Liberation Drama!?
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@Gashlycrumb said in Liberation Drama!?:
And sure enough, a person can build a not-very-interactive model-world MU if they wants. It’s the thinking that such a thing is a good game that’s the error. Alas, Sundance appears to have fallen into the trap of only taking seriously those people who are least likely to criticise her. So she does that stuff listed in those numbered points because it protects/serves/maintains the model world following her plan/vision. She appears to take objections as just being haters who don’t think she’s allowed to have fun with her own game – her trusted group don’t criticise, so she can dismiss others who point out how that shit is not fun.
You’re describing a chicken/egg situation. Does she listen to the people that don’t criticize her? Or does she just make her own decisions? Then it just looks like she’s ignoring people that have a different opinion and listening to the people who agree. Its impossible to put yourself into someone else’s’ head. So you can only guess at what is actually happening. Either way, she should protect her world model. 100%. That’s not a bug, its a feature. Otherwise, you just end up with a chaotic mess of characters breaking shit in a game world that spins out of control quickly, because some/many/most players are greedy and ungrateful and nothing is ever enough for them.
I actually found Liberation to be very interactive (when it was active, years ago). The problem is that some players think they are entitled to win everything all the time and do whatever they want without consequences. And if they can’t, then it isn’t “fun”. There’s a reason the WoD and RL are so closely matched in terms of what the world looks like. There’s a reason the WoD isn’t a stark raving mad planet of supernatural creatures run amok terrorizing whoever they want with whatever they want whenever they want with God-kings and mortal slaves by the billions. There are absolutely people/individuals/things that can appear as if from nowhere and tell you to shut the fuck up, sit the fuck down and follow directions. And if you have an issue with that, then be prepared to lose your head. How else is it that the existence of all these 80 bajillion types of monsters have been kept unknown to most of the world for thousands of years? Ex. You think you’re the first vampire to ever think of ghouling the mayor? Get real. If it hasn’t happened already, there’s a strong reason for that. But it just isn’t feasible to play out those reasons on an constant ongoing basis in a way meaningful enough to remind players to stay in line. That’s what theme is for. To sum it all up and let you know how things work. You have to buy into the theme of the game or you’re gonna just keep running head first into walls, then trying to blame your frustration on the game runner.
NPCs aren’t always “unkillable” just because YOU can’t kill them. There’s just things out there that are higher up the food chain than PCs. Older, stronger, more powerful. And by orders of magnitude. Might makes right. They make the rules. They say what goes. So when they say stay out of the public eye or don’t use powers on public figures or don’t create a cult or don’t say the word ‘kazoo’ on Thursdays or whatever the hell rules they want: you follow the rules and keep things the way they want it or get stomped the fuck out. That’s not Sundance’s world model. That’s WoD’s world model. That’s just the setting of the game. And it is intended to be untouchable. WoD built a world model then directed you into very specific areas of play in different books that you have access to as a PC. You don’t get all of it, at least according to the setting of WoD. And by the nature of MU*s that throw everyone into one big mix of different books, what happens is up to the game runner. If you want to play outside of that sandbox, you need to go to a game that intends for that. If you want to take on characters that are thousands of years old with your 9 months of xp and expect to win, go to a game that will let you do something so silly.
TL:DR The game is what Sundance allows it to be - which is closer to what WoD is supposed to be than pretty much any WoD game since. If its not for you that doesn’t mean Sundance is doing it wrong. It just isn’t for you. Just find a different game. Or better yet, make your own game. Best of luck.
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@Jynxbox I mean, just because all that’s true, doesn’t mean she’s not doing it wrong. She removed Glabro as a form from Garou for christsakes. That’s asinine and probably REALLY fucking petty.
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@Jynxbox said in Liberation Drama!?:
TL:DR The game is what Sundance allows it to be - which is closer to what WoD is supposed to be than pretty much any WoD game since.
It’s 100% possible that she is doing WoD amazingly but totally mishandling the OOC logistical MU stuff that would exist if she was doing WoD, Star Trek, Animaniacs, or any other theme or ttrpg system.
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@Popes Also turned gifts into the sphere grid from FF X. Mostly joking but it’s an odd change.
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@BloodAngel Let’s be honest here…Lib is WoD mostly in theme these days. With all the house rules and changes to the spheres like the Werewolves gifts, rage, shifting rules and the Vampire changes to disciplines…etc it’s not based on anything but the loosest of actual game mechanics these days.
There is no way, for instance, for someone who has the books to make a character on paper then come to Lib and translate that character to the game. Some things don’t exist anymore, other things are added, gift trees are totally rearranged…etc…etc.
It’s its own game.
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Most WoD games have, and it is oft said require, house rules to make the mechanics function in a MU format. Why would anyone expect that to be different in this case?
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@Pavel said in Liberation Drama!?:
Most WoD games have, and it is oft said require, house rules to make the mechanics function in a MU format. Why would anyone expect that to be different in this case?
There’s a difference between house rules and “No longer possible to use the books to build the basic frame of a character before joining the game”.
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@Pavel Sure, most games have some house rules. Liberation rewrote the game.
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Huh, I had assumed you were speaking with hyperbole to reference the usual accumulation of house rules that eventually make games nigh-incomprehensible to people who aren’t eyeball deep in it – such a thing is to be expected after years of operation.
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@Popes said in Liberation Drama!?:
@Jynxbox I mean, just because all that’s true, doesn’t mean she’s not doing it wrong. She removed Glabro as a form from Garou for christsakes. That’s asinine and probably REALLY fucking petty.
@Jynxbox I mean, just because that’s all true, doesn’t mean she’s not doing it wrong. She’s put characters where the players wouldn’t have them go. She’s ordered players to have their characters do certain things. She’s ignored players who say “My PC wouldn’t do that,” to those orders, and then weeks or months later insisted that the player agreed and yelled at them for not RPing that their PC did that. She’s fudged rules “just this time” to protect her chosen IC leaders from their mistakes. She’s responded to, ‘I have a plan to gain some real power in my faction, something that Leader can’t just take away,’ with, ‘No. You must be genuinely loyal to Leader or change factions.’ I think probably most players consider that stuff to be crossing a line, and it’s not what she wrote on the box.
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@Pavel Ah, no. I’m being serious when I say Liberation rewrote the game. It goes far beyond just some house rules. Like for instance, and this is just a couple examples for Werewolf:
Only Homids can only shift to Lupus and Crinos. Only Lupus can shift to Homid, Chrinos, and Hispo. There is no Glabro form.
All gifts have been rewritten into a new somewhat tabular ‘path’ system (based off W:TF tiers)
The way rage works was rebuilt.It’s a totally different game than W:TA aside from theme.
Etc. There were changes to Vamp too in regards to Disciplines, adding new tiers…etc.
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@Alamias Yep. In small part it’s sorta sensible – more stuff to spend XP on, slows down those maxed out sheets.
Considering how frustrated players were that they couldn’t get +jobs handled or, y’know, do much, because their GM was too busy rewriting the game system, and how offputting it is to new players to join a game wanting to play WoD20 and find a rewrite, it probably wasn’t anything close to worth it. Unless you count it being fun for Sun to write as the most/only important bit.
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And I thought their ‘unique’ Directors, Producers, Whatevers system was weird.
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@Pavel As a former Producer, it’s interning sans benefits.
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@Muscle-Car said in Liberation Drama!?:
As a former Producer, it’s interning sans benefits.
There are benefits to being ‘Staff’ at Lib?
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@MisterBoring You get to entirely rewrite a mechanic to the benefit of one of your PCs.
This is a joke.
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