TowersMUX is a 20th Anniversary World of Darkness game set in modern-day London and supporting Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, and Changeling. (No Wraith, no Mummy, and no Demon – not for the foreseeable future at least.)
Okay, but what kind of game are we?
What we’ve aimed at is the feel of an old-school World of Darkness game while learning from the problems of, and avoiding at least some of the vices of, actual old-school World of Darkness games.
We’re trying to encourage player storytelling rather than making it a trial: as long as you avoid a fairly short list of specific story elements, you don’t need permission in advance to run your own stuff. Go ahead and do it and tell us about it afterward.
We’re trying to provide storylines run by staff without having fixed outcomes set in advance, to let player actions drive the direction of the story.
We’ve added an in-game system for resolving game-wide conflicts like “who gets elected mayor” or “who gets awarded a new Vampire Domain” that’s based on characters’ stats and what they want to support or oppose, and doesn’t require submitting +requests or staff intervention to put your influence to work.
We’re trying to avoid the problem of enormous disparity between characters by scaling XP at higher totals and making sure that the mechanics of gaining XP match up with the expected speed of progression. (Which is to say, we did some math.)
We’re trying to stick as close to the written rules as is practical. Some things that aren’t well-defined in the books have been clarified, and we’ve altered some things in the interest of playability and balance, but we’re not out to rewrite the whole system. If you’re already familiar with a game, most things are going to work the way you expect them to. If they don’t, we try to explain why we thought it was worth changing.
We’re trying to be open and transparent: there aren’t any secret spheres or extra-powerful characters given out to people staff like. If it’s available, it’s listed as available on the website.
We’ve tried to avoid asking players for anything in an app that we aren’t going to care about. We will read your whole app, we will provide feedback that’s more meaningful than “your math is wrong, recheck and resubmit,” and we try to have that feedback ready in 72 hours or less.
We’re not dependent on anyone who is not already a staff member. The game server, the website, the wiki, the in-game code, etc. are all owned and maintained by staff (or are publicly available code).
If you enjoyed Haunted Memories back in the day or Liberation more recently, we think there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy this game.
In the interest of full disclosure, there’re also some things that might lead to your not liking this game:
If you’ve tried World of Darkness 20th Anniversary games and didn’t care for the world or the game mechanics, we’re unlikely to change your mind on that, since we’re not doing much of anything that’s a radical departure from the game lines.
If you hate the idea of a game set in and focused on London, well – this is very much that.
If you’re looking for a City of Hope type of game where there’s no real restriction on what you can play or buy in chargen or with XP as long as the math adds up, this isn’t that. We’re trying for a somewhat more curated experience to try and make sure the feel and mood of the games and the world are consistent.
Because right now the game is run by two people, ST’d events aren’t as frequent as we might like. We try for at least two events per week, but that still means it can be two or three weeks between scenes for any individual sphere, sect or faction.
For much the same reason, we’re probably not going to be able to run events or NPC encounters for individual players. We’re still happy to facilitate getting IC answers from them, but it will most likely be asynchronously.
While our player base fills out a bit more, players who are more willing to initiate RP and story arcs will find more engagement with the game.
If you think the pros outweigh the cons (or might, at least), check out our website at https://towersmux.net!
