Happy New Year.

So, I intend, from this week, to try and make this weekly and keep to that goal.

I'm currently in the middle of the usual midwinter failout, which, mercifully, is all at the coord level and good manners prohibits me from sharing a lot of it here.

That said, observation 1: When I say "I don't know...x," I pretty much don't know it, and I'm asking so I can find out more. Who someone is, what the story is. I noticed that I'm pretty consistent in that speech pattern. As an aspiring poker player, now that I know that tell, I intend to try and stop it.

Observation 2 (tied to 1): When I ask a question that doesn't start with some variation of "I don't know...x", chances are, I already know the answer and want to see how much you are about to lie to me. If I say "Okay, so this thing you want to do, what book is it in?" you can safely fold knowing that I'm sitting on pocket kings and the other two just flopped to you showing of 6-7 off suit.

Observation 3: I've called you, I've shown you my hand. This is not the time for the debate. If I say "I've got 4 kings with an ace high," do not continue to argue with me saying that "but my 6 of clubs, 8 of spades, and the two kings on the table is just as good with the pinnacle rules from 1868 edition of Hoyles." I've stopped caring and definitely stopped reading. (This goes double if you're arguing something as a Coord or CM that directly affects your PC. Chances are I marked the email as read, moved on, and will only go back and read it later if I'm prepping a CM to propose your removal).

Observation 4: Clan Coords that say "I need an archon to clean up the midwest" I'm going to laugh at you. Seriously. I will laugh. Work together. If you don't have a tool in an area, and another coord has 4, talk to her. Work with her. Say "hey, I've heard about this situation, what can I do to help?" And then include the Sect Coord. So the sect coordinator can do his/her job. You're a clan coord. And that's great. Fix your clan, and your clans genre. Ignoring that to clean up the sect means you're doing a disservice to the other sects, a disservice to your clan, a disservice to the players and a disservice to the STs. Also, chances are you're worse at sect genre than the STs and Players you want to "fix." That arrogance and lack of regional political IC/OOC understanding is as responsible for all that is questionable in OWbN as anything Solon did as Shade.

On Anarchs and the Camarilla

Q. How does the Camarilla at large view Anarchs.

A. I think in all but the extreme cases, it should be tolerance and patience. The Camarilla views the majority of anarchs as angry teenagers and figure that as long as they don't go crazed and cause too many problems, they can wait until the complexities of unlife force them to realize that while less than perfect, the Camarilla does offer the best possible solution.

The bad eggs may make it difficult for the Princes to see that, but the elders usually just sigh quietly and turn their eyes onto the Mortals and their web cams, KJ, Sabbat, Rupines, Independents, Giovanni, the falling US dollar and import to export trade deficit, the Bears in ability to run a defense and making sure that as long as LA is a "barony" they will never have a NFL team.

Q. What's a Bad Egg Anarch? Is that a named Coterie like the DMH or the Shadow Coterie

A. 1- Shadow Coterie is not the name of a coterie. It's a blanket term like "communists" or "liberals"

2 - A Bag Egg Anarch - most anarchs have to the good sense to stop short of random reckless violence (unlike many 6 status titled Kindred). I figure they can do what they want short of blowing things up.

Q. What happens if they blow things up?

A. They have no status. I am happy to have 5 anarchs killed to get to the 6th that actually did it.

To genre or not to genre, this is the question...

I wrote an article in portuguese about it and as I was too lazy to translate it, I would like to post a lesser piece of the thought.

In a few words: can we just do anything we want just using the magic words "it was ic" and "it was a PC's action"?

Can we accept the idea that only NPCs have to keep the genre? Is it ST's exclusive job to read the books, genre packets and all that stuff just to let a PC come and do it the other way, freely and without consequences?

Please, stay tuned.

Good Reputations and other social magic...

Humanity

In a short way:
1) Try not to loose it.
2) If you loose it, try not to make that obvious.
3) If it is obvious, try not to be mad when people who are scared from you want you to die.
4) Also, don´t be mad with the guys badder than you think you have talent so they want you to die before you become them.
5) Don´t be mad when people call you sabbat.
6) Don´t be mad if Sabbat still canlls you Camarilla.

Thanks,

there's not a lot of control

A lot of the criticism about coords (after the neopotism, poor handling, lack of encyolpedic historical knowledge), is the "Why don't the coords do something?" which is usually followed by the "how dare the coords do something!"

It's a difficult balance, and more often than not, it's responsible for coord burnout and players quitting.

When you know you can escape IC consequences by stonewalling OOC until the coord elections and hoping the other person wins, that's OWbN Genre.

As we head to the elections...

You run the position like it should be run, not like a "I want to be nice to my friends." Instead of playing politics, you play Genre, which is what your job is.

From an IM conversation.

No prop I write is designed to screw anyone. I realize those that do not want to believe that, will not.

There's a reason for a lot of what I do, and there's a reason the PC Archon bylaws are to be placed under "Accepting the Consequences" in the Character bylaws section.

It has always been my position, that characters should be held accountable for their actions, if people seem to think that means I want to punish people OOC for playing, that's depressing but not something I can fix.

All I can do is make sure people play the game, and that includes what happens when their naughty vampire gods get caught.