Me - WoD is not OWbN Genre.
Some ST named Jordan - "Are you serious? I know OWbN moved away from the books but should we get rid of WoD and make it some disney happy fun land?" His email is 10 times longer than mine. Mine was 5 words. His "OMG THINK OF THE GENRES!" was about 50.
Seriously.
A five word sentence gets me into trouble on the ST list (council I can do it in 3.)
My response -
Are you new?I recognize that not all get my humor, and that over email, it's harder, but really, it's starting to look like they're not even trying. They take themselves, the org, their PCs so seriously to psychotic levels that they can't deal with anything that might cause them to think or laugh at themselves.
I'm not trying to be mean, I just need to figure out how much of a 5 word sentence I need to explain.
Players quit rather than roleplay out the consequences of their PCs actions. STs say "omg, no one could have found out that secret" despte the player with the secret running around and telling it to everyone.
WoD - You're a shitty vampire, low on the totem pole, scared of the dark and the knowledge that for as cool as you are being a filthy bloodsucker leeching on humanity, there is always something bigger, faster, nastier than you.
OWbN - "Let's have PC Justicars."
Council says that Coords should have to get everything they want to do approved by them. STs allow Trevor Wallace, the Prince/Archbishop/Setite Pontiff of Oakland who had his true name changed through a Setite ritual to avoid being discovered as a Path of Mars cracked out Brujah.
The Camarilla in OWbN is a violent, militant, xenphobic organization that promotes Paths of Enlightenment, getting Thaum to win, and that you don't need an accounting or to care about the Sect and it's rules as long as you can kill anything that has a splat book.
I am definitely not saying that OWbN is a disney theme park with desperate college students in costumes trying to keep the kids happy, wait.. .maybe I am if by kids you mean players with entitlement issues and juvenile power fantasies and costumes you mean STs.
Alan
Cam Coord
The point I'm making is that OWbN genre gets used a lot on Council and ST lists. And that would be fine, but those same people like to turn around and defend their actions with WW genre, sometimes in the same breath. It gets annoying. We're playing a homebrew setting created by the power gamers that haven't quite yet and want to re-write the game to suit them, unless that's suddenly being used to get them, in which case it's "oh, well, the books say this is okay..."
It's become clear that a lot of the genre fail in the org is at the ST level and they're willingness to hand out cookies but never bother to explain to their players the game they are playing.
And again, this isn't a burnout rant, I'm not there yet, but sometimes I wish these people would rather explore why they play and what they want out of a LARP rather than spend so much energy on an email over 5 words.
After playing Sabbat, I've realized that the Cam are not the good guys. The Camarilla are everything their name implies: a secretive cabal of powerful individuals who have a good thing going for them in the form of a circle jerk of corruption.
ReplyDeleteThe Sabbat might actually be the good guys in the world. Sure, they're mean to mortals, but no worse than humanity has treated itself in the past. They are willing to die for their cause, and it is indeed a noble one: murdering the antideuvians. The most evil and powerful creatures ever to walk the earth, and their master plan is to throw themselves at them in droves until one side is utterly destroyed.
(as I hit enter too early)
ReplyDeleteThe point about realizing WHY you play the games you play is one that I think a lot of players don't really understand. Cam really does have a genre that it's designed for, and a genre that works well. And there's a genre that doesn't work well in it, but PCs don't know any better so they make stupid characters.
In Bradenton, for about a year they had a Tzimisce Harpy. No, it wasn't an Antitribu, it was an infiltrator. But the thing is, some of the Cammies down there knew it was an infiltrator and didn't care because he was good at his job.
That sorta stuff is not Cam genre. It's OWBN's "genre of convenience". I can imagine the conversation: 'Well, we liked that guy playing his infiltrator as the Harpy because the player could do a decent job playing a Harpy.'
I completely agree. I know there are metagamed conveniences we have to deal with, and most of those are okay. But not killing the Tzimisce harpy, when you are supposed to be a staunch member of the Camarilla, is ridiculous. Why? Because he's a friend or something? Um, no.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if Camarilla genre got closer to the political dance it is supposed to be.
But maybe too many people are trained on so-called RPGs like D&D (which is really all about the kill, let's be honest) to really understand what a political LARP is really all about.