WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?
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Curious about what people’s opinions are regarding these types of games and which ones do you prefer to join.
Do you prefer one splat only? (Vampires only, Hunters only, etc)
Selective splats that might be able to work together on the metaplot? (Werewolves and Mages, Demons and Changelings and Deviants, etc)
Or everything but the kitchen sink? (The kitchen sink is probably Mummy and/or Promethean)
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I prefer either a single splat (with mortals included as well) or selective splats. I find things get a little too unwieldy for my liking with the kitchen sink approach. Though I suppose it also depends on how well the game melds all the splats together.
Interestingly, for me, I’m often drawn to or driven from a game based more on the active player count. I prefer a smaller playerbase rather than one with 100 characters online at any given time. I find myself overwhelmed and struggling to find ways to fit in with larger groups. That might very well be a “me thing” though.
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@catzilla One splat, or a VERY limited selection of splats. Basically I think that your whole staff should always be able and willing to handle all splats that you make available, or else you’re going to run into the inevitable issue of how you continue support when someone needs to dip.
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I will also echo the either 1 or keep it limited approach.
My experiences with kitchen sink style games usually is that the splats just isolate anyway, or one splat becomes dominant in the overarching story of the game and everybody else feels ostracized. In one case over a decade ago, the game didn’t actually have enough people to realistically support a kitchen sink anyway, and ended up with roughly 2-3 characters per splat.
I would kill for a Mummy centric or friendly WoD game though. Not gonna lie.
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Kitchen Sink, but designed specifically to cross sphere. Let’s take a brief CoD example. Combat threat? Have the Axesworn Ordo team up with Summer Fae and Adamantine Arrows. Yeah anybody could fight, but these are the specialists you send in to deal with shit. (This does work with other things, too, I am just being lazy to type them all out).
Give the spheres a reason to unify instead of isolate.
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@Roz said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
@catzilla One splat, or a VERY limited selection of splats. Basically I think that your whole staff should always be able and willing to handle all splats that you make available, or else you’re going to run into the inevitable issue of how you continue support when someone needs to dip.
I came here to post but I was only gonna say this exact thing, lol
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Basically what Roz said but adding the hopefully obvious side note that there should also be some consideration on how splats are going to mesh together on the player side of things if there’s more than one.
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Single-splat games have a lot of benefits. They’re easier to run, especially because they tend to be smaller. Smaller size and tighter focus can make for more personal storytelling and more individual attention for the player base. (Not that they always do, but they can.) And you can have a bit more freedom in terms of how you construct your game world – if you want your Werewolf game to have vampire bad guys who aren’t really like the Camarilla and also aren’t really like the Sabbat, it’s an awful lot easier to do that when you don’t have to totally rearchitect a PC Vampire sphere in order to do that.
Kitchen-sink games are harder to build and run. But they do have an advantage in that all-important “engagement” factor: because they tend to be larger, it’s usually easier to find someone to RP with when you feel like playing. Even if it’s someone from a different, possibly hostile sphere who you can’t talk shop with, there’s a lot to be said for making it easier to get to the “roleplaying” part. And while yes you could have a single-sphere game that has that level of engagement, I think it’s easier with kitchen-sink games just because you’re maximizing the number of people who your elevator pitch will grab onto.
While I might say I prefer the former, and I’ve had a good time on some single-sphere games, according to my revealed preferences I value being able to find RP easily more than I value the potentially more personalized and more individualized experience of a single-splat game.
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Also, an uncomfortable thing that I’ve witnessed on kitchen sink games: abusive or predatory people get left in charge of shit because there’s no one else around to run the sphere.
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While I’m thinking about it, one thing I really dislike with multi-sphere WoD games is where there’s just an arbitrary “binding ultimate magick ritual 9000” that prevents any sort of conflict, and also permanently makes it night time in the entire grid and lets anyone go into the Umbra and all manner of nonsense.
At that point, it’s just goth supers.
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@Roz said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
@catzilla One splat, or a VERY limited selection of splats. Basically I think that your whole staff should always be able and willing to handle all splats that you make available, or else you’re going to run into the inevitable issue of how you continue support when someone needs to dip.
Depends on how in-depth you want the knowledge of other spheres. Enough to handle scenes? Great! In-depth knowledge of all rotes or something?
handwobble
You can always just ask the players to explain shit, with the caveat that more knowledgeable staff will be double-checking, and if they’re cheating or something, CONSEQUENCES.
@Roz said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
Also, an uncomfortable thing that I’ve witnessed on kitchen sink games: abusive or predatory people get left in charge of shit because there’s no one else around to run the sphere.
Beat them up.
@MisterBoring said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
While I’m thinking about it, one thing I really dislike with multi-sphere WoD games is where there’s just an arbitrary “binding ultimate magick ritual 9000” that prevents any sort of conflict, and also permanently makes it night time in the entire grid and lets anyone go into the Umbra and all manner of nonsense.
At that point, it’s just goth supers.
The ultimate binding magick is more to prevent infighting for people who want to ignore theme/approach games with the default ‘must genocide all other spheres’ mentality that oWoD books were originally written with. I do think we need some day zones, to counter the night zones. Instead of something that stops it, something to undo fuckery if/when folks show up to troll could be an alternative.
Non-sphere cultural ties are another way for things. TR and FC had families, maybe something like that… but with a way for players to potentially form their own? I dunno, I’m just the ideas girl.
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Double post, but obviously solution is to yeet different sphere rules, and unify them all into a singular system with 1:1 powers, so Dresden Files +strength is +strength, no matter if wuff or vamp.
Alternatively, Exalted lulz.
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
She/her -
@Jennkryst said in WoD/CofD/Supernatural Games, One Splat or Many?:
Double post, but obviously solution is to yeet different sphere rules, and unify them all into a singular system with 1:1 powers, so Dresden Files +strength is +strength, no matter if wuff or vamp.
Alternatively, Exalted lulz.
That’s my goal with Dark City. While I do have Universal Gifts and Bloodline specific gifts. My goal is individual themes and tones for powers while they all function using the same mechanics.
