The Bay Area Masquerade

@ Tommy re: Balance

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/perfect-imbalance

@ Adam

Yeah.

I see here:

• How will we as a community react to rules change?
  "I don't like MET", "I don't like By Night", "I love BAM 1.whatever-it-is", "I don't like changing" etc. Up-front: "I don't like change" is valid and I defend the right of anyone who feels that way to feel and express that--but please do be willing to work through whatever you feel so we can work together, EVERYBODY (even the ones who agree with me, including me)
• Build Consensus:
  We as a community will talk a bunch, argue and hopefully eventually agree to receive our BAM 1.x system fixing in such-and-such way
• "Our Game, She Is Ailing? What-The-Huh?"
• Who Wants To Be The Deciders? Or... Whatever We All Agree To Accept, Who Wants In On That Process? Who Does Not?
• This Is What I Want From BAM Rules
  A place to say "I want blah", "I also want blah", "I don't want blah because yadda yadda", "I do because yackety schmackety" and breaking into the contents of "blah", "yadda yadda" and "yackety schmackety" so that we better understand what we want, or at least what some of us want, and try to accomodate. NOT A PLACE FOR JUDGING OR DISMISSING THE STATED WANTS OF OTHERS--conflicts should be cleanly "I think that conflicts with what I want because x, y and z"
• MAKE TEH RULEZ LIKE I SEZ! RAWR!
  Wherein we actually make/remake our rules, as opposed to our rules for making our rules
  (all-caps lolcatz denotes high likelihood of intense, dense, protracted arguments and strongly divergent opinions needing reconciliation, which is why some of the previous topics NEED TO HAPPEN--to facilitate that reconciliation)

In reading these responses, something else came up for me that I wanted to express.

Right now I spend something like 15 hours a week on BAM and BAM related stuff, between doing actual uptime, downtimes, responding to PMs, keeping up with the boards, rules discussions, plot ideas, and actual staff meetings.

I put as much into this game as I might a second job.

No kidding, and without any hyperbole, I would say that between 1/4 to 1/3 of that time EACH WEEK is focused on rules issues.

One of the reasons I want to move to a published system is because once all the conversion work is done? I don't need to spend a great deal of my time working on figuring out how to balance rules revisions. Instead I can spend that time on other things - like better plot, or recruiting effort, or other things that I think would be much more valuable to the game.

Dorian~

That is really awesome and I agree with their thesis. I still want to emphasize that giving the player's characters each a loaded gun and the temptation to use it makes for great internal and interpersonal conflict.


Ralph,

Yeah, no game should turn into a second job. I have no real experience with this MET thing that I keep hearing about over the last 5 years (really? ~checks calender~ ... huh, no shit), but I'm more the willing to give it a go. My only request would be that you interpret those existing mechanics in such a way that makes it vicious and horrifying.

My 2 cents on By Night:

-Over-all I love the new system. I think it's worth the head-ache.
It seems more balanced and easier to learn.It addresses almost all of my pet peeves.

-I would be a little sad to see Expert Abilities go. They can really help define a character.

-I'm not sold on the new status system.
The named status having different effects; seems hard to remember all the different status and their effects. I fear people will have to look it up and disrupt the flow of game.
I kind of like ancilla and elder being status traits tho.


I'm interested to hear how the play-tests go (or 'went' if they have already started).

Honestly, yes, BAM rules suck. They are a continued kludge of bad decisions, reactions decisions, and "oh gods, were the staff drunk when they came up with it?"

I do like the concept of Expert level abilities. It encouraged people to buy skills and abilities during a time when "more da power" was the push of the day. I do feel that the rules have become bloated and cumbersome, however.

Frankly, I go to larps to play with costuming, put myself into different paradigms and mind sets, and socialize myself so I don't snap and go on a tricounty news event.

I am intrigued by the rules in the pdf. I could go either way, to be honest, but yes, it is perhaps time for a rules reset.