Post by Triple 7 on Nov 9, 2021 20:11:56 GMT -8
I've been doing this for twenty-two years, telling the story for eight of those years.
I don't think I realized just how long that was until tonight.
When I first started, we didn't care about Character sheets. We just made up whatever. It wasn't on a sanctioned server or anything formal. It was a made up chat room on a public search engine and we did whatever we wanted. There wasn't a need for dice rolls. By the time those search engines closed down I had found a place called Charleston by Night. This was my first introduction to dice rolling and having an official Character sheet. At this time I felt compelled to buy the book and actually learn the system. There was so much to learn. So many mechanics to pour over. A few years of this and I was well-versed in the mechanics; what Attributes and Abilities were required at what Difficulty for which Discipline. As a teenager, its all I had. Sure, I had a job and friends, but I also had a lot of spare time on my hands and the Internet beckoned me to explore these stories. Needless to say, my memory was sharp as hell and I could tell you any mechanic you needed to know at any given time.
Cut to twenty-two years later and now I'm thirty-eight with a family of six, a full time job, friends, and other hobbies. My memory is not what it use to be.
Scenes now take hours to complete. Every action I am second guessing myself and constantly referencing the books for exact rolls. My sense of perfection, balance, and justice force me to give Players every advantage they have toward success as well as making certain each action plays out as it is expected in the book. I strive for balance and constantly try to improve mechanics for clear and concise actions so that every Player gets the fair treatment (favoritism, perceived or otherwise, was one of my least enjoyed aspects of the game). Its why my house rules are a living document; so I and every Player can constantly reference them for clarity and consistency. I have to constantly cross-reference mechanics, research things down to the very detail regarding wound penalties, armor ratings, mechanic duration results, etc. I have to write everything down now just to keep track of how many health levels my NPC's take (shit, I should just make them all trackers - that would help a bunch I bet). Blood buff increases, when armor is destroyed; it all adds up to the story. At the end of the day, though; it doesn't really matter what happens down to every little detail, so long as the Players have fun. That's the job now. Entertain the Players. That's what you're here to do.
Getting old sucks.
I guess what I'm really getting to the heart of is my slow decline. The spirit is always here, I have stories for days but not a lot of time or patience to cover them.
I make mistakes. I make a lot of mistakes. I forget wound penalties, to apply Difficulty modifiers, end of round Celerity actions, etc. Multiple opponents is a highlight of my failures! I tell myself its because I am overworked and understaffed as a Storyteller. I can't do it all but I'm holding it together well enough to keep regular stories in progress. Throw the Players a bone with a few scenes here and there. Interject their scenes with plot twists and hints enough to keep the metaplot alive. They'll just be grateful you processed their XP and got their downtime action results back to them within a reasonable time.
Use the tools at your disposal and do the best you can. Any effort given is better than not telling the story in the first place..
I don't think I realized just how long that was until tonight.
When I first started, we didn't care about Character sheets. We just made up whatever. It wasn't on a sanctioned server or anything formal. It was a made up chat room on a public search engine and we did whatever we wanted. There wasn't a need for dice rolls. By the time those search engines closed down I had found a place called Charleston by Night. This was my first introduction to dice rolling and having an official Character sheet. At this time I felt compelled to buy the book and actually learn the system. There was so much to learn. So many mechanics to pour over. A few years of this and I was well-versed in the mechanics; what Attributes and Abilities were required at what Difficulty for which Discipline. As a teenager, its all I had. Sure, I had a job and friends, but I also had a lot of spare time on my hands and the Internet beckoned me to explore these stories. Needless to say, my memory was sharp as hell and I could tell you any mechanic you needed to know at any given time.
Cut to twenty-two years later and now I'm thirty-eight with a family of six, a full time job, friends, and other hobbies. My memory is not what it use to be.
Scenes now take hours to complete. Every action I am second guessing myself and constantly referencing the books for exact rolls. My sense of perfection, balance, and justice force me to give Players every advantage they have toward success as well as making certain each action plays out as it is expected in the book. I strive for balance and constantly try to improve mechanics for clear and concise actions so that every Player gets the fair treatment (favoritism, perceived or otherwise, was one of my least enjoyed aspects of the game). Its why my house rules are a living document; so I and every Player can constantly reference them for clarity and consistency. I have to constantly cross-reference mechanics, research things down to the very detail regarding wound penalties, armor ratings, mechanic duration results, etc. I have to write everything down now just to keep track of how many health levels my NPC's take (shit, I should just make them all trackers - that would help a bunch I bet). Blood buff increases, when armor is destroyed; it all adds up to the story. At the end of the day, though; it doesn't really matter what happens down to every little detail, so long as the Players have fun. That's the job now. Entertain the Players. That's what you're here to do.
Getting old sucks.
I guess what I'm really getting to the heart of is my slow decline. The spirit is always here, I have stories for days but not a lot of time or patience to cover them.
I make mistakes. I make a lot of mistakes. I forget wound penalties, to apply Difficulty modifiers, end of round Celerity actions, etc. Multiple opponents is a highlight of my failures! I tell myself its because I am overworked and understaffed as a Storyteller. I can't do it all but I'm holding it together well enough to keep regular stories in progress. Throw the Players a bone with a few scenes here and there. Interject their scenes with plot twists and hints enough to keep the metaplot alive. They'll just be grateful you processed their XP and got their downtime action results back to them within a reasonable time.
Use the tools at your disposal and do the best you can. Any effort given is better than not telling the story in the first place..
