Let’s start with some math. By most accounts, a 2 year, MC 7 character is considered a mid-level power in the Requiem global setting. That PC would have:
- MC 7 XP = 250 XP
- In game XP = 240 XP
- Overcap XP = 10 XP
- Total XP = 500 XP
According to the Requiem core book, this PC would be considered an elder. In our Chronicle, such a PC is well beneath elders. Cam Elders are characters with more than 1000 xp, rare bloodlines, and custom items. They have friends who know every Oath in the Invictus book and vassals who control vast empires of retainers, allies, and resources.
Why do these “super” elders have so much stuff? Why is the Camarilla so saturated with these uber-powerful, canon-bending figures?
It’s not because they are crappy, powergaming, evil players. It’s because we are all deeply worried about failing too often on draws.
Under the MET draw system (10d5), an “average” pool, defined as 2 attribute and 2 skill, fails 50% of the time. This is intolerable to most players. But rather than fix the draw system, we’ve elected to soak ourselves in XP. Now, we fail/succeed appropriately because an “average” pool has been calibrated to a much higher number. The only problem is that XP buys more than just higher dice pools. If this was a game of Mortals, then everyone would have Firearms 4 instead of Firearms 2 and we would never notice. But we aren’t playing a game of Mortals…
PCs in our chronicle regularly max out disciplines, arcana, and gift lists. They buy Powerstats whenever it is available to them. They invest in out-of-clan disciplines, special bloodlines, lodges, and legacies. And when it is all said and done, we are left with a game that is so packed with “unique” powers that we resemble Power Rangers much more than Vampires and Werewolves. This is because players have to find some way to spend the massive amounts of XP we gave them.
It’s obvious then that these two problems are linked. We cannot reduce the experience points awarded because we would create a game of half-witted klutzes who would be unable to accomplish anything. The 10d5 draw system forces us to build a world of superhuman characters in order to jump over walls, mow lawns, and wash dishes without killing ourselves.
Thus, we need to fix both XP awards AND find a draw system that allows lower die pools to achieve success. Obviously dice would work wonders, but they aren’t viable for LARP Play.
So…we gotta look outside of the MET book. We understand that WW owns the Cam and we don’t want to do anything to make their books less useful. However, bad rules are bad rules and a change is absolutely necessary. This is not without precedent. There are already rules/systems/etc that we have overwritten in the MET system.
The 54 Draw 3 system is viable. It’s easy to run, as simple as 10d5 to teach, and produces results that are much more in line with tabletop.
Take a die pool of 4, for example. In Tabletop, players would expect to fail about 25% of the time. Under MET 10d5, players fail 50% of the time making Dex 2/Firearms 2 useless. 54d3 reduces that rate of failure to 30%.
In addition, 54d3 also eradicates the 10% autofail rate on all tests and creates less predictable results overall. No longer will your Strength 4/Brawl 4 Gangrel with claws always do 1-2 successes 90% of the time and Fail 10% of the time. Now he may get zero successes…or he may get four.
With a new draw system in hand, we can create an MC system that works. Starting players (MC1) get no additional XP. We reduce the MC per level to 10 and grant an additional 10 xp boost at MC 3, 6, 9, 12, and 14. We cap overcap at 10 xp per year and drop the monthly xp cap to 5xp.
Under this reduced MC system our biggest, baddest PCs have only 400-600 xp at the END of a 5-year Chronicle. They are deadly, dangerous, and frightening…but not silly machines of death. NPCs like the Unholy or Max Roman don’t have to be completely rewritten to be viable. We functionally limit custom bloodlines (less BP 6 vampires) and encourage players to focus on building their core disciplines instead of looking for custom cheese to top off their Strength 5, Weaponry 5, Vigor 5, staking machine.
The change in tone will be palpable without adding a single approval requirement. Getting Theban 5/Cruac 5 becomes an investment of years instead of months. Diablerie would actually be worth it. Herds, Havens, Libraries, Hollows and armies of retainers no longer spring up out of nowhere. Accomplishing a fifth dot of renown would wow the pants off other players instead of boring them. And not EVERYONE in the Mage venue will be a Master. The game doesn’t get better overnight…but it does start to resemble the canon source material.
But what keeps this from happening? What stops us from making these changes? Nothing. We could easily institute these rules and slowly see the game convert over to a more reasonable style of play. Yes, there may initially be some chaos, but the system we are using now is barely functional and getting worse with each passing 10xp month. Already there are PCs with more than 1000 xp in play and there is no end in sight for our chronicle.
Talk to your VST. Try out the 54d3 system as a “mediated” scene. Create characters who resemble something from the sourcebooks. Encourage everyone in your domain to think about a future where the struggles are smaller scale. Email your RST/NST/MST and let them know that you want to see a system that rewards the play described in the core books for every venue.
Tell them you want an end to the cartoon!
I agree with this in pretty much every way.
1) Too much XP, especially through MC.
2) Too many “snowflakes”.
3) Draw system sucks.
As much as I like the “full deck” system, there’s a little gem hidden in the text.
It’s because we are all deeply worried about failing too often on draws.
You tucked this in there, and then let it drop. I’d like to call your attention to it, because I think it’s real and true. But I believe that the solution isn’t to recalibrate the means of success, but to redesign the consequences of failure. We play in a setting that’s meant to tell stories of tragedy and loss, and we’re all trying to eke out every success we can. This seems backward to me.
I was discussing this just the other day. I don’t know if 54d3 is a great system or not, but some kind of new system definitely needs to be implemented.
A new draw system and less XP. Everyone knows this needs to be done. However, I’d get rid of the “break” XP levels entirely. Just a straight up 10 XP per MC.
Another idea would be to actually make MC a privilege instead of a right. I know what the handbook says, but it doesn’t work that way in principal.
Hi guys
“So…we gotta look outside of the MET book.”
You need to acknowledge what’s feasible in terms of improvements. This is a non-starter. A move away from a core mechanic of published WW MET is simply not going to happen. As you say, WW owns the Cam, and WW rightly points out that new players should expect to understand the basic system as pubished in their material.
“Looking outside the MET book” is not a practical option here.
Cheers
Robin Cannon
UK02102071
AMST Settings: CoS
Age apps in Vampire need to mean something. Right now, it means jack squat. I’ve seen too many vampires be a thousand years who are weak as kittens and don’t in any way uphold the themes and mood of the venue.
Or, to put it another way, if one more 1,000 year old elder makes a Transformers reference, I’m going to scream.
Anyway, on the topic of this post, IN PRINCIPAL the idea of a lot of XP for MC is a good idea, because we *want* players to be able to play scary elders and archmages.
But in practice, douches have every opportunity to earn MC as well. In fact, borderline psychopaths who don’t care who’s feelings they hurt and just want to get ahead are more than willing to squeeze every drop of prestige they can out of the system.
What might also work is a system where MC still counts for a lot (say, 30 XP per MC level with no break levels) but (A) there are age limits. You can’t play a 16 year old Mage or 3 year old vampire with your full MC 12. and (B) you have to app for every character above MC 3. Every. Single. Character. Yup. And MC isn’t retroactively added on, so one year old vampires don’t end up having 500 XP by the time they’re tree. Maybe in exchange, they can move all the game-earned XP to a new character when they reroll, their MC having gone from 3 to 9 in the last year or something.
And they still have to app. Maybe Domain level to make a character above MC 3. Regional above MC 6. National above 9. Global above 12. And the further up you go, the harder the app gets. You need to convince the STs why *you* should be allowed to play an Ancillae or Elder. Prove to them you’re not making a flash-in-the-pan that’s going to die after a month. Prove to them you’re going to reinforce the themes and moods of your clan or covenant. Have some lowered humanity (if you’re a vampire) and some derangements, just like elders are SUPPOSED to have.
With that, STs shouldn’t be allowed to ever approve something for someone they are friends with. If someone has your telephone number, you need to pass that app to someone else for review. Why that isn’t a rule, I have no idea. Because the OBN does exist. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen someone claim it doesn’t exist, and seen this *same person* run scenes with National level NPCs over the phone because he was friends with an AVST or three.
As long as people complains it doesn’t exist, it will continue to irritate newer players.
>You need to acknowledge what’s feasible in terms of
>improvements. This is a non-starter. A move away from a
>core mechanic of published WW MET is simply not going to
>happen. As you say, WW owns the Cam, and WW rightly
>points out that new players should expect to understand the
>basic system as pubished in their material.
If WW is going to make us use a shitty rules system, we need to ditch WW. We can always leave the Cam and form a new club.
We can’t fix the “bathed in XP” problem unless we fix the draw system at the same time. The problems are interconnected. I dunno if there 54d3 system is really usable (I haven’t looked into it in depth) but the 10d5 system is horrific.
While you have some valid points, you do need to remember that we, as the Camarilla, need to adhere to as much of the White Wolf continuity and released products as possible. Changing the draw system is unlikely, as that’s the WW-provided system (basically, as Robin said above).
The XP decrease I entirely support to assist with adhering to the guidelines in the books as well. We’ve been through a significant number of changes in XP (including, I think, the MCx10 + 10) within the past few years. I understand the growing pains while we adjust to the new setting, but I think we’ve fairly well tried just about every combination and kept switching ‘em up. I’d like to see a “test-drive” with decreased XP (or even a venue where everyone plays MC1 secondaries) for long-term playability, where we have the chance to see how the chronicle goes without the constant. switching. up.
My friends you are going about this change in the wrong way. What you should be doing is trying to get White Wolf to release a Revised edition of the MET book. This would solve the problem and is a more realistic objective.
To those who say that we must abide by White Wolf’s published rules, I refer you to the mythical 6.0
We can diverge, and often the results are better than if we had kept with the published rule set.
-Jesse
“In fact, borderline psychopaths who don’t care who’s feelings they hurt and just want to get ahead are more than willing to squeeze every drop of prestige they can out of the system.”
Hear hear!
By and large I agree with everything in the main post, except for no extra XP at MC 1. I think having that extra ‘boost’ helps new players not immediately become shark food.
In my ideal world, the game is reset and the MC award is halved to 10, 10. 30, etc. I like the milestones and think they should be kept – it gives people a goal to work for. However, it seems to me that the general MC award should be the monthly cap. In a really ideal world, only 8 xp per month could be earned through attendance, the other two would have to be downtimes/journals/costuming/good roleplayer award. I recognize, though, that’s not entirely feasible, so I’ll just settle with halving MC.
Jason – I couldn’t agree more, but we can’t MAKE people play a game of gothic horror if they don’t want to. We have to find changes that will help us achieve a similar effect without telling people how to play.
However, I can tell you that my Werewolf game is a cruel, unfriendly WORLD OF DARKNESS. The PCs don’t die every game, but bad things happen to them and they are used to failure and heartbreak. And my players love it…because it feels good to overcome those kinds of odds.
Zach – We need the breaks to have a few elders in play. Take an MC 12 with no breaks at 10xp per level…they can barely write up a Powerstat 6 character. We need to ensure that we have at least a few elders in play without a complicated system of approvals for age, etc.
Robin – I know how Global feels about this and I thank you for your input. However, we have varied from the published mechanics already. Remember…the days when status used to cost XP?
Darcey – Good idea to test drive. I fully believe that trying things out in venues and seeing how they work is the key to successful change.
Jesse – Good idea! I think the Cam could exert some serious influence on WW’s desire to release a revised MET system. And with the advent of on-demand printing we can get the book out into player’s hands quickly.
What is “they mythical 6.0?”
Rachel – Keep in mind that everyone’s XP goes WAY down in this system. Newbies won’t be shark food because all players would be less powerful. In no way do we want to weaken the already precarious position of new players…
We like the milestones too, that’s why we kept them in, but reducing the monthly cap to 5xp a month is crucial. If we are going to play a game for 5 YEARS we need to make sure that game is sustainable. I think we have proved that 1000 xp characters don’t help with sustainability.
6.0 was the oWoD rules used by the Cam while was taken by White Wolf to use in the MET: Revised. It was a clear instance of the Cam rules set being adopted by While Wolf.
It was also a large and unwieldy document full of rules which differed from the published material.
The idea was ment to serve as precedent and a warning; using new, Cam only, rules is troublesome when trying to gain new members. They are often frustrated when the mechanics which govern the world are different from what is in the books.
For the most part, I agree with you. In all of the books I have read, I have seen only one NPC that looks anything at all like some of the top tier LARP characters: Red Stick, from War Against the Pure. And he’s obscene. Deliberately so. He is supposed to be the kind of force of nature that terrifies PC’s and makes ST’s laugh with maniacal delight.
In the Cam, well, he’s pretty badass.
So yes, the Cam gives out too much XP, both out of the box and during play.
MC x 10 + 10 is actually pretty reasonable. The World of Darkness, Forsaken, and Awakening chronicles started out on that scale and the big dogs of those venues were along the lines of how the movers and shakers of the books are written.
There are alternative systems in the MET book that would work a whole lot better than 10/5. My favorite one is 10/3. It’s in the book, and moreover, it’s what the Cam used before there was a MET book.
As to splitting off from White Wolf, I don’t know how viable that would be. The Cam used to be a separate corporate entity until White Wolf took it over in 2001-2002. There was talk of forming a separate org, but it’s pretty much dead.
>Zach – We need the breaks to have a few elders in
>play. Take an MC 12 with no breaks at 10xp per
>level…they can barely write up a Powerstat 6
>character. We need to ensure that we have at least
>a few elders in play without a complicated
>system of approvals for age, etc.
You don’t need breaks for that. At MC 12 with your proposed system they have 160 XP. At 15 XP per MC level, they have 180. Not a big difference. Besides, what you’re proposing is to *remove* elders, since after two years (at 5 XP per month) an MC 1 player would catch up. 180 XP isn’t a big deal. Like you said, after 5 years we’d have some “Elders.” But those “elders” might be 5 year old vampires while someone else who just got approved to be 250 years old (an elder in nWoD, if not the Cam) has no extra XP on their sheet.
But yeah, we need a few elders in play. And neither your proposed system or the current one does that. It gives people extra XP and that’s it. You can put that all on a three year old character (since Embrace). That’s how old mine is, and I’m going up for MC 9 soon. Is he an elder?
It is my opinion that as long as the MC system isn’t rewarding players for being good roleplayers who use their MC XP to enhance the chronicle for everyone, it hurts the club and just gives us dipshit “elders” who don’t know the chronicle’s mood from a hole in the ground and are probably just min/maxed twinks.
And what’s wrong with approvals for age? I want to know if someone has gotten permission to play a 1,000 year old vampire, that they’re not going to kill the game.
As I said before on the mailing lists. I’ve seen this happen all to commonly, especially on the mailing lists.
Vampire A: Come on, dudes. We’ve got to fight the Evil Guy because it’s the Right Thing. Let’s hit this guy Superfriends style! He’ll be like, “OMFG, what happened?”
Vampire B: Ah, precious childe. I remember when I was young and still wanted to change the world. In time, you’ll understand that we must make compromises with ourselves.
Vampire A: Actually, I’m 5,000 years old! Lolz!
Until we fix the above problem, I see no reason to reset. Twinks who kill the mood are our #1 enemy.
There are plenty of alternative systems, I think the most important thing is agreeing on what answer we’re going to use.
Here are my opinions on the merits of each possible system:
the “10 / 5″ system [current Camarilla standard]
This system is the system the Cam uses right now.
Pro: the system is very simple
This system is easy to understand. This is also the core system in Mind’s Eye Theater. While alternatives are presented, this system is in a White Wolf published book.
Con: the system requires high XP to seem fair
Characters walking into the game with 0 XP available to them are only capable of performing one action consistently, & then only if they focus their dots. This encourages players to make starting characters into “crippled masters”… unrealisticly limited characters with one thing they do very well. To make up for this shortcoming the Camarilla has decided to drench the players in XP, which is then frequently spent on things other than Attributes & Skills. While “the 50% rule” is in force (character cannot spend more than half of their starting XP on one thing) characters still tend to be hyperspecialized toward task. When they aren’t, they tend to be mediocre at a set of related similar tasks. This makes characters into one-trick-ponies.
the “54-draw-3″ system [tabletop-like alternative]
This system is being proposed on this site.
Pro: statistically this system closely emulates tabletop
The number of Successes garnered from each individual pull is closer to how many would be earned in White Wolf’s tabletop games. Characters only need Attribute 2 + Skill 2 for a practical chance of making their pull work out well. This seems to ablate the high numbers needed under the core system while still rewarding players with higher pulls.
Con: this system is not in any White Wolf published book
The biggest problem with the 54-draw-3 system is that the system isn’t in Mind’s Eye Theatre. Although such a system could be proposed for some kind of “revised editon” of MET, there is, as of now, no such system presented under “alternative systems”. As such, the system is totally foreign to new players & (barring your support) this system will be hard to get adopted at the Master level (Global). What you can do if you like the 54-draw-3 system is keep people talking about this alternative & send e-mails up your ST chain.
the “8 / 3″ system [a baseline alternative]
This system is in Mind’s Eye Theater under System Permutations beginning on page 181.
Pro: far lower scores needed for a single Success
According to the books, two dots is supposed to represent competence with a Skill & two is supposed to be the human average for an Attribute, but with a pool of Attribute 2 + Skill 2 you’re failing 50% of the time & 20% of the time when spending a Willpower point (this encourages Willpower to be spent on every roll). By making the “Target Number” eight instead of ten (which is the number required in tabletop) a character is only failing 30% of the time & 10% when spending a Willpower point (Willpower is still ideal, but not as vital).
By further granting an additional Success for every 3 beyond 8 (two for 11, three for 14, four for 17, five for 20, etc.) characters are more likely to get multiple Successes, but are also rewarded just as much for having very large pools.
Con: huge numbers of Successes with large pools
Let’s look at Requiem as an example. All Discipline pulls benefit from the “Extra Talent” Permutation (Mind’s Eye Theater page 182). This makes their pulls Attribute + Skill + Discipline. Although many are reduced by the target’s Resistance Attribute + Blood Potency many of them are not. If you have Attribute 5, Skill 5, & Discipline 5 you have FOUR Successes on a pull of TWO! That’s a lot, nevermind 10-agains.
the “Face Success” system [a bell-curve alternative]
This system is one devised & proposed as an easy-to-understand alternative.
Pro: modifies both of the extremes in a simple way
This system, like 54-draw-3, requires playing cards. Unlike 54-draw-3 you don’t include the jokers & can use only the cards in a single suit ranging from ace-to-king. Here’s how the system works:
Everything works exactly the same as they do in the Camarilla right now, except that you leave the Kings, Queens, & Jacks in the deck. When one of the face cards is pulled the following rule is used: “if you are unskilled at this pull you have a simple failure; if you have the relevent Skill at all you get one Success (regardless of your actual pool)”. This makes having at least one dot in a Skill important (because a single dot in the Skill gives a minimum 45% chance of Success) but also brings down the massive pools that players are inclined to build (because a +15 has a 30% chance of still being only one Success).
This system makes low levels in Skills important while also keeping the benefits of high pools (while slightly ablating them).
Con: not in published material
This system, like 54-draw-3, will require a massive groundswell of support sent up ST chains to see implimentation in the Camarilla.
Nicholas Jacob
ADST Chief of Staff
US2007039607 in OH-010-D
To clarify, in my opinion…
It should be a Mid level App to play a character over *50* years old. Much less 350. It should be High to get over 200 years (since at that point you’re approaching “elder” status). Characters over 500 shouldn’t be allowed at all. Those players can *think* they’re a thousand all they want, but with the Fog of Eternity, they can never really know for sure anyway.
You know, there is another option;
1. Accept that we are playing a ‘high powered’ game, where the PCs are the big movers and shakers.
2. Accept that due to the different scale between tabletop and MET, the XP spread is going to be different.
3. Create characters responsibly.
You’re talking about bottom up plot and avoiding ‘trickle down’ systems – the current system would be workable and usable. The problem is that people aren’t necessarily using it that way. So why is a ‘top down’ solution preferable, rather than encouraging a ‘bottom up’ solution of more responsible play and more balanced characters.
I recall at the start of the chronicle, we had MCx10+10 XP to start. We didn’t have more balanced characters – we had less balanced characters. The people who munchkinned still did it, but had even less reason to spend so much as a single XP outside of pure game benefit rather than RP.
Why is this not a matter for player education, but ST fiat?
Tim Edwards
UK9905-837
UK NST
MT – I’m sure we’ve all heard horror stories or witnessed horror stories where some n00b walks into game and is immediately taken advantage of – killed, blood bound, captured, etc., – by a high MC, lots of XP wanker. I joined the Cam in early 2006, and the extra xp helped me walk in with a character who was actually viable, rather than someone who would have to sit on the sidelines and quietly earn xp/mc before I could get involved in the plot.
If we’re decreasing the initial MC award, then of course the MC 1 xp should decrease as well. Perhaps not 30, but if we’re halving everything across the board, I don’t see anything wrong with 15.
Zach – I agree with your general thoughts on setting. This is a slightly different discussion, however, and one we will tackle later. For right now, this step is limited toward fixing the effects crazy XP has on the game.
The breaks at 3, 6, etc are designed to get people motivated to get to the next level and give us some elders. I think it’s fun to get a bit of an extra bonus. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s a dramatic improvement.
Rachel – What makes a starting character from the core book non-viable with 54d3 probabilities?
As Jesse points out, Cam only-rules are troublesome trying to gain new members. Now were WW to release a revised ruleset then that’s an entirely different matter.
On the XP issue, I agree. When the vote was first held at the start of the chronicle I was opposed to the significant increases in XP that were voted for. I also think there’s nothing wrong with differentiation between venues in terms of starting and earned xp.
That being said, the glass ceiling is less prevalent than it was in old world, where MC-linked generation meant you simply couldn’t advance beyond a certain level regardless of xp. And while we have a high XP chronicle the relative cost nature of things in the game do offer limited protection. Even with current xp levels there isn’t the situation that did occur in the old game where you were basically maxed out, and just buying random skill points for want of something to spend xp on.
…
However, and it’s a reasonably big however, what you’re talking here clearly is reset.
Now at some point in the future there will be a reset. That’s not intended to restart various rumours, it’s simply the nature of such things – at some point WW will cchoose to reset the chronicle. That reset might be in a decade (albeit I doubt it).
But be aware of the danger of “better game, worse club”. We’re not much more than three years past a quite traumatic reset which had a significant negative impact on membership numbers. Reset now and I think you’d be looking at a potentially even worse crash in membership numbers.
And even if a reset was decided upon tomorrow, I think that implementing such a reset in any kind of respectful way would require a two year run up and plot. I think a soft reset is effectively a sham.
…
But I said earlier that we have a high xp chronicle. And that actually goes even for low MC players if we’re contrasting against stuff in the books.
Now high xp chronicles exist in tabletop. Hell, D&D even has a load of material dedicated to “Epic” level.
So regardless of future reset, which is the only point at which the things you’re talking about are practical to implement, is it not reasonable for us to acknowledge the nature of the chronicle in our plot and setting? I don’t think that’s what’s happened though, and I think people too often look to the idea of a reset without considering that there’s a lot of settings based and plot related stuff that we can do to make our chronicle appropriate, challenging and engaging to the characters in it.
Cheers
Robin Cannon
UK02102071
AMST CoS: Settings
I have yet to play in a Tabletop game where Iw as able to get 5 XP per game session.
Saying that we need to becmore more inline with using WW’s source material and rules does not allow the problem to be addressed.
Its equivalent to stating In order to stop that man from burning to death you need to use this flamethrower and be sure to douse liberally. Just be sure to cover him from toe to head and not head to toe.
Tim – Changes need to be made because XP is not a linear problem. Here’s a rule that drives me crazy that can hopefully make our point:
Blood Potency [R.1.03]
Physical augmentation with Vitae is limited. When a character spends vitae to add to physical test pools the applied bonus from that Vitae can be no higher than the natural unmodified Attribute or +5, whichever is higher. Physical augmentation from Vitae to increase physical test pools is an exception to [U.1.04]. The bonus derived from physical augmentation does not count as part of the +/- 15 limit.
Good god, why? Why do we need to nerf and cap and reduce all of the symptoms of the problem. If I play a BP 6 vampire, then I should be really, really mean. Oh wait. There’s like a million of those in play…so we have to limit them.
We’ve never advocated for bottom up solutions. People commenting here have and we support their efforts. But we can’t mandate responsible play. We CAN mandate less xp.
Robin – All we would like Global to do is admit that we COULD change it. That, in fact, the addendum is by it’s very nature a change to the way the rules work from MET. If this is a change you won’t pursue, that’s fair. But don’t tell us we CAN’T do it.
And I’m glad you see eye-to-eye with us on the XP issue. I’m not going to touch the reset issue.
However, I think your proposed solution doesn’t come close to fixing the problem. We cannot continue to play in the world we have designed because it is so unbalanced.
How do we have an epic campaign where:
Almost all Theban Sorcerers have Theban 5?
Haven, Herd are so common that blood draws mean nothing?
Every Mage in play is a Master of at least one Arcana?
These aren’t linear power level issues. These are exponential issues! They change the very fabric of the social world around them.
Werewolf actually makes out pretty well, IMO. If you look at the biggest, baddest werewolves, they don’t have that same kind of non-linear power curve. Part of that stems from how fast Renown eats up XP, but part of it also has to do with the way the powers are designed in the core Werewolf book.
But the other venues…Mage especially…too….much…..xp.
I tend to agree that the game, as is, is seriously broken. Some of what is being said here is very constructive, and has strong possibilities.
One thing that we as individual players (and officers too) need to do to help change this is to encourage good roleplaying…. not ruleplaying. We have a game that has a ruleset, yes. But if players approach the game/their characters with the mindsets of “win at all costs”, “collect all the neat powers”, or “be the biggest badass in the universe”… the game fails. Players have to *want* to play nice in the sandbox before anything will really change… no matter how we change draw systems, XP/MC systems, etc.
I’m a fairly new player to the cam. I’ve been playing Vampire since I was 16 and joined the cam less then a year ago.
At first it upset me that there was a system an “MC” system in place. When I made my first character he was well balanced. OMG an Invictus Mekhet with Academics and Medicine at 5! Wait nothing I have runs off those skills. I used my 50 xp to round out my character to take a few powers that fit the concept I wanted to play up. And it worked fine. I was happy, and since then gained several Mc levels and play xp which just helped add to the character.
Down the road I became bitter about the MC system again. As all of us do at one point or another. I realized some things.
The world is not fair, and especially the WoD is not fair.
There are Incredibly high BP vampires who can eat you in a single bite. It’s realistic. More XP on my sheet simply means I have more options when confronted with a situation. If I were to make a character with low xp then he could be good at maybe one thing. If he had several hundred xp to round out his character then I would be good at 2 or 3 other things and thus have many more options when confronted with a new situation.
So that helped me qualm my distress with the overabundance of XP. Especially since around the same time I realized I had never seen (granted still fresh in the cam) or really heard stories of high MC players throwing their weight in new players face. All of them created responsible PC’s whom almost serve as better NPC for the ST cause they can say “What do you need me to do? Or need to avoid?” These people are responsible with their xp and characters.
Now to control every player from taking uber kewl powers we have an approvals system. Its fairly unbiased. If you want a cool bloodline or Legacy etc… you have to put up an approval for it. Therefore the players whom should be considered the most responsible and have the ability to play these concepts up are the ones who deserve it.
There are 2 factors which will never change out of the equation, a constant: Players and Storytellers.
There are responsible players out there, whom some may even have 1000xp or more who are responsible with their characters. Yet this doesn’t change the fact that there are irresponsible players with 50xp on their sheet. If you want to create a twink or combat wombat than the difference in xp isn’t really going to stop you.
Then comes the storytellers, they are there at even low approval to stop these unbalanced twinks and characters. We have an approvals chain with responsible ST’s in it. If the st isn’t good then they probably wont hold a high position. SO the focus goes on the low approval st to realize he is the first link in a long chain. Players can be as stupid as they want, but st’s are there to stop the stupidity from ruining the game.
I may be rambling, but these are just my thoughts. So when I see people saying “save the cam” i think, well we already have done as much as we can do. I see no system that would really change it. The problem lies not in the system but (as with ANY roleplaying game) with responsible players and storytellers.
Page 182 of MET: WOD
Lowered Intervals – Normally, every interval of five starting at 10 indicates a success. This permutation reduces that interval to three. So, a draw total of 10 to 12 equals one success, 13 to 15 equals two successes, 16 to 18 equals three successes, and so on. This rule makes for a large number of successes on average, while still retaining the basic notion of difficulty. It is useful for actions that are challenging to carry out but bound to be potent if they succeed.
The idea for a different system, and the need for less Xp allready exist,
>The breaks at 3, 6, etc are designed to get people motivated
>to get to the next level
That’s why they should be removed! The MC system is designed right now to motivate people who don’t normally do prestige stuff just because it helps the club. It motivates people who contribute to the club in order to be “paid” MC XP. I think you’re basically making my argument for me.
In other words, the “break” levels *contribute* to the problem of people going up in MC who aren’t contributing to the chronicle, but just in it for phat lewt (XP).
>and give us some elders.
Again, you don’t need breaks to give us elders as I laid out in more detail earlier. I’m not sure why you think we do.
The only problem I see with this system, is that you are powering everyone down to neonates, or ancillae (with high MC).
We are having a global game that is supposed to span neonate to scary elder. How would we have the “scary” or “Awe inspiring” elder with your system?
Ryan
US200201549
MT – From my personal experience, walking in with that extra 30 xp at least made me feel better than if my PC had just been straight out of the box. I ended up getting into a fight with the 10 o’clock monster my first night at the game – and because I had a decent Cruac draw, I could actually do a little bit of damage to the thing. The Prince thought I was cool, I got extra city status that same night, I was involved in the game. I have no real opinion on the 54-draw-3 system – I’m not a mechanics monkey. All I’m arguing for is to keep the extra little cookie at MC 1.
To address the larger issues – as I’ve been reading the comments and thinking about this, it occurs to me that we should, as players, be working hard to change the ‘culture’ of the game/club. I know a bunch of players locally who have high MC, oodles of xp, lots of crazy devotions and wonky bloodlines. That, by itself, does not make them bad players. They’re actually great players, because they realize this is all about story. They don’t mind failing, because failure is a story in and of itself. And then, of course, there are the folks who have the same cookies on their sheet and are just outright bullies with it.
I’ve seen both kinds of players, and it strikes me that XP is not the problem. It’s just the gram stain that lets us see the problem, in sharper relief. The real problem is players who see the game as an arms race. I can understand someone wanting to create a combat monster – that’s perfectly thematically appropriate to Requiem and Changeling (the only two venues I’m at all familiar with). However, the problem occurs when this combat monster starts ruining the fun for other people. I fully realize what other people have said – that this is the World of Darkness, that there are powerful monsters that can swallow you in one bite and erase you from the fabric of reality. Those should be around, but they should be NPCs for the most part.
Nothing annoys me more when someone tells me that the new PC they’re designing is meant to be an antagonist – since most of the time, they just end up monopolizing the ST and making everything Less Fun for their co-roleplayers. Leave the antagonists to the STs. Create a Lancea Santcum PC who has tensions with the Circle, or a Carthian who has tensions with the Invictus, or an Ordo who has tensions with everyone – but creating a fully fledged antagonist simply strikes me as being a showoff at best and a bully at worst.
This comment has gone on long enough, but I suppose in summation: fixing MC or XP will not fix the overall problem of irresponsible players. Those players will still min/max, they will still do everything they can to get an edge over everyone else, and they will still play loose cannon characters with little regard to the overall story or game balance.
The arguments against diverging from Canon hold no merit, because a little while back, it was announced that there are more custom powers and bloodlines in play than in all of the published books combined.
We’re not even *close* to Canon, not in setting, nor in rules. We’re not in the same ballpark or the same league; we’re not even playing the same sport.
Rachel, I agree with you 100%, especially about “antagonist” PC’s.
The game was designed to consist mostly of Kindred with Blod Potency no higher than five, & I feel the system suffers for having too many BP >5 characters.
Was there really anything wrong with limiting Blood Potency with either a needed Approval or a cap based on MC?
Consider the following:
(1) Always enter play with BP 1, 2, or 3 (because of torpor).
(2) BP increases must be logged in the Approvals Database.
(3) a character may only increase BP by 1 every six months.
(4) a character must be in play for a year to exceed BP 3.
(5) BP 5 requires MC 3 & Mid Approval
(6) BP 6 requires MC 6 & High Approval.
(7) BP 7 requires MC 9 & Top Approval
(8) BP 8 requires MC 12 & Master (Global) Approval.
(9) BP 9 & 10 is reserved for use by the Master Storyteller.
Nicholas Jacob
ADST Chief of Staff
US2007039607 in OH-010-D
Zach – Good point! Perhaps a linear system would further reduce the need to prestige whore.
I think more xp is needed for elders. Bumps or 15xp per level are both fine with us.
Ryan – Do me a favor. Go and build a PC with 180 xp with the 54d3 system in mind. If you can get several successes of a pool of 10, you are still super beefy.
In fact, do a mock combat. Put that new “elder” you just drew up and a newbie next to each other. See what happens…
180XP is MEAN if we have the right draw system.
Thanks, Jerod!
I think the one thing the Cam can do that will improve things dramatically is to be more willing to kick people out of the club. There are people that I have encountered in the Cam where I just have to think to myself what these people offer the story as a whole.
I’m not talking about the quiet guy who shows up and just hangs around the fringes of the game, never really contributing much to the overall story. That guy can stay. I have no beef with that guy. The guy who really pisses me off is the one who goes out of his way to be a griefer, who comes up with troublemaking, disruptive, bullying concepts, again and again and again. Those guys should be cut loose as dead weight.
And not only cut loose. The Cam should let the general membership know, “We have refunded Person X’s membership fee and have asked him not to come back for the following reasons.” I guarantee, after a couple of “public hangings” where it’s driven home that there *are* consequences, the rest of the general membership will quickly adapt.
Rachel – Remember, 54d3 means a starting Crone could still have a decent draw. You still haven’t convinced us you need 30 xp to be viable. Give us an example with numbers.
“I’ve seen both kinds of players, and it strikes me that XP is not the problem. It’s just the gram stain that lets us see the problem, in sharper relief.”
Yes! And that sharper relief is really killing us. As we’ve said time and time again, we can’t legislate play styles. But we can minimize the impact crappy players have on the system and incentivize good players to keep trying.
We want everyone to have fun. Antagonists serve a roll, but again this is an ST discretion issue that isn’t much impacted by XP.
Ben – Are you supporting this Step or saying it’s pointless. I agree with your facts, but I’m a little confused about what you mean…
You know, I’m probably going to be the voice of dissent here, but…
I’m okay with lots of exp. I like being able to make concepts that can actually accomplish things I envision (those things that say, require a certain power build, I’m not talking about social/politicial goals).
I think a lot (not all) of this comes to finding balanced concepts, not approvals, not custom things. Balanced characters begin with your VST.
I’ve been storytelling a few years, mage in particular. So for instance, Player A comes up to me with these stats for a new PC:
Int: 1
Occult: 7
My response will be: No. Fix that.
I don’t have a problem with powerful characters- however I believe they should be played responsibly.
I don’t have a problem with custom things. In fact I believe they are a valid settings element. I believe they should be balanced and used responsibly.
And if they’re not… then they should be taken away on individual basis. I don’t believe in penalizing everyone for a few mistakes.
I don’t believe MC is a problem. There are wonderful, thoughtful high MC players, and there are those who are…not. There are fantastic low MC players…and those who are less so. I don’t believe one’s MC should allow them access to things that any other player shouldn’t have, like approvals for age/power stat/etc. If a brand new MC 1 player has a great idea for a character, why discriminate just because they’re new?
Anyways, there are my two cents.
I have a mea culpa, and then some comments.
Mea Culpa: The current XP situation is partially my fault.
One of the first things I did was fought against the “Vampires get X for MCxp, Werewolves get Y, Mages and everything else get Z” that we had at the time. There were surveys, votes, etc… and in the end, the determination of the general membership was MC*20+30, and I’d like to say that it played a significant part of the then-MST’s choice. Adding the +40 at the MC breakpoints (4,6,9,12,14) was unanticipated, and the extra 40 to 200 xp had an unanticipated impact.
But… with that said, the current MCxp system -is- what the membership asked for.
Robin’s got a point. As long as WW is selling MET as written, we’re going to have a varient of the current challenge resolution systems. We -could- go to 10d3 without a problem, that’s a simple line item edit. One sentence, done. Anything more extreme than that is likely going to have to wait for reset.
(I wonder if Reset will be one of the remaining 8 points?)
Tim’s got a point. How much or how little XP we have really doesn’t matter, what matters is what VSTs allow.
Rachel’s got a point. Quality of membership, not quantity of members.
6.0 wasn’t a myth, and I did what I could with it.
Met:Revised would be a shiny thing, but is there a market for it outside of our club?
I’m looking forward to seeing what else you’ll come up with.
Chris – We still love you.
Seriously, no one could have known that all these little decisions would add up to be such a big deal. As we’ve said elsewhere, this is a blog for no whining and no blame. Thanks for coming clean, though.
And we know that the current MC system is what the membership asked for. And overall it’s a good system. It needs to be tweaked now that we see the effects it’s having.
But we still have to disagree with Tim. While I have very strict standards in my Werewolf game, I can tell you absolutely that those standards are not followed elsewhere. Why? Because all it takes is one bad ST to ruin it for everyone.
Players tend to point to other players and say “He has a level 5 renown, why can’t I have one?” or “He has Theban 5, why can’t my character have it?” STs, especially new, inexperienced STs, have trouble fighting this kind of logic off.
So we go to the source of the problem.
Every character I have ever played has been an antagonist.
I played a High Humanity LS whose goal was to reform Kindred society through example and peaceful persuasion. In the WoD, he is an antagonist. He prevent players from fighting, he acted to stop players from wanton killing, and he meddled in the business of Princes.
I played a social/political manipulator who tried to used political preassure and social “force” to achieve his ends. Only in the most extreme circumstance would he resort to violence. At the same time, he would enforce Prestation and activly move against those who ignored status and boon. He was an antagonist.
Neither of these characters ruined the fun of others. In fact, many people expressed their enjoyment at getting to RP with them as it added to their fun and to the setting.
Be careful what generalizations you make. Without qualifiers, they are likely to annoy those who are exceptions. Also, be careful how you use some terms. They do not always mean what you think they mean.
-Jesse
The club has effectively lost me. I do not play it any more (though I remain a member for purely social reasons). How did the Camarilla lose me?
1. NWOD effectively has no setting (Mage excepted).
2. ST failure to enforce setting and balanced characters.
3. Player failure to play within the setting (Superhero Syndrome).
4. Over-accumulation of XP (feeding Point 3).
5. Global ST failure to provide vision and direction in the chronicle.
6. ST failure to prevent over-accumulation of custom items.
7. Lack of trust in officers that I did not elect, coupled with lack of officer accountability to members.
8. Decent TT mechanics = genuinely bad LARP mechanics.
9. Failure of the membership to address problems with the club, coupled with a system that inhibits change from within.
10. Failure of officers, especially National or higher, to treat members with respect, fairness and often, basic decency.
To make this comment specific to the XP part of this thread:
As a hypothetical, what would happen if there was a fixed amount of xp that a PC could earn before one of three options occurred-
* Automatic inability to earn more xp
* Automatic change from PC to NPC (ST-run, not player-run)
* Automatic retirement of the PC
If your xp-heavy PC can no longer earn xp, everyone else starts to catch up to you – and you are fixed, static in your purchases so they had better be good ones (read: balanced, with not too many holes, rather than min/maxed).
If your xp-heavy PC turns into an NPC, suddenly the most powerful characters are played by STs only. Unlike players, STs are elected by their constituents, who have the ability to affect policy through voting. STs are also much more influenced by officers above and beside them, and they are under more scrutiny for their actions.
If your xp-heavy PC is retired, you get to start over at the bottom and climb the ladder again! Anyone who has sat at the top of the ladder for a while knows how boring that gets after a while. Plus, can you think of a better way to define “winning” than to be able to say that you survived all the way to the maximum xp-level?
On the “One Bad ST” principle:
Yes.
But as high level STs, we are repeatedly told to try and reduce the size of the national addenda, rules, approvals and requirements to play.
Quite bluntly, they discourage people.
The lack of trust in ‘other’ STs, elsewhere in the organisation, leads to greater and greater increases in legislation / rules changes, which in turn demoralise and discourage players.
The answer, surely, is changes that can be made at the local level, through player and ST education, which remove the motivation for twink / power-gaming / zero sum game play.
All this suggestion does is move it from a high powered game with power gaming problems to a low powered game with power gaming problems. This doesn’t solve anything.
To clarify:
The main reason I came up with the 54-card system actually wasn’t anything to do with increasing the success rate (although as I’m the DST of a very low-MC domain by Camarilla standards, it’s more useful to us).
It’s more to do with mental arithmetic. For players who can’t do mental arithmetic as quickly, we’ve playtested it and it’s a tad quicker, friendlier and less intimidating than MET’s default system. It’s slightly more generous, but still not quite in TT’s ballpark, which for a live game is still good. It does come apart with the XP glut that abounds in the Camarilla, though.
A couple of counter-arguments for the “We cant do it! It’s not in the book!” crowd:
i) It rewrites a very small amount of the book; say, about a page and a half. Compared to the blatant riding roughshod over canon that the Camarilla’s game does to a lot of other books, it’s actually pretty minor. And it’s only mechanics, not crucial chunks of setting.
ii) White Wolf will always want to sell more books. What on earth makes you thing the copy of MET you have now is the last they’ll ever publish?
My opinion, short and blunt:
A new draw system is needed. 1d10 has serious problems (10% failure all the time). I am in complete agreement to what you have written here.
However, Phil has already pointed out the part in the current MET:WOD that allows for differentiating successes (2’s instead of 5’s in intervals). We could stick with material and allow for more successes without vast amounts of cheese. Something needs to be done about the 10% failure chance that would continue to exist (my personal suggestion… I hate 10% failure).
XP does, seriously, need to be reduced. MCx10 is good thinking, but only if you change the draw. I would not give “bonus” MC XP though. I think it’s a poor idea that only seems to encourage people to aim for the bonus levels and forget about the levels after that because, well, they’re just not worth enough. 5xp per month would be fab as well.
Keep up the problem-solving strategy!
As the other ST in Phils domain:
The 54d3 system has been astonishingly useful in speeding up the game. Halving to quartering test-times is a godsend. Phil downplays the importance of the slightly more generous success rate, but I have to point out that suddenly, combat is a lot more interesting, and more dangerous than *plink* one lethal, *plink* one lethal. Suddenly, you avoid the fight because it’s dangerous, and you might get your character killed, rather than because it’s so damn dull that it takes half the night.
One of my best friends quit the game soon after nwod was started. One of the major cited reasons was that the mental arithmetic and jump-through-hoops of the 10d5 was A) just too much for a numerical dyslexic/someone not designed for that kind of thing and B) Just too distracting from the setting. I’ve found it myself. the slowdown was crazy. Once you’re introduced to it properly, 54d3 is infinitely faster to repeat (makes life easier for those extended tests.)
As as for no automatic 1 in 10 fail chance? That’s a godsend by itself. Too damn unrealistic otherwise.
As to the “one bad ST” syndrome, this is exactly what I was trying to say in some comments I made on the other story. The problem is inconsistency.
I’ve had characters try to attack me with a road flare that they carry at all times and argue that it is an “improvised fire weapon”. My ST said no, but another might say yes. Our neighboring Domain has a glut of dual Covenant status characters because their ST’s have set a low bar for that app (which is a huge problem in my opinion). Our Domain has a very high bar for this app and no dual Covenant characters. So when they come visit, or if we’re even in a conflict with them, we have to consider that.
Inconsistency in the system is a HUGE problem. ST’s need to know what they should and should not be doing, and someone has to monitor this kind of thing. Dual Covenant status is supposed to be super rare. If a regional ST sees a Domain approving too many of them, they need to say something to that ST, maybe even revoke some of those apps. And ST’s need to know that it’s ok to disallow powers, apps and even characters if they feel they aren’t appropriate to their (or any) venue.
ST’s need to Just Say No!
As Jerod says.
Too many ST’s keep forgetting the important basic fact.
It really doesn’t matter how many approvals from Powers on High a character has. If those abilities will screw up your game, you are perfectly entitled to say “Not in My Game, You Don’t.”
The final arbiter of the NO stick is the ST on the scene. End of story.
I joined the cam in 2000. I loved it then, truly I did. I enjoyed the intrigue, the social climbing, the fellowship, and most importantly, the sense that I belonged to a large group of friends.
I’m still in the Cam, I’m a DC actually, but I don’t game anymore. Why? Because noone should *ever* play a PC that can have a 25 base pull. I’ve seen it, in fact, the last time I saw it, I was walking towards a garbage can with my character sheet.
Changeling is my last hope, and at the current clip, it will be destroyed like all the others.
My $.02
25 base pull in LARP…hmmm.
Sounds like a less than 15 base pull in table top.
How would we get that?
Well…
Strength 4 (This guy is strong)
Weaponry 4 (and he has been training hard)
Bid weapon 4/5 (cause they are cool and dramatic)
Vigor 2/3 (not too shabby)
So if this is an attack (just making a guess) then there is a good chance to inflict 4 lethal damage. A solid hit, but not ungodly powerful. Unless, of course, the other person is good at defence. Then it could be closer to a 1-2 lethal.
Pfft. I’ve seen base 30 to staking pulls. There’s some ridiculous custom cheese.
When they nerfed (read: totally rewrote) my custom devotion I was slightly annoyed but I figured it wasn’t too bad because, honestly, it was probably a little overpowered and I understood why it was changed.
Then I saw what custom stuff survived the global review…. and I wondered why my stuff got nerfed when there’s still completely ridiculously overpowered crap running around the Cam.
MT – Math and number crunching is not my strong suit. I’m afraid I won’t be able to provide you what you want. I’m not saying that the award for MC 1 should still total 50 if the MC system gets completely rewritten. What I am saying is that I like the idea of having a little extra boost for new players. If we halve everything, then halve that as well to make the xp 25. Or even 20. I’m not thinking of the long term players who will also get this xp when I talk about this – I’m thinking of the brand-new MC 1 player, who’s intimidated enough already by being in a new setting with lots of strangers, having to learn a bunch of new rules and hopes to have fun. It’s a security blanket.
To Robin and Dawn and really everyone else that holds that the 10div5 system is not possible to be changed:
While I will readily admit that changing the core mechanics of the system is not something that White Wolf will allow us to change, I still hold that they are bad mechanics.
So, my question to you (and I apologize Dawn, b/c I know that you and I have spoken on this already) is thus. Regardless of the possibility of having the mechanics changed, do you believe that the current MET system is a bad system? And do you believe that some of the problems that Mark and James have spoken of are related to this system?
J. Derrick Kapchinsky
US2005075735
After having read through all of the opinions here, I suppose it is time to add my own to the pile.
I think Tim is right on a number of levels. Change needs to come from the people in the orginization at large. Simply changing the rules will not fix the problem. It will help with a symptom, but it is not a cure.
I am a proponent of the the 8/3 system. This will allow those with “average” pulls (2 att + 2 skill) a resonable chance of 1 succes on average.
Further, it will not affect the current resisted/contested powers in play as they simply compare success. In the current LARP rules set there are very very few powers whose number of success matter. Most powers either work or the don’t. This will encourage players to spend xp in “secodary” skills because that are now useful and they won’t have to put as much into any one skill to have and effect. In a nut shell, this will lead to more balanced characters.
Combat wise, I would use 8/3 system, but include damage caps. This would make combat a touch more deadly and quicker. I would advocate removing the silly rule of vigor adding after the fact. A melee atack is Strength based, baring merits, thus a power that adds to strength needs to be added to the front end. This equates Vigor with Celerity w/o being broken.
Now as to how much xp is in the game, I think it is way too much. But, I do agree that “power gamers” be the same despite how little or how much xp is in the game. And to note, the OWoD was much worse. But, just because it was worse, does not fix NWoD.
To address the comment of “We can’t change the MET book because WW wrote it” Did, or did not, the Camarilla have any input on the creation process?
If we, as an orginazation, did have input on it, then I feel that argument does not hold water.
Thank you,
Damon Edwards
US2002055931
> Ben – Are you supporting this Step or saying it’s
> pointless. I agree with your facts, but I’m a little
> confused about what you mean…
I’m saying that I agree with making the change.
The current 10/5 draw system sucks.
I’m for a soft reset, with the following changes: new draw system (54d3 sounds awesome to me), drastic slash in the amount of XP, and absolutely NO custom mechanics allowed.
You could keep your character’s current background and history, but you’d have an entirely new character sheet based off the new rules.
Personally, I think that out of all of the issues currently plaguing the chronicle, the biggest problem is custom mechanics; we’re no longer using the system as written, and because so many rules are hidden behind approvals not privy to us, most of us don’t even know what the rules are. As it stands today, if you want to be competitive in a convention killbox, you’d better have some Top+ custom approvals, or you’re really just a small fry.
The next ST ordeal should be…
“JUST SAY NO, How to say no and be able to defend it if they try to go and call for a Vote of No Confidence.”
I’d like to point out a few things from my reading.
“Our neighboring Domain has a glut of dual Covenant status characters because their ST’s have set a low bar for that app (which is a huge problem in my opinion).”
Then you need to complain to regional, because if you feel that the ST’s of another domain have set the bar low for a Dual Covenant, then Regional agreed with whatever low bar setting they had. This could also be a case of “Strong App, Not strong game play.”
the MC issue.
Last year, I put up my MC 11 for auction for a charitable cause. Full fledge “I will make whatever you want with my huge motherload of MC.” and it came in a pretty good price to help the auction.
If there was an auction for the same domain, I would have put my MC 12 up.
What I have from that auction? Currently my favorite character of all the games I play.
***
What every, single, thing comes down to is the VST needing to know how to say No, even on auction items if they are overbalancing to your game. Yes, the player spent the money, but they need to realize that any purchase of an auction item still can lead an ST to say No.
I’m for the 10/5 set. If you moved it to any other ruleset the minimaxers would still be maxing out, thus giving a huge amount of successes.
***
Suggestion?
When I helped start a new chapter full of new camarilla members, the VST’s made every player fill out the 13 questions and turn in a background before they could come into game. This forced the players ot think about there character concepts and work with the ST’s.
So…
You can not access your MC benifits until you turn in a background and answer the Character related questions that have been sent down by Global, making sure you answer, “Why you want to play this concept in particular.”
“Cause I think it would be fun.” No
“I think it would be fun because I can kill alot of characters.” No.
“Cause I am the son of Thor, really, not just in my head.” No.
“I think it would be fun because…” and an explaination is given, and approved, and if they basically lied and started killing alot of characters, “Sorry, you lose your character, desanction.”
I know what people will say?
“But I can’t write a background with a story and answer questions!”
ASK!
There are plenty of people in the Camarilla that are willing to help people in this very situation! Maybe a group of volunteers that can be accessed as a whole.
Put down that rule, which would help VST’s breath a bit to say “No.” if needed.
Bill: There’s one flaw with your statement here,
“I’m for the 10/5 set. If you moved it to any other ruleset the minimaxers would still be maxing out, thus giving a huge amount of successes.”
Namely, that if a a hard cap still exists for successes, then the min-maxers can min-max all they want and those who do not min-max will now be able to keep up without having to resort to min-maxing themselves.
J. Derrick Kapchinsky
US2005075735
1. The Exp System is not broken. While the starting scale for a Table Top game is much different than the Camarilla’s, the power level of the PCs (which are to make up the majority of the world in our game, whereas in TT, it’s NPCs) are on par with most signature NPCs listed in the book and far weaker than a good number of them.
2. Simply, we cannot change the draw system without a new edition of MET. This may or may not happen. It’s not a change that we can do as “The Camarilla”
3. Unique powers come less from custom bloodlines and more from Devotions in Requiem. Custom devotions and bloodline powers are canonical. They’re provided as an option. It seems that you’re advocating that we should stick to canon in some areas and ignore it in others.
Also, it seems that the whole post it only in regards to Requiem. In other venues, custom mechanics are part in parcel to the genre of the game, such as Awakening.
About the site– I think your idea is good, encourage discussion about how to make the club better. While you have your ideas, I think others have theirs. Communication and discussion is always good. However, you need to be VERY careful to avoid the negative point of view.
Things like “No ST should approve a friends application” can be taken very poorly by many people. Especially people who believe that this club is about friendship first, and gaming second. I know that if I couldn’t approve anything for my friends, my domain might as well not be allowed on the AppDB, because everything would be passed up to National (I’m friends with my RST).
Closing– While I believe your heart is in the right place, I do not think you and your people have a solid enough grasp of the situation and what will and will not work in the Camarilla.
There will always be players who dont have fun. There will always be people who think that the status quo is incorrect and needs to be fixed. That’s not saying that some ideas aren’t worth using (not saying that yours are, but there will always be good new ideas out there). But the club is a lot more complex than “X, Y and Z need fixing, let’s do THIS!”
My friend Luke Hill used an analogy that works very well for this situation. “You can’t put toothpaste back in a tube without a great big mess and a whole lot of wasted toothpaste… and in this analogy, the toothpaste is both xp and people. We can’t afford to lose people”
Dan:
I’ll pose the same question to you as I did to Robin and Dawn. Regardless of our ability to change the core mechanics, is the 10div5 system a bad system? Regardless of our ability to change it, does it need to be changed?
I’ve discussed this topic at length with several different people, and everyone who objects to the change of the system has never once commented on the merit of the 10div5 system itself. They only talk about their inability to change it, and I’m just curious to see if even the people who defend the system believe that the system is good.
Continuing with my last post on your first entry, here are my thoughts on your particular points:
“We need less xp”
Can’t be done in this chronicle. You can’t put toothpaste back in a tube without a great big mess and a whole lot of wasted toothpaste… and in this analogy, the toothpaste is both xp and people. We can’t afford to lose people – the Cam has shrunk drastically in size as it is.
“We need a new draw system”
Can’t be done in this club. The one-card draw system is a central feature of MET mechanics, and I rather doubt WW would be happy with us changing it. In order to do that, they would have to be somehow convinced to let some genuinely skilled mechanics attorneys write MET 2.0. Without that, we get a fiat from on-high telling us to run with it that way or don’t play in the Cam.
“If the answer is yes…”
“Tell them you want an end to the cartoon!”
These don’t help. Saying that those who don’t agree with you are stupid or cowardly (and yes, that’s exactly what you said; if you don’t get that then I can explain it to you) only causes half of your audience to tune out and your message to become irrelevant. If you want change, you have to embrace a pluralistic view of things. I don’t like PvP personally, but I went out there and learned what it was to play a PvP character in order to broaden my horizons… and you know what, I learned a thing or two about fun in the process. I also learned a thing or twelve about frustration, and that it’s not really worth it in the long haul… but in the process I discovered that there really is fun in that thing that everybody loves to hate.
Overall:
Yes, there are problems in the system. Big problems, that will take big change to enact. They wont be fixed by empty words and unworkable solutions, though. Bring your message down to reality, include a set of instructions for HOW to make it happen (not just what to make happen) and you just *might* be an interesting read. Until then, everything you’re saying is either off-topic or old hat.
Sorry guys, I know you care. Caring ain’t enough to fix things, though. You’ve got to sit down and work out the How and the What and the Why until they’re solid and undeniable… only then will your message be heard, accepted and enacted.
Ok, here’s my .02 to drop on the table:
1. XP in game – I am going to echo the people in here who have said that the amount of XP available really does not matter in the long run. In the long run, it is the VSTs as gatekeepers and how people play their characters which makes the difference. I say this as a VST and previous DST who has seen what can come in from out of town and what the locals cook up. When you have base characters that come in and turn your game upside down in a way to make the veterans scratch their heads (a Thorned Wreath powerhouse jumping on a grenade to save everyone while the neonates are running from him – a glitter grenade), that underscores how the XP itself isn’t the problem – it’s how it’s used and monitored.
2. Custom items – Once again, the VSTs are the gatekeepers here. If you would deny it to those local in your area, then do the same to the visitors. If someone comes in with something that looks like a derail and is migrating to your VSS, you have every right to deny it, even if it has gone to Global and back – that is your right as VST. Fear not the no-co – if you have done right by your players, they will generally do right by you.
3. 54d3 – I will apologize, for my head exploded upon looking over it. For the time being, I would vastly prefer sticking to the 1d10+n system for a couple reasons. First of all, it is fairly easy to explain to a crowd of new gamers. Secondly, it’s all through the main books, and thus what people would assume to be the norm in larp. Third, ten cards is far easier to carry around compared to fifty-four. Finally, can you imagine lugging around a pouch of fifty-four draw tokens from Dragonfire (cheap plug)?
Can’t wait to see Step #3,
Larry
Larry:
I’ve explained both the 54-card system and the 10-card system to newbies. 54-card is simpler to explain in person, every time; it’s very visual.
Also, 10-card isn’t “all through the main books”. It’s detailed on a few pages in the main MET book, and given a couple of small tweaks on a page or two in the other books. Any consistent engine for producing randomly generated successes based on a character’s pool can fit its role, so long as it’s balanced well. The “random generator engine” of the default system is almost hermetically separated from the bulk of MET and TT’s rules and setting; the fact that MET and TT books can be mixed as much as they are is a testament to that.
How does overriding a couple of pages of dry mechanics (which, to me at least, appeared to have been a rush job) compare to the vast swathes of canon setting we’re distorting beyond recognition simply because of the inadequacies of the current system?
hey guys,
I would like to chime in on this as well. I am a Req VST and DST for a chapter made up of two power bands if you will. I have about 2/3 of my player base is at MC 11+, and the other 1/3 is at MC 4 and lower. I would dare you to tell any of my newest players that there’s not an XP problem and they will look at you like you just had a 3rd eye open up on your forehead. I have one character in my game with almost 900 xp total on him, and i’ve got one player that’s been playing regularly for a year now with just at 150ish.
As far as the “It can’t be changed” attitudes that I keep reading on here. I thought that this was a blog with ideas to try to keep the game going, not to shoot down the ideas that were being presented. Sticking our collective heads in the sand won’t help the problems that are cropping up all over the camarilla.
There are a number of Attitudes that “there are no problems, and if there are, we can’t fix them” Thats kinda off base in the fact that this is an organization that is made up of a lot of people. Look at the last ICC in Nashville, that was huge. I want to see the organization succeed, but with that attitude we’ll never see any changes and eventually the organization will fold. I have had players come to games once or twice, see the imballance of p0w3rz and l00tz0r and tell me “this is bullshit, we can’t do anything to effect this game” Regretfully the perceptions became their reality and i’ve never seen them again
There is the Attitude that “the ST’s should deny this stuff (in regards to custom or auction items)” That is off base because if the player is a guest and you deny them bringing in something, like say 5 ghouls that have been altered though plastic surgury to look like the master, they will sit in the corner and pout all night long. That’s not any fun for either the guest, or anyone else at the game knowing that there is a negative draw sitting in the corner grumbling and complaining the whole night away.
Everyone talks about recuriting, and how the camarilla doesn’t have the membership that it used to, but until there is a workable system that allows for new players to have some impact into the game and be able to participate in teh game, there will be no reason for new players and new people to start gaming with us all. They will feel like they are sitting on the sidelines and not able to do anything with the chronical.
I have been talking to a number of the players that I started Cam Gaming with, and we all long for the days that we knew what each dot on our sheet meant, and we were happy to buy our second intermediate level of celerity, or our first intermediate level of auspex. Now it just seems like we are putting dots on a sheet to pump up our already insane pools.
I personally liked the 10/3 draw system that we used at the start of the chronical, but i think some caps needed to be put in place. those extra 2 for sucesses were huge, both numerically, but also psychologically. If we could go back to that, with a sane sucess cap, maybe that would help.
Maybe one day with enough tweaking, the game will closer to cannon and less of a G’d arms race.
This may have been asked and answered, but I missed it.
Why did they ever decide that Cam WW needed to differ from Canon WW to begin with? I mean, why can’t we all just get a book? Every book, any book, all the books, and then apply to use everything in them? The ST chain is there to say no to things that would imbalance a given game situation, but isn’t it far more likely under the current mode that the Cam ST chain at higher levels is obligated to be more and more concerned with membership numbers, and thus cannot help but be affected when deciding if someone should be allowed to have something nifty from a book? In other words, to approve or disapprove something eventually comes down to making the members happy, and as the saying goes, you can’t please all the people all the time. So, even this list of proposed fixes will inevitably lead to the end of Zion, and the recreation of the Matrix all over again, if you follow the metaphor. I have never understood why it can’t be a simple thing of everyone uses the same books, the published books. If WW owns the Cam, then how come the Cam keeps dictating to the players what can and cannot be used from a white wolf book? The cam doesn’t write the books, it just tries to keep it’s numbers up by interpreting the books as it sees fit, and then changing that interpretation at will apparently. So again I say, can’t we just get a book and be done with it? No addendums, no interpreting, no nothing, just everyone for themselves under the same exact canon, period.
I see a lot of people above saying that we need to stick very close to the white wolf material.
these people clearly have been playing a different game than i have been playing, because the game i’m playing is one in which we, as an organization, rewrite each and every book that comes out, sometimes in whole, to suit our mechanics.
And it does all stem from this same problem. the core mechanic is broken and thus, so is everything that comes after.
But please, can we not talk about this distressingly complex 54 card draw system ever again? I’m sick of the debate and it’s never been a good idea, ever since it was first mentioned years ago.
i’m a bit fan of 10/3, or even 8/3, personally. and yes, lower Xp. And sure, less cheese. but the honest answer is that we will never move to 54 cards, because I have ten fingers and there is no 54 sided die.
When was the last time you went to a game where people were NOT using a combination of dice and cards and sometimes fingers? never, for me. I’ve used dice from day 1. the d10 is easy to simulate, so fix that system first.
I switched my forsaken game to 10/3 for 3 months last year and I loved it. Skills became useful again. I say we test it.
I’ve also heard that a system of 8 being a base sucess with every 4 being the next success also works close to table top (Though I’m not very good with statistics, and don’t actually know if that’s true or if I even got the number correct — it’s been a while since I heard that one).
I also aree whole heartedly that we NEED to reduce the MC XP. However, I don’t think MC 1 players should get NO extra XP. Maybe just make it a flat 10 XP an MC class (MC 1 getting 10 XP).
In the last chronicle (which I joined at the very end), it was 5 XP an MC, which spent really well on an old LARP sheet (you could buy goodies, but it was reasonable that if you played for a while — I believe it was 2-3 years — you could get relatively caught up with higher MC people).
I think a 10 xp per MC level with no bonuses at certain MC levels would work really well. It still gives you a reward for doing things to get prestige, but it’s not game unbalancing. However, they’d have to implement a new draw system for that to work at all.
I love what you guys are doing.
-Sara without an “h”
I think I’d like to add my two cents too. I’ve been in the cam for 4 years now. I’m MC 4. Part of that is a loss of a year and a half of prestige due to a lack of mentoring, but /shrug that’s never really been a big deal to me. I didn’t play to become queen bee. In that time I’ve played in three very differant domains. One was small and very, very local. One was huge, and had some very powerful min/maxed coeteries and the one I play in now has some very active regional/national players, half of which are well over MC 9 and the other half…well I’m the highest MC of the lower half.
I loved my very small, local game. We had a lot of MC disparity and a lot of player responsibility, I never realized how drastically low my MC was. There were only about 10 of us so they went out of the way to include us. I hated the very large domain I played in. I still hate it, I spend about 3 months a year out where that game is, and I just won’t attend anymore. There are people out there who made it a matter of survival to min/max a low mc character, and even then, they have a death grip on a very stagnant power. Its boring, and its disheartening, even for the high mc’s at this point because through a use of custom capacity and a very high mc leader and lack of accountability, no one can change anything.
The game I’m in now is fairly small again, but again its hard at the lower end of the spectrum to change anything. And part of that is due, yes, to the disparity in MC xp and chronicle xp.
I’m not telling you all this as a matter of complaint but background. XP is an issue. Its true. Its very hard to try and affect even just a social change when your MC 3 character is going up against an MC 12. Sometimes I think we’ve (and yes I include myself in this) forgotten how hard it could be. If we’re not going to lower the gap, which after going round and round with my st chain, I’m thinking may really not end up working because as it was pointed out to me, “chronicle characters still have a year or better xp on a new person, the gap will never be closed. Even with a reset all we do is reset the current, anyone who comes in six months late is always and forever six months behind”, then we need to give these low mc people another way. I’m actually a fan of the hierarchy that then gen caps forced. Here me out on this. I know there were problems with them, after a year of play I was even starting to encounter the “now what do I buy” ones. Although an arguement could be made that you HAD to start rounding out your character. Rather if I was 13th gen, then there was an 8th gen “in charge” of me. No that wasn’t always fun, but when the 10th gen from another clan starting picking on me, I had allies to run to, either a coterie that an older clanmate had set up, or the older clanmate himself. It forced social responses and interactions, but it also gave you someone who could help you with your goals while you learned the ropes and learned how to make other allies. I am all for age caps at MCs I think (and I play a character currently who’d get pulled if they were put in) and mentoring in character. We do some of that in our region now, My dragon and another travel to a brand new domain usually once a month, and the st loves to throw the n00bs at us. We make them dragons and spend all night telling them about the covenant. We introduce them around their new city and at the end of the night we give them our emails, if they choose to keep the character they can email us any time. Most don’t keep the character as dragons get pretty strictly run out here, but they do email us with questions and come up to us at following games for help with their characters. Its nice to know someone has your back. Unfortunately we all get wrapped up in our own stuff and forget to do this, especially in character. Most new players don’t know how to attach a character to an established one, they’ve never had to, troupe games and table top don’t need that as much, I think its a big help to just kinda fold them in, and the mc system and some settings help could make that a reality.
I also see huge issues with accountability. Its been touched on that ST’s need to say no and player responsibility needs to be enforced. Its true. Unfortunately it makes you unpopular and ends in you being replaced by an “easier” person. These changes are one of the few that need to come from the top down. Why is it when people (and no there are not a lot but they do exist) with high MC bully new people or behave in a manner that gets the a severe D.A. we are willing to desanction characters but no one docks MC? If a player abuses their characters abilities and its thought severe enough to remove their character from them, even for 3 or 6 months, how is that not conduct unbefitting their MC? The Coordinator chain has the authority to do these things, but from what I’ve seen very few do. There are ways to force better roleplaying. You penalize bad role playing and take away the bully’s power. Not just at that moment, but from that point on. Yes it makes you unpopular, Hell I’ll volunteer to send the emails so they hate me…
The biggest problem this organization has is its PR, people see an old boys network, whether or not it exists, they feel bullied and downtrodden and they leave. Then they tell their friends and they become wary and jaded before we even go to recruit. It doesn’t matter how many people show up once, as long as we don’t resolve the issues of how many people leave in their first year or so.
Racheal Mastel
us2004011041
I tend to agree with the problems listed, but not necessarily the solutions. I don’t think the 54d3 system is going to happen because (A) it’s not in the book and (B) it requires a full deck of cards.
I’m glad you guys are getting some people to have this discussion, but I think you need to be more reasonable in your goals.
With a drastically reduced XP curve, 8/3 is just fine. Yeah, it requires more mental arithmetic than 10/5 for 54d3 (which, having read it, is actually a really simple system for calculating successes) but it has the advantage of being in the book.
Also, 54d3 starts acting really weird at high test pools (for instance, it’s impossible to get five success with a pool of 20, though you’re very likely to get either 4 or 6 successes.
Rachel –
“I’m not saying that the award for MC 1 should still total 50 if the MC system gets completely rewritten. What I am saying is that I like the idea of having a little extra boost for new players.”
Ah. It’s the security blanket effect. Fair enough. I think giving them their MC 1 (10xp) + and additional 10-20 xp should be fine. Just as long as they can’t start the night with a 5 dot discipline.
Ben – Thanks for clearing up your position. Glad you like what we have to say.
“As it stands today, if you want to be competitive in a convention killbox, you’d better have some Top+ custom approvals, or you’re really just a small fry.”
As for this. Ouch. I can’t think of a more damning pronouncement. If the basic mechanics don’t matter as much as your cheese, what have we done to our system?
Dan – I was hoping you would post here. You are always so concise, clear, and smart.
“1. The Exp System is not broken. While the starting scale for a Table Top game is much different than the Camarilla’s, the power level of the PCs (which are to make up the majority of the world in our game, whereas in TT, it’s NPCs) are on par with most signature NPCs listed in the book and far weaker than a good number of them.”
How do you define “weaker”? By the amount of damage they can deal in one hit? Or by the powers on the sheet and what they can do?
Take Theban 5: Transubstantiation. Tons of Theban users have this ritual because it’s super useful. It lets you turn a keg of beer into a keg of blood. For a willpower. Blood draw tests (and a huge part of the game) cease to matter when anyone can just conjure up blood out of nothing.
“2. Simply, we cannot change the draw system without a new edition of MET. This may or may not happen. It’s not a change that we can do as “The Camarilla””
Not true. We have made other changes. Like the Status System.
“3. Unique powers come less from custom bloodlines and more from Devotions in Requiem. Custom devotions and bloodline powers are canonical. They’re provided as an option. It seems that you’re advocating that we should stick to canon in some areas and ignore it in others.”
We never said that custom devotions and bloodlines shouldn’t be in the game. We think they should be powered down and more rare, but not excluded. I’m not sure where you got this.
“Things like “No ST should approve a friends application” can be taken very poorly by many people. Especially people who believe that this club is about friendship first, and gaming second. I know that if I couldn’t approve anything for my friends, my domain might as well not be allowed on the AppDB, because everything would be passed up to National (I’m friends with my RST).”
We never said this either.
First, I’ll admit that I’m not familiar with the particulars of each and every die count variation that are referred too. However, I think we can enumerate certain goals for any system we do use.
1. That it encourage well rounded characters who can hold a polite conversation with their friends, knows the names of a few important historical figures and perhaps run across the street without tripping and twisting their ankle. To often do we run into characters who can tell you where you left your car keys when you don’t know don’t, but per the numbers don’t know anything else, or the combat character that can give bruce lee a run for his money in a fist fight but who couldn’t catch your average toddler in a foot race, or social characters that can talk you into selling your mother but couldn’t sit down for tea with you without making an ass of themselves.
This sort of mis-balance is systemic at this point. The sheer difficulty of doing anything on a 10 for for first success system guarantees that being able to handle yourself in a fight means 5 str, 5 dex, 5 wits, and 5 brawl instead of meaning twos and threes in those stats.
Such high requirements for success undermine the very concept of primary/secondary/tertiary point allotment. Nearly always there is a primary with everything else relegated to a distant tertiary, if its even that good.
2. Modifier types should result in equal valuation between larp and tabletop. There are several powers, usually around tier two or three that add a modest +1 to +3 to a dice pool. In table top, that’s pretty cool, there is some value in using the power as that is 1 to 3 more dice to roll. In larp 10/5 however, the same power isn’t worth spending the resource required to activate it. Such powers are usually purchased only to get to later powers with larger bonuseses. Said later powers, instead of being rare and intimidating, are common place and expected.
Powers that should be similar in result, perhaps with a bit more surety as they add successes equal to those on a roll or some other value become massively overpowered resulting in some powers, groups, or types being the “best” way to do something.
Perhaps most dramatic in this category is the X-again modifier. In tabletop, being able to lower that extra dice roll number is an extremely feared ability. In some books, it talks about the supreme rarity of 8-again items and how they should be watched carefully for abuse. Yet in larp, there is only one draw and this near ultimate modifier is relegated to an afterthought. Yes, it can explode huge, adding 20 to dice pool, but most of the time it results in very little possibility of adding extra successes.
Gents,
I’ve thought about a reply and finally decided to go with it. I should note that I agree on custom items
Part of your XP and System argument seems to hinge on a fundamental education issue facing the club right now. People don’t seem to grasp:
In the NWoD, in a simple (not resisted or contested) test, ONE success is a COMPLETE success.
This means that if you are hacking a computer, investigating a crime scene, or trying to research where VII comes from all you need is one success to succeed. The ST can invoke die bonuses and penalties, but on that pool of dice you need only one success to accomplish your goal.
This means that with 4 dice in tabletop, achieving at least 1 eight or better is probability: 37.03%
(http://www.tabula-rasa.info/Roleplaying/DemonProbability.html)
In LARP, on a 4 pool, getting a 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 means that you have a 50% chance. (Neither takes into account other modifiers like Willpower, Equipment, or the ST discretion +/-5)
The place where probability actually breaks down is Resisted and Contested challenges.
However, neither solution addresses the fundamental issue of “the people who have disproportionate pools now, will likely have comparatively disproportionate pools on less XP”. If Jack rips out his character for combat, and Mary rips it out for Social skills, Jack will still have advantage over Mary whether they have 300 XP or 50 XP.
The problem is NOT the XP itself, it’s how the XP is spent.
Regards,
Mark
Issue of too much XP….I’m not in favor with this description. Especially when it costs so much XP to up draw pools. For example. If I have Manipulation 3 and Socialize 3 (I’m average at manipulation and below average at socialization), I fail 40 percent of the time. This doesn’t make much sense. If I was to up it so I might have a 90% chance, it’s going to cost me 47 xp. Thats almost 1/10 of the XP you’ve got up there. And just for 3 dots.
When the XP cost is higher than in the past, and the amount of XP spent on characters is higher, then it’s not about how much XP is on the character.
It depends on what the character is built to do and what the player does with it. St’s should be watching to see if the Nosferatu Private Investigator has 5 points in brawl and physical and a 1 in intelligence and investigation. (Yeah Sam Spade was a dirty rotten scoundrel who could hit, but he could also investigate things too).
The issue on STs saying No. Bravo. Personally I think there needs to be more of this. For me, I have 12 players in the game I ST in right now. I have made a standing rule of only 2 bloodlines in the area (aside from any national plot NPCs or NPCs). We have 12 players, I can’t justify more than that. The only exception to the rule is that anyone gaming national bloodline approval due to National plotkits does not count in the final say. This forces the players to either get involved in national plotlines as well as talk to people in the Cam outside the venue. It also limits the players who have bloodlines.
Personally I think we need to have a Bottom/Up revolution for STing. My biggest pet peeve for STs not saying no on approvals is this issue:
Venue ST “Well I’ll just send it up so X player won’t be angry at me but it will be disapproved at Domain.”
The problem is that it continues.
Domain ST “Well, while I’m a little leery of this coming into play, but VST said it’s ok, so I will too. It will probably be disapproved at Regional.”
Regional ST “Damn I have 13 approvals this month. I trust the lower ST’s judgement that they want this in their game.”
Approved.
Then DST and VST wonder why the Vampire/Werewolf Hybrid got approved.
Now I’m being histrionic about the abominations, but this happens with little things nowadays (Devotions, bloodlines, Allies 5 Rokea….No Bad Malecki….)
I think you get what I meant to say.
Many people often say that we have to reform from the top down, but I think it’s the other way around. This is one of the reasons why I miss Regional Conventions so much. Regionals were a great way for people to see each other once a year and to run workshops on things like “Approvals, character creation, auditing.” Everyone attended. Nowadays, we don’t have these things. Even if we get it at USCC or ICC…how many people in the cam can make those cons? Many can often make the regionals.
Basically we need to teach Storytellers (especially new ones to the cam) what it means to have a responsibility to the national game, not just an ordeal of rules.
I miss the old ordeals…the ones that actually said “Here’s the situation, how would you deal with it.”
Rather than asserting that there is too much, too little or just enough xp in the chronicle, lets think more about what kind of chronicle we want to play it, and what is good for chronicle.
Is it good for chronicle to have so many mage PCs that could easily walk in and wipe out a venue? Is it a good thing that so many of the characters in Requiem look like the signature NPCs or are more powerful than them? Is playing such a high power game actually good or not?
PCs can make up the majority of kindred in the world regardless of power level. We don’t need for there to be characters with 1000xp in order to PCs to be the movers and shakers of the world.
The problem as I see it, is the entire chronicle is made up of high end ancilla and elders, we don’t have neonates. Every mage character I’ve seen is a master of at least one Arcana. This chronicle is the living example of the “Don’t Point that Thing at My Planet” sidebar in the Mage MET book. Is this really what we want from our chronicle? Or would chronicle be better off for everyone involved if we stepped back the power level a bit?
Looking at the rules in both tabletop and MET, the basic game systems are just not meant to handle characters of the power levels of the characters in our chronicle. You can point to the canon NPCs, but the problem is, they aren’t actually meant to be played. Baron Cimitiere isn’t supposed to be at every court, to be a visible and active member of the city, he’s supposed to be mysterious, powerful and dealing in the back rooms. What we have, instead, is a ton of characters of that ilk right out in front standing in the spotlight. That’s contrary to the setting, and frankly, bad for chronicle.
We’ve diverged so far from chronicle that most players I know have abandoned any interest in playing in anything besides their local venue. There’s simply no interest in playing in the part of chronicle that necessitates everyone being a walking god.
So yes, we need to play with significantly less xp, I’d say about half of our current levels. That means cut all MC XP awards in half and drop the monthly cap to 5 or 6. Then necessitate more well rounded characters. The 50% rule in creation is good, but lets go even further, lets lower it to 30%, necessitating that people put xp into a more balanced spread. Then lets make any Power Stat above 5 approval. You want to play BP 6 or higher, write a high approval justifying it. Looking for 8 or above, be prepared to write that top approval.
Then lets take the gloves off our VSTs. Everytime we make a VST put an application in for a plotline or NPC, we hurt the games. Lets let our VSTs do what we elect them to do, tell stories for us. They don’t need interference from the high, national or global levels. If players in their venue don’t like the game, they’ll elect a different ST.
Finally, lets make VSSes things that are easily available to all members to read. Almost no one I know has actually read the VSS for their own game, let alone any of the games they travel to. There are supposed to be differences in the style of individual games, and these are layed out in the VSS. One of the biggest problems in the camarilla is the assumption that basically all games will operate in the same style. This just isn’t true, and actually hurts the chronicle when people think it is, since it serves to alienate players.
“When was the last time you went to a game where people were NOT using a combination of dice and cards and sometimes fingers?”
Every game I attend, we use exclusively cards (or at least I haven’t seen dice brought to a game since I stopped bringing them)
Joe: How is 54/3 a complex system? Once you get your head around how Jokers work or how to handle very large dice pools (which aren’t really needed if you build a character with this system in mind), you’ll see that it’s much simpler and requires less mental math than any version of the 10/5 system where you have to divide your total by one number or another.
Not everyone needs their own deck. I ran a mass combat for about 7 changeling PCs and an equal number of NPCs, with a single deck. I drew for everyone, they only needed to tell me their dice pools, and the combat ran in half the time as any other combat I’ve run with 10+ characters involved. The point of that being that not every single person has to have their own deck. About 3-4 will easily handle a game of 15-20
10 / 3 is little better than 10 / 5 in my eyes. I really don’t care about dice pools of 20+ (though I will use them). I care what happens with a dice pool of 5. B/c a new player, who either has no experience, or only TT experience will look at the book, see on pages 44 and 57 of the MET blue book that a attribute of 2 means “Average” and a 3 means “Good” and build their character according to that. I did. And i was extremely discouraged when my “Good” die pool, that actually would have been good in a TT game failed half the time, regardless of what my test really was.
I don’t care what anyone says about the complexity of any system or diverging from the books, it’s no where near as difficult as trying to explain to a new player that they have to completely disregard the descriptions the book itself gives to dice pools and just stick no less than a 4 in anything that they want to not suck at, and why that is.
J. Derrick Kapchinsky
US2005075735
I want to make a point about 2 things here;
1. XP: I don’t believe XP is the issue. White Wolf Signature Characters are built for tabletop. In tabletop, you can pull 5 success from a Wits 2 and investigation 1 roll. We can’t do this in MET. The only way for a character to actually do something, is to have balanced out his dice pools….especially since a person with a dice pool of ten is still reduced to a 5 by a 5 defense.
Remember one thing…you tell someone he needs thirty XP for something and then tell him he has to wait half a year to advance one dot, you’re going to have an annoyed player. Cutting MC and cutting XP rewards will cause more people to leave the cam then to solve any problems. The reason is that people like to ADVANCE their characters. Advancement of characters is part of any roleplaying game. There’s a thrill when you get a new power and a thrill when you are just about to have enough XP for it. However if I can only get 5 XP per month and we play only one game a month and I get 5XP…well why do I bother travelling to any other game? (yes I know for Roleplay, but if I’m bored all night at other games, I should get something for sitting through a slow night.)
Also too, I have an MC of 9. Right now I have around 300 XP from MC alone. I play an older ancillae with an interest in devoting his life to Theban Rituals. he’s stacked in one sense…but he’s crap in others. Just because i specialize in one thing doesn’t mean I min max. It just means I’m gearing the character.
2. The problem needs to start from the Bottom UP. I’ve been saying this in my posts and nobody seems to like to argue this point with me (yes ladies and gentleman, this is an invitation to debate here…remember read debate, not flame). Many issues I hear is too many uber powered PCs, too many custom devotions, too many bloodlines…
Guess what…it all starts somewhere.
It starts with the VST.
VSTs allow bad character concepts through.
VSTs allow the custom devotion to get through their radar.
VSTs allow the 6 bloodlines in their domain of 15 players.
Personally I think we need a better system of ordeals to educate the Storytellers of our group. STs need to realize they have first; a responsibility not only to provide an excellent game for their local players, but for the organization as a whole. Second they need to realize that while you serve your players as Storyteller (it is never the storytellers game, it’s the players) you have to serve ALL the players. Say No, but explain why you said no. Explain that 4 bloodlines in the area is a bad thing for the chronicle. Usually an ST says no and never gives an explanation. We need to educate STs how to deal with situations, and what acceptable levels of power balance are in the games.
Mike, I completely agree that the VSTs are ultimately responsible. However, the argument that you’ll hear against the great “no,” is, “Bob from the next domain over is allowed minmaxing, and he’ll slaughter our entire coterie if we’re not allowed minmaxing too!”
And it’s legitimate. I’m in a domain that’s very balanced. I know you are. We’re very close together. However, if one of the feebs who hits for 7 agg a turn decides to, he could level both of our cities. And yes, we have the right as STs to say no. But then you run into a whole bunch of other problems. Higher-up STs will say, “Well, if they had a legitimate reason, why didn’t you let them slaughter everyone?” I’ve heard that one a handful of times.
It needs to be fixed from the top down. Minmaxing should be disallowed, since we can’t hope for every given VST to prevent it. I’ve always been an advocate of level 4 traits being DST approval, and level 5 being RST. Concept should be important in this. Just because you have slept with the RST doesn’t entitle you to a Brawl 5 Librarian. And if you decide to play a Master Fencer, you shouldn’t arbitrarily get a custom power to break Sovereignty.
Not only that, but they should be audited regularly for upkeep and concept adherence. Just because you got Kung Fu 5 approved doesn’t mean you deserve to keep it. You abuse the theme of a power by tossing it around in a killbox? Wonderful, it won’t happen again. You start stretching your concept to get more crap thrown on you, and you sit with buffs from 3 covenants and 4 bloodlines? Bye bye to your privelage to that custom cheese that further enhances that stuff.
I love the cam. I have since I first joined, even as other friends of mine in local troupe games muttered about the MC system, and the little changes to the story that made them hate the game. I sat with my MC1, and with my friends who helped me make a sheet and build my MC. I had my 11th Gen Brujah, and played him full tilt in what was a large, vibrant domain that drew from two other large domains and had massive games. I made alliances ICly and built my powers up as I bid my time. I worked ICly hand in hand with characters who were of similar gen but had lots of MC XP picked up in play, and played along side ‘big bads’ who had both Generation and XP on their side. It didn’t matter. The characters you stayed away from weren’t just because “Oh, Joe Smith has tons of woogie, I should hide,” but “That character has a rep as a bad ass, so I’m staying the hell away.” I watched a Gen Cap system work.
I spent two years as a Dreaming VST and the better part of another year as an ARST, and ran and seconded con games and massive FGotM’s towards the end. In that game, there was no gen cap, only an XP system. Sure, everyone knew that Prince Ihsan had a ton of XP on him and could do a ton… but… people didn’t avoid starting shit JUST because he had powers, but because he had a badass rep, backup, etc.
Now I’m sure many of you are saying, “Brian, what does this mean to this conversation?”
I don’t have a problem with tons of XP. Would I prefer a smaller scale game out of the box? Sure, but this isn’t a deal breaker for me. I do not think that the “Steps” are necessary. You get a ton of XP to begin with for each step on the path up, so getting the tasty XP should be more than enough. And I’ve seen it work, in Changeling, where there was no (by the time I was playing and STing in the cam) step system excepting the amount of XP.
What I would like to see instituted is a graduated XP system. Though the numbers escape me at this moment, they were there. You can have six XP a month. Once you hit number X (I thought it was 90 or 110, but my mind wanders in my old age) it goes down to five, four, three, two. When I’m a badass mofo, I can only grow two xp a month. That means that every point means that much more. Not only that, but I remember whenever someone hit a graduation mark, everyone knew, because it was a proud moment in character development.
My point is made more clearly when you take a look at what XP will get you. When comparing the power level of the 6 XP in OWoD (The equivalent of One Intermediate Discipline or two basics, SIX SKILLS [unless going over level 6], SIX ATTRIBUTES, TWO WILL!) the 10 XP doesn’t go nearly as far as the Six used to, netting you at best two level 1 in clans, or a single level 2 or level 1 out of clan. It doesn’t buy as much, so I’m not concerned about it, especially if the system knocks you down a peg, say at 150 (not including . Take it from ten to eight. At 300 From eight to five, and 500 from five to two.
I would also do away with so much overcap. Even with the ten a month, or the eight, or the five or two; you can still pick up a ton of bonus points with traveling. Back in the day, you MIGHT get a bonus point in a particular game for awesome RP, from that game, but it didn’t bump your cap. The only bumps came from cons, and if memory serves, came out to A single point, maybe two at ICC. Now, you can get overcap by going to your regional game of the month, or by going to any number featured online games. It is too easy to break the system.
As for the draw, I’m indifferent to the subject. With the above taken into account, there are still lots of points out there and you can have some very mighty draws but be weak in other areas. You have to throw the definitions out the window by the book, because they’re just not accurate. I look at Intel 2 and it is small, but it REALLY IS. It means that you have put either a single CP or ten XP into it, which on the greater scale isn’t a lot. I don’t mind that it’s tough to do things without concentrating, or using willpower to pump it. For example: I have a 6 base on my firearms. If this is uncontested, I’m going to make my shot 60% of the time BEFORE I take the weapon into account; I’m up to 80 or 90%. Let’s call it a character with a defense of 4, which puts them at the upper edge of being able to dodge; back to 50/50. Finally, if I want to shoot that person, I am going to use my will to give me a better shot at it.
To me, this seems pretty fair. If a clutz tries to be stealthy, it’s a pain in the ass. If you’re good at being stealthy, and your life or well being depends on it, you are probably starting at about a 70% chance, maybe higher, and are going to spend your will to up it.
I think any of the math here vastly underestimates the importance of willpower. If you’re really intent on doing it, you spend a will. If you’re not, you don’t. It makes all the Willpower issues come into play more. If you are saving your will, you save it and wait for a better opportunity.
I don’t know that any of this can be ‘fixed’ easily right now, but maybe the bleeding could be stopped. If the caps were to go into effect RIGHT NOW, perhaps adjusted upward so that the guys in the middle (500 or so) Could realistically catch the 1000s, but still limit those middle characters so that the lowbies can get to the middle. Then, down the road, when everyone is ready for a reset, even a soft one, it can be implemented fully.
NOTE: I will address issues of ST responsibility and wonky cheddar later if it comes up again.
Just a quick note to the last reply….
>I would also do away with so much overcap. Even with the ten a month, or the eight, or the five or two; you can still pick up a ton of bonus points with traveling.
It’s now set at a cap of 20 overcap for a year.
Here’s another thought. You guys are saying good things about how we have too much XP and how MC bonuses should be lower, but you’re not going far enough.
the question is not why do you get so much XP for MC, the question is why does MC have anything to do with XP at all?
yes, i want to reward people who do work for the club. but paying people for work in XP is weird. And it makes it harder to tell a story as an ST.
how about letting the ST determine who gets bonus XP because it’s their story?
I’d rather see MC tied to rarity. maybe you get a number of approvals each year equal to your MC. So if you’re MC 1 you can still play an old character or a member of a bloodline, but you cannot play a 5000 year old character with a rare bloodline, ten devotions and all out of clan disciplines. not even if you really want to.
This lets the ST determine the power level. He or she can choose people who are good roleplayers to have positions of power and not just people who donate to charity and keep track of all their prestige well.
but it still rewards work done for the club with something that people want IC.
Just for fun and consideration, here is the mechanic our (noncam) larp uses.
Start with a basic progression of 10,13,16,20, for 1,2,3, and 4 successes respectively, every success after this goes on an interval of 5. (This is to prevent the test pool 20+ folks from having too easy a time decimating nations.)
(there has been some discussion of making it 9,12,15,+5, for simplicity sake and for better emulation of table top dice pools.)
Now, remove the restrictions on exploding tens, each ten you draw results in another draw, no matter how many you draw in a row. (Now it is once more possible for granny with a shotgun to get off a lucky shot and kill you. Not likely, but possible.)
Now, to address the 1=autofail problem, (and also the “I have test pool 20, I either auto fail or get 4 successes” inconsistency.) Get rid of 1’s autofail, instead let ones *also* explode, only when they explode, 1’s *subtract* 5 from your test pool (and then you draw again and add whatever you draw). Every additional 1 drawn subtracts an additional 5. We have had people draw as poorly as -15 to their test pool, that is 4 ones in a row, followed by a 5.
You can see a complete layout of our rules here. Not really any more complicated than what WW already uses.