Take the example of the Caine myth in Vampire, which is literally described as one of the possible explanations for the Kindred condition, but has become incontrovertible fact in the game world, even to the point of having systems support it (Generation). - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

jachilli.bsky.social • 4 days ago

Take the example of the Caine myth in Vampire, which is literally described as one of the possible explanations for the Kindred condition, but has become incontrovertible fact in the game world, even to the point of having systems support it (Generation).

Comments

jachilli.bsky.social•4 days ago

So even when you do what the game says to do — have other possible points of origin for vampires — the abundance of canon tells you, "That's nice, Lilith-believer, but here's how it actually is." Once it's in print, unreliable narrator notwithstanding, the audience tends to believe it.

jesseheinig.bsky.social•4 days ago

You can see this all the way back in 1st edition where "sheriff" is just the nickname for Lodin's leg-breaker, but later becomes a universally-applied office for Camarilla cities.

Specific instances turn into universal standards and become ossified, often to the game's detriment.

jachilli.bsky.social•4 days ago

Even the primogen! This particular structure of vampire politics was stated to be Chicago-specific, with Gary, IN in its shadow, but the it became the template for every city and even every cityBOOK. Here are the primogeniture, here's a weak or strong Prince, and everything cascades from there. :(

justatremere.bsky.social•4 days ago

yep, if there's one thing i would had added to VtM it would be more flushed out examples of other formats.

It's why i think the Anarchs fail, like "anarchs can be anything, from a baron to republic to a cult" while only really showing how to run barons will lead STs to only running barons and all.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

Making the default Wraith a "Freewraith" and emphasizing that the Guilds were totally underground/illegal bypassed a lot of these problems. It also made Wraith much harder to pick up quickly, which points to some of this standardization adding value despite its problems.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

And there's a whole thing here about how expensive that is, and a question about how viable developing that diversity really is for a small company, but that's a very different conversation from canon is bad. I also think there are places it worked well.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

And again, similar to the problem of primogen in VteS and (I'm sorry, but I have to do this) Kindred the Embraced, we have The Undisputed Baron of the Valley.

The problem here isn't that players latched into one example, it's that WW didn't invest in developing diverse examples.

jachilli.bsky.social•4 days ago

Primogen auto-corrected itself again, dammit

jesseheinig.bsky.social•4 days ago

They do that

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

Auto correct is seriously the bane of my existence

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

But in that setting it was also very easy for everyone to accept that every fiefdom was run differently. There wasn't the same ossification of setting. I feel like there are design lessons to be taken from the places where those dynamics played out in more desirable ways.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

I'll also say the "canon" I appreciate isn't really what has been brought up here. It's more things like the tensions between the Tremere, Tzimisce, and Gangrel in the Dark Ages setting. Everyone can bring some version of what that means to their experience.

jachilli.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yes, the game needs to make its conflicts clear. They're a lot of what prompts the players' characters into action.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

So I have to be honest that changed in the actual text. My intro to VtM was VteS back when it was Jyhad and that was coded right down to card game rules. This seems more like the design needs to commit to not reinforcing canon scope creep.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

I disagree with that sort of thing being to the game's detriment. I think there's value in resetting more setting than has historically been done on WoD editions (pre 5th ed anyway). But I don't agree that having these sorts of cultural/lived experience shorthand tools does more harm than good.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

However designers not using unreliable canon because most players won't engage with it the way they want it engaged with does actually put more setup burden on me to get to the games I want to run.

I mean it's fine. I've come to terms with not being part of the target audience for CofD or 5th ed.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

And to be clear I'm not disagreeing with you about this effect at all. The number of Dreaming players who HATE it when I quote the second ed line about "Maybe Arcadia isn't real" is large, but their desire for hard canon doesn't make it harder to run the games I want to run.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

Even the example you provide is a solid example of that is the view most characters would have in world, and someone holding onto that makes them especially susceptible to the gestalt shattering moments I mentioned above.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

The whole point is that different people can play different ways. I give the idea that many or even most players don't lean into the unreliable narrator to be a really questionable reason to no longer provide the toolset to people who will use it.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

I have to be honest I can't help but find that point of view to be fairly paternalistic. This is why I don't play public games, but for people who want to play that way great. I have no trouble finding people who want to lean into unreliable narrator.

jachilli.bsky.social•4 days ago

Maybe I've played TOO MANY public games, demos, etc. but there is often a blind acceptance of what's written as fundamentally true, and it even spills outward into lore videos, forum assertions, discord dogma, etc. "This faction does this!" Well, probably some of them do, but individuals prevail.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think there is a difference in approach. I deeply dislike public games. The way I describe it is I love the LARP format, but I have no patience for uncurated player bases. I've run into every problem you bring up here, but my solution is to play with players that I work well with.

jachilli.bsky.social•4 days ago

Oh, yes, definitely. Once you've curated your specific group, it dismisses 99 percent of what I'm talking about here. But we're also talking about two different things: running a house game vs. preparing a fictional world for publication and use across a huge swath of player types and venues.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

And I don't want to shove public games into a neglected space either, but I feel like there's a middle ground where some more tools are provided for a wider variety of play styles.

spunkypuca.bsky.social•4 days ago

My argument is part of publishing a game should be creating a robust toolset for people running those home games. We need different things than public games need, and right now it doesn't feel like those needs are all that front and center.