Strasbourg by Night is Go!
So *terribly* exciting!
Right now players are still very open, but it's looking like we'll have at least a core of four really dynamic and well-drawn characters to carry the story. If the others get in touch with me, I have a feeling we'll see similarly well-carried and envisioned critters from them.
Speaking of which, Zoc, tap me when next you're on and we'll finish dotting your guy, if you're still interested in and able to play.
I have to say, whatever medium we pick, this is going to be the largest group I've ever run (ha, I've run one game before, I should stop making it sound like I know what I'm doing.)
Some thoughts on mechanics:
I'm still deciding on AIM v. Play-by-Post. I should clarify: no matter which way I go, there will be elements of the other involved in play.
My main concern with AIM is, first, the sheer number of people. Eight people in a chat window is going to be an absolute bitch --and we're looking at eight if everbody does decide to play. That's the size group where you usually have a second ST, but I don't have anyone to handle that, so I'd be relying on my wits and charm alone. God help us. *wry*
My other fear with AIM is that things will either become extremely fragmented, and I will have trouble maintaining control of the action. I kind of like that about the medium, actually. But I do not want my players doing things without me being able to watch, and AIM invites players to go behind my back by allowing them to message each other without my input. I trust my players not to do that, but how am I going to keep track of eight-hundred conversations of every possible permutation of players and not enter the wrong thing into *somebody's* window?
As for PbP --this would, honestly, not be my first choice. As terrifying as the idea of being thrown live into an AIM chat window containing seven players is to me, I prefer real-time action to the potentially problematic posting schedule of PbP.
For example: there will be players, like me, who will sit at the computer and do nothing but compulsively refresh until someone posts something, and then they will eat it alive. If another player can only get to the internet twice a week, I feel like that's going really disadvantage them in play, and that people will tend to move on in threads without their input. Not a fun playing experience.
What I am thinking about doing, is holding two sessions a week, both optional. (You could conceivably skip both, but why play?) That would get the players intriguing to know who'd be there, and might potentially result in a smaller group of players at least once a week, which would be nice from the standpoint of the beleagered ST.
Players who would need to miss a session could submit a down-time report telling me what they were doing "while they were in". In fact, one of the other mechanics I'm thinking of instituting is a Limited-Reporting system. Which is just what I'm calling it, not an official term or anything.
Basically, a player who wanted to do significant research --say, learn some new Thaumaturgy, perfect a particular piece of art, or just spend the evening in the library-- would need to miss a certain number of sessions to accomplish their goal. They wouldn't have to miss them consecutively (and wouldn't be allowed to do so except under life-threatening circumstances) but if they wanted an "off-stage" advantage, they would have to earn it by really being off-stage.
Obviously, to limit disruption and keep players interested, I'm going to have to try to limit the number of sessions a player has to "miss" --this would probably only apply to 'full-bore' research situations. Also, I would need to take the player that missed aside either before or after the session to run through what happened while they were absent: one of the things that I regret most about Elyssa's character is that we never really got into the nitty-gritty of researching Thaumaturgy, because that can be quite fascinating. The same applies to any kind of research, really. And I do enough research that I can probably simulate results for my players --let them pick through the results.
The third thing that has me really concerned, is the matter of drama dice.
This was a problem even in my Werewolf game, and it's a tremendous flaw in White Wolf's systems in general: social interaction is "privileged" as a role-not-roll system, so players who invest heavily into Social or Mental attributes suffer for the investment, having put points where they'll never come into play. Good roleplayers often end up min-maxing their characters for physical combat and relying on their own charm and skill to carry the character in social situations. Which is fine --but only if their character is also socially adept.
I've looked over WW's mechanics and I still don't like their system for handing social and mental tasks. So I intend to modify it.
I have a couple options for modifying:
A: Roleplay will lower the difficulty of social and mental challenges, at my discretion.
Obviously, my players are going to have to extend me a lot of trust with this rule --and it would not apply in situations where players are engaging in a contested roll, only against NPCs.
B: The size of a player's die pool will impact the difficulties they face in Social or Mental challenges.
This would apply in all circumstances, including against other players. However, it would only apply on behalf of dice pools of seven or above. A pool of seven or above indicates that a player has specialized one of the skills, or has a Discipline or other advantage working for them. To me, at this level of expertise, familiarity alone should mitigate 1) stupid mischance, and 2) stress.
Finally, regarding secondary skills.
The majority of my players, even the experienced ones, will likely not have heard of Secondary Skills. That's because most ST's don't bother with them. I do allow them. One caveat: they must be bought, and you aren't going to start with them unless they were awarded as part of your Age package.
So what's the advantage?
Secondary Skills are especially narrow fields of skill. They can impact play in two ways:
1) A Secondary Skill may be just that: a skill you've bought and that has some scratched out place on your character sheet. It's not a "primary" skill --rather, it represents a subfield you've put real time into developing.
Secondary Skills have a very narrow range of application. But rolls made using a Secondary Skill are made at a difficulty of -1.
2) A Secondary Skill may be taken as a Specialty. Specialties are applied as epithets to an Ability or an Attribute. For example: Strength (Fists like Anvils), Leadership (Noble), or Intelligence (Synthesis).
If a player's specialty applies to a particular situation, he/she rolls her dice pool as normal. Any 10's that appear may be rerolled (they "explode") for extra successes. The way I run things, even if you don't get more successes, exploded dice cannot cancel earlier successes, or result in botches. So you've nothing to lose by the rolling, just a chance to succeed extraordinarily.
I have some other thoughts, but these'll do for now.
Right now players are still very open, but it's looking like we'll have at least a core of four really dynamic and well-drawn characters to carry the story. If the others get in touch with me, I have a feeling we'll see similarly well-carried and envisioned critters from them.
Speaking of which, Zoc, tap me when next you're on and we'll finish dotting your guy, if you're still interested in and able to play.
I have to say, whatever medium we pick, this is going to be the largest group I've ever run (ha, I've run one game before, I should stop making it sound like I know what I'm doing.)
Some thoughts on mechanics:
I'm still deciding on AIM v. Play-by-Post. I should clarify: no matter which way I go, there will be elements of the other involved in play.
My main concern with AIM is, first, the sheer number of people. Eight people in a chat window is going to be an absolute bitch --and we're looking at eight if everbody does decide to play. That's the size group where you usually have a second ST, but I don't have anyone to handle that, so I'd be relying on my wits and charm alone. God help us. *wry*
My other fear with AIM is that things will either become extremely fragmented, and I will have trouble maintaining control of the action. I kind of like that about the medium, actually. But I do not want my players doing things without me being able to watch, and AIM invites players to go behind my back by allowing them to message each other without my input. I trust my players not to do that, but how am I going to keep track of eight-hundred conversations of every possible permutation of players and not enter the wrong thing into *somebody's* window?
As for PbP --this would, honestly, not be my first choice. As terrifying as the idea of being thrown live into an AIM chat window containing seven players is to me, I prefer real-time action to the potentially problematic posting schedule of PbP.
For example: there will be players, like me, who will sit at the computer and do nothing but compulsively refresh until someone posts something, and then they will eat it alive. If another player can only get to the internet twice a week, I feel like that's going really disadvantage them in play, and that people will tend to move on in threads without their input. Not a fun playing experience.
What I am thinking about doing, is holding two sessions a week, both optional. (You could conceivably skip both, but why play?) That would get the players intriguing to know who'd be there, and might potentially result in a smaller group of players at least once a week, which would be nice from the standpoint of the beleagered ST.
Players who would need to miss a session could submit a down-time report telling me what they were doing "while they were in". In fact, one of the other mechanics I'm thinking of instituting is a Limited-Reporting system. Which is just what I'm calling it, not an official term or anything.
Basically, a player who wanted to do significant research --say, learn some new Thaumaturgy, perfect a particular piece of art, or just spend the evening in the library-- would need to miss a certain number of sessions to accomplish their goal. They wouldn't have to miss them consecutively (and wouldn't be allowed to do so except under life-threatening circumstances) but if they wanted an "off-stage" advantage, they would have to earn it by really being off-stage.
Obviously, to limit disruption and keep players interested, I'm going to have to try to limit the number of sessions a player has to "miss" --this would probably only apply to 'full-bore' research situations. Also, I would need to take the player that missed aside either before or after the session to run through what happened while they were absent: one of the things that I regret most about Elyssa's character is that we never really got into the nitty-gritty of researching Thaumaturgy, because that can be quite fascinating. The same applies to any kind of research, really. And I do enough research that I can probably simulate results for my players --let them pick through the results.
The third thing that has me really concerned, is the matter of drama dice.
This was a problem even in my Werewolf game, and it's a tremendous flaw in White Wolf's systems in general: social interaction is "privileged" as a role-not-roll system, so players who invest heavily into Social or Mental attributes suffer for the investment, having put points where they'll never come into play. Good roleplayers often end up min-maxing their characters for physical combat and relying on their own charm and skill to carry the character in social situations. Which is fine --but only if their character is also socially adept.
I've looked over WW's mechanics and I still don't like their system for handing social and mental tasks. So I intend to modify it.
I have a couple options for modifying:
A: Roleplay will lower the difficulty of social and mental challenges, at my discretion.
Obviously, my players are going to have to extend me a lot of trust with this rule --and it would not apply in situations where players are engaging in a contested roll, only against NPCs.
B: The size of a player's die pool will impact the difficulties they face in Social or Mental challenges.
This would apply in all circumstances, including against other players. However, it would only apply on behalf of dice pools of seven or above. A pool of seven or above indicates that a player has specialized one of the skills, or has a Discipline or other advantage working for them. To me, at this level of expertise, familiarity alone should mitigate 1) stupid mischance, and 2) stress.
Finally, regarding secondary skills.
The majority of my players, even the experienced ones, will likely not have heard of Secondary Skills. That's because most ST's don't bother with them. I do allow them. One caveat: they must be bought, and you aren't going to start with them unless they were awarded as part of your Age package.
So what's the advantage?
Secondary Skills are especially narrow fields of skill. They can impact play in two ways:
1) A Secondary Skill may be just that: a skill you've bought and that has some scratched out place on your character sheet. It's not a "primary" skill --rather, it represents a subfield you've put real time into developing.
Secondary Skills have a very narrow range of application. But rolls made using a Secondary Skill are made at a difficulty of -1.
2) A Secondary Skill may be taken as a Specialty. Specialties are applied as epithets to an Ability or an Attribute. For example: Strength (Fists like Anvils), Leadership (Noble), or Intelligence (Synthesis).
If a player's specialty applies to a particular situation, he/she rolls her dice pool as normal. Any 10's that appear may be rerolled (they "explode") for extra successes. The way I run things, even if you don't get more successes, exploded dice cannot cancel earlier successes, or result in botches. So you've nothing to lose by the rolling, just a chance to succeed extraordinarily.
I have some other thoughts, but these'll do for now.