From the comments and page views (2,500 yesterday!), we can see that this site is getting some attention. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to look at this project and offer your thoughts. You rock!
Here’s our favorite comment for Step 2:
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.” – Ben
Yep, Ben. We agree.
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As for the other comments and thoughts, we’ve read and thought about what you all had to say. Here are some clarifications for you to chew over.
Other Draw Systems:
Many commenters have noted that they aren’t fans of the 54d3 system. We understand that. In our local games, players both new and old love it. But we can’t say that what our players love everyone should love. If letting go of 54d3 is required to get a positive change made, we are prepared to make that “sacrifice”.
If you will note, the title of this step is “Reduce XP Awards and Get a New Draw System.” Step 2 is NOT “Use 54d3.” We won’t compromise on our goals (The Steps), but the methods of achieving those steps are up to the members of the Camarilla. We are not assuming that our analysis of the issue means that we can foresee a perfect solution, right down to the gritty details.
54d3 is one of many appropriate systems to raise successes and reduce XP. So are 10/3, 8/3, 8/4, etc. Some of these systems let you use fingers, tiles, and a single d10. Some of these systems are in the MET book already. While we love 54d3, there’s no reason we can’t use one of these other systems.
Therefore, consider us to be endorsing any new system that reduces the need for high die pools. If someone wants to stat our 10/3 or 8/3, we will be happy to post it on this blog.
MC Bumps:
Zach and others have been making some strong arguments AGAINST MC bumps. We think he’s right and we were wrong. Consider our proposal amended. We now agree that it should simply be MCx10 or MCx15 with no bumps. They aren’t needed and actually encourage bad prestige whore behavior as people work solely to get to the next “bump.”
Reducing XP on Existing Characters:
Many people have been supportive of the “Less XP” theory, but have wondered how it would work in our current system. Ben suggested a soft reset and we think that’s generally a good idea. However, it may be a bit jarring as people lose abilities and skills in order to “make weight.”
We got the following from Phil Hyde, Sheffield DST and creator of 54d3. It’s a great idea to consider if you think the “Soft Reset” moves too quickly.
Phil says:
It’s a logistical nightmare to take experience points off players; there’s lots of bookkeeping, and directly taking points off players causes the sort of hideous shrieking noises that would make invading Body Snatchers wince. If we do do it, we’re going to have to do it gradually.
So here’s a possible solution.
Phase 1: Eliminate the 40XP chunks (formerly the “Free Dot”).
- Nominate a future date after which the “Free Dot XP” (FDXP) will no longer be awarded.
- Existing characters at that date can keep all FDXP they currently have.
- New characters after that date are not granted any FDXP.
- Characters of players who hit what used to be the appropriate threshold (MC 3,6,9,12,14) no longer get the FDXP for those levels, even if the character already has FDXP for lower ones.
Upshot: Monster Characters stay monstrous. New characters are significantly lower powered. Ultimately, long-standing characters of players with high MC gain a large advantage.
Phase 2: Gradually reduce MC-per-XP from 20×MC to 10×MC.
- Nominate a series of five dates at six-month intervals, with significant advance warning; for sake of argument, alternate between the 1st of January and 1st of July.
- At each of these dates, the multiplier for “XP per MC” – which is currently 20 – drops by 2.
- This means that a PC’s experience total is effectively reduced by twice its player’s MC at six month intervals. An MC15 character loses 30XP in over each 6 month term, an MC4 character loses 8XP, and so on.
- This may send a character into experience point debt, which they must get past before purchasing anything else.
- At Low approval, a PCs may divest themselves of things they might plausibly lose, such as ‘forgetting’ a dot of a high-level skill or losing certain Merits. In return, they get back the experience points they initially spent on that item. Storytellers are encouraged to use these losses as part of an ongoing story.
Upshot: High MC players obviously bear the brunt of this, but they’ve done really well out of Phase 1. From a competitive point of view, they don’t actually lose their “lead”; they start ahead of players with lower MC than them, and end in the same position – just not as far ahead as they were.
Phil’s solution isn’t perfect. But it’s exactly the kind of thinking that our leadership needs to adopt to make the changes we are proposing. Thanks Phil!
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On a related note, several people have referenced things as “proposed by Save the Cam or “appearing on Save the Cam” that are actually comments, not posts. Please remember, we are not in favor of every idea that gets posted here.
For examples, we ARE NOT arguing for:
Ban on “people you know” approving applications:
This is sort of silly. There’s no way to determine who “knows” who and whether that relationship is strong enough to alter an approval. Nor is there any reason to believe that this “club of friends” can’t produce unbiased, reasonable STs. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the approvals system or general ST structure. If there was, you can bet your bottom dollar we would have recommended fixing that first.
The total removal of custom mechanics:
There is nothing inherently wrong with custom mechanics. Designed correctly, custom devotions, fetishes, imbued items, and rituals add a lot to the chronicle. Not only are they Canon, but they also add a sense of mystery and darkness to the game. Knowing everything your opponents can do, even just OOC, is not fun. We ARE NOT in favor of banning custom mechanics.
Also, we love the end of James Bond movies. Ya know, the ones where they reveal the title of the next movie. So…
Save the Cam will return with “Step 3: Stop Letting Players Write Mechanics” soon…
> Step 3: Stop Letting Players Write Mechanics
Man, I’m already ready to jump on this one. Let me start with this: the authors who write the powers for the books don’t do it with live-action mechanics in mind, nor for a chronicle like ours. Writers like Matt McFarland have said they don’t LARP, and have no desire to learn what makes us tick. Why shouldn’t people who actually play the game, and have a vested interest it, be the ones crafting the weird and unusual powers for it?
My preferred solution to disagreements over which success generation system you use (10div5, 54/3 cards, free-for-all custard pie fight, etc) is to enshrine a right to differ and simply let domains pick the one they like (democratically, like their officers) and stick with it. Keep one default method for big events – 10div5 until we get on top of XP inflation.
Lower-MC domains that don’t get many travellers may well want to use something more generous. In this case, incoming players should be made aware that a given variant is being used locally. For standardisation’s sake, a list of “acceptable variants” should be properly documented, from which domains (or regions) can pick.
I think actually that cutting MC XP is a great idea, but that your proposed plan is far too crippling on a starting character given the character creation guidelines, even with an alternate draw system that allows for easier successes. You do still need SOME reasonable quotient of XP, and as an MC 10 player who remembers his roots as well as a frequent Storyteller who has seen the difference between my ungodly XP quotient and what an MC 1 new player can build, I’d like to put forward the idea that if there IS going to be a big bump… we should probably be putting it right up front.
If for example you think MC x 15 is better than MC x 10, because you want more points overall in the system, I’d suggest looking long and hard at it and considering varying “X” in the “10 / 15 *MC + X” part of the equation. Right now we have it as 20*MC + 30, never mind the “dots” system, and if you’re deciding that you think an MC 10 player like myself should have access to 180 XP to have a nice, well-rounded and powerful character with your lowered draw system, I’d much rather see that be as “10 * MC + 80″ than as “15 * MC + 30″. I think we’ll see a greater return on our decision by really raising up the lower MC’s in comparison to the established and higher-MC characters, since really it’s at the very start of the MC system where the lack of rewards hurt the very worst, while also (conveniently!) helping to buffer the impact of a change on most of the new populace we would be really worried about retaining mid-shift.
No system will be perfect. But I think we need to have our eyes on bringing lower MC’s up to be comparable to the higher MC levels, because it’s already really hard to make a decent-looking character sheet at MC 1. More points at the outset while also reducing points at the top end can help reduce the ridiculous high-XP characters that are part of the problem, while also buffering most of the Club from these changes and also actually improving the lot of the low-MC player.
It’s great that I get all this wonderful XP to play with, because I’ve done a lot of work for the club. But I think it would be better if we flattened the power curve so that MC 1 doesn’t feel so very harshly disadvantaged when they come out of the gate. But then I’ve been arguing this particular point for nearly two years now, with nary a listening ear…
– Sean McKeown
US 2002045258
I actually like the idea of the 40 XP chunks removal. I’d definitely be in favor of that idea. It would limit XP down properly and be a little more fair. However I’m very tired of hearing how MC is the sole evil in our organization.
As I have said previously. The idea of fairness is relative…and usually the people who think something is unfair believe it is unfair because it inhibits them in some way.
Well I’m sorry, but I think all this bashing of MC is unfair to the people who work for it. Just because I’m a high MC player, it means that I’m a nasty power gamer who doesn’t know how to roleplay and i horde plot from the lowbies. That is what most people say. I believe it’s unfair to classify me in that way. You’ve never seen me play, nor have you seen my characters.
I believe in the MC system. It is a way to reward those who assist the organization on a regular basis. I believe those who work in the organization deserve an in game reward for their work (because we can’t give OOC awards in this org…we don’t have the cash for it). While I can agree the 40XP chunks is a little much, The 20 XP per level of MC is a fair basis. Some zoom through MC fast, some take a year per MC level…that is all based on YOU. It depends on how much you devote to the organization. However too many people ignore the idea that MC is a good thing. We just want to downgrade everyone to being equal. Why don’t we just have everyone start with the same XP?
Because we can’t. The Vampire game doesn’t have cities full of neonates in positions of power…we need Ancillae and Elder characters. Who’s the best people to trust to play those characters….well the people who have been in the organization a long time. Does it always work no, but hey man the world ain’t perfect.
Does this mean a new player can’t play an elder? No, but it does let us at least view their roleplay for a time before we make that adjustment.
The final issue I want to point out is this “Let’s reduce character’s XP.” You want to mess with a character do a Hard Reset or grandfather the character. Don’t remove an earned reward from someone. Maybe some of the XP wasn’t earned, but some might have been damn good roleplaying awards. Realize one thing. You are taking away something from players and putting them into XP debt. Why should I continue to play the character if I have to rebuy everything I’ve already bought? It’s one thing to tell someone it’s going to take them a half a year to buy something instead of three months, but telling someone they have to now buy those three months, plus all the other points on their character sheet (which they already earned) will frustrate many players, and I feel we’d lose more players then we’d gain by lowering MC costs and setting people to xp debt.
Personally I don’t think MC is the issue. We always blame MC…and while I can agree the 40 points per 3 levels should be kicked, I don’t see where getting rid of MC will do the club any good. We have had this argument every year for the past 5 years in the Cam…and the reason is always the same…people feel it’s unfair.
Remember what I said about fairness? It’s relative….and I think those who support the destruction of the MC system are being unfair to those who work hard for the organization and earn their prestige.
Sean: I can understand where you’re coming from, but it does run counter to two observations I’ve made over the past few years.
* “It’s not that we have too many Masters [Elders], but that we have too few Apprentices [Ancillæ]“. The game ain’t nearly as much fun when it’s all chiefs and no braves. I’d prefer characters to start smaller.
* When a new player turns up and wants to dive into the game, flinging a metric assload of XP at them (from their perspective) appears to exasperate, not enthuse. It’s more bureaucracy.
maybe Phil is right, Maybe the first bump should be at MC 2 rather then 1, or maybe 2 smaller bumps at 1 and 2 so that newer members of the organizaiton can build up in an accelerated fasion, but not so fast as to exasperate the situation.
Also coming from someone that’s MC 11, i would honestly rather just do a reset the take something off the sheets of everyone. Mike has a good point, there will be a lot of people that will take the opinion that “if you’re gonna shaft me outta 4 months worth of xp, when it takes almost 3 to get my next dot of X, maybe this isn’t the organization for me.” If you wanted to ween people off the XP glut that we have now, a soft reset, something that we can keep a character concept if we as players want to, cuz we all like our characters, but just thin down the XP that’s in the game. The economy is whacked right now.
Have to agree on the point that, regardless of how else everything is balanced, I am absolutely dead against the idea of shafting existing characters or putting them into XP debt (so, shafting them again) just to try and paper over the system defects.
Another point to consider, is that while our rate of character advancement is artificially fast, this is partly because we run in a game where we get to play maybe a few hours a month, tops. Players have to feel like their characters are advancing, not stagnating, and they can’t do that if you slow the xp economy down too far. What works in a tabletop bunch of guys playing week-in, week-out for a year is quite blatently workable for a massive larp where some people may only play 36 hours a year. The current accelerated rate actually lets you feel like you’re achieving something.
Just my tuppence.
blatently unworkable even. *sigh*
Great Point Andrew
Mike -
You have made a great argument for the MC system…to a group of people who haven’t doubted it. We NEED the MC system in our opinion.
We need someway to reward people who donate time/energy to the club. We need some stratification of power to have an interesting game setting and we need players (older and more experienced) who can act as a stabilizing agent even if they need to bring in a new character.
So, just to be clear, we aren’t bashing MC. MC isn’t the “sole evil.” It’s not going to even be in our 10 ways at all!
Andrew -
We don’t want people to feel like they aren’t accomplishing anything. In fact, just the opposite. We maintain that almost everything you can buy stops meaning anything when you can buy all of it.
Think about an MC 3 fighter character. He can buy Strength 5, Weaponry 5, and Vigor 5 if he uses his points well. Where does he go next?
But an MC 3 character with 50xp…only gets one of those things. Then he can use his 5xp a month to build it up, getting stronger all the time…
I still think, as I just mentioned in the post that this post was listed as being in regards to, that adding a monthly cap now so that the middle folk can catch the big bads (to some extent) and the lowbies can get to the middle would help. That way, the rich can’t get richer QUITE so quickly and everyone can catch up.
I would also lessen the amount of Overcap (to next to nothing) in order to keep the staggering viable, or perhaps to have a stiff cap on overcap so that, if you’re a big bad, limited to 2 to 3 xp a month, you can get at most 1 overcap.
First off:
We don’t need 10/3, 8/3 etc. We need d10 pools to compare against. The math is, quite honestly, HORRENDOUS, but I’m working on the table.
If you tell me how to upload, I’ll send what I’ve got tonight, and keep updating it every 2-3 days untill it’s done.
Ofr an example of evil, lets take the odds of getting 7 successes on 6 dice (the most complex one I have yet) Assuming no more than 3 successes (2 10 agains) on any die (10 agaiing a 4th time is .01% likely) we have the equasion:
(.027^3*.27*.7^2)*(6!/(3!2!))+(.003*.027^2*.7^3*(6!/(3!2!))+(.027*.27^5)*(6!/5!)+(.003*.027*.27^2*.7^2)*(6!/(2!2!))+(.027^2*.27^3*.7)*(6!/(3!2!))+(.003^2*.27*.7^3)*(6!/(3!2!))+(.003*.27^4*.7)*(6!/4!)
Note that if we’re doing pools from 0 to 15 dice with up to 9 successes that’s 160 equasions like that.
Second:
Can someone plese define 54d3?
My initial complaint iwth thisa would be, if I think you’ve stacked you deck, verifying 54 cards takes forever, and then you need to resuffle the sorted deck. 10 cards is SO much faster.
Third:
Phil Hyde wrote:
My preferred solution [is to] simply let domains pick the one they like (democratically, like their officers) and stick with it.
Lower-MC domains that don’t get many travellers may well want to use something more generous.
This works well until a MC 14 hit squad rolls in because they know they’ll be pulling 14 successes. It also means that everytime you travel, the rules change, which is something we want to avoid in the Camarilla whenever possible.
Brian Gang wrote:
I still think, as I just mentioned in the post that this post was listed as being in regards to, that adding a monthly cap now so that the middle folk can catch the big bads (to some extent) and the lowbies can get to the middle would help. That way, the rich can’t get richer QUITE so quickly and everyone can catch up.
Catching up would be bad. The reason we have the MC XP system is to create a spread of experience levels so that the whole world is populated by PCs. If we ‘catch up’ we don’t have the spread any more.
James Gaines said:
Catching up would be bad. The reason we have the MC XP system is to create a spread of experience levels so that the whole world is populated by PCs. If we ‘catch up’ we don’t have the spread any more.
Yet at the same time we have mid-level and low level players who are aggravated at being stuck with no possibility of advancement. Will the middle guy ever actually catch the guy up top? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s one thing to have the levels there, it’s another completely to get everyone stuck there. By your reasoning, there is no reason for the guy at the bottom to even try to get stronger, because the only thing that it is preventing is getting PvP hate from someone lower than themselves.
My point, in case I didn’t make it clearly in my reply, is that if we retard further growth at every level, we can design it so that ground can be gained, but the power levels remain as is.
“Can someone plese define 54d3?
My initial complaint iwth thisa would be, if I think you’ve stacked you deck, verifying 54 cards takes forever, and then you need to resuffle the sorted deck. 10 cards is SO much faster.”
James:
You take a a full deck of cards, plus 2 Jokers, and draw 3 cards. Each card you draw that is equal to or less than your die pool counts as a success. Each card above your die pool and each face card counts as a failure. Aces are always successes and allow you to draw 1 more card. Jokers are never success, but allow you to draw twice more. There are more rules to incorporate 9-again, 8-again, initiative, chance draws, etc. but those are the basics.
Also, in my experience running and playing in scenes where this system was used, it actually took less time to shuffle and run the scene than using the standard 10/5 system.
oh, and in the case of verifying decks. yeah, that probably would take a little while. But I guess that if you’re having to do this often enough for it to be a major hassle, then there are larger problems in play.
J. Derrick Kapchinsky
US2005075735
James -
You may send any stats you go up to mark.truman@gmail.com. However, the links in Step 2 already outline the stats for d10.
The method STs, myself included, have used while play testing the 54draw3 was to keep a verified deck with the st and use only decks carried by the st staff. If the st shuffles and the player cuts it insures that decks aren’t stacked, yet the player doesn’t feel the sting of an st with poor luck. Many players need that sense of involvement in the draw, and oftentimes a cut into the deck suits that need well. The st reveals the top 3 cards, and bam- the results are roughly in sync with the speedy 10 draw.
A bonus that comes along with more cards in the picture is that it becomes much more difficult for players to read the smudges, scratches, nicks etc that cards develop from wear/use, or blatant card marking. Its the sad reality that anyone’s lucky deck could be more than what it seems.
J. Derrick Kapchinsky:
The 54-card system as we’ve playtested it goes thus:
* Draw three cards from a 54-card deck.
* Draw two more cards for each Joker.
* Number cards less than or equal to your pool are successes.
* For pools of 11 or more, low cards count as two successes or more; for instance, at a pool of 12, aces and twos count as two successes instead of one.
* 9-again is “draw 4 cards”, 8-again is “draw 5 cards”.
* Nosferatu/Gangrel weakness: Ignore Hearts.
* Chance draw – Keep drawing single cards ’til you get a number card; if it’s an ace, you succeed. Similarly for Morality draws (which we tend not to do immediately in the heat of combat anyway).
We don’t make anything special about aces; that sounds like an unnecessary complication; then again, I’m not that bothered about precisely emulating tabletop probability.
But as for potentially tampered decks – if you really don’t trust your players, draw hands of three off the top of the same deck as players without shuffling. The probability doesn’t get thrown out much for the first four or five hands. If there really are more than one of exactly the same card in the deck, the player risks revealing that every time anyone draws a hand of cards from that deck.
REGARDING MC AND PLAYER STRATAS:
Time, of course, should be the great equalizer. A character made at MC 1 will never be as powerful as one made at MC 14 if both have bene in play at the same time. But even right now an MC 1 chronicle character can match XP with a fresh MC 14.
The problem is that allowing for XP at startup constantly defeats part of the stration that we want to simulate. I’ve been advocating one of two options.
1) MC XP starts high (20*MC+30, no bumps) forhte first 6 months of chronicle, , then drops to 10*MC+10 there after. THis allows for a wider riange of more powerful characters to populate the world, then ensures that later entries are more likely to be neonate/ancilla. Granted, this isn’t ‘fair’ but it is reasonable.
2) Make MC expendable. I’d propose something along the lines of MC used for a character is lost in that venue for 3 months, and is then regained at the rate of 1 MC per month. This prevents people from creating throwaway PCs with power. the down side is of course, I gak you for OOC reasons, forcing you to lose your MC XP. PvP deaths become much more litigious.
ON DICE AND ODDS
54 pull 3 sounds complex, and I like crazy statistics. I haven’t had a chance ot read through the mass of posts on the main point 2, but I’ll look for that link, and compare it against my numbers. Do we have numbers for 54 pull 3 yet?
Also, not that if you don’t shuffle, after every pull, you SIGNIFICANTLY alter your odds.
OK, unless I’m missing something, you don’t have the Stats for d10 in the Step 2 post, you have a simulation that approximates a staticstial distribution. That’s close, but different.
Think of it like this: I have a Quarter, I’m going to flip this quarter 1,000 times. Now, Statistically I have a 50/50 shot of heads or tails. My 1000 flips may come out 503/497. That’s close, but it’s not exact/ And those minor difference will start compounding as things get less likely.
Yes, my method is rounding (at 1/100th of a percent) and will likewise be inaccurate to some degree, but my initial numbers were exact within 1/10000th of a percent for pools less than 7. I lost a number at 7 and never could find it.
Okay tossing in my comments. (And I’m sure a lot of people aren’t going to like them).
I agree with a comment Phill said way at the beginning.
Lets let the venues see what works for them.
* Put it in the VSS (you are supposed to read the VSS when you are traveling anyway). The venue chooses what they are going to try.
* And keep something standard for big games.
This solution also means we distribute playtest different draw systems. The upper level can keep an eye open on what works and what doesn’t and that can help if we ever adopt a standard again.
This also gives us another option. Their are lots of small rule fixes I can see to help change things for the sake of simplicity or speed (one of the ones is a decent aid system for combat, or in Forsaken territory management stuff).
Now if you allow venues to try some custom mechanics out they in essence playtest ideas. Again the higher ups can keep their eye on what is happening and roll what works into the global game and drop what doesn’t.
And before anyone says anything about ‘we can’t trust..’.
If we are trying to plan for every possible person that bends the rules then we won’t win. Look at the big online games even with the computer handling mechanics people are cheating and manipulating the system/game.
Think it’s easier just to let our STs say no and focus on friends playing a LARP.
~~We now agree that it should simply be MCx10 or MCx15 with no bumps. They aren’t needed and actually encourage bad prestige whore behavior as people work solely to get to the next “bump.”~~
From my days on the 6.0 project and the current MCXP system, this is a non-starter. It’s not about “need”. It’s about “recognition”.
~~ Ben suggested a soft reset and we think that’s generally a good idea.~~
This is likely another non-starter. Enough people are still around that remembers the last time the club tried a soft reset. In the long run, it causes more problems than it solves.
Chris -
Explain how recognition is needed? Isn’t it already given because they get 15xp per level? If our system is adopted, that’s 3 months of play!
As for the soft reset, asserting that it causes problems based on past experience really doesn’t convince us without evidence. What happened previously? Is there a way for us to fix the problem? Are you advocating for a hard reset?
The current system is set up to reward / recognize members who achieve specific MC benchmarks. Removing the MC 4 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 14 benchmarks would go against years of club precident.
At heart, the club is run in a conservative fashion. “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” is a truism, along with “Is your fix going to be a fix, or does it just leave things as broken, but rearranged?”
If your system isn’t adopted… then going up from 13 to 14 is just 20xp. Is that 20xp worth the sheer amount of Prestige necessary to do so?
I’m not setting out to convince you of anything. I’m simply saying that the club has a long memory, and when things are tried and they turn out not to work as well as desired, it makes folk reluctant to try it again.
Yes, I am advocating a hard reset, in 2010. That is the best time to change MCXP rules, challenge mechanics, etc.
Chris -
Then you are arguing that it is tradition to give additional bonuses at those MC levels? We can’t change that because people feel that they’ve earned some additional bump if they’ve reached those bench marks?
And do we have to weigh the work required? Is that why people go from MC 12 to MC 13? I was under the impression that everything about 10 is really about a desire to serve the club. Nobody is foolish enough to take a National level position for the prestige!
As for the reset, thanks for taking a position!
I feel that MC 1 characters should have at least 35 XP.
Nicholas Jacob
ADST Chief of Staff
US2007039607 in OH-010-D
I’m not arguing that it’s tradition. I’m simply stating that it -is-, that has continued since we were playing OWoD Masquerade. I’m sure that some people have pushed for the benchmark just to get the benchmark award, and I’m sure that some people would say “I’ve earned that, why are you taking it away?”… but I’m not here to argue with anyone, per se.
You’re welcome.
Nicholas –
That’s an incredibly arbitrary number. Why?
Chris -
No worries here! We aren’t expecing anyone to argue here in a negative way.
As for the benchmarks, I can see what you are saying. However, I think that when we reduce what MC gets you a bit, people will have a much bigger pill to swallow than just getting rid of the bumps. Some of them won’t care, others will be horribly upset.
True enough.
So what y’all are saying is that there shouldn’t be any sort of character generation or modification ability tied to the MC benchmarks?
I’m saying I remain unconvinced we need it. I’m MC 8. I should be going up for my MC 9 soon. For the first 6 or so MC levels I was hot and heavy to do all I could to get prestige. Now…I’m just not that desperate for it.
I will get my MC 9 because I love STing for the club. I will proudly wear it because of service I’ve performed. But I don’t think it should auto get me that much more over my 8. I was proud of that too.
This is taking the topic in a different direction than the latest thread, but I’d like to make a few comments AND to offer a few considerations.
One of the biggest problems with XP removal would be something like a reset, where everyone has to drop their character and start over from scratch. For many this is the loss of something they have been working on for a very long time and could even be cutting them off before they ever achieved the concept they were going for in the first place. There’s alot of history, contacts, and growth behind these characters and this is a living story that is being told, progressed, and enjoyed by many. To tell someone to get rid of that thing that they have enjoyed playing, their character concept and that character’s social ties, would very likely see a dip in Camarilla membership as many would see that as a sign that perhaps its time to look into other things to do with their free time. I’d equate such a reset to your computer crashing and losing everything on the hard drive. We all know how frustrating that can be and how quickly it can deflate passions.
Now, I’m all for a reduction of XP, and would be more than happy to hand over the months and months of hard earned XP on my characters for the benefit of the chronicle at large. It’s not the XP that I care about, but the character ties, the stories that I have built and will build.
So, why not solve two problems with one solution? There’s complaint within the chronicle that there just isn’t enough overarching plot going on. There isn’t enough feel that we are all playing in the same world. So, let’s take a huge upheaval in an OOC system and make it a huge upheaval in an IC system. Something sinister is at work, and its depleting the power of the creatures of the World of Darkness. Now we have the basis for a plot that could easily span a year or two of chronicle, the final culmination of which could be the soft reset or perhaps even a gradual degradation of XP. That loss can then be played out in character and the chronicle not only benefits from the XP removal, but also from the story of getting to that point. With enough preparation, those who want to start anew can plan out fantastic ends for their elders and those who want to keep their concept and contacts may do so, while easing reasonably into a new and lower powered World of Darkness. After all, loss and sacrifice on this scale is exactly what the theme of the game is all about.
I’ll leave the mechanics of getting that new system to work up to others for now. But I think its important that we don’t lose sight of the fact that this is a game, and part of the goal is to make sure that as many people as possible have fun participating in it.
Here’s another idea to change the MC XP issue:
I agree there’s too much floating around out there, but I think that part of the problem is that the up front award is also inherantly flawed.
What if we were to consider a system that allows for an upfront XP award (say 5XP x MC) then allows for an increased XP Cap (say 5 XP per month) for a number of months equal to MC. This would encourage longer-term playing, rather than creating a min-maxed character whose purpose is to come in and immediatly shake-up the existing dynamic.
Erik: So at the extreme end of the pool… everyone gets MCx5 in XP, with a monthly cap of 5, but an MC1 could have a monthly cap of 10 for one month, and a MC15 could have a montly cap of 10 for 15 months? In 18 months, said MC1 would have earned 95 XP, said MC15 would have earned 165 XP, and that’s that with that?
If you figure out a way to reward the benchmarks, I think you’re on to something.
I know this got shot down a few years ago, but I really like the ‘learning curve’ proposal caps, and with players now able to get up to ten xp a month, I think they need to be brought back.
This is based on total xp, both MC and in-game, and on the current xp glut – with your proposed reductions they can probably bump down a few levels.
1-100xp – 10 per month
101- 200xp – 8 per month
201 – 300xp – 6 per month
301 – 400xp – 4 per month
401 – 500xp – 2 per month
501+ – 1 per month.
“FOUL!” cry those with more than 500xp, but essentially everyone’s in the same boat, so it diffuses the arms race idea. It also means that players have to spend their xp wisely, rather than buying things for a ‘rainy day’ which then go and steal the thunder of one with far less xp who’s found something unique and special they can do.
And if, by the time you’ve got 500xp on your character, you’re still only playing it so you can see xp points rack up, you’re probably best retiring it anyway, because bored players with powerful characters never make the best games for everyone else around them.
For those of you who don’t remember when we tried this stratified XP system…it didn’t work then. Many people complained. I believe this was early 2002 when it was proposed (during the year of fire). It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.
The comment FOUL is simple. It’s like people who argue we should tax rich people over 65% of their income because “They can afford it.” Actually they just move their homes to places that have no taxes. In our case we might see people move to other gaming organizations because we’re coming too oppressive in our rules.
Stop with this fairness crap. All you are doing is hurting one aspect of players to benefit another. This is not “Fair.” We who have been playing in this club for years deserve to have the same rights as you who have been playing for one. Considering I’ve seen 5 neonates dust an elder, I really don’t think that they’re that unbalanced.
If I’ve played a character for 3 years in the cam, and my character was removed or restricted because we need to be “fairer” to the lower MCs, we’re going to see a lot of pissed off players. They may not say it here, but there are a lot of people thinking that.
Also to the comment of “They should retire their PCs.” That’s your opinion, Personally, I continued to play a high XP player up until his death in the Year of Fire. I had motivations and goals which I was trying to complete and it was abruptly ended in one of the best death scenes I’ve ever had in the Cam. By your logic, I should have retired my PC long before that and given myself up for the lower MC players.
My characters never tread on lowbie players games (I’ve even went to include them with our investigations), but you could bet your ass if a group of them came after me, I would take them out. Why should I commit character suicide just to boost the Self Esteem of a newbie player and because I dared the sin of having too much XP?
Now many are going to say “See that’s what we’re talking about.” However if you really want to make reforms in the cam, you’re going to have to Compromise with the different factions of players. Extremism isnt’ going to help things at all.
Personally I’m in favor of ridding the cam of the 3,6,9,12,15 benchmarks. They weren’t in the Cam previously and I believe that if we were to keep the MC at MC*20 with the 30 freebie points, It would make things easier. Instead of 350 XP at MC 10, an MC 10 would have 230. That’s 120 less right there. Or if we were to go to MC*15 +30 Free it would be 180xp That’s not a bad amount of XP for the level and would encourage more Ancillae at the MC level than anything else.
As one of the people who thinks the MC system is Status Quo, I’ve made a proposal which is the beginnings of compromise. We sacrificed something. Now what’s your sacrifice to make the game better for us?
“Personally I’m in favor of ridding the cam of the 3,6,9,12,15 benchmarks. They weren’t in the Cam previously …”
Actually, the 4/6/9/12/14 benchmarks in the NWoD chronicle are reflections of the OWoD benchmarks (same MC levels) that were directly tied into starting Generation potency, and before -that- was tied into the approval level process back in the 4.5 days where you had to “write off” certain MC levels when creating a PC with an Approval…
so yeah, these benchmarks? We’ve had them a long, long time. With the general Status Quo conservatism, it generally takes more than “Because we think it’s a good idea” to convince the PtB to do away with them.
Chris – What are your thoughts on “Non-XP” bonuses for MC levels. For example, giving everyone who has MC 6 in Werewolf a 2 dot fetish from the books?
Mike –
“As one of the people who thinks the MC system is Status Quo, I’ve made a proposal which is the beginnings of compromise. We sacrificed something. Now what’s your sacrifice to make the game better for us?”
Your proposal amounts to less XP, which we are all about. But what sacrifice do you want the other side to make? And who is the other side?
James and I aren’t high MC players, but we aren’t newbies and we like the system that exists for rewarding players. In fact, we believe that system is LESS beneficial to high players. Imagine a venue where every daeva didn’t have Majesty 5. That makes Majesty 5 worth something…
Chris,
Yeah I forgot about that gen system. But then again, if people are complaining about an XP glut, what’s the harm of getting rid of 120 XP off of characters…just seems to me fairly eh.
Gen meant elders getting to higher access disciplines which we don’t have yet and might never get. So what’s the purpose of having anything over BP 6.
MT,
What I’m looking to is all the extremists who are coming on here and basically looking for a way to rid themselves of the MC system or crippling people of experience because they dared to have a higher MC level. As for the issue of every daeva having majesty 5….well it’s going to happen over time. If the character is long played, even by crippling XP, the person will get Majesty 5. If they buy it in the beginning with MC…often going for the gusto of Majesty 5 means that people are often crippled in other areas which can be exploited. For me it’s taken me 5 months to get Theban 5 (I don’t travel much, due to our nearest chapter is an hour a way in NYC) Waiting a year is just way too long. My character is the one with eternal life…not me.
Mike – I think it’s natural for us to attract a large group of players who may strongly disagree with each other. I would even venture to say that the discussion they have is good.
No one at “Save the Cam” wants to get rid of the MC system. We LIKE the MC system. It helps to reward players for OOC work and to stratify the game so that we have neonates, elders, and ancients.
However, there is too much XP all around. I would like to see XP mean more. Take a look at a starting daeva. How many of them have Majesty 5? Yes, they will get it over time…but they don’t need it at MC 1 on their first day of game!
As for taking a year to get Theban 5…I don’t know. I value things much more when I have to wait for them, fight for them, and not everyone has them.
Well, what I’d like to see is the “Benchmarks” going towards Backgrounds.
I’ve got a flu at the moment, so I’m not going to flesh it out… but would it make more rounded PCs if you got told “Congrats. You got a benchmark. You get ** XP, that you have to spend in one of the following ways: …”
For vampires, have it be Haven, or Herd.
For mages, have it be Rotes or Imbued Items.
For werewolves, have it be Rites or Fetishes.
Something like that. Something that stops people from going “Free XP for Powersplat, or combat Attribute or Ability X!” Something that makes them invest Xp in a more rounded way, making them pay for the backgrounds that a PC -should- have.
thoughts?
MT,
Yes a Daeva could possibly get Majesty 5 at MC 1 but they would have to forsake everything else to get it. That kind of character should not be approved. It’s the VSTs responsibility to see people have well rounded characters. It has nothing to do with the XP….it goes back to my saying the VSTs need to be more careful what they approve. I know many VSTs who just allow characters into the game with just a brief look.
Low Approval means VST approval…not no appraisal at all.
Mike, you see, the issue isn’t over punishing high MC players. Should they wish, they can always take a lesser amount of MC at creation, and instead earn their xp in game, allowing themselves to tailor themselves at the same rate. Similarly, nor does it discriminate. If a character built at a low MC level gets to 500xp through in game xp, they’ll still be restricted in the same way. What this does is slows down, and then eventually de facto caps the arms race.
Maybe we could remove the restriction about only entering play with 10 or less from your MC xp; that makes people think “I need to use it or lose it forever,” and I know there’s at least one or two things on my sheets that I’ve had to buy as an afterthought for that reason.
To declare my interest, and to stop you thinking of me as some Young Turk who wants everyone to be miserable through the politics of envy, I’m MC7, and have been playing since 2000. I’ve slummed it with the noobs, set up one domain, rescued another from death, and count some of the highest MC players (albeit in the UK) as my best friends in the org – I’ve seen both sides of the argument. I was there way before the Year of Fire, and I liked this system when it as proposed. Of course, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.
I don’t know how you play; you might be the sweetest avuncular uncle to new players, but I do know that it’s hard – especially in mage – when a player devotes their focus to one aspect, only to find themselves drowned by the amount of xp held by others. Not me, personally, I hasten to add. This is probably more keenly felt in regional and national events. Encouraging this new development cap encourages more intelligent character design rather than just gorging oneself on xp, and allows individuals with concept powers rather than bolthole ones some space to breathe.
Incidentally, there are only a handful of countries with a flat tax rate, of which only Russia could be considered an economic powerhouse, which shoud tell you something about its efficacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax#Countries_that_have_flat_tax_systems
If we do want to take a fiscal comparison, it’s probably more like the monopolies and mergers commission; stopping individual companies being priced out of their spheres by cartels with deeper pockets than they can have.
My issue isn’t punitive, it’s the fact that one character can spend their whole life gearing towards being exceptional at one thing which is only a single arrow in the quiver of someone who entered play with more xp than they could ever acquire.
Combined with my wergeld proposal – which I just thought yesterday – this makes it more likely that we’ll have the canonical elder/neonate relationship, whereas the former has the latter run around doing their dirty work for them. Two months’ xp V a year and eight months, it’s a no brainer who stands to lose more by committing the actual deed. Wergeld, though, would still contribute to xp earned, it’d just be spent as with any other purchase.
Oh, and I wasn’t saying retire – if you loved your character, that’s brilliant, if you ran it into the ground, that’s great. My point was that if at that stage one is only turning up for the xp, that the single xp makes a difference whether one plays or retires, then it’s probably better for one’s local game, at least, if one does retire.
Doesn’t matter whether we have lessened XP or more XP or Capped XP. At some point, someone’s character is going to reach the magical 500 mark and still be the baddest mofo in the game. It would also be even worse with lower XP because he would be the Superpower and there would be no arms race to curb the ambitions.
So what do we do?
Force him to retire?
Force him to have no progression?
Why? I think after 4 years of holding a character in game he has earned the right to continue whatever advancement he chooses.
I actually do like the weregeld proposal…it would make people think twice about killing someone.
Funnily enough, I’ve just passed the 500 mark on my mekhet. There’s definitey a grandfathering issue to bear in mind; I’d have bought different things if I’d known my growth would be so curtailed, and if applied retroactively it’d be a pain in the bum to audit and I’d either lose half my xp or gain an unfair advantage on those hitting the benchmarks in the immediate future by going into xp debt.
That said, if I was told that I couldn’t earn any more xp on this character, I wouldn’t mind – especially if EVERYONE else at my level was capped the same way. I’ve been playing him for so long that I play him for the love of it, not to get the next power or boost a stat or skill way above the natural level for him. With no growth cap, a character could effectively have 5’s in all their categories – to have gone from average to a perfect being in ten years – that’s not vaguely possible or palatable.
I’m glad you’ve got my back on the wergeld, though.
Something to note. All the xp when numbers are spouted off sounds like a lot. And perhaps compared to table top it is. However, compared to the old chron, our pc’s are decidedly less powerful. Imagin making out your attributes in roughly a year or so of play..vs the several years it takes in this chron.
Further, something to consider when talking about graduated xp scales. The base mechanics of the game itself account for this. The more stuff you buy, the more expensive that stuff becomes.