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Evil Mastermind posted:If you don't know Mojo Nixon then your show could use some fixin'. On three, we jump up on the thread and shout anarchy.
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Dec 4, 2014 15:50
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Plague of Hats posted:I also like that flaw system better than the usual, but I don't like unbalanced XP progression in the first place, especially when it contributes to what I see as bad incentives. I don't really want to play with someone who's going to not play a character in a wheelchair, the character they presumably want to play, just because they won't get special extra numbers for doing so. You do get special extra numbers for playing a character in a wheelchair (unless your ST never puts you in a situation where being wheelchair-bound is a disadvantage, in which case sitting in a wheelchair is just flavour). That said, you're right on the topic of unbalanced XP progression; if unbalanced XP is bad, then whether you get the XP up front or when the Flaw comes into play both lead to players with Flaws ending up with more XP than their Flawless companions. (Unless the lack of Flaws lets them earn more XP through other means.) But then, I'm increasingly arriving at the conclusion that awarding XP to players individually is a bad model in the first place, because the only reason to let it exist is to rewards players disproportionately. If what you want the system to allow is mechanical character growth, awarding XP to each character in even amounts as the entire party accomplishes tasks works just as well. A friend noted that a problem with the nWoD model is also that it assumes that only the person with the Flaw is disadvantaged from it - but being, say, paraplegic is a flaw to the entire group when you have to carry the paraplegic to escape from a group of psycho killers. So it might be that to avoid unbalanced XP progression while allowing Flaws, you actually want the Flaw to add XP to the group's XP-pool whenever it comes up. (Or do the FATE model, where Aspects used against you don't give XP-bonuses at all, but instead let you make someone's broken leg disadvantage them more often when you fight them.)
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Dec 4, 2014 16:15
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LatwPIAT posted:You do get special extra numbers for playing a character in a wheelchair (unless your ST never puts you in a situation where being wheelchair-bound is a disadvantage, in which case sitting in a wheelchair is just flavour). That said, you're right on the topic of unbalanced XP progression; if unbalanced XP is bad, then whether you get the XP up front or when the Flaw comes into play both lead to players with Flaws ending up with more XP than their Flawless companions. (Unless the lack of Flaws lets them earn more XP through other means.) The 2e nWoD system has an option for group XP, where all your beats go into a pot during the session then get evenly split between players at the end. Personally, I don't want to run a game that doesn't use that option.
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Dec 4, 2014 16:19
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LatwPIAT posted:You do get special extra numbers for playing a character in a wheelchair (unless your ST never puts you in a situation where being wheelchair-bound is a disadvantage, in which case sitting in a wheelchair is just flavour). I think you agree with me, but I think I might've worded myself poorly if you said this. My point there was that I  at people who won't play characters with Flaws (or, really, certain kinds of flaws) because they won't get points for it. Like, "I really want to play Oracle from DC Comics, but if I don't get extra points for being in a wheelchair what's the point?" Which sounds straw-manny, at least to me, but holy poo poo you cannot underestimate this hobby's Bad Opinions.
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Dec 4, 2014 16:24
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This is why I like Mutants and Masterminds complications the best, since it doesn't directly award XP- when the complication triggers, you get Hero points, instead. So you get better rolls or can power stunt without tiring yourself an extra time, but you don't get more XP than your buddy who didn't have one come up.
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Dec 4, 2014 16:25
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Does this thread do requests? Because someone just linked me to this: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/141100/Gamergate-the-Card-Game--Print--Play
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Dec 4, 2014 16:41
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ascendance posted:Does this thread do requests? Because someone just linked me to this: Ah, yes. Saw people on RPGnet mentioning this was coming down. Review posted:It's Desborough. It's doomed to be poo poo. I mean, look. It's a card game. Still, he put it on DriveThruRPG. He's just squatting out some upload-compliant PDF from Word or GDocs, instead of, oh, I don't know, putting his card game through real professional layout and selling it through DriveThruCards. Don't give him ducats ironically, because as evidenced by his previous "satire" card "game", Privilege Check, it's just some delusional cash-grab full of petty, stinking inside-jokes and mostly or entirely terrible art of entirely terrible things. He couldn't wait a real grown-up adult writer's amount of time to write it well and present it well, because it's already too late for most people to give a poo poo and he's losing sales by the hour as interest in GG ebbs. Shortest F&F ever. EDIT: Ah ha ha ha. Card: "Truth", effect: "Each Attacker gains +1 Bullshit." Flavor text: "Surprisingly ineffective against ideologues." The self-awareness meters are completely flat-lined. EDIT 2: quote:Gamergate the Card Game commemorates THE defining culture war of this generation - by taking the piss out of all sides. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Dec 4, 2014 16:50
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I honestly can't get mad at Desburough anymore. All I feel is sorry for him. I just see stuff like this, shake my head, and think "this is what he's choosing to do with his life."
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Dec 4, 2014 16:53
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That just sounds so terribly sad and bitter.
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Dec 4, 2014 17:01
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and it's obvious for a game 'taking a piss out of both sides' what camp he's fully in.
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Dec 4, 2014 17:03
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Evil Mastermind posted:If you don't know Mojo Nixon then your show could use some fixin'. I have already utilized this same quote in response. I was honestly flabbergasted that he had never heard of Mojo Nixon. Like not even in passing. In an admission of shame, I was going to reference a few songs and try to get him to remember, but the first song that popped in my head was Happy Boy, and I knew that wasn't right (it's by the Beat Farmers), so I just let it slide. Can't pause to research in a podcast. LatwPIAT posted:In the new World of Darkness (1st ed.), the optional Flaws systems works in the way that you have Flaws, they cost nothing, and they earn you XP when they significantly disadvantage you during the game. So if you're wheelchair-bound, and you spend the entire session running research plots in the library, you're considered to be playing on an equal line with the other player characters. But when the bad guys take you out before combat starts by toppling your wheelchair, you get tasty XP in return for your disadvantage. My problem with merit/flaws is a mix of two things. One is that a lot of the flaws, as mentioned here, are gamey. Like you can take something like "Smells bad" and stay in a mechsuit forever, and get 5 bonus points or something for nothing. That one is easily addressed as above. It only gives you points when it matters, that's fine. This calls up a sort of sub-problem for me with merit/flaws, which is that they tend to be very arbitrarily costed, and don't take into account the character taking them. Playing a psionicist that can just stand there through the entire combat? Why not take "Missing a hand" for a ton of bonus points in exchange for a hand you didn't need. My second problem is with flaws that are actually merits. These are generally ones that are just spotlight purchases. Like "cursed fate" or "archnemesis" where what you're really getting free points for is a guarantee that the GM will have to dedicate special time down the line to deal with your character. Your GM, not being Wick, isn't like to kill you because you took Cursed Fate or Terrible Luck or something, so what you're getting free points for is both extra spotlight AND a flaw that your GM can't lever into without being a dick. It's win win for the common powergamer. The L5R edition we read had a great example of that with the Unlucky trait, where your GM was supposed to have you reroll one success a day. If it's an extremely important success, then your GM is going to feel like a dick. If it's a minor unimportant success, then the flaw is pointless. That's bad design. There have been good merit/flaw systems, I think there's even been one in our reviews at some point, though I can't remember which (BESM?). They are just a fairly delicate bit of RPG design that seems extra easy to gently caress up. theironjef fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Dec 4, 2014 17:12
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Evil Mastermind posted:I honestly can't get mad at Desburough anymore. All I feel is sorry for him. I just see stuff like this, shake my head, and think "this is what he's choosing to do with his life."
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Dec 4, 2014 17:35
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theironjef posted:the first song that popped in my head was Happy Boy, and I knew that wasn't right (it's by the Beat Farmers)  Country Dick Montana.
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Dec 4, 2014 17:40
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theironjef posted:The L5R edition we read had a great example of that with the Unlucky trait, where your GM was supposed to have you reroll one success a day. If it's an extremely important success, then your GM is going to feel like a dick. If it's a minor unimportant success, then the flaw is pointless. That's bad design. In a GURPS Monster Hunters campaign I used to run, one player took three levels of both Good Destiny and Bad Destiny. Monster Hunters changes the default Destiny (dis)advantage from being your standard "something nebulously good/bad will happen" to something actually useful in that each level grants a plot currency point. Good Destiny points can be used to turn failures into successes, edit details of a scene in your favor, etc. Bad Destiny works the same, except the GM gets those points to use against the character with the disadvantage. Conceptually, it worked for his character since there was a whole Constantine-ish "battle for his soul" thing going on, but it became apparent really quick that every session was just a race to get me to spend all his Bad Destiny for the session so he could actually do something cool. The other big problem was that I hated using those points. I want my players to do cool things, and it's really hard to encourage that when three times a game I have to say no, you hosed up and here's how. In combat, it was the absolute worst because it would just negate an entire turn and waste everyone's time. The campaign ended for a bunch of reasons, but that player and I both agreed that if we picked it back up in a different system we'd have to change that part because good lord it just made everyone sad.
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Dec 4, 2014 18:15
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Exactly. I know ARB just finished reviewing a book about how DMs can be dicks, but real DMs don't want to be dicks, they want to see cool stuff happen. I'd say about a third to half the time, the flaws mechanic in a game is just a way for the DM to be a dick. Hell sometimes the benefits are too. 1st edition Exalted had that problem. 3 dots in Mentor and you get a useful sifu who can teach you interesting tricks and will move the plot along. 5 dots gets you a mentor who is too busy and weird for you to even meet more than once. Hooray. 5 dots in Influence means you're already the target of several ongoing assassination attempts? Sign me the heck up!
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Dec 4, 2014 18:29
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Plague of Hats posted:I think you agree with me, but I think I might've worded myself poorly if you said this. My point there was that I At the risk of shoving a foot down my mouth, I can understand the thought behind it; you desire to play a character, but it's clearly not optimal to play that character in the system, since you're giving yourself a disadvantage[1] at no benefit while other people get to play characters with no disadvantages in the first place. Which, when you want to have fun and accomplish stuff, puts you in a disadvantageous position, for much the same reason that disparate XP rates make some players more competent than others (and competence - the ability to overcome adversity in the game - and fun are often closely related). It ties a lot into the paranoid, maximizing attitude of gamers where you people always try to mete out every single advantage they can from a system to avoid being ever put in a disadvantageous position. Being paraplegic without points in return is pretty undesirable from that perspective, just as not spending all your character-generation points would be. If you approach role-playing games as (at least in part) games where you're supposed to overcome adversity, disadvantaging yourself is pretty counter-productive. And since RPGs are group activities, your self-imposed handicap will also disadvantage the other players. Of course, when it comes to Oracle and being paraplegic, there's an underlying cultural issue too; I've been told by people who actually read superhero comics that the backlash against Oracle the character precisely because she was paraplegic was pretty ugly and full of ugly attitudes about paraplegic people. Perhaps doubly so because physical disabilities are often singled out here; playing mute, taciturn, one-eyed, rude, overly violent, or prejudiced characters is something I believe a lot of the people who won't play paraplegics would do without point-rewards. But the moment it's a physical disability, it's suddenly too crippling. [1] Not that it's much of a game-wise disadvantage if you're not likely to end up in situations where you need to move a lot in the first place, as is usually the case with bot-herders, astral projectors, and being everyone else's CODEC support. In that case, the "disadvantage" you've imposed on yourself is pretty theoretical, much in the same way that "I am paraplegic and I also have an exo-skeleton that helps me walk just as good as anyone else" isn't much of a disadvantage. theironjef posted:My second problem is with flaws that are actually merits. These are generally ones that are just spotlight purchases. Like "cursed fate" or "archnemesis" where what you're really getting free points for is a guarantee that the GM will have to dedicate special time down the line to deal with your character. Your GM, not being Wick, isn't like to kill you because you took Cursed Fate or Terrible Luck or something, so what you're getting free points for is both extra spotlight AND a flaw that your GM can't lever into without being a dick. It's win win for the common powergamer. The L5R edition we read had a great example of that with the Unlucky trait, where your GM was supposed to have you reroll one success a day. If it's an extremely important success, then your GM is going to feel like a dick. If it's a minor unimportant success, then the flaw is pointless. That's bad design. It's what I've come to realise is a paradigm-problem, or if pop-cultural Kuhn sounds too pretentious, about "assumptions of play". If you play a strict mechanical game where an Enemy-flaw means that you have an adversary who will do everything within their power and stop at nothing to ruin your poo poo, preferably through killing you, and Enemy is a definite flaw. It means that, every once in a while, you're going to face someone with the resources to kill you who will try to do so, and run the chance of succeeding. This means that your character will statistically die/not accomplish their goals more often, and that's clearly worth points. Killing your character in a fight with their Enemy is in games like these something everyone agrees is not the Referee being a dick, but simply the way the dice fell and you accepted the risk when you took the Enemy flaw. As long as everyone are on board with it, that can be great fun. However, a lot of people don't play like this. Even games where you can take Enemy flaws are not always made to encourage this kind of game. The Enemy doesn't actually run a significant chance of killing/disadvantaging you, and as you say they're instead just a spotlight shone on your character - clearly not a disadvantage. The problem with Enemy as a flaw arises when the system models it as one thing (a significantly increased chance of bad stuff happening to you) and rewards you accordingly (more points to survive adversity with), while the players use it as another thing (you have this NPC that you get to best from time to time) yet reward it all the same (more points to survive adversity with). When a game-designer or Referee tries to shoehorn mechanics based on one assumption into a game run on different assumptions, things will fall apart. It would probably be better if games were written to be more up-front about how they're meant to be played. It would also be better if designers were aware of what the mechanics they put in their games encourage and support. theironjef posted:There have been good merit/flaw systems, I think there's even been one in our reviews at some point, though I can't remember which (BESM?). They are just a fairly delicate bit of RPG design that seems extra easy to gently caress up. RPGs are pretty complicated to begin with, and it's pretty sad that so many (would-be) designers seem to regard them as simple and offer mechanical interactions little thought. There's a somewhat unfortunate hobby of rote-copying mechanics from one system into another, without really knowing whether it's a good idea or not. This means that you get ideas that are bad in the first place copied into later systems, and also good ideas from one system copied into different systems where they end up bad ideas.
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Dec 4, 2014 18:32
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LatwPIAT posted:At the risk of shoving a foot down my mouth I don't think you did, and you outlined some of the thought process where this comes from pretty well. I certainly don't think there are actually that many Bad Opinions in gaming. I just think there's a lot of momentum behind "traditional" ways of doing things that actively trip up people who would be having a lot more fun playing and producing games that didn't bother with that poo poo. Though at least these days, there's a lot less momentum behind this stuff than there used to be.
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Dec 4, 2014 18:40
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It's funny because I've been toying with OVA, which has a character creation system that's entirely just an advantage / disadvantage system. It's got the usual flaws, but kind of works on account of rewarding people for creating ridiculous exaggerated personalities for their animes. I mean, I'm no fan of Champions, but it's interesting to think that rather than rewarding you for disadvantages... to instead think of it for rewarding you for making flawed, Marvel-style heroes. That's not the way it's intended, but it's a different way of looking at it than just "character balance".
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Dec 4, 2014 18:44
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 Introduction: “You’re not making fun of me, you’re making fun of my LARP character.” Though it comes up from time to time, no one has really gone into depth about the old Mind’s Eye Theater system of LARP books for White Wolf’s game lines. This system was used for the over decade until the new By Night Studios book came out and is being replaced by a much better system. There was a book or books put out for each of their game lines, except Demon, and they were all still played up until recently. Those games though were hilariously bad in many regards but have their diehard fans. For this review of the Mind’s Eye Theatre, Laws of the Night book, I’m going to start with a breakdown of “larping” and the organizations involved in it. What is LARP? LARP is Live Action Roleplaying and it’s generally any game where you stand around and act out what your character is doing within reason. In the MET games, there are strict no touching rules and everything is resolved through challenges, which we’ll get to in the general rules breakdown. Since most White Wolf games take place in the modern world, you don’t have to dress up like you do for medieval larps. Personally I also think that a 500 year old vampire would just dress up like a normal person because if you walk around looking like Dracula or a foppish Anne Rice character, even people in the grim World of Darkness are going to raise some eyebrows and you wouldn’t have lasted 500 years. Why LARP? I think the big question is, why you would do something this nerdy and embarrassing when you could just play tabletop in anonymity? The answer for MET is that the dynamic of the games is completely different from those in tabletop. Instead of the structure of the city or local supernatural organization being made up of NPC’s, it’s usually made up of player characters. So in Vampire the Prince or the Sheriff would be a player character and that creates a whole new political dynamic to the game that isn’t present in tabletop. There’s also less of a group dynamic and it’s easier play a backstabbing rear end in a top hat since you don’t have to worry about alienating a friend at the table. How are these organized? There are two types of organizations, troupe and national clubs. Troupe is usually that your game is a standalone game. Though there might be plotlines that reach outside the city, most stuff outside the city are done with NPC’s. This can be good for a number of reasons which will touch on with the clubs but limits things to a degree. When I started, I played in a local troupe game that was most of the younger regulars at my FLGS and it was a good game. Not many problems with people, no creepy people, and just an all-around good time. This is dependent on the group though and it can very easily be the opposite of this. National club games are run within a usually national or international organization. The biggest and longest running one is the Mind’s Eye Society, which used to be called the Camarilla. The Camarilla was founded in 1992 and eventually got taken over by White Wolf after a legal fiasco. The organization tried to sue White Wolf over the copyright of their own properties and got taken over for their delusional behavior. This should give you a good idea at the level the people running this organization are at. In 2010, White Wolf dropped the organization and now they are independently run. There are similar organizations out there like One World By Night, which is pretty similar to the Camarilla in terms of what you get good and bad. So why play with these guys? You would mostly play in one of these games because it offers at least a nationally connected game. If you want to travel to a nearby city and play in their game for one weekend, you can. If you have problems with a character from out of town, you can talk with the leadership of their city and get things done. There is international interaction between people and there are big con games. In theory this is pretty cool but in practice it’s a headache.  The character Alex Montoyez from Cincinnati, Camarilla's conclave at Milwaukee, 2006 The Camarilla itself is an organization that has a paid membership system, when I played it was $20 a year and membership is restricted to 18 and up. The organization though never checked ID and I joined the organization when I was 16, no questions asked. Once you’re a member, you start out at membership level 1, this could go all the way up to 15 though it was rare. Your membership level gave you more starting experience points. You could raise this level by running games and doing community service but people often cheated at the latter. This will become important when we get into specifically why Laws of the Night is a garbage system for Vampire. There was also an approval system that offered checks on characters and went up to the international or top level. Within the Camarilla chronicle, some character types are restricted. In theory this is done so that you don’t have a million rare character types running around. So if you want to play your purple eyed, white haired Salubri who is one step away from Golconda, you have to get multiple top approvals to play it. This means you have to get approval from your storyteller, your chapter’s storyteller, your region’s storyteller, your national storyteller, and the head of the organization because there are only a very limited of Salubri in stock Vampire the Masquerade and Golconda is pretty much close to impossible. The Camarilla is all about who you know though so if you’re friends with the national level storyteller and everyone in between, you’re good on your Baali vampire with Thaumaturgy or your Lasombra Antitribu. There were people as well who would constantly flaunt this and should have been allowed to play some of the things that were running around. One of the problems with organizations like the Camarilla is that anyone can play and you kind of have to let them. Like the RPGA or Pathfinder Society, this attracts the people who can’t get a regular gaming group because they’re social pariahs and usually for good reasons. People in the Camarilla also took things way too seriously. The amount of real life vendettas that evolved from in game slights or actions done by characters was insane. Chapters usually ended up destroying themselves sooner or later. There are rules that are made to prevent griefing but people get around them very easily. Someone killed your character, tell your friend who lives in Minneapolis with a member class of 12 and an elder vampire he’s been playing for 5 years. The person who wronged you will soon get dealt with and it’s perfectly ok because that elder has a perfectly good reason for what he did. Technically ST’s are allowed to disallow people from bringing their game breaking characters to games or sending them in proxy but in practice it never happens for those reasons. Those people, who might be connected will complain, you might get audited, your characters might get killed off, and you might have future approvals denied for reasons. This didn’t happen as much for proxies but when someone drives two hours to your game, you can’t really turn them away without feeling like an rear end in a top hat. It’s all very petty and childish but then again this is an organization that sued the maker of the game they play for the intellectual property rights to it.  The character Papa Sallow Rose, Camarilla's conclave, Milwaukee 2006 Up next, the basic rules of the original MET system. *Images courtesy of wikipedia, I don't actually know those guys.
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Dec 4, 2014 18:59
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ascendance posted:Does this thread do requests? Because someone just linked me to this: Just to update on this: the product's been removed from DriveThru. It wasn't until I saw this Twitter conversation that I realized that the description was more than likely that "upper middle class people with blue hair buckling under crippling white guilt" referred to Fred Hicks, who is very much the type of "SJW" that Jimmy D rallies against (and who does in fact dye his hair blue).
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Dec 4, 2014 20:01
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Evil Mastermind posted:Just to update on this: the product's been removed from DriveThru. It wasn't until I saw this Twitter conversation that I realized that the description was more than likely that "upper middle class people with blue hair buckling under crippling white guilt" referred to Fred Hicks, who is very much the type of "SJW" that Jimmy D rallies against (and who does in fact dye his hair blue). Oh poo poo, I just assumed it was some bizarre dig at SJWs being pearl-clutching grandmas (i.e., blue hairs). This is sadder.
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Dec 4, 2014 20:06
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Plague of Hats posted:Oh poo poo, I just assumed it was some bizarre dig at SJWs being pearl-clutching grandmas (i.e., blue hairs). This is sadder. More likely it's because Zoe Quinn has (or had at the start of GG) blue hair. Either way, glad it's gone.
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Dec 4, 2014 20:08
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Well, like I said, it's not definite. If Chris H didn't talk about talking to the rest of Evil Hat, I wouldn't have made the connection. DriveThru said that they weren't deliberately promoting the GG game, but the twitter announcements are automated. Which I'm sure is the case, but I think this is a good example of needing a human involved in the process somewhere. e: Oh, I don't think I've ever seen a pic of Zoe Quinn, so that didn't occur to me. That makes more sense. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Dec 4, 2014 20:11
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On the off-chance that Desborough is demoing either of his card games at Dargonmeet, would taking part in a game to post a report here count as touching the poop?
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Dec 4, 2014 21:06
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Basic MET Rules: The Economics of Inequality The rules that the Mind’s Eye Theatre system uses aren’t the best truth be told and all the game lines use it. For some, like Werewolf, it’s not that bad but for Vampire it’s really bad. The system works on a system of traits that are capped at a certain number based on your power level. For mortals, the cap on traits is 10, abilities is 5 for most, and magical powers are capped by power level. Traits are the characteristics of your character. They are divided into physical, mental, and social traits. In most games these are represented by a number value but in MET they’re actual traits. You can be dexterous, agile, brawny, or knowledgeable for instance. When challenges are attempted, you have to bid an appropriate trait and make a test. This test is handled with throwing rock/paper/scissors. Once the test is resolved, you either succeed or fail. Ties go down to the number of traits you have, this is important so keep this in mind for later. If you fail, you can get a retest by spending an ability point or from a supernatural power. Abilities are generally the same as in tabletop but give you a retest. Traits are temporarily lost on a failure and once abilities are used they are temporarily gone. Traits in a single category can be refreshed by spending a willpower trait but you can only do that once per session. So unlike in tabletop, you can’t go on forever. If you have double the number of traits than your opponent, you can retest a challenge because you’re that much more powerful than them.  It goes without saying that using rock/paper/scissors is stupid because it’s as much a game of skill as it is chance. It’s also really easy to cheat at rock/paper/scissors. If you know how the person you’re throwing against thinks, you can beat them. I know that this is not very easy but some people really do go into Bart Simpson mode and think nothing beats rock. This can also be modified if you have potence, which can give you the bomb. The bomb is a thumbs up that can only be beaten by scissors. Only vampires to my knowledge cam gain access to this mechanic. In tabletop, there’s an element of random chance and dice can explode. A neonate vampire still has a chance against an older vampire but in MET that’s not the case. Since there’s no real chance mechanic and because dice aren’t being used, it’s just static numbers and the luck of the draw in rock/paper/scissors. Since traits are tied to your level of supernatural power, you’re screwed as a lower power character going up against a higher powered one. In Werewolf for instance this is ok because Werewolves can go up in rank and climb the ladder of spiritual power. The same is true for most other supernaturals. This is not true for Vampires in Masquerade. Vampires have a mechanic called generation which represents their connection to Caine, the original vampire. Caine’s children were the 2nd generation, their children were the clan founders, and this goes all the way up to the 13th generation. There are 14th and 15th generation vampires but they’re barely vampires and are a sign of the nearing apocalypse.  Vampires have blood traits. Normal humans have 10 blood points and as vampires go down in generation, the blood becomes more potent. The number doesn’t represent the total amount of blood the person has but its relative power and how much it satiates a vampire’s hunger. The number on the left is the total number of blood points and the one on the right is the amount that can be spent a round. Disciplines usually use blood points so it limits the number of disciplines you can use a round. The Path of Blood Thaumaturgy path can temporarily lower the caster’s generation but the only way to do this is permanently is at character creation or through diablerie. Diablerie is an act by which a vampire devours the soul of another vampire. If the vampire being diablerized is lower generation, the offender’s generation will be lowered by one step and they might gain a free discipline. They also gain two free experience points because they have to make this crime more worthwhile. Diablerie is a crime universally punished by destruction and can be detected by reading a vampire’s aura with auspex. In an organization like the Camarilla, you would have players constantly rolling in with at least 8th generation characters with 50+ XP at character creation because they had high member class. A person who just started playing’s character by default can’t even think about stepping up to that level. The theory was that this would cause there to be a greater variety in gameplay but in reality it just made an old boy’s club where the same people were always at the top regardless of how they played.
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Dec 4, 2014 21:08
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Angrymog posted:On the off-chance that Desborough is demoing either of his card games at Dargonmeet, would taking part in a game to post a report here count as touching the poop? I don't think playing a game that he has produced is poop-touching. As long as you don't bear bait him and go "Hey guy you're totally in the right and you should totally stand up to those Drive-Thru RPG assholes."
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Dec 4, 2014 21:19
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The hell is wrong with her face?
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Dec 4, 2014 21:19
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Mors Rattus posted:The hell is wrong with her face?
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Dec 4, 2014 21:20
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Vampires have blood traits. Normal humans have 10 blood points and as vampires go down in generation, the blood becomes more potent. The number doesn’t represent the total amount of blood the person has but its relative power and how much it satiates a vampire’s hunger. The number on the left is the total number of blood points and the one on the right is the amount that can be spent a round. Disciplines usually use blood points so it limits the number of disciplines you can use a round. The Path of Blood Thaumaturgy path can temporarily lower the caster’s generation but the only way to do this is permanently is at character creation or through diablerie. Diablerie is an act by which a vampire devours the soul of another vampire. If the vampire being diablerized is lower generation, the offender’s generation will be lowered by one step and they might gain a free discipline. They also gain two free experience points because they have to make this crime more worthwhile. Diablerie is a crime universally punished by destruction and can be detected by reading a vampire’s aura with auspex. I had some friends who used to MET Larp, they used to refer to visiting high-generation vampires as mushrooms. Because they'd mob them, pin them down, and one of them would diablarize them to lower their generation. Because who cares about fair play or encouraging visitors?
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Dec 4, 2014 21:24
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I think she's supposed to be a Nosferatu, who in Masquerade have to be fugly. I only say that because of the mask and the weird fangs. Other than that she looks better than most larpers. Fun fact, all of the pictures in the MET books are of actual players in their costumes. They will run the gambit from nicely done to dumpy guy with a staff. There's a lot of dumpy looking guys with staffs in Laws of the Wild, the Werewolf book. EDIT: Kurieg posted:I had some friends who used to MET Larp, they used to refer to visiting high-generation vampires as mushrooms. Because they'd mob them, pin them down, and one of them would diablarize them to lower their generation. Because who cares about fair play or encouraging visitors? No offense but that sounds like bullshit if it was in the Camarilla. That's also completely out of character for even a Sabbat game and an rear end in a top hat move. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Dec 4, 2014 21:25
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Kurieg posted:I don't think playing a game that he has produced is poop-touching. As long as you don't bear bait him and go "Hey guy you're totally in the right and you should totally stand up to those Drive-Thru RPG assholes." You don't have to tell him that, he's already doing it on Twitter. I can't find the tweet, but apparently GMS himself told Jimmy D to have some empathy. Let that sink in for a minute.
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Dec 4, 2014 21:33
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The one game of Camarilla-sanctioned play I ever did, I became Sheriff in a single night by basically (ICly) threatening anybody that dared gainsay me like a schoolyard bully. A little swagger with nerds goes a long way. Did I just admit that after my John Wick review? Well. It was the Camarilla, in my defense. The whole thing where strangers get to bring in their uber characters struck me as bullshit, though, and the whole social service thing also struck me as too much commitment for a vampgame (and yeah, I smelled something shady). Cheating at RPS wasn't hard, you just watch what they're throwing and at the last minute switch to scissor or paper, if applicable. Later on we took the habit of at least doing it back-to-back, but even so a sly person could switch while turning around. Also the "bomb" was a fat sack of crap. You have a symbol that beats two of theirs! And now they have a symbol that beats two of yours! In theory it would be a good surprise tactic, but if memory serves you have to announce you have it. I found it always better to just ignore it and play standard to throw off people expecting you to use the drat thing. (Or, more likely, never purchase it.) Halloween Jack posted:Big fake fangs make your mouth look weird even when it's closed. It's true, it's very hard to not look funny in prosthetic fangs. Even good ones have a tendency to make you look a little off.
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Dec 4, 2014 22:03
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Evil Mastermind posted:I honestly can't get mad at Desburough anymore. All I feel is sorry for him. I just see stuff like this, shake my head, and think "this is what he's choosing to do with his life." I can, and I will. He used to use "but it's British humour, you wouldn't understand" for his poo poo (e.g. "Chav: The Knifing"), so a bunch of us Brit game designers had to point out that no, it's just Dezzie being a total dick. Then he moved to "it's not my fault, it's because I'm depressed/mentally ill" which riles me because I'm a game designer with bipolar disorder and I'd still cut my own fingers off before releasing anything as terrible as his back-catalogue. He refuses to take ownership of the fact that the reason he is treated like a terrible human being is not because of outside factors but because he chooses to act like a terrible human being. I don't have Tourettes, he's just a oval office.
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Dec 4, 2014 22:04
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And now Kevin Crawford (of Sine Nomine publishing) is pulling a "how dare people ATTACK HIS LIVELYHOOD?" on G+. Well, that saves me the money I pledged on his latest kickstarter, anyway. e: I keep trying to write a response to Kevin but I think I'm too angry to put together a good one right now. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Dec 4, 2014 22:13
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And people misunderstanding censorship and speech issues: You got a right to be an asshat of the highest degree, we have the right to tell you to shut the gently caress up and grow up. He has the right to make a lovely product, DriveThru has the right to refuse to stock it.
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Dec 4, 2014 22:29
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Robindaybird posted:And people misunderstanding censorship and speech issues: Mind if I use that?
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Dec 4, 2014 22:32
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Evil Mastermind posted:Mind if I use that? go ahead
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Dec 4, 2014 22:35
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Alien Rope Burn posted:
You do have to declare that you have it and that's also why it was pretty crappy. The thing we ended up doing was using cards. The cards would randomize things and prevented cheating. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Dec 4, 2014 22:37
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Cards would have been good. The few times I actually had to throw, I'd panic and throw out paper in the scissors pose or something stupid like that.
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Dec 4, 2014 22:57
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Robindaybird posted:You got a right to be an asshat of the highest degree, we have the right to tell you to shut the gently caress up and grow up. He has the right to make a lovely product, DriveThru has the right to refuse to stock it. I'm already grossed out that I have to purchase my PDFs through the same distributor that spots up Skortched Urf Studios and that particular misogynist brand of garbage, it's only disappointing this has been brought up solely on account of GamerGate.
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Dec 4, 2014 23:05
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