I love the Grand Masquerade, as you well know. You know what I don’t love? Hotel wifi and the cellular dead spots that seem to breed in hotels. Seriously, I know lots of people were able to keep their cellular and Internet signals going, but I have no idea how. I have, like, 50 different internet capable devices that I haul around with me and none of them can stand hotels. Especially when the hotels want to make their quick buck charging guests ten bucks a day for the privilege of data trickle from the 40-dollar Belkin router they bought from a now-defunct OfficeMax location.
But with my inability to keep up with the blog feedback here for a few days, I did have the great opportunity to meet with many V20 players face-to-face and in panels over the long weekend event. We had a brief discussion about the V20 Companion at the end of the Making of V20 panel, but because of time and space constraints, we weren’t able to get a good amount of back-and-forth with the panel attendees. I kept notes, though, and here’s some of my takeaway:
- The group seemed to have some popular support for the idea of writing the Kindred and technology chapter as a list or otherwise presenting the comment in something other than the traditional topics-and-paragraphs method of chapter writing. I like this. This means the chapter’s entries can serve both as player tactics and Storyteller hooks without belaboring the point. I think there’s a lot of room for creative information presentation here, and I’m looking forward to jumping into this chapter with both feet, but not without a little more planning.
- Much enthusiasm for the locations and landmarks chapter also emerged. In fact, I’m now worried that 500 words for 10 locations might be too few. I can rob Peter to pay Paul on word count here, or I can double the number of locations and reduce their text-per. Since this is another chapter with utility for both players and Storytellers, I also want to mess a little bit with the information presentation, especially seeing that players are receptive to it as demonstrated by the other chapter.
Frankly, these two surprised me with the reception they received. I thought the big enthusiasm was going to be for the more systems-oriented material as represented by the titles and the prestation rules. Then, again,when we were working on the V20 core book, the biggest “pop” went to the clan spreads.
So, this evening, I’ll be playing a bit of catch-up. I’m going to tinker with the last two chapter formats and I’m going to make sure I’m up to date on all of the comments in the last blog post so nothing passes by unnoticed. I should have something more substantial for you tomorrow.
I think there’s a lot of enthusiasm for the titles and the prestation rules, but I also think that a lot of people only use the titles for either their npcs, or where prestation is concerned, many people simply don’t know quite how to work it into their games. I know a lot of new players that come to the game (and unfortunately, STs as well) portray their npcs and their own characters as either a generally trustworthy lot or total wanking fork-tongued bastards. While the prestation system can thrive in this environment, all too often it comes down to fighting and death rather than taking a chance and owing someone you don’t like. Vampire is, if anything, not black and white of course, but I believe that people need more help in how to deal with these things, especially the Storytellers.
Let’s be honest, prestation comes naturally to some of us. I personally couldn’t run 1 game without at least 5 boons being tossed about, cashed in or blackmailed with. But there are a lot of people playing the game that simply don’t know how to incorporate prestation and they need help with digging their fingers in, or even how boons can be used to make game play that much more versatile and thrilling.
Take the Gilded Cage for instance. It’s easily one of the most resourceful books players and Storytellers can have. There’s a small piece on favors and prestation on pages 12 and 13. It details a piece on how to break the ice with Elders or tug on some mortal strings. But what if we take a step back and instead of focusing that first chapter of the Gilded Cage on the business at hand and how to set yourself up in the world of the undead, what if we look at all of the information there with the focus being on prestation and boons? Now we have a chapter that gives players and Storytellers alike the kind of information, knowledge and power they can use to create boons and prestation. I’ve even handed this book to players and told them to read the first chapter to get a grasp on “the basics” many times. But almost none of them really knew how they could actually use boons or make other vampires need their services etc. Then I told them to read the chapter again, and with everything they read, just look at it through the understanding of using the information to potentially gain favors with others or even blackmail them. It worked an absolute charm. I even had my own npcs blackmailed. It was some of the best gaming ever.
Sounds awesome! I didn’t mean to imply that people didn’t care about the other material. We actually brought up the topic at the panel itself, remarking that the setting material is often what draws people to the WoD to begin with, so it’s only natural that we should expect them to have a lot of feedback on it when we release it.
Justin, let’s keep an eye on the location stuff. If you’re finding a ton of feedback and lots of solid ideas and the wordcount isn’t working for you, the extra locations might be something we can spin off into a later product down the road (maybe a new product akin to the titled “World of Darkness” books or just a big “World By Night” book).
Agreed. I don’t think meeting word count will be the root of the “problem.” It’ll be that we just have too many cool places to cover!
THIS! A single PDF detailing several places!
Oh, you didn’t, not by a long shot. You’ve just highlighted some of those areas people are unsure of how to handle properly. There’s definitely more of them. I only hope they get their place like you’re doing here.
It’s true that people are attracted to the setting material like the greedy little shit beetles we are, but we also fancy choice, and cunning strife sharp enough to dice Boston Butts with. Slap us in the face with a city, knee us in the groin with the folks inside of it and dropkick us with an entire chapter of shiny flesh rending plot hooks and leave our asses hanging around. Don’t cap it off with the ole’ “ultimately, regardless of how it all goes down, will happen.” Leave it completely open-ended and let our bloody drool mingle on the floor while we beg for more. I just got an idea for a book proposal. No, it’s not Boston. But you should do Boston because, well, it’s Boston. How many times has WW mentioned it in the past? It certainly has the history, power struggling and intrigue for it. Show those Fishmalk Bitches what a real Malkavian Prince does.
That’s really our job as publishers, to give a bunch of possibilities and say, “Hey, try these!” rather then bring any of them to their conclusions. We need to be specific enough to excite players but open-ended enough to let them make what they will of the situation, which is a change from both the Requiem and previous Masquerade sensibilities.
Well I certainly understand the stance of wanting to stay away from metaplot. But I also don’t think there’s any harm in building the history of a place and its inhabitants to create a richly stylized playground to prop the city up on, even if you deliberately show us ways to pull the entire thing down brick by bloody brick. Especially if that information has been touched on here and there in past books.
As you say, the new style of writing goes in a different direction than both Requiem and the older Masquerade, however it simply begs to be done, doesn’t it? It’s one of those challenges that’s popped up and you simply can’t ignore the pulsating thing that is. Why not produce a By Night setting and give a rich history and then toss in 5 richly detailed plots and not choose a damn one of them as an official story? I think it’s the perfect line between the old way of finalizing a particular campaign and the new WoD’s way of giving a ton of material to use and perhaps not sparking people’s imaginations enough to actually run with it. To the future, mate. To the glorious bloody horrific future.
Well I certainly understand the stance of wanting to stay away from metaplot. But I also don’t think there’s any harm in building the history of a place and its inhabitants to create a richly stylized playground to prop the city up on, even if you deliberately show us ways to pull the entire thing down brick by bloody brick. Especially if that information has been touched on here and there in past books.
As you say, the new style of writing goes in a different direction than both Requiem and the older Masquerade, however it simply begs to be done, doesn’t it? It’s one of those challenges that’s popped up and you simply can’t ignore the pulsating thing that is. Why not produce a By Night setting and give a rich history and then toss in 5 richly detailed plots and not choose a damn one of them as an official story? I think it’s the perfect line between the old way of finalizing a particular campaign and the new WoD’s way of giving a ton of material to use and perhaps not sparking people’s imaginations enough to actually run with it. To the future, mate. To the glorious bloody horrific future.
I would buy the hell out of a single book that was just technology and the undead.
I say don’t try to cram a bunch of places in the companion. Do like you were planning and then come out with a separate book about interesting kindred places around the world.
My troupe loves the “By Night” books. Sometimes we use metaplot aspects, sometimes we scrap it entirely and make up our own social structure and plots, but we ALWAYS use the different locations mentioned in the city.