From: kbos@carina.unm.edu (Kurt "Some Guy" Bose)
Subject: Re: WereVamp->Ars?
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 92 02:01:41 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

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.
a
Just what, exactly, is a "proper" character generation method?  3D6?  Vampire
_discourages_ min-maxing!  You can't advance quickly in Disciplines, Stats are
very limited at the outset, as are Skills; the Merits/Flaws system is infinitely
better than the "one legged-enemy laden-dependent strewn" characters of say, 
Champions.

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

Rules are simple and straightforward.  There is no "rules lawyering", because
you tell a story.  Of course, players who come to see rules as a crutch often
lack the creativity to pull away from them.  I find this most often with 
systems that are bound by shoddy, picky, useless rules like...Champions.

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

Er...any game that uses dice has "percentages".  Vampire relies on dice less
than almost any game this side of Amber.  Are you sure you haven't been playing
"Ravenloft"?

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

Only if the players and storyteller are stupid.

>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 :-)

Don't mess with them. Only a munchkin would take on an Antediluvian.  Of course,
only a munchkin would wind up with 10s.  What the hell have you been playing?

>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.

What idiot plays for "experience"?  To see who can get the "kool" powers?

>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.

What's wrong with it?  Take on a character with higher Cererity, get your ass
whupped.  That's how it works in literature, movies,...and Vampire.
Can't deal with it?  I thought not.  

You play Champions?  And _dislike_ rules lawyering?  The only possible
conclusion is that you don't know a thing about Vampire _or_ Champions.

>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).

Again, must not have read Champions.

Granted, the index is horrible, but VampII will rectify that...

>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.

That settles it.  You _can't_ handle creativity.  Look, the '70s are over.  The
genre matured.  I'm sorry WW hasn't acquired the rights to "White Plume
Mountain" for you, but we aim a little higher than that...

>When I *pay* for a set of rules I don't expect to have to do all the work.

Fine.  Stick to kiddie adventures.  Play D&D.  For once, it's nice to have a
game out there that rewards ingenuity.  If all you want to do is read rules,
play ASL, for heaven's sake.

>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

So, you're a lazy bum.  You only get out of something what you put into it.  I
imagine that you're the type of person who reads the room descriptions right
out of the handbook.

>or aid the referee much at all.  The rules for Toon and Ghostbusters
>are more help, much faster and can describe Vampires and Werewolves

...and are written for eight year olds.  

>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

I doubt that...it would be too much "bother for you".  I doubt you could
roleplay your way out of a paper bag.  At least, not without 3D6 and a manual.

>off.  I'm surprised they didn't go the whole hog and try for a licence.

Only because you've never read the game OR Anne Rice's work.

>
>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.

Read, buddy.  Or did mommy skip over the pages on the Masquerade, the Society of
St. Leopold, and the Inquisition???

Didn't know Jackson Middle School was on the Internet...

-- 
Kurt Bose (as in Daisy, not Rose) * kbos@carina.unm.edu * Make..oh, you know.---
-"The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is--
--no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors.  The cause of the other-
---half can be attributed to playing Jose Offerman at short." - John Stuart Mill
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