draft prospectus

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by johndallman

There's a major discontinuity at "new" WoD, far larger than the changes between editions of the "old" WoD games. And with the "old" games, the editions are of the individual games, not of the rules system or the world: the rules were never fully coordinated across the games.

"New WoD" started being published in 2004, with the core rulebook, and Vampire: the Requiem, followed by Werewolf; the Forsaken and Mage: the Awakening. While the rules system is much better organised, the atmosphere and backstory of the setting was changed drastically. The Wikipedia page seems to give a reasonable account of what happened.

My impression of it on reading the core book and the new Mage was that it was all determinedly constructed to try to produce the designer's exact idea of what the game should be, and if this wasn't to your taste, that was your fault for failing to comprehend their brilliance. Since none of the WoD games I have played in were remotely as depressing and doom-laden as the designers seemed to consider desirable, the idea of having that enforced by the rule system wasn't attractive.

This seems to have been a reasonably common opinion, since everyone I know who plays White Wolf games has stayed with "old" WoD.

While the rules became better coordinated, they were also dumbed down in some of the worst possible ways. Not only was very much of the stuff abstracted. Accuracy and damage became one. Snipers can no longer go for a one shot, one kill. The flavours of mages have been largely reduced.

I do have to admit that I'm intrigued by the new Geist, who are the antipode-descendant of Wraith. OTOH, I hate what they reversed Changeling: now instead of fighting against the Banality of the world, they're quivering in fear of their own weirdness (and the Fair Folk was made to be unambiguously bad, despite a thin veneer of BlueAndOrangeMorality).

Oh, and the way they reorganised Mage Spheres into Arcana is kinda meh too. Ditching Entropy was a major loss of unique flavour. Addition of Death as a separate Arcanum was another step into generification, and felt extremely forced for a line which already has Spirit and used to have Entropy.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm looking at making a change in my GMing next year: running two campaigns instead of three, and with longer duration than two years, at least three and perhaps as much as five. So I've been looking at campaign ideas that might work on that scale. Here's what I've thought of so far; I may not keep all of them, and I might add one or two. Mainly I'm looking at campaigns in fairly classic gaming idioms, not the weird experimental stuff I've done at times.

(If you want to respond, allocate 10 points among the five campaigns: non-negative integer values only, please.)

___ Eloi. Near future social science fiction. Run in GURPS. Source material: Transhuman Space and its supplements.
Set in Transhuman Space, in a Fifth Wave nation, probably English-speaking. Player characters will be Eloi: people who have been successful enough economically to live on their investments and work only for personal satisfaction. Play will focus on social interaction on scales ranging from personal relationships to large-scale memetic campaigns, but centering on community identity and reputation. Secondarily, these relationships will be used as a perspective through which to explore the Transhuman Space setting.

3 points. I've never gotten to play in Transhuman Space but I love the background, and this looks like a great way to become immersed in it.

___ Fronteira. Science fiction noir. Run in GURPS.
In the mid-23rd century, humanity has colonized and begun terraforming Mars. Player characters will be residents of one of Mars’s largest cities, at the base of the orbital elevator on Pavonis Mons, built and operated by a Brazilian megacorporation. Player characters will be colonists working to survive, prosper, and cope with emergencies in a sometimes lethally hostile environment. All characters will be human with minor genetic or cybernetic upgrades; the setting will be somewhat conservative technologically. Play will not be scenario-based but will make up one continuing storyline, exploring the physical and cultural setting and the relationships among the characters.

2 points. I like the continuing storyline but might be looking for a different sort of crisis just now.

___ Shadowlands. Postapocalyptic dark fantasy. Run in Big Eyes, Small Mouth or classic World of Darkness.
Technology is failing and the world is reverting to preindustrial conditions, as magic returns to the world. Player characters will be residents of a college town that’s struggling to adapt to the change. Characters will have the option of learning some forms of magic, but the use of magic will be inherently perilous. Scenarios will be driven partly by the effort to survive and partly by mystical threats.

1 point. Interesting, but something I could pass on for the moment. The campaign type is familiar enough that I'm sure it won't be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

___ Tapestry. Historical fantasy. Run in Big Eyes, Small Mouth or GURPS.
Set in a GM-defined fantasy world inhabited by a number of intelligent humanoid races, each with its own magical style, culture, and preferred habitat. Technology will be mainly bronze age; magical traditions will be largely spirit-based. Player characters can belong to any race, or can be of mixed ancestry, though hybrids are rare and often sterile. The point of departure will be one of the world’s first cities, from which player characters will go out on quests, which they should be competent and motivated to undertake. The main focus will be on exploration, encounters with other races and cultures, and magical traditions.

0 points. Maybe next time. It doesn't sound bad, but I only have so many points and other campaigns engage my interest more.

___ World Class. Superhero drama. Run in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. Source material: The Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man I–III, Thor.
Player characters will be original superheroes, perhaps the only ones in the world and certainly among the first to appear. Character concepts should be suitable for group or team efforts but need not preclude disagreement and character conflict; the ethical abstraction that a character embodies will be as important as their powers or skills. Players will have a substantial role in defining the campaign setting, by establishing supporting casts, because the sources of their special abilities will define the possibilities for other superbeings, and because their character concepts—which need not follow the traditional formula—will define what it means to be a “superhero” in this world. There will be a lot of action, but the campaign will also look at investigation, political and cultural influence, and interpersonal relationships.

Four points. I've GM'd a one-on-one supers game recently with strong social elements, and it ROCKS. I'd love to see what you do with this.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Hmm. I've never heard of Wushu; I've heard of Legend of the Five Rings but never looked at it; I borrowed a friend's copy of Feng Shui from a friend some years back, read it, and concluded that you could not pay me to run it or play it. I've seen both Chinese wuxia and Japanese chambara, but I'm not quite sure how I'd turn either into a game. Any thoughts?

I've been proposing a new space opera/wuxia campaign for awhile (with a sort of sub-premise of Star Wars done right). I'm not sure if that's any help to you though.

It also occurs to me that you've missed Westerns (of which I am running one in the upcoming cycle, well Western/Horror/Post-Apocalypse anyway).

[whswhs]

At this point, I've had five suggestions for other campaign types:

Cosmic horror: Certainly one I'm fond of, but I had a cosmic horror campaign in my last cycle (set in Transhuman Space) and I have one in my current cycle (based on the Laundry Files). And Shadowlands, while not full on cosmic horror, is going to be partly about the fear of an irrational universe. So I think in this cycle it would be redundant.

Interstellar trade: It would be a third sf campaign, along with Eloi and Fronteira; I might want to drop one of them if I added it. I'd be more tempted by that if my players showed more enthusiasm for mercantile activities as a theme, but in fact, they mostly ignore buying and selling when it comes up. So probably not a high priority, though with a different player population it could be fun.

Martial arts/Asian fantasy: Kind of tempting, either straight (perhaps using Chinese Elemental Powers) or loosely inspired (perhaps using Exalted). One to think about. I'd want to turn up the fantasy, as my current campaign Water Margin definitely has the martial arts—though that might take it a bit closer to Tapestry, which will have the kind of spirit-based magic that I associate with Asian settings.

Pirates: I've run a couple of ship to ship combat scenes in Water Margin, and I'm not so thrilled with them as a way to do exciting fight scenes; there's too much ship-level maneuvering where the player characters are cogs in the machinery.

Western: Straight western is just not a genre I have much knowledge of. If it's going to have fantastic elements, well, Shadowlands will have small communities surrounded by supernatural wilderness, and Fronteira is about a pioneering city in outer space, so that part's covered. But without fantastic elements I'd doubt my own ability to sustain a campaign for multiple years.

I think that martial arts/Asian fantasy is the one I'd most want to think about. Maybe I'll come up with a suitable idea.

Bill Stoddard

[combatmedic]

What about doing a Western game that follows a three generation model?



First Gen: starts in 1848 with the end of the Mexican War, Sutter's Mill/Gold Rush in CA

Second Gen: starts in 1873, Indian Wars going on in some places, growth of settlement and the conflicts that brings

Third gen: starts in starts in 1898 with the Spanish-American War , end of the 'frontier era' in many ways, the last Indian nations to resist will be subdued in this generation

I'm thinking in terms of a family saga. It could be run kind of like a Pendragon campaign with one adventure per year, and then a Winter Phase. Vary that if you need consecutive games to tell a given story, natch, or if you wish to skip over a longer period of time.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

What about doing a Western game that follows a three generation model?



First Gen: starts in 1848 with the end of the Mexican War, Sutter's Mill/Gold Rush in CA

Second Gen: starts in 1873, Indian Wars going on in some places, growth of settlement and the conflicts that brings

Third gen: starts in starts in 1898 with the Spanish-American War , end of the 'frontier era' in many ways, the last Indian nations to resist will be subdued in this generation

I'm thinking in terms of a family saga. It could be run kind of like a Pendragon campaign with one adventure per year, and then a Winter Phase. Vary that if you need consecutive games to tell a given story, natch, or if you wish to skip over a longer period of time.

I don't really have a good sense for that period and region, though. It sounds like it would be an interesting campaign for you to run. . . .

The historical progression is interesting as a device. I haven't really seen that kind of thing in use, and I don't have a sense for how it works. It might be adaptable, say, to an Upstairs, Downstairs campaign. But I think I'd want to do it in a shorter campaign, because it would be something of an experiment.

Bill Stoddard

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't really have a good sense for that period and region, though. It sounds like it would be an interesting campaign for you to run. . . .

The historical progression is interesting as a device. I haven't really seen that kind of thing in use, and I don't have a sense for how it works. It might be adaptable, say, to an Upstairs, Downstairs campaign. But I think I'd want to do it in a shorter campaign, because it would be something of an experiment.

Bill Stoddard

You may be right. Bill. Perhaps I will run something like that in the future. :)


Here are some other ideas, ones that don't involve the generational model:

• 'kids investigate spooky stuff'
  
  I'm thinking of works by John Bellairs, among other things.
  
  
• 'bodice ripping gothic'
  
  Take cheesy Harlequin Gothics and make a game out of them?
  
  
• 'absurdist SF'
  
  
  I just watched the first episode of Red Dwarf the other day. Looks fun.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I just watched the first episode of Red Dwarf the other day. Looks fun.

I've seen maybe one or two episodes of Red Dwarf and it's just totally not my thing. It was worse than Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (I suspect if I had ever seen Dr. Who I would add it to the list, but I've managed to avoid it completely.)

So no, I don't think that's the right kind of campaign for me to run.

Bill Stoddard

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

You may be right. Bill. Perhaps I will run something like that in the future. :)


Here are some other ideas, ones that don't involve the generational model:

• 'kids investigate spooky stuff'
  
  I'm thinking of works by John Bellairs, among other things.

OK, I may have to do something with that one. :)

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I've seen maybe one or two episodes of Red Dwarf and it's just totally not my thing. It was worse than Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (I suspect if I had ever seen Dr. Who I would add it to the list, but I've managed to avoid it completely.)

So no, I don't think that's the right kind of campaign for me to run.

Bill Stoddard

Red dwarf: I liked the first episode, but that's all I've seen. I don't know how it develops.

Dr. Who: I like some of the older episodes from the 60s. I'm not into the post 2000 stuff.

HGttG: I've never been interested in Douglas Adams' work.

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

OK, I may have to do something with that one. :)

:)

Yep. I'd run it with GURPS, probably. Mid-20th Century, no Internet searches or cell phones.