Anatomy of Failed Design: Vampire

[Whipstitch]

The roles and goals issue was definitely the biggest problem I ever ran into. I always thought it was self-evident that characters need to be go-getters or at least hanger-ons if the damn games were to ever get anywhere but unfortunately the WoD DNA still ends up encouraging people to build Toreador and Malkavian expies who sulk when the coterie goes on an adventure instead of getting drunk at an art exhibition.

[hyzmarca]

The roles and goals issue was definitely the biggest problem I ever ran into. I always thought it was self-evident that characters need to be go-getters or at least hanger-ons if the damn games were to ever get anywhere but unfortunately the WoD DNA still ends up encouraging people to build Toreador and Malkavian expies who sulk when the coterie goes on an adventure instead of getting drunk at an art exhibition.

I would totally have a drunken adventure at an art exhibition. With demonically possessed paintings and lots of booze.

It really helps if you get all the players together early and have them work out how they know each other. And to work out team roles. And it could be just as easy as them all riding around together in a van solving mysteries.

I totally want a World of Dooness campaign.

Really, getting all the players on the same page is hard, but it can be done out of character. In character tools for them to work with certainly help.

[Whipstitch]

Problem with the "Wacky shit happens wherever you go" approach is that it can hit Unknown Armies territory real fast.

[Mask_De_H]

I always felt the combat rules and the debate rules were too fiddly, especially with the unsatisfying results combat creates. The hiding rules are also really awkward in play.

I also had a bit of trouble grokking poisons and DoT effects.

[hyzmarca]

Problem with the "Wacky shit happens wherever you go" approach is that it can hit Unknown Armies territory real fast.

You're saying that like it's a bad thing.

The only way Unknown Armies territory can be a bad thing is if you don't have enough LSD for the whole group.

[Username17]

I always felt the combat rules and the debate rules were too fiddly, especially with the unsatisfying results combat creates. The hiding rules are also really awkward in play.

I also had a bit of trouble grokking poisons and DoT effects.

That's a fair criticism. At the core, I'm really using the Vampire/Shadowrun combat round, and that's thoroughly 80s design. Super speed being represented as just a shit tonne more action declarations creates a really big pile of die rolls for no benefit. More damning, all those extra die rolls perversely make combat involving "fast" characters really slow to resolve at the table.

Streamlining needs to happen, and initiative passes need to go away.

-Username17

[Whipstitch]

You're saying that like it's a bad thing.

I get that you're trying to be cute and pithy here, but I'm pretty sure it's the worst thing. Deep acid trips are largely passive and introspective experiences. I like Jodorowsky more than most people but I don't actually need friends around to watch his films.

[Mord]

At the core, I'm really using the Vampire/Shadowrun combat round, and that's thoroughly 80s design. Super speed being represented as just a shit tonne more action declarations creates a really big pile of die rolls for no benefit. More damning, all those extra die rolls perversely make combat involving "fast" characters really slow to resolve at the table.

Streamlining needs to happen, and initiative passes need to go away.

To be replaced with what, exactly?

[hyzmarca]

You're saying that like it's a bad thing.

I get that you're trying to be cute and pithy here, but I'm pretty sure it's the worst thing. Deep acid trips are largely passive and introspective experiences. I like Jodorowsky more than most people but I don't actually need friends around to watch his films.

I find Jodorowsky movies are better with company, personally.

[virgil]

One of my players really doesn't like the randomness of the advancement system.

[OgreBattle]

Any reason not-Shadowrun, not-D&D and not-VTM can't be the same setting in different time periods (future, past, present)?

To be replaced with what, exactly?

This thread goes over some of the pitfalls and solutions:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=432079

"Random extra actions is a non-starter for a bunch of reasons. It's too painful to track, it makes the "go faster" stat into a god stat, and so on. But the fact that bonus actions are large and handing them out randomly doesn't work doesn't mean that you have to hand them out in such a manner as to make the power level breakpoints destroy intergenerational conflicts. I mean, you could do that, b for example giving everyone a Paragon Action when they hit Paragon and tell everyone that there's a big power breakpoint there and fucking deal with it. But there are a number of ways to gradually introduce this shit.

First of all, you could give people a bonus action that is just a bonus Minor Action at Level X, and then a few levels later pokevolve that bonus action into a standard. Secondly, you could give out 4e style "action points" or 5e style limited use bonus actions. These allow characters to act more at higher level without making the characters become a true multiple of effectiveness when that happens. Or you could just plain make the action bonus levels coincide with no other bonuses - which if the swag you get at other levels is sufficiently good could balance out to a progression that felt reasonably smooth (think the 5th level of Wizard in 3e D&D when haste came online but you didn't really have enough spell slots to take advantage of it).

The thing is, this is a problem that D&D R&D has been working on for the last 25 years, and they've come up with a number of workable solutions. "

[Koumei]

One of my players really doesn't like the randomness of the advancement system.

Pretty sure that's come up before, with the response being "If you have to houserule it then do that, but that's a houserule. Dealwithit.jpg"

For the bidding on advancement, is it a feature or a bug that cooperative players can have an agreement to each only bid one point on things, caring more about "we get all the upgrades" than "I WANT THIS THING I WILL GET IT FUCK YOU"?

I'm assuming that is fully intended, that it's part of your INSIDIOUS PLOT TO PROMOTE COMMUNISM THROUGH THE BENEFITS OF COOPERATION. And that's great, because I want more "encourage people to work together" in general. But it's possible that you weren't actually planning on that being the case and in most games it hasn't worked out that way.

[Mord]

@Ogre: Handing out more actions in the same initiative pass doesn't necessarily speed things up as compared to having multiple initiative passes for the same guy... not to mention that it maintains the problem that people with the FastGuyPower get to play more of the game than people who don't.

I like the concept of FastGuyPower downgrading the action costs of things you can already do, but I'm not sure it's as applicable to AS as it would be to 3.X...

[zeruslord]

Any reason not-Shadowrun, not-D&D and not-VTM can't be the same setting in different time periods (future, past, present)?

The biggest issue is that D&D is second-world fiction, while VTM and Shadowrun are definitely set on Earth (with modifications, timeline advancement in Shadowrun, etc). I don't think it's negotiable that a game meant as an alternative to D&D is intended to be set in a non-Earth world, with various species that have never existed and would leave behind evidence. The other issue is that Shadowrun has a very different view of supernatural creatures than VTM does - Shadowrun's playable metatypes are mostly Tolkien-inspired and appeared recently in the world (this might be negotiable, but if you change it then your timeline divergence has to be way earlier), while WoD's are mostly from Hammer Horror and have been around and in hiding the whole time. You could maybe dodge around this by claiming that the WoD cast was in hiding the whole time and the Tolkienesque metatypes only appeared recently and broke the masquerade when they did, but I think that would be bad for the present-day masquerade setting; if the masquerade broke and things were kinda okay, then why spend so much effort maintaining it?

[Whipstitch]

I'm assuming that is fully intended, that it's part of your INSIDIOUS PLOT TO PROMOTE COMMUNISM THROUGH THE BENEFITS OF COOPERATION. And that's great, because I want more "encourage people to work together" in general. But it's possible that you weren't actually planning on that being the case and in most games it hasn't worked out that way.

Dunno if his opinion has changed any but in the past he was fine with that in part because the group's advancement is also limited by cards dealt and not just tokens committed.

[Lokey]

You don't need peace in the Middle East first go on a celerity fix for AS (and I forget how that worked anyway).

I'd probably split it into options to use (not separate powers), but I'm not sure how to scale it with more of it and whether it's worth bothering.

- I go first as long as someone doesn't have me totally by surprise. Easy to scale, more of it means no, actually it's me going first.
- I can use it to cover more distance.
- I can combat move then do something more than other characters can.
- I can speed up an action as long as it makes sense (picking a lock faster, not firing your gun that much faster).

Nice options, not win buttons of course.

[virgil]

Lokey has the right idea of options for super speed. There is also the fact chase scenes are on a different level if someone's a speedster. For melee combat, making their melee actions an area attack or giving them a kind of 'autofire' feature where they do increased damage at the expense of armor being that much better.

[Omegonthesane]

Lokey has the right idea of options for super speed. There is also the fact chase scenes are on a different level if someone's a speedster. For melee combat, making their melee actions an area attack or giving them a kind of 'autofire' feature where they do increased damage at the expense of armor being that much better.

It's worth having an autofire option anyway, so maybe Celerity lets you autofire with non-automatics including not-actually-a-gun weapons. (Presumably weapons that are already able to be fired on full auto have their rate of fire limited by the actual gun rather than the speed of the person firing.)

[Username17]

Super speed in different fictional media does demonstrably different things. In True Blood, characters use bursts of speed to cross great distances in a blur or start combat while enemies are flat footed, but I can't recall them ever throwing eighty punch combinations to repeatedly strike a foe or bullet time dodging incoming fire. In The Matrix, it's completely the opposite, with characters using bursts of speed to multi-attack and dodge projectiles but combats begin with both sides walking (or flying) into the room and readying themselves before shit goes down.

In game terms that can be thought of Speed Bursts where you move quickly, speed bursts where you act quickly, and speed bursts where you perceive things slowing down. That's actually 3 powers which fills out the basics for a discipline: Nimble Feet, Speed of Thought, and Hands Without Shadow. Hands Without Shadow can indeed use autofire rules, so punching many times in a blur doesn't actually have to involve rolling the dice a great many times.


Neo uses Speed of Thought to spot and dodge a bullet

True Blood Vampires use Nimble Feet to change positions quickly.


E. Honda attacks with Hands Without Shadow to replicate autofire with his arm.

Advanced Celerity powers can be things that some but not all super speed characters have - like Flight.

-Username17

[Blicero]

It's less of a structural issue, but I think the game needs to have a lot more examples of background skills. Potency could also stand to have more of a mechanical effect. One of the older threads mentioned having it act as a multiplier for power ranges and effect sizes, which seems like a decent idea.

[Josh_Kablack]

There is also the fact chase scenes are on a different level if someone's a speedster.

Yes, but that could very well just mean that characters with Super Speed (Fleet of Foot) can participate in the Vehicle Chase rules without needing a vehicle.

[Judging__Eagle]

My own (most noticable, from many players) personal concern with AS has been one of the book layout being an obstacle towards character creation; for the newest players at least.

[Username17]

One of my players really doesn't like the randomness of the advancement system.

Pretty sure that's come up before, with the response being "If you have to houserule it then do that, but that's a houserule. Dealwithit.jpg"

For the bidding on advancement, is it a feature or a bug that cooperative players can have an agreement to each only bid one point on things, caring more about "we get all the upgrades" than "I WANT THIS THING I WILL GET IT FUCK YOU"?

I'm assuming that is fully intended, that it's part of your INSIDIOUS PLOT TO PROMOTE COMMUNISM THROUGH THE BENEFITS OF COOPERATION. And that's great, because I want more "encourage people to work together" in general. But it's possible that you weren't actually planning on that being the case and in most games it hasn't worked out that way.

Pretty much, yes. There are advantages and disadvantages to different advancement systems. Point based advancement leads to ever higher levels of specialization with divergent numbers between characters. Leveled advancement avoids that problem by having a level treadmill and being retro and dumb. Randomized advancement is neither of those things, but makes players feel powerless. I put in the bidding system with the randomizer so that players would feel more in control of their character's development, but it's still a compromise not everyone is going to like.

As to the fact that people can and do interact with the bidding is entirely intentional. There's a limited number of cards as well as a limited number of biddable points, so if players want to collude they can and the benefits are tangible but minor.

My own (most noticable, from many players) personal concern with AS has been one of the book layout being an obstacle towards character creation; for the newest players at least.

I didn't innovate much in terms of layout, it's pretty close to simply being the Shadowrun layout, which in turn isn't massively different from the Vampire layout. I'm very open to ideas on how to improve layout, I don't think there have been a lot of advances in that field since the 1980s. When AH and I do comparison OSSRs of similar White Wolf titles produced years apart, one of the things we harp on at times is that the chapter organization is nearly exactly the same in, for example, Orpheus (2003) and Geist (2009).

RPGs are big tomes full of rambletext and you're not fully ready to play the game until at least someone at the table has read the whole thing. Information is not generally presented in a terribly good format, and I think there's a lot of room for improvement. So basically: I'm open to suggestions.

-Username17

[Longes]

Something that I feel needs to be noted about oWoD is how it completely and utterly failed to use its setting to its strengths at any given point. And by "its setting" I mean real world with all of its history.
For example: according to Tribebook Bone Gnawers, French Revolution was a Bone Gnawer plot to kill parisian vampires. A massively influential, literally revolutionary period in history, reduced to a power struggle over a single town. Practically every subfaction in every splat claims responsibility for the Inquisition, despite the fact that we actually know what started the witch hunts - famine and draught. There's never any discussion of how the supernaturals dealt with the Inquisition - it's always just "We kickstarted the witch hunts to deal a blow against Werewolves/Blackulas/Snuffletrouts. Every time there is a possibility to use the fact that the game is set in the real world with real history White Wolf chooses to pick the dumbest possible option or just ignore the event and its implications. "How did Get of Fenris react to rise of nazism? Um. Uh. It was kinda split about it."

[DrPraetor]

Some of this might still be inexplicable to people who weren't in Frank's Shadowrun game?

Edited from an e-mail exchange (but perhaps interesting to other people as commentary):
Examples of Play:
Pride and PrejudiceThe Sting and Zombies: Goes through the plot of the movie the Sting, and explains how each scene would be run in game, with alternatives based on how the players would have to react to a setback or failure at each stage (with shout-outs to the stuff that doesn't quite work.)
My Fair LadyOcean's 11 with Vampires: As above with a different movie, and running an intrusion mission rather than a long con.
The second is the default for Shadowrun and the game provides remarkably poor support on how to actually run that scenario!
I know that Frank knows (or at least was able to improvise through) both of these plots, but a step-by-step breakdown on how to use the rules to run these movies would I think be a big help to someone trying to learn how to run a game.

I think the game needs more material on each supernatural individually, of the sort you would get in a game where everyone plays vampires or werewolves:
[*] What happens when vampires/dryads/werewolves go to the dentist/cardiologist/veterinarian? With all respect to Frank's love of brevity, I think you need a page to a page-and-a-half for each supernatural type on their individual quirks.

[*] How about a bullemic toxin - will a vampire vomit blood? Do vampires who have freshly fed have blood in their stomachs? Do they have recognizable human anatomy at all?

[*] And so on.

Some new playable types:
I really like the Mi Go, but I don't think they cover the conceptual space of the monster that the teenybopper goth chick in the ankh wants to be/fuck. So I think we need an additional type for this crucial demo.

Either The Claimed is a new trio of Kin, or these are the three new transhuman types. Inspirations are Host, the Fifth Wave, Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan, The Man who Fell to Earth, Third Rock from the Sun, Parasite (the Manga), the Exorcist - I'm forgetting some. The Claimed have limited access to the memories of the person they replaced (but may succeed in passing as the person they replaced anyway).

Infernal variety are Possessed - a demon replaces you; Astral variety are the Others - a probably alien/pod person entity replaces you; these are the monsters that teenage girls want to fuck now. Orphic variety are the Fettered - it has been suggested that you can play ghosts, I think it's better to play ghosts as having taken over a brain-dead person's body, but you might just want them to start with possession?

In all cases the original person is dead and gone, "curing" a possessed person lobotomizes or kills them. But for player characters, they are hung up about the life details of the person they replaced.