From: tgt33358@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Deus Imperator)
Subject: Re: WereVamp->Ars?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 10:13:26 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.154121@cs.man.ac.uk> peterw@cs.man.ac.uk (Peter Wake) writes:
>Well I had a shot at converting Vampire characters to Ars Magica, which
>is halfway there.  Given the theory you can also go the other way.
>Vampire is somewhat more coarse grained than Ars Miga however.
>You can convert the Vampire effects and play them in Ars, but I can't
>really see the point of mixing the two together somehow.  You can use
>the general routine of Ars combat/duelling, but then Storyteller doesn't
>really have a proper combat system, instead it has a set of suggestions.
>Just replace suggestions with those from Ars...
I've played both, and the "stress" die in no way emulates the true stress 
of needing 3 successes, and having to roll time and again, hoping the 
next toss has the success you need.  Vampire, IMHO, is superior.
>
>Storyteller is a big leap backwards (IMHO):
>1)  Shoddy points based character generation, a sort of points bandwagon
>    thing rather than a proper character generation method.  It encourages
>    min-maxing and rule play.
>2)  Rules are so quirky as to encourage rule-lawyer type behaviour and
>    rule-play.
Gotta disagree with you here, too.  As Amber shows you, the less rules you
have, the less rule-lawyering abounds.  Vampire is very much a ROLEplaing
game, with only one true rule:  if you don't like them, don't follow them.
Sloppy rules allow the simple stuff to be glazed over in lieu of drama, rather
than the almighty die roll.
>3)  Very little guide lines for difficulty levels means that referee might
>    as well just assign percentages and throw the system away.
It's not so terribly bad.  Once again, above you criticized rule-lawyerism, and
then attacked the aspect that is farthest from strict.  6 is base difficulty,
10 is night impossible.  Run from there. 
>4)  Combat system does not work.
Combat ought to be gruesome, and narrative.  Which is as it should be.`
>5)  Damage system does not work.
Some truth here.  For me, the respective levels of lethality crated just the 
right amount of tension.  I knew automatically how much damage my characters
could and couldn't take. 
>6)  Difficulty above 9 for any task causes complete system break-down.
>    i.e. The Antideluvian with 19 dice against starting character with
>    Stamina 5, Fortitude 3.  However many dice he has chance of scoring
>    a success (to wound) is the same as chance of losing one from a
>    botch.  Furthermore Sta 10, Fort 10 is no better than above at
>    resisting normal damage - still roll a 10.
>    (I have a fix for this, I'm sure you can think of one too.
>     Or a neat continuum of three.  Left as an exercise :-)
You forget splitting dice pools.  That antedeluvian has _2_ attacks...one at
10 dice, one at 9.  Same goes for soaks.  Antedeluvians are _impossible_ to
take down.
>7)  Coarse grain problems.  You can't grade things smoothly: experience
>    for example.  One XP is an awful lot to hand out or withhold, which
>    makes it hard when you want to reward players differently but not TOO
>    differently.  The same applies to stats, there's a very binary feel to
>    it all.  Value one is feeble, five is gross and there are only three
>    things in between: very poor.  Other systems have this problem,
>    but only Toon and Ghostbusters as bad.  It didn't matter with them
>    because no one is really bothered about the result: it's funny or it's
>    not.  In Vampire there's a shred or 'realism' and it doesn't mesh well
>    with the system.
>7.1)
>    This is most noticable with celerity.  The first point makes you
>    twice as fast as someone without it, after that the return diminishes.
>    Imagine a supers game that worked like this, it would be trashed by
>    even the GURPS players.  Champions is a lot better.
Stories abound with vampires with a power similar to celerity.  A fix may 
be to add a .5 extra actions, for every level, but that starts getting 
too complex.  Celerity is a neccessary power, and _very_ dangerous.  Frankly,
there's a titanic difference between celerity 1 and 2.  That extra attack, and 
bonus to DEX rolls makes you a walking cuisinart.
>8)  The rules are sloppily written and dreadfully organised.  I have never
>    come across any rules that were so tedious to wade through (except
>    maybe C&S and that's all tables).
That's what Vampire II is about 8^p.

>9)  The vampiric powers are described like something from AD&D - the
>    referee has to do so much work that he'd be better off re-writing
>    the whole system from scratch.
I see no problem with them as they stand.  Most of the stuff is once again,
best left to free form, especially when used against mortals.  Are they 
unclear?  Engineer a die roll with whatever is appropriate at the time.
Take the initiative. 
>When I *pay* for a set of rules I don't expect to have to do all the work.
>We pay the games companies for rules because we don't want to bother
>with working out everything for ourselves.  The rules do not guide
>or aid the referee much at all.  The rules for Toon and Ghostbusters
>are more help, much faster and can describe Vampires and Werewolves
>Vampire is bad too: the scenarios are the most pathetic crocks of
>shoddy railroading, internal inconsistency (especially w.r.t. to blood
>bonding) is rife and pretention overbearing.  As for the background - I
>could read (have read) Anne Rice and come up with a better rip-off of
>it than they managed.  There is no doubt in my mind that it IS a rip
>off.  I'm surprised they didn't go the whole hog and try for a licence.
Wrong with Ann Rice.  Sure, it _seems_ the same, but poking around recent
vampire literature, you'll find some stuff much more like V:TM (can't recall
the name of the author, but she engineered the idea of a vampiric society)
What's wrong with blood bonding?  Drink the blood three times, and you'll
never act against that person's better interests.  Makes perfect sense.
Can you break it?  A better question would be:  what would make you break it?
iThe background is thick with powerful imagery and language.  Strangers who
do not like RPG's have sat in on my Vampire sessions just to listen to us 
talk.  I'd almost say, you never had it so good.
>
>Plus vampires are solitary hunters with good reasons to kill each other,
>how odd that they form into little groups of friends.  It's harder to
>provide justification for a vampire party to stay together than for
>virtually any other background.
Why do Vampires band together?  The Inquisition solved that little puzzler
for them.  There is incredible strength in numbers.  You cannot go through
eternity alone.  Some vampires hunt together.  It's all part of the 
mentality.  THe only reason it's difficult to imagine a vampire party 
sticking together is because so much roleplaying is involved, it causes you
to look at the stuff you took for granted really hard.  Why is an AD&D party
together.  One of two reasons.  Power.  Money.  It all comes down to that.
Why do supergroups stick together.  Wildcards answered that question:  they
DON'T!  Only in Vampire do the standard contrivances come to light.  
>--
>Peter Wake  (Waiting for Vampire Hero :-)
This last statement is funny coming from someone who didn't like the potential
rules lawyering of Vampire.  I have encountered five lawyers in my 12 year
RPG career, and all of them play Hero.  It tells me something.


-- 
I don't mind being the smartest	    / Thanatos, DeathUrge, Master of Unknown
man in the world...I just wish it   \ Time and Space tgt33358@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu 
wasn't this one...	       	    / "No, I don't know how much unknown is... 
	-Ozymandias 		    \	...THAT'S THE POINT!" 
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