WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?
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Curious about what people’s opinions are regarding these types of games and which ones do you prefer to join.
Do you prefer one splat only? (Vampires only, Hunters only, etc)
Selective splats that might be able to work together on the metaplot? (Werewolves and Mages, Demons and Changelings and Deviants, etc)
Or everything but the kitchen sink? (The kitchen sink is probably Mummy and/or Promethean)
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I prefer either a single splat (with mortals included as well) or selective splats. I find things get a little too unwieldy for my liking with the kitchen sink approach. Though I suppose it also depends on how well the game melds all the splats together.
Interestingly, for me, I’m often drawn to or driven from a game based more on the active player count. I prefer a smaller playerbase rather than one with 100 characters online at any given time. I find myself overwhelmed and struggling to find ways to fit in with larger groups. That might very well be a “me thing” though.
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@catzilla One splat, or a VERY limited selection of splats. Basically I think that your whole staff should always be able and willing to handle all splats that you make available, or else you’re going to run into the inevitable issue of how you continue support when someone needs to dip.
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I will also echo the either 1 or keep it limited approach.
My experiences with kitchen sink style games usually is that the splats just isolate anyway, or one splat becomes dominant in the overarching story of the game and everybody else feels ostracized. In one case over a decade ago, the game didn’t actually have enough people to realistically support a kitchen sink anyway, and ended up with roughly 2-3 characters per splat.
I would kill for a Mummy centric or friendly WoD game though. Not gonna lie.
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Kitchen Sink, but designed specifically to cross sphere. Let’s take a brief CoD example. Combat threat? Have the Axesworn Ordo team up with Summer Fae and Adamantine Arrows. Yeah anybody could fight, but these are the specialists you send in to deal with shit. (This does work with other things, too, I am just being lazy to type them all out).
Give the spheres a reason to unify instead of isolate.
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@Roz said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
@catzilla One splat, or a VERY limited selection of splats. Basically I think that your whole staff should always be able and willing to handle all splats that you make available, or else you’re going to run into the inevitable issue of how you continue support when someone needs to dip.
I came here to post but I was only gonna say this exact thing, lol
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Basically what Roz said but adding the hopefully obvious side note that there should also be some consideration on how splats are going to mesh together on the player side of things if there’s more than one.
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Single-splat games have a lot of benefits. They’re easier to run, especially because they tend to be smaller. Smaller size and tighter focus can make for more personal storytelling and more individual attention for the player base. (Not that they always do, but they can.) And you can have a bit more freedom in terms of how you construct your game world – if you want your Werewolf game to have vampire bad guys who aren’t really like the Camarilla and also aren’t really like the Sabbat, it’s an awful lot easier to do that when you don’t have to totally rearchitect a PC Vampire sphere in order to do that.
Kitchen-sink games are harder to build and run. But they do have an advantage in that all-important “engagement” factor: because they tend to be larger, it’s usually easier to find someone to RP with when you feel like playing. Even if it’s someone from a different, possibly hostile sphere who you can’t talk shop with, there’s a lot to be said for making it easier to get to the “roleplaying” part. And while yes you could have a single-sphere game that has that level of engagement, I think it’s easier with kitchen-sink games just because you’re maximizing the number of people who your elevator pitch will grab onto.
While I might say I prefer the former, and I’ve had a good time on some single-sphere games, according to my revealed preferences I value being able to find RP easily more than I value the potentially more personalized and more individualized experience of a single-splat game.
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Also, an uncomfortable thing that I’ve witnessed on kitchen sink games: abusive or predatory people get left in charge of shit because there’s no one else around to run the sphere.
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While I’m thinking about it, one thing I really dislike with multi-sphere WoD games is where there’s just an arbitrary “binding ultimate magick ritual 9000” that prevents any sort of conflict, and also permanently makes it night time in the entire grid and lets anyone go into the Umbra and all manner of nonsense.
At that point, it’s just goth supers.
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@Roz said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
@catzilla One splat, or a VERY limited selection of splats. Basically I think that your whole staff should always be able and willing to handle all splats that you make available, or else you’re going to run into the inevitable issue of how you continue support when someone needs to dip.
Depends on how in-depth you want the knowledge of other spheres. Enough to handle scenes? Great! In-depth knowledge of all rotes or something?
handwobble
You can always just ask the players to explain shit, with the caveat that more knowledgeable staff will be double-checking, and if they’re cheating or something, CONSEQUENCES.
@Roz said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
Also, an uncomfortable thing that I’ve witnessed on kitchen sink games: abusive or predatory people get left in charge of shit because there’s no one else around to run the sphere.
Beat them up.
@MisterBoring said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
While I’m thinking about it, one thing I really dislike with multi-sphere WoD games is where there’s just an arbitrary “binding ultimate magick ritual 9000” that prevents any sort of conflict, and also permanently makes it night time in the entire grid and lets anyone go into the Umbra and all manner of nonsense.
At that point, it’s just goth supers.
The ultimate binding magick is more to prevent infighting for people who want to ignore theme/approach games with the default ‘must genocide all other spheres’ mentality that oWoD books were originally written with. I do think we need some day zones, to counter the night zones. Instead of something that stops it, something to undo fuckery if/when folks show up to troll could be an alternative.
Non-sphere cultural ties are another way for things. TR and FC had families, maybe something like that… but with a way for players to potentially form their own? I dunno, I’m just the ideas girl.
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
She/her -
Double post, but obviously solution is to yeet different sphere rules, and unify them all into a singular system with 1:1 powers, so Dresden Files +strength is +strength, no matter if wuff or vamp.
Alternatively, Exalted lulz.
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
She/her -
@Jennkryst said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
Double post, but obviously solution is to yeet different sphere rules, and unify them all into a singular system with 1:1 powers, so Dresden Files +strength is +strength, no matter if wuff or vamp.
Alternatively, Exalted lulz.
That’s my goal with Dark City. While I do have Universal Gifts and Bloodline specific gifts. My goal is individual themes and tones for powers while they all function using the same mechanics.
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One. Setting aside all the social aspects, going higher is a balancing nightmare, and there’s no way to square the drastic differences in player power without extensive homebrewing.
Have the other spheres represented by GMs (and only GMs), and don’t have them overshadow player power unless it’s in service of a Big Bad that will eventually be faced.
And just in general? Never stick Mage or Changeling in with Vampires or Werewolves. The power differential is just stupid.
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One or very limited, based on what multiple staff can support in a way that isn’t stressful, along with an pc per player limit of 1 or 2.
Allowing one pc per sphere doesn’t work well most of the time, especially in an era where most folks don’t have the spare time that they did as young 20 somethings. It also tends to compound problems of burnout, fomo, ect even though in theory it should help.
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My preference is one + empowered mortals (can be supernatural, can just be political/police power in a setting where that has teeth and matters), but a small, selective duo or trio of spheres can be fine if you genuinely have support for those spheres.
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I think preventing the “all other spheres must die” thing is on the staff to prevent but at the same time, you can’t hold to theme for some of the WoD (especially OWoD) spheres if they’re expected to be buddy buddy because some major magical aura is preventing it. (Mostly talking about Vampire - Werewolf here.) Ultimately “a ritual long before the start of game says no” is sort of lazy in my opinion.
As far as day zones / night zones go, I prefer that people just set the time of day / night when they set the scene, and adapt to whomever they’re playing with. Day zones / night zones, again, seem lazy to me.
The families thing that TR / FC had was cool because at least you had the whole “blood is thicker than water” thing which didn’t feel as arbitrary as “ancient NPC said no”.
At least in CWoD / NWoD, the whole “kill other spheres” is replaced with “we’re wary of other spheres, but we don’t try and kill them outright as long as they stay in their lanes” (with a few exceptions, like the Cheiron Group with their whole we chop up everybody else to make ourselves better).
I think I’m done rambling now.
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@Jennkryst said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
@Roz said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
@catzilla One splat, or a VERY limited selection of splats. Basically I think that your whole staff should always be able and willing to handle all splats that you make available, or else you’re going to run into the inevitable issue of how you continue support when someone needs to dip.
Depends on how in-depth you want the knowledge of other spheres. Enough to handle scenes? Great! In-depth knowledge of all rotes or something?
handwobble
You can always just ask the players to explain shit, with the caveat that more knowledgeable staff will be double-checking, and if they’re cheating or something, CONSEQUENCES.
I think it’s best to have all your staffers capable of supporting all your spheres with a reasonable level of comfort. If a sphere’s support is going to suffer if you lose one specific person on your team, then I think it’s best to not add that sphere.
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@Solstice said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
and there’s no way to square the drastic differences in player power without extensive homebrewing.
If differences in PC power were really an issue, MUs would give everybody the same amount of XP and new PCs would be expected to spend, in chargen, an amount equivalent to what the oldest (and thus all) PCs have spent.
Having PCs at different power levels is fun. Unless the GMs don’t make any effort to give them all stuff to do that they can do and that more powerful PCs won’t or can’t take over.
@MisterBoring said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
I think preventing the “all other spheres must die” thing is on the staff to prevent but at the same time, you can’t hold to theme for some of the WoD (especially OWoD) spheres if they’re expected to be buddy buddy because some major magical aura is preventing it.
I agree that the ‘powerful rituals from before the game’s start forbid the conflict’ is answer is lazy.
So is the whole “all other spheres must die,” idea. The WoD sourcebooks themselves repeatedly make exceptions. Yeah, yeah, werewolves hate vampires and kill them whenever they can, except how the urban tribes of werewolves sometimes work with vampires and the rural vampires sometimes work with werewolves, and the core books let you buy stats representing NPC allies from spheres that yours supposedly hates. Often there is a major magical aura preventing MU PCs from the different splats from interacting; it’s the OOC howling of, “OMG SUPERFRIENDS SO LAME”.
@Roz said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
I think it’s best to have all your staffers capable of supporting all your spheres with a reasonable level of comfort.
This is probably the origin. Running multi-sphere WoD games as separate games on the same MUSH has been a tradition since the first, and to do this if you rather must discourage the groups from interacting outside of simple conflicts. So emphasise that the spheres hate each other, characterise cross-sphere connections as SUPERFRIENDS SO LAME.
All superfriends all the time does indeed kinda suck. My take is that it sucks less than never being able to cooperate or interact without murder no matter what evar. Milage may vary.
I think it’s not only best to have GMs capable of supporting all the splats, but to actually have them do so. One major point of suckage about ‘spheres’ being kept separate and having separate GMs is that the timeline/order of events tends to go stupid. Abelard builds a magical tank in his garage in less time than it takes Brigid to make a telephone call to her mentor, because Abelard’s staffer was quick and Brigid’s was away this weekend. It’s pretty typical for GMs not to triage for IC timeliness even within their own sphere.
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@Gashlycrumb said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
Abelard builds a magical tank in his garage in less time than it takes Brigid to make a telephone call to her mentor, because Abelard’s staffer was quick and Brigid’s was away this weekend.
Having a staff that’s on the same page as far as activity and response times is so crucial in my opinion that it should always be on the mind of at least the person in charge of the whole game. I’ve been on more than a few games where spheres died because the staff assigned to them do next to nothing beyond the bare minimum, even less in some cases.
I understand that staff is completely voluntary, and RL > Game, but staff is volunteering to make the game run well, and if they’re not able to keep up with the rest of staff at a certain level of productivity, they shouldn’t be kept as staff. And if headstaff of a game can’t find anyone they trust to do the job correctly that’s also able to maintain that activity level for that sphere, maybe they shouldn’t have that sphere open.
It’s absolutely frustrating when the staffer assigned to you, or your sphere, or whatever is basically just a voicemail at capacity because they would rather play on their other PC or focus on some other staff task they’ve been assigned.
