World of Darkness: Attrition - Official OOC Thread

[Vivi OOC]

I'd like to make it clear, since there seems to have been some confusion, that Dave's comments only referred to himself. I am not stepping away from WoDA or RPG-Post on a permanent basis. I am, however, taking a break to settle some issues offline.

Jess and I will be discussing the rules she's put down, and submitting an idea Dec's player and I recently discussed for a player vote. Hopefully, it will resolve many, if not all, the issues that have cropped up since WoDA's opening.

I appreciate your patience and understanding, and look forward to discussing the upcoming changes with all of you when I get back.

[Jess OOC]

On a brief note, if you're considering a new WoD:A character (either as a new player or by retiring an old character), you may want to hold off for a short bit; the idea that Vivi mentioned above may affect what you want to put together and how.

[Dawn OOC]

I'd just like to add that I support the rules that Jess put into place. I think they make the game more attractive, from a mechanical standpoint (the simple merits idea) and from a PC socialization standpoint (the multiple characters). The first is more giving to the PCs. The second gets more PCs into play, which means that someone besides the werewolves might get the chance to have a social group.

[Rorx]

If I can find the time to come up with a suitable plot arc for him to do on his own or with a few others, then I might create a Mage for this. He will be based in a different part of the city and is not intended to interact with the WW group.

[Dawn OOC]

Over the last few days, the drama has finally reached a critical mass. For me, I've finally, after years, reached the point where the painful OOC drama overwhelmed all the fun I was having. I no longer have the time or energy to press on, hoping that things will get better if I wait long enough. Thanks for the game, guys, but I'm retiring both of my characters.

[Vivi OOC]

Oddly enough, I wasn't aware of any overwhelming drama over the past few days. There has been dissent, yes, but nothing that was, in my opinion, excessive, or beyond the bounds of anything previously originating from and experienced in other forums.

I wish I could say that this was unexpected, but it is unfortunate. Should you change your mind at some point in the future, you are more than welcome to return. We appreciate all the contributions you made to WoDA, and your participation will be missed.

[Jess OOC]

Damn.

[Dave ST]

Writing for a PC and Moderating are not something I can do at the same time, I haven't the time nor the energy for it.

Like Dawn it's probably best if I retire my PCs as well and just stay focused on hammering out the plot lines for people. That's not fun for me but it appears to be the biggest complaint among the players; that I'm not doing enough of keeping them engrossed in a constant storyline. I'll be stepping away as a player and exist solely to moderate until such time as I feel things are stable enough to return.

[Vivi OOC]

I disagree with this, and wish you had waited to discuss the situation with us this evening. That does, however, bring up a more serious issue than whether or not we are going forward with the partial reboot. I suppose we'll see what happens when we have our Mod chat tonight.

[Rorx]

Got a Version 2 of Moss done - for stats at least, although I'll probably just reset his background to once again being new (relatively) in the city.

So where, if anywhere do I post him? Are we going to have a new Profiles section for the rebooted characters?

[Jess OOC]

Well, first you send a PM with the write-up and whatnot to the four Mods. Then we go from there.

[Owns-The-Night]

And we decide your fate. muwahahahahaha!

[Sarah Dead-Wolf]

Re-worked Sarah's origin background fic and posted the puppy (not for XP, since it's a re-hash). Yay.

[Gary B]

Just poking my head in. Heh, eager to start some good fic. I'm also curious what the issue is on Skills and specialties. Maybe I can help?

[Vivi OOC]

A few submissions include multiple specialties within given skills, and while that's technically not against the rules cited in the Core book, a couple of the Mods are concerned that the lack of limitations on the number of specialties allowed contradicts the meaning/intent of the word. We're just discussing what limitations, if any, should be imposed on the number of specialties permitted per skill.

We apologize for the delay in getting the affected submissions approved, and we should have the matter resolved very soon. Thank you for being patient with us!

[The Story Guide]

Just poking my nose in here, but I thought you couldn't have more than three specialties on one skill? That might have been house-ruled in a game I was playing or in the MET books, but it seemed to work well.

[Vivi OOC]

It's something the Mods are discussing, and according to the Core book, there's no limit on the number of specialties you can have.

[Gary B]

Interesting. I would suppose it depends on character concept. But specializing is specializing. It just represents additional and specific knowledge in a given field. And looking at the World of Darkness skill set, you are already limited in the diversity of the types of skills, which is why specialties exist.

If a doctor is limited in the number of specialties he has in his Medicine, that would be odd; Having specialties in Surgery and Emergency Care plainly makes sense. Even an additional specialty in Neurology would still make sense in the Medicine field.

However, as an ST I would only ever allow a single specialty to be used an any situation; ie: This doctor has an emergency brain surgery would not get +3 to his roll. Instead he can choose which specialty he wants to focus on for the action and the action result would be based on the specialty used at the time. This still allows for Skill Tools to be added in without a huge dice pool.

In the WoD, our ST is pretty fair about specialties. Our characters have quite a few at this point. Some specialties overlap through the story, and he'll allow them all if they fit, plus Skill Tools, and/or Assists.

[Vivi OOC]

Well, obviously no two specialties would ever be allowed to "stack" in a particular situation- you get to use one, or the other.

The problem in my mind is that specialization means that's your area of expertise- it's an area of focus, if you will, not just extra information. Even great scholars, martial arts experts, and other stellar examples of their field only have enough time, energy, and brainpower to really specialize in any particular area. Certainly, they may be good at, or knowledgeable about, a wide variety of things, but I don't believe it is reasonable to say that a doctor should specialize in dentistry, oncology, neurology, triage, and pediatric care. Being good at multiple things is, in my opinion, represented by the broader scope of the skill or attribute in question, whereas specialization requires more specific, focused study and effort.

These are the sorts of things we're discussing, and I appreciate the input! We'll update you guys as soon as we've got a consensus.

[z-Shane O'Neally]

okidoki folks - finally finished my PC-creation and submitted the sheet with background - hoping to hear from you guys soon!

[Vivi OOC]

All right! We've got two more characters currently pending, and a few who are approved but haven't gotten their profiles posted up yet, but I think there are enough people currently active right now to get something started.

If you guys want to do intro fics, or sort out any character connections (there's a thread for that here), now's a good time to try!

I'm going to extend the "month" slightly, as well: if your character has been submitted and approved by this Thursday, April 08 at 11:59pm CDT, he/she will receive standard activity XP for the entire month of March, no matter when the PC was approved, or if you've done any in-character posting or not. That will also be the cutoff for fiction-writing credit for March.

The first ST plot thread will kick off once XP for March has been awarded, to let everyone focus on getting settled in and sorted out.

Welcome to Attrition!

[Guest Anonymous]

Originally Posted By: Vivi OOC

All right! We've got two more characters currently pending, and a few who are approved but haven't gotten their profiles posted up yet, but I think there are enough people currently active right now to get something started.

Too late for one more? I've got my character done but need to write a history. If I'm going to miss the cutoff, is there a way to join later?

[David_A]

Originally Posted By: Anonymous

Too late for one more? I've got my character done but need to write a history. If I'm going to miss the cutoff, is there a way to join later?

This was me, BTW. I thought it would ask for my login info before posting. Guess not...

[Vivi OOC]

Absolutely. You can join at any time!

The extension is largely because I just didn't want to penalize people for my recent work schedule, and subsequent lack of time on the forums to approve characters. Those approved by Thursday may have a tiny head start (probably 3-5XP) over those who come shortly after, but that's a gap easily closed with activity and participation. (XP is typically awarded on a monthly basis for activity, plot involvement, IC chats, fictions, etc., so I'm just allowing a bit more time than normal for March.)

[David_A]

Originally Posted By: Vivi OOC

Absolutely. You can join at any time!

The extension is largely because I just didn't want to penalize people for my recent work schedule, and subsequent lack of time on the forums to approve characters.

No problem, I understand. I have my parents visiting now from overseas and understand busy schedules.

Originally Posted By: Vivi OOC

Those approved by Thursday may have a tiny head start (probably 3-5XP) over those who come shortly after, but that's a gap easily closed with activity and participation.

No worries. I'm more interested in just getting involved in some way than in an XP boost. Thanks.

[Vivi OOC]

The promised March award has been given out to everyone with an XP tracker, and I'll be double-checking to make sure those who didn't have one have received a PM about it (just in case they miss this post ). Once all the profiles are tracking XP with the same format, awards will run much more smoothly, and I'll get the remaining awards out as soon as the few players without trackers get theirs added to their profiles.

The first plot thread will be dropping in the next 48 hours (possibly as early as tonight!) so keep an eye out!

[Jeremy]

Ummm. No XP given to me, no PM, and I have a XP Tracker. Please explain, if you can.

[Vivi OOC]

Sure! We're all using the same format for XP, and since I've been waylaid by work, I'd asked the Mod in charge of allocating XP to take care of it. I'm sorry that they didn't get a chance to do that, since it seems they've been busy, as well. Once your tracker is in the same format (I believe it's actually mentioned in the Rules thread, though I'll double-check to be sure), yours will be awarded as well.

In other news, I apologize for the delay on the first ST fic- as I mentioned above, work has made a lot more demands on my time than I expected, so that'll be going out today, on my lone day off this week.

[Jess OOC]

My apologies, folks. This has been a hellish couple of weeks, and I'll get your XP matter resolved today.

EDIT: Jeremy, your log is fixed. Lucien and James, I'm not finding any XP logs in your profiles at all; if you would, please start a log, and I'll tweak it to format and updates if needed.

[Vivi OOC]

Jess: I'm working with James already, and Lucien's already been notified. (It's all in the Mod PM.)

[Jess OOC]

Good deal.

[Lucien Hunt]

I've added a log for Lucien.

He is a base character and did not spend any XP on him, thus his log is empty.

If you need anything else, lemme know.

[Jess OOC]

Spiffy, and thanks. I'd honestly forgotten that he was build at base level.

[Dave ST]

Sarah, re: Five O'Clock Somewhere

Barring Auspex ●● (Aura Perception), I'm unaware of any special vampiric ability (even among Dead Wolves) that permits them to know an Uratha is indeed an Uratha from across a crowded room. Were this the case the Werewolves would arguably have the worst and lowest chance of continued survival among the supernatural creatures.

If you could cite where Sarah gained her extraordinary Uratha detection powers I'd be grateful. Currently, chances are very low that I'll buy the old "lucky guess, she grew up with them" line.

Thanks in advance.

[Sarah Dead-Wolf]

Well, here's what I based it on.

1. She *did* grow up around the damned things. That does help a bit in spotting the habitual differences between humans and werewolves - the way they carry themselves, etc.

2. She's worked off and on with werewolves since her Embrace, and gotten more of a feel for them on a cooperative basis.

3. "Like knows like". Put two predators in the same space amongst a bunch of non-predators, and odds are those predators are going to notice each other, even if they're two very human predators (think serial killers).

4. People *do* tend to stand away from werewolves; the higher the Primal Urge, the more so. Shane is Primal Urge 3; people just aren't going to crowd around him. That's notable in an environment like this, and particularly to someone who knows to look for that.

5. I wanted to move things forward without fifty posts of people milling around and not interacting with each other.

Now if you'd prefer, I could edit it down to less certainty on Sarah's part, more of a wondering if he *might* be and taking a chance on it (knowing that if it is, he can sure as shit smell what she is in short order, and if he isn't, she might have another tasty snack). What I *won't* do is edit out any notice at all and essentially make the character blind, deaf and stupid.

[Dave ST]

You could have placed 5 first and saved me a lot of reading. While I understand that the socially inept Sarah possesses peerless mastery of the behavioral sciences the fact remains that she possesses no special means of piercing any supernaturals disguise from across a room, while buzzed, with nothing but a casual glance and a guess.

The broad brush you typed with essentially states that she knows a werewolf is a werewolf regardless and that's not going to fly. Shane doesn't act the same as No-Moss. Swara-Ann does not act the same as Shane and No-Moss and Swara-Ann are distinctly separate individuals. Now, if you and Shane's player want to skip all the B.S. of meeting and role playing and just form a pack and roll with it you are in your right as two players to do so. Sarah's Uratha Detection powers however, as you wrote them, allow her to detect other werewolves that might not want to be detected. After all, she spent her life growing up with them, she can tell who needs a t-shirt.

What I *won't* do is accept that Sarah can make up mechanics whenever she pleases and pierce the disguise of supernaturals. What I *won't* do is allow Sarah abilities that step on the toes of other players who might wish for their PCs to remain hidden and veiled.

What I *will* do is tell you that while it's fine for you work with another player and 'detect' them, that's as far as her doctorates in behavioral sciences goes. Primal Urge reacts to Primal Urge, Blood Potency reacts to Blood Potency... the two do not mingle.

What you *will* do in the future is *not* tell the moderators what you will and and won't do. Players have no reason to hear from me unless I view actions that may possibly impede another player's role playing and that's why I addressed this issue: to prevent Sarah's Uratha Detection from detecting players who do not wish to be found. So don't make it any harder on me than it needs to be by pissing me off. You already have one strike from the unnecessary cuss-fest you tossed at me and that was not erased with the reboot.

I'm not asking you to edit anything. If you and the player whose veil she pierced are okay with the way things are going, then fine, keep doing it. Just make sure she doesn't pull that trick with anyone else without their permission.

[Sarah Dead-Wolf]

Actually Dave, I'm planning to edit it down a tone; after a night's sleep, it seemed to make more sense to do so.

The one mechanic that is very slightly in her favour on this (and the one I managed to forget to include in yesterday's litany), is that she does have a knowledge specialty in Werewolf Lore; that does factor in a bit, though not much, as it's more oriented toward "what spirit did what to get pounded by what werewolf" than "this is how you spot a werewolf". You're also right that she's no social wizard; only has a whopping one dot of Socialize, and while the Pack Dynamics spec is nice, it's a different sort of behavioral thing. But her Perception test is none too shabby.

Would this work on Joe Fuzzy walking on his own down the street? Nope. Nor Bob Furball tanking up his car. But in this case, Shane is *notably* stand-offish and searching the crowd. And, as noted above, it *is* a crowd, at a beach party... and werewolves - particularly those of a PU over one or two - don't "mingle" very well; the social penalty is an "unsettling predatory aura" as described in the book.

Nor was it clear across the party. Shane was over by the bar, Sarah was approaching the bar, and that put the two in close proximity.

Now all that said, I'm going to edit it down a touch, because I think it appropriate to edit it down; the first version is way too sure, and it's a valid catch to say that that is wrong (regardless what Joani and I may have worked out).

Side note: I *think* this fic happens during the last night of an Elodoth moon. I really, really, really should start making a spoiler note at the start of fics regarding where Sarah's moon-phase bonus for Sublunario is going. In this case, with the options of Investigation and Empathy and her knowing that she's going to a party, let's figure that it's in Empathy to help a bit with party-based hunting. (Not that this has anything to do with werewolf-spotting, mind you; Investigation would be better for that. Just that I need to start doing this.)

[Dave ST]

Then I consider the matter resolved.

[Jess OOC]

April XP awards are live.

[Jeremy]

What's going on here? Has posting evaporated?