Our apologies, but for a few days “Real Life” reached up and swallowed us! Great thanks to all of you who came by the site this week to look at Step 4 and offer your comments. Remember, if you know someone who wants to see the Cam be a better place, send them our way!
There was a lot of great discussion about the way the addendum functions. Here’s our favorite comment from Step 4:
The bottom line is this: We want an addendum that reads like a settings document with relevant rules alterations, not like a list of patch notes from an MMO.
No one is going to say that the ST staff have not put in herculean effort to get us this far, but each step relies on each other step. Broken draw mechanics lead to xp glut to compensate. Broken draw mechanics + xp glut lead creative players to write and get approved custom mechanics to add even higher bonuses. Broken mechanics + xp glut + bad custom mechanics leads to patching as more and more loopholes are found and fixed.
We have to fix the base problems, then the more esoteric problems will be easier to handle. – Eric C.
Yup, we couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Every step in the Save the Cam plan relies on other changes to be made as well. Changing JUST the addendum does nothing, but once we work in Steps 1-3 we can start using the addendum for it’s original purpose: Putting us all on the same page mechanically! Thanks, Eric!
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Step Four was largely quiet on the global lists and here in the comments. We assume part of that was due to the raging conversation on the lists regarding PC death that sprang from last weeks raging conversation about approval levels. Yay list traffic!
However, here are a few clarifications and ideas that sprang from the comments:
Killing the National Addenda
Jesse Robbins summarized the need for a National Addenda quite well in an early comment:
The needs of the US chronicle are not the same as the needs of an affiliate. The National addenda allows the NST of a country to make some limitations to what is, and is not permissible based on the needs of the nation in question. This isn’t a question of consistancy, but a question of practicallity. – Jesse Robbins
Well said, Jesse. While we will continue to disagree that a National Addenda is needed, your argument summarizes well why each Affiliate will maintain a strong interest in keeping them around. Thanks for participating!
However, why does the line stop with Nations? Don’t Regions or Domains deserve the same courtesy? Size isn’t the issue, since many affiliates are the size of US Regions. Why do we only allow Nations to write their own rules?
The only conclusion we draw is that somewhere along the line we decided that those lower levels would lose a bit of autonomy in order to create a sense of consistency. Venues, Domains, Regions can’t make up their own rules because it would kill the idea of the Camarilla completely. We would dissolve into chaos.
Consistency, in this case, should trump practicality because the addendum is about providing a unified game for us all to play. Approval levels may differ by Region (or even VSS!), but the rules by which we play the game should not change so radically. Allowing Nations to continue to set their own rules perpetuates the mentality that MY story should trump OUR story.
The BP Vitae Limitation
Some part of the discussion has concerned one of the examples we cited in the addendum as a poor band-aid.
Jesse Robbins nailed this one as well:
The limits on Blood Spend are a direct result of players pursuing BP at the expense of everything else. Even with less xp, it would remain an issue. Not to mention that the Oath of the Bloody Hand would become vastly more powerful than it already is. So less xp might negate the high BP characters, but if I can get to BP 6 as an Invictus, then I can get a Geth to bump me to BP 7 and Oath to BP 9. Then I swear a Bloody Hand and all of a sudden I can spend 20 Blood and get a +40 to a physical test. Which means that I will likely have a better staking pull than any currently existing PC possibly could. How much did all of this cost? Less than 200 xp total.
This is an example of a “Band aid” which is actually a good fix for balance. The problem with wanting to get rid of the Band Aids is that you might remove a lot of skin with it. – Jesse Robbins
Eric C fired right back, citing the +15 rule as an already worthwhile fix in the addendum:
Your reaction exactly demonstrates the point of this entry. Here we have two different rules, one clearly superior to the other, but they are both in the addendum, causing confusion. Then again, i would argue that needing a rule covering maximum bonus available on a roll is directly demonstrative of some of the other points of this blog. Namely that between xp glut and custom mechanics, and bad base draw mechanics, we are seeing dice pools that can only be described as silly.
Simply, the addendums, all together, should not be harder to use than a single supplement book. Essientially, the addenda should be eligible to be titled World of Darkness: The Camarilla Fan Club, with national addenda as nothing more than minor appendices or charts in the back. – Eric C.
Great discussion you two! It leaves us wondering….why isn’t vitae covered under the +/-15 rule? Is there something special about it? Global Staff? Any answers?
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In closing…
Save the Cam will return with “Step 5: Streamline the Appeals Process“ on Monday morning!
I think the reason that the blood for physical pool bonus is left in as separate is because it is something totally unique to vampires.
As far as I know, no other supernatural can spend their power resource that flexibly to boost a dice pool. Some of the changeling kiths and seemings may come close.
That’s part of the reason I backed off on including it in the +15 pool modifier. However, it could easily be absorbed into that rule if there weren’t a dozen different strictly canon ways to hit that bonus cap, never mind the untold number floating about in custom mechanics. Basically, as a short cut for high bp elders to compensate for all the new fangled blood fu of some of the younger vampires (basing this on the number of devotions in carthians vs the number in invictus).
I think prometheans are able to boost attributes with pyros however it is less of a problem due to the massive drawbacks of azoth. last i heard there were no prometheans above azoth 4 in the UK.