At the very least this has inspired me to brush off some old design ideas.

Quote from: Omega;965722These sorts of "Living Campaign" gimmicks rarely work out for long. If at all. Eventually something changes in a way that somehow turns off a chunk of the fanbase and they stop or at least pull back their support as much.

The horrible reality is that social game markets are supported by the #Whales: The 1% of gamers who spend the most on product. They're almost universally insufferable and alienate more casual players, yet without them your product is dead.

So the 'gimmic' makes sense financially. Let's see if they can execute on it successfully.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;965791At the very least this has inspired me to brush off some old design ideas.



The horrible reality is that social game markets are supported by the #Whales: The 1% of gamers who spend the most on product. They're almost universally insufferable and alienate more casual players, yet without them your product is dead.

So the 'gimmic' makes sense financially. Let's see if they can execute on it successfully.

Its never worked that way. Some companies like to think it works that way. But sorry. No it doesnt and "living settings" tend to fail on a regular basis to the point you wonder why anyone even bothers anymore.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;965755Monsterhearts and Urban Shadows do the metaphors and and politics better than WoD does, so there's little reason to use WoD over them when WoD's only draw is its convoluted setting. I recall someone made a WoD conversion to Urban Shadows but the links are all dead.

WoD dominates the market despite its competitors usually being better designed. Most of the competitors are either no longer supported or minimally supported. Why is this?

I think most competitors used to be clones that came out a decade too late like gurps Cabal or Witchcraft. And Urban Shadows and Monsterhearts are both Apocalypse World. I don't think you find much fans for an indie game system like that on this forum with all these old school renaissance fans. Petsonally I like the setting of urban shadows and the way it divides the characters in four groups. But the mechanics .... they are vague. I like the corruption and debts mechanics, because they make sense in a game where power leads to corruption and politics is all about debts and favors. But all I could think of was "Where are the skills?" while I was reading the book.

Btw, now I use the d00 system of DWD Studios for my games. There is a modern horror/urban fantasy hack called Sigil and Shadow. I like the system and the writing style of DWD a lot. I hope they will make it into a full product one time complete with all those awesome random tables they always use in those books.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;965614Here's what I got out of what he said:

- there will be mechanics for stuff that's important about the setting / them. He mentioned Hunger / Feeding and Politics;
- the story will be about your characters; setting wise, Vampires now have more and more effective enemies - you'll be in your city most of the time telling your story;
- Lore will be toned down, with a lot of things becoming unreliable narrator, much less of a hill to climb for new players or GM's to work around. There won't be a lot of external decisions by important NPC's changing your story from the outside.
- It will be a bit like the Storyteller system, but not the storyteller system.

Like I said, great stuff for me and new players, people that identify strongly with the Lore will be very unhappy.

Isn't this exactly like Vampire the Requiem? Focus on your characters, opague lore,  anything can be true in your setting etc.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;964999You really need to learn to let go.

I don't see why. I'm winning and have been for years.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;965990Isn't this exactly like Vampire the Requiem? Focus on your characters, opague lore,  anything can be true in your setting etc.

Yes it is. That's marketing speak for you...

Quote from: RPGPundit;966240I don't see why. I'm winning and have been for years.

Well, it becomes a little silly to still be upset about metaplot, because they quit doing that in 2004.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;966254Yes it is. That's marketing speak for you...

Why do you think the old/classic wod gets all the hate, but the new/chronicles wod doesn't get much appreciation either? It got rid of the metaplot focus, but it seems like it's totally off the radar for most people except the hardcore WW crowd.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;966258Why do you think the old/classic wod gets all the hate, but the new/chronicles wod doesn't get much appreciation either? It got rid of the metaplot focus, but it seems like it's totally off the radar for most people except the hardcore WW crowd.

Well, firstly, I think that Classic World of Darkness simply captures a larger audience - which includes a larger audience of critics. As such, the volume of criticism is greater too. Secondly, Classic World of Darkness is more politically partisan - which riles up people of opposing political views, like RPGPundit. New World/Chronicles was deliberately designed to be politically neutral with less cultural references. As such, it offends less people (but enthuses others less).

Quote from: jan paparazzi;966257Well, it becomes a little silly to still be upset about metaplot, because they quit doing that in 2004.

A sore loser is sad, a sore 'winner' is just obnoxious. But what exactly is being won here anyway?

Quote from: TrippyHippy;966259Well, firstly, I think that Classic World of Darkness simply captures a larger audience - which includes a larger audience of critics. As such, the volume of criticism is greater too. Secondly, Classic World of Darkness is more politically partisan - which riles up people of opposing political views, like RPGPundit. New World/Chronicles was deliberately designed to be politically neutral with less cultural references. As such, it offends less people (but enthuses others less).

I always called it bland, which would piss off the nwod fans immensely. To be honest the character classes were without cultural references and the politics moved towards the factions. But yeah a little bit of lore wouldn't hurt to give it some vibe.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;966314I always called it bland, which would piss off the nwod fans immensely. To be honest the character classes were without cultural references and the politics moved towards the factions. But yeah a little bit of lore wouldn't hurt to give it some vibe.

The only one I really looked at was Mage: the Awakening. It seemed kind of cool in a lot of places, but the splats were terrible. Even when I didn't like a splat in most of the oWoD games, they were generally pretty clear archetypes a new player could quickly grasp. NWoD mage gave you Unicycle Girl and Cowboy Dandy.

I have tried to read Mage: the Awakening maybe ten times, and every single on I fall asleep after a couple of minutes.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;965980... And Urban Shadows and Monsterhearts are both Apocalypse World. I don't think you find much fans for an indie game system like that on this forum with all these old school renaissance fans. Petsonally I like the setting of urban shadows and the way it divides the characters in four groups.

I quite like Urban Shadows and Monsterhearts is an interesting game. I've seen a few posters here say the same.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;965755I don't really understand why anyone takes published settings seriously to the point of flame wars. I always found it more fun to mix/match and cherrypick.

Monsterhearts and Urban Shadows do the metaphors and and politics better than WoD does, so there's little reason to use WoD over them when WoD's only draw is its convoluted setting. I recall someone made a WoD conversion to Urban Shadows but the links are all dead.

WoD dominates the market despite its competitors usually being better designed. Most of the competitors are either no longer supported or minimally supported. Why is this?

Because a large faction of the fanbase doesn't play the game they only buy the books as some sort of multiple book series. Alot of them reside at the TBP. Urban Shadows and Witchcraft/Armageddon and the Palladium version (Nightbreed I think?) are just a few that are better designed with better systems.

Urban Shadows is the only Apocalypse Engine game I'll play just because it deals with my favorite premise and done really well.