White Wolf WoD Gamers - GM Council Thoughts

[Mr Master]

So, there are a few people interested in running WoD games. Do we want them in a consistent universe? Does each game happen in its own parallel, so there's no interaction? Does each thread GM have their own spin on things, or are we going to be more collaborative?

This is a focused thread to talk about such topics. So... Discuss!

 

[The Broken Lunatic]

How about instead of a feudal era plot, we could shift it around to a time travel type deal.
The few Hengeyokai games I played were set around the Feudal Era in Japan. It was around the time the abolition of the samurai went into effect, making it a difficult challenge to be in public for some in the group. But say a time and space portal opened, cliche I know, throwing them into the future where everything is completely different.

Just an idea.​

 

[Misanthropiclove]

I think a good step would be to first find out who was wanting to be a ST and who was wanting to be a player. Then find out what the players are just dying to play.

Perhaps offer up a few characters you would like (basic, basic stuff, like "Female 14th Generation Lasombra, Concept: Gamma Powerbroker, Sect: Sabbat") to play or are really wanting.

That way this thing can actually start to get off the ground. Also state if this is going to be a thread, chat, or IM based game. We have had at least two big ideas, but nothing much said about any of them and one even retracted.

Hope this helps.

 

[KyouOkami]

Yeah, yeah! I really like you Misa, if I can call you that, you totally got it! Fuck yeah!!

Sorry if my less is more comment offended you, I just got done talking to a stupid bastard about it on my "smart people come in thread" that you posted in. You guys should check it out, it's kind of funny... Hurry, I'm kinda scared I'm gonna get yelled at for it, and it'll get taken down...

Anyway... Much love for Misa, the bringer of wonderful ideas and vocalization of my thoughts.

 

[Mr Master]

Okay, speaking on the chatbox, Gaz (TBL) and I were talking about resolution of tests.

In tabletop, you'd roll dice. Live action, you'd... I dunno. But there's some way for an adjudicator, whoever has authority to determine wins or losses, to, you know, adjudicate.

So the analysis is, the adjudicator would have to balance a few things.

• *Statistics of the characters involved.
  *Situation involved (i.e. who's got an advantage in the setting)
  *Strength of description, so skill with words has some kind of effect
  *A random element, represented by a die roll
  *Needs of the plot and making an interesting story[/list:u]
  
  The idea is, while experience and tactics will out in more than 99% of the time, there's also blind luck involved, and the more chance for random success or failure, the stronger the role of randomness in the judgment.
  
  So the die roll doesn't have to be significant. It doesn't need to be d10, really. I generally use Random.Org, which uses atmospheric noise (i.e. radio static) to generate random numbers. The default roll is 2d6, and I would figure the first die would be the roll for the attacker, or action initiator, and the second die would be the roll for the defender, or action reactor.
  
  None of this has to be a hugely detailed thing. In most cases, success or failure is going to be pretty clear-cut. It's just that there are times when you want to make it interesting, or times when even a sure shot gets messed up.
  
  HOWEVER!
  
  This also involves posts by the players. I mean, we want to encourage strong wording, exciting description, that's a factor in the determination process. But we also don't want players predicting or assuming the results of the skill test.
  
  So you players have to not predict, otherwise you'll be all "And so I break your back upon my knee!" and the adjudicator would be "Except for the part where you failed." And then they'd be in their rights to whap you with complications of the failure. So that should serve to help restrict powergaming. Actually, the presence of adjudicators can restrict powergaming, all by themselves. But statistics and such are also good limiters.
  
  In any case, that's my simple and rough idea.

 

[Lyra]

Hey, I have an idea. Maybe one or two people could play a Black Spiral if you guys are playing a Sabbat game.

Oh, and in the LARP, they use rock paper scissors to determine who wins in combat I believe.

 

[Mr Master]

Hey, I have an idea. Maybe one or two people could play a Black Spiral if you guys are playing a Sabbat game.

Oh, and in the LARP, they use rock paper scissors to determine who wins in combat I believe.

I don't run Sabbat very well, and considering BSDs and Nephandi are pretty much insane and akin to devil worshipers (something Sabbat hate as much as the Antediluvians, I always thought), I'm not going to be running for them, either. But someone wants to take up the challenge, by all means, have at it.

RPS would work wonderfully... if we were present to RPS. If you know of an internet automated randomized RPS simulator, link us. Otherwise, dice and judgment appear to be the best options.

And I do think stats have something to do with it. I mean, if a guy with Dex 5/Brawling 5 swings on a guy with Dex 2/Dodge 2, the odds are really really good that he's going to hit, regardless of the RPS result. But then again, I never really LARPed very much. I believe "once" sums up my experience.

 

[The Broken Lunatic]

I started out LARPing through a Sabbat Chronicle, so I know enough to probably run something Sabbat based.
However, if we can't decide for sure on a Sect, we could always try a region run by Anarchs. Rules are less strict there but will still maintain the Masquerade.
Reasonable?​

 

[Lyra]

Umm...

Hey, I have an idea. Maybe one or two people could play a Black Spiral if you guys are playing a Sabbat game.

Oh, and in the LARP, they use rock paper scissors to determine who wins in combat I believe.

I don't run Sabbat very well, and considering BSDs and Nephandi are pretty much insane and akin to devil worshipers (something Sabbat hate as much as the Antediluvians, I always thought), I'm not going to be running for them, either. But someone wants to take up the challenge, by all means, have at it.

RPS would work wonderfully... if we were present to RPS. If you know of an internet automated randomized RPS simulator, link us. Otherwise, dice and judgment appear to be the best options.

And I do think stats have something to do with it. I mean, if a guy with Dex 5/Brawling 5 swings on a guy with Dex 2/Dodge 2, the odds are really really good that he's going to hit, regardless of the RPS result. But then again, I never really LARPed very much. I believe "once" sums up my experience.

Black Spirals are insane, yes, but so are the Malkavians. Insanity takes many forms and there are Black Spirals who would be able to function among a group of vampires. Take Pentex for example, they have both Black Spirals and Vampires working for them.

As for the rock paper scissors thing, I've never larped before. Ever. Most of the people I've met who did larp were.... creepy. I don't know the specifics of how it works, I was just told that they use rock paper scissors.

Edit: And Black Spirals don't worship the devil. They worship the avatar of entropy, decay, and destruction which might masquerade as the devil from time to time. They don't necesarily have to broadcast that fact, though, and might ally themselves with vampires in order to forward their own agendas. And since 99.999% (repeating of course) of vampires don't know the first things about werewolf society, the Sabbat would never know the difference. They would just know that they have new, extremely powerful minions to use to fight other vampires.

Also, Mind's Eye Theatre(The White Wolf LARP line of products) uses a completely different system than pen and paper White Wolf products from what I understand, but I have no idea how it works.

 

[Mr Master]

Yes, I've got the Book of the Wyrm, and I'm an old hand at Mage which also has the recurring themes of Weaver, Wyrm, and Wyld. You have a good point about BSDs able to go undercover for the Sabbat, but it still begs the question of whether or not the Sabbat themselves would work with Garou, insane/evil or not. I suppose for a gimmick, it could be made to work...

And Pentex is corporate evil personified and given a marketing budget. It's Wolfram and Hart without people even knowing exactly who they're reporting to, it's byzantine interconnected corporate authorities designed so that nobody is sure who's in charge but the business of corruption and evil moves forward, anyway. I've always figured Pentex is directed by the Things From Beyond at some level, Cthulhoid-like entities which personify the Wyrm for BSDs, fomori, Nephandi, and others. If there's demons, it's them.

Well, unless you go to the actual Sprit Realm of Hell, which I've sent my players there at least twice, though once was just kind of a pass-through. Like smart players, they didn't want to be there, and got out as fast as they could. They knew one of the prime rules of the WoD: there's always a bigger fish. :-D

 

[Misanthropiclove]

Throwing my hat in about this: The Sabbat has canonically worked with the BSD. The Sabbat see them as unhinged, dangerous lunatics (even the Malkavian Sabbat look at them and tend to go "Damn you crazy") but they are deemed weapons. The BSD somehow gain access to the secrets that many Vampires don't know, and will often trade them for odd things like the next ritae being played in a public park or at a lake. The BSD get the Vampires defiling a site, the Vampires get information. That is typically the limit. Even BSD don't like the idea of becoming Abominations and Vampires don't like dealing with wriggling balls of madness and sharp things.

There ARE Vampires in Pentex, both Sabbat, Camarilla, and a Giovanni and Abomination (Vamp/Werewolf mix) on the board of directors. For all the Vampires in Pentex, maybe 2% know more than "Cheap access to money and power." Even few Nephandi who work for them know the true purpose. Pentex is big, bad, and is the Wyrm pretty much corrupted by HUMAN greed more than vice versa or even supernaturals. The 13 members of the Board of Directors has only 4 non-human members. 1 mage, 1 fomori, 1 Vampire, and 1 abomination. The others are strictly human (at least in the last supplement I read).

That said, yes, BSD do often pal around with Sabbat. The Sabbat finds them fun and useful...at arms reach. They were closer in second edition when the Sabbat was "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil" and the BSD weren't even Gift splatted yet. In Third, they trade information, sacrifices, tactics, what not since BSD are the most "approachable" werewolves by city standards. You are also likely to find a Vampire of either type working with an Anansi...and not knowing it generally.

If the Sabbat knew more about the BSD, little would change. The Sabbat abhor demon worship - amongst themselves. If a demon worshiper is a mage, mortal, other Vampire, or whatever they are free to do whatever as long as they do NOT fuck with the Sabbat. If they do, even minutely, well, do you want a third of the Vampire population screaming after your head? I didn't think so.

In short: BSD are tools and weapons, fun diversions, and occasionally power drinks. In the BSD point of view Vampires are sources of mortal power (resources, connections, etc), "stable" pawns, and useful for harming gaia and spawning Banes. Yes, more can develop and woe betide anyone who came between a Metis priest of the Wyrm and his Koldunic lover, but the rarity of that is obvious. It is up to the storyteller to decide else wise, but a BSD palling around with a pack is not unheard of. S/he might also be the pack mascot, but wouldn't be privy to their secrets.

Now, my knowledge of the LARPing is from the MET books I read for fun. Rock, paper, scissors determines who wins. You base "traits" which are the equivalent of dots, on a challenge. If you don't have enough traits to combat an opponent, you automatically lose (I think). Certain powers allow you to use the "bomb" in RPS, in which only scissors can beat it. Either way, it doesn't translate all that smoothly to table top in my mind, but I have only scanned a few books.

To end this, I give you Pentex if it was run by kittens: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" rel="nofollow" href="http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/01/13/i-hate-everything-2/">http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/01/1 ... rything-2/</a><!-- m -->

 

[Mr Master]

See? Here are things I didn't realize. I've always had my own stuff going on, I never needed Pentex as more than a distant background threat, so I didn't do very much at all with it. So I'm not surprised there are gaps in my knowledge. Similar with Sabbat and BSDs; they're the enemy, I haven't spent a lot of time on them, and frankly, my parties have almost always been up against the Technocracy, ultimately, so that's where my knowledge base lies.

Incidentally, I'm curious about where you found all the stuff about the Board of Directors and such! I'm fascinated, and wonder if I should learn more...

 

[Misanthropiclove]

Board of Directors is in the second book of the wyrm. Though, I forget where, but there is an update later on that the Giovanni vampire dies and I think a werewolf replaces him because he was a part of some order that was mainly an enemy of Wraiths, so when Wraith went poof so did he. (Orphic Circle I think it was, Hunter dealt with it, yadda yadda.)

Several other supplements have also shown bit players in Pentex. Mainly cannon fodder fomori and BSDs and humans. There were several Technocrats working alongside of Craft and Tradition mages, and even those openly working with Nephandi/Barabbi mages and a Marauder. Generally the mages worked on crafting Fomori or otherwise making sure revenues stayed up (several Progenitor and Syndicate mages as well as Cult of Ecstasy working to make addictive drugs and Order of Hermes digging up "forbidden magicks lulz"). It generally is a Werewolf threat though, so the majority of characters were werewolves and fomori, with Vampires and Mages tossed in for flavor and angry ghosts along with them. But you will find most every were-creature that felt it was betrayed by Gaia/pack/clan/whatever and pretty much one of every Tradition/Craft/Order inside as well. New York even had a corrupted cabal of non-barabbi Tradition mages I believe. Child abusing, fomori crafting ones.

A good book to show pretty much EVERY creature from WoD working under one aegis is World of Darkness: Midnight Circus. It has tradition mages, barabbi, nephandi, technocrats, fairies, Vampires, were-creatures, fomori, wraiths, EVERYTHING working together, even if they might hate one another. Try and find it for download and skim it a bit. It does have an over arching scheme of why they are working together, but really does show that when survival is pitted against dying, you can and will band together. Plus it has ways people not belonging to the circus (which could become a safe zone city) get involved and SEVERAL non-known WoD superpowers watching over the circus making sure things work right.