Post by Magic Rob on Aug 9, 2014 15:48:03 GMT -8
Alright. So. We're resetting. What does that actually mean?
In this brief guide, I'm going to try to itemize the things that will be changing and how that might affect the world as you know it. Some of the things that are changing are cosmetic, and some are pretty jarring to what you are used to. Here are some of the big ones.
* We are transitioning from a game that allowed most any printed Vampire material into its cannon to a strictly V20 setting. We are still debating some of the finer points of the Anarch book, which advances the very familiar metaplot to a modern nights. Most of these nuances will be addressed in the Historical games.
* We are transitioning away from a system that encouraged lots of little XP spends as a method of combating XP bloat. We will be putting life-long XP caps onto characters as our primary method of battling this. As we are still debating the finer points of this, and we wont be reaching that cap anytime soon, it doesn't matter too much right now. Suffice to say that the previous Secondary rich system is being moved away from.
* As an aside to the above, we will be handling Lores in a unique sort of way; they will be treated like merits and rolled as other stats (Politics, Occult, Academics, etc). There will be a section on the website regarding this, but if you have specific questions, please find me at game.
* The Craft and Business system from previous EC incarnations is being modified and ported back into the V20 world. V20 has skills like Finance and Crafts, but doesn't offer hard/fast rules for how they can benefit your character. Crafting will be simplified, but published for easy reference as well as the business system you may find familiar.
* Once upon a time, EC had very strict clan/bloodline caps. We are re-instituting those. We are not limiting what is in the world, however. So, while it is entirely possible that Salubri or Children of Osiris exist, it is highly unlikely you will ever see one (and nearly impossible for you to play one). That isn't because we hate you. This is to build and support the canon demographics we want for this game to operate in a manner close to how the books are written. A city the size of Seattle's might host a few aberrant characters, but they would be the distinct minority. As a Camarilla city, the majority should be populated with the base 7 Camarilla clans.
* Out of Clan disciplines will be limited on characters. One can never have higher than a 3 in an out of clan discipline. This is to bring the emphasis back on your inherent build. This will also making having a 5 in something far more valuable as you are likely one of the few that *can*.
* Status will undergo a wide variety of changes, but these are all largely within the V20 scope of things. We will be using their optional Title system, which details how Court positions can work. Effectively, its a minor perk you can buy to make your court position mean something. Otherwise, having a position will offer no mechanical advantage. Status will be controlled almost entirely by the Prince and to a lesser degree, the Harpy. I will be talking about this at game, and we will be writing various situations and examples to list on the website for people to reference. Other changes to status: we are doing away with the named trait system (which is an MET throwback anyway). A status of 5 won't have a bunch of names to represent that, it will just be Status 5. Status can be a bit tricky to explain, but I will to anyone that wants to know more.
* Camarilla Canon will be enforced far more strictly. As a democratic nation, we as players often have difficulty wrapping our minds around a system that rewards one subset of essentially the same people. It's hard for us to say "Yeah, that guy is right because he has more social UMPH"; we want to say "That guy is right because he is right." In the past, EC has largely shifted to a very Anarch system of a meritocracy rather than the inherited wealth oligarchy that it actually is. Players should expect for parent clans to always have more clout than bloodlines; and status to always be the determining factor for things. What is right and what is wrong is almost completely irrelevant to vampires. It's who your daddy was and how important your lineage is that determines almost everything. We will have brief tutorials for this as well for those interested in doing those sorts of things.
* Boons have often been handled by the Harpy in the past. This isn't represented anywhere in printed canon. This is an MET / Cam Fanclub thing, and it will be done away with. The Prince MAY elect a character to be his book keeper (there is a Title for this position) as a fellow who tracks boons, but this is not necessarily in every city and we haven't decided if we'll have it in this one. Instead, Boons will be handled with Item cards. By canon, most books are verbal agreements with a handshake. We will be moving more to a 'Boons are actually contracts' sort of system. If you lose the item card, you may well lose the boon. It all depends, really...
* We won't be allowing things to 'stack' as they have in the past. For instance, if you have a modifier from a Merit, you won't be able to have the same sort of modifier from a different merit add to it (a great example is Enchanting Voice and Friendly Face. These both offer minuses to difficulty from Merits. You would benefit from one, not both, for any given roll). This is to limit the 'voltron' effect you've seen in nights past to give insane defenses or absurd difficulty reductions. We will be playing with this as we move forward and it might change.
* We are instituting a cap on Downtime Actions. In the past, you could send a twenty bullet-pointed Email to staff on what you wanted to accomplish that week and Staff generally had to comply or tell you no for esoteric reasons. Moving forward, you will have a number of monthly downtime actions that will be limited to half your humanity (rounded up). These will almost exclusively be restricted to things that you would normally have been doing 'mid-week', in addition to the usual grind of surviving. We have a list on the website of what these will generally be. I will go over this in more detail at game.
* Contacts / Mentors / Allies / Influence / Retainers- have all changed a bit from previous incarnations of EC. Lets talk really briefly about what that will look like for you.
Contacts- These will largely offer passive information about the goings on in a sphere of mortal relevance. You can engage in them to offer more information, but this will take time (Read: Downtime Actions). These are always humans. Contacts is a single background going from 1-5 and covers SEATTLE only.
Allies- These are humans generally good at one or two things that you might have need of. They may be mildly influential or unusually talented in a thing. They can use this thing for you, or teach people for you. But, they're still human. Allies are purchased individually from a rating of 1-5 and exist in SEATTLE only.
Influence- In the past this was a series of complicated actions and counter actions spread out over a huge grid of 15 different spheres. We have trimmed these spheres down to 10. You will need to roll to effect any sort of change, and we won't be exhaustively detailing just what every action can do. Influence will always take a downtime action. Influence is a single background listed 1-5. This sounds complicated, but it isn't. I'll have details at game.
Mentor- These are vampires that have a vested interest in you. They can teach you or help you politically or pull favors for you. Engaging with them will be expensive, as they will require compensation for what they do, but what they can do is impressive. They are purchased individually 1-5, where their numeric value caps what they can teach you and how powerful they are individually (that isn't to say that a level 1 mentor can't teach you something to 3; they probably can, but they won't be terribly versatile in what they can do). I will have more details at game.
Retainers- Retainers in the past were characters in their own rights and had sheets. Now they will not. You will list what they are good at, and that is generally speaking all they can do. Retainers can't hold Backgrounds or focus on much beyond wanting to keep you safe or playing dress up with your sleeping body during the daytime. More explained at game.
* We have already spoken rather exhaustively on our bead draw system for character creation. We are doing this to enforce the canon of game and not show favorites to who plays what. However, if we find people trying to abuse this system by torpedoing their characters, we will enforce strict IC/OOC penalties on these people. A straight common build can be a lot of fun if the game is good. And game will be great. Give it a chance, please.
*Blood and feeding has been done a dozen different ways since I first joined game. We will have a simple system for it that is easier to explain in person, but basically we will be taking how the book says feeding works (Perception + applicable ability + Fame + Domain + Other factors) and you will begin play with a percentage of that total pool based on a roll we do each month. Each game you will start with that same blood total, plus or minus what you have spent in game or gained in game (or downtime actions). It'll be super easy.
* Haven Security will be straight out of the Communal Haven background rather then the house made system we had before. Yes, this will cost XP. And yes, we have clarified what 'unique defense features' are. Check the website; this is actually a lot of fun.
* We have created a non-XP incentive system. We will be explaining this more at game as it isn't quite ready for implementation, but it's close. Expect more at game.
The above is the overwhelming majority of the changes I am implementing. This looks like a lot, but it's largely flow related. Moving forward, my staff and I will be dedicating our time to keeping the above working and otherwise not engage too much in system related stuff. If we find ambiguous rules, poorly covered material, or loopholes being abused, we will address this. More likely these addresses will be with the player in question than an exhausting list of house rules.
This isn't really bad. I know it looks like a lot, but it's not.
-Rob.
