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Mendrian posted:Short terms should honestly be the norm for a LARP. Regular, long-format games are just lovely formats for political games. Cliques are good in a political game! But when it runs for 7 years, it means nobody ever has a chance to start over or try something new. One of the local Masq serials here had some success in addressing that with a shelf-life rule. Auto-retired characters at two years, or one year if you took a Wanderlust flaw for some bonus Chargen points. You knew you were on the clock if you wanted to go for Praxis or a cool legacy/dynasty. I think it also had the side effect of creating more staff recruitment opportunities, too, as some people would dip their toes into narrating at the pause rather than jump right back in with a character. They were also aggressive in gatekeeping, limiting players to only students/alumni of the state college here. That cut out a lot of the creep factor, but also meant the majority of players were freshmen/sophomores which tended to skew things toward more heroic adventure play than dark political.
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Jan 9, 2019 20:02
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 03:02 |
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I'm pretty sure beats were already in Requiem 1E. They were just called Flaws and went from giving you bonus Chargen points (ala Masquerade rules) to getting a bonus XP during play if the ST threw complications at you based on your flaw. So the XP bonus 'Sire's Resentment' or what have you would only trigger when that character's Sire was actively dicking with them that session. As with any tick a box, then get rewarded system, inexperienced or bored players can get fixated on just trying to accrue the rewards at the expense of common sense. I haven't experienced this particular problem, but I might just be lucky and haven't done a pickup game in a long time. Really I just make sure as Crasical pointed out, any aspirations are things I actually want to run and have some feasible way to be included in the chapter's arc. And I make sure the player's choices are things you more have to choose to focus on at the expense of other screen-time actions (become a sheriff's deputy), rather than a quickie thing that can be worked into any scene (pick a lock). Or 'Rob the Primogen's kid', rather than 'steal someone's wallet.' Otherwise, yeah, I can see how it would be annoying to have a player trying to jam a pickpocket test into every scene, regardless of context. Conditions are even better, though. Back when I played 1E and LARP, there were plenty of people who got hit by majesty or dominate and would do just the bare minimum to comply with the results, if that. They can still do that bare minimum in 2E, but now there's some temptation to actually get into the spirit of the condition by obeying the Dominate or Majesty well, and inviting additional consequences or escalations. As mentioned, group beats immediately solves the staggered XP ratios issue if you have a game that needs/prefers a balance in PC XP amounts. It even has the side effect of investing the other players in each other's aspirations since you get the same bonus whether its your aspiration triggering or someone else's. I prefer group beats for tabletop games, and individual beats for asymmetric play-by-post. That all being said, a flat XP cost and switching beat rewards from XP gain to Willpower refresh is a common workaround I've seen.
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Feb 6, 2019 23:46
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MonsieurChoc posted:You guys have yet to make a single argument about why this stupid mechanic that wasn't in any of the previous versions of the WoD, is actually good. All you've done is explain why it's not a problem for your group (you ignore it) and then blame my group for it (because the choice bothers them). It was in previous versions of CoD. They were called Flaws and worked the same way. Expose your character to chosen setbacks the ST throws at you and be rewarded with extra XP when they actually dramatically impact your arc. I will give slight credence to the argument that this can look like training wheels to people, and a good table will be able to navigate all these issues without needing them. But even then - "My group knows how to play without training wheels, so training wheels are bad and no one should ever use them' I personally think is condescending and short-sighted. "They didn't work for my table, so we don't use them." is fine. "They are always bad and should never be used by default" is needlessly aggressive and judgmental and people who have good experinces are naturally going to push back.
Those are all useful to me, YMMV.
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Feb 8, 2019 16:55
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MonsieurChoc posted:Flaws are completely different: they are baked into character creation and how you build and view your character. To say they are the same as Beats is disingenuous at best. They are complications and hardships you as a player choose to have impact your character, in direct trade for more experience points to be applied to your character when they affect you during play. Now, is the above talking about Flaws or Dramatic Failures? MonsieurChoc posted:As for me being needlessly judgemental, need I remind you that people jumped into accusations against my group instead of just amditting the bad rule never bothered them? Yes. Citation needed. When people are honestly trying to tell you they don't think the rule is bad, and works for XYZ reasons, its kinda disingenuous to just declare people just won't admit I was right all along and somehow think that's the high ground.
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Feb 8, 2019 17:32
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MonsieurChoc posted:I believe people when they say the rule never bothered them. I just don't get why they then go on to argue for pages that the rule must be good. When it clearly isn't. If you had just said, "The rule didn't work for me because of XYZ reasons, so our solution was to just toss it" I don't think you'd be getting much pushback. But when you insist over and over that the rule is bad, and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong, and/or disingenuous, and/or bad players, and/or out to get you, well, you're gonna get pushback. And you are still doing it (bolded above). That's not a discussion, that a condemnation of everyone who had an experience at odds with your own.
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Feb 8, 2019 17:46
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MonsieurChoc posted:I never said anyone was bad pleyers or out to get me, don't put words in my mouth.
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Feb 8, 2019 17:57
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MonsieurChoc posted:It's not a persecution complex, I'm just really tired of this pointless argument. Especially since Barbed Tongues just came out and said it's msotly about seeing my legit criticism as somehow being attacks agaisnt you when it clearly isn't. Which makes the thing even dumber, because there'S no way to "win" this, it's jsut gonna go in circles forever until one "side" gets tired. Alright, I'll apologize for my part in this. Sorry, Choc. I think you have a legit point to make about how the choice between earning a beat or doing what was natural for you as a player during the course of play came into conflict and that you want to warn people about that pitfall. That's actually interesting to me and makes me reflect on those rules in my own games. I'll try not to get wrapped up in the idea that you are universally declaring something, just offering your own experiences. If you don't mind doing the same for my own experiences, even better.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:11
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MonsieurChoc posted:For what it's worth, I'll apologize too. I really do not think anyone in this thread is bad or lying or whatever, I think you're all cool. I'm legit sorry if anyone felt insulted or attacked or whatever because that was really not my intention and if I did then that's my bad. I never intended to dismiss anyone's experience either. 
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Feb 8, 2019 18:21
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Ferrinus posted:EDIT: That's not really a weird player at all. That's just someone in what I've seen called the "author stance" - you think of yourself as the (screen)writer for your character rather than the consciousness or cheering fan of your character. You're here to watch/tell an interesting story about your character, and if you sometimes have to give your character a hard time to make it more interesting, you'll happily do so. After all, what kind of author only tells stories in which their characters prosper and enjoy themselves? Certainly not a modern dark fantasy/horror author! Posit: neither a character who succeeds 100% of the time, nor a character who suffers 100% of the time, are that interesting without a different mindset than most people approach RPGs with. Your sometimes is important. Sometimes it's worth the beat. Sometimes it isn't.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:15
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Ferrinus posted:You don’t suffer 100% of the time. You just suffer, like, a little more than once per scene? There are various baffles on beat uptake. T/F: Not every test is eligible for dramatic failure. If, like me, you think the answer is True, that there are some scenes or conflicts or exchanges where it's not appropriate for a dramatic failure, you argument isn't making much sense. And yes, just like most other things you have to do as ST, it's going to be dependent on your table. Olivia Hill specifically mentioned during the development of Secrets of the Covenants and Hurt Locker that they do not account for white-room abuse scenarios. The ST and your table's social contract are what stops abuse. Not the rules themselves. The same skills you use to encourage people against min/maxing CharGen are the same skills you use to encourage players against min/maxing beat generation.
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Feb 8, 2019 20:29
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:"white-room abuse scenarios?" is that where someone's locked in a white room till they develop psychic powers? halp "Well, this could be a problem if..." as opposed to "This problem actually happened at our table..." A theoretical problem that only ever comes up in arguments, as opposed to one that actually happens when playing / playtesting a game with other humans you know and/or trust. If you are holding every mechanic to the concept that a dishonest / abusive player might misinterpret and abuse them, then sure, I will concede the argument: 2E mechanics are bad, including beats.
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Feb 8, 2019 20:58
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Ferrinus posted:If no rolls in a scene are even eligible for a dramatic failure (because for instance none fail) then I guess you don’t get the beat that scene. Maybe you should have contrived some way to roll a crappy skill, or maybe tbere was no way around it so you just have to take the L. Either way, the incentive to hex your character from afar remains. Well, you've somehow found my Goldilocks zone. A player contriving a way to roll a crappy skill just so they can fail and get a beat I consider an abuse of the system, and I'd talk to that player about the practice. I have not seen that happen. Ferrinus posted:It’s funny that you should bring up “min-maxing chargen” because back in 1E the dots-vs-xp disparity meant that the way to maximize your character’s available xp was to take super lopsided stat spreads rather than balanced ones, and there were just reams and reams of apologism and vague reckons about STs recognizing and curbing “abuse” through fiat until 2E came out and just solved the problem by removing the perverse incentive. It's fixed the Dots != XP problem that 1E had. It does not fix the universal problems that players who know the mechanics, the game, the genre, or the ST's playstyle will be more effective with their CharGen than ones who don't. It does not solve the problem of combat or discipline jockeys super specializing then trying to turn every scene into the nail their specialization hammer was built for. Your ST or your Social Contract stops these things, not CharGen itself.
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Feb 8, 2019 21:15
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Ferrinus posted:Nice. So now we enter thorny territory. Your hulking bruiser ‘combat’ character’s player asks to make a social roll to talk his way past a bouncer. Her social skills are, of course, garbage, so her Presence 2 Socialize 0 dicepool comes up with no successes, which she makes into a dramatic failure, so she gets into a fight which she excels at AND which yields her XP. Is she abusing the rules.. or just, like, using the rules? This seems pretty boilerplate argumentum ad absurdum, Ferrinus. Do you actually believe this or are you just getting into the debate? Is your posit that any mechanics which require ST discretion to prevent abuse are inherently bad? I don't need telepathy to know that a solely combat focused character might not fit well with the political / lore / investigation themes in the game I'm running. I just need experience in having seen things go off the rails in previous games.
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Feb 8, 2019 21:50
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Ferrinus posted:Where is the absurdity in what I have described? In fact, wouldn’t you prefer that a seemingly combat-focused character try to use their weaker skills to engage with all parts of the game, and struggle with their resulting deficiencies, rather than just stand silently in the background until initiative is rolled? Isn’t what I describe a win for the beat system? I prefer proactive players, yes. But no, I reject your assertion that farming beats is the same as honestly engaging the story. Yes, if all the players love going down dramatic fail rabbit-holes scene to scene, I suppose I don't have much to complain about since everyone is having a blast. That's different than some agreement between players to wake up every night, torture their friend to the last health box (beat), before provoking them into frenzy (beat), so they feed on and bleed out a human, making a humanity check (beat) so they get a condition they can resolve (beat) before picking the combination bike-lock they keep in their pocket because 'pick a lock' is their aspiration (beat).
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Feb 8, 2019 22:17
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Ferrinus posted:I just don't see what you gain out of having to scan each beat-generating action to determine whether the player's heart is really in it. I don't gain or lose anything, because the ST is already directed to judge each beat grant and not give them out at inappropriate or non-dramatic moments.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:32
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Ferrinus posted:Yes you did - you lost the attention, focus, and baseline trust it costs you to judge whether each and every beat is sufficiently appropriate, dramatic, or correctly-motivated enough. I don't see how it costs me any of that, and certainly not to any amount that would be noticeable among all the other plates an ST is expected to keep spinning, while still attending to the players.
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Feb 8, 2019 23:36
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Ferrinus posted:The very fact that you've already got a lot of plates spinning means that each further imposition on your time and judgment needs to be ruthlessly critiqued and strongly justified. Several times already you've pointed to or given examples of bad/abusive play that is definitely what you don't want and have to be on the lookout for... but it keeps turning out is that those could easily be examples of perfectly acceptable play instead. Imagine if that happened in-game, rather than in a hypothetical in this thread! It could lead to lost playtime, hurt feelings, etc. And over what? Some fractional XP? And I still think you are blowing things over to an absurd level. When I learned about redlining and trigger warnings, I incorporated those ideas into STing. I didn't immediately trip over myself and forgot how to spread the spotlight between players because my brain was too full. Yes, I'm going to take a few seconds to actually consider the question, when a character asks if they'd earned a beat, or if they'd resolved a condition, or whether a recent action fits under their Vice so can they get some willpower back. Most of the times it will be obvious immediately. Sometimes it will take a few beats to decide, or consulting the text. Rarely, but sometimes, it might be able to go both ways. In those cases if you don't want to spend more time on it, you go to your default, which for me sides with the player. And yes, context matters, dude, I really don't see how you can argue the opposite. An action in one circumstance might be okay, while that very same action in a different circumstance may not be okay at all. Like, have you heard of BDSM? Self Defense?
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Feb 9, 2019 00:41
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Ferrinus posted:The reason you incorporated those into your STing is that they improve your game, and more specifically, they improve the level of trust your players have for you. So does the way I handle beats in my game, sir. We have talked about this very issue, and they like the system as we have been doing it, and do not want to do it the way you suggest. Though I admit I do not have telepathy, and they might just be lying to me. I suppose I have no way to judge. Ferrinus posted:On the other hand, defending the beat rules requires us to start jumping at shadows and shutting down "abusive" behavior, because people are supposed to want XP, but if they want it too much that's bad somehow. Please go to a bar, where people are encouraged to drink and spend, but not to the point of killing themselves or pissing away their rent money.
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Feb 9, 2019 01:00
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Ferrinus posted:In fact, people are often encouraged to consume and spend to the point of ruining their own lives. That's how large chunks of our economy work. Not by me, I think that's wrong. Ferrinus posted:Anyway, I'm sure your group likes how beats work, or at least says it does. People frequently like, or at least take the path of least resistance vis-a-vis, poor mechanics. Obviously, though, there are other groups that seriously chafe at them. My guess is that your group would do fine just getting 2xp/sesh, but, like, who cares? You can find pretty much anyone who'll do anything for any reason and love every minute of it. gently caress you.
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Feb 9, 2019 01:15
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V:tM Legacy-style boardgame announced https://www.vtm-heritage.com/
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Mar 27, 2019 13:16
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Soonmot posted:Will probably use this for my real games, but I wish it was a world of darkness mode instead of just adding everything together. No problem for my experienced players, but I'll have to make sure that the noobs reroll their 10s and then link to that second or third set of rolls. Orikos CoD Dice Syntax: 10d10o10h8 Change the first 10d10 to the character's pool, 8d10, 6d10, etc. Remove the o10 to get rid of 10 agains, change it to o9 or o8 for 9- and 8-again. Change the h8 if for some reason you need different target number for Mummy or whatever. edit: Chance Die: 1d10o10h10
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Aug 21, 2019 14:32
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 03:02 |
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Mors Rattus posted:Wait, did they literally just put in a stealth announcement for a Switch/PC game called Coteries of New York, or was that known? It's had a Steam Page for a few months. Initially looked like some kind of Visual Novel+ style (which I am into), but very scant on details so I'm curious where it ends up mechanics-wise.
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Sep 27, 2019 14:25
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