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Post by Triple 7 on Dec 29, 2020 8:09:29 GMT -8
Lets get real, people have concerns and this year hasn't been the best for this hobby.
I am open to suggestions and looking forward to holding a conversation about the direction of our Chronicle. I remind everyone that we have a Player Advicate to turn to if you feel the public forum isn't your place to speak freely.
My own concern is that I don't have a lot of time to focus on running this story. The motivation and interest has always and will always be there, but between a safety investigation taking my focus , normal work hours, a family, and dealing with daily life I have not been able to devote the time I want to the story. My solution is using the DTA system we have but a lot of times those take more time than I want. (Especially if you use them to follow PC's because I have to wait until the end of the month to answer what those PC's have been up to for that month!)
With that being said, but are your concerns for the story? Where can we improve the way we run this story? And, what suggestions do you have to make the narrative story better for your roleplaying experience here at Emerald City Nights?
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Post by harry on Dec 29, 2020 9:51:59 GMT -8
One of the issues i perceive is people have been wanting to speak to NPCs and finding them unavailable , because of your timing limitations , or being unable to approach the STs in the right way to run these scenes.
Which either ends up with people starting scenes that never get responded to, or the meetings never happening in the first place.( I have tried various approaches myself - from just popping in, to asking STs in DMs, to 'booking' scenes in actions in private, with varying results)
That's where i think can be some improvement. Maybe with a 'Scene Request' room/thread/ area where it can be at a first come / first serve basis.
And since i understand that running NPCs takes time, energy and focus, maybe they should come at a cost of a DTA per scene, so at least it takes some of the workload off of your hands.
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Post by becuz on Dec 29, 2020 10:01:38 GMT -8
Speaking out in a public forum is the hardest thing any player can do. It tends to come across as overly critical or 'whiny' no matter what's said or the points trying to be made. Especially when it's prefaced with 'I'm trying the best that I can.'
With that said though, I feel like someone has to start to I'm going to take a shot at it.
I came into this game to play with some friends away from the game that I help ST for. I like vampire, I understand the theme, the backstabbing, the politics. I've enjoyed a lot of this game but lately it's gotten to the point where I don't feel like there is anything that we can do to move forward.
I understand we're probably not doing things the way that the ST staff thinks we need to to actually get anywhere with the storyline. I also know that information is being purposely controlled and doled out slowly because that is the pace that the STs need in order to be able to keep up with the game. In a table top game it's a once a week session, so things move slowly. In a 24-7 game though it creates this stagnation and the feeling as though the characters and the players really can't get anywhere.
The STs want PC leadership. Which as an ST in other games, I can understand, but when the largely unavailable and uncooperative NPCs can and do block things multiple months in a row but can't be reached in the meantime. (I understand NPCs have their own intentions, desires, and plans) It tosses up even more road blocks. This when players have been encouraged to go for it ooc and in DMs can leave a bad taste in a players mouth.
This all leads to a lot of frustration. That frustration is compounded exponentially when the NPC bad guys pop up suddenly (despite many people looking for them) and deliver a blow that seems as though the players had little to no way to win. 2 pack members inside the other 2 outside waiting. Would they have jumped in? Why wouldn't they? Is there any reason they shouldn't have? No, no good story reason.
Sure, the ST didn't intend to kill any PCs but we all know how the dice are. Could the dice have gone the other way? Sure. Did they hit the oldest PC on the chat and nearly kill them in 2 rounds? Yes. Does it make sense for the NPCs to attack and not kill the PCs that they purposely attacked? No. Not really.
What does this tell the other players? Don't go at it physically.
Ok. But all the other moves are DTAs which are highly limited and tax the STs. They're slow on turn around and leave us all in limbo until they do get answered.
I didn't come here to Sex in the City.. but that's looking like more fun then beating my head against the wall.
I keep getting told it's possible. Every NPC has a weakness. There's a way to do this. There's still a way to progress.. (I know I can't win but a step forward would be great.) I'm sure there is. If you play it the way the STs envision it.
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Post by Scared on Dec 29, 2020 14:17:35 GMT -8
I have to agree with all of what Becuz and Harry said...and here is the less polite version of it. I preface saying that I apologize for any misunderstanding, misconception or butt hurt that this may cause. If it does sound petty and childish well...blame the south american blood in my veins.
DTAs is a great idea but right now is the entirety of the game. If you want information, if you want character advancement, if you want scenes!
And DTAs are a pain in the ass. Most things take time and I understand it, most things should take time and effort but there needs to be a balance between what is a reflection of real life and the nature of an online game. For example: A DTA is needed to get kindred lore at level 1. Like really? Yes it is realistic that it would take time to know Lore 1 but game wise it seems you are giving yourself more work than its worth it. The blanket rule of ALL lores need a DTA seems like a bit inconsiderate of nuances that come along with people playing daily and not LARPing once a week/month.
I have seen characters try to get in touch with a Primogen and get told off that they need to put a DTA and that there's no time to run a scene for them or rather that there are things in line that come before running said scene.
And there might be, there might be so many things on the background happening but as a player I would like to see at least something coming out to the light. An announcement that someone got a win. A primogen telling ppl off or actually doing something like supporting the appointment of a person to a or b position. The prestation idea is good but a vampire would just say "FU you greedy bastard" to most of the demands of prestation around here.
Yes Elders are antagonists and bored and need to make them kindred work for it, but it seems players are both fighting against the Sabbat and getting shafted by the Camarilla members because prestation is more important then getting a PLAYER to replace a vacant NPC spot. That is tiresome, alien and quite boring after some time. It is GREAT for a LARP or Forum game, but an online game has a different pace.
NPCS are powerful (as they should be) yet not a single good guy NPC ever shows up, ever speaks but to give little tasks to the kindred that then have to be done via DTA! Yes that might be the way Elders are...in the books and in our minds but functionally it does not work. In an online game it does not work. I'm not advocating they join us in our coffee shop RP but in a fight? In preparing an attack? In providing information? Hell yes otherwise we don't need them. They can just sit on the background and we will run the show as you say you want. Do I want them to save the day? No, thanks we can try that ourselves but do I want to interact with them? Yes, very much so, otherwise they are worthless and not needed.
Last night scene was somehow an eye opener (love you Mando), we will never be a proactive game, only reactive, only taking the beating because it feels impossible to do anything and don't give me the different ways to skin a cat speech, its obviously not working and it feels somehow self serving as its either your way or no way. Or....we can do things...like immediate rolls to save face and the Masquerade...but nothing too extensive or fun otherwise you might reveal too much on our storyline? I mean...yes a storyline needs pacing but not as slow as to become a blur of days and events that don't connect with each other anymore.
TBH sometimes it feels like we are just an annoyance to you to deal with the way you sometimes speak or make comments. Like we are too stupid for you to want to deal with us or that we should know exactly how you want us to act. Well we don't and we will probably never act the way you think we should because ppl are different from you. None of us is the IDEAL player you have in your head.
I have no problems with a heavy antagonistic game. I also understand it takes a lot of time and dedication to run it and I am ever so grateful we have a server to play at. I just wish I didn't hear so much of the same words from my peer players, words like "don't bother", "its impossible" "I understand why people quit" "I don't know what to do with my DTAs".
Now I offered you no way out of this... given no suggestions directly and for that I apologize again. I am not a leader, I am a listener and I believe my sentiments are to an extent shared by others.
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Post by magick on Dec 29, 2020 14:46:11 GMT -8
Ideas to help with the story:
DTAs take time but the hope is the rolls will achieve some deeper information or insight. (Patrols, Research, etc) When STs are available, perhaps a single roll for a night or two of patrols instead of the whole month? Or a quick insight roll to get an idea or some direction to better detail the DTAs. This might save both the players and the STs some time when processing those. It could also save waiting 3 weeks for an answer only to have it not be processed and then possibly forgotten or missed.
Teaching/Learning - instead of taking up DTA's maybe there's a single slot each month. You can only teach or learn 1 thing per month outside of DTAs. If you choose to do more than that? Then it eats up a DTA spot.
Influence/Allies use - I know it says that not all influence or allies usage needs a DTA but it's not well defined on what does or doesn't need those slots. This probably can't be spelled out exactly but perhaps we could say an 'in the moment' use is simply rolls and an after or before the fact action takes the DTA?
Leadership - I don't know how to help with this but the city feels really chaotic with neither too many chiefs or enough.
Also, an apology for Mando and some kudos. The scene last night was good. I'm sorry I got caught up in the moment but I really didn't understand how or why it was coming about. Why they wouldn't just roll in and slaughter us. I kind of get it better now. Dead characters don't really make people want to play.
Thanks.
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Post by kemian75 on Dec 29, 2020 20:23:38 GMT -8
My biggest complaint is the lack of a Scene Request Thread and the appearance of impropriety. Without a scene request thread there is literally no way that any of the players know who has made a scene request first and it sometimes appears as though those that know the ST's and their schedules better are able to luck into getting scenes performed for them on the spot while others wait for weeks and when we try to press we get told that it will have to be done later and it *feels* like later is actually never.
It was why I personally try to get as much as I can possibly do done via DTA's.
If we have a public scene request thread, then the ST's can publcally acknowledge when a scene has been completed and it can be a first request first served basis or that plus availability ranking.
If the ST's are concerned about getting mobbed with scene requests I would suggest limiting them to 1 scene per PC per month.
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Post by harry on Jan 13, 2021 7:51:47 GMT -8
Okay, one more thing I want to put on the table :
When a free from time scene ends, it should be marked as having happened at the time it ends , not the time it starts . Because right now, for example, our characters are all supposed to have been sitting on their asses on the Papa Croc lair information for an entire week ( Could have even been a month, if the scene was slower) , when they couldn't have done anything with that information in the first place, because we as the players didn't possess that information until it ended !
I find that when I enter these kind of scenes, i completely lose the ability to rp other stuff for however long it takes, because a ) i dont know if my character will even survive them, b) the lack of information that might change his behavior in future scenes. Like, say, having 5 agg on him that *I* dont know about. It also personally makes me completely lose my focus when it finally ends and it takes a while to get my head back in the game.
I think it's an easy fix, and it changes nothing narrative-wise, because the time a scene starts is almost always arbitrary ( we already rely on when another player or ST is present, so we start them whenever anyways)
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Post by generalissimo on Jun 29, 2021 18:16:18 GMT -8
"I don't know what to do with my DTAs". I have ongoing problems with this. Keeping losing so much downtime to "Unable to process."
To a point I am significantly behind getting ANYTHING setup.
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Post by Triple 7 on Jul 2, 2021 1:33:00 GMT -8
Unable to process usually come with directions on why I couldn't. If you're able to repost the request prior to the end of the month I am able to usually process them. I am often flexible as well, knowing that it can be some time before I am able to answer them and take that into consideration sometimes. As well, there are not a lot of Storyline's that have a hard timeline to follow or any deadlines. The story will always be there, we're (mostly) playing Vampires that last forever. Their gambits can take years to come into fruition. I keep that in mind. You're really only racing other Players to a prize it seems.
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Post by sarael on Jul 5, 2021 2:23:14 GMT -8
Okay, we all know I don't play very much - though previously I was quite active within the venue both as a player, and as a temporary Sabbat Storyteller. So, I will give my break down - which may seem harsh, and for that I apologise in advance.
1 - Antagonistic Game vs. Storyteller Against Players: A great deal of the game is reactionary vs proactive, and when it's reactive it leaves a bad taste in a player's mouth when nearly constantly the Antagonists always are winning. It comes off as quite a pointless game if players can't accomplish goals against an enemy that constantly bests them in every avenue. That makes the game little more than a D&D dungeon crawl where the final Big Bad just shits in your cornflakes and you're out of luck. Even canonically, Elders are dicks - I get it, but when the players are beset on all sides and can't actually make progress against enemies or enemies constantly are popping level 5 disciplines; it feels more like taking the piss than any actual narrative driven by the players.
2 - DTAs; these are limited fairly heavily, and while I personally love DTAs in both LARP, Table Top, and Online - it should be able to be a considerable more flexible in what is permissible, even if it's not something listed on the chart presented; I've literally had 1 character out of three accomplish something in DTAs....and that was learning a lore that I should have already had, given the Path the character was on.
3 - Politics & Prestation: At the core of a game, especially Vampire, in an online setting - the Politics and Prestation should be more player driven and follow closer to the intrigue presented in canonical sources, Boons are a currency that get traded often - and the cash out of them and type presented thus far is....far from how they operate. Requiring prestation to get presented in the Cam when you've already been Acknowledged within the Cam? Since when did Vampires require you to under go the tradition of Accounting twice? Never. It's a precedence that makes players become involved in prestation even if they wouldn't normally and feels very Deus Ex.
4 - The appearance of Cherubim (Alice Ménard): This....this amused me and before dropping an NPC that was directly tied to Pedophilia and a six year old that is sexually driven was, from one Storyteller to another, tasteless and offensive. While I get the research wasn't done before hand, that shows a distinct lack of preparation for dropping such in, not to mention the sheer level of consideration. Dropping a child NPC in is one thing, but that character specifically leaves a very dangerous precedent - accidents happen, so I won't harp on this too much.
5 - Knowing what I do of the plot previously: Great plot, but trying to pigeon hole players into what you believe they should be doing vs. what the player's agency and character would do? No mate, then you're writing a book, not running a cooperative storytelling game. Let players play their characters how *they* perceive them to be - and if they fuck up? Then consequences or what not.
- To quote your own perspective, but that seems to occasionally fall by the wayside.
6 - Overall? Fairly good job with the game, and I know some of this sounds harsh, but I'm not known for being tender in my words - which pisses a lot of people off. You have kept this game going for quite a while, and I enjoy most of it (though, let's be fair, most of the time I've avoided politics in this game like the plague). It's why I played here, and have given you so many props for some of the shit you've come up with.
Mando, haven't had much of a chance to play with you as an ST - T7, loosen the reins a bit and I think you'll still be able to tell the story you want to tell, but you gotta be able to improvise on the fly vs. being rigid.
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Post by Triple 7 on Jul 5, 2021 3:18:26 GMT -8
1 - Antagonistic Game vs. Storyteller Against Players: I get this and historically haven't been great ad promoting balance in Character. We tend to make named NPC more difficult to promote longevity. We want them to be a persistent annoyance that the Players have to overcome with their Characters. Things like the Tadpoles or randomly generated NPC's are much less powerful to destroy easier. I have a pretty good understanding of who and where the Antagonists are in my Chronicle and I don't support the generation of random NPC's to come out on top in a scene.
I prefer longevity because I want the story to continue. This is an open world and I have a duty to uphold the story and see it prosper. No NPC is safe and I do not protect them with random successes. They have Character sheets we adhere to and the dice determine the outcome. The majority of the time it seems the entire city rains down upon one NPC (as was the case in the Hiroshima fight). As an example of not protecting my NPC's, one of my favorites was just recently Diablerized without contest.
2 - DTAs: They're not here to replace scenes. We promote Player scenes first and run this Chronicle similar to a LARP in which the Players have the majority of control over the story. I want Players to push the Chronicle while I guide the story. With that in mind, DTA's are meant to pace personal Character advancement, control how they gain that advancement, and provide a simple mechanic to gaining that advancement fairly based on the outcome of the dice. Additionally, they allow for a wide array of actions provided they are simple in nature rather than elaborate or detailed which would be more suitable to a scene. These are downtime actions that happen away from the public's eye or in the background of your Characters purpose in the city. We want Player interaction over spending X amount of time trying to get something you're working toward. Those scenes can happen as well and represent YVOK regarding how the DTA happens, but its certainly not suppose to be the focus of this story.
If your Character should have had a Lore at Character creation, then you should have bought that Lore at Character creation. Nothing stops a Player from purchasing things at Character creation. Its just the difference of how much is paid based upon the concept you're building. I understand that was your first Character and you weren't sure of how our system worked at the time.
DTA's are varied and your action doesn't have to be on the list for it to get processed. I just need to know how they're doing the simple action and where they're doing the action for it to get processed.
3 - Politics & Prestation: I'm sorry you feel this way. The manner in which I present Prestation is based off the Chronicle these House Rules are adapted from. It was a system I appreciated and have passed on to our online Chronicle. This is the difference between an in Character political agenda and an out of Character opinion. The bottom line? If you don't like the way something is happening in Character, change it in Character. Many have had a similar opinion in Character regarding the bribery of entering the city. Few have worked politically to get it changed or even challenged the Primogen into changing it for them. A few have started but ultimately left the city and the story. Its *just another agenda* in Character and isn't protected. It can change but that change will come in Character.
4 - The appearance of Cherubim (Alice Ménard): This was a bad mistake that I will not make a second time. My intentions weren't to highlight the portions of her conceptual design that were controversial.
5 - Knowing what I do of the plot previously: I have never forced a Player into an action for my own benefit. I literally have a whole philosophy of your version of kewl because I will not force another Player to play a Character how I want them to. Their conceptual design is all their own provided it is within the guidelines of Character creation. Their actions are their own unless guided by in Character consequences. I'm not sure where your opinion was formed in this accusation. Can you offer examples if I have missed something important?
6 - Overall? I don't care about tender. I care about integrity and honest feedback to help me shape the Chronicle. I do this as a hobby and I am overworked as it is with my family and career. I feel like I am doing a pretty good job keeping things afloat with plenty of Storylines that haven't been touched ready for the future. People will play or they won't. I don't own Players and they have the choice to play wherever they want. I do this for fun. I'm not going for any Storytelling awards, lol.
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Post by sarael on Jul 5, 2021 3:47:12 GMT -8
Longevity of NPCs? That's one thing, but shitting on players even using named NPCs or Sabbat NPCs that have level 5 Disciplines consistently? As for one such NPC - Hiroshima was supposedly dead, and suddenly wakes up? Just because I'm not constantly active doesn't mean I don't watch. NPCs are there to provide plot - not consistently fuck PCs over their actions.
DTAs: Not saying at all they should replace scenes at all, they're a great vessel for getting plot out there or creating new plot; huge fan of them - but they have to be somewhat flexible. I was told creating art wasn't a DTA unless I was trying to create a masterpiece sculpture. Even then, I disagreed - art isn't just something that is magically done in an evening when it comes to sculpture. The ambiguity of a DTA rather than following the rigid concepts should be a bit more flexible, or at least rather than "Unable to Process" - just look at the character's sheet and go "Well, they have this attribute, this ability" roll it up, and give them something to work with. Even if it is vague as fuck.
Starting on a Path should imply some understanding of the said path's lore behind it especially when it's one like Path of Lilith, but having to purchase or research Lilith/Bah'ari Lore? That was just questionable to require 25 successes for a Lore that would be a *given* being on that path.
As for Prestation: V20 Companion covers prestation, as does Guide to the Camarilla, and various other sources. To each their own, however. Prestation has always been an odd methodology to it - but I won't begrudge it further.
As for #5 - It's not about forcing for your benefit, it's for the presentation of the story you want to tell. Let's be completely fair here, there were times you and I both had a go at it over the modification for Necromancy and the kneecapping it - or trying to finagle a specific character into a situation and adjusting a roll after it had been made (which I in the scene that was asked for the time period for Knowing Stone and changing it to a false read? Not how that ritual works at all and screwed a player in the process). Deus Ex. Yeah, it may have been a way to present plot, but that's exploitive of mechanics and the players involved.
As for putting time into this as a hobby, and doing it for fun while balancing real life responsibilities? Mate, you know me - I *completely* understand that and respect it when people pick up the mantle of Storyteller and run with it (The Good, the Bad, and the utterly atrocious). You wanted feedback, I gave feedback - unadulterated; and with that, you're right people will play or they won't - but you have to give them a "win" more than constantly beating them into the ground - Balance is key.
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Post by Triple 7 on Jul 5, 2021 4:08:26 GMT -8
Thank you for your feedback.
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