Houses & Clans

[Spacecat]

Would like to say to the 3 of you who played Fae on tuesday, nice idea re The House of Oberon.

Now, I personally like the idea of each of the player races having clans or houses or factions.

Not proposing that they have different edges or anything, but would like them to have different flavours.

As this could be a major undertaking, i am happy to take suggestions/ideas from you the players.

So what do you think, and what factions/clans or houses would you like to see ?

[zalantos]

well as soon as i heard the idear about having houses i saw lots of opertunaties for fun rp. with different famalies allied to different sides. and having people who were exiled from famalies. and i think that its perfectly possible for most of the races. wears have packs or prides. fae and vamps famalies. but not sure for spirits and celestrials.

for examle as decreed by the nobles of house oberon all Fae of the prestidiouse family and all associates should wear some form of gold or bright yellow. with the amount to show there rank.

[nick]

I would think that 2 or 3 houses for all races however can a celestial have a house when they are summoned to perform a "purpose" in life.

The Different houses should have different RP aspects. So the House of Arinthor could be a mercantile house with the main focus on generataing money and are known for ranged combat. The NPC's who heads the house could have advanced edges so that those kin who are promising in the House can get rewarded when they are of service to the house.

[steve1]

Glad you liked the idea. My own two pence worth. Fae, could have many houses some new as a result of schisms within older houses, and some incredibly old. My own view is that Fae are an ancient magical race so could have a very well developed game of houses or some such. Could have some houses openly(or hidden) members of atrum/lumen or you could have the houses as neutral and rivalries between their members who sway to one philosophy or another. Or you could have all of the above as a chaotic mixture just to keep players on their toes. (To suss it all out you might need Fae lore or something).
steve

[steve1]

On Vampires, you could have the noble Blood line/ family idea. All members loyal & linked to one particular elder. members could be very much all on one side or another, alot more rigid than the Fae

[steve1]

Definitely like the idea of were kin having tribes/ packs. Some could be closer to their beast form (Possible shamanic/totem style) and want to be in the wilds more, others could be a bit more civalized and happier in cities. Tribe/pack structure could be the most relaxed of all the Kin but mebership would be for life.

[steve1]

Celestials - Rather than houses/tribes/bloodline. Could have them allying by commonalities of purpose. Ie. Some purposes could be linked to charity, or honour, revenge or any other virtue.

[steve1]

Spirit - Maybe factions/guilds or the odd few organisations, maybe not having established houses as such.

[nick]

Hit the nail on the head Steve

[diesel]

I do like that, Fae have Houses, Vampires have Families, Were-Kin have Tribes, Celestials have Bands, Spirits have Guilds and Enchanted have Packs (or maybe either Gangs, Cults or my other favourite, Cabals). Also I feel the different lines should have different outlooks from a militaristic sense of tradition to the laid back and easy going to the anarchistic.

Alexandra

[james]

Righty, first point I want to make is as I'm leaving the UK very soon I'm stepping back from Ref duties so this is purely my own opinion here...

I really don't think this is a good idea. Yes, it makes sense to the game world (as in the "if this were real life" argument) that the respective races would have their own background culture, society and organisation. It also adds some nice colouration and some nice detail.

But I think it's going to dilute the game and add a lot of confusion while this system is still in it's infancy, kinda like asking it to long jump while it's still learning to use a low table to stand up.

The player base is already divided by race and will (we hope) next be divided by Lumen vs Atrum. This is the focus of the game, the politics and loyalties between the 2 sides and it's always been our hopes that we can pick up sufficient numbers to allow Lumen and Atrum to both be playable.

If the players are divided by Alignment, Race and Clans/Houses then there's going to be too many divided loyalties to actually make the game function. Rather than add a sense of further identity to the players I think it's simply going to dilute the other "identities" that the players have (that of race/alignment and character type, e.g. bravo, sneaky thief etc). Don't get me wrong, colouration to characters is lovely, but if you have too many definining characteristics and divided loyalties I think most people tend to find each one simply gets diluted down.

I think if it were done it would be better to be done as a revision if the game grew considerably. Right now we operate with 10-15 players on average. If we remember our aim is to make it Lumen and Atrum then let's call it 8 per side on a good day. There's 6 common races which leaves us 1 of each race, possibly an independent creature or 2 as well. I'd rather when another Lumen vampire enters play he didn't have to hate the other vampire purely because of a house background. I think this will detract from any politics of race and alignment.

In vampire we had MASSIVE problems trying to engage in personal plots and clan plots simply because of the low numbers. We attempted to create animosity between Ventrue vs Tremere, Ventrue vs Brujah, Brujah vs everyone, Nosferatu vs Toreador and everyone vs Tremere. The trouble is, as was noted in the discussions regarding not playing vampire any more, when there's only 2 members (at most) to each clan then no one will engage in this. It's not sensible to face the wrath of a clan when there's only 2 of you in play, so people don't.

I think adding houses/clans will have much the same effect, I think it will detract from the Lumen vs Atrum focus, dilute the game world down and create so many divided loyalties etc that players will be reluctant to engage in any plot as they won't feel well enough supported or integrated to one group or another. It will also divide up the Atrum and Lumen in a very Camarilla like way and we'll be back to the same game design as Vampire which I think we've assessed isn't working.

So yeah, the ideas lovely but don't think it'll work. If we get 60 or so people then yes, it's worthwhile as there's enough for it actually matter or mean something. But while we've got low player numbers and while we're getting off the ground I think it'll just water down the game world.

[james]

Oh...and as another point it means that the ref's will have to (like Vampire) struggle to remember the names of over 30 or so NPCs of importance, none of which will ever really attend a game.

If you're talking about only 2 houses/clans to each race, per side then that's 4 NPCs (the house leaders) for each of the 6 races (24). We then have at least 3 people of note for each side (leader, regional leader, continental leader) so that's 30 NPCs purely as part of the society. Then there's 2 or 3 Medius members. Then there's the NPCs we actually bring in as part of plot, who come and go etc.

Now I've never liked the idea of NPCs existing unless they're a real and present member of the game world. And I think the 40 or so names we're looking at here will make the game very complicated and lead to a lot of people (mostly the refs! ;D) going "who's that again?" during gameplay.

[diesel]

I feel that the different lines within the races should be just guide the players' outlook on others and not so much be a means to divide them. So you have a toffee nosed house of celestials, which feel that they are better and more sophisticated than the rest of their brethren, but they don't hate each other for it. Instead you get the 'ok let them make an absolute fool of themselves' or the 'I'll show them how it's done' and other approaches. Obviously they aren't always stereotypical.

I'd say that PCs could earn they're way up to becoming the head honcho of the house, also I feel that you would only need 1 NPC for each line which could begin at say the leader of that line. Just a thought perhaps they character in charge of the line shouldn't be referred to as the leader, but as 'the representative'.

Plus I think it would be better if the the lines were more flexible, so if you wanted to you could change, possibly resulting in consequences from your former line depending upon how you went about it.

Alexandra xx

[james]

diesel said:

I feel that the different lines within the races should be just guide the players' outlook on others and not so much be a means to divide them. So you have a toffee nosed house of celestials, which feel that they are better and more sophisticated than the rest of their brethren, but they don't hate each other for it. Instead you get the 'ok let them make an absolute fool of themselves' or the 'I'll show them how it's done' and other approaches. Obviously they aren't always stereotypical.

Players are perfectly capable of playing Toffee nosed characters without necessarily needing to be from a Toffee related family. More over, I think people will come up with better character concepts without having a house background as I think having House/Clan characteristics can make some people a bit lazy when considering their own characters personality and characteristics. I just think the same ends can be achieved by leaving people to come up with independent members of the races.

diesel said:

I'd say that PCs could earn they're way up to becoming the head honcho of the house, also I feel that you would only need 1 NPC for each line which could begin at say the leader of that line. Just a thought perhaps they character in charge of the line shouldn't be referred to as the leader, but as 'the representative'.

If there are lines/houses/clans then they'll be headed up by Kin who are in some cases 1000's of years old...don't see how or why a PC would ever attain such rank. The only way is to say there are regional leaders in which case it's conceivable there's a Brighton vampire leader etc, and a South East/National one and so on. However this has now added another 24 NPCs to the numbers above. It's also a case with our player numbers that people will probably get "race representative" by default if that is the case as they'll be the only werewolf there.
Only have 1 representative/leader for each line is problematic while considering the Lumen/Atrum divide. What, other than race, gives werewolves from Lumen or Atrum a reason to come together and not just claw each other to death? What stops ALL the werewolves obeying the lumen of the Leader line and ALL becoming Lumen? What stops the Atrum vampire leader from saying that ALL vampires are members of the Atrum and declaring a blood hunt on all Lumen vampires? Think if it happens you'll need a Lumen and Atrum rep.

diesel said:

Plus I think it would be better if the the lines were more flexible, so if you wanted to you could change, possibly resulting in consequences from your former line depending upon how you went about it.

Then what's the point in having a family background involving shared lineages, ideologies and (as has been suggested) powers?

[steve1]

James, you seem to just be looking at the bad points of refing it where as we are looking at the colour of playing it as players. It will add colour to the game and it is inevitable that players will add in backgrounds 'off the cuff' (as we three did at the play test), that have them belonging to clan A or house B. It is inevitable and if you stamp on it and say players can't do it then you'll soon find you have no players. You do not need to NPC every clan/house. It is for player colour, not for power playing. If a player insists on talking to a high up representative it can be done on an ad hoc basis or not at all. They just aren't available for comment. Just like most of our present day politicians.

Identity is determined by a variety of factors in normal life or in the game. People have their race/nationality/ family/age group/religion/clubs/groups - political/football etc. These various factors make up who we are as people and the same will go for our characters. To say you can't have houses etc i think is unfair and arbritary. It will not divide people anymore or less that their roleplaying will allow them to be divided in the first place. As you said with vampire, you tried to start of feuds between players of differing clans and it failed. Why? Probably because their characters were friends with each other. I think the same will hold true with houses/clans etc in twilight. If players are gonna divide and go at each other hammer and tongs or if they're gonna be friends theres sod all a ref can really do about it. He can try and nudge things a bit but thats all. Lastly, from the posts that have gone before, their seems to be three or four for the idea and one against. How bout we put it to a poll rather than stamp on the idea.
Cheers
Steve