I pretty much always give my players outs from Law Enforcement, but a lot of that is because I've seen a ton of cop plots and they can quickly become stale or completely derail a campaign/character. To make it more interesting, I try and give them "get out of jail" cards, but I don't make them free. You have to pay somehow else, either with Story Choices, Downtimes, or XP (Alt Identity Merit, etc). I'd try and tailor story choices to the player/character but usually it will be a moral choice of some kind. * Mafia/Cult/Corrupt Official/Splat offers to quash the investigation but now you owe them or have to perform a service first. * A second suspect pops up for the cops but is innocent, does the hunter let an innocent take their place? If so, might a 'normal' vigilante try and bring the character to justice? * You discover the cop or DA's family is susceptible to threats. Willing to make the issue go away with that tactic?
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Sep 22, 2017 16:49
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Linked WoD LARPs have all the same problems as random pick-up tabletop games: Lack of player-trust, plot/screen time as a commodity, natural favoritism, PvP is taken personally. They also have a lot of problems early MMOs faced: PvP Disparity, Lack of Playstyle Balance, Permadeath. They also have all the bureaucratic problems an interstate / international org faces - including criminal cases of corruption and harassment. The group of gamer nerds that can successfully navigate the above is pretty low, in my experience. Especially considering the groups usually skew college-aged since recruitment (and site resources) are often most available around a school. Invite-only, player vetting is the ticket. Though I still believe in my heart a good open LARP is possible when you have dedicated staff who know how 'real-world' hobby clubs work, and 6-10 players willing to sign on and enforce a Social Contract and a Genre Sheet at the outset.
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Oct 11, 2017 19:08
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Mendrian posted:I think one of the stupidest things that happens in LARPs is an attempt to formalize boons through registry systems and literaly currency exchanges. Trading a boon owed to you to someone likely to abuse the boon is one of the most important choices in Vampire. You would probably only do that if you owed someone more powerful than yourself or if you got something better out of the deal than was already owed to you. It's going to cheese off the person who issued you that boon in the first place, but maybe you don't care - you're choosing to let poo poo roll down hill. Or not. Maybe you're more of a populist and choose to reinforce your Status as a straight dealer by using the boon on something direct and sensible. That's the game. I like formal style boon systems, personally. The transfer issue can be a problem, but I've seen it solved by requiring the Harpies to sign off on all transfers, with the original debtor able to challenge things. The Harpy can declare a given transfer unsound, or can even degrade the value of the transferred boon. Another advantage of this system is actual adjudication. If you trade a minor boon for some influence support, then the dude comes back and wants you as part of a combat party - make your pitch that it's not a fair repayment. This also makes the choice of harpy important for the boon economy - how will this person enforce transfers? Does that person value politics or combat more as a commodity? Etc. But - I tend to lean Invictus, so love all the Oath Contracts and hierarchies and stuff like that, so YMMV.
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Oct 13, 2017 14:28
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MC Smoke Sensei posted:Regarding PVP overall though, I just am not that confrontational in real life, and I don't want to get into a situation where people start reeeeing at me for making a move against their characters. I really resent it when they do, because I expect people to know what they're getting into, to understand the social contract these sorts of games have. Yet it's also true that different people play for different reasons, and it's really not practical to try and tell people that there's only one valid reason to play these games. Does that make sense? Right. Public LARP is an odd duck because there are a lot of different reasons to play, and this isn't always addressed by the group. So what happens when you have a hardcore PvP person start confronting someone who is mainly there for the social aspect of a community? Or because they'd rather be playing Werewolf, but don't have an ST - so this Requiem is at least WoD. How do you square those playstyles successfully? It's tough without a robust social contract and an ethical staff. PvP especially is subjective, and I find myself often going to that same trough - when is a move (or response to a move) unreasonable? I've lost characters for a variety of reasons - including "Well, we were bored" and "Sorry, my character is a psychopath and you quipped an insult at my IC girlfriend" - Are those reasonable? You can point to prose in the books where it is. Is it reasonable for a LARP? When any magnitude of PvP - from getting the better end of a deal to status loss to losing an argument can be met with violence/torpor/death - it suppresses a lot of desire to do anything on the PvP level. It's not crabs in a bucket, it's whack a mole. The only 'safe' move is PvE, and then that starts the monster/badguy of the week cycle which can be frustrating for its own reason. Part of the social contract should directly address character death. When is it appropriate to escalate to that level? What's the difference between a rival and an enemy? And once you start seeing (what I consider) abuses in this process, it can really jade you. Press Gangs (As Mendrian points out, 4 PCs > Combat PC. So why not get three buddies to roll starting characters when things are about to go down?) Retirement Sprees (I'm moving tomorrow, so might as well kill some characters before I go, yeah?) White Knighting (Ever notice how PvP against the cute person or golden child is retaliated against more harshly?) But for all the above, it's not that hard to find a plausible way to say, "It's what my character would do." - and if someone is called on the behavior - which is easier - to admit you were off base, or complain to your friends that staff is biased against you?
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Oct 13, 2017 15:23
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do NOT jack off posted:This scenario played out in my home domain in Requiem from about 2004-2012, straight through, to the point where we were one of the more famous "meat grinder" Requiem games. Requiem became a kind of "Wild West" venue, where people would run around, sometimes literally flying cross-country, to personally kill other players' characters. I knew a guy who flew around to burn down the Havens of people who wronged other Carthians in-game. He'd show up to kill player characters, too. And I'm actually okay with this as long as it's honestly advertised that this is the game. Then I can judge if it's first a game I want to play, and second what kind of character will maximize my fun. You don't want to show up with a Downton Abbey intrigue character to the Battle Royale venue nor vice versa.
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Oct 13, 2017 15:57
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do NOT jack off posted:In a way, brute force is the only real "safe" option in PVP, from what I have seen. Since things like intrigue depend on STs, most of whom you've never even met, there's a definite lack of trust that they will go along with your plan, assuming that your plan is actually sound and has a chance of working. There is only one system that people can really trust to be impartial on behalf of players and staff, and that's combat. Race to the Boot Squad, yeah. Not that combat is actually impartial in an approval-based or staggered XP game - but people accept it as the most impartial. And when you are aware of this violence escalation and impartiality problem, what can be done to address? Either you make brute force less effective or you make intrigue just as deadly. I'd personally prefer the former, but that's playstyle choice. Still, it's tough to come up with a good solution to address both styles. There's two ways I'd experiment with if I ever get back into staffing: I've thought about opt-in violence - you choose at CharGen if you are a political or a combat character (story mode vs. ironman mode analog). PvP death is only an option against other opt-iners. I've also considered a paired on/off Elysium setup. Every other game is an Elysium game, where no combat occurs. Game goes twice a month and players only show up for the game style they like. If you like both, perfect. If not, stick to the one that's fun for you, or volunteer for narration/NPCs in your off-style time.
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Oct 13, 2017 16:24
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do NOT jack off posted:You know, this is a good idea. I'm gonna suggest this to my local VST! Thanks! I recall that our Guardian of Sacred Places hasn't seen any use (Independent Alliance Keeper of Elysium) yet. Note that I haven't tested it yet, but if you do implement some version of this - post (or PM me) how it goes so I can learn from your experience. Mors Rattus posted:I know how I solve it in a game which I alone GM, but it gets harder when you have multiple GMs, because the easiest solution to the Break Things Problem is social consequences. Cops, the city turning against you, other vampires shutting down your feeding opportunities, general community enforcement of the Do Not Murder Other Vampires laws. Yeah, solo ST has a lot of advantages. But it just isn't feasible for a longer term game or a high player count game. And usually staff are less inclined to let players kill each other through influence spends than with Vigor/Claws. And then there's the fact that in most LARPs the 'city' is composed of other players - so there's some ethical question on how much staff can really push one group of players to enforce social consequences on another. Mors Rattus posted:The second easiest, I guess, is rebalancing vampires to be default harder to kill, but that applies to the combat guys too so it's not like they got any easier to deal with. A more extreme idea is to say something like, anyone can knock anybody into torpor. But only the Prince can destroy Kindred through a public execution of the Right of Destruction. I'd probably pair it with a fantasy-larp method I've seen - where if your PC is killed out on a plot killing orcs or whatever, you can go to the main tavern and RP until you're resurrected. Kindred in "torpor" can still go roleplay in the main room, but have limited or no pools to roll - so it still sucks, but doesn't mean you just have to go home. The death moratorium can even be done by book with Req2 Carthian Law mechanics.
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Oct 13, 2017 17:00
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Mendrian posted:I think part of the issue is that PvP does not need to result in combat. If you lie to somebody that you're going to support their bid for Primogen or whatever and then don't, that's a form of PvP. I think there's a perception issue here that the only way to be adversarial is to roll on characters for giggles. I think that's kind of the lowest form of PvP tbh. That's a part of the problem, and I yeah - I hate for-the-lulz deaths. But even when the social/political PvP is in good supply, the deadly solution is appealing for a few reasons. -> It's permanent. And there are often Inigo Montoya rules that specifically prevent a player from getting you back with a new PC. Those rules aren't around when you do non-deadly PvP - you know the person is probably gonna come for you, so why not end that? -> STs can't just decide your Claws don't work. But they can decide your setting/ST reliant machinations don't work. -> Appropriate escalation is hard even among those who are socially proficient. Another short-supplied resource. -> I've found many players have a hard time seeing bullyism/betrayal in game as okay, when every instinct as a modern human is to say its not okay. And for some reason, while they might get into the social embarassment and defeats in a novel or on the screen - it's much more personal in LARP. That makes sense from the body-as-prop perspective, but it interferes with the viability of anything like a mean girl harpy or an obviously corrupt Prince. -> The consequences for murder irl are massive. They are not equivalent in LARP even when the murderer gets bloodhunted for example. *Shrug* "I'll just reroll a character before you can finish the bloodhunt." I've seen that multiple times.
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Oct 13, 2017 18:32
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Xinder posted:I like the idea of it, but I'm concerned about if it's something that can be used during an adventure or is simply a downtime between-adventures thing. Sorry if these questions are weird or the answers feel self-evident, I'm just a bit confused about it since I've yet to have a chance to actually try it out in a game. I've found it tough to use during an adventure-scene. Usually these scene-level social obstacles are better served by threats, immediate leverage, social powers, or quid-pro-quo boon/plot hooks - all of which pretty much circumvent Social Maneuvering in the moment. If you have a campaign with lots of behind the scenes things going on (Officer/Court machinations, non-PC Covenant politics, long-term Elder schemes, non-Merit purchased influence builds, fomenting second-hand trust/distrust between NPCs, etc.) those are where it comes more in handy, especially for the more subtle approaches. If the goal is just a fruit the players can show up, pluck and eat - don't bother with Social Maneuvering. If, rather, it's a longer term goal where they need to cultivate a crop for future harvest - that's where it's shined in my experience. e: speaking from the V2E side of things, no experience with Promethean.
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Jan 5, 2018 18:28
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Hattie Masters posted:For some reason the "Press E to Seduce" thing in some of those screenshots just loving slays me. I mean, how do you do it?
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Jan 12, 2018 16:13
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Bosushi! posted:It looks like I may be running a Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition game. Are there any quirks I should be aware of? Any quality of life system hacks? Consider using group beats rather than individual gains, especially if you have a mixed-skill group of players. It both makes sure less experienced players aren't left with an XP gap, and means everybody gets something when dramatic failures start popping up. With Dramatic Failures, I found that offering options for the dramatic part helped people get into the system at first. "OK - you failed your Larceny check. Do you fail to bypass the lock to the door, or do you want to take a beat and be caught by a security guard on patrol just as you pop it open?" Also, I tend to pit dramatic failures as a choice between: failure - you don't get what you want; and dramatic failure - you get what you wanted but with new consequences. (rather than just failure vs. big-time failure). Don't be stingy with Conditions. If a player resolves more than one in a scene, they only get one beat anyway - and it gets them used to the process.
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Jan 22, 2018 13:43
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ProfessorCirno posted:Like, the game might not've even entered actual development yet for all we knew. They announced it before they had a single line of code. Cyanide website claims 2018 release. http://www.cyanide-studio.com/werewolf So, you know.
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Feb 1, 2018 22:58
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Stank posted:Can I ask gameplay questions in here? I'm kind of a new tabletop player and in our V20 VtM chronicle my pc, unbeknownst to the rest of our coterie, made a demonic pact and is now Baali. She used to be a Toreador with a pretty high humanity and conscience. Any tips on how to play this? She's still pretty wimpy but got daimonion and a couple generations from the pact. I am basically asking for RP help in developing her new character and goals. What was the story reason for her making the pact?
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Feb 14, 2018 16:14
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Stank posted:Her sire is basically her but better and she got jealous of the sire's power and lured/tempted. Well that's a solid hook right there. I'd start pushing that even further - competing with the Sire, striking at assets of the sire if possible, getting the coterie to help. Converting allies/contacts/etc to your new Pact Leader. It's been a while, so I only vaguely recall Daimonion. Was it just fireblasting, or did they shake that up in V20? Anyway, I want to say the Pact merits were way more interesting than the discipline for pushing agendas.
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Feb 14, 2018 16:33
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Not perfect, but...
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Mar 8, 2018 00:11
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NGDBSS posted:Is it just me or is this XP chart worrisome? I was considering joining a VtM game at my university's local TRPG club, but then I saw this and some internal alarm bells went off. Is it the only game in town? But seriously, that looks like the natural result of a railroading/heavy-handed ST running a pickup game for rando college kids. There are probably no good games that give them competition, so they get players by default with a heavy turnover.
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Apr 11, 2018 19:27
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NGDBSS posted:It's not the only game in the club, but the other options are either closed or systems I wouldn't play (PF, 5E). There's a lot of insularity to the club itself and to the old guard surrounding it. I'd tried running my own game of Godbound, in fact, but with only one PC joining my creative well ran dry. (I tend towards a very improvisational style.) Well - you could always ask to watch a session (or part of one), see if you have any chance of having fun at the table before you commit to making a character. Might waste a game night for you, but I for one would enjoy reading a postmortem if it's a poo poo-show.
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Apr 11, 2018 19:40
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"High XP characters get more table spotlight/attention than low XP characters."
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Apr 11, 2018 21:54
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LatwPIAT posted:If you need to use optional rules to make the game work properly, there's a failure in design somewhere. I for sure use group beats for live play. For PlayByPost games - individual beats are a lot easier to track and make more sense as different players have different time/effort commitments that don't easily align like a weekly tabletop. Aspirations did feel a little tricky to implement for my group at first. I don't like the book examples too well (pick a lock seems like something only a person completely new to gaming might find interesting). To standardize things a bit, until people have a hang of aspirations, I urge them to choose one of three types: 1) NPC - Choose an NPC you especially want some screen time with. 2) Plot Type - We go heavy intrigue, supported by politics or violence depending on character/location. If you want something different like a murder mystery or a monster hunt, let me know. 3) Vampiric Theme - Choose something like - Humanity, the Cacophony, Hunting Grounds or the ramifications of Dominate and Free Will - that you'd like especially explore. If you've got something else, or if you have additional details for the above (I want to hunt an Angel) I'll work with you. I also let people change Aspirations pretty freely as long as there's a 'rest' moment of some kind. I don't think any of this is too intrusive, and the bulk of the narrative is still going to be filtered through my STing. But - a heads up on what people are interested in lets me pepper those interests into the plots I've been cooking up. I agree that's making my job easier (or at least more enjoyable), but I see that as a positive.
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Jun 25, 2018 15:38
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bewilderment posted:I know it's been mentioned in the thread once already, but Wellington Paranormal, the spinoff TV show featuring the police from What We Do In The Shadows, is great. I've only watched the first three episodes (out of six) but the neat thing is that the horror elements are almost always played straight and it's the characters themselves that are comedic, so it's almost like watching two humorous PCs get into a mortal police campaign in the CofD. Is there a legal way to watch it if you can't get to New Zealand?
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Sep 4, 2018 02:57
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Attorney at Funk posted:It was probably a doomed proposition from the start to try and sell the broad mass of internet-arguing nerds on the idea that "the faction that Elon Musk would belong to" is the bad guys. The pot-smoking scion of a colonial emerald mining family, trying to populate mars while creating underground magnet trains and home-flame-throwers works pretty well in the SoE.
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Oct 29, 2018 14:58
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Captain Monkey posted:2e is good, but Requiem ruined Obfuscate by not giving Mask of 1,000 faces, and I'll never forgive it for that. Good news! Requiem 2E Core, p138 posted:The Familiar Stranger ••••
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Nov 12, 2018 19:09
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Captain Monkey posted:I guess I assumed it was the same as the 1e version, where you're just the next person they expected to see. A power that was neat, but not MoaTF good. Yeah, they changed it for 2E. Though Mask was a core devotion in 1E that would mimic the Masquerade version. Now it's just been folded back into the base discipline.
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Nov 14, 2018 16:30
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Ataxerxes posted:I was wondering if anyone here is interested in hearing about WoD/nWod larps here? The one related to the V5 launch was not the only one, by any means. And since our laws are rather drasticly different from US ones the whole setup is also. I would! I enjoy the LARP format as a theater-style game, but American versions have a lot of inherent problems that crop up over and over, so a lot of them either start toxic, or quickly spiral into a similar kind of toxicity that has justifiably ruined the format for a lot of people. I still hold out hope of organizing a mature* game someday that tries to minimize those toxins, so especially any meta-organization details are particular interesting to me. * mature as in - 'This is how we deal with after care', 'this is our red-card system', etc, not just 'You might see some tiddies and butts' Barbed Tongues fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Jan 8, 2019 |
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Jan 8, 2019 13:14
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Mister Olympus posted:To be fair I've seen a few people throw hissy fits and quit the MES over them having implemented an official red-card thing last week Which I don't understand. Well, I understand that having your character's narrative style or gaming experience limited by other player's needs can feel like a loss. But I don't understand why people believe 'their story' should trump another player's actual psychological concerns about participating in dark/difficult/traumatic topics.
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Jan 8, 2019 16:43
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Mors Rattus posted:Because a lot of people in old-school Vampire LARP circles are very invested in being the ones to control and dominate other players and don't like being told to stop. Night10194 posted:Also a lot of people misunderstand mental issues and think it's something people just need to 'get over'. Thinking someone's sad rather than depressed, or a coward rather than struggling with anxiety, etc. Add in that 'oh this is supposed to be a horror setting, you're supposed to be uncomfortable!' and you run into a mindset that can go some very bad places. So yeah, stuff like that Ataxerxes. What do you guys do to treat those ^^ particular poisons? Either in convincing the culprits the behavior is bad, or in terms of better identifying which players need to be efficiently severed from the community? I'll admit that SweDracula's antics have tarnished my perception of the Euro-/Nordic- LARP styles a bit.
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Jan 8, 2019 16:59
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Mendrian posted:Exceptions, of course, abound, but the whole apparatus is definitely haunted by the grim specter of That Guy and I don't know if there's any way to exorcise him. Right, that's what marketing should be striving for, rather than whatever the hell nuWoof just accomplished. I think it can certainly be done through targeted recruitment. Hit up those adjacent non-tainted LARP communities (though I've encountered plenty of edgelords and petty tyrants in boffer games too). Get a local ST group to earn trust with the wider player base, maybe think about transitioning through genre somehow (D&D to Shadowrun to Vampire.) "Oh yeah, those folks ran a fun one-shot Venture Brothers game. Sure I'll try their Requiem one-shot." And, I think that might actually be an easier task than codifying how to gatekeep successfully / ethically. In my experience it's never been as simple as "Just tell the shitlords they aren't welcome." I'm hoping there's some kind of magic bullet that solves the inherent authority/entitlement clusterfuck that seems to follow That Guy, but also worried that yeah - maybe it's a lost cause.
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Jan 8, 2019 19:58
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Yawgmoth posted:to passive-aggressively snipe at other people and be the absolute trashfucker they always wish they could be without reprisal because of nerd social fallacies ...but enough about the internet Seriously though, that's the concern I have for what good gatekeeping would look like. Not only how do you stop people from joining with that mentality. But how do you stop successful individuals / cliques from adopting that mentality during play. What methods can you use to make sure it doesn't infect the staff? And that's before even getting into the question whether the text/themes themselves encourage that kind of "Be a monster" mentality, and if you strip those out, if you're even left with a Vampire game at all.
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Jan 8, 2019 20:32
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Ataxerxes posted:words I've had the opposite experience in terms of LARP length here in the states. Most of the Vampire games I've heard of / played in have been serial games. One-shot games are far rarer, especially for Requiem/Masquerade, and seem harder to recruit for, though not always. Turning that on its head sounds like it may be necessary. A serial LARP might need to be the advanced form that can only be supported when you have a robust community that has proven its health through regular one-offs and occasional trilogies. And yeah, limited scope games would get rid of the many Powercreep and Permadeath problems serial games suffer which would go a long way in gatekeeping by itself. Also, thank you for correcting me on my Nordic LARP usage. I was definitely using it as an overgeneralized stand in for non-American styles.
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Jan 9, 2019 01:14
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