Post by Shah-Khohr of Ventrue on Jun 30, 2014 0:18:36 GMT -8
It has been brought to my attention that perhaps people are scared or worried about my potential platform and I haven't given the players much to go on. My bad: I had a huge camping trip to deal with. Also, because the forums hate my phone, if I don't reply quickly, shoot me an email to nudge me at knolan(.)4035ATgmail(.)com . I rock at email; my phone loves that stuff. To the meat!
My platform is designed to address three primary concerns with the current vampire sphere. Those issues, as I see them, are System Bloat, XP Bloat, and ST Burnout. Here are some ways that my game will look for the players.
Character Creation:
Upon reset, there will be three bags of beads that are built to the demographics that I want game to be. A base guideline for that is 70/20/10, where 70 represents cannon average, 20 represents moderate deviation and 10 represents gross deviation. The three bags will determine starting Build, Weird and XP. Neonate / Anciella / Elder is the guideline for each of these. While I haven't settled on hard/fast rules, here is a working example: Neonate pulls will be up to 50 years old and generations 15-11, 25xp and base Camarilla standard concepts. Anciella will be up to 100 years old, to 9th gen, 75xp and moderate deviations from acceptable cannon (A brujah with some protean, a capped merit, or a setite would be an example of this). Elders will be 125 xp, 250 years old and up to 8th generation, or gross deviations from cannon (a brujah with thaumaturgy, a rare bloodline, or a unique item might be examples of this). Note that in the case of XP, this is the number you get were the other two categories unlock upper caps. Beads can be traded among players, as long as there is a record of this transfer, and once they are spent, they are spent. Here is an example:
Rob wants to make a character. He pulls from the beads-bags a neonate weird, an ancilla Xp and an elder build. His initial concept for himself was a racist biker Gangrel, therefore his generation/age doesn't really matter much. He trades his elder bead to Brad (who would like it for his Ventrue concept) in exchange for starting play with a blood boon over Brad's shiny new character. He registers this with Staff who say game on.
This might sound complicated, but it literally takes three seconds to figure out your starting allotments and you can build or modify a concept from there.
ST Gifts:
Staff will receive a bonus XP per month they are on staff (which will be retroactive for CURRENT staff entering into a reset game). In addition, if they served at least SIX months, they will be able to decide what one of their beads were and only draw two. Serving for a lesser term will get you no further benefit than the modest XP boost.
Generation:
EC has always had a problem of everyone being either 9th gen or 13th because that was what the math supported. Proposed revision will be the Generation background being limited to what is available based on your draw and will cost four (4) freebies per dot instead of one (1).
Base Clan Limits:
All clans will have base limits determined from cannon 'standards' to represent if they are common, uncommon or rare. Brujah, for instance, will have a high threshold because cannon describes them as prolific. Tremere, on the other hand, will probably have a 3/6/9 model, the more of them that enter play the more rare they should become. The first three concepts are common, the next three are uncommon, the next three are rare. If there are ever 9 in play, no further concepts will be approved. Some clans will begin at uncommon and follow a 3/6 model such as Setites and Giovanni. Some clans/bloodlines will begin at rare, such as Tzimisce or Gargoyles, and will be capped at one period. These models are currently in flux until cannon standard is established. If I am elected, cannon standard will be posted and updated periodically. Staff will also reserve the right to offer incentives to concepts that fall within unrepresented cannon concepts (for example, if we have 2 Brujah, I might offer incentives to new Brujah concepts until we are closer to cannon standard). See below for non-XP incentives.
This character creation method is designed to offer growth, create incentives for cannon characters (read- young, high generation characters) but still allow for deviations from book standards. The bead bags will be initially set to a player base of 100 and will be replenished periodically as the needs of the player base dictates. Replenishing beads will account for retirement/death of characters, a growing player base, or cannon shifts are determined by story. This, largely, will address my XP bloat concerns.
EC over the years has collected a truly insane amount of house rules. Some of these were a result from an overactive player base demanding system (of which I am partially guilty), and some was a result of staff wanting to try something cool. Ultimately, however, it has made the game far more difficult to manage for anyone wanting to do most anything. Here are my proposed changes as they pop up in my head, allowing for a full V20 conversion:
ModDot-
You served your purpose. You will be retired. We will move to a dice roller program. How this will look specifically is still in flux, however, I have been generously offered a web-based dice roller that labels and logs all uses in a database. This will allow staff to review things like combat and social pvp at a later date with relative ease.
Influence-
This system is too big. I will be getting rid of it in its entirety. Influence instead moves to a simpler system that would operate like this: Influence is a background. To influence the world in any meaningful way will take specific social checks depending on what you want to do. Influence will add to your social pools to effect these changes and determine how far from yourself you wish to manage these effects. Difficulty will be determined based on the practicality of the request. Influence will NEVER be applied to supernatural checks, nor will it ever be able to be levied against an Individual. Fame gives you bonus social dice against individuals, Influence gives you bonus dice against systems. A guideline for how far influence goes will be as such: 1 affects changes in your neighborhood. 2 affects changes in your hemisphere of the city. 3 affects changes anywhere in Seattle. 4 affects changes in Washington. 5 effects changes in the Pacific Northwest. The scope of these changes is a function of your successes and method. Certain things will not be possible within the Influence system because they simply defy logic (such as using Influence to get magic items or masquerade compromising Lores). Others will be possible, but won't have a set grid (for example, using your Influence to get money will largely depend on the results of the check as you lean on banks or various other institutions). What you roll will depend on what you want to accomplish. Presence will not lower the difficulties of these effects. If you want to use Influence to shut down a rival's haven, that's a different skill set than standing outside their house with a megaphone and Majesty.
Businesses-
I really like this system. Limits will be put into place, but it will largely remain unaffected.
Leadership-
This is out of hand. I will either do away with this in its entirety, or severely limit its application. No more dots than your Leadership score, for instance. Still reviewing.
Crafting-
I will largely keep this system, however, it might need to mechanically be streamlined to represent a shift away from mod-dot.
Disciplines-
With a V20 shift, most of these houserules become redundant and unnecessary. You can expect 90% of them to go away entirely in favor of core book rules. What does remain will be presented in an easier format.
Secondaries-
These exist to combat XP bloat. I am doing this in other places; you will likewise be retired.
Lores-
Rather than a huge appendix of lores, I will be moving to a much cleaner system that rewards your build rather than an absurd secondary (also, I hate guys with Politics of 0 knowing everyone's status because they have Cam Lore 5 somehow). Lores will move to a yes/no system with a simple one time cost. Having these things will allow other checks depending on what information you are attempting to gleam. The cost of these lores will be based on your build. Following my common/uncommon/rare concept, your build will determine costs for lores at 3/6/9 for XP or 1/2/3 for freebies. Having a lore will allow for a check of a BASE skill as relevant. Wanting to find out someone's Status, for instance, would be an Int+ Politic Check, requiring that Sect's Lore. Wanting to find out Clan Prestige would also be a Politics Check, but require the Clan's lore in question. Say you see some 'weird shit' that you don't know how to describe. Make an Occult check if you have the relevant lore. Want to know the history of something? Academics. And so on.
All characters will receive two lores for free at creation to be spent on common lores to your build (to represent the basic education that all vampires should have) System Example-
Rob is playing a Gangrel biker Anarch (yeah, he spent an unusual bead to be an Anarch). His 'common' lores would be Anarch, Vampire, Gangrel. Uncommon might be Cam/Sabbat/Other Clans. Rare might be Bloodlines/OtherSupernaturals/Rare Vampire sects. Let's say that he has all of his common lores and Camarilla lore. He meets Brad's Ventrue for the first time and decides that he wants to throw some bones to see what he can find how. Because Rob's Gangrel has a dot of Academics, he can make the check to find out something of Brad's history. Rolling two successes, he might know where the fellow was embraced, or his relative age, or an interesting story about the guy. He rolls Occult to find out if he knows anything 'weird' about the dude and learns that Brad's Ventrue is known to be able to toy with people's minds (shocker). And Rob doesn't have a Politics score, so he can never know (or verify) Brad's status traits.
This might sound complicated, but it is FAR simpler than the pages of appendix stuff that we have.
Retainers-
Ghouls don't get sheets. Sorry, Charlie. You pick three things that each 'Retainer' has a professional skill in, and we will make relevant rolls based on the weight of those sheets. Humans and animals are run identically. Look at that! Simple. They all get a dot of Potence and 1 of your base clan powers. Animals are vulnerable to certain powers and immune to others; they have inherent value, but will be run with a cost. Other checks that are made for your retainers are assumed to have a dice pool of 3, with logical interpretation to determine difficulty and availability in the case of Knowledges. Wraith Retainer (if you even qualify for such a thing) will be IDENTICAL, except that they get 'Invisible' instead of potence and a level one discipline to be negotiated by the player.
Example-
Rob has two retainers. One is a fellow biker, to represent his 'Old Lady', and the other is his faithful hound dog. For his hound-dog he selects Alertness, Brawl, Dodge. For his Old Lady, he selects Streetwise, Subterfuge, and Investigation. They will both have a dot of Potence, but the hound has a dot of Fortitude (because he fights stuff), and the Old Lady has animalism to talk to the dog. Done.
Mentor-
The mentor system will remain largely unchanged, but will be truncated a bit. I'm not exactly sure what that looks like, but expect it to be streamlined.
Travel Checks-
I see no need to change this, aside from how secondaries and leadership will be affected. Difficulties will be modified to represent a non mod-dot system.
Blood System-
This was an elegant system when it was properly managed. Since it has fallen into bedlam, I will do away with this as well. I'm not certain what our new system will look like, but expect something very simple and easy and require as little of staff's attention as possible.
Pre-Game Time-
This will be modified in two ways, nightly and monthly. Monthly, your character will be allotted a number of downtime actions equal to half of his Path rating (rounded up for Humanity and down for everything else). If you have a humanity of 5, you will have 3 downtime actions a month. Some players like to send huge bullet pointed emails with what they wish their characters would accomplish during the week. I am guilty of this. To give some semblance of what you can accomplish, you Path will determine how active and alert you are during the week, and how much time you have to dedicate to not being a slavering, starving beastial creature. High path characters will have more time to focus on the non-essentials. Downtime actions will be things like patrols, research, investigations, accessing Mentors, attempting to Influence something, etc. Nightly pregame time, while largely only a thing magic users worry about, will remain unaffected for the time being.
Lingustics-
V20 standard rules for this.
Blood Banking-
Same.
Etiquette-
This has largely remained unchanged for years; I see no need to alter it now.
Demonic Influences-
Gone. All of it. Gone.
Haven Security-
This will be reviewed to allow for a non mod-dot system, however, I suspect the bulk of it will remain unchanged but streamlined.
Feeding In Game-
This hasn't been a thing for months. I would like it to become a thing again. I'm still looking at how that will look. I expect that feeding in game will take an hour of your night and will result in either a pass/fail of finding someone appropriate and doing the deed without getting caught. Having social superpowers will negate the need for a check, but not the time. Blood pumping has to have a practical downside.
Domain-
With the alterations to the feeding and influence system, Domain will need to be addressed. I don't have a specific plan for how this will look just yet.
Torpor-
EC has house ruled a much more benevolent torpor chart than book standard. I will be comparing this to V20 for confirmation, but largely keeping the more gentle torpor chart. I am playing with the idea of Path walkers having a slightly more harsh time of things. I will enlighten the player base as it becomes appropriate.
The Occult-
With the revisions to Lores, this largely becomes irrelevant. Having an appropriate Lore will allow you to speak intelligently on topics within that Lore's purview based on the relevant Ability you would be testing. Having a Politics of 5 and Camarilla lore means you can intelligently speak on the status of anyone in the room (or probably organization), but unless you have an Academics score to match, don't expect to be able to comment on the history of the sect to nearly the same degree. Having the Lore will allow you to know the basics of what the thing is about without a check; things like Traditions and basic positions are covered by having the Lore. More specific things will need a check as determined by an ST. I will be constricting the world somewhat, so not knowing about the True Black Hand will be less of a thing post-reset.
Investigations-
Other than altering this system to account for other systems being altered, this will be largely unchanged. Wraith/Animal systems will be redressed and likely dissolved.
This should largely address system bloat and bring us back to base book standards. Previously non-existent systems that need to be altered/generated are below.
Out of Clan Stuff-
The sheer number of characters in play that have more out of clan disciplines at mastery than in clans is staggering. This flies grossly in the fact of cannon and will be addressed. How that looks, I am not 100% certain on, but there will be some controls put in place to keep the game on an even keel.
Papertable-
The papertable will be moved to a largely electronic method. While learn-times will not be reinstituted, a more strict enforcement of your character's 'build' will be. The papertable will only be authorized to approve spends on your sheet as determined by policy (which will be familiar to current rulings). Things like needing a teacher for 4's and 5's will be more heavily enforced. Purchasing of lores and the like will be strictly enforced. With a move to V20, the overwhelming majority of the papertable evaporates in favor of a single book (or three). Paper will be available for consulting the first hour or so of game, otherwise a paper-less system will be used. There may be more refining of this system as my staff and I settle on what is most practical for game. More to come.
Non-Exp Incentives-
I'm going to shamelessly steal from other games here and invent a 'consumable' system. I will have common/uncommon/rare decks of 3x5 cards detailing various objects/bonuses/weird stuff/ etc. No more than a single consumable may be spent on an action. And many of these will have an 'expiration date' attached to them. Lets gives some examples.
Common- These cards might be +3 dice to a single check, turning on a discipline without spending blood, a free downtime action, a phantom bonus to your influences, or gaining the benefit of spending a WP without having to blow that stat.
Uncommon- These might be justification to buy one of the cardinal disciplines up a level without a teacher, or unlock an uncommon lore, or offer a +1 dice bonus for the scene, or a free refresh of your resources, or a boon from an elder out of town, or mastercrafted item.
Rare- These might be justification to buy a less common discipline, or rare lore, or a boon from a Camarilla positioned elder from out of town, or a minor magical item, or a free resolution of an investigation or influence in your favor regardless of sheets, or +1 success on all checks for a scene.
Really, the sky's the limit here. My staff and I will generate a slew of these and just have stacks of them ready to go. We will pull them out when we see stuff that needs to happen but don't see the appropriate player response. Is clean up taking forever? Anyone that helps might get a Common draw. Work the donation table? Maybe that's an uncommon draw. Work the haunted house? That might be a few rares (depending on tasks and time). Cards may be traded among players so long as Staff is made aware of the transaction. This system will be developed as the game needs it and as the game grows. XP incentives may still exist, but they will be far less common.
Custom Stuff-
This will not be allowed for the first six months of my term, to be redressed at our half-way point and see what the demographic is looking like.
Anyway. I've probably moved well beyond the tl;dr point. So, for those of you skimming, I want to make game much easier and more intuitive. For those of you not skimming, I welcome feedback. These points aren't particularly up for debate, but I am more than willing to clarify items, give examples of how I see something working, or soothing fears. I think it's time we had a fresh-start to things, and that is precisely what I am aiming for.
-Rob.
My platform is designed to address three primary concerns with the current vampire sphere. Those issues, as I see them, are System Bloat, XP Bloat, and ST Burnout. Here are some ways that my game will look for the players.
Character Creation:
Upon reset, there will be three bags of beads that are built to the demographics that I want game to be. A base guideline for that is 70/20/10, where 70 represents cannon average, 20 represents moderate deviation and 10 represents gross deviation. The three bags will determine starting Build, Weird and XP. Neonate / Anciella / Elder is the guideline for each of these. While I haven't settled on hard/fast rules, here is a working example: Neonate pulls will be up to 50 years old and generations 15-11, 25xp and base Camarilla standard concepts. Anciella will be up to 100 years old, to 9th gen, 75xp and moderate deviations from acceptable cannon (A brujah with some protean, a capped merit, or a setite would be an example of this). Elders will be 125 xp, 250 years old and up to 8th generation, or gross deviations from cannon (a brujah with thaumaturgy, a rare bloodline, or a unique item might be examples of this). Note that in the case of XP, this is the number you get were the other two categories unlock upper caps. Beads can be traded among players, as long as there is a record of this transfer, and once they are spent, they are spent. Here is an example:
Rob wants to make a character. He pulls from the beads-bags a neonate weird, an ancilla Xp and an elder build. His initial concept for himself was a racist biker Gangrel, therefore his generation/age doesn't really matter much. He trades his elder bead to Brad (who would like it for his Ventrue concept) in exchange for starting play with a blood boon over Brad's shiny new character. He registers this with Staff who say game on.
This might sound complicated, but it literally takes three seconds to figure out your starting allotments and you can build or modify a concept from there.
ST Gifts:
Staff will receive a bonus XP per month they are on staff (which will be retroactive for CURRENT staff entering into a reset game). In addition, if they served at least SIX months, they will be able to decide what one of their beads were and only draw two. Serving for a lesser term will get you no further benefit than the modest XP boost.
Generation:
EC has always had a problem of everyone being either 9th gen or 13th because that was what the math supported. Proposed revision will be the Generation background being limited to what is available based on your draw and will cost four (4) freebies per dot instead of one (1).
Base Clan Limits:
All clans will have base limits determined from cannon 'standards' to represent if they are common, uncommon or rare. Brujah, for instance, will have a high threshold because cannon describes them as prolific. Tremere, on the other hand, will probably have a 3/6/9 model, the more of them that enter play the more rare they should become. The first three concepts are common, the next three are uncommon, the next three are rare. If there are ever 9 in play, no further concepts will be approved. Some clans will begin at uncommon and follow a 3/6 model such as Setites and Giovanni. Some clans/bloodlines will begin at rare, such as Tzimisce or Gargoyles, and will be capped at one period. These models are currently in flux until cannon standard is established. If I am elected, cannon standard will be posted and updated periodically. Staff will also reserve the right to offer incentives to concepts that fall within unrepresented cannon concepts (for example, if we have 2 Brujah, I might offer incentives to new Brujah concepts until we are closer to cannon standard). See below for non-XP incentives.
This character creation method is designed to offer growth, create incentives for cannon characters (read- young, high generation characters) but still allow for deviations from book standards. The bead bags will be initially set to a player base of 100 and will be replenished periodically as the needs of the player base dictates. Replenishing beads will account for retirement/death of characters, a growing player base, or cannon shifts are determined by story. This, largely, will address my XP bloat concerns.
EC over the years has collected a truly insane amount of house rules. Some of these were a result from an overactive player base demanding system (of which I am partially guilty), and some was a result of staff wanting to try something cool. Ultimately, however, it has made the game far more difficult to manage for anyone wanting to do most anything. Here are my proposed changes as they pop up in my head, allowing for a full V20 conversion:
ModDot-
You served your purpose. You will be retired. We will move to a dice roller program. How this will look specifically is still in flux, however, I have been generously offered a web-based dice roller that labels and logs all uses in a database. This will allow staff to review things like combat and social pvp at a later date with relative ease.
Influence-
This system is too big. I will be getting rid of it in its entirety. Influence instead moves to a simpler system that would operate like this: Influence is a background. To influence the world in any meaningful way will take specific social checks depending on what you want to do. Influence will add to your social pools to effect these changes and determine how far from yourself you wish to manage these effects. Difficulty will be determined based on the practicality of the request. Influence will NEVER be applied to supernatural checks, nor will it ever be able to be levied against an Individual. Fame gives you bonus social dice against individuals, Influence gives you bonus dice against systems. A guideline for how far influence goes will be as such: 1 affects changes in your neighborhood. 2 affects changes in your hemisphere of the city. 3 affects changes anywhere in Seattle. 4 affects changes in Washington. 5 effects changes in the Pacific Northwest. The scope of these changes is a function of your successes and method. Certain things will not be possible within the Influence system because they simply defy logic (such as using Influence to get magic items or masquerade compromising Lores). Others will be possible, but won't have a set grid (for example, using your Influence to get money will largely depend on the results of the check as you lean on banks or various other institutions). What you roll will depend on what you want to accomplish. Presence will not lower the difficulties of these effects. If you want to use Influence to shut down a rival's haven, that's a different skill set than standing outside their house with a megaphone and Majesty.
Businesses-
I really like this system. Limits will be put into place, but it will largely remain unaffected.
Leadership-
This is out of hand. I will either do away with this in its entirety, or severely limit its application. No more dots than your Leadership score, for instance. Still reviewing.
Crafting-
I will largely keep this system, however, it might need to mechanically be streamlined to represent a shift away from mod-dot.
Disciplines-
With a V20 shift, most of these houserules become redundant and unnecessary. You can expect 90% of them to go away entirely in favor of core book rules. What does remain will be presented in an easier format.
Secondaries-
These exist to combat XP bloat. I am doing this in other places; you will likewise be retired.
Lores-
Rather than a huge appendix of lores, I will be moving to a much cleaner system that rewards your build rather than an absurd secondary (also, I hate guys with Politics of 0 knowing everyone's status because they have Cam Lore 5 somehow). Lores will move to a yes/no system with a simple one time cost. Having these things will allow other checks depending on what information you are attempting to gleam. The cost of these lores will be based on your build. Following my common/uncommon/rare concept, your build will determine costs for lores at 3/6/9 for XP or 1/2/3 for freebies. Having a lore will allow for a check of a BASE skill as relevant. Wanting to find out someone's Status, for instance, would be an Int+ Politic Check, requiring that Sect's Lore. Wanting to find out Clan Prestige would also be a Politics Check, but require the Clan's lore in question. Say you see some 'weird shit' that you don't know how to describe. Make an Occult check if you have the relevant lore. Want to know the history of something? Academics. And so on.
All characters will receive two lores for free at creation to be spent on common lores to your build (to represent the basic education that all vampires should have) System Example-
Rob is playing a Gangrel biker Anarch (yeah, he spent an unusual bead to be an Anarch). His 'common' lores would be Anarch, Vampire, Gangrel. Uncommon might be Cam/Sabbat/Other Clans. Rare might be Bloodlines/OtherSupernaturals/Rare Vampire sects. Let's say that he has all of his common lores and Camarilla lore. He meets Brad's Ventrue for the first time and decides that he wants to throw some bones to see what he can find how. Because Rob's Gangrel has a dot of Academics, he can make the check to find out something of Brad's history. Rolling two successes, he might know where the fellow was embraced, or his relative age, or an interesting story about the guy. He rolls Occult to find out if he knows anything 'weird' about the dude and learns that Brad's Ventrue is known to be able to toy with people's minds (shocker). And Rob doesn't have a Politics score, so he can never know (or verify) Brad's status traits.
This might sound complicated, but it is FAR simpler than the pages of appendix stuff that we have.
Retainers-
Ghouls don't get sheets. Sorry, Charlie. You pick three things that each 'Retainer' has a professional skill in, and we will make relevant rolls based on the weight of those sheets. Humans and animals are run identically. Look at that! Simple. They all get a dot of Potence and 1 of your base clan powers. Animals are vulnerable to certain powers and immune to others; they have inherent value, but will be run with a cost. Other checks that are made for your retainers are assumed to have a dice pool of 3, with logical interpretation to determine difficulty and availability in the case of Knowledges. Wraith Retainer (if you even qualify for such a thing) will be IDENTICAL, except that they get 'Invisible' instead of potence and a level one discipline to be negotiated by the player.
Example-
Rob has two retainers. One is a fellow biker, to represent his 'Old Lady', and the other is his faithful hound dog. For his hound-dog he selects Alertness, Brawl, Dodge. For his Old Lady, he selects Streetwise, Subterfuge, and Investigation. They will both have a dot of Potence, but the hound has a dot of Fortitude (because he fights stuff), and the Old Lady has animalism to talk to the dog. Done.
Mentor-
The mentor system will remain largely unchanged, but will be truncated a bit. I'm not exactly sure what that looks like, but expect it to be streamlined.
Travel Checks-
I see no need to change this, aside from how secondaries and leadership will be affected. Difficulties will be modified to represent a non mod-dot system.
Blood System-
This was an elegant system when it was properly managed. Since it has fallen into bedlam, I will do away with this as well. I'm not certain what our new system will look like, but expect something very simple and easy and require as little of staff's attention as possible.
Pre-Game Time-
This will be modified in two ways, nightly and monthly. Monthly, your character will be allotted a number of downtime actions equal to half of his Path rating (rounded up for Humanity and down for everything else). If you have a humanity of 5, you will have 3 downtime actions a month. Some players like to send huge bullet pointed emails with what they wish their characters would accomplish during the week. I am guilty of this. To give some semblance of what you can accomplish, you Path will determine how active and alert you are during the week, and how much time you have to dedicate to not being a slavering, starving beastial creature. High path characters will have more time to focus on the non-essentials. Downtime actions will be things like patrols, research, investigations, accessing Mentors, attempting to Influence something, etc. Nightly pregame time, while largely only a thing magic users worry about, will remain unaffected for the time being.
Lingustics-
V20 standard rules for this.
Blood Banking-
Same.
Etiquette-
This has largely remained unchanged for years; I see no need to alter it now.
Demonic Influences-
Gone. All of it. Gone.
Haven Security-
This will be reviewed to allow for a non mod-dot system, however, I suspect the bulk of it will remain unchanged but streamlined.
Feeding In Game-
This hasn't been a thing for months. I would like it to become a thing again. I'm still looking at how that will look. I expect that feeding in game will take an hour of your night and will result in either a pass/fail of finding someone appropriate and doing the deed without getting caught. Having social superpowers will negate the need for a check, but not the time. Blood pumping has to have a practical downside.
Domain-
With the alterations to the feeding and influence system, Domain will need to be addressed. I don't have a specific plan for how this will look just yet.
Torpor-
EC has house ruled a much more benevolent torpor chart than book standard. I will be comparing this to V20 for confirmation, but largely keeping the more gentle torpor chart. I am playing with the idea of Path walkers having a slightly more harsh time of things. I will enlighten the player base as it becomes appropriate.
The Occult-
With the revisions to Lores, this largely becomes irrelevant. Having an appropriate Lore will allow you to speak intelligently on topics within that Lore's purview based on the relevant Ability you would be testing. Having a Politics of 5 and Camarilla lore means you can intelligently speak on the status of anyone in the room (or probably organization), but unless you have an Academics score to match, don't expect to be able to comment on the history of the sect to nearly the same degree. Having the Lore will allow you to know the basics of what the thing is about without a check; things like Traditions and basic positions are covered by having the Lore. More specific things will need a check as determined by an ST. I will be constricting the world somewhat, so not knowing about the True Black Hand will be less of a thing post-reset.
Investigations-
Other than altering this system to account for other systems being altered, this will be largely unchanged. Wraith/Animal systems will be redressed and likely dissolved.
This should largely address system bloat and bring us back to base book standards. Previously non-existent systems that need to be altered/generated are below.
Out of Clan Stuff-
The sheer number of characters in play that have more out of clan disciplines at mastery than in clans is staggering. This flies grossly in the fact of cannon and will be addressed. How that looks, I am not 100% certain on, but there will be some controls put in place to keep the game on an even keel.
Papertable-
The papertable will be moved to a largely electronic method. While learn-times will not be reinstituted, a more strict enforcement of your character's 'build' will be. The papertable will only be authorized to approve spends on your sheet as determined by policy (which will be familiar to current rulings). Things like needing a teacher for 4's and 5's will be more heavily enforced. Purchasing of lores and the like will be strictly enforced. With a move to V20, the overwhelming majority of the papertable evaporates in favor of a single book (or three). Paper will be available for consulting the first hour or so of game, otherwise a paper-less system will be used. There may be more refining of this system as my staff and I settle on what is most practical for game. More to come.
Non-Exp Incentives-
I'm going to shamelessly steal from other games here and invent a 'consumable' system. I will have common/uncommon/rare decks of 3x5 cards detailing various objects/bonuses/weird stuff/ etc. No more than a single consumable may be spent on an action. And many of these will have an 'expiration date' attached to them. Lets gives some examples.
Common- These cards might be +3 dice to a single check, turning on a discipline without spending blood, a free downtime action, a phantom bonus to your influences, or gaining the benefit of spending a WP without having to blow that stat.
Uncommon- These might be justification to buy one of the cardinal disciplines up a level without a teacher, or unlock an uncommon lore, or offer a +1 dice bonus for the scene, or a free refresh of your resources, or a boon from an elder out of town, or mastercrafted item.
Rare- These might be justification to buy a less common discipline, or rare lore, or a boon from a Camarilla positioned elder from out of town, or a minor magical item, or a free resolution of an investigation or influence in your favor regardless of sheets, or +1 success on all checks for a scene.
Really, the sky's the limit here. My staff and I will generate a slew of these and just have stacks of them ready to go. We will pull them out when we see stuff that needs to happen but don't see the appropriate player response. Is clean up taking forever? Anyone that helps might get a Common draw. Work the donation table? Maybe that's an uncommon draw. Work the haunted house? That might be a few rares (depending on tasks and time). Cards may be traded among players so long as Staff is made aware of the transaction. This system will be developed as the game needs it and as the game grows. XP incentives may still exist, but they will be far less common.
Custom Stuff-
This will not be allowed for the first six months of my term, to be redressed at our half-way point and see what the demographic is looking like.
Anyway. I've probably moved well beyond the tl;dr point. So, for those of you skimming, I want to make game much easier and more intuitive. For those of you not skimming, I welcome feedback. These points aren't particularly up for debate, but I am more than willing to clarify items, give examples of how I see something working, or soothing fears. I think it's time we had a fresh-start to things, and that is precisely what I am aiming for.
-Rob.
