Reset Thoughts
I sent this to my RST after he asked for opinions on reset, thought I would share!
Hey RST,
Saw your post and wanted to give you some of my thoughts.
I agree completely with everything you said. Some additional things
I would like to see:
More snow, less snowflakes. I think bloodlines should be NST or higher. There
is not enough "vanilla" clans and people align with their bloodlines, not their clans
as a whole. Couple this with the covenants and there is too many diverse groups. This leads
to a boring game because there is nothing to polarize people.
Make diablerie more appealing. Yes, I know it was bad in the old game, but was it that bad? Made for more conflict and some great/memorable villains! Now its just a waste of time.
More to fight over. There's really nothing for people to fight over at a level higher than local. Like cam vs. sabbat. Like bloodhunts being upheld throughout regions. Brood and VII are so cliche' and boring and always NPC, so it turns into plot bus monster of the week. Maybe make a seperate venue and allow some cross over, of course,you know I'm a sabbat/villain junkie!
Princes symposiums in vampire.
A general status system for all vampires. Make it mean something. Give something else
to fight over. I do love that age has nothing to do with it, thats a start but people need more accountability IC.
Overarching law system. Justicars and archons or something similar to that. I would be against them being portrayed by one ST as an NPC. Let them be PC's so they can be killed/taken out without having to jump through hoops. ST's in those positions tend to get attached to the NPC. Just please, no conclaves where NPC's steal the show. Let the player's do it, but give them tools to enforce it like making status mean something. The gist of your post is that WW didn't define the new world for a global chronicle. Let's make it our own.
Less good death xp for when people appeal and/or are hostile. Less appealing of character death in general. People who don't appeal and are class acts should be singled out and praised/rewarded. Most combat scenes I was in the victim/person was practically
writing their appeal before the first round was over. The attitude of people is atrocious. There needs to be more fostering of better and responsible roleplay and more people being taken to task for their unacceptable behavior.
Some kind of bone for character death. Like, you start with a certain amount for how long you
were in play so you don't have to play catch up when you die. Make benchmarks, so when people hit levels, they know even if something goes wrong, they are ok for their next PC. However, if they make a revenge PC and die quickly or get desanctioned, they start at the new benchmark. I think the main issue is people are too attached to their characters.
Losing a PC is a great way to grow into maturity as a roleplayer and if its not a huge loss to make another one, I think people will be more civil when it comes to conflict. I say this because our official approach is a mmrpg. In a mmorpg, when you die, you
don't have to start completely over. It should be difficult, maybe painful, but I feel like with this chronicle, because there is so much to spend xp on and its been going for so long people are scared to lose what they have worked on and scared people are not rational nor civil.
Less xp in general.
Less math. My dream would be rock paper scissors, but I know that is gone. I think we need to find something that is less math intensive, its hard for new players (myself included).
More accountability/record keeping. I remember in oWoD you had to have signatures, approvals, etc. Because special things are so common cheating is much more rampant in this chronicle and no way to really keep the books. It's also easy to cheat by mistake because you're not a math genius(see above).
I agree completely on customs. In fact, I would outlaw custom bloodlines and allow only custom devotions, that way they can be taught and its not one group in control all the time. But I would not allow any custom stuff for at least a year into chronicle. Maybe more.
Staking is way to easy and instant death in vampire. It needs to be alot harder, otherwise it comes down to initiative everytime. its hard to avoid the one trick mook pony, but I'm sure with some thought, it could be done. Dying without taking a single action is not fun for anyone. Combats last forever even in the new system, I don't see how letting the underdog get a chance would hurt that.
One thing that a friend of mine said that I really take to heart: We're essentially playing ancient vampires who are acting out the last years of their existence. People should be encouraged to settle scores and take chances more. It should be stated that your PC will die before the end of the story, so play your heart out or something similar, your story will end, etc.
Anyways, these are just a few of my thoughts, I hope they make sense as I was just writing what came to mind.
Hey RST,
Saw your post and wanted to give you some of my thoughts.
I agree completely with everything you said. Some additional things
I would like to see:
More snow, less snowflakes. I think bloodlines should be NST or higher. There
is not enough "vanilla" clans and people align with their bloodlines, not their clans
as a whole. Couple this with the covenants and there is too many diverse groups. This leads
to a boring game because there is nothing to polarize people.
Make diablerie more appealing. Yes, I know it was bad in the old game, but was it that bad? Made for more conflict and some great/memorable villains! Now its just a waste of time.
More to fight over. There's really nothing for people to fight over at a level higher than local. Like cam vs. sabbat. Like bloodhunts being upheld throughout regions. Brood and VII are so cliche' and boring and always NPC, so it turns into plot bus monster of the week. Maybe make a seperate venue and allow some cross over, of course,you know I'm a sabbat/villain junkie!
Princes symposiums in vampire.
A general status system for all vampires. Make it mean something. Give something else
to fight over. I do love that age has nothing to do with it, thats a start but people need more accountability IC.
Overarching law system. Justicars and archons or something similar to that. I would be against them being portrayed by one ST as an NPC. Let them be PC's so they can be killed/taken out without having to jump through hoops. ST's in those positions tend to get attached to the NPC. Just please, no conclaves where NPC's steal the show. Let the player's do it, but give them tools to enforce it like making status mean something. The gist of your post is that WW didn't define the new world for a global chronicle. Let's make it our own.
Less good death xp for when people appeal and/or are hostile. Less appealing of character death in general. People who don't appeal and are class acts should be singled out and praised/rewarded. Most combat scenes I was in the victim/person was practically
writing their appeal before the first round was over. The attitude of people is atrocious. There needs to be more fostering of better and responsible roleplay and more people being taken to task for their unacceptable behavior.
Some kind of bone for character death. Like, you start with a certain amount for how long you
were in play so you don't have to play catch up when you die. Make benchmarks, so when people hit levels, they know even if something goes wrong, they are ok for their next PC. However, if they make a revenge PC and die quickly or get desanctioned, they start at the new benchmark. I think the main issue is people are too attached to their characters.
Losing a PC is a great way to grow into maturity as a roleplayer and if its not a huge loss to make another one, I think people will be more civil when it comes to conflict. I say this because our official approach is a mmrpg. In a mmorpg, when you die, you
don't have to start completely over. It should be difficult, maybe painful, but I feel like with this chronicle, because there is so much to spend xp on and its been going for so long people are scared to lose what they have worked on and scared people are not rational nor civil.
Less xp in general.
Less math. My dream would be rock paper scissors, but I know that is gone. I think we need to find something that is less math intensive, its hard for new players (myself included).
More accountability/record keeping. I remember in oWoD you had to have signatures, approvals, etc. Because special things are so common cheating is much more rampant in this chronicle and no way to really keep the books. It's also easy to cheat by mistake because you're not a math genius(see above).
I agree completely on customs. In fact, I would outlaw custom bloodlines and allow only custom devotions, that way they can be taught and its not one group in control all the time. But I would not allow any custom stuff for at least a year into chronicle. Maybe more.
Staking is way to easy and instant death in vampire. It needs to be alot harder, otherwise it comes down to initiative everytime. its hard to avoid the one trick mook pony, but I'm sure with some thought, it could be done. Dying without taking a single action is not fun for anyone. Combats last forever even in the new system, I don't see how letting the underdog get a chance would hurt that.
One thing that a friend of mine said that I really take to heart: We're essentially playing ancient vampires who are acting out the last years of their existence. People should be encouraged to settle scores and take chances more. It should be stated that your PC will die before the end of the story, so play your heart out or something similar, your story will end, etc.
Anyways, these are just a few of my thoughts, I hope they make sense as I was just writing what came to mind.