wingsandsword
Legend
I've made some posts in the past about a (New) World of Darkness campaign I joined that wasn't going so well. . .it's months later now, and it's still not going too well.
The campaign has been through several sudden and massive changes in tone. It opened up as a typical WoD campaign, with a disparate group of characters from around the country called together to some big mansion for a will reading. The PC's turn out to be the only "mundane" relatives of some mighty Ventrue who has been declared dead after being missing for many years, and he has dozens of vampiric, ghoulish, shapechanger, and even mage relatives who are upset at the terms of the will. The PC's get to see a sampler platter of the WoD as they try and tear each other apart.
Then, at the end of the first session the PC's are all suddenly gassed and thrown into this massive, complicated, everchanging labyrinth complete with security cameras, and Matrix-level brain-interfacing virtual reality rigs (which she insists are not supernatural or magical, and that level of technology exists in the real world if you are rich enough), well-stocked rooms to rest in between bizarre reality-show like challenges where we have to save hapless innocent victims from gruesome fates by solving strange logic puzzles or tricky challenges of skill (i.e. sit there and roll dice until you get enough successes), and we realize the size of this complex is well over a cubic mile, which we find is right under Sicily and has been there for at least 400 years. We spend months worth of sessions playing out a pseudo-dungeon-crawl oddly reminiscent of the Saw and Cube movies, then suddenly upon our escape we wind up in the World of Insufficient Light (what I call WoD games where it seems there are more supernatural beings than mortals).
You see, despite seeing the smorgasborg of critters in the first session, and running into Elder Vampires, Archmages, Werewolf Elders and even wraiths, mummies, demons and fae all the time, the storyteller was adamant that the PC's were normal mortals, and couldn't be anything more. Then, she reluctantly allowed a few of the weaker abilities from Second Sight (she went through the book and came up with a short list of psychic abilities she'd allow as not being too unrealistic). Then, out of the blue one day in one session almost the entire group becomes supernatural, one PC Awakens, one has a first change (to a weresnake), and the rest get Embraced, and now you've got a blender party living in a bizarre sex club in Amsterdam (which the ST has gone to disturbing lengths to document the floor plan, price list, ect. of this club). Not to mention by this point her boyfriend has an uber-NPC ghoul who is following us around and pretty much leading the party by the nose.
She's house-ruled the game so much it's obviously based on the WoD, but she's rewritten large chunks of the rules, rules she admits she didn't understand to begin so she just made something up (she spends most of her time resolving NPC actions by rolling percent to see if they do something, and refuses to say what her mechanic is since that's "Storyteller-only rules", she just rolls percent, looks at them, then tells you what they do to you), rewriting the rules that apply to PC's (always to make things harder on us), making huge numbers of new "splats" (handwritten up a dozen different changing breeds and several new vampire bloodlines). The setting is one where there isn't much of a masquerade, since virtually every mortal politician knows about the supernatural, and privately acknowledges the vampire princes of the cities as the real rulers and their masters, but virtually omnipotent media conglomerates and secret worldwide internet censorship mean that it's impossible to let everyday people now about it no matter how hard you try. Even Werewolves and Mages worldwide all acknowledge Vampires as their rulers by some ancient treaty from the middle ages, and all supernatural beings must register with their local supernatural government upon becoming Awakened/Embraced/Changed within 48 hours or they're a "renegade" to be hunted by every other supernatural being in the world. Yeah, so my PC awakens as a mage while staying at a hotel, locks himself in the room for a few days while he figures out his new powers, and comes out to find he's wanted worldwide and if he's really lucky he can work it out that he'll only be blood-bound for life to a Prince for his "crime" of "rebellion" instead of killed for violating this ancient treaty by not registering immediately.
I don't even like the way she runs her sessions. She wants everybody to be ready to game at 2 PM, sharp. Ostensibly the game ends at 10 PM, but in reality it's more like 11 or 12, or whenever she feels like she's done with the "chapter". She insist she's turning the events of the game into a novel, and she's more concerned with how the events will look on paper when it finishes up than anything it seems, if a PC drops out her biggest concern is that it might ruin her novel since the character was integral to the plot, then suddenly disappears or dies meaninglessly. These sessions are typically a waste of time. There will be an hour of smoke breaks for the smokers, an hour of stopping in the middle to have dinner, an hour or two of idle chatter or distracted talking about TV or movies, an hour or two of frivolous scenes she insists on playing out like daily breakfast with a lengthy monologue from her NPC chef or empty banter on a long taxi ride with her NPC cabbie, maybe an hour or so of PC's actually doing things to advance the plot and interacting with each other (or one or two PC's off doing something, while everybody else just sits around for an hour or two), and an hour or two of a seemingly obligatory fight scene thrown in as zombies lurch out of the alley or some young vampire punk is out for some street cred by beating us up. I'm much more used to sessions that are half as long, and get twice or more stuff done, it's been a long time since I've done 8+ hour sessions, and those were under GM's who knew how to keep a game running.
I understand that she's a novice GM, but she's been playing for a long, long time and I'd imagine she would have picked up a few hints, and maybe she'd be better off just hanging up her dicebag, picking up a pen, and writing that modern fantasy novel she's wanting to write.
I'd really like to quit the game outright, but the GM is very touchy and I've known her for years and am afraid that dropping out will destroy the friendship, and it's the one time of the week I can hang out with several people I like to spend time with, but generally only see at the game. I know I'm not the only person thinking of quitting, I've chatted with several other players, who are at varying levels of dissatisfaction. Two players are very happy with the game, perhaps they went in with a completely different set of expectations (it was their first WoD game for one, and the first RPG of any kind for another).
The campaign has been through several sudden and massive changes in tone. It opened up as a typical WoD campaign, with a disparate group of characters from around the country called together to some big mansion for a will reading. The PC's turn out to be the only "mundane" relatives of some mighty Ventrue who has been declared dead after being missing for many years, and he has dozens of vampiric, ghoulish, shapechanger, and even mage relatives who are upset at the terms of the will. The PC's get to see a sampler platter of the WoD as they try and tear each other apart.
Then, at the end of the first session the PC's are all suddenly gassed and thrown into this massive, complicated, everchanging labyrinth complete with security cameras, and Matrix-level brain-interfacing virtual reality rigs (which she insists are not supernatural or magical, and that level of technology exists in the real world if you are rich enough), well-stocked rooms to rest in between bizarre reality-show like challenges where we have to save hapless innocent victims from gruesome fates by solving strange logic puzzles or tricky challenges of skill (i.e. sit there and roll dice until you get enough successes), and we realize the size of this complex is well over a cubic mile, which we find is right under Sicily and has been there for at least 400 years. We spend months worth of sessions playing out a pseudo-dungeon-crawl oddly reminiscent of the Saw and Cube movies, then suddenly upon our escape we wind up in the World of Insufficient Light (what I call WoD games where it seems there are more supernatural beings than mortals).
You see, despite seeing the smorgasborg of critters in the first session, and running into Elder Vampires, Archmages, Werewolf Elders and even wraiths, mummies, demons and fae all the time, the storyteller was adamant that the PC's were normal mortals, and couldn't be anything more. Then, she reluctantly allowed a few of the weaker abilities from Second Sight (she went through the book and came up with a short list of psychic abilities she'd allow as not being too unrealistic). Then, out of the blue one day in one session almost the entire group becomes supernatural, one PC Awakens, one has a first change (to a weresnake), and the rest get Embraced, and now you've got a blender party living in a bizarre sex club in Amsterdam (which the ST has gone to disturbing lengths to document the floor plan, price list, ect. of this club). Not to mention by this point her boyfriend has an uber-NPC ghoul who is following us around and pretty much leading the party by the nose.
She's house-ruled the game so much it's obviously based on the WoD, but she's rewritten large chunks of the rules, rules she admits she didn't understand to begin so she just made something up (she spends most of her time resolving NPC actions by rolling percent to see if they do something, and refuses to say what her mechanic is since that's "Storyteller-only rules", she just rolls percent, looks at them, then tells you what they do to you), rewriting the rules that apply to PC's (always to make things harder on us), making huge numbers of new "splats" (handwritten up a dozen different changing breeds and several new vampire bloodlines). The setting is one where there isn't much of a masquerade, since virtually every mortal politician knows about the supernatural, and privately acknowledges the vampire princes of the cities as the real rulers and their masters, but virtually omnipotent media conglomerates and secret worldwide internet censorship mean that it's impossible to let everyday people now about it no matter how hard you try. Even Werewolves and Mages worldwide all acknowledge Vampires as their rulers by some ancient treaty from the middle ages, and all supernatural beings must register with their local supernatural government upon becoming Awakened/Embraced/Changed within 48 hours or they're a "renegade" to be hunted by every other supernatural being in the world. Yeah, so my PC awakens as a mage while staying at a hotel, locks himself in the room for a few days while he figures out his new powers, and comes out to find he's wanted worldwide and if he's really lucky he can work it out that he'll only be blood-bound for life to a Prince for his "crime" of "rebellion" instead of killed for violating this ancient treaty by not registering immediately.
I don't even like the way she runs her sessions. She wants everybody to be ready to game at 2 PM, sharp. Ostensibly the game ends at 10 PM, but in reality it's more like 11 or 12, or whenever she feels like she's done with the "chapter". She insist she's turning the events of the game into a novel, and she's more concerned with how the events will look on paper when it finishes up than anything it seems, if a PC drops out her biggest concern is that it might ruin her novel since the character was integral to the plot, then suddenly disappears or dies meaninglessly. These sessions are typically a waste of time. There will be an hour of smoke breaks for the smokers, an hour of stopping in the middle to have dinner, an hour or two of idle chatter or distracted talking about TV or movies, an hour or two of frivolous scenes she insists on playing out like daily breakfast with a lengthy monologue from her NPC chef or empty banter on a long taxi ride with her NPC cabbie, maybe an hour or so of PC's actually doing things to advance the plot and interacting with each other (or one or two PC's off doing something, while everybody else just sits around for an hour or two), and an hour or two of a seemingly obligatory fight scene thrown in as zombies lurch out of the alley or some young vampire punk is out for some street cred by beating us up. I'm much more used to sessions that are half as long, and get twice or more stuff done, it's been a long time since I've done 8+ hour sessions, and those were under GM's who knew how to keep a game running.
I understand that she's a novice GM, but she's been playing for a long, long time and I'd imagine she would have picked up a few hints, and maybe she'd be better off just hanging up her dicebag, picking up a pen, and writing that modern fantasy novel she's wanting to write.
I'd really like to quit the game outright, but the GM is very touchy and I've known her for years and am afraid that dropping out will destroy the friendship, and it's the one time of the week I can hang out with several people I like to spend time with, but generally only see at the game. I know I'm not the only person thinking of quitting, I've chatted with several other players, who are at varying levels of dissatisfaction. Two players are very happy with the game, perhaps they went in with a completely different set of expectations (it was their first WoD game for one, and the first RPG of any kind for another).
