My thoughts on R&U

It's a touchy subject. It was trying to make the best possible decision for an organization that was growing as fast as the internet would allow it.

It is likely one of the most divisive elements in the org because it tells players that they can't play their special snowflake, and the only reason is because the coords are a pox on fun.

It is the R&U List.

This is my idea, based on a suggestion by Mike Lehman on the council list. It is only a suggestion, but I would happily support it as a proposal.

Instead of a long and rambling list that's added too piece by piece, we encourage players to focus more on their concept and their PC and less of the cool powerz/cool clanz.

We create a list depending on genre/splat book and say "This is what is acceptable to play."

Cam genre chronicle uses this list, sabbat genre chronicle uses this list, Changing Breeds game uses this list, Anarch, this list, KJ, this list so on.

If you want to be 'special' it's a vote on council. Included on the list are reasons why certain clans/bloodlines/disciplines/merits/

If you want to use an NPC, it's notify to the coords. The Coords work with the Storytellers on it, and if one game in South Carolina has a traveling Brujah pretending to be a Ventrue, and a game in North Dakota wants to run a similar plot, then the Coord can coordinate that, and create a little consistency between games.

NPCs would be notify to Coords. STs would be asked to include why they feel they need to use the NPC, how long they plan to use the NPC, and what the NPC will teach their players.

Coords approve the NPC use, most of it would just be bookkeeping and ideally it would be idea sharing. What one game wants to do with a Nagaraga antagonist might work in another game that's asking for some plot ideas.

If the coord says no, it's a vote, and to accomodate games, we can have two levels, one which is the standard policy and the one which is a provisional one-week vote, which would limit the amount the game could do with the NPC, but would allow it to be played if the vote passes.

This would encourage STs to work with the coords on making sure it fits in the shared World of OWbN, and if STs feel that the coords are being too picky, they can take it to council.

This would include demons and demon plots, genre breakers like sect innappropriate paths, and assist in creating a census so that when someone says it's not fair that they can't play an Abomination Hedgemage embraced by a Gargoyle, we can list the reason that there are only supposed to be -1 of those in existence and OWbN has 3, and they need to wait their turn.

The Red List

Do not view this as a shopping list.'

Saying "I want my PC to hunt someone on this list, how do I find out who is on it" will likely lead to an unsatisfying and disappointing conclusion of death, or your PC spends x years chasing his own shadow and finds nothing.

Getting on the Red List IC requires one Justicar to say "this person is bad, and I can't deal with it alone," followed by a second Justicar verifying it, and then a unanimous decision from the rest of the Justicars. The Red List can either be the worst of the worst or some poor bastard that said he hated Petronius' book and woke up one evening to find his friends dead and everyone hunting him.

Getting on the Red List OOC is detailed in Section 13 of the Character regulation bylaws.

There are no PC Red Listers.

There are no PC Alastors.

There is no being released from being an Alastor service except for sweet sweet death.

The WW Canon Red Listers are taken from the Kindred Most Wanted, published by White Wolf. Some details and stats may change.

(Names listed in no particular order)

1. Rabbat
2. Enkidu
3. Ossian
4. Dylan
5. Ferox
6. Danya/Alexis
7. Germaine
8. Petaniqua
9. Kemintiri
10. Jack the Barber*
11. ** Open Slot, not yet publically announced
12. ** Open Slot, not yet publically announced
13. ** Open Slot, not yet publically announced

Those who have been successfully hunted:

• Tariq - killed by Mme. Guil (she was executed for diablerizing Tariq)
• Valarius Maior - killed by Victor Schultz
• Gabriel Camaratta* - killed by Karsh
• Genina - killed by Lucinde
• Angelo - killed by Johnny Moto

* (OWbN PC)

From the Player of Daniel Book.

So I figured I would drop you my current pet rant about the Camarilla, maybe for the blog.

The Camarilla, by its own reckoning, is the scale that all vampires are weighed on.

On the one side are the humane, the civil, the composed and the graceful. On the other are the monsters, inhumane, Masquerade breakers, tradition breakers and heretics.

The Camarilla represents neither side of the scale, but the scale itself.

The battle the elders have tasked their creation with is not one of Camarilla vs Sabbat or Coterie Vs. Pack, but one of Man against the Beast, humane vs inhumane.

Every kindred that shouts out that they have discarded humanity to defend the Camarilla is in fact yelling, "I have lost the battle and am tearing down that which I am sworn to defend." Noble warriors who refuse to fall to their beast are to be revered for their sacrifice and their struggle, those who give in to their beast and foreswear Humanity should be maligned and ostracized. While these monstrous assassins are arguably needed in every war even Kindred society should never be comfortable in making or using them. Standing next to a man who killed women and children in their sleep to "protect his country" should make anyone uncomfortable. Kindred on paths represent these unfortunate few who sold their souls, sometimes under orders, to do what was "needed".


~Seth

Allow me this moment of Snark

"OMG, Coords have totally killed six or four or a handful of PCs! Including mine! But that's not what I'm complaining about!"

Consequences suck. Too often it feels like an episode of COPS where the guy is in the back of the car after having been found after driving his car into a telephone pole, with the crack pipe, suspended drivers license, warrant out for his arrest, possession of a firearm, and screaming how unfair it is.

See my post about the accounting and Truth. It's not don't get caught, you know you're not supposed to be doing what your doing. Trying to pretend to be ignorant later just makes you look worse. Complaining OOC just makes you look like you don't know how to play the game.

The Accouting

What I'd love to see is more emphasis on the Accounting. One of the things that really struck me in the first edition, was the line that the Accounting was an average of 10 years, and that most players should play characters that had just been released from the Accounting.

Now, I don't read a lot of backgrounds. I don't read a lot of fan fic or slash fic either.

When I do, I'm struck at how the Accounting is always missing, or its one line, or just misses the point.

The Accounting is the second most important of the Traditions. I'd allow an argument that Progeny would be second, but it's a close race, any moron can be turned into a Vampire, but to be a Kindred and Acknowledged, you need to prove that you're worth it, but more than worth it, you need to prove you get it.

The Camarilla is a successful conspiracy. Whether you believe it or not, and with enough White Wolf Lore, you likely don't, but the point is the conspiracy only works if people have bought into to it. And that's what The Accounting is all about. There's a reason why the Mods for the Yahoo Cam Group ask which Prince Acknowledged your PC. It's because that's when you first became your own kindred. Part of any social interaction is the rite of passage, and that should be your PCs. Backgrounds should not be about the time you met Caine or fought Hardestadt to a standstill in a battle of wits. It should be your life before your embrace, the embrace and then focus on the years afterward up to the point when you were released, and that next night should be your first game.

OWbN Wide Plots

There's been talk on the Council list about the KJ Plot that OWbN ran a few years back, which I said we should learn from and was asked what specifically.

The lesson I think that was learned, or should be taken, is that meta plots in the One World By Night is that they should be flexible enough that no member chronicle feels they need to follow a rigid script and can put their own unique spins on it, and that players can feel they contribute to it and can make it personal to them, and don't need to get involved in online scenes or special event games where it's focused solely on a handful of players. At the same time, it should contain enough details so that it's consistent acorss the board and a player who goes to one game and is told "omg! Seatlle got destroyed!" doesn't go to another game and get told "Seattle beat back the sabbat and won!"

So, for an OWbN meta plot, it needs to be open so that if one game wants a Michael Bay style rain of fire, volcanoes and gun-fu, it can, and another game can run My Dinner with Andre with talking and scenes in a library with warmed crystal goblets filled with blood, and a third can run a cloak and dagger CSI/24 game ("There's NO TIME Madame Justicar!"), and from that, the coordinators running it, can see where it's going and try and create bookends based on involvement.

It's similar to the way WW runs V:TES storylines, but I think that's the best possible solution for OWbN over a MMO style "here's this weekend where we'll run scripted events and then it'll end!" or taking a TT game and moving around and telling other players "oh, no, it's changed." We're in OWbN because we're not Cam Inc, and we don't have global storytellers and mandated plots, we let the Chronicles (which is Players and STs) make up the story. If there is to be a meta-plot, it should be a plot line that is shared across the board that is open and yet guided.

Truth in the Camarilla

As I head off to a judicial conclave in Vegas this weekend, there is something that needs to be stressed.

The first thing, Genre Wise, and I'll be making this statement to the Council and ST list, is that it's not Law & Order: Camarilla.

I don't care about facts, and truth and "What really happened OOC." Status and Prestation work on perception and image, not whining out of character about what happened. I have a t-shirt that's in the wash that says "I didn't say it was your fault, I said I'm going to blame you," and as the player of Daniel Book, Seth Yokely says "I dont care what you did, I care what they said you did". That's the nature of truth in the Camarilla. If you really did it, well then, that just makes it easier. If you didn't, you better make a compelling argument and be well liked. It is high school, it is every clique social circle, it is Heather's and that petition you signed that you thought was for banning all the Caitiff was in fact for blowing up the school.

So, "Truth"? "What really happened?", it's what I say happened. It's what people believe happened, and it's what is perceived to have happened. If something is said IC and you know it's wrong OOC, don't whine about it. Deal with it IC. If something happens IC and you're confused as to why, then don't whine about it OOC, ask IC. That's called Roleplay.

The anything goes mentality of the kindred of the Camarilla is not: random killing, learning the wrong disciplines, instant conversions between sects; it's playing diplomacy with people you've been friends with for years and laughing at them as you stab them in the back knowing they can't do anything about it. That's what the books talk about, making your friends look and smell bad while you get ahead, while knowing that down the line, they'll remember what you did and will be willing to do the same to you, so you better make sure that's the reputation that you want. Oh, and if you kill them? Means that no one is going to want to be friends with you, and you can't take the Ukraine with out friends.

So get "Truth" out of your head. Truth is whatever the Elders of the Sect say is the truth. People believe what the want to believe and Cam Lore 5 should tell you that there's always something more going on behind the scenes, and maybe it's a bad idea to always demand to pull back the curtain to see.