If you aren't Adren, you aren't Important

[Phil 'Sud0' Brooks]

Hope everyone is having a good time at Beltaine.

So mike posted something in ObiWan last night on Facebook about genre, and how maybe the org needs to look into deposing the king and allowing for a less static environment.  And I agree, that maybe they could look into that, but I think there is a more pressing matter at hand.  The completely antagonizing setting itself.

When you make a new Vampire and walk into a Vampire LARP.  You are immediately the center of attention.  People might think "Oh look fresh blood!  A new asset that I can use to further the growth of my power base!".  Either way the general sentiment is, hey lets talk to this guy, even if the end goal is manipulation.

But when you make a garou and enter a game as a cliath its "Don't bother me now".  Basically when it comes to interacting with other players it boils down to "Dont talk to me unless you have a years worth of XP minimum.".  Now I understand there can be a power disparity.  A cliath should not be joining 4 elder ahrouns as they dive head first into the middle of a hive.  And thats fine.  Though I'm still waiting to hear the awesomely well written explanation as to why Vampires get along better than Garou (rhetorical - does not exist).

But the more important piece is this really silly cycle of anger, frustration and hate.  "Well I had to suffer as a cliath so I cant wait to keep that circle going and be a douche to everyone the instant I have the rank to do it."  And then, cling to their character sheets like a sailor grabbing flotsam after his boat was shattered on the rocks.  Because the instant they lose their character, their rank, its back to getting shat on, or ignored, by everyone else.

Ironically it makes sense that this human weakness is reflected in our characters, that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  But conversely it makes absolutely NO sense to the healthy growth and prosperity of a game meant to entertain sentient human beings.

SO maybe its high time we changed the genre to say "Well actually garou arent such huge douches to newbies.".

Anyone else have any feelings on the matter?

[Michael Cirelli]

The MET character creation system unfortunately lends itself to this as well it is very difficult to walk into a well established game as a brandy new character.  More notably in werewolf with its might makes right mentality. You are shunted to the back and ignored until you have some points on your sheet.  Werwolf games are also very stratified by rank your elders and athro on top, then your adren and finally your cliath and fostern down below. If you walk in as a 7/5/3 cliath you are the bottom of the pyramid.

It is one of the major factors that lead me to leave HF I went from playing 300+ point sheet to a 30 point sheet and that is a drastically different game. Both on what you can do and how people interact with you.  RATC doesn't have that mentality one part of it is low player turn out so the staff does a good job of involving people. The other side of it is RATC has never felt  that way to me, the bigger sheets here aren't as over bearing and the environment here is a lot lighter. 

[Phil 'Sud0' Brooks]

To be clear.  This isnt actually a critique against any of the players or staff.  RAtC was actually the best "first game" Ive ever had.  Someone who was in charge actually acknowledged me.  And they even gave me a moment of their time and allowed me to offer my services for a chance to prove myself.  Which in other games has taken me upwards of 6 months to accomplish.  And I'll try not to pull anything trying to pat myself on the back but I aint no slouch.   

Anyways, really this is inspired by Mikes post about change, and what changes could we make to make the game better for all involved?  And to me this is the most obvious first thing I would change.

So yes, the sheet construction does lend itself to this, but there is one kind of glaring issue there.  A cliath is strong.  A 13th gen starting vampire is not.  Cliath have a built in +8 physical traits for defense if necessary.  In fact they can access all of that instantly with a single dot of rage.    Regeneration that costs nothing. Whereas a vampire has to spend blood for either of these and at 13th gen only has 10 points to do so.  And can only do so once per turn.  One could presume after knowing nothing else except this, that established Vampires have a much easier time disposing of beginner characters.

I guess what Im trying to say that, a starting Vampire, in comparison to Garou is like skydiving without a parachute.  They have no where near the start ability of a garou, and yet, of the two garou are the ones that are more pissy with their fresh blood.  It just doesnt make sense to me.  In the world of absolute power corrupts absolutely, if we went on sheets alone, a Prince would just diablerize everyone who entered his territory.  "You want permission?  Sure.  I give you permission TO DIE!! *slurpslurpslurp*"

Another way it really doesnt make sense setting wise.  Vampires are immortal blood consuming parasites, who are taught to view humans as food are more "friendly" than garou who are supposed to learn all about teamwork as they work in packs, all with the goal of saving mother earth.  *insert captain planet song here*.  Why are purposeless immortals who should be jumping off buildings from ennui, more friendly than garou who all share a greater common good as a purpose?   

Lastly, Beltaine.  Out of curiosity.  Anyone here go with a character below Adren and end up being bored most of the time?  Because this is also a big concern for this issue.  Because frankly, if you paid 20$ of real money to sit around and be ignored by your elders.  You should ask for your money back.  I would.

[Lars Nielsen]

But when you make a garou and enter a game as a cliath its "Don't bother me now".  Basically when it comes to interacting with other players it boils down to "Dont talk to me unless you have a years worth of XP minimum.".  Now I understand there can be a power disparity.  A cliath should not be joining 4 elder ahrouns as they dive head first into the middle of a hive.  And thats fine.  Though I'm still waiting to hear the awesomely well written explanation as to why Vampires get along better than Garou (rhetorical - does not exist).

This has not been my experience in Werewolf. I have played 3 PCs in OWBN (granted, all were in RATC) over a period of five years and only one has made it to Fostern. When MET:VTR got started, it was my experience that new players were flat-out ignored by established players, to the point where we had free reign to do whatever we wanted. That would have been interesting if WW hadn't torpedoed NMET with their "All Games Must Be Camarilla-org Games" BS.

I think a big part of the problem may be population. In my World of Darkness, Cliath would make up roughly half of all Garou, since half of them will die before they make it to Fostern. But in a campaign LARP, the players who keep coming are usually the players who successfully advance their characters' agenda.

[Mike]

My post to the community and Justin was prompted by the arguments over the King and his term expiration etc.  But also had to do with the staleness of the genre.  I find it to be silly that all these prophecies all these npc's are in like a time capsule.  I'm hoping there will be some movement on that, and W20 will help that a lot story wise.

RAtC sits in a particular position right now as many of the long standing PC's have either died, moved to another game, or been shelved.  One of the things I'm hoping happen with this council we created is that PC's feel empowered to work with the younger PC's.  Packs will also help this greatly.  Right now we have a lot of PC's who are packless and it makes it difficult to "assign" projects or targets to single garou.  We also have to fix the 2 man packs as we have a lot of those as well.  Packless Garou should be looking to join or form packs.  One of the things I see as difficult as far as packs go are the unwillingness of some PC's to simply get along with others.  Even my asshole of a Shadow Lord always had a pack even though he hated every one of the PC's and probably would have sacrificed any of his non packmates in a second.  But he knew he couldnt do it alone.  No matter how much influence, how many gifts and rituals he amassed, how much wealth he had.  PC's do a lot of destruction to their own well being by trying to say "I'm a loner", "I do what I want".

I think we're moving in the right direction and I'm happy to hear that RAtC doesnt really seem to fit the profile described in this post.  I only see better things rolling forward.  PC's should feel free to start any threads with Me or my staff for stuff they are looking into, want to accomplish.  I've also seen a great willingness to include people with our Athros and Adren and I hope this continues.

[Nike 'Slays the Patriarchy' Strilakos]

Part of the issue with packs is thy all the things you say make sense mike but ooc to be in a pack you have to get along wiht he player and you have to have similar play stiles or at least compatible ones. And that is hard. And hard to balance with the Garou need to pack

[Matt (HST)]

Yeah, re: Packs, we've almost always had a lot of packless Garou running around in RAtC (as long as I've been around, anyway, which may not be representative). I don't think I've ever heard a PC or player say something along the lines of "I'm a loner" or "I do what I want" when asked why their character was unpacked. Usually it's some single one or combination of:

1. None of the current packs will have me and there are insufficient unpacked Garou to form a new pack,
2. I do not get along OOC with the available players to pack with,
3. The character(s) it would make most sense for me to pack with are sufficiently disparate in power as to make operating as a pack difficult or impossible for the ST's to run, because any challenge that is at a good level for Cliath is trivial for the Adren and Athro, and anything that challenges the Adren and Athro is lethal for the Cliath, or
4. The characters my character could pack with are technically active but their attendance is so sporadic as to make actual pack gameplay difficult or impossible

In the past, our general take on this seems to have been "just get yourselves packed and the rest will figure itself out," but that is often not viable. The characters not getting along can be great grist for the roleplaying mill; the players not getting along (see number two) is setting the game up for trouble that is not fun for anyone. Similarly, the concerns over disparate power levels are real and sensible; in some situations it may work for the more powerful characters to take on a more strictly-advisory or mentoring role, if the players are cool with that, but otherwise I think it's likely to cause problems. That said, if people are dead-set on trying it than I (at least) would be happy to try to work with them to write and run plots for the whole pack, but it is at tricky thing.

Anyway, in terms of what Jay is talking about, I suspect this may vary a lot more from game to game than from genre to genre, though I welcome those with more experience to tell me I'm dead wrong if that is the case. My own OWbN experience is quite limited, but I've heard from others that they've gone to Vampire games and, if they did not come in as the acknowledged childe of an established player who got specific permission from the Prince to sire, they not only couldn't find anyone to interact with but were threatened with destruction by the Prince just for existing. On their first day. I don't doubt that lots of vampire games are friendly and welcoming to newbies; there are plenty of reasons IC for either to be either way. For example, vampires might be welcoming to new vampires because they see potential pawns to aid their schemes, or they might be aloof because these neonates may not be powerful enough or connected enough to be useful yet. Similarly, werewolves might welcome new claws because they're eager to teach and pass on the wisdom and arm the next generation of Gaia's warriors. Or, they might not because they're so focused on fighting whatever Wyrm threat is at the door that they have no time for characters with 11 Physicals in Crinos and no combat retests. That's stupid, IMO, but I'd be surprised if "your character is not strong enough to help achieve my goals yet, therefore I have no reason to talk to them" is a delusion that is particular to Garou games. Maybe it is, thouh!

I guess I'd like to get more of an idea of how large a sample your observation is based on, Jay - have you visited a lot of vampire and Garou games? To be clear, I'm by no means accusing you of manufacturing or exaggerating the point; rather, I suspect that I may be arguing from a pool of blissful ignorance here, and would like to know just how deep that pool is, if so.

[Phil 'Sud0' Brooks]

I guess I'd like to get more of an idea of how large a sample your observation is based on, Jay - have you visited a lot of vampire and Garou games? To be clear, I'm by no means accusing you of manufacturing or exaggerating the point; rather, I suspect that I may be arguing from a pool of blissful ignorance here, and would like to know just how deep that pool is, if so.

No worries.  I wanted to start an earnest conversation about the abrasiveness of garou society.  Its a tender subject.  I haven't larped non stop.  But I've larped in and out for the better part of 20 years now.  Vampire and Garou both.  Love Mage tabletop but never enjoyed the system in LARP. 

Look to be clear I'm not against people being manipulative or initiating conflict with others, in fact I'm trying to encourage it.  I just feel that in a lot of garou games, because of the way we interpret the setting this is the way it is.  And after seeing mike's post about the King etc.  I just felt like sharing that.  That if I could change the genre.  It would be that. 

[Gabriel]

To answer the Beltane part of the question - there wasn't a ton of active plot this year, so downtime was pretty universal. There was a ton of PC interaction across all ranks, and the times there were active scenes, most everyone was involved/found some way to contribute.

[Tyler]

My two cents on these two things are pretty simple:

1) It is the experienced layer's and ST's responsibility to make newer and less powerful characters feel involved. Not the characters. Often we get so wrapped up in our characters and their goals that we forget this is a game played by real people, not a WoW game where they can go off and do solo missions to power up or where they will just regen if they get killed. There is nothing wrong with directing your character, making up reasons to be social or inclusive, even the most hermitted and grouchy characters. In the end if you don't new blood stops coming to the game, and the game withers. Then you either turn someone off to the passion of gaming we all have or you get them to start a fresh new game, not bogged down in rules and subrules, and where everyone can start on an equal footed. That game then becomes the shiny new toy drawing even more perspective and old players away.

2) Beltane is no different than any other game. Except maybe the staff is even more over extended and being only human can only attend to so many at a time. Insert all of my first point of OOC courtesy and control of your character here and place more emphasis on it because these events require socialization away from STs to be good and everyone should have the chance to meet people and characters they could likely never meet in their home chronicle. If you are stubborn and because your character is a wallflower or will only react to what comes and bites you in the face rather than inserting yourself into social interaction and plot events you will be left out. Not because staff does not want to you have fun but because they are only human and can not split themselves into multiple people. This year I think was a particular hit... why? Because there was a shit ton of Fera and the Magi there. When the authority of rank was removed from social interaction, suddenly everyone got chatty and friendly. Is rank and hierarchy important to the game, yes. However the player still needs to direct their character with a real moral compass. WoD or not, it is a game and in theory you play the protagonists of the story. And in any good story, the writer takes the protagonists and gives them the means to grow, interact and keep us interested in the story. Players are the writers of their character's personal story and STs are writers of a story those characters exist in. So write stories that are interesting to all and not disappointing.