Necessary Evil

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Its a great way to nip rules lawyers in the bud, thats for sure.

And it's that exact lack of definition that has made the games I've played very unfun. It always felt like gms were playing favorites or running an agenda instead of helping everyone have fun.

And I had the exact opposite experience when playing WOD. I always felt that the lack of rules let the players get into their characters more and made the game run much more smoothly. Maybe I just had some good GM's.

Your main argument in the past about WOD has typically been more about subject matter and less about system,.. have your feelings changed?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

no, the subject matter still doesn't interest me at all. And what I've seen of the execution is mostly stereotypes and pointless clans based on personalities. Maybe that's not a fair assessment, but it's how the company has presented it, so it'd be their own fault. So It's hard to even think about changing. But even if I could get into a campaign like that, the way it's been executed in the past would be a major stumbling block still.

[Entsuropi]

For me the greatest strength has always been its scope - it has every kind of check you could make, social, problem solving or combat, all on the first page. I think it's a good system for combat light games, since its a crap combat system but works well as a social system. The more successes rule makes it easy for a GM to decide just what the result was.

But in all honesty, the storyteller system is of minor importance. You could play WoD with D20 if you wanted.* Its the background and the setting that is so important for WoD.

*Bear in mind that I would feel undying hatred for you though.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Yeah, thats a real simplistic overview of WOD, after all Clans aren't any more silly than character classes, more than anything they frame a characters powers and abilities moe than they do the personality (at least they did in the games I played in)

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

*Bear in mind that I would feel undying hatred for you though.

So it would be business as usual then?

Maybe it's personal perception, but I remember reading about vampire clans and thinking "This is completely absurd." The text seemed MUCH more heavy on everyone having the same personality than it did powers. Now, that's in contrast to AD&D 1st ed. which had NO comments, really, about personality and class. Something that has been getting worse with every edition. I agree, now in 3E, D&D classes are defined in the books as much by personality as anything else, which is something I think Wizards should be burned for, but since I have my old school D&D mindset, it's easier for me to get around.

[Entsuropi]

Clans etc do promote stereotypes, yes. But so do character classes.

'What is your character like?'
'He is a barbarian.'
'No, I mean what is he like?'
'He... is a barbarian?'

But if you don't like the setting of Vampire, yeah. There is not a great deal that anyone can say to change your mind. But I would recommend you at least give Mage an open glance. It's got a GURPS edition if you want to avoid Storyteller.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I might could get converted to Exhalted, but the only reason I can thing of to change over is for the setting, which hasn't gotten me excited.

The real problem is that I don't buy games for settings. When the setting becomes the core of the game, I think I've failed as a gm. I almost always make up a setting myself. There are some games where the setting and the system really do go hand in hand, like Chosen (which had a crap system, but COULD have worked for the cool setting), or Paranoia, but these are not frequent. I would play Decipher's LotR game in a custom setting, just like I do d20, I'd play B5 in a custom SF setting.

One major exception I'm making for an upcoming campaign is my M&M game does take place in the published setting. But that's ... well, I can't go further. Sufficeth to say that it won't be a standard use of it.

This is, however, why I like Avalanche products so much. They have good setting ideas, but the ideas can be lifted out and ported without any changes at all. And their historical research is pretty good, so if I *do* want to do a Viking game, or a 17-18th century pirate game, well, Here's a nice source.

[Mr_Pleasington]

At one point I had all the Exalted corebooks and a bunch of supplements.  I sold them when I realized I would never play nor run it.

It had a great theme and a very fun attitude about it.

But the rules were too much.  Far, far too much to keep track of. I've heard of people converting it to Tri-Stat but not seen anything solid.  I've pretty much lifted what I like about the setting and that in the back of my mind for when the right system comes along.

You know...I could actually use Necessary Evil to run it.  Exalts are little more than super-powered fantasy tropes.  Hmmmm....that could work...