From: durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell)
Subject: Storyteller System (Was:  WereVamp->Ars)
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 13:49:15 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa

In article <1992Oct1.154121@cs.man.ac.uk> peterw@cs.man.ac.uk (Peter Wake) writes:
>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.

I get that you don't like Vampire's character generation, but I can't
see what you prefer.  Personally, I think that having set numbers of
points for various areas discourages min-maxing.  You're less likely 
to bump into someone who puts all her points into, say, stats.

>2)  Rules are so quirky as to encourage rule-lawyer type behaviour and
>    rule-play.

Quirky?  The underlying mechanics are mind-numbingly simple.  I guess
I need examples of what you mean here.

>3)  Very little guide lines for difficulty levels means that referee might
>    as well just assign percentages and throw the system away.

It took me maybe three sessions and some playtesting to get the hang of
setting difficulty levels.  It is difficult at first, true enough, but
one can get the hang of the curves.

>4)  Combat system does not work.
>5)  Damage system does not work.

Amen.

>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 :-)

Hmm.  How carefully have you read the system?  You can never have more
than ten dice in one roll.  And yes, it's very very difficult and risky
to try something at a target number of 10.  They state this clearly.
A 10 is like, oh, free-climbing the World Trade Towers.  It's at *least*
as likely that you'll screw up fatally as it is that you'll make it to 
the top.  I don't see how allowing for incredibly difficult things makes
the system break 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.

True enough.  I'd recommend not getting too hung up on experience
points, though.  There are plenty of alternative forms of rat chow.

>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.

No contest.  Celerity is a nasty brutal power.  Hard to cope with 
it.  

>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).

True enough.  It's hard to find things in Vampire, and Werewolf is 
worse.  I found them easy to read, but hard to use as a reference 
book and not easy to learn from.

>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.

Unsupported.  I don't think you have to do any work to make the powers
work.  I sure didn't have to.  What do you have to do to make them OK,
in your mind?

[stuff deleted...]

>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.

<snork>  Yeah, whatever.  I find it a lot easier to convince players
to stay together in a world as dangerous as Vampire.  Not to mention
the Tremere or Venture... "We want you to watch these people.  This
is an order."

Bryant
(durrell@chop.isca.uiowa.edu)