More Geeky Rpgness: Whitewolf? We have to talk.

[sparkindarkness]

Your game setting is wonderful. IO have spent an insane amount of geeky hours in the World of Darkness and loved every minute. Your books fill innumerable shelves and threaten to take over.

But your campaigns SUCK sweaty monkey balls.

Normally I don’t do pre-set campaigns, but I wanted to try one with the new Werewolf game to a) give me time to get a feel for it and b) give me time to write something for myself.

But these? These are unworkable

I’m keeping this vague but here’s a cuty thing in case you fear spoilers



Let’s look at some of the many problems of these campaigns.
1) Verbose. Seriously, the players expect to hear from the nps at length but there’s a limit. Seriously, there’s a campaign here where an NPC has a FOUR PAGE MONOLOGUE. A4 pages. Small print. You expect me to sit there and read this out to the players and them not to be bored rigid? It’s not exactly Shakespeare.

2) It’s still verbose if you have 3 npcs having a 4-5 page conversation. The players are still sat there listening to me ramble and have no opportunity to participate in any way. They’re here to play, not to have me fill in the role of books-on-tape.

3) The whole plot resting on one damn roll! Seriously there’s a part here where to continue the players have to make a successful perception + security check, difficulty 8 to find the secret door. Putting aside for the moment that there’s absolutely NO reason why they should be LOOKING for a secret door, let’s just look at the silliness of this. The players are supposed to find the door, charge the bad guy and see the conclusion of the evil ritual and have the whole plot revealed and a new bad guy established. Excepppt... none of them has security. Or they have low perception. Or they just roll bad. Or they botch. Or how about they just protest because I’m asking them to roll to look for a secret door when none of them have asked to look for one - not very secret is it? But anyway, they fail... and what? Go home? Call it a night? Oops, bad guy completes ritual unobserved ain’t that a shame? Seriously, that fails.

4) Gloss over. You drop in stuff all the time that is irrelevant to the real plot but very much would be of interest to the players. This isn’t a computer game. Items of interest don’t glow so the players know what to pay attention to. If I mention it, they may look at it. ESPECIALLY when a description says “the bedroom is messy, clothing and bedcovers lay scattered around the many old yellow tomes.“ From this the players are assumed to conclude there is nothing of interest here and move on. Errrr, except, y’know, the old books? You think they’re not going to question and look at them? What am I supposed to say? “Yes this guy collects first edition Dickens novels”? I mean I know the guy is a ritualist so I assume they’re supposed to be books on occult. You’re saying my Tremere/Theurge/Uktena/Mage/whatever isn’t going to study them? But noooo, you just drop a fascinating item in the way and expect the players to ignore them.

5) Ridiculous Railroading. I REFUSE to describe any npc as “suspicious.” It’s ridiculous. Don’t tell me by the 3rd chapter the players should be very suspicious about the suspicious character of suspiciousness. Because it’s stupid - this BIT CHARACTER has done NOTHING in the first 2 chapters and the ONLY reason he can be considered suspicious is because every time he is mentioned I’m expected to use “suspicious” as a descriptor. Apart from anything else the guy is supposed to be an undercover infiltrator. If he can be pegged as “suspicious” by someone brand new to the situation after a 5 second meeting then he SUCKS at the infiltrating.

6) Expectation of absurd decisions. Some of these MUST involve me cheating. To make the players act the way the story requires them to I MUST reveal later parts of the plot because there’s no way they would realistically do what is expected. Example:
Chapter summary says the Werewolf players must make an alliance with a Black Spiral Dancer pack! (This is like someone asking you to overlook and help some paedophiles who just dropped in. Or asking your local Synagogue to host a Neo-nazi party). I’m a little surprised but expect the chronicle to reveal some incredible, unimaginable threat that forces this upon them to do something so horrendous. And reading through I find such a threat... AFTER the alliance is forged. There is NO such threat or indication of threat before the scene where both sides pledge peace and co-operation. The players just randomly decide that asking the local Black Spirals for help is a GREAT idea - even though they don’t need help and even though there’s a sept of 40+ GAIAN werewolves less than a day’s travel away.

What are my players going to do in this situation when 3 BSDs approach them for an alliance (note, a day AFTER attacking the player’s home and killing 2 of their friends) why, they’re going to attack and kill them. Story derailed because players are being SENSIBLE, roleplaying and NOT breaking a vital werewolf law.

Oh and after the sept learns they just betrayed everything they believe in and consorted with the enemy? They’re told “tut tut that was silly.” *boggles*


Honestly I could go on forever. There’s endless references to the characters seeking out and talking to various people, going to various places and investigating various “leads” and there’s NO REASON why they would. Seriously, the only way that the characters would do some of the things described if it were like one of those rpg/story games (e.g. Broken Sword, Discworld etc) and you’d got stuck so you just click on EVERYONE and EVERYTHING in a vague attempt to advance the story. I don’t want my players randomly running around saying “hey. let’s ask the cleaning lady where the Sabbat pack is hiding. We haven’t asked her yet!”


In the end I think the common problem with all these scenarios is it assumes there’s ONE player. The GM. Because the characters have to have GM knowledge and be completely under the GM control to follow the convoluted paths. Great as stories, maybe, but crap as pre-set campaigns

Comments

[xarra.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I want to run the Giovanni Chronicles as last-ed one day. The problem is trying to get the players to create characters on the pretext of:

a) turning up to the damn meal having just received a pretty random invitation given they should be all over the world
b) Why, yes, please say what clans your interested in. No, no, you create a mortal, no, not a vampire, really...

It also has lots of places where 1-1 RP works best, and the scenes shouldn't be seen by the other players... I think I'll have to run it via IRC again - allows for the epic text blocks and private chats (and can run 3 scenes at once... :P)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Oh I ran the Giovanni chronicles. Yes, my longest vampire campaign started there and brought it up to the modern world.

Augustus Giovanni could talk for DAYS. Seriously did you read that guy's monologue? If a person like that invited me to dinner I'd be asleep long before he got to the ominious "we'd love to have you... for dinner." schtick!

And yes, everyone create a character from alll over Europe. I had to send half of them back because they had no common language!


And that's also a problem, the endless scenes where it's just you and one player. Over and over. I know it's cinematic but it doesn't WORK that way. If there are 5 players, then 1-1 means 4 people are bored. If they ALL have to do 1-1 then they're going to be bored for a long time


Aye, IIRC and journal would work better I think

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

My favourite part of the Giovanni Chronicles is that the "conspiracy" is ONE SIXTH GENERATION VAMPIRE FROM EACH CLAN - because, you see, it's a Dark Ages game, and no player EVER play anything but Seventh Generation in Dark Ages, and they wouldn't even remotely CONSIDER maybe just possibly limiting some of the Clans for story reasons, or letting you choose your Generation and Clan and then changing the sire to fit, noooooo.

My second-favourite part of the Giovanni Chronicles is that, really, the PCs are completely irrelevant at all stages. Your purpose as PCs is to travel around and *see* all the important events that are going to happen. It's like that one story in Gehenna where all the canon characters show up and drag the PCs along so that the PCs can help all the canon characters do stuff.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

(PS: Maybe the first part is the Transylvania Chronicles? Oh, well, same problem.)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Oh gods they're just awful. It's the same thing all over again. I know they love these "epic founding of a new clan" stories but really, these scenarios are beyond tedious

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

That struck me. I mean, what are the chances of you even getting 13 sixth generation vampires together in the same place? These are elders-cum-methuselah here! And they're not even squabbling? The Ventrue and Tzimisce and Lasombra and Brujah are all happilly sitting having dinner?

I mean some of those clans are pretty damned obscure in Europe - this guy rustled up a Ravnos, Setite and Assamite elder? And why? Why even curry favour with these people? Surely trying to butter up some more Tzimisce or Lasombra or Toreador or Ventrue (the power players of the rime and regionm at the time) would be FAR more profitable than trying to curry favours with the Malkavian and Ravnos? It's so damned convoluted!

Seriously, you could just have easily said "design your characters - no {insert silly clan}" and if you had 2 Ventrue? then there were 2 Ventrue in the plot! And some of the plotters were 7th or 8th gen - why not? It would ahve worked better. Or even more fun have the players create humans and then the GM choose the clan :) After all, it's not like they're being chosen as successors is it?


That's the whole point. I mean it's a risiculous campiagn for such low players. You're travelling spectators! Haardestadt and co don't need them, but they convultedly include them - and the players just hand around and watch the proto-Camarilla kick arse or the proto-Giovanni kick arse.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

See, to me it's not the Clans that are important, because I've always preferred the idea that people are characters first and Clan a distant sixth. To me, what annoys me most is that there are *thirteen elder vampires in a room working together*.

They could all be Ventrue, and since they're not all related and not Blood Bound to each other and not all serving one single master vampire, I still call shenanigans!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

A couple of the pre-set Aberrant campaigns are bad in similar ways. And if you haven't ever read The Chaos Factor, you should. It's *insanely stupid*, in a way that's so bad it's good.

I don't recognise the details of this story, but it's clearly Apocalypse. Is is a second-edition or third-edition book? If second, well, that's part of the problem - absolutely nothing from any second-edition White Wolf product was worth the cost of the lighter fluid it would take to burn it.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I ahve heard.... only bad things about the Aberrant pre-set campaigns *shudder* I did laugh at them though

What especially amused me was one where an extremely powerful super-duper-amazing do-gooder hero recruited the players to do a long and epic quest... they could easily do themselves in 2 seconds.


Largely second I think (rage Across New York, Walkenburg Foundation, Chicago Chronicles, Giovanni Chronicles, but 3rd ed chronicle books are no better - the Succubus Club and Nights of Prophecy are pretty damn clunky (though much vaguer than their 2nd ed predecessors).

I like the 2nd ed books for settings more than anything now.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I found the second-ed books, even the setting ones, tended to go way too hard into the "here is the New! Exceptional! Thing! It has superpowers is strange new ways and is totally unique! There are so many True Brujah around that we're pretty sure Standard Brujah went out of business and just closed up shop!"

Every single one of them is *so exceptional* that it's virtually impossible to imagine where the supposed "baseline" that the world is using is coming from.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I slap my players for that crap, it drives me mad. Someone will present me with a character and I'll just glare "is there a REASON why your musician can't be a Toreador? Do they HAVE to be a Daughter of Cacophany?" I loathe that. You don't need a speshul clan to have a special character.

Sometimes it's damned hard finding a conventional Camarilla clan among the True Brujah, Daughters of Cacophany, Salubri, Abominations and the rest of the menagerie. Will the Ventrue please stand up?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

My real pet peeve are the fucking Lasombra. You need an entirely separate Clan for "Ventrue who prefer to work behind the scenes"? That's like having a separate Clan for Toreador who sing. OH WAIT!

(Hence the term "Ventrue Of Cacophony". The Lasombra are Ventrue, who've got shadowy powers and a more powerful physical discipline. NO OTHER DIFFERENCE, up until Third Edition, when they stopped being "Ventrue with a weird Discipline" and started being "Ventrue WHOSE SOLE PURPOSE OF EXISTENCE IS THE WEIRD DISCIPLINE". Given my very, very, very longstanding opinion that if your reason for existing is a power, you suck and are banned regardless of whether you're a character or a Clan, they disappear.)

(Also: Last time I ran Vampire, not only did I restrict people in the Camarilla game to Camarilla Clans, but I explicitly *removed* the Sabbat and the Sabbat Clans, and most of the independents, and absolutely all Bloodlines, from the setting entirely. They didn't exist. Or they were the boogeyman. Or they were far-off rumours from places you aren't from and *can* go to, if you're willing to write yourself out of the game. This worked very well.)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I beat the Lasombra love out of my players by once letting him play a Lasombra antitribu

"I summon my shadows!"
"great, Masquerade breach!"
"What?"
"Sorry, you've just put out every light ion a 30 yard radius? Sabbat may play those games but in trhe Camarilla that's a no-no."
"Well the prince will understand..."
"After the incident in the hotel mirrored ballroom? I doubt it."

Lasombra clan book tried to make more of a differentiation between the 2 - the Lasombra being more about perfection and dominance than leadership, but it's still pretty shaky. I never bothered though - I mean it's a bit pat if the 13 clans were all utterly different.

I routinely remove them from player options ande don't let them come near the party unless there's a damn good reason. But I can be cruel in so many ways - I severely punish masquerade breaches and if any Malkavian plays the whacky random lunatic I kill him simply because the Prince deems him non-functional.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

if any Malkavian plays the whacky random lunatic I kill him simply because the Prince deems him non-functional

I usually have the other Malkavians get him first. After all, *they* don't want him making them look bad.

(And, really, I have *no* problem saying "great! You died about two weeks after your Embrace, when your sire put you down as completely nonfunctional. That means you've been Finally Dead for... what, 50 years? Okay. You can go play this character now.

Or you can make one that isn't stupid and that might have a chance of not getting killed by everyone around you.

Up to you!")

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Exactly. If you read clanbook Malkavian it even says that the "Gnawed" are killed for being utterly unworkably insane

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

If you read clanbook Malkavian

I try not to.

(I really, really, really hate most of the supplements for Vampire.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Another aside:
"the bedroom is messy, clothing and bedcovers lay scattered around the many old yellow tomes."

This reminds me of a room description from the adventure included in the original "Red Box" D&D. The room was full of wooden crates, that were not important, that contained nothing, that "could not be moved or opened in any way".

Holy SHIT you could have a bunch of gamers spending HOURS in that room, based on that description! I recall realising this, and then telling them "Uh, guys? It's not that they're heavy and full and magically reinforced so they must have good stuff. It's that the module writer is a moron. Sorry - they're pointless."

(Another one from a different module: In a 10x20 sewer room, there are 5 Trolls riding Giant Crocodiles.

Each crocodile is longer than the room, for the record.)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

LOL I think i'll have to do the same. I mean, a room full of boxes that are APPARENTLY SEALED MAGICALLY?! Oh my gods! The treasure! Seriously how can ANYONE who has played DnD not realise how compelling that description is to the players.

Now if he had said "on breaking one open you find it full of rough linen," or basic food supplies, or earthenware. Something equally boring, then that would have been so much better

Do you know what I found? A room with WEAPON racks. WEAPON RACKS! And they DIDN'T expect the players to examine them?!
#

Oh dear gods that's bad. I do remember one I played in where we all died and told the GM that there was no way you couldn't have died. Gm replied "book says you were supposed to fireball. Why didn't you?" Uh, because the room is smaller than the blast radius?

[elrohana.livejournal.com]

I've never played Vampire or Werewolf, so most of the technical stuff above is over my head - nevertheless I think I understand the general tone here, and all I can say is *headdesk*

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

It's crazy. It's... well iot's like they've got book authors write and rpg and it doesn't work that way

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

This all makes me feel much better about the Revelations Cycle for In Nomine. Which I still think had a lot wrong as a campaign, but at least it had parts that stopped and said "Okay, if the PCs have actually solved this bit, this will happen. Otherwise, this will happen. Or this will happen..." and then in later books would mention what would happen if such-and-such NPC had or hadn't been offed earlier.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

It acknowledges that the players have a role and aren't just the GM's meat puppets - which is so helpful

I hate an rpg that just assumes X will happen. I've seen no end of books say "and NPC x will do this for the players" sorry, no. Any alternative? See they pissed off/ran away from/hate/ate NPC X.

[jerril]

I don't know anything about the Revelations Cycle (although I did help playtest GURPS In Nomine if that helps) but if nothing else, I'd expect SJG to insist on "But what if the players don't have a ring through their nose?" boxes, sidebars, sections, or entire chapters, depending on how much the plot depends on players having rings in their noses.

Insanity, on the other hand, may also be expected. Depends on the context.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I hate hate hate the whole metaplot of the Revelations Cycle... but, yes, it's very good at just saying "These are the things these NPCs are doing, and if PCs interfere, here are several different ways it might go. Have fun." With sidebars and "What about NPC X?" boxes and all that kind of thing.

[home-of-usher.livejournal.com]

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<ljuser="gnarlycranium"> and I have been thinking of Hijacking White-Wolf's Old World of Darkness since they ditched it for a newer yet seemingly dumbed down version. They're never going to get around to making the Old Wod Make sense the way us devoted players know it can be. So why not just grab their concept and fill in the bits they didn't get right until it all fits? I guess that's what 'House Rules' are for. Seriously, the WW Rulebooks were never really meant to played in a chat setting. Downtime you say? HA! With players spread across several time zones, there's no such thing and a chronicle chapter that takes months on TT can take only 2 days if the other players keep rolling with it while the peeps running it might even ST in Shifts as long as there's an outline set out. That's why I got an LJ so I could post the scenes that I have with people. (which I need to really get out the lead and do) the game can run a long and satisfying time online but only with the right people. WW sorely failed in providing a rich but flexible enough setting for people with a lot of imagination to work with. It's too vague in a lot of places and too overladen and tedious in others. (WOD Combat book anyone?) They started out ok, but halfway along they started half-assing it for profit it feels like.

So really, what's to stop some players from getting down, cranking out a few dozen Wiki-house rules pages so other players who are looking at WW like they've lost their marbles, or their balls (and they have IMHO) and go with what you like, add to or provide an alternate interpretation for what you don't? Really the only thing stopping us I think is time. (and maybe a few people with decent web skills) This wouldn't just be for the WoD Chatters but the TTers that are tired of trying to make sense of things when the group is even having a hard time getting it. And hey. Maybe we can rig up some Wiki Grab Bag page where people throw out campaign ideas. Just some thoughts.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

LOL, well I have my own HUGE BOOK OF HOUSERULES included a compiled list of all the backgrounds I know. Including trying to make the 101 settings work together (so there's a nice mesh of canon between Hunter, Vampire, Werewolf, Mummy, the eastern versions and bloody Demon - which really arse raped the canon something aeful)


Count me in for consultation, info and articles :)

[home-of-usher.livejournal.com]

heh I would point you in the direction of some pages that we're making. But alas, server crashed and dumped a lot of stuff that we've been trying to rebuild. We do still have some nice chat rooms.

http://www.sonic.net/cgi/awirtz/dchat/tolk.pl

that's just one more recently used.

this one isn't mine, but I really like it. http://www.moreplans.com/Leah/RPG/crossover.html

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heh I would point you in the direction of some pages that we're making. But alas, server crashed and dumped a lot of stuff that we've been trying to rebuild. We do still have some nice chat rooms.

http://www.sonic.net/cgi/awirtz/dchat/tolk.pl

that's just one more recently used.

this one isn't mine, but I really like it. http://www.moreplans.com/Leah/RPG/crossover.html
<ljuser="gnarlycranium">'s work. It kinda kicked off the idea that WOW everyone needs something like this.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

newer yet seemingly dumbed down version.

I found it much smarter, at first, and it's moving towards dumb as they bring in more and more of the old material and they get farther and farther away from their original "this is a toolkit, and the rules will actually function" mantra.

why not just grab their concept and fill in the bits they didn't get right until it all fits?

You actually have to take things *out*, not fill things in, to make it fit. Each of the old WoD games was written in a vacuum, with no consideration given to the other games or how any of it would fit together - and then the other games were grafted on after the fact, which leads to all kinds of issues in terms of mechanics and crossover interactions.

There are at least four different groups that conclusively and absolutely have mastery over city government, for example, depending on which book you read.

the only thing stopping us I think is time.

...and editorial vision.

Because there are SO MANY conflicts that you'll really need to have all your creators on the same page, all the time, in order to make it work. And you'll still argue madly with what "should be" versus what "was intended" versus what was actually printed, since even the writers admit that it really doesn't work.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

yes but it'll be so much geeky fun! :) The debates, the considerations, the endless poking and nuanced geekiness.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Granted.

I got tired of that kind of thing in 2004, when they officially implemented most (but not all) of my preferred fixes in Requiem, and then promptly fucked it up again by re-adding all the stuff they'd taken out.

[home-of-usher.livejournal.com]

...and editorial vision.

I think you underestimate the player base I know. heh. I'll admit I'm not the best at editing and arranging. But I know quite a few people who are. And each have their specialties. Mage /changeling, Mage/Werewolf, werewolf/Vampire Etc. While not every ST knows each system, I've found there's some common grievances between them, pet peeves that all can agree need ironing out. which is one of the reason making a site where people can argue their Should Bes and Intendeds outside of White Wolf itself might be helpful to some gamers.

I can agree that WW's New Wod was meant to be more streamlined and tool-kit-y, but it seemed to become a lot more hack and slash in terms of werewolf and less about any sort of Wonder and more horror in terms of Changeling. It's even more of a dysfunctional family even if they did better at making the new version work between systems.

These are just my opinions. feel free to disregard.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I've found there's some common grievances between them, pet peeves that all can agree need ironing out.

Oh, absolutely, if you want to run a crossover then you have no choice but to make a whole lot of important decisions.

I'm just saying that there's serious rewrites, from the ground up, to the point where the end product will be nearly unrecognisable as the original, in order to reconcile some of these differences. You can have Pentex *or* the Technocracy *or* the Camarilla as written. You cannot have all three, because they are simply incompatible. The question is, is it going to be two of them or all three that are changed?

You've also got the core questions of cosmology in the game lines, but those are more a problem in terms of making the character-visible mechanics fit together thematically, since the creation of the world is irrelevant to PCs.

less about any sort of Wonder and more horror in terms of Changeling

Well, yeah. The Lost is about *Changelings* in the classic, folkloric sense, whereas The Dreaming was about... uh... "fairies", but only if you didn't actually read any fairy stories and didn't mind that the great majority of fairies went completely unrepresented.

I was a really big fan of Dark Ages: Fae, but Changeling always seemed to alternate between offending my sensibilities as a fan of folklore and offending my intelligence as a fan of games that don't involve "bunks".

I'm really not a big fan of Requiem or Lost or Fallen. I thought Requiem didn't go *far enough* to fix the problems in Masquerade, and, since then, they've done nothing but re-add Masquerade bits again.

I found the real shining treasure out of the reset was World Of Darkness itself - the game about *humans*. I certainly have absolutely no need to ever crack out Call Of Cthulhu ever again, since nWoD, and a lot of the blue-bound core-WoD supplements are very, very good.

[home-of-usher.livejournal.com]

You can have Pentex *or* the Technocracy *or* the Camarilla as written. You cannot have all three, because they are simply incompatible.

Hmmm I think depending on which part of the game is most dominant (since I play mostly online, this depends on how many of a particular system's players are in the room) and go from there. So if it's mostly werewolves and magi, then the Technocracy may have one or two Pentex drones depending on which subsidiary we're using in the Plot. Who says Developmental Neogenics Amalgamated can't have a Technocrat as head of the Department. Might even be a Technocrat slowly becoming Widderslante as he delves deeper and deeper into the experiments on the reality deviants? And a few on his staff might be Formori gradually exposing their boss to Banes and other spirits as they test new weapons on the captured Gaians. If the group managed to get in far enough there might even be a Vampire backing the whole venture for their own gain. heh. What gets represented in a game is purely up to the talent and resources the ST wants to use. Either it can cross over or it doesn't in which case people stick with what they are comfortable with.

You've also got the core questions of cosmology in the game lines

Oh hell *laughs* yeah that's the one huge mess a lot of us are still trying to figure out. We havn't even touched that monster. Since Revised though most spirit ventures are really dangerous to most involved so either we avoid anything to do with the Umbra/Dreaming Etc or we work with it very briefly if there's more than one system and we can't decide really what it's made of. We fall back on which system has the more players rule.

Well, yeah. The Lost is about *Changelings* in the classic, folkloric sense, whereas The Dreaming was about... uh... "fairies", but only if you didn't actually read any fairy stories and didn't mind that the great majority of fairies went completely unrepresented.

I think the misrepresentation was more of the players fault than the systems. Horror and wonder were supposed to be equal parts, Seelie and Unseelie and there's as much nastiness in Sluagh, Balor and Redcaps as there is shininess in Gwydion Pooka and Satyrs. The problem is there were a whole lot more people playing the happy shiney cartoony saccharine side more often than the real low down gray or black areas where being a Changeling means your character is more cruel and careless of humanity than any Vampire. I've got supplements with plenty of the dangerous bad stuff and if people would actually look a bit closer, Changeling really isn't all fun and games as most tend to play it. For one, most players ignore a shit load of rules until they can't and then dump the character because it's not fun if you're going to be stopped from going Bedlam by having the Glamour ripped out of you. In the years I've played I have not seen one person play a Dauntain who is a Changeling that will slaughter other Changelings out of resentment for being one and being insane. There's just too much room for people to goof off and be drama whores and primadonnas when they play changeling and whoever takes it seriously can't stand the company. Least that's been my long term experience with just about everyone I see online and TT in Changeling. There is more darkness there in the original form, enough that stems from what you call 'classic' fairy tales, but I suppose it was easier to ignore in that version. I wish it had been handled better from the beginning and maybe focused more on the darkness elements the way Dark Ages or Lost did.

[solid-squid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think a lot of settings have these issues, although the BSD issue is fairly ridiculous. I remember one D&D campaign I ran which had a section where the PCs arrive at a town who wants them to solve a problem with some giants in the area. When the PCs arrive there's a fair on, which has various contests on which PCs can enter, including the "Mage's Challenge", which consists of three tests of magical prowess, is the highlight of the fair and brings in mages from all over the contenent to compete in it in order to win the prize. And now on to the giants without any description of the prize, the requirements, the rules or even what the damn challenges are. I had nearly a full caster party, so that made it a little easier, since I only had to put together challenges for two classes (arcane and archer), but I hate to think what a more balanced party would need to do so that everyone has something to try (and it does actually say that there were enough challenges that any PC can enter one)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I just literally cannot think of a way I can make the party ally with BSDs. There's just no way in the story context I could make it work without gross meta-gaming. And I REFUSE to kill the party because they refused such an alliance - that isn't fair on them to punish them for working in character

That bugs me too. The game adds something utterly vague that the characters are going to be interested in then demands the GM fill in the gaps - I know it's part of a GMs job but sometimes it throws in something vague yopu'd never have considered and you struggle to fit it in the system