Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let us introduce you to Killing Joke.
Killing Joke is a Werewolf who hunts Shartha. He is in play currently, and belongs to one of us (Okay… Mark.) Nothing on Killing Joke’s sheet would be considered out of place for a Cam werewolf. He has a Strength, Dexterity and Wits of 5, but nothing really reeks of The Cheese.
Until you flip over to the Custom Fetishes section. Killing Joke has several fetishes, including:
- Pistols that add +5 against NPCs for 1 Essence.
- A Tattoo that heals 5 lethal with no draw.
- Swords that ignore all common defenses for 1 Willpower.
- A Talisman that allows him to declare full defense and still attack. This works every round for a scene. No, that’s not a typo. Every round. For a scene.
All of this cost Killing Joke (i.e. Mark) 24 xp. Total. For all four fetishes.
How did he acquire all this cheese? Through something we like to call the Poorly Written Fetish Creation Rules. (If you want to see the full mechanics for these fetishes, see our Broken Mechanics page where we are documenting all broken mechanics we can find.)
These rules allow you to create simple cost Merits that literally produce more power than Gifts if you take disadvantages that “even things out.” So long as your fetishes are built using these poorly written guidelines, they mostly get approved. Remember, ALL of the above Fetishes are approved for the sanctioned chronicle.
We shudder to think of all the approved mechanics out there left solely to the STs sense of mechanical balance without ANY creation rules. Like custom devotions and custom bloodlines. As bad as the fetish creation rules are, at least they have SOME guidelines.
If rumors are to be believed, there are more mechanics and special items out there designed by the players than there are in the sum of all published materials. If a fraction of them are like Killing Joke’s fetishes, our minds balk at the notion that this game is anything like the developers intended it to be.
So why are these “debrokens” so prevalent? Why does every high-powered character in the game, regardless of venue, tend to have something like these fetishes on his sheet?
It’s not because these players are trying to cheat and powergame. It’s because we encourage this behavior by letting them write their own mechanics.
The approvals process does not lend itself well to general ideas. If you want to get something approved, you better have the mechanics done before you app. This creates a strange attitude when it comes to custom mechanics. Rather than think about their custom approvals in terms of story, players focus on how they will derive the most mechanical benefit because mechanics require the most thought.
Thus, these “debrokens” might begin as ways to make a character more unique, or give him a trick or two that no one will suspect, but they become ways to bypass the ceiling imposed by Canon. Because we have soaked ourselves in XP, players write their own rules into the game so they can truly max out. And they largely take an adversarial role with the ST staff, pushing for powerful items/abilites as hard as they can because they believe their vision is always about to get gutted.
This is needless. Players shouldn’t be writing the rules that they will be using to accomplish their goals, even if someone else reviews them. It’s like letting energy companies write the laws that govern pollution and convincing ourselves that the legislators who approved/denied the laws were really in control the whole time.
We will admit that things used to be a bit worse. Custom powers have not always been as regulated as they are today. In fact, the Global Settings Review board took a stab at reviewing ALL custom powers in an attempt to weed out what isn’t reasonable. But we have to face the facts. While the GSR may have removed some of the most problematic powers, it certainly didn’t remove all “debrokens.” It’s not clear exactly why the GSR wasn’t effective (at least to us), but it’s obvious that there are plenty of debrokens left in play.
Fixing this isn’t easy, but at least it’s less messy than the XP problem.
A) Release ALL custom mechanics immediately via a Custom Mechanics Sheet from the MST’s office and update it frequently with newly approved mechanics.
We’ve heard this will unbalance game play and make people upset that everyone knows what Custom Cheese they have. But the sad fact is that this information isn’t secret. Players must show their sheets, with custom mechanics, to their VST. They must explain their custom mechanics to the VST of any domain they visit. They must send their sheet to any location they proxy to and they must accept that while that sheet is in the possession of that VST it’s most likely getting passed around the room for people to see what the out-of-towner has for Cheese.
The info is already out there….just not completely. It’s time to pull back the curtains and expose those shadowy mechanics to the light of day. Plot, story, and fluff surrounding the rules should be left out. We don’t want to know who has these powers, and if rumors are to be believed, there will be too many powers for us to even begin to figure out whose are whose.
By exposing the rules, however, we set a standard for transparency and fairness. All players will be able to see the mechanics that have been approved and can cry foul when they see truly broken, over-the-top stuff. Right now we can’t have a conversation about how well the GSR worked because everything is so secret. If the MST staff would release what is out there, we could congratulate them on a job well done…or lambast them for not living up to our expectations.
B) Create a Custom Rules Team at the MST level to write mechanics for players.
It’s time to let STs with more rules and mechanics knowledge determine what is “balanced.” Neither of us has any experience in game design or mechanics. It’s insane that we are asked, as VSTs, to judge how something fits into the global chronicle. We do, however, know members who have extensive experience in this field.
The MST should create a team of 3-5 of these members to oversee all custom approvals called the Custom Rules Team (CRT). Any request for custom mechanics should be sent to them AFTER the player has cleared Global based on story alone. The CRT will then look at what other custom mechanics have already been approved and respond with mechanics they find balanced and appropriate for our chronicle. The STs who approved the story concept will give it the once over and the player will get the custom mechanic. If the players or STs don’t like what the CRT has given them, then the usual negotiations occur…with the CRT’s mechanics as the baseline, not the player’s.
Thus, the normal ST chain doesn’t need to worry about the balance of the power and what possible sources of abuse could occur. Instead, they can treat the approval just like they would any other and focus on how it fits into the story of the character and their local venue. The Domain, Regional, and National staff would no longer need to conjure up game designer experience to do their job with approvals and they would get to treat each application the same, regardless of it’s original source.
In addition, the CRT could reuse custom mechanics. You want to teleport? Great, then you get “Basic Kindred Teleport Power” with a different name. We would see greater consistency and focus on repeating rules sets. Since, these rules sets would be published, we could see players repeating powers with different flavor texts, arriving at similar results via different roleplaying paths. In the end, new players would feel comfortable proposing ideas even if they don’t understand mechanics and older players wouldn’t be tempted to game the system by trying to pass things by STs that shouldn’t be approved.
Why do we continue to let players write the system mechanics for their own powers? We aren’t sure, but we believe it’s probably just out of inertia. These changes are less upsetting to most than Step 1, but will probably be met with more resistance. People feel that they have something to lose when their goodies are revealed to the Global Game.
But everyone should realize that we need to play with ONE ruleset. Barring minor changes from venue to venue, everything should be out in the open and on the table. Plots, backgrounds, IC interactions should be secret. Rules shouldn’t be.
OK, a few points.
1. In short, none of those fetishes would be cleared in the UK chronicle, and all custom fetishes _must_ be put on the database for checking. And trust me, they do get checked.
They all break the “does this look broken” final stage of fetish creation.
2. We’re already doing the thing with comparing existing powers. It’s standard process.
3. There isn’t enough time for the MST’s office as is without writing custom powers for all you goobers.
Love and hugs
Tim Edwards
UK NST
I definatly agree that all custom mechanics should be published. I can’t, for the life of me, imagine why this isn’t already done. And any player should be able to appeal any power and basically be able to argue why it’s too good and get whomever approved it to take another look at it.
As for the MST level “Custom Powers Council”, I actually think this might be slight overkill. I think if you just publish all custom powers and then tell ST’s that if someone is applying for something, the VERY FIRST THING you do is check the list and see if anything already approved is similar enough to use as a base for that power. Powers that are essentially the same as an already existing power would be a lower approval. Powers that are sufficiently different from everything else already approved would be National, if not Global.
Consistency! That’s what’s needed. If two powers essentially work the same, there’s no need for two approvals! And for the love of God why are all custom powers not published?? Talk about a lack of transparency in the system!
How do you feel about Rules put forth by White Wolf but not yet allowed in Play?
Mainly the Errata for several books.
I’ve been reading all the steps and have kept quiet thus far, while I know there are problems as any organization has problems, most of these problems are easily solved by the low ST, but that’s all I’m going to say about that
As far as the fetish’s go I’m there with Tim and wondering how the hell the low vst allowed such a broken fetish, it is his/her responsibility to stop such from occurring, in fact I believe the main MET book has a section on “Loopholes” which these fetishes would clearly fall under, as they would also fall under the is it broken clause
I think that having the custom mechanics published may or may not be the best thing, generally people like having their hidden gone exactly that…hidden. Especially since even knowing a power is out there ooc’ly means that you can defend against it IC’ly, just by taking certain “normal paranoid” precautions…and yes I’ve seen this done during my former tenure as an ST, I didn’t let it fly, but many ST’s wouldn’t know better.
I also like the idea of character’s creating their own mechanics, and while they may not work all the time it gives us a sense that we’re doing something unique and special, and I believe most of us are more than willing to work with the ST staff to make sure it fits and is not broken (been working on my custom legacy since before december and it’s still being tweaked so that it’s viable for play) Sometimes the player’s will think of some new cool mechanic or ability that hasn’t been thought up yet, or find a different way to do something, just off the top of my head I can think of a devotion or two whose base skill could ahve been written completely differently still produced the same effect, but with a slightly different background
But I’m rambling…. so the basics:
Mechanics maybe not so good, but maybe knowledge base of approvals already out there, but that’s a large maybe and would have no mechanics in it at all.
Not having player’s writing mechanics is in my opinion a bad idea, I think player’s ahve and will always love being involved in doing it, or at least I knwo I always ahve
I think you can make a lot of legitimate arguments for players keeping their access to custom mechanics a secret. That is entirely reasonable.
However, I cannot see any reasonable argument for keeping mechanics themselves a secret. Players in a global game need to all be on the same page when it comes to rule. Yes getting surprised by an unexpected power adds drama and mystery to the game. Getting hammered by custom mechanics out of the blue isn’t.
Making custom mechanics openly available also allow broad review to expose loopholes that may not have been intended in the concept or mechanics, but are nevertheless there.
Tim: No one doubts you are a good NST. But even people who review and write game mechanics for a living can pull an oops every now and again.
While I understand that a lot of people think having something special and hidden is more fun, I think, for the purposes of balance, it’s better for it all to be published.
I think it doesn’t have to be “full disclosure”. I’m not saying there should be a list of all the custom powers, who has them, and when they were approved. But I do think that a list of all custom MECHANICS should be available, published in what I would call the “Customs Approval Database” for several reasons:
1) First, because an approved mechanic should be available for ALL players. A mechanic should not be approved just for one player, or for one character. If the mechanic is balanced and adds to the flavor and mood of the Venue, then it should be available for everyone.
This will have an immediate benefit. First, it will let the ST staff know how balanced powers are by how many people apply for them. If 50 people apply for the same power within a few months, maybe something is wrong with that power and it needs to be reviewed.
2) Second, transparacy will let all of us know how good or bad our elected officals are doing with their jobs. If we don’t know what is being approved how can make informed decisions on weather or not we want these people to be re-elected when their time runs out? This club is supposed to be democratic, and if there’s no transparency then the democracy breaks down.
3) Last, like I said above, it will reduce the need for custom apps, because people will be able to peruse the customs database, find a mechanic already approved, and build their own flavor text around it. This will actually REDUCE the work that the approvals staff has to do!
Like I said, I’m not saying that everything has to be published. All we need are the bare-bones mechanics. The flavor text can be hidden, who applied for the power can be hidden, but there’s way more benefit to this than hindrance. And as far as the powers not being hidden, I understand how people want their special power to be a surprise to enemies, but the fact is no one can prepare for everything they could possibly come up against. I think the benefits are huge, and the downside is really negligable.
From what I understand, (A) is already in process. I wouldn’t mind seeing (B) happen, but this too may be a “Good idea, let’s do it during Reset” implentation.
I think Tim has several good points mostly about how none of your cheese would ever make it into a real game in the UK Mark.
The part that disturbs me is how poorly this reflects on US ST staff that all this stuff is sliding through without so much as a glance.
Now I know for a fact that if I even suggested anything like that in our game, Mark, I’d be slapped upside the head immediately. I like our venue and domain and know there are people that can say no to players. The scary part is this doesn’t seem to be the norm and again I feel no motivation to travel with any of my characters. In fact knowing that Killing Joke’s custom stuff is even on the tame side ENCOURAGES me to stay at home.
Speaking as a relatively new Cam player I can say that after seeing how things tend to work in practice in the US, it discourages social interaction except with my local friends. Part of me isn’t sure there is a point to renewing since playing a non-cam sanctioned game would have benefits that greatly outweigh the downsides that exist out there.
It comes back to the VST saying “No.”
If a player came to me with one of those items as a VST, I would have said “No.”
I’m coming at this from a player of a Mage that creates Enhanced and Imbued items, it’s a part of the Legacy the character is in. If I went and wrote something overpowered, I know my VST would kick my ass and go “no.”
Also, if I was a Forsaken VST in the US, and you tried to get those into my game, I would have said “Sorry this is overbalancing to the local venue and thus will not be allowed in play.”
You don’t need the Custom Rules Council or anything like that, however, for high levels of fetishes and imbued items, I would have no problem with higher level approvals.
One of the fixes I’ve heard one person say that I really liked is one that would have to be done in a much harder reset that the *perfectly reasonable* suggestions given thus far. Basically, it was that instead of allowing custom mechanics on such a rgrand scale as we currently see them, have contstes, twice a year, for arguement’s sake, in which players can submit a custom built mechanic (Bloodline, Lodge, Ritual, Token, whatever) and then have the MSTs office select a limited number (2 of each a judgement period, for example) and publish them to the membership as a whole in a section of the addendum. This limits the amount of customized cheese that’s getting into limited numbers of player’s hands and serving to boost them and them alone, it keeps us in the realm of reasonablity in terms of the amount of player created stuff vs. published stuff, gives players a reason to create thoughtful and thought provoking additions to the game rather than just powerful ones, and at the same time still allows the Cam’s Chronicle to be a unique and player influenced world. Treat these custom built thingies just like you would a thingie that had been published in terms of what players must do to gain it and you’re done. Is it something that can be smoothly integrated into the existing chronicle? No way, Jose, but if it comes to a full on reset instead of one of the gradual repairs thats being suggested, I think that it sounds like a pretty snazzy way to go.
Here’s to hoping this makes an impact in things.
-Ryan
Hey All;
A few comments…
1) While I was NST up here in the great white north we often had players talking about the “Evil US” and their “Cheese Factory Regions”. So my deputy and I did some digging and really…per capita…the US is really no more or less guilty of these crimes than any other affiliate they are just substantially more numerous so we hear about stuff from the US more often.
Granted, the UK and Canada (At least, likely Belgium and Italy too) have the benefit of being able to discuss things with all of their ST’s more often. It’s not reasonable to expect Jon to sit down with all the US VST’s and lean on them about what is appropriate or not while the smaller affiliates can, and enforce a sort of “Responsibility by proximity” feel.
2)
“We shudder to think of all the approved mechanics out there left solely to the STs sense of mechanical balance without ANY creation rules.”
Okay. Here’s the thing, you’ll find that in general custom mechanics that are created without hard white wolf guidelines tend to be more balanced, why? Two reasons.
+Those custom mechanics are higher approval which equates to more ST oversight.
+ A player cannot argue “But it’s a legal item” because the only arbiter of what is a legal item is the ST….right until WW publishes guidelines.
3) In regards to publishing all custom mechanics, there are basically two main takes on this. The argument for is, basically, if everyone has cheese than nobody has cheese. A good example of this working fairly well is Pack Tactics in Werewolf. Once a pack tactic is approved at Global it is available, henceforth, at low approval to anyone. This rocks because even the creators are hesitant to make a Pack tactic too powerful because it might very well be used against them.
The flip side of the argument is that Custom powers are a privilege. Just because it has been determined that “Bob”is a responsible player and we can give him “Power X” doesn’t mean that “Billy” is, and that he should also have it. I’d be lying if I said my knowledge of a players past actions and responsibilities has never factored into my decision in regards to an approval. It’s true, and I think any honest ST will say the same.
4) “So why are these “debrokens” so prevalent? Why does every high-powered character in the game, regardless of venue, tend to have something like these fetishes on his sheet?”
Good question, but I disagree with your conclusion. In the end it’s an Arms Race. If you ask most of these players, and I have asked a lot in my day, they’ll tell you they have this wonky crap because they have to in order to remain competitive. I’ll tell you, I headed the requiem GSR for a good long while, and the single biggest reason why we have so much custom wank in chronicle, and a large source of our problems in that area, is that we made custom mechanics High Approval at the beginning. My time on the Requiem GSR is what ingrained in me the hatred I have for elected High Approval offices. The rampant favoritism was apparent, and no, I won’t go into details about who and what but needless to say a large majority of approvals belonged to a minority of players, and frankly the RST’s were simply looking out for their office, making sure they don’t get VOCON’d so it’s hard to blame them. Moving custom mechanics to Global was needed, and keeping it that way when we reset will help A LOT!!
On Approvals:
There’s a few things going on here that are worth addressing I think.
a) Story. We wants it. My biggest gripe about applications that were reviewed, and still to this day, apps that cross my desk is that so often they have very little story attached. I agree we need to focus on what is good for story more. If you’re writing an app and it consists of a paragraph of fluff and your mechanics, well, you gotta ask what is it bringing to the chronicle? Global and National has done some good work in addressing this via the new questions in the DB and just generally being more aware but EVERYONE needs to start thinking about story.
b) How much special is too special? One thing we’ve done up here in Soviet Canuckistan is limit the amount of special approvals any character can have. This should be done everywhere. We also need guidelines. One of my favorite comments to make on custom apps was this:
“There is no need for a character with a unique discipline to also have a unique power based on said discipline. *Thumbs down* ”
It’s an idea that should be easy to grasp and it’s a strong indication of where our chronicle is when even having a custom discipline doesn’t make you competitive. “Why get Bob the Khaibit when I get Jimmy the Khaibit with wonky custom cheese goodness?” Come on.
I’m getting on a rant, so in short. Aside from time constraints nothing will really be fixed by having global write the rules, cause it’s not addressing the problem. We need more education at all levels of what is acceptable in terms of approvals, what we look for in apps, and what makes for good story. It’s a change in attitude not just process that’s needed.
Peace;
Lino Di Julio
============
CA200311005
aNST: Forsaken – CAN
One of you two is the VST Forsaken, so one of you two is responsable for htat cheese.
That really makes your points seem weak.
James -
I am the Forsaken VST. These were approved by my DST for my traveling character that I have played with these fetishes a grand total of…1 time. FGOTM Phoenix 2008. I didn’t activate any of my fetishes.
Chris – A release of custom mechanics is not something that has any sort of deadline or commitment from the MST Staff. That makes is a rumor and something we can’t count on. If Global is planning on releasing this, it shouldn’t take a year to put it together.
PJ and Bill – I’m glad to see that you guys are proactive in your venues to prevent custom cheese. If you’ll notice in my response to James, I noted that I don’t play this character in my local venue because I am the VST. Quite simply, there is no local game that my DST was trying to weigh my fetishes against.
But, I think you’ve missed our point. It’s not about THESE fetishes. It’s about all the other custom mechanics in the game that are equally broken. As bad as these might be, they aren’t the worst thing we’ve heard of…or seen.
Step 3 is about understanding why and how players end up with broken mechanics. Yes, VSTs should say no. But they don’t. And my fetishes stand as a good example of what can happen when our system, which doesn’t have much oversight, fails.
It also shows what happens when we release them to the overall player base. You guys ripped these to shreds in minutes. Releasing just the mechanics would have given you all you needed to point out why these are a bad thing for the global chronicle. And that’s why Global should release ALL the mechanics, so that we might weigh them in the same way.
Ryan – I like your general idea, but I think it might limit things a bit too much. Shouldn’t characters be allowed to develop custom items at their own speed?
Also, what are you hoping makes a difference? Your post? This blog?
Lino – Damn, dude. When you write, you write. Let’s see…
1) We kind of think the same thing as you. It’s not the US players are worse, it’s that there is more of us in a bigger, less supervised, pond.
2) We’d like to believe that custom items are more balanced, but we don’t see any evidence of that. In fact, we see and hear about just the opposite. And again, if everything was released, we might be willing to concede the point.
3) I think you’ve got what we are asking for a bit wrong. We just want to see the rules. That’s it. We don’t want to know who has it, or have it be low approval, or be able to app for it ourselves. We just think that custom mechanics should be “open source.”
4) We agree with you completely. Oh, except about the us being wrong part.
We stated in Step 2 that gobs of XP create the arms race that makes players look outside regular mechanics. We are looking in this step for additional reasons, including the focus on mechanics. We still believe that taking XP down to something reasonable will reduce the need to powers that add your Majesty to your Brawl attacks.
As for your final rant, we can’t legislate a change in attitude. We can take steps to improve it, but we are looking for systemic changes to make a difference in the Cam as a whole. Just saying “STs need to behave differently” can’t make it so.
Hey Guys,
I have to say good on you. I’ve been in the cam since ‘96 I think. I can’t remember it’s been too long. I still have a number and plan on renewing but I don’t play because the games aren’t that fun for me anymore. Part of it is the things you are talking about and part of it is I see people who are great pick up these character sheets and turn into the biggest jerks. I believe that the mechanics of the game has pulled the players away from the texture of the mage. The feel or as I used to say the “fluff.” The fluff is what makes the game fun. I don’t know why the mechanics get in the way so much but they do. I hope someone up the line in the organization pays attention to you. Good work.
Also you’re probably going to tick some people off. Some people wouldn’t know what to do without their character who can kill someone by twitching their pinky. I hope some of these people take notice as well.
Daniel – Thanks a ton! We really believe in what we are doing and hope we manage to make the game better for everyone. We haven’t ticked anyone off yet…I think. Wait. Maybe we did. Yeah, we probably did.
Anyway, if you like what we are saying, spread our link around and tell your friends to come here often. The more people participate the more we know that we are on the right track!
Well I have to say, after reading step 1, I disliked your antagonistic attitude, and I wasn’t going to give much of what you said more weight, but your future steps have toned down the hostility and have proposed far more solutions to problems than the prevailing attitude of (there’s a problem… someone should find a fix for it).
Mind you I don’t agree with everything you’ve posted, but I think you have some good ideas, and I’ll be reading more steps as you post them.
OMG something I can agree with:
“B) Create a Custom Rules Team at the MST level to write mechanics for players.”
I love this idea.
This is the first idea i really like and can agree with from this entire website.
The devils advocate in me says: “Well some players put a lot of thought and ingenuity into their powers. And really enjoy crafting custom stuff.” Well thats where they will become a large part of the negotiation process.
Player: I want to do this.
Cam: Bit powerful.
Player: Okay I’ll take this out and pay more xp.
Cam: ok!
Then the only other thing is: The approvals process is a chain. Even from low to global, every link is just as vital as the next. What this idea does is it takes the power of the mechanics not only away from the player but the ST’s in that chain. Maybe the CRT would say I have this power, but all the way down my low approval st dosent like it. Or any piece inbetween.
So far I think this is the best idea yet so far, it just needs a little more nurturing.
Also the duplication of mechanics is a big no no in the cam. It specifically says in the Addendum they do not support this and give an example of a custom Theban ritual to copy the
Cruac ritual “Deflection of Wooden Doom.” So Mechanics remain unique. Look even at the published mechanics in their own covenant/courts/tribes you’d be hard pressed to find a duplicate of another power. Granted some can do similar things. Deflection of wooden doom may be the crones ant-staking power, but the lance can use “Lash Beyond the Grave” to pull out the stake. Different powers with different effects but can still be used for the same thing. Unique but not copying.
As far as publishing the mechanics for everyone to see I dont see what this does. The only people I should have to show my sheet to are storytellers. I may boast ooc “Sweet man I got my approval.” But unless they were a good friend that I could trust with my info and I knew they wouldnt metagame then I would show them my sheet. Even still I can see no reason logistically (unless I’m helping out a new player.) of why I would need to look at someone elses sheet.
Brady Hold
US2007049713
We’re (at least *I’m*) not saying that you should have to publish what approvals each character has, just publish the mechanic that is approved so that.
1) Everyone has equal access to it (a mechanic should never be approved just for one player, if it’s good for the venue, and nothing should ever be approved that doesn’t advance the mood and quality of the venue in some way, everyone should be allowed access to it).
2) It allows the people who vote on officers to know how good a job they are, or are not, doing. If we don’t know what crazy crap some officer is approving how can we know we should vote him out the next go around?
3) Publishing approvals will create a truly club-wide review process. If players see an abusable power they will either, a) flock to it en-masse which will let the ST’s know it’s probably too good, or b) complain about it and possibly get it revoked.
It’s good for everyone. No one has to know which characters have what powers, but they should know what powers are out there and in play.
Personally there’s one thing that I hate and that is custom mechanics…however one of my favorite games in the world has been too restricted in my opinion.
Changeling Pledges have been restricted too much. We have a competant system for creating pledges in the book. It encourages people to be creative in not just creating the pledge…but our VST encourages people to make up the pledges we’ve stated. Why is it that we can only have someone make a pledge for a week with VST approval? (Yeah I know Moon is DST notification, but what if the player doesn’t go onto the db to set this up because they know it penalizes them…we have this problem)
Also too, making custom freehold pledges for a season are right out because it requires too high an approval, and depending on where you are, the season may be ended before everyone gets the approval.
Anyone else agree with this? Or am I a bit wrong?
Hey all,
Good points all around on both the original and commentary. Here’s my own two-cents.
Considering the alternative, which is to say denying ALL custom cheese, I think these proposals seem like a pretty fair alternative.
I’ve often bemoaned the fact that custom equipment isn’t posted to a common site, so that those of us more interested in picking up special items don’t all have to go to global to rebuild the same stapler.
I think the idea of posting all the Custom Mechanics to a common site is a very good idea as it allows everyone to check them for cheese that may have been overlooked. Also, last I spoke to Dawn, she seemed to advocate the spread of custom Devotions as widely as possible. This would also help facilitate that. As Lino said “If everyone has cheese, then no one does…”
I think maybe you need to take it one step farther though, I think that you *should* also publish which PC’s have the Custom items on their sheet. Since we’re talking about increasing transparency, there has been some discussion about how certain PC’s seem to get all the goodies due to their position in the club. I feel making this sort of information public would serve to discourage that, by allowing the rest of us to apply social pressure on those who have, shall we say, overindulged.
As for the Custom Rules Team, I am less enthusiastic. First off, I *don’t* think the problem is that players don’t know how to write apps. I think the problem is that some players are willfully writing apps with “stealth mechanics” to slip them past the Approvals chain. By “stealth” I mean, it’s not hard to write an app for some new power, which has had the usual restrictions removed (say like, no eye contact needed for Dominate). The app doesn’t draw attention to it, it merely doesn’t explicitly mention it.
Also, my recent experience with getting my own custom crap approved (yes, shame on me) left me with a bad taste in my mouth regarding the GSR. I compared my experiences with others who went through the process, and they seem to be common. Many of the GSR review guys don’t seem to actually read the application; asking for answers or demanding additional mechanics to be added, all of which are already covered in the app. My experience with the GSR has not been good, and thus I have no reason to believe your proposed CRT would be any better. Sorry.
While we’re on the topic though; I’m all for increased transparency of the Apps process. In my aforementioned app, I deliberately tried to create a Custom Devotion that would not spread quickly to other PC’s. Turns out that was the opposite of what Global wanted. Now, If I’d known that ahead of time, I would have built it quite differently. But I digress…
The Fetish rules need a definite re-write. They’re too damned open. Make ‘em more like the Mage’s Imbue Item spell with is *highly* restrictive by comparison. Hell, you could even have a global plot as all the overpowered Fetishes’ spirits start getting loose as a group of spirits calling themselves the “Fetish Liberation Front” start going around freeing their buddies, allowing the cheese to return to the Earth.
David L.
MT – dear freaking gods… The FGOTM VST let those in our game???
I rest my case on several levels.
I’m well up for this. Maybe we should start using different names for the same mechanical powers; although can you imagine how annoyed an individual would be if they learned a power, spent the xp and THEN found out it was an identical one to one they owned?
The ‘my precious!’ thing I’ve never understood. If someone’s a problem player who shouldn’t have a power then a)That power’s too unbalanced and b)That’s what the approval process is for. I went to White Wolf and burned all the copies of Carthians in their warehouse JUST so no-one else could see the devotions. Didn’t work; they just printed more.
In fact, maybe we should have an anonymous page where STs who’ve seen custom mechanics could post them up. After all, there’s no rule in the addendum prohibiting or protecting them from being in the public domain; it’s just convention. And, if people get precious about their intellectual property, that’s fine, if so minded we can always put the name of the player who created it. Of course, I don’t think that’ll make them any happier.
Funnily enough, I’d like to see parity. I’m sure I got gipped on my first devotion – 28xp for a -1 to actions contingent on success on a previous power.
Jon A
UK0006964
After reading the responses here and on the list, I think there may be some legitimate point to the workload inherent to a customer mechanics team. However, it is clear that more than just the ST chain of each player needs to be involved in custom mechanics creation. That’s where the public listing of custom powers comes in.
It lets the whole of the Cam look at a given power and raise concerns. Clearly, calls of overpowered without any support would be ignored. But, if someone presented a way for custom mechanics to be abused, though combinations or with certain disciplines, or even in ways totally unanticipated by the original author, then we could fix it. We could even give it a grace period for the creator to test drive the power.
If in that grace period, an abusable combination was discovered, the power would be changed by the ST chain. If too many changes were needed, or the power ceased to function like what it was intended, the character could just abandon it and get their xp back. If they chose to keep it through the grace period, then they are stuck with it. This would mesh fine with the built in “experiment” period of custom devotions.
Regardless, it is pretty clear that there are break downs and failings in the creation of custom mechanics. In part because the sheer amount of players and paperwork we generate, and in part because a lot of the guidelines for custom mechanics are vague and can reasonably be interpreted in multiple different ways. Further, relying on step 2, a lot of players are engaged in an arms race against everyone else, given the dice pools involved, who can blame them for trying to squeeze every ounce of bang out of an approval or a mechanic.
“A release of custom mechanics is not something that has any sort of deadline or commitment from the MST Staff. That makes is a rumor and something we can’t count on.”
Isn’t a rumor, per se. I know I saw Global say it once (can’t find the specific log) and it was mentioned again in the US NST’s recent report. It’s coming.
Chris –
We were very pleased to see that mention in the latest NST report…but it still doesn’t fit our requirements to move beyond rumor. For us, we see metrics as very important.
If we can’t measure it or define it, it really isn’t real. If Global comes out and says “This will be out by the end of the year.” then we can take someone to task for not getting it done.
At this time, the NST and Global can keep mentioning it without prioritizing it. That means it might not ever get done…
Mark,
You missed my point entirely.
It should have still been up to your DST, in your case, to say “No, this is cheesy, I won’t allow it.”
You also should have known better as a VST to even suggest the items on your character, knowing that they are cheesy.
Just because a character can do something, doesn’t mean that a VST should allow it.
The heart of transparent “open-source” custom mechanics is peer review. The ability to read and object to a particular power is the core motivation for this – and a reasonable one, since to a particular ST approval chain a custom item might well appear balanced, but when 6000 pairs of member eyes look it over the verdict could be very different.
On the other hand, it is impractical to propose that a global team could do better when writing the mechanics for players. And this does nothing to address the peer review aspect of the question, either.
As an intermediate route, why not develop a Custom Item Creation Guide? This document would be a short set of guidelines on things that are Not Approvable as well as mechanics that will raise flags for reviewers. For instance, one line in this proposed Guide might read: “Any custom item that permits the user to take two Instant actions in the same round is not approvable.” Another might be “Any custom item that turns an Instant action into a Reflexive one is not approvable.”
These sorts of guidelines could be easily developed and frequently updated, perhaps even as a facet of the kind of peer review that would result from publishing custom mechanics for member review.
Further, it takes away the impractical requirement of a Global body to write the mechanics for every custom application – the member will already have done that legwork, and any ST in the approval chain can easily look at the application and say, “Sorry, this item does not conform to Guideline 17, please revise and re-submit. Denied.” In this sense it also acts as a tool for ST education.
Good luck, gentlemen. Thanks for working to keep this positive.
PS, there already is one.
Can’t prevent another power from working
Can’t replicate a ritual or other power in part or whole
Can’t cause damage without a challenge
Can’t cause damage in response to an attack
Can’t allow inescapable killboxes
Can’t allow unstoppable fair escapes
Can’t contradict the addendum
Can’t provide more than one effect
Can’t allow other characters access to the user’s powers
Can’t contradict the addendum
An FYI from the 4/27/08 MST office hours:
Q: I’m hearing rumours – which is never a good start – that custom mechanics are becoming open and available. As vaunted in another location, is there any reason why these mechanics, if known, shouldn’t or rather couldn’t be available to the general membership. within the laws of the society? What progress has been made in compiling and publishing custom mechanics? What milestones and deliverables are planned for this project?
A: We plan on making approved custom mechanics available to the general membership from the MST website. This involves compilation from the Approvals Db. This project has, understandably, been put on hold because of lack of access and trying to get it restored for our STs and Players. There are currently no more details about this project because of other, higher priority issues with the Approvals DB. The custom mechanics that are out there and approved are already available to the general membership in a sense, being passed between PCs in accordance to the laws of the society. The reason for the compilation of mechanics is the next phase of the GSR, streamlining these for both players and STs to process.
*nods at the above*
Sadly, “metrics” won’t be something that is often seen… because no one remembers when Domain / Regional / National / Global achieves one, but everyone remembers when they blow one.
“The custom mechanics that are out there and approved are already available to the general membership in a sense, being passed between PCs in accordance to the laws of the society.”
So, as the guy who asked this question, and as they’re available to the cam at large, can we get a page set up here to anonymously post any custom mechanics that we know of, from our own or other sheets? I ask for it to be here because I think it’s in the sprit of peer reviewed custom mechanics. I don’t think it breaks ST confidentiality. If so, I’ll give you two of my own devotions; Fear Given Form and Decoy.
Of course, logging in as myself, I’ve just inadvertently told you which player has it on their characters. Curses.
Jon – that would be fantastic! We would be happy to post anything you send to mark.Truman@gmail.com.
I think both Step 2 and 3 are great ideas but I think they are symptoms of a common root cause. The use of TT books with MET is broken. Unfortunately, there is not enough MET books to satisfy the Cam Membership so we have to use the TT book. But until we have a newly written set of LARP rules that addresses specifically how to convert TT mechanics into a LARP (which none of the MET books cover, they just replace them with new one for the books they are rewrites of), we are going to have problems.
Let me give one example to comes immediately to mind. In TT, Armor subtract successes after the roll for damage and defense subtract dice for the roll. In Changeling, there are a couple powers (like Contract of Elements 2) that says it does X damage after making a touch attack. In TT, if you were wearing armor, the armor might mitigate that damage and the benefit for Summer Mantle 3 would definitely reduce it by 1. But because we are using MET rule where armor just adds to defense, that damage that is fixed with the writers expectation to be reduced by armor no longer applies making it more damaging that I suspect the game developers had intended.
Unfortunately, White Wolf has tied the MST’s hands by saying we have to use the rules in the MET books. I think we need to get White Wolf to allow the MST to throw out the MET books and write a new document for how to make the TT rules playable in LARP and address these issues that the MET books do not address. This would including things like changing the draw system.
Once the Cam LARP rules are in place for converting TT into LARP, then we can address the issues of unbalanced custom powers as players will no longer be able to point to TT books for similar mechanics that are equally broken when transferred over to the current MET system as justification for their proposed mechanics.
Devin Crumb
US2005127052
I’d like to add a perspective from someone who has been through a custom approvals process and has had a good experience with it.
When I designed my custom mechanics, I did so with forethought and research. I reviewed the books and found mechanics that were similar to the ones that I wanted to invoke using the custom mechanics. I then tried to stay as close to these mechanics as I could while still making the custom mechanics new and different in a way that added to the chronicle at large.
As the mechanics when up the chain, they were often given closer and closer scrutiny. I had no problem with making certain tweaks to the mechanics to make them fit better into chronicle.
My only real issues with the process came at global level where several changes were suggested that would have completely changed the theme/function of the mechanic. Many of these changes I felt, would even be damaging to the game, as they removed the more streamlined effects and made it a mathematical headache. However, I approached the global staff with flavor text from sanctioned book, logical arguments on how the changes would be damaging rather than beneficial to the game, and quoted similar mechanics as examples on what I was trying to accomplish. The final result was that global was very willing to work with me and the mechanics were actually improved from the process of working with them.
I really think the system we have in place now is a very good system for getting things approved. It really should be up to the players to write the first draft of these custom mechanics, because they understand their characters the best and what those characters are actively doing to develop these special items/powers. If a character has an idea they want to implement and doesn’t know enough about rules, they should work with their local VST to get the first draft put together. This draft then passes through a series of STs up the chain who have every opportunity to comment that it is too broken or needs to be fixed in some way.
What I think we should really avoid is having too much work loaded at the top end of the organization. It’s not reasonable for a group of people at the top to write all mechanics. It’s like the editor for a paper writing all the stories for each edition. I do think it is a good idea to have a few people that scan through the devotions/items in play and check for anything that looks broken. After all, we are constantly releasing new mechanics for the game (both White Wolf and custom) and at any time one could conceivable combine custom mechanic A with custom mechanic B to create something that is broken. Having the mechanics public would allow people to suggest that this might occur and we could have a checks and balance system where players could submit problems they could see with custom mechanics up the chain (just like for custom approvals).
Overall, I think custom mechanics is one of the most appealing concepts to our game. It allows for everyone to actually make a change on the chronicle at large with their character, and to bring better story to every. I’m mostly referring to mechanics here that are largely shared, or course, not with those that are generated to give a few players a definitive mathematical advantage over others. I do feel that any custom mechanics should be made available to the game at large, like a source book generated specifically by the membership of the Cam. For those that want to share their custom items/powers, they can include contact info for teachers with the mechanics. For those that prefer to keep their information secret, they can simply refrain from supplying a teacher and then its up to players/characters to find that application (which generates more social interaction for the game overall).
The system for approvals may not have worked well in the past. But I feel that many very good steps have been taken towards fixing this problem within the past year. Some of the suggestions here would make excellent additions as well.
“Let me give one example to comes immediately to mind. In TT, Armor subtract successes after the roll for damage and defense subtract dice for the roll.”
Actually, it doesn’t.
TT p.166. “The rating of any protective armor is automatically subtracted from the DICE POOL of an incoming attack.”
Excellent work and reasoning so far. I can say that in my opinion, a lot needs to be changed in order to reign things in, but the topics you’ve picked so far are easily the worst offenders.
The XP Problem is big, and while I’m a big fan of the simplicity of the Graduated XP Cap we used in the last Chronicle, it’s really a band-aid on the current situation. Well thought out ideas on this one.
Custom Mechanics – damn. nailed. These are a HUGE issue affecting one of the all important intangibles of the game – fairness. The current state of Custom Mechanics really hurt the perception of fairness for new players. Opaque systems don’t engender any trust that the ST’s are adequately safeguarding things, and the first time they get smacked by stupidly powerful customs, they’re gonna have a serious blow to their idea of the Cam as a place where things can be fair mechanically.
Keep up the good work.
I like the idea of “peer review” for custom mechanics/approvals. However while a Global mechanics staff looks good on paper, it would add yet more work to an already overworked group of st’s.
Going back to Xp’s for a momemnt. While we all have the same amount of xp gain we are on an equal playing field.
The amount of Xp in the chron really doesn’t make a difference in PvP, however it does mean the St’s have to make ridiculous npc’s to challange the players and that alone changes the scope of the game.
I have been reading and watching much of this with quite a bit of interest.
The problem with the cam doesn’t lie in any of it’s systems.
It lies in the players. The cam will never get better if “the cam” doesn’t want to get better. It’s not the system we have a problem with, it’s the abuse of it. The abuse of the system in place is what is causing a large part of our problems. I agree that change needs to be made, but implementing systems that limit the cheeze focused gamers in play may also limit the players who work for, and ROLEPLAY for the special approval items that they have.
I don’t think that limiting players ability to write mechanics is a good idea.
This is OUR chronicle. That is one of the things that attracted me to the Cam in the first place. A global society of players who shaped the story. For that reason, I think that players having the ability to write SOME custom mechanics is a good idea. We are not Cannon because of our global game, It is as simple as that. Reverting back to Cannon, in my opinion, would limit some of the Uniqueness that comes with our global chronicle. I do however feel that whatever god-forsaken cheeze is approved fits the chronicle. The custom items should not be game-breaking, and should fit the feel of the venue.
We are a roleplaying organization. We should roleplay.
The part of the problem lies within the focus shifting from Roleplay to Rollplay.
Thanks,
Ally
*Has NO custom approvals*
I really do like the idea of approvals being separate from the mechanics involved. More than once, I’ve had an approval slapped down strictly on the merits of the mechanics while the story elements were accepted without change. So far, the arguments against the mechanics were not on the grounds of balance or theme, either, but rather the previously mentioned list. (Jon Argles mentioned it: Can’t counteract other powers, et al.)
The current restrictions on powers, especially “can’t duplicate canon powers,” tend to be at odds with the source material. In fact, in the section on creating custom lodges and the like, the books overtly state that you should swipe the preferred mechanics and create a new lodge rather than bend the story to reuse existing lodges.
Many of these rules appear to be simple reactions to previous offenses, and not a measured approach to prevent such abuse in the future. That’s a poor approach, as far as I’m concerned.
Transparency is the problem. Unfortunately the Camarilla trends more towards secrecy than away from it.
In Canada up until last year, the all High Approval numbers and where they were in the process was published in the NST’s monthly report. All STs saw what kind of things were being Apped for, and which were being approved and which were not.
The NST of Canada Lino DiJulio changed High and Top approval procedures to make them secret except to the specific ST involved. This was after the previous system exposed on of his friends was cheating.
Instead of keeping a system that was transparent, encouraged the STs (who are trusted with that kind of information by job definition) knowing what was going on, and made sure they knew their higher officers were doing their job… it was changed to allow further abuses to occur more easily.
Which is better?
As a player of many custom powers, I would be willing to:
1. Expose all rule mechanics publically.
OR
2. Remove all existing custom powers.
Assuming this was done across the board and would help the game, but I see the problems going further than the actual custom mechanics.
Currently I play an “elder” who has both a custom bloodline ( though they only have Obfuscate as the 4th) and multiple custom devotions.