While I'm on the RP kick

[sparkindarkness]

I am sure I've posted this before but I can't remember where or when.

Anyway, these are GM's (that's me, also known as god and supreme dictator) House rules for the game which I always use (to varying degrees of player's annoyance) and should be treated as if they came from a high mountain carved on 2 tablets of stone carried by a guy with a long white beard who could make a fortune in waterways management.




Character creation:
1) Every character must have a back story/plot. This must be plausible.

2) This plot must explain EVERY stat on the sheet no matter how low (though they can be self-evident and not need explicit explanation). - INCLUDING merits and flaws (no, you can’t suddenly decide to not cast a reflection there has to be a good reason for it)

3) This plot must be fully accounted for on the sheet (i.e. if you take a soldier to explain your firearms skill you should also take athletics and survival).

4) Don’t use the exotic when the simple will do. Your character concept centres around an artist worrying about how her undead condition has destroyed her muse? Great. Does she HAVE to be a Daughter of Cacophany? Won’t a Toreador fit that as well or better?

5) Don’t use merits when you can use stats. I don’t like merits and flaws much, they’re used to power play too much and complicate things unnecessarily. If your character is known for their calmness and even disposition take 5 points of self control. Don’t take the merit ‘calm heart’. If your character is a computer whiz take 4 dots of computer - there’s no need for the merit ‘computer aptitude’. Any merit that duplicates stats is an inevitable method to get those stats on the cheap.

6) New characters will not be powerful. Your stats will be limited (generally I forbid disciplines above 3, out of clan disciplines, willpower above 7 and stats above 4 without a REALLY good reason) and merits and flaws will be subject to veto. You can become powerful you don’t have to start that way.

7) You are not ‘entitled’ to anything in the book - especially shiny merits and flaws. I consider some of the ‘flaws’ in the book to be so minor or even advantageous as to not count. No, I don’t care what White Wolf says, this is what the GM says. If the flaw is SO integral to your character then you may have it - without bonus points. Also note at this point that just because your backstory explains it doesn’t mean I have to accept it or your Ravnos who spent years running with the Gangrel with his Tremere lover to get access to nifty powers.

8) I tell you the setting before character creation, create a character that is compatible, to a degree, to that setting. I will veto your character - and his 9 page back story - if it is clear he is just not going to fit the plot. I didn’t spend the last 3 weeks plotting a rich, complicated scenario for you to screw it over and give me headaches with your Sabbat, Setite infiltrator who is blood bound to one of the Inconnu. Unless it’s interesting anyway (the undercover Baali was fun).



Game Play

1) Character creation story WILL affect the game. You can’t just make it up to mollify me and forget about it - your past life will haunt you even if it is not represented in little dots on your character sheet (e.g. if you were a soldier, your prints and other details will be on a government database. If you were a pillar of the community, that community will recognise you even if you don‘t have any fame stat).

2) this applies DOUBLE to flaws. You take a 5 point ‘enemy’ flaw then, yes, the Vatican IS going to send flame-thrower wielding priests to attack your haven 3 hours after dawn - more fool you for not taking more precautions with such a major foe out there - and for treating the flaw as some nice free stat bonuses. The same applies to minor flaws that you thought didn’t matter - if you took ‘cast no reflection’ I AM going to put you somewhere with mirrors. You took computer ineptitude? At some point, you’re going to have to use one. Sorry, if I let you ignore the flaw I might as well just given you extra character creation points.

3) Mistakes, bad planning and bad luck can hit. I am not obliged to fudge dice rolls, change the plot or maul the game setting to forgive this. Your haven burns down because you were unlucky enough to botch your fire shield ritual? Well, it happens. You screwed up and now your character is having its head ripped off by a pissed off Tzimisce? Tough. Not everything is going to go your character’s way, that would be boring. And if bad decisions and bad luck didn’t cause screw ups there would be no point in good planning or rolling the dice, would there?

4) At no point do I offer a guarantee against character death. USUALLY your character will not die unless he is unlucky or makes a mistake (because a game kind of sucks if EVERYTHING is utter life and death) but not always. Something can go wrong at any time. Something can screw up at any time. It may not be your fault at all. Your prey could turn out to be a hunter, you may have messed in an elder’s plans and had no way of knowing. Sorry, shit happens - that’s life AND it’s the game. Besides, things screwing up are usually plot points. So don’t bitch at me because you had no way of knowing that your dinner was a werewolf - no you didn’t. Nor do most kindred. That’s why powers that DO let you tell what your prey is before you bight them (like Aura Perception) are desirable. Tough. Embrace it as a new opportunity. As said above, not everything will go your character’s way.

5) Don’t say “you can’t do that.” I’m the GM. I can. Deal with it.


Roleplay
1) in character idiocy will earn you more experience than out of character cunning. You chose a nature, you chose a demeanour, you described (painfully) the motivations, personality and preferences of your character. You will get more XP for blindly rushing in stupidly to a situation if that is IN CHARACTER than you will for careful planning that is OUT OF CHARACTER.

2) All stats count. You took charisma 1. Right, that means it doesn’t matter how eloquent YOU the player is your character is still picking his nose and eating what he finds. No matter what cunning plans you can think up, your character has intelligence 1 and can just about plan how to open the door if he is given step-by-step instructions on how to work a door knob. Just because a stat isn’t used to roll lots of damage dice in combat doesn’t mean you can ignore it.

3) Stay in character - speak as your character, act as your character, refer to other players by their character names. If you must speak OOC make it clear to me you are doing so and only do so when it is necessary - excessive OOC ruins the mood (See our Lady of Perpetual Motion), makes me lose track and leads to people thinking as themselves rather than the character.

4) I will kill you for using OOC knowledge. Do it repeatedly and not only will I dock you experience and throw Malkavian methuselahs at you but I will also make stuff up just to annoy you.

5) Roleplay your character - even as they develop. If your character is drunk then act like it. If they are hungry, act like it. If they develop the berserk derangement that doesn’t just mean they’ve got an extra +2 difficulty on frenzy rolls - it means they have a severe anger management problem and are going to be generally more angry even when they aren’t frenzying. ACT like it.

6) Special section - humanity. This is a key factor in the game, vampires trying to hold onto morality and their humanity or they will become a mindless monster. Remember this. NO Camarilla vampire is casual about frenzying. At best, it’s extremely embarrassing, at worst it’s terrifying and disgusting. Think about it - how would you feel if you know you are susceptible to dark urges that may drive you into an orgy of thoughtless violence completely beyond your control? Not happy. Nor will your vampire be. The same applies to losing humanity - losing it can lead to becoming an animal, no conscious thought, no morals, no principles, nothing. That’s bloody scary

Your character just passed a conscience test? Great, you kept humanity - you kept it by realising that what you just did was evil and now you feel guilty about it. Don’t just shrug and move on - you passed that test because you felt BADLY about it. You held on to your humanity by ANGSTING over what a monster you are - so commence ANGST


Personal Issues:
1) This is a group game of between 3-6 players. You are not the star. If your ego needs stroking go play a computer game or join an acting troupe where you can be the star. Neither I nor the other players are obliged to make you the centre of attention or extra ‘special’ (this applies in game and in character creation - if the other 4 players are all nice Camarilla clans, why do YOU have to be the world’s last living Salubri?)

2) you are not your character. If I or another player screws over your character it is not a personal attack. If the walls between reality and fantasy are that thin for you then you REALLY shouldn’t be playing RPGs and you really should be finding a therapist.

3) You are not your character the second: the fact player X is your best friend/significant other/screwed another character in the last game/just ate the last slice of pizza is irrelevant. Character actions should be based on character interactions - not players. Inflict the drama of player politics on me and I will throw Malkavian Methuselahs at you AND eat the last slice of pizza.

Comments

[stormcat.livejournal.com]

You'd love me as a gamer. Unfortunately, I don't play WW anymore after interning there. :P

I also got sick of GMs and other players getting pissed at me for RPing a drunk/retarded/batshit crazy/meddlesome-PITA-making-kender-look-reasonable character. And if I take the flaw "unusual appearance" and manifest not just as a large feline predator in a suburban setting but one that looks noticeably weird, then I expect to run into people who scream and call animal control when the large dark-crimson panther is using Susie's treehouse as a scratching post at 3am, dammit. That shit ain't quiet!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I also got sick of GMs and other players getting pissed at me for RPing a drunk/retarded/batshit crazy/meddlesome-PITA-making-kender-look-reasonable character.

I don't know, I'd throw you out on your ass after the first two warnings. That might take a total of ten minutes of playing time. And I'd not only not feel bad, but I'd feel pretty damn good about it.

Of course, I'd never approve a fishmalk[1] in the first place, so you'd be breaking character pretty much by definition for pulling any of the "kender are wise and restrained" shit.

[1]: Regardless of the game, fishmalks are fishmalks. It's not a vampire thing, it's an idiot player thing.

[stormcat.livejournal.com]

Uh, kender weren't actually involved -- it was a cross-genre semantic-only reference and the GM had specifically ASKED me to play that annoying a character (Bastet variant, it was a Werewolf/Vampire/Mage/general WoD game), because I was about to move. After I moved the character was turned into an NPC that was ten times worse (and with really stupid deus-ex-machina abilities) than anything I did with it. However, the other gamers HATED it.

Generally GMs have had problems with me playing characters that didn't happen to be godlike or utterly perfect -- like the aforementioned retarded character. If I take an INT of 4 I'm not going to play as though the character is on a par with the INT 12 and 13 characters in the party. For some reason GMs have had problems with this over the years.

Off the high horse yet, or are you still convinced that all gamers who disagree with the GM are teh debbil?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Uh, kender weren't actually involved -- it was a cross-genre semantic-only reference

As was "fishmalk", what's your point?

GM had specifically ASKED me to play that annoying a character

And from the rest of your story, he doesn't seem to be annoyed with you for playing it. Just the rest of the players. How's that lead back into your complaint about "GMs and other players" getting pissed at you for fucking up their games by playing nonsensical characters that aren't any fun for anyone else?

For some reason GMs have had problems with this over the years.

As I said, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I also wouldn't approve a fishmalk in the first place, so you wouldn't *have* a character whose sole purpose is to annoy the hell out of the players in the first place.

are you still convinced that all gamers who disagree with the GM are teh debbil?

I'm sorry, I thought it was your *characters* who were supposed to be hyperactive and not very bright. Who said anything about disagreeing with the GM being bad?

What I said was that I wouldn't approve an "annoy the hell out of the players" character in the first place, and I would toss you for playing that way since you'd be breaking character (by definition) AND making the game suck.

And before you go off on the most predictable strawman, all the way through I've said your CHARACTER annoys the hell out of the PLAYERS. Annoying their characters is well and good and potentially even rises to the level of a religious calling - as long as the players are having fun with it and not left saying "Oh, holy fuck, can't you stop being a moron for thirty seconds? We're trying to play, here" at the end of every one of your sentences.

[stormcat.livejournal.com]

Never heard the term "fishmalk" before you came out with it, didn't give enough of a shit to inquire. "GMs and other players" is cumulative over the years of playing different games, different characters, and in different groups.

You appear to be into picking fights, with the "fishmalk" comment (I'm guessing that's an insult from the context, and really don't care enough to pick at it), the "I'd throw you out after two warnings" (that being directed at the player rather than a character) and now your implication that I am, ah, "hyperactive and not very bright." Not interested in playing, no goats here, go find another bridge. Bye bye now.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I kidnapped a pc as an NPC - of course he was more annoying and dangerous than your character - but he became that way through the PC then I made him 400 years older. With more donkies.

With characters with severe flaws like that, in my book the GM needs to veto it in character creation if they have a problem with it, not start the plot then realise it's a problem. I've had GMS try to write stories before with only a loose look at the characters in it then have problems - like the 3 hour long delicate political ball scene one GM planned then got frustrated because we didn't pick up any of the plot points - out characters were a street kid, a closeted academic, a rock singer and a mob enforcer - we knew NOTHING about balls and had no supportive skills (that doesn't mean don't take us to the ball, for a good hour of embrassing humiliation, but why expect us to be able to do anything constructive there?) He just tried to squeeze us into his story. He should have just vetoed the characters if he wanted to run a social chronicle, or written a chronicle which wasn't dependent on high society interraction.

Same goes for the retarded character - if his story RELIES on her being intelligent then he should have vetoed her. If not, then he shouldn't have based story integrity on her being anything less than severely retarded. If anything else, it PISSES ME OFF to no end when a character puts no points in a social or intellect stat then expects to be good at it

[stormcat.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* The GM had actually helped me create the annoying character and suggested a few of the more hard-on-the-nerves points; I ended up not really enjoying playing because it just... I could get behind the peeing on another character's bed because they'd dug up the catnip patch (I never said it was a particularly civilized character), but having the cops ignore the clawed-up front door was just annoying and we kept butting heads over whether "I" could reasonably be expected to understand driving a car (or tolerate being in one; I would have paced the car) or that "normal" people don't wash themselves in the middle of a mundane business meeting. There was no consistency in how I was asked to play it, and I was just as glad to move and be out of the game.

The retarded character wasn't even story integrity; he got lucky in that the retarded one was the only one stupid enough to look at the obvious and get through a door. (Entire party was magic-missiling it, trying to pick the lock, etc. Oog, that being her first word at age fourteen and therefore her name, was too dumb to know that you could do any of that but had a vague idea that running into the door headfirst might help. As it turned out, it was a door that required only to be knocked on and her head made the appropriate "thud" against the door. Then again, that may have been DM frustration, as we'd been stuck at just opening the damn door for two hours IRL.)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Depends on the game with me. If I'd oked the concept in the beginning then I'd deal with the consequences - I've never had to kick someone out the game for the characters they designed (though I have had people storm off because I wouldn't ALLOW a character). Oh no, a character that causes too much hassle would ALWAYS face wonderful wonderful cause and effect. These can be great game issues, they can be great game play, they can make for a fun game, and they can get the character killed at the hands of any number of powerful NPCs.

I remember we had a child gangrel with 1 point of self control, 2 humanity and the derangement "berserk". I told him he could have it. He died in the 2nd session - the prince executed him for persistent masquerade breaches.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

If I'd oked the concept in the beginning

And there's the core of my point: I start from the position that the purpose of playing is to entertain the other players, and I simply don't allow "annoy the fuck out of the other players by being stupid" characters in the first place.

This has nothing to do with IC consequences for actions. This is more the retroactive application of those consequences to your previous actions.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I've never had a problem with awkward gamers in that way, certainly not for playing someone batshit - Malkavians? Always we have the malkavians! I generally let cause and effect play its role in the game - if the batshit insane character does something suicidal or annoys someone tooooooo powerful or breaks the laws of the society then badness will happen :) If not then it adds a new dimension to the game. I've had players bitch at me because they've played batshit insane characters and expected a free pass from cause and effect because of it. "But my character's insane!?" "And? This is the angry Prince's problem, why?"

Which adds another dimension with the other players wondering/compensating/covering up things that may impose guilt by association, which amuses me muchly.

[stormcat.livejournal.com]

But why play a bonkers character expecting a free pass? That takes all the fun out of it! :) Part of the whole point of playing an insane character is to get/give non-standard reactions to situations that may or may not work in the character's favor.

[polarbee.livejournal.com]

Oh lord. I gamed briefly with some people who would routinely break all of your rules. I finally had to cut off all contact when I found out that one gal was naming her first born son after the character she'd been playing for three years.
Their grip on reality was tenuous at best.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Ah, but the advantage of being the GM is you can drop big nasties on them until they play by the rules :)


Yessss... that could worry me. It depends whether it was a normal name that she just liked or whether it was Gorfandil or something and then you know it's time to run for the horizon and keep going

[polarbee.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the GM was this gal's husband and pretty much was in on the whole thing.
The name was something she cobbled together from Tolkien's elvish dictionary.

[vistillia.livejournal.com]

Heh. In LARP Vampire, I always took the flaw short because I am, in fact, short. And I would always check with the GM and ask, if I could just go about as normal, because 3 of my steps really was the quivalent of 2 steps for the lanky 6 foot plus people who played. Never had a problem with it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

When I ran a LARP, I simply banned outright any "obvious" merits or flaws that couldn't be costumed, and insisted on costuming for ones that could be. Huge Size? Be big naturally, or wear really bulky clothing and loom. Eerie Presence? Better act *really* creepy, and convince me. Cast No Reflection? Yeah, good luck with that.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I didn't run larp often, but that would be something I'd adopt - if you have a flaw you can't expected everryone to check your char sheet to double check to see your nitty gritty details

And I HATE cast no reflection anyway. If you're not a lasombra, you're not getting it - people always took it with obfuscate to avoid reflection capture cameras (then sulked when I pointed out thaat such cameras just AREN'T that common anymore)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The standard method was to have a "tag" or a sticker with the important things that everyone should know immediately.

This meant you had to get close, read the tag, *then* suspend disbelief. Fuck. That.

I HATE cast no reflection anyway.

Myself as well. It doesn't help that it's the "Clan" flaw of that insipid Ventrue-wannabe bloodline whose real sole purpose in the game is to carry an badly unbalanced unique Discipline.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

heeee, makes sense! If you have to deal with the game effects of the flaw anyway! :)

[snuck.livejournal.com]

OMG sparkie, so true.

Especially the one about being a star.

RPing is about team work, working with your strengths and weaknesses, and enjoying the fantasy of imagining how they'd work. I don't want to wear my underwear on the outside in day to day life, i'm not superman. I might want to try that in RPing, but only amongst equals.

otherwise it gets dull. Everyone winds up a minion of the star, and that bites. Get over the ego idiot, the rest of us aren't here to be your minions, we get that in real life.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Asye, people who insist on being special or "competing" with the players (or the GM - which is always silly) annoy me no end. It annoys the other players, frustrates me and generally causes headaches

[hanks-lil-pit.livejournal.com]

My question is how in the fuck do you remember all of that?

*laughs*

*Sparky is a better man than I*

Hank