|
Post by james on Jun 7, 2007 14:30:01 GMT
We recently had an organisers meeting to discuss the club, where we're going and what we need to work on more. Whilst Brighton Below, and Dark Times are running successfully, we came to the conclusion that the Vampire game could do with some more attention
As our most regular game its our "flagship product" and we're conscious that its perhaps not had the attention it deserves. Furthermore, player numbers are slowly dwindling, and whilst we've had a few new players recently, we're no longer at the stage where we're consistently getting 15-20 people at each game
So we're looking at ways that we can inject something back into the Vamp game. Vampire is really the lifeblood of the group so we want to ensure that it continues to run.
As well as improving things for our current players, one of our major objectives is to get more people into the group. Whilst advertising and promotion is a part of that we're painfully aware that a lot of the people we've spoken to have come back with the response of "No, we don't do Vampire". It seems that the two main reasons that they don't like it is either a) a previous bad experience at a Vampire LRP groups whether due to powergamers, too much angst, it not being run very well etc or b) that they just don't like the World of Darkness concept or White Wolf in general
So we'd like to find ways to re-vitalise the group and, as well as improve things for our current players, to attract more new faces. As this is your group, your opinion is very important to us. We've already bandied around a few idea but would like your input about what's working with the group, and whats not working.
Could we improve the rules system? We do try and keep our rules as well honed as we can get. We know that MET isn't popular, so we're not going to be bringing that in, but is there anything that you'd like the rules to include
Could we improve the quality of the kit? Are you content with the costume, weapons etc that we use. Would more impressive kit bring in more people
Could we improve the quality of the plotlines? Are things just not interesting enough? Does there need to be more Player vs Player action. Does there need to be more personal plot lines? Have the Coterie saved the Camarilla too many times now to be concerned
Could we improve the depth of the setting? We have a Wiki which was used briefly by a few people, but died out after a while. White Wolf have written hundreds of source books, but do we need to produce more on Brighton?
We should probably point out that we're prepared to do whatever we need to do (within physical and monetary constraints) to make it work. If it needs a complete overhaul we will do that. The overhaul could be something like:- 1) Requiem - The "new" White Wolf Vampire game 2) A Ultraviolet / X-files style game - The players are all human and part of a secret organisation and are hunting the Vampires / monsters 3) Nightwatch - A game setting where Vampires, Werewolves, Dark Magicians etc do work together (and against each other), which means that we could expand the number of races available as PC characters.
In the end our 3 requirements are:-
1) To run a regular evening game, twice a month. We can only physically run 2 games per month. More just isn't possible. We'd love to able to run a game a week but organisers have lives too. I've found with experience as well that when games are run too often that things turn stale more quickly.
2) The game be based in Brighton City Centre. We don't want to be driving off to a forest somewhere to run the game. We have a good location and whilst the occassional use of other locations is possible, there are a limited number of spaces where we can get a free private room.
3) The the game have a modern setting. Whilst we discuss the idea of doing Vampire: Dark Ages its just too much hassle for a few hours of RPing and decent locations are hard to come by. Modern day makes things easy in that theres no need for special kit and set dressing, and also because potential players currently don't have to pay ANYTHING to play Vamp. Turn up in your work clothes, we'll lend you a gun.
Beyond those requirements, we're prepared to run a game that people want to play. Both yourselves and other potential players
One thing to bear in mind is that we don't necessarily have to stick with White Wolf Vampire 2nd Edition, if people want to do something else.
Theres plenty of options and we're open to all ideas, so would appreciate input on where you think we could make improvments.
Thanks
|
|
Zombie
Regular Poster
Posts: 54
|
Post by Zombie on Jun 7, 2007 17:25:54 GMT
>>Could we improve the rules system? I think the system is mature, and shouldn't really be messed with. Everything seems to make sense and is relatively easy to run with. Well¡K with the exception of Celerity. >>Could we improve the quality of the kit? I've not had any complaints about kit, and have seen a couple of neat costumes. Not an issue. >>Could we improve the quality of the plotlines? I'm much more use to linear games, where there is a clear collection of aims for a day. The Elysium seems to be considered far too much of a social from my point of view, and this is ingrained in the player's minds. When the Seneschal gives clear orders saying "you must all go out and do this", half or less of the group jumps to it. So, for me, the plot lines aren't a problem, but I would like to see more drive behind the players. >>Could we improve the depth of the setting? What I would like to seem more of is more persistent NPCs. Perhaps if more people could be persuaded to play NPC roles for an evening then (as it seems to be at the moment) then James and James wouldn't be permanently swapping hats all evening. >>We should probably point out that we're prepared to do whatever we need to do (within physical and monetary constraints) to make it work. If it needs a complete overhaul we will do that. Move the game to Guildford? >>The overhaul could be something like:- >>1) Requiem - The "new" White Wolf Vampire game You would still get the "I don't like White Wolf/Vampire/MET" objections, so it would be a wasted effort, IMHO. But, perhaps you could lift some of the new ideas from it, such as the covenants. >>2) A Ultraviolet / X-files style game - The players are all human and part of a secret organisation and are hunting the Vampires / monsters I don't fancy this too much. If the games are still going to be function room based, we'd be sitting there waiting for the next big bad ghoul to kick the door down and kill people, or going out and spying on the bad guys, praying you're not noticed because you're dead if you are. Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick on this one. >>3) Nightwatch - A game setting where Vampires, Werewolves, Dark Magicians etc do work together (and against each other), which means that we could expand the number of races available as PC characters. Yes please! Adios, Richard / Coachman / Law [Modified to make my punctuation readable!]
|
|
|
Post by Trez on Jun 8, 2007 9:30:37 GMT
Cheers Rich In response on a couple of the points The NPC issue is one thats come up before. The problem again comes down to lack of numbers. If theres only 10 players, we don't really want to reduce that further by taking a couple out to NPC. We do the "hat swapping" to allow as many people to play as possible. If we get more people we'll start bringing in "NPC duty" again
The lack of drive issue is one of the things that led us down this path in the first place. We're aware that there seems to be a little dip in the enthusiasm levels, so we're trying to address that. Whilst Vamp is a social game, we don't really want to have people just come down to have a drink with people
The Ultraviolet idea was more investigative rather than waiting for Vamps to attack. Would basically have the pub as the HQ with NPC's around town. If the group gets larger then we split into two factions (Vamps and Hunters)
The Nightwatch idea seems to be fairly popular if only because people get to play werewolves, demons, angels, mages etc. So theres more scope
|
|
|
Post by zalantos on Jun 9, 2007 11:54:03 GMT
a problem with the night watch idear then would be that we wouldnt be able to have just one room. we realy would need to do it all ovewr brighton. otherwise why would and angel and a vamp sit next to each other.
personaly i like the idear of more polatics between the different clans. i think that the would be great. of coarse as a lowly lacky ic there may well be lots of polaticks that i just dont see.
i have no problem with other races be-ing introduced but i think it would make it hard to hold vampire as we do now and unless we get a lot of people saying that they want a huge change then it may well push people away.
another idear i just thought of is a take the fight to them. one of the few things that i feel is out of place with this world is the fact that it is always us getting attacked and then reacting. we dont go and kick down the door of anyone elces place enuff. perhaps thats the players but i think it would make a nice feel not to be reacting but to be doing the attacking.
thats my 2 pens.
ps personaly i like the game and i dont think it needs a major overhall just a bit of a pick me up
|
|
|
Post by Trez on Jun 9, 2007 17:13:30 GMT
Merlin. Thanks for the comments. Can you give us more info on HOW you'd actually see some of the things you suggested happening. The problem we have at the moment is that in most cases theres 1 or 2 members of each clan in the coterie, which make inter-clan politics pretty difficult.
Having more than one race in teh room at the same time would be impossible with the WW Vampire game. We could potentially have Ghouls in there but theres no IC justification for anythnig else. The Nightwatch version has Good and Bad of each race, so Good werewolves, and Good Vampires get on fine
I think the "taking the fight to them" echo's what Richard was saying in that there seems to be a degree of player apathy. You want to go kick in the Sabbts door, then you need to know where they ae, you find out where they are by looking for them either in downtime, or be getting hold of them. They tend not to hand themselves over to easily.
We do try to encourage players to be pro-active, but any suggestions on how we might be able to make it easier? We have found that when we've introduced plot carrying NPC's that they get killed before any questions get asked
|
|
|
Post by felixedwards on Jun 10, 2007 11:34:58 GMT
I think that the nightwatch is a good idea but the problem is the implemantation of the concept. We would need several venues several Refs. To enable it to work properly. However 2 races could share the same venue. If they had good enough reasons but still the problem arises of multiple venues. It would only work with large numbers of people though.
The idea of having more races is a good idea. However the problem arises that if we have small numbers then you get the problem of 1 or 2 members of each faction, race or clan. So fewer more diverse races in some cases would improve the inter-faction/clan politics.
I think that by increasing players plot lines that they have written in the background might improve the system but other than that. Short of a major overhaul I can't think of anything. The problem with a major overhaul is that you could end up with people leaving because of the drastic change in the overall setting.
The reqium idea is too simmilar to this one but I do not know enough about that system.
Nick
|
|
|
Post by Trez on Jun 11, 2007 8:49:39 GMT
Thanks Nick.
Think the idea initially discussed on the Nightwatch idea would be that the first part of the meeting would be the Good and Evil meeting together in a neutral location to discuss the "exchange" of Good and Evil deeds (i.e. the Good want to get a murderer to turn himself in, whilst the Evil characters want to corrupt a priest. They have to negotiate the terms of who's allowed to do what and when. They can obviously try to get better terms, or to decieve each other, and its the time where they will try and get compensation from each other.
Would then have either a) both teams go off to complete their missions together potentially sabotaging each others or b) for the first game of the month, its the Good guys doing there things, and then swap for the second game.
The other alternative being that everyone plays the one group. You're all different races, some might be less moral than others, but you're more of a "gang" rather than working towards a larger scheme
Personal plot is something that we're looking into. We're aware that part of the "apathy" is due to the fact that its things that don't relate so much to the players themselves. More personal plot means that players have more personal involvement
Agreed on the Requiem thing. Means that everyone would have to get the sources books etc
|
|
|
Post by Marcus Trent on Jun 11, 2007 10:23:33 GMT
As well as improving things for our current players, one of our major objectives is to get more people into the group.
Possibly dropping the 'Vampire' label might help as there is a lot of stigma about Vamp games. I personally was very suspect about turning up and without two existing friends saying it was good I wouldn't have. Having said that I do actually like the setting and how it runs and although something new would be great, I would miss the existing system
For getting more people, best way seems to be get lucky and get a new group from the uni involved? very much depends on people though
Could we improve the rules system? We do try and keep our rules as well honed as we can get. We know that MET isn't popular, so we're not going to be bringing that in, but is there anything that you'd like the rules to include
The rules seem to work pretty well. My main issue is with the character generation. Depending on how you stat up you can be down 100xp from the word go. this encourages one to work the rules at the beginning so as to not put you 5 months behind.
Could we improve the quality of the kit? Are you content with the costume, weapons etc that we use. Would more impressive kit bring in more people
better kit would help a little. Possibly adding to the stash rule that if anyone can see huge bulges in coats, or guns and knives poking out of jackets the skill fails. In fact this skill in general seems a little suspect to me? I mean, where can you hide a regular gun? getting off topic
Could we improve the quality of the plotlines? Are things just not interesting enough? Does there need to be more Player vs Player action. Does there need to be more personal plot lines? Have the Coterie saved the Camarilla too many times now to be concerned
Personally I would like to see characters more imbedded in the story. From what I have seen there is no intercharacter history and the characters are plonked into brighton as opposed to being embedded with ties all over the place. More personal plot would be good, possibly along the lines of giving characters motivations so they have to get out there and do their own agendas. And yes, i do realise the problem with all this, that it means ridiculous amounts of work for the GMs
Will
|
|
|
Post by felixedwards on Jun 11, 2007 13:36:17 GMT
Trez,
I like the way you are thinking for the neverwatch idea. With the neverwatch idea about good vrs evil are a bit cliche. I was thinking of different factions each with sepperate goals, aims and ideals. Some would agree on some ideals and disagree on others. Others could be the antithesis in ideals etc. Different factions could be difficult to handle particullary if there are several races. However I like the idea that one faction would get to drive the story in one game and the next game the other faction could drive the story. But if both factions try to complete their goals simultainiosly but the need for sepperate venus occures and the problem of trying to sabotage the goals would have problems with the location of the venues.
However I think that we should try to do what we can to the current system and game before dumping the lot. I realise how much more work would need to be do to get people more involved with the game by increasing personal plot. Which I think is what is needed to keep a small group togeather during the story.
(off topic to wills question where can you hide a regular gun?) Simple answer: You can't
Hard answer: When you get searched one of the places that is rarely checked is around the genitals particullary the scrotum which is why guns that are small and lightweight and or breakdown are chosen in the espionage world. I suppose that you could hide the gun if it were a break down, would be up your behind with other parts around the crown jewels)(SORRY FOR SUCH A GRAPHIC RESPONSE!)
Nick
|
|
Zombie
Regular Poster
Posts: 54
|
Post by Zombie on Jun 11, 2007 14:04:28 GMT
Could we improve the quality of the plotlines? Personally I would like to see characters more imbedded in the story. One mechanism that could be used more are the positions of status. Last time I was there we had an NPC seneshal and a PC Keeper o/e, who seemed to have authority. What I would suggest is getting a full roster of characters with status: Have a Keeper, and have deputy keepers who can hold the position if the main keeper isn't there. Likewise for harpies, scourges, etc. etc. Each clan could also have it's prominent member, who is given temporary status for that evening. The plot team, rather than worrying too much about each PC's background, could then give each status character objevtives. If they manage their objectives, they are rewarded. Fail, and they are ignored sometimes, punished others. Make the PCs responsible for driving the plot forward!
|
|
|
Post by Trez on Jun 11, 2007 14:18:27 GMT
Sadly with only 10 or so players that would be a case of too many chiefs
|
|
|
Post by Marcus Trent on Jun 12, 2007 9:20:02 GMT
What i mean by characters embedded in the storyline is not positions so if they dont get involved they get kicked, but rather they have some relation to it in their history or they have some outside motivation.
For instance with the antony plot line: Maybe someones character's father was killed by him, maybe there was some dodgy deal made centuries ago which still has some bearing on this. maybe someone has been instructed to not let antony get caught as he knows something incriminating. Maybe someone has vital information that could capture him but has reason to keep it secret. All rather trite but you get the picture
One way to do this would be to add a load of plot hooks to each characters background which dont relate to a particular storyline but could be used up as the storytellers see fit to drag each character into each storyline in a much more meaningful way. and of course once these are used up then hopefully they will have aquired a load more in game
Of course all this could already be happening and i havenet seeen it yet, and having not done vamp that long I'm not in the best position to comment.
|
|
|
Post by Trez on Jun 12, 2007 10:18:39 GMT
Its certainly the way that it always used to happen, and I believe that it is still happening. Think things will be revealed as time goes on. We're looking more to actually put more personal plot in based on people's background, but I know in some cases we've either not received on or we've got one that's a little too brief or doesn't have anything to sink out plot hooks into.
We have tried a couple of things which didn't really take off, but will keep at it as from our point of view its fairly essential because if plot doesn't affect people then they're not going to care.
|
|
|
Post by james on Jun 12, 2007 12:13:47 GMT
As a point, and this isn't me being defensive at all, all the plots do actually have some very strong personal plot elements to them which so far have either been ignored or just not noticed. As I said, that's not me being defensive or slating any players, just saying that a lot of the stuff people are looking for here is there if you look. But if things don't get picked up on we'll just carry on throwing more in.
There's been some ideas on vampire here but as Simon's noted to things like the problems with status, inter-clan rivalries (which incidentally is also something we've really been working on) is the numbers. Vampires just not attracting a huge crowd these days, it had it's height almost 10 years ago and a lot of people (as Will and Simon have noted) flat out refuse to play vampire due to it's reputation (in the world, not our system - our one's fab!)
I think if we did make the decision to change at all then Requim is best avoided. I don't know anything about it I'll admit and it might be great, but I don't think it ever took off as largely as Vampire and it would require players (and refs!) to fork out for those lovely books.
|
|
|
Post by Trez on Jun 12, 2007 14:57:32 GMT
I think on average only about 1/3rd of all plot written gets used "fully". Some of it gets picked up on and just not developed (Look at the Doppelganger plot, which was all James Carters personal plotline and how long that took to come to fruition). So whilst you might not have spotted a lot of it, theres probably more going on than you're aware of. I've obviously not been involved much in Vamp recently but will chat more to JR and JS.
Essentially our mission is to get the numbers back up again. Considering in September last year we were averaging 18-20 players (so NPC's on top), then we've lost almost half our player base in the space of 9 months.
We need to revitalise it somehow, by either a serious recruitment campaign, or by changing whatever it is that is keeping people away / causing people to leave. If the thing that is stopping new people from joining is the fact that its a WW Vampire game then thats perhaps what we need to look at changing
We're debating ending the next game a bit early to have a group discussion about what we can do. Much easier than posts on a forum, and it means that everyone gets to have their say
|
|