The Old World of Darkness Agenda

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Baeraad

Delicate Snowflake
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Since I'm getting ready to run a game of Hunter: the Reckoning, I've been thinking about how to go about portraying the classic World of Darkness to the players. While just about all the oWoD books are shock full of verbose mood descriptions, I feel like they're often not very helpful - they frequently seem to take the view that of course you know what a Gothic-Punk aesthetic is supposed to be like, the only reason why you'd fail to follow it is because you're insufficiently committed to Roleplaying As Art and need to be lectured on the subject for another dozen pages. :tongue:

What I could actually use is what Powered By The Apocalypse games sometimes call an Agenda - a quick set of guidelines to keep in mind when creating characters, locations and situations. I'll list what I've come up with here. More suggestions are appreciated.

Life is struggle. Everyone in the setting is either fighting to maintain something, fighting to destroy something, or just fighting to survive. Rebels rage and scream and claw at the establishment; the establishment stomps down hard on the rebels; and somewhere in between, ordinary people are trying to hold on to the last scraps of dignity and hope. Everyone strives towards something, and everyone despairs, to a larger or smaller extent, of ultimately achieving it.

Look through a veil of cynicism. Everyone's a liar and a hypocrite. Nothing is as good as it should be. That doesn't mean that people can't be sympathetic and that things can't be worth believing in, only that it all has an undercurrent of sullen resignation, of reality failing to live up to idealistic expectations. Whatever you create, remember to make it flawed and imperfect.

Everything is complicated. The world is full of details and clutter. Motivations are complex, political situations are fraught, and everything turns out to be tangled and intricate when you get close enough to get a good look at it. On the bright side, this also means that everything is at least potentionally interesting and holds the potential to be understood and exploited. When in doubt, add more details and unexpected complications.

The world is inhospitable to human life. Everything is either depressingly filthy and decrepit or intimidatingly sterile and pristine. Nothing is ever soft and comfortable. Everything has sharp edges and a note of menace. Cities are nightmares of steel and stone, while the wilderness is so austere in its untamed beauty that it makes you feel ashamed of intruding. No location should ever invite the players to sit down and rest.

You only win by cheating. The world runs on unwritten rules and cladestine arrangements. Who you know is more important than what you know. Important decisions are made by shadowy power brokers in smoke-filled back rooms, while regular people form informal networks of mutual assistance to make up for the fact that the system doesn't work right and and doesn't care about them. While powerful organisations with faceless leaderships are omnipresent, their real impact always comes in the form of their ground-level operatives, who invariably have their own goals and personalities.

Everything has a past. Buildings are old and decaying. People have scars, tattoos, piercings, plastic surgery. There's litter everywhere. Even when something is brand new, there is probably a story behind its construction. Wherever you go, someone has been there before - yours is the final chapter in a very long story.
 
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Everything has a cost, and it's never a fair trade. You need something. You know who has it, so you make them an offer for it. It's more than it's worth, but hey, them's the breaks.

Great.

Now you've both got something, so you've both got something that someone else can take from you.
 
Everything has a cost, and it's never a fair trade. You need something. You know who has it, so you make them an offer for it. It's more than it's worth, but hey, them's the breaks.

Great.

Now you've both got something, so you've both got something that someone else can take from you.

Yes, that's a good one. And of course that also means that you can always get at least some of what you want, for a price. The price is always too high, but if you do decide to sell your soul, there's almost always going to be a helpful devil around to offer you a contract. No one is ever without options, they're just without good options.
 
What's the difference between 'Agenda' and 'Theme'?
Elements of a setting or adventure that push a particular theme... or that would work against it unless avoided.
 
Once I’m home I’ll check the PbtA take on Vampire Undying to see what its Agenda is.
 
What's the difference between 'Agenda' and 'Theme'?
Elements of a setting or adventure that push a particular theme... or that would work against it unless avoided.

They might well be the same thing. I never could quite figure out what the WoD games even meant when they kept yammering on about themes.
 
Theme is what the designers want you to evoke. Agendas tell you how to do it.
A literature teacher I know assigns an exercise for each book they cover to first, identify the themes in the book, and second, give examples of how each theme is pushed by the author. I've helped her grade several hundred of these things and it's now beaten into me to think of 'themes' in terms of concrete examples in the text, or in a movie... or, I suppose, elements in games... such as you'd put into random encounter charts and such... or lists of spells and creatures. Carelessly tossing in a flumph will subvert most any theme.
 
A literature teacher I know assigns an exercise for each book they cover to first, identify the themes in the book, and second, give examples of how each theme is pushed by the author. I've helped her grade several hundred of these things and it's now beaten into me to think of 'themes' in terms of concrete examples in the text, or in a movie... or, I suppose, elements in games... such as you'd put into random encounter charts and such... or lists of spells and creatures. Carelessly tossing in a flumph will subvert most any theme.
I think there's an element of having to bring a new word into the gaming space; an RPG author doesn't have the same luxury of a regular author as they don't have any control over the experience that people have with their work (eg, what the GM does with it at the gaming table). Agendas are inherently a compromise between the vagueness of themes and providing strictly delineated adventures, but they're thing that GM's can actually use. If in doubt, do this, and it'll feel about right.

As with so many things coming from PbtA games, it's not really anything new or innovative in itself, the innovation is in being so overt about it; "do this, it'll work" vs "learn what's appropriate by trial and error, you're the GM". You're right about things like random encounter tables or personality descriptions of NPC's being ways of communicating theme, but the why are things like this is just as important and gives GM's a tool they can take elsewhere to their own content.

And, of course, sometimes a theme needs to be subverted; purposefully breaking an agenda makes that easier because it gives you a thing you can do. In the cold and harsh world of darkness, sitting down on a nice sofa in a bright, airy room and having a chat and a cup of coffee stands out because it's everything that you shouldn't have, but that little bit of light will make the darkness stand out more.
 
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I think there's an element of having to bring a new word into the gaming space; an RPG author doesn't have the same luxury of a regular author as they don't have any control over the experience that people have with their work (eg, what the GM does with it at the gaming table). Agendas are inherently a compromise between the vagueness of themes and providing strictly delineated adventures, but they're thing that GM's can actually use. If in doubt, do this, and it'll feel about right.

This, very much. Agendas are definitely a blunt-force tool, but most of GMing is blunt-force work.

As with so many things coming from PbtA games, it's not really anything new or innovative in itself, the innovation is in being so overt about it; "do this, it'll work" vs "learn what's appropriate by trial and error, you're the GM". You're right about things like random encounter tables or personality descriptions of NPC's being ways of communicating theme, but the why are things like this is just as important and gives GM's a tool they can take elsewhere to their own content.

Yep. What's so great about PbtA is that it's designed to be simple and convenient to use. It works on the assumption that the players and GM do not necessarily have either the ability or the time and energy to create a Deep Artistic Experience, so it provides a ton of quick and handy ways to get the overall feel just about right without needing to grasp every nuance of genre writing and game design.

Having no illusions about my own status as a great and visionary artist, I really feel the need for that kind of shortcuts. :tongue:
 
I guess I never thought there was anything all that artsy/fancy or vague about themes... unless an author/director was trying to be purposefully obscure... or is just clumsy.
 
On a related subject, right now I'm discovering all over again how annoying it is that those White Wolf writers thought it was beneath them to actually provide crunch that fit the fluff. They spend the entire H:tR line ranting about how hunters are everymen, everymen-everymen-everymen, yes, they are very everymanly, everymen is what it's all about and anyone who doesn't run H:tR as a game of everymen is Doing It Wrong! But do they lift a finger to actually prevent players from creating what is essentially The Goddamned Batman at chargen? Hell no, that'd require actually doing some practical work. :angry:

I maaaaaay be having some trouble with players sinking all their points into Melee and Resources. Can you tell? :tongue:
 
Since I'm getting ready to run a game of Hunter: the Reckoning, I've been thinking about how to go about portraying the classic World of Darkness to the players. While just about all the oWoD books are shock full of verbose mood descriptions, I feel like they're often not very helpful - they frequently seem to take the view that of course you know what a Gothic-Punk aesthetic is supposed to be like, the only reason why you'd fail to follow it is because you're insufficiently committed to Roleplaying As Art and need to be lectured on the subject for another dozen pages. :tongue:

What I could actually use is what Powered By The Apocalypse games sometimes call an Agenda - a quick set of guidelines to keep in mind when creating characters, locations and situations. I'll list what I've come up with here. More suggestions are appreciated.

Life is struggle. Everyone in the setting is either fighting to maintain something, fighting to destroy something, or just fighting to survive. Rebels rage and scream and claw at the establishment; the establishment stomps down hard on the rebels; and somewhere in between, ordinary people are trying to hold on to the last scraps of dignity and hope. Everyone strives towards something, and everyone despairs, to a larger or smaller extent, of ultimately achieving it.

Look through a veil of cynicism. Everyone's a liar and a hypocrite. Nothing is as good as it should be. That doesn't mean that people can't be sympathetic and that things can't be worth believing in, only that it all has an undercurrent of sullen resignation, of reality failing to live up to idealistic expectations. Whatever you create, remember to make it flawed and imperfect.

Everything is complicated. The world is full of details and clutter. Motivations are complex, political situations are fraught, and everything turns out to be tangled and intricate when you get close enough to get a good look at it. On the bright side, this also means that everything is at least potentionally interesting and holds the potential to be understood and exploited. When in doubt, add more details and unexpected complications.

The world is inhospitable to human life. Everything is either depressingly filthy and decrepit or intimidatingly sterile and pristine. Nothing is ever soft and comfortable. Everything has sharp edges and a note of menace. Cities are nightmares of steel and stone, while the wilderness is so austere in its untamed beauty that it makes you feel ashamed of intruding. No location should ever invite the players to sit down and rest.

You only win by cheating. The world runs on unwritten rules and cladestine arrangements. Who you know is more important than what you know. Important decisions are made by shadowy power brokers in smoke-filled back rooms, while regular people form informal networks of mutual assistance to make up for the fact that the system doesn't work right and and doesn't care about them. While powerful organisations with faceless leaderships are omnipresent, their real impact always comes in the form of their ground-level operatives, who invariably have their own goals and personalities.

Everything has a past. Buildings are old and decaying. People have scars, tattoos, piercings, plastic surgery. There's litter everywhere. Even when something is brand new, there is probably a story behind its construction. Wherever you go, someone has been there before - yours is the final chapter in a very long story.


Everything has a cost, and it's never a fair trade. You need something. You know who has it, so you make them an offer for it. It's more than it's worth, but hey, them's the breaks.

Great.

Now you've both got something, so you've both got something that someone else can take from you.
Funny, I thought those are just "How To Run A Game 101":thumbsup:!

On a related subject, right now I'm discovering all over again how annoying it is that those White Wolf writers thought it was beneath them to actually provide crunch that fit the fluff. They spend the entire H:tR line ranting about how hunters are everymen, everymen-everymen-everymen, yes, they are very everymanly, everymen is what it's all about and anyone who doesn't run H:tR as a game of everymen is Doing It Wrong! But do they lift a finger to actually prevent players from creating what is essentially The Goddamned Batman at chargen? Hell no, that'd require actually doing some practical work. :angry:

I maaaaaay be having some trouble with players sinking all their points into Melee and Resources. Can you tell? :tongue:
The Everyman Is Not The Everyday Joe You Know.
I mean, think about it. Somehow the NPCs are surviving in the setting you described, non? There must be some reason beyond the law of statistics...at least for some of them.
Those reasons aren't always physical, but they might be. They all might come with a price for their soul, too... ("You know, it's not just who you know. Sometimes it's who you blow". Or "I've joined a gang to get enough Backing to actually get past my 20ies, maybe").


So, why would you want to prevent them? Just apply your own themes/agendas/whatever...
The more you have, the more you become a target for people that have less, or have just as much and want yours, too. Think JR Ewing. You have Resources 4 or 5? You shake JR's hand every week.
And high Melee comes with a history. A history of violence, which is bad enough in itself. A history of training that's not in the neighbourhood dojo...or if it is, it's under an outstanding teacher who probably comes with history of his own. A history of people who might consider you a specialist with a skill in high demand and try some unorthodox methods of making you work for them.


Or, you know, just tell them "no Batman, no Resources and Melee over 3 at chargen", and be done with it:shade:!
 
Funny, I thought those are just "How To Run A Game 101":thumbsup:!

No. :tongue: I mean, I'll grant you that it's a fine enough approach for a large number of games, but I don't think I'd use it if I was running a game of Equestria Tails. You don't always want the players to feel like they're fighting a losing battle against inevitable entropy.

The Everyman Is Not The Everyday Joe You Know.
I mean, think about it. Somehow the NPCs are surviving in the setting you described, non? There must be some reason beyond the law of statistics...at least for some of them.
Those reasons aren't always physical, but they might be. They all might come with a price for their soul, too... ("You know, it's not just who you know. Sometimes it's who you blow". Or "I've joined a gang to get enough Backing to actually get past my 20ies, maybe").

Yeah, but the WoD isn't that hard to just survive in. Plenty of powerful entities want you to continue working to enrich them for a great many years. It's having a life worth living that's hard.

So, why would you want to prevent them? Just apply your own themes/agendas/whatever...

No, because I want to play the game I have actually bought, paid for and spent a lot of time internalising. If I wanted to run my own game, I wouldn't have spent a fortune on sourcebooks. :tongue:

The more you have, the more you become a target for people that have less, or have just as much and want yours, too. Think JR Ewing. You have Resources 4 or 5? You shake JR's hand every week.
And high Melee comes with a history. A history of violence, which is bad enough in itself. A history of training that's not in the neighbourhood dojo...or if it is, it's under an outstanding teacher who probably comes with history of his own. A history of people who might consider you a specialist with a skill in high demand and try some unorthodox methods of making you work for them.

Yyyyyeeeeaaahh, I think this is another one of those times when I have to conclude that either you're a thoroughly awesome GM who can make anything work, or else you just believe that you are, but either way I can absolutely not live up to that John-Wick-style "make players suffer from their own awesomeness" ideal. :tongue: Okay? Possibly you are smart enough to do that. I am going to have to be agnostic on the subject, because I've never been in one of your games. I, however, am definitely not.

And regardless... a story where fighters come from far and wide to try to be the one who finally took down the champion is... a very different story from the one I am interested in playing at this time.

Or, you know, just tell them "no Batman, no Resources and Melee over 3 at chargen", and be done with it:shade:!

I did! Right in the recruitment post! What, do you think the players listen to me tell them they can't do something when the book says they can do that thing? Honestly, I envy you the sort of players you apparently have. :tongue:
 
No. :tongue: I mean, I'll grant you that it's a fine enough approach for a large number of games, but I don't think I'd use it if I was running a game of Equestria Tails.
...whie I think that a game of Equestria Tails is just asking for it:smile:!

You don't always want the players to feel like they're fighting a losing battle against inevitable entropy.
Why not:shock:?!?


Yeah, but the WoD isn't that hard to just survive in. Plenty of powerful entities want you to continue working to enrich them for a great many years. It's having a life worth living that's hard.
I'd disagree...
The entities just want a number of people to work for them. The specific individuals don't matter. If one or a score get offed by a vamp clan...well, sucks to be mortal.
You, however, have a vested interest in you being one of those survivors.

No, because I want to play the game I have actually bought, paid for and spent a lot of time internalising. If I wanted to run my own game, I wouldn't have spent a fortune on sourcebooks. :tongue:
...then what is the purpose of this thread? I mean, the point is to find a way to run your game, right?
I've never mentioned anything about the system, BTW.

Yyyyyeeeeaaahh, I think this is another one of those times when I have to conclude that either you're a thoroughly awesome GM who can make anything work, or else you just believe that you are, but either way I can absolutely not live up to that John-Wick-style "make players suffer from their own awesomeness" ideal. :tongue: Okay? Possibly you are smart enough to do that. I am going to have to be agnostic on the subject, because I've never been in one of your games. I, however, am definitely not.
You're the second this week. I'm starting to get worried about the kind of rep I've got on this forum...:shade:
But it also pays to remember that this was my generous offer. The less generous option would be simply to say "no".
And once I say "no", it's the player's job to persuade me to allow it. Not an easy task, as they've found out. No goddamn ninja in my Pendragon, thank you!

Also, it's quite simple whether I'm as good as I believe myself to be...
Nobody could be as good as I believe myself to be and remain human:evil:!
But I've still managed to pull off that trick. More than once, in fact.

And regardless... a story where fighters come from far and wide to try to be the one who finally took down the champion is... a very different story from the one I am interested in playing at this time.
Did you check the inks I'd embedded? There's no such stories there!

Right in the recruitment post! What, do you think the players listen to me tell them they can't do something when the book says they can do that thing? Honestly, I envy you the sort of players you apparently have. :tongue:
Wait a minute!
You told the players not to get Resources and Melee (or whatever) above a certain threshold and they chose to ignore it? Personally, I'd just post "this character isn't a valid one, please redo it or you don't get to play".
I mean, what kind of players don't know that if a GM says X and the book says Y, they get X as a result? Seriously, man, stop letting them running roughshod over you!

I mean, the only difference between your players and mine (other than mine being better-looking*, smarter and kinder :tongue:) is that they accept some simple truths:

  1. He (or she) who is running this game, can choose who plays in it.
  2. The Referee sets the rules, and may strike some rules out, or introduce new ones. That includes limitations on chargen.
  3. Anyone who thinks otherwise may have the book running a game for him or her...or can take the Refereeing mantle.

Simple. Doesn't take great players, just some setting the expectations before play begins.
And the above truths don't change if I'm running a campaign where they're expected to be movers and shakers.

*Shut up! My wife is part of my basic group, so of course it's got to be true (unless your wife also plays, in which case I'd admit to a parity, instead:grin:)! The FS2 group is a side entertainment.
And BTW, if you want to know soul-crushing despair, you should play in a session my wife is running in one of her homebrew settings. If that doesn't do you in, just imagine trying to live in that place...WoD seems positively optimistic in comparison:devil:!
 
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...whie I think that a game of Equestria Tails is just asking for it:smile:!

Okay, then while I would still be interested to play in one of your games to find out if you're really as good as you think you are, that game should definitely not be Equestria Tails. I don't want to see what horrible things you'd do to the poor ponies. :tongue:

The thought occurs that there might be some sort of connection between your relentlessly upbeat attitude and your determination to grimdark up every game. Some of us find life to be harsh and dark and occasionally want to take a break from it, y'know?

I'd disagree...
The entities just want a number of people to work for them. The specific individuals don't matter. If one or a score get offed by a vamp clan...well, sucks to be mortal.
You, however, have a vested interest in you being one of those survivors.

Sure, but that still means that for every unlucky bastard who gets used as a snack, there's ninety-nine that just keep grinding on with their wretched lives and dealing with things like alcoholism and decaying marriages and the bitter knowledge that their dreams will never come true. The WoD is a bleak place, but it's not a meatgrinder.

I think people in the WoD might be a bit more proactive, on average, than people in the real world, since they're slightly less comfortable and face more requirements to think on their feet, but most of them aren't badasses.

...then what is the purpose of this thread? I mean, the point is to find a way to run your game, right?

To help me run it properly. To make sure I end up with something that realises the potential in the game books.

I've never mentioned anything about the system, BTW.

Neither did I?

Also, it's quite simple whether I'm as good as I believe myself to be...
Nobody could be as good as I believe myself to be and remain human:evil:!
But I've still managed to pull off that trick. More than once, in fact.


That I don't doubt. Everything can be made to work every once in a while. It's assuming that it can naturally be done that I'm dubious about.

Did you check the inks I'd embedded? There's no such stories there!

I did not. Must I? I mean, will they explain your position better than you can do on your own?

Wait a minute!
You told the players not to get Resources and Melee (or whatever) above a certain threshold and they chose to ignore it? Personally, I'd just post "this character isn't a valid one, please redo it or you don't get to play".
I mean, what kind of players don't know that if a GM says X and the book says Y, they get X as a result? Seriously, man, stop letting them running roughshod over you!

I did say that, and one player has adjusted his character to something more or less acceptable and another one might end up withdrawing his application. It's fine. I just hate having to be the bad guy, and it annoys me that I have to be the bad guy because the game designers couldn't be bothered to fit their mechanics to the game they actually wanted to make.

And BTW, if you want to know soul-crushing despair, you should play in a session my wife is running in one of her homebrew settings. If that doesn't do you in, just imagine trying to live in that place...WoD seems positively optimistic in comparison:devil:!

Well, like I said above, the WoD isn't nearly as bad as it could be. It's a place of foiled idealism, not of wall-to-the-wall despair. It's dark, but it's an angsty-suburban-teenage-punk kind of dark. :tongue: The main fear isn't that you're going to get horribly butchered in the next five minutes, it's that you're going to be dead inside for the next fifty years.
 
Okay, then while I would still be interested to play in one of your games to find out if you're really as good as you think you are, that game should definitely not be Equestria Tails. I don't want to see what horrible things you'd do to the poor ponies. :tongue:
Mmmm...ponies.
Let's leave it at this:smile:!

Also, I'll reserve you a spot if I run an online game...:wink:

The thought occurs that there might be some sort of connection between your relentlessly upbeat attitude and your determination to grimdark up every game.
...I'm determined to grimdark up every game:shock:? Man, that post was my attempt to grimdark it down!

Some of us find life to be harsh and dark and occasionally want to take a break from it, y'know?
Yeah, I know, and you're right I'm not in that boat. I find that life is harsh and dark, and that's wonderful!

Come to think of it, there might indeed be a relationship between my attitude and my preferences. Then again, the same is probably true for everyone.

Sure, but that still means that for every unlucky bastard who gets used as a snack, there's ninety-nine that just keep grinding on with their wretched lives and dealing with things like alcoholism and decaying marriages and the bitter knowledge that their dreams will never come true. The WoD is a bleak place, but it's not a meatgrinder.
Yeah, but people are also rational. They know that the first step to dealing with those things is not getting chewed up by the meatgrinder.

I think people in the WoD might be a bit more proactive, on average, than people in the real world, since they're slightly less comfortable and face more requirements to think on their feet, but most of them aren't badasses.
I never said anything about "all of them being badasses". Some might be. Others would know the right people, who would be terribly upset if something was to happen to their, well, acquintance.

To help me run it properly. To make sure I end up with something that realises the potential in the game books.
IMO, that's exactly what I was suggesting? Not saying it would work for you, of course. But that was the point.

Neither did I?
Well, you said you want to use "the game I have actually bought, paid for and spent a lot of time internalising", so I assumed you mean the system, too...
OK, let's drop this tangent:thumbsup:.

That I don't doubt. Everything can be made to work every once in a while. It's assuming that it can naturally be done that I'm dubious about.
It can be, IME. But I don't pull it every time, either, so you're free to agree or disagree.
After all, you're doing your game.

I did not. Must I? I mean, will they explain your position better than you can do on your own?
Well, better than what I wrote, at any rate.

I did say that, and one player has adjusted his character to something more or less acceptable and another one might end up withdrawing his application. It's fine.
Good job!

I just hate having to be the bad guy, and it annoys me that I have to be the bad guy because the game designers couldn't be bothered to fit their mechanics to the game they actually wanted to make.
Well, in my point of view, "the bad guys" are those who didn't comply with the stated requirements. Glad to hear one of them at least is making amends!


Well, like I said above, the WoD isn't nearly as bad as it could be. It's a place of foiled idealism, not of wall-to-the-wall despair. It's dark, but it's an angsty-suburban-teenage-punk kind of dark. :tongue: The main fear isn't that you're going to get horribly butchered in the next five minutes, it's that you're going to be dead inside for the next fifty years.
And with a thousand Goths screaming in terror, right:shade:?
 
Science Bad is an agenda. Life is Struggle is a theme.
I don't think that's quite right. Science Bad is a theme, but it doesn't tell you why or how science is bad, or give you anything you can directly use. You need to bring it down a level...

Knowledge is it's own punishment. Eve and Adam's life in the garden was bliss. Nothing could hurt them, they didn't even understand the meaning of pain, until Adam was told about the apple and... well, we all know how that went.

Everything that you learn creates another threat; there's always another layer, a deeper game being played, that you don't even know you're a pawn in until it's too late. If the party pokes around, the world should poke back - if they learn about a threat, that threat is coming, and soon. If they find out who is in charge, then they'll find out they wanted to stay hidden. If they look too deeply into the blood, they're going to find out some things they didn't want to, and be second-guessing themselves from now on. Every secret they find should make them worried about how it's going to punish them; and if they try to hunker down and hide, have someone find their secret.
 
I don't think that's quite right. Science Bad is a theme, but it doesn't tell you why or how science is bad, or give you anything you can directly use. You need to bring it down a level...
I disagree, there's no nuance with Science Bad, it's all bad, no matter what. That's an agenda, those rarely have any wiggle room, it's a manifesto. But Life is Struggle, that's a theme. Because sometimes a struggle is a good thing as it leads to something better, other times, it's just not fun or safe.
 
Always interesting to read when somebody ports Wod over to their go to system. That being said I've never played any Powered by the Apocalypse so so my suggestions would be of limited worth at best. What I do have is a question. Are you playing with all of the Creeds? I read through all the Agendas you gave and they seem fine for the more punchy creeds (avenger, defender) and some agendas would suit a detective-y creed like judge, but for a creed like Innocent where the character is powered by being hopeful about there being good in the world it just seems like a constant no-win.
 
Always interesting to read when somebody ports Wod over to their go to system. That being said I've never played any Powered by the Apocalypse so so my suggestions would be of limited worth at best. What I do have is a question. Are you playing with all of the Creeds? I read through all the Agendas you gave and they seem fine for the more punchy creeds (avenger, defender) and some agendas would suit a detective-y creed like judge, but for a creed like Innocent where the character is powered by being hopeful about there being good in the world it just seems like a constant no-win.

Nah, I'm not porting over anything, I'm just using one of the techniques from PbtA to inform the non-mechanical bits. :smile:

But yes, I'm playing with all seven of the regular Creeds, and I don't see any contradiction there. Innocents try to stay hopeful and be good people in the face of a bleak world - in other words, they are struggling, because Life is struggle. And they will often be disappointed, because we Look through a veil of cynicism. But on the other hand, they will see the good in people, which will be there even with the worst of them, because Everything is complicated and therefore few things are purely black and white.

If you look at the signature Innocent from the books, he consistently believes more in people than they really deserve - he once got his legs ripped off because he treated a vampire like a person instead of like a dangerous monster, for God's sakes. :tongue: But at the same time, the people he believes in genuinely have good in them, even that vampire. His approach is flawed, because everything in the WoD is flawed, but it's not more flawed than the approach of some Avenger who just wants to gun down everything that looks wrong.
 
If you look at the signature Innocent from the books, he consistently believes more in people than they really deserve - he once got his legs ripped off because he treated a vampire like a person instead of like a dangerous monster, for God's sakes. :tongue: But at the same time, the people he believes in genuinely have good in them, even that vampire. His approach is flawed, because everything in the WoD is flawed, but it's not more flawed than the approach of some Avenger who just wants to gun down everything that looks wrong.

yes Bookworm55 if I recall correctly, and I do believe the legs grew back and then he went out dancing. So ultimately he was able to retain his positive outlook and rewarded for doing so. It not a question of who has the more flawed approached to solving a problem but rather who has the more interesting one (at least when I last played The Reckoning) because it creates a more varied discussion for the players as to how they want to solve the undead problem. Everyone agreeing with violent solutions gets a tad stale (at least if you stick with the storyteller system, Gurps keeps it interesting and I don't know how PBTA handles combat) after several runs. Having someone take HUGS FOR EVERYONE as a negotiating position keeps things fresh but to do that they need some justification for doing so. I'm not saying dial it back on grim Agendas but maybe add a flicker of hope as one of them.
 
yes Bookworm55 if I recall correctly, and I do believe the legs grew back and then he went out dancing. So ultimately he was able to retain his positive outlook and rewarded for doing so. It not a question of who has the more flawed approached to solving a problem but rather who has the more interesting one (at least when I last played The Reckoning) because it creates a more varied discussion for the players as to how they want to solve the undead problem. Everyone agreeing with violent solutions gets a tad stale (at least if you stick with the storyteller system, Gurps keeps it interesting and I don't know how PBTA handles combat) after several runs. Having someone take HUGS FOR EVERYONE as a negotiating position keeps things fresh but to do that they need some justification for doing so. I'm not saying dial it back on grim Agendas but maybe add a flicker of hope as one of them.

I still say that my agendas handle that if you just look at them properly. Nothing is simple and nothing is perfect - but that also means that nothing is simply bad or perfectly evil. If nothing but bad things happened, then that would be simple - having bad people have a spark of good in them keeps things complicated in the same way that having good people have some bad in them keeps things complicated. And life is a struggle, but for that to be the case there must be something worth fighting for - there is no genuine struggle in a world where the fight is already lost.
 
Here is a summary from Undying's GM Principles, Agenda and Moves. They are fleshed out with a short paragraph each. They seem a lot more practical and less broad than what we've discussed so far.

GM Principles:

- Follow the PC's lead

- Provide external pressures

- Provide continuity

- Ask insightful questions

- Provide colourful descriptions

GM Agenda:

- Encroach on a PC's hunting grounds to test their strength

- Call in an old debt or offer a PC a new one to further a NPC's agenda

- Meddle in a PC's affairs to a NPC's benefit

- Kick a PC when they're down to exploit their weakness

- Make the first move to seize the initiative

- Bring a PC down a peg to humble them

- Make a PC a pariah by destroying their reputation

- Fight a PC if you must, to save a NPC's skin or for vengeance

GM Moves:

- Overwhelm a PC

- Introduce a NPC

- Establish a rival

- Establish an enemy

- Establish a nemesis

- Brand a Heretic

- Use your NPCs

- Sup your NPCs

- Change a Predator's status
 
Huh, the way that PBTA is being described makes it sound more like a modern board game than a traditional tabletop roleplaying game or perhaps the elusive missing link between the two. Dedicate rigid actions for players and Gms instead of the more traditional improv, separate agendas that can function as win condition....
Honestly most of my long term Wod chronicles eventually become players and storyteller taking turns pushing pawns around a map of New York countering each others plans it could be a board game. The idea of starting with this from the system up rather than from gameplay down sounds interesting.

additionally what is
GM Moves:
- Sup your NPCs
?
I'm going to assume it's not providing NPCS a meal but saying hello to them doesn't make much more sense.
 
additionally what is

?
I'm going to assume it's not providing NPCS a meal but saying hello to them doesn't make much more sense.
Not sure either, but I suspect "try to foreshadow an NPC getting a power-up", or "kill off an NPC". I certainly use the latter quite a bit, regardless of whether I'm playing PbtA or not:grin:!
 
Huh, the way that PBTA is being described makes it sound more like a modern board game than a traditional tabletop roleplaying game or perhaps the elusive missing link between the two. Dedicate rigid actions for players and Gms instead of the more traditional improv, separate agendas that can function as win condition....
Honestly most of my long term Wod chronicles eventually become players and storyteller taking turns pushing pawns around a map of New York countering each others plans it could be a board game. The idea of starting with this from the system up rather than from gameplay down sounds interesting.

additionally what is

?
I'm going to assume it's not providing NPCS a meal but saying hello to them doesn't make much more sense.

Agendas etc are not anymore rigid than any other GM guidelines in a game, just more clearly stated. I find a lot of these ‘mechanics’ are just overtly systemizing good GM techniques. The idea with a GM Move is that if you can’t think what should happen next you can use the Moves as a list to pick from and keep the game moving .
 
Huh, the way that PBTA is being described makes it sound more like a modern board game than a traditional tabletop roleplaying game or perhaps the elusive missing link between the two. Dedicate rigid actions for players and Gms instead of the more traditional improv, separate agendas that can function as win condition....
Honestly most of my long term Wod chronicles eventually become players and storyteller taking turns pushing pawns around a map of New York countering each others plans it could be a board game. The idea of starting with this from the system up rather than from gameplay down sounds interesting.

additionally what is

?
I'm going to assume it's not providing NPCS a meal but saying hello to them doesn't make much more sense.

It means you give blood points to your NPCs, reflecting that they are feeding. In Undying blood points are the central mechanic.
 
Just to be clear I'm using rigid in a negative sense, clearly written stage direction improves the overall production of the play and overtly giving the Gm and players a dedicated range of actions to choose from the start prevents rambling down unwanted avenues in gameplay later on. I realize how many side quests per chronicle varies from table to table and this could serve as a check to that.
It means you give blood points to your NPCs, reflecting that they are feeding. In Undying blood points are the central mechanic.
Okay, you have a blood pool I'm back to familiar ground again. Is the blood pool used to pay for moves? I could see that as a fun way to turn diplomatic intrigues into a tactics game. Can you build different princes moves sets or is it just one broad range?
 
Just to be clear I'm using rigid in a negative sense, clearly written stage direction improves the overall production of the play and overtly giving the Gm and players a dedicated range of actions to choose from the start prevents rambling down unwanted avenues in gameplay later on. I realize how many side quests per chronicle varies from table to table and this could serve as a check to that.

Okay, you have a blood pool I'm back to familiar ground again. Is the blood pool used to pay for moves? I could see that as a fun way to turn diplomatic intrigues into a tactics game. Can you build different princes moves sets or is it just one broad range?

From what I recall all vampire related actions (transformations, etc), intrigue and battles are resolved by who has the most blood points.
 
Since I'm getting ready to run a game of Hunter: the Reckoning, I've been thinking about how to go about portraying the classic World of Darkness to the players. While just about all the oWoD books are shock full of verbose mood descriptions, I feel like they're often not very helpful - they frequently seem to take the view that of course you know what a Gothic-Punk aesthetic is supposed to be like, the only reason why you'd fail to follow it is because you're insufficiently committed to Roleplaying As Art and need to be lectured on the subject for another dozen pages. :tongue:

First of all kudos for acknowledging this as an issue and wanting to addess it. I've not played much WoD, but the few times I have I've always hit this barrier and found GMs who were unable or unwilling to describe the game beyond a few buzz words.

I'm not sure I can really help shaping your agenda as I'm not really familiar with Hunter but for what it's worth I still find the above agenda a little vague. Taken together they portray a cynical, gritty and (obviously) dark setting but they could equally describe to the mundane darkness of The Wire, the sensationlist darkness of GoT or The Shield or even the stylised darkness of film noir. I imagine a hunter character in the Wire would look very different from one in GoT or The Big Sleep. That may or may not be an issue depending on the sort of game you want to run but I feel there are a lot of implied genre assumptions that migth require difgging a bit deeper.

From a practical perspective, perhaps try looking at it from a character point of view. What kind of actions or attitudes would you say represented a rejection of the premise of the game? Would a character turned down hunts which looked too dangerous be OK? How about hunters who spent most of their time in labs looking to scientific solutions to the monster problem (sort of like a more serious Ghostbusters)? Maybe by figuring out what doesn't fit in Hunter might help narrow down what does?
 
I'm not sure I can really help shaping your agenda as I'm not really familiar with Hunter but for what it's worth I still find the above agenda a little vague. Taken together they portray a cynical, gritty and (obviously) dark setting but they could equally describe to the mundane darkness of The Wire, the sensationlist darkness of GoT or The Shield or even the stylised darkness of film noir. I imagine a hunter character in the Wire would look very different from one in GoT or The Big Sleep. That may or may not be an issue depending on the sort of game you want to run but I feel there are a lot of implied genre assumptions that migth require difgging a bit deeper.

I don't know, I'd say it's as deep as it needs to go. As long as I get the general idea right, I'm fine with the rest being informed by whatever I come up with at any given time.

From a practical perspective, perhaps try looking at it from a character point of view. What kind of actions or attitudes would you say represented a rejection of the premise of the game?

I can't actually think of any other than "apathetic optimism." Believing, against all evidence, that it will all be okay in the end is fine. Blind faith has its place in the setting. Believing that you can just sit on your ass and wait for it to happen, on the other hand, is definitely out. If the world can be fixed it needs you to do your part.

Would a character turned down hunts which looked too dangerous be OK?

Yes, as long as they're fine with hearing about the continued effects of the monster remaining at large.

How about hunters who spent most of their time in labs looking to scientific solutions to the monster problem (sort of like a more serious Ghostbusters)?

Insofar as that was possible? Yes. But at the very least, someone would have to go out and find them data to work with.
 
Huh, the way that PBTA is being described makes it sound more like a modern board game than a traditional tabletop roleplaying game or perhaps the elusive missing link between the two. Dedicate rigid actions for players and Gms instead of the more traditional improv, separate agendas that can function as win condition....
Player "moves" are what would be "core mechanics" and "special abilities" in other games, just bundled into one and presented differently. You play them in pretty much the same way as any other RPG.

The PbtA framework does it's best to prevent dull "I social skills the NPC" and the like play by forcing the PC to take a specific sort of action to trigger moves, but the conditions are usually pretty flexible and make logical sense - like to use your social skills, you'd need to communicate with the target somehow. To use your combat move, you'd need to take some sort of violent action. If there isn't a move for a thing you want to do, you just do it, and it's up to the GM to adjudicate what happens next.

GM moves are just "things that can happen", and they're the sort of you'd do GM'ing any other system. As ever, PbtA stuff doesn't really do anything new or exciting, it's just explicit. Agendas, as we've discussed upthread, are just guidelines for the GM to use to represent the world.

For the RPG - Board game link, I think you want to look to stuff like Fiasco as being much closer.
 
For the RPG - Board game link, I think you want to look to stuff like Fiasco as being much closer.

It is so close they're putting out a board/cardgame version of Fiasco that I supported on KS and I'm looking forward to.
 
Fiasco really hasn't shown up as a game in my area so I had to read the wikipedia page. It seems to play more along the lines of a parlor game than either a a tabletop roleplaying game or a board game, little strategy or tactics and the fun is upping the stakes on the other players and I could see the "Tilt" mechanic going wrong for a lot of reasons (most reasons based around getting back at the player who upped the stakes on them). The entry makes the game feel like a game of Sorry but even more passive aggressive, somehow. I'm afraid I don't see the boardgame/roleplaying connection here, the wikipedia entry makes this just sound like chaos.

PBTA giving Gm and players a each range of actions to choose a set number of "moves" as their skill sets and giving everybody their own dashboard to resource manage their power pools plus seperate win conditions that allow for co-op or pvp (or perhaps multiple win conditions and have everybody second guessing their "allies"). Only have to add your favorite city map to use as a board and you got a tabletop roleplaying game that doubles as a boardgame. described like this it sorta reminds me of Monolith's Batman: Gotham City Chronicles but y'know different genre and less immediate combat, same level of resource management.
 
The point of Fiasco is exactly for the players to screw one another over, just like Paranoia PvP is the intention and point of the game. There's nothing passive aggressive at all about the game, it is purely aggressive on purpose. The Tilt is a slope of collective disaster, one player can hardly be singled out from others. By the end of a game of Fiasco it is unlikely a single character will survive. It isn't a game for powergamers, the easily offended or those without a black sense of humour.
 
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PBTA giving Gm and players a each range of actions to choose a set number of "moves" as their skill sets and giving everybody their own dashboard to resource manage their power pools plus seperate win conditions that allow for co-op or pvp (or perhaps multiple win conditions and have everybody second guessing their "allies"). Only have to add your favorite city map to use as a board and you got a tabletop roleplaying game that doubles as a boardgame. described like this it sorta reminds me of Monolith's Batman: Gotham City Chronicles but y'know different genre and less immediate combat, same level of resource management.

Dude, no. That's not even remotely how it works. "Moves" are just core mechanics or GM best practice, depending. "Agendas" are aesthetic bulletpoints for the GM to keep in mind. There is definitely no win condition.
 
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