Seafaring, Swashbuckling, & Style

[Lxndr]

Hasn't it been pretty well-established, though, that there's very little in the Vampire/Storyteller system that supports the goals stated and implied in the text?

[RaconteurX]

Hasn't it been pretty well-established, though, that there's very little in the Vampire/Storyteller system that supports the goals stated and implied in the text?

If you are going purely by the World of Darkness series of games, I would concur. Trinity and its subsequent prequels, Aberrant and Adventure!, utilize the system to much better effect. Of course, they made major revisions which made the system genuinely playable in the first place... changes which carried over into Exalted, I believe.

[contracycle]

Just a note.  This is a longstanding itch and it has yet to be scratched, but: surely if you aim to produce a game that occurs on the high seas, some rules and mechanisms should be aimed at portraying said high seas?  Weather effects, sailing, getting stranded, how and when to de-barnacle your hull, the power of ropes, yada yada yada.

[Simon W]

So, what you're saying is that system doesn't matter?

Not exactly.

What I'm saying is that while system can assist or detract from establishing the tone and theme of a game, in the end it the players (including the GM) who finalize exactly what that tone is.

For example, I've played in more than one Vampire game that had tone destroyed because none of the other players seemed interested in playing in a "World of Darkness" or a "Gothic-Punk" environment.

System can influence, but does not determine, tone, genre, and mood.

I must say, that I go along with this. There are a whole bunch of new games out there that have a system or a way designed to reflect certain themes or goals that the creator(s) want to exist in their game(s).

However, for some players these just get in the way and all they need is a good idea of the setting/mood of the game and they will play it as it should be. They get annoyed at the 'fiddly bits' in the game design - its almost like someone is getting them 'in-line' with what they are supposed to do in a game, rather than just letting them get on with it. (here I mean like worrying about how or when they are going to spend their 'in game currency'  - dice pools, hero/character/narrative points and so on).

Other players need to be led, but a whole lot of these wouldn't be able to role-play the right mood/setting/theme however you dressed it up or tried to come up with the perfect system - more than likely they'll just say the game sucks.

Simon
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[Mike Holmes]

However, for some players these just get in the way and all they need is a good idea of the setting/mood of the game and they will play it as it should be. They get annoyed at the 'fiddly bits' in the game design - its almost like someone is getting them 'in-line' with what they are supposed to do in a game, rather than just letting them get on with it.

If that's the case, then why not just play freeform? Why have just a little system if it's going to be annoying? And, again, if it's generic, then what makes it better than FUDGE, et al for this purpose?

Mike

[sirogit]

A few suggestions:

I don't see why in-depth seafaring mechanics are at all needed. As it appears to me, this game, as well as the fiction/stories it is based on, is NOT about ships, the time period, the act of piracy, but about the Pirates themselves. So I'd personally recommend mechanics which emphasize the situation a pirate is in or the behaviors that one has.

I think the fact that players are not actually in danger of losing their character is a good example, as it promotes dangerous and foolhardy actions, but what about if the players recieved some sort of reward in the lines of more narrative currency for putting themself inside of risky and deadly situations?

Another issue is that two things which define Pirates are greed and the enthuasim to express ideas or style.  Now, to avoid making any blanket statements about our swanky sea-friends, there hit me as being two kinds of pirate heroes, the pirate by circumstance and the born pirate.

The traditionial pirate character is the born pirate. He is greedy towards everything. Wine, women(or men, for the slinky gender or persuasion), treasure, a ship, pride, everything, he's just a naturally wanting individual, and will usually stop at very few bounds to get it. It's in the nature of a person that risks life, limb, and sociol outcasting to have suffiencent motivation to do so. He's also rather expressive. This just seems to always be a constant of pirates. They express themselves strongly, they act in style, to kill with blood curdling yells, to insult with a standing ovation. Heck, they'd get into fights alot more if they wern't dancing half of the time.

And then there is the pirate by circumstance, which usually ends up as the "main" protagonist, gets the girl, etc etc... even though he wasn't really the main character, let's use, uh, that english guy, from pirates of the carribean(even though it was all about Johnny depp's Jack). He -doesn't- want everything. He is not into expressing -everything- he does. Instead, he takes up the life of a pirate because of his much more focused desires. He wants something in paticular, that uh, vaguely english woman's wellbeing. Simarily, pirates by circumstance usually have a facet which they express adamantly, such as chivalry, anger, confidence, etc.

This isn't to say that born pirates do not have specific wants and expressions. just that it usually plays less of a part in their lives than the pirate by circumstance. Unless ofcourse, if their more specific want was "to be selfless" and their more speicfic expression was "brooding" or "disintereasted". In this case, the born pirate wouldn't act on general motivations as they are trumped by that anthithesis to them, and rather play their unusual charistics to the hilt.      

So a system that would encourage verve or desire in it's mechanics would qualify what many others call for "something better suited to the theme than freeform.". But that's just what -I- think are important about pirates. You'd be well suited to find out what exactly it is about the the setting that intrigues you and make your mechanics nessicitate those factors coming into play.

[Daniel Solis]

Not that the opinion of a text-based thoughtform holds much sway, but I'd be more inclined to play a setting that encouraged a specific playstyle than one that just lay in the security of not having tried to be something more. As is always the case, it's absolutely your call. Just keep in mind that a game system's style isn't always in its mechanics. Simply saying "hey, S3 characters can't die unless it's dramatically appropriate" is something. While an invisible system can't hurt, it can't do much of anything else either.