Feeding Grounds

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Ralph
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Feeding Grounds

Post by Ralph »

I've had some questions about the fact that we are re-introducing feeding grounds and rather than answer them in PMs, I thought I would write out some of my ideas here for general consumption.

I know that in the past Feeding Grounds have been a tedious bore in Primogen meetings where they are rehashed and redistricted on a regualr basis. They were considered to be a drain on downtimes with no particular purpose, point, or possibility of reward.

All in all, they were considered to be a fairly banal part of the game and many people were pleased to see them go away.

With that understanding in mind, I considered for a while why I wanted to bring them back. I had several reasons.

First of all, having feeding grounds be important is a way to remind our players that we are playing a VAMPIRE game. I often get the sense the people forget that the characters they are playing a actually monsters in that they must feed from other human beings to continue to live. Granted, most of them do their level best to remain humane, but I think some sort of reminder of who and what it is that you feed from is important; even as removed as a feeding ground is.

Second, the new system has a specific mechanic in how feeding grounds work. It has a very specific relationship with other required systems like Herd. This is important for some of the sorts of plots that this mechanic opens up. We no longer use Dominoes - all you need to do to come in with full blood is to either have a single dot of Herd, or spend a downtime. By having a feeding ground, it gives specific mechanical effects to things like "Patrolling".

Third, this opens up some of the specific politics that are supposed to be part and parcel to Vampire. Figuring out who is top and bottom dogs in any given clan; and thus who is stuck with patrol duty is an important part of the game. There are really very few things that non-officers are required to do to help the city; by dividing the feeding grounds and making each clan responsible for one, this gives the non-officers a specific responsability to the city. A responsability that can be rewarded or punished depending on the whims and observations of the superior for a place.

Fourth, it also opens up specific rewards. This will be more clear as plots surrounding feeding grounds develop over time - but there will be some rewards for those who maintain well patrolled grounds, and penalties for those who do not.

Lastly, I had specific plot reasons in mind why it will be important later. As most of your know, I occasionally have plots that are planned out years in advance. This is a step in a couple of those. I am not going to comment any further on this case - I just wanted to acknowledge that it was part of my reasoning.

I should mention - I do not intend for feeding grounds to become a proverbial football for the Primogen meetings to kick around at all. Indeed, once they are finally set, I have little reason to see why they would change at all, save a replacement of the Prince (which I recognize is always a possibility!).

Equally, I do not intend for violations of feeding ground to be the 10o'clock monster joke. At least as far as Jackson is concerned, any violation of feeding grounds should be taken quite seriously.

I DO expect it to be a bit of a chore. It's supposed to be. It is a way the Prince is asking for help from his populace. If you don't want to do it, I think that will generate some good plot for you; either finding someone else to cover for you, or generally shirking your responsability.

Ok. I've said my piece. I am curious as to what you think! I know we won't have a consensus, (we so rarely do these days. :| ) but I hope that at least giving you some insight to my reasons will help you understand what I am doing here.

Thanks
-Ralph
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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by MikeLG »

Full disclosure, this topic has been in discussion since Tim and Faith were Primogen. The locations and everything were being off and on refined and the politics of it shifted around. It eventually made its way to the officers board fairly recently, and now it's gotten to the draft that's on the Cam board. It's written in pseudolegalese, sure, but if you have questions for the IC proposal, by all means, I'm happy to talk about it.

OOC wise, I'm biased obviously in favor of it here, I like the idea of feeding grounds for a number of similar reasons as Ralph stated:

If you have a feeding scene, it's easier to come up with what happens due to the area. Really, I've seen a ton of people pull dominoes and it's always felt too abstract for me and plays kind of right in the "this is a vampire game". "I pull 3 blood and 2 will" is fine, but giving a location at least goes a bit farther in saying "You got it from a person. You are a monster pretending to be human and this is one of those moments where you can't pretend." Sections of the domain have a different feel, and that honestly can be expressed easily enough by giving it a set location of where you feed.

As for one of the reasons why feeding grounds was done away with, I got the impression that yeah, negotiations for feeding grounds sucked in the past largely because we were running through new princes every 6 months. That seriously isn't fun on any level. But with a stable prince? It's something I think should be looked at. As is? I've loved it because oh dear lord, it's given the primogen something to do and actively have meetings about (I'm weird). As I see it, feeding grounds are a massive part of the setting and while we dropped it for a valid reason, the reason's kind of gone.

Further aspect on this is that feeding grounds are an area of conflict. Not just in the "I want this territory!" aspect, but in the fact that specific areas of the city can be attacked and it won't just be solved by "Don't eat in this section of the domain for a while". Plus? I like the idea of more things available to trade. Want something for your clan? Why not sublet areas of your feeding grounds. Boons can be traded a lot more on this, especially if you mistrust your clanmates for any reasons.

Heck, the lupine plot a few months back? Imagine how differently it would have been if they were actively camping out in one clan's territory and doing the attacks there. There were a ton of IC reasons for people to take what sides they did, but really, "My clan is unable to eat as long as they're there!" wasn't one of them (to my knowledge). It's an avenue that enhances the worry that exists already, and is one where the clanmates would have to find alternatives to feeding in that territory.

The entire situation of feeding grounds is a political one, which is another core aspect of vampire to me. My favorite moment that's come about in the negotiations was someone going up to Mike and calling out on some of the crap he tried to pull with the feeding grounds. They were dead on right about it, and the negotiations out of that were a blast.

Do your characters not like the current feeding grounds? By all means, from the start in character I know I've been encouraging people to speak up. It went from Primogen, to officers, now to cam. Mike hasn't posted it to the independent board because well, he doesn't see why they should have a say because they're not cam (and he's yet to receive any word saying he should). But if an independent does have questions about it or want to negotiate for different feeding territory? By all means, he'll be happy to negotiate that. Sure, he'll be annoyed that someone leaked it to the filthy independents, but that doesn't mean he won't at least try to address it. If it goes to the independent boards for them to discuss? Perfectly fine as well.

As for patrols? I like to imagine that everyone patrols differently. Personally patrolling, having their ghouls do the work for them, having animals patrol, using your contacts, taking control of cameras, really, it's all in how your character or clan handles it. It's an area where you'll either work together, or do your own thing based on it.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by MrMicromort »

Make a poll. The question: 'Is patrolling feeding grounds fun for you as a player?'

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Melissa »

Thanks for the perspective, Ralph! :) For my two cents as a player, the game I played in prior to this did not have them, so I've never seen any of the plot/RP advantages/disadvantages before. I'm interested in seeing them in action for the first time (hence my IC participation in hammering them out), but I know people who have played longer in this game or other games have a lot more experience on the subject. I'd be very interested in hearing people's experiences, positive and negative. I don't have the personal experience to answer Monte's poll question.

I do have some mechanical questions, now that I think about it.

Does 'patrolling' generally take a downtime per territory?
What is the standard, reasonable number of downtimes a clan should put into it if they want to be doing due diligence?
Are there skills or abilities that will assist in patrolling or increasing the chance of finding interlopers?
Are there are benefits to patrolling for Kindred interlopers? For example, can you, if you wish, reduce mortal crime in an area as a side effect of doing patrols?
Depending on your character's feeding preferences, can you combine feeding and patrolling downtimes?
Can patrolling also get you information on goings-on in the location in general?
Can you use animal servants to assist you or delegate to entirely?
Can you use ghouls to assist or delegate to entirely?

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Sibihah »

I am very appreciative of that fact that what I think is fun is NOT the same as what others think is fun. I was one of those players from prior games who experienced the worst parts of feeding ground mechanics and it's derived plots. I'm certainly open to avenues for RP, and if defining feedings grounds for RP purposes is FUN for a majority of players then the masses have spoken. It isn't fun for ME, but that is ok.

But I don't believe implementing a mandatory patrol your feeding ground mechanic is the right way to create RP, or indeed promote fun. Adding my perspective of Ralph's benefits of a feeding ground mechanic:

- Remind us all that we're playing vampire. I think this is a great thing to be mindful of. I don't think feeding grounds add to this at all. If you want people to experience the horror and humanity loss of being a vampire night after night, a mechanic isn't going to help you with that. Personalized plot will.

- I haven't read the rules for feeding grounds or patrolling mechanics. But I would ask the question, is this rule adding to the enjoyment of the game for the majority of players?

- We can TOTALLY keep the RP and politicking over which feeding ground belongs to whom without adding an mandatory patrolling mechanic. We can easily keep an optional patrolling mechanic for players who enjoy that kind of story. This could be implemented by staff saying "X is your IC determined feeding ground. Between NPCs and PCs you can assume your feeding ground is sufficiently patrolled. If you would like to politic for better grounds, go for it. If you want to interact with plot, you should actively patrol in your downtimes. That will be our sign that you want this type of plot." This is how Foster is handling patrolling the bawn in his werewolf game, which I believe is received positively.

- I would like clarification on what rewards and punishments you expect to hand out as a result of interacting with this mechanic. To me this says downtimes have become mandatory. This is difficult for already busy PCs who are active with downtimes, it gives them one more thing to handle. This is also difficult for PCs who do not have time in real life (or don't enjoy) to be active with downtimes. The result, I feel, will be stretching even thinner your most active players and punishing your OOC busy players with IC consequences for not doing their LARP homework. What about clans which only have 1 active PC? Are they solely responsible for patrolling their feeding ground? I would also like to understand staff's definition of well patrolled? 1 PC doing 1 patrol downtime action every week? More? Less?

- I hear you when you say you don't intend for PCs to argue IC over feeding grounds over and over, but you've also said you want feeding grounds to be an RP avenue for people. You don't really get one without the other.

- I vehemently disagree with your perspective that you expect and accept that this will be a chore. This is so opposed to my own perspective of gaming that I cannot really comment further. If something is a chore, I don't want it in my game. That is not what I come to game.

Once again, I know my fun isn't the same as everyone else's fun. And though I do not think RP around defined feeding grounds is fun, I'm not the RP police! But I would like a chance to vote before this mechanic goes into effect. Again, if we want to RP about feeding grounds, fine! Adam makes some good points about the good RP he feels he can derive from it. But I would like to see the mandatory patrolling mechanic that seems to come along with it hand waved by staff at minimum.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Ralph »

I am not going to be doing a poll on this topic. In this case, I am making the executive decision to put it into place because it is part of the system that we have adopted. At the very least I am going to see if it works as I expect.

If it turns out to be terrible, I will look at pulling and replacing it - but I intend to at least give it a shot in it's original form.

Here is one of the specific mechanics that is relevant to this discussion. It is taken from http://masquerade.endogaming.net/rulesw ... p/Downtime
Patrolling: Spending downtime actions to patrol your territory, looking for interlopers, increases the difficulty of feeding for interlopers. Each action you spend patrolling increases the difficulty by 1 downtime action. For example, if you spend 2 downtime actions patrolling, the difficulty for uninvited vampires feeding in your territory increases from 1 downtime action to 3.

Note that patrolling doesn't precisely make it more difficult to feed, it makes it more difficult to feed without getting caught. For example, if the difficulty to feed in Malkavian territory has been increased to 4 downtime actions, you could choose to spend 4 actions feeding discreetly or spend 1 action and risk getting ambushed by a pack of insane vampires.
Patrol effects last for 1 story.

To answer Alison's questions:

Does 'patrolling' generally take a downtime per territory? Yes.
What is the standard, reasonable number of downtimes a clan should put into it if they want to be doing due diligence? That's up to the clan, but I would expect a minimum of 1 downtime patrolling per month. See the above mechanic to see how that's relevant.
Are there skills or abilities that will assist in patrolling or increasing the chance of finding interlopers? Actually no. Anyone can patrol. It does not require a check.
Are there are benefits to patrolling for Kindred interlopers? For example, can you, if you wish, reduce mortal crime in an area as a side effect of doing patrols? Potentially, depending on how you patrol, how much thought and how creative you are.
Depending on your character's feeding preferences, can you combine feeding and patrolling downtimes? No. These are two different things.
Can patrolling also get you information on goings-on in the location in general? Yes. Absolutely it can.
Can you use animal servants to assist you or delegate to entirely? Yes, sort of. As with all downtimes, you can use your servants and retainers to accomplish the goal - but it still takes the character's downtime. Meaning you can send your hellhounds out to patrol, but you still need to spend the time IC to manage them and get the responses and such.
Can you use ghouls to assist or delegate to entirely? See above. The same answer applies here.
-Ralph
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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Paraclete »

I have a 'suspension of disbelief' issue with the concept of patrolling Feeding Grounds.

Stating that certain clans have Feeding Grounds, and that they are responsible for things that happen inside of them, including them being poached, over-used, invaded by random supernaturals, etc. Fine. There is certainly a potential for RP in that setup. But it is a very specific kind of RP. One in which people in power arbitrarily use this system to punish everyone else. Very vampire!

Punishing clans for not protecting or patrolling their Feeding Grounds can only ever be an abusive selective exercise in power because there is absolutely no logical way to accomplish it. Any time spent by clans patrolling their territory will on the whole be a waste of unlife that could have been used more productively in almost any other possible way. And any incident caught or prevented by patrolling would be statistically like winning the lottery in almost every instance, and gross defiance/incompetence/active-attempts-to-be-caught in all others. (Any vampire that can't manage to slip into someone else's city, get a snack, and get out again unnoticed is just NOT even trying.)

Santa Clara County has 1.8 million people, 1300 square miles, and approximately 50 vampires. It is primarily traversed by private car, has no physical gates, checkpoints, or other restrictions on free travel, and a very low density of primarily single family homes. Business districts and other downtown areas are scattered across the whole county and none of them provide a nighttime social focus for the majority of the population or even a significant minority. We don't have a half-dozen town squares where most people go each night to eat, drink, and socialize, and therefore monitoring those areas would logically cover anywhere that a vampire or anyone else would go to find prey.

Instead there are, for example, well over 200 listings for bars in San Jose alone. If a random Sabbat member drives their beat-up car over to Caravan Lounge on San Fernando, talks a drunk into leaving with him, and drains and dumps the body at the Greyhound station with nice big fang marks for the world to see, you certainly could blame and shame the Brujah. But they could have all been out at Farenheit, The Blank Club, The Hideaway, Dive Bar, Temple Lounge, Brittania Arms, and that hookah place (these are all within a five minute walk of the Caravan), and hey, maybe one of them was even at Caravan, but moved on to Splash Bar right before the Sabbat showed up. Darn those lazy Brujah, not able to beat the odds and be sitting in the right bar when the bad guys come to town. Guess they should have ghouled every bartender in town, but 200 bars, two bartenders per bar, that's about 50 dead bodies worth of blood a month to maintain that many servants.

...This is just one square mile out of 1300, albeit one of the densest, and therefore easiest to theoretically patrol, and yet it would be totally impossible even if that were all the local Brujah did, let alone the rest of San Jose. I haven't even gotten started on Meet-Ups, and all the other ways that the Internet has made it really easy for vampires to find people to eat. Who has enough time and blood to keep an eye on every Starbucks for OK Cupid vamps Dominating their dates into 'going back to their place'? Heck, Google would be hard pressed to ensure than no one is doing something they shouldn't in every bar, theater, public park and swinger party in the South Bay. And they'd have to set up London-style camera surveillance over the whole area first.

So again, my opinion is that making clans responsible for patrolling Feeding Grounds can never logically be anything other than pointless busywork and an excuse to hand out unfair and mercurial punishment to the unlucky. That is certainly something valid for vampires to do, but that is how it should be framed. Protecting one's own buildings, Elysiums, etc. from violation, of course! Keeping an eye on police reports and noticing if a danger to the Masquerade is brewing in your town, sure! But making sure no one in Sunnyvale ever gets nommed on by non-Ventrue? Uh no. Knowing that a pack of Inquisitors rented that duplex on Mary Ave, um, how? Punish if you want, but it's unreasonable.

If someone wants to patrol and ends up getting some plot... ok, I guess they win the lottery a lot. Downtimes should be rewarded. But I protest any attempt to objectively define patrolling as effective, and that therefore clans not patrolling is somehow wrong, or the reason that bad things are happening.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Sibihah »

Ralph - I still do not see how deciding to use this feeding ground as a viable downtime action needs to translate into mandatory patrolling downtimes. You can still reap all the benefit of letting people patrol if they want to without imposing a mandatory downtime chore on us as players. You are saying that I as a player have LARP homework now and my character will potentially be punished if I don't do it. Is there any benefit you have suggested that wouldn't still apply if you added a staff hand wave to say "Assume there are enough PCs and NPCs patrolling that your clan has met the minimum bar even if no one does downtimes". I just really strongly disagree with what I see has IC punishment for failure to do my LARP homework, or force others to do their LARP homework. I do not mind rewards being given to people who patrol regularly. Let folks earn status and boons for finding problems by all means! I have accepted that downtime is a big part of the game (one I choose not to regularly interact with). But please don't impose IC punishments on people who don't have the time or want to spend the time on this.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Ginger »

Please show me, where there is anywhere "punishment" listed for not patrolling?

The mechanic is simply: if you patrol, you are more likely to catch an interloper. That's it. If someone decides to feed in your hunting grounds, patrolling determines whether they get caught.

Please also note, because I'm wondering if it's not clear:

We're expecting a minimum of one downtime, per month, per clan. Not one per character, not one per week. One per month out of 100+ available actions. I just can't see that as onerous.
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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Aoife »

Ginger wrote:We're expecting a minimum of one downtime, per month, per clan. Not one per character, not one per week.
Well that just made this a whole lot easier. I was under the mistaken impression that you'd need a downtime per week from someone in the clan. Ok then! Much better :)

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Capet »

I've seen feeding grounds in two different games: so far I give them two negative reviews, zero positives.

Both times the claim was to make the game more gritty and realistic and both times I felt it did the opposite by over simplifying something that is a huge personal rp decision and leaving a substantial suspension of disbelief (I agree with Thea's post).
A lot of my characters don't hunt using their face. They use Mask 1,000 faces, possession or have their ghoul do all the OK Cupid meet and greets. If you use precautions you are inadvertently hiding yourself from the government spying on you, making patrolling not effective. In my head-cannon patrolling should be a waste of time, save for the occasional grounds that only have one downtown or 'hotspot' area or if someone has a specific, sloppy or flashy feeding pattern.

-This domain is too large to have scarcity issues.
If we use the 10,000 per kindred model, we can support about 190 kindred.

edit: I was also under the impression that it took one a week, that's good to know.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by MrMicromort »

'Please show me, where there is anywhere "punishment" listed for not patrolling?'

Seriously?

Are clans held responsible for the security of their respective feeding grounds?

If being held responsible, are they therefore castigated when something like a Sabbat pack or a Masquerade breach is found in their feeding grounds?

In every single instance I've seen in LARP, the answer is Yes.

Do we acknowledge that, logically, it is impossible to prevent these things from happening? All of the proofs thereof have been pointed out previously, and that is information any reasonably savvy vampire would have and understand.

Y'all have clearly made up your mind what you're going to do, but it is my very, very strong recommendation that, as Staff members, you think considerably on the interaction between OOC/IC decisions. It has a huge impact on the tenor of the game, our collective suspension of disbelief (which already takes a substantial beating on regular occasions), and how we end up reacting to things.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Julie »

Hey, I know I have not been at game recently to witness any changes in theme happen naturally, so feel free to take my comments with a grain of salt but,

Just because the mechanics for feeding grounds and patrolling do not stipulate a punishment does not mean that in character punishments or shame will not be inflicted. This is the logical progression for allowing a territory you have been deemed responsible for to be violated. Sure, staff NPCs may not regard things this way for the sake of positive metagaming you cannot police the way PCs (like Primogen) will play this. Especially players down the line who are removed from the immediate discussion.

Additionally (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) intruders into the domain is a large source of plot. Because the whole city is divided into feeding grounds said intruder is going to be violating someone's responsibility. This sets up a scenario where PCs can be punished for plot hooks they had no hand in.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by TinnaMinor »

So I'm going to throw the two cents about patrolling because hey! This is something that I did.

Staff's always been awesome about dealing with patrols, they're a source of plot, and sometimes gossip. New players are commonly not given a lot to do, they don't ever have immediate personal plot and older characters don't trust new characters enough to get them involved. It's a huge struggle for a new player, and one thing we suffer from is lack of things to do during downtimes.

At least, this has been my experience.

The pros of feeding grounds? New players can be given an assignment.

Before this was a thing, my character would go for walks because I didn't have anything else to do. This was interperted as looking for trouble, hence, the werewolf magnet. Sometimes, I would see other characters, but it was usually a filler because my character did 1-2 things each week.

The cons of feeding grounds? Every time I went for a walk and found something, PC's would A) Ignore what my character said, B) Forget what my character said, or C) Listen long enough to scold her.

I think what I'm trying to say is that though NPCs might not get on characters toes about this, PCs will always be happy to tear into each other about these things. Someone will get blamed when trouble comes to town, and either you shoot the messenger or you fire the person in charge of the area.

Punishment will happen, especially if you're playing a no status neonate with no one to back you up.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Cameron »

Ginger wrote:Please show me, where there is anywhere "punishment" listed for not patrolling?
Ralph wrote:Fourth, it also opens up specific rewards. This will be more clear as plots surrounding feeding grounds develop over time - but there will be some rewards for those who maintain well patrolled grounds, and penalties for those who do not.
I'm also not thrilled about a return of this mechanic, but it also sounds like it's a done deal that's only open to discussion on an academic level.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Melissa »

I think feeding grounds can work, if we agree on an out of game level to do a couple of things to ensure that the various negative consequences people have experienced before don't happen. Ralph would like feeding grounds for plot reasons, and I think we as players can make this happen if we put some guidelines in place? Suggestions for what might help. These are only suggestions, intended for discussion. The overall goal is to make the plot opt-in.

-NPCs are available to patrol for clans. Plot hooks (and attendant benefits) are unlikely to go to clans that take this option, but on the other hand, you don't need to put in downtimes. This is especially important for small clans with one or two people. One downtime a month isn't a lot for the Malkavians, who have a whole ton of people, but by my count, there is one active Gangrel.

-The players of PC authorities agree not to levy IG consequences on people who don't want to do LARP homework. If a person doesn't normally submit downtimes, they should need only to say that to the player of their Primogen or whoever they are reporting to about the feeding grounds, and they will never be put in a position where they are asked to patrol or put in downtimes if they don't normally.

-In general, everyone tries to make this plot/IC mechanic much more carrot based than stick based.

Does that sound reasonable to staff and to players?

(For my participation in this, Melissa will be putting in the downtime unless someone else actively wants it. I think, as a whole, that the player of a Primogen should be responsible for either doing it, delegating to an NPC, or finding a player who wants to participate.)

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Ginger »

Cameron wrote:
Ginger wrote:Please show me, where there is anywhere "punishment" listed for not patrolling?
Ralph wrote:Fourth, it also opens up specific rewards. This will be more clear as plots surrounding feeding grounds develop over time - but there will be some rewards for those who maintain well patrolled grounds, and penalties for those who do not.
Thank you. I had missed that.

I, personally, haven't been involved in feeding grounds previously, here or anywhere else - so I think I come at it with a lot less personal bias for or against.
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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Sibihah »

Ginger wrote:Please show me, where there is anywhere "punishment" listed for not patrolling?
Ginger, I think others have weighed in on this above but I feel like you were asking me directly so I'll go ahead and answer. Chris's quote above really covers this ground already and I +++1 what Allison said. But please indulge me.

To me it is a very obvious that there will be IC punishment for failure to submit downtimes, but it's totally ok if it isn't obvious for you or the rest of staff. I'm glad Ralph posted this thread so we could talk about it. You're right that no where in the rules does it state "If your clan fails to appropriately patrol your clan feeding ground, X punishment will occur."

But this mechanic creates a territory and then creates expectations that if you don't regularly patrol it with a downtime action something bad may happen in it. The only logical next step to me is that when that bad thing inevitably happens, it will be the clan's fault IC for not taking the OOC action of submitting a patrolling downtime. So this mechanic makes downtimes mandatory for someone in the clan once a month if they want to avoid IC consequences. I philosophically disagree with any attention to the game being mandatory in the hours that do not occur at game. You can certainly argue that it's only 1 downtime a month for 1 person in the whole big clan. If you feel it's such a small requirement that everyone should be able to easily meet it, can we just hand wave it completely?

I again +++1 Allison's suggestions.

I agree that since feeding grounds are going to be a thing, that it is logical and reasonable that NPCs are generally available to do the patrolling. I think there should be an OOC understanding that when bad things happen in your feeding ground you had no real control over it, because it's physically impossible to actually patrol an entire city with one day of patrol per month. I agree that feeding grounds can create a lot of fun and positive plot but using failure to patrol as an IC punishment should be avoided because to me the failure to patrol adequately isn't an IC failure.

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Ted
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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Ted »

Okay, folks! You’re talking, and we’re listening.

It sounds like many people are worried that this system will be used as a way to punish players who don’t put in enough downtimes on it, and that it will make the game less fun.

It also sounds like other folks are concerned that the idea of patrolling at all is unrealistic because the population is large and catching other vampires feeding would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

We’re implementing hunting grounds because we think the benefits of the system outweigh the risks mentioned here. But we’ve heard you, and we will definitely keep your worries in mind as we move forward. The truth of it is, you probably won’t actually notice a lot of immediate difference. (Most clans are already patrolling way more often than once a month.)

While we try our very best to make a game that’s fun for everyone all the time, we are aware that some sorts of plots are not to everyone’s taste. And that's okay! That’s why we do lots of different plots. We work hard not to force unwanted plots down peoples’ throats.

We’ll keep an eye on this thread to see other comments as they come along; but Staff will likely not be commenting much more here.
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Cameron
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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Cameron »

Yet it's still permanent, mandatory plot for all characters. At the minimum, a player would need to deal with the rest of their clan to make certain their "shift" at patrolling is covered - and then they have to deal with the social fallout of "being lazy and not doing their share" etc.

So, opt out of the plot and face social (and potentially mechanical) repercussions, or engage in the plot. If it is plot that I don't want to do, this is a lose-lose situation.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by MikeLG »

From what I've gathered: It's not required a PC does the patroling. Don't want to deal with it? Most clans have at least one support NPC. What's stopping getting them to do it? Mechanically, the downtime a story's handled. It's opting out of the ramifications of having one PC in a clan from doing it (which admittedly is a good thing for smaller clans), with little cost outside of recruiting the NPC.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Jane »

I think it was a bit of a headache to figure out how to parcel everything out, but other than that I don't expect it will have a huge impact on how I play. Jane does patrolling downtimes pretty much every week anyway. Sometimes I run into plot because of it, but I wouldn't say any of it has been forced on me. Mostly it's small things I can choose to interact with or not. The only times there have been scenes I couldn't get out of were times I was doing something I as a player knew was dumb and would have consequences for my character.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Gordon »

Im not very active in game atm, so take me with a grain of salt here.

If i were actively playing with this mechanic, i would want there to be a healthy sprinkling of snack sized plots to be had from patrolling,

By that i mean small things that one could easily opt into for some small reward, or a some small thing that any individual vampire could "handle" without involving superiors.

Perhaps a mugging to either interfere with or not as a humanity quandry, etc.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Capet »

One more thing:
Further aspect on this is that feeding grounds are an area of conflict. Not just in the "I want this territory!" aspect, but in the fact that specific areas of the city can be attacked and it won't just be solved by "Don't eat in this section of the domain for a while". Plus? I like the idea of more things available to trade. Want something for your clan? Why not sublet areas of your feeding grounds. Boons can be traded a lot more on this, especially if you mistrust your clanmates for any reasons.

Heck, the lupine plot a few months back? Imagine how differently it would have been if they were actively camping out in one clan's territory and doing the attacks there. There were a ton of IC reasons for people to take what sides they did, but really, "My clan is unable to eat as long as they're there!" wasn't one of them (to my knowledge).

I probably will dislike conflict, politics or pvp that is railroaded or orchestrated OOG. This has the risk of being that kind of frustrating since it is coming from an executive decision.

Anyways, it sounds like the die is largely already cast on this one.

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Re: Feeding Grounds

Post by Dead Albert »

I would just like to say that I have no problem with the idea of feeding grounds.

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