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.... I want to like you, but if you keep this up, we'll never be friends. I want you to know that. I keep trying, it's just...these Contracts. They're destroying this relationship.
Ok, first of all, it's cold up here. I kind of want that to sink in, because I'm pretty sure it's roasting in the midwest right now. I don't really have much trouble with heat, but I don't miss temperatures so hot it just makes you want to sit around until evening. Brent and Val have this mini-AC unit which they hardly ever have to turn on, but even when they do, they turn it on for temperatures that we'd of just opened up the windows and turned the fan on for my Dad's house. So that's something.
Over here, besides looking for gainful employment and maybe combing Craigslist for roomies or something*, I've been combining my notes and working on gaming stuff. I spent about an hour looking into ghost rules for NWoD and finding them pretty good. I doubt we'll ever see a Wraith expansion for NWoD, but I'll try to deal.** I also spent, like, four fucking hours with the Changeling books again trying to puzzle out the mechanics to embody my character concepts for the Cam with Brent.
My disinterest for Contracts has found itself transformed into outright ire. What's up with that? One - I don't like their format. They're a bunch of individual paths, none of which simply scale up in scope, but offer a multitude of different abilities at scaling xp costs. So, if the only power I want is ***, then I have to buy * and ** before I can get it, nevermind that those are likely to actually be useless to me if I don't have the relevant Skill. The answer is to buy that skill up, but if it doesn't make a lot of sense to the concept, something's got to give. And either way, it kind of creates a cascading xp requirement that I like on one hand but the inefficiency of it I dislike on the other.
In addition, many contracts are a two-dicepool where one of those pools is Wyrd. Wyrd is just one pool because it goes up to ten, but it's the power stat, so it's hands down the most expensive ability on the list. Because you're not rolling dice, you're really forced to buy it up high if you want certain abilities to get past one success, which I feel is a real issue. OTOH, once it's up there, someone with a high Wyrd is really versitile in terms on Contracts, but it really favors high XP characters more then usual. At least in Mage, a focused younger Mage who picks his Rotes well is still going to be able to compete (or aid) the big boys with high Gnosis. So, that's thematic, it can go either way, I guess. You can either be mostly mundane and rely more on your skills and low-impact Contracts (Hearth is great for this) or just up your Wyrd and go batshit.
Still, if you don't have the XP to buy Contracts and Wyrd, you're looking at a prolonged period of time where you don't really actually do anything. Have fun being scenery again.
In addition, I was considering that I might not have the XP chops to pull off my first, favored character concept, so I decided to go with something low-key. Kind of an agrophobe who came out fairly rarely (which would explain if I didn't come to game often) who didn't need to be that powerful, but was a bit of an information broker and blackmarketeer who assisted his private eye partner. Autumn Court gets a neat Mantle that adds dice to Occult pulls/rolls revolving around Contracts. I don't like many of the Contracts, actually (I chalk this up to being a gaming curmudgeon a bit and decided to just roll with it), and figured I'd just take what I was given and look through the book to find out what Contracts had a fair number of Occult in the die pools.
Good God. Almost friggin' none. I need Summer 4 to get some, or 5's in the other seasonal courts. The only one that's going to apply to me, at least at first, is Autumn, which means I can summon a hailstorm. Which is neither in character nor of any goddamn interest to me at all. I had to have Brent look into the Summer Court book to find alternate Seasonal court Contracts before I found something thematic and Occult related in their Autumn alt.
Summer isn't vetted for play yet. OK. Great. So, I'm basically just going Fleeting Autumn 3, Hearth 2, Mantle 4, and just buying skills and merits, it looks like, on this one guys. What are the rules for mortal thaumaturgy in Changeling, because that's what I want.
Actually, here's what I'd of wanted over their power setup. Exalted style charmlists where the powers are tied to a concept and have pre-requisites but are paid for modularly because they're often unrelated. Problem - high XP characters are just going to buy record numbers of modular charms because they don't scale in XP. Not a problem in Exalted. Might be a problem in Cam Changeling because XP totals are so amazingly high.
Suggestion 2: Use Vampire magics as a template. Buy the Contract stat up from 1-5, but have powers purchased seperate, rated from 1-5, giving one power of the appropriate level to the character every time they increase the rank of their contract, but allow additional thematic powers to be purchased for a modular cost. This is my favorite suggestion because every time you want to come up with a new goddamn power, you don't have to make up four more just to justify creating a new contract, and you wouldn't feel obligated to add a whole new Contract list in every published splat. OTOH, it's a limited run that's already way, way past production, so it's not like these suggestions are useful now. They're just where I would have taken it. I just think this is, by far, the more elegant way to go. It also stops characters from having a bunch of grab-bag Contracts. You've just got the Corebook, plus a few others, so you can give the nod or stop seperate powers from being allowed into the Cam as they're released instead of having to ok or axe a whole Contract list.
Also, there arn't a lot of ass-beating Contracts. I guess this is on purpose, but I'd of liked a few more obviously helpful contracts for combat. I keep seeing all these, "Let's beat the Gentry's ass if they show back up again." in the books, but shit. They're better off just paying Mages or Vampires to do their ass-beating for them. Changeling gonna get his ass kicked.
*If you want to move up, now's a good time. I'm housetrained and I like doing laundry and dishes.
** Probably no Kindred of the East expansion either. That was a cultural artifact of when it appeared, no doubt.
Ok, first of all, it's cold up here. I kind of want that to sink in, because I'm pretty sure it's roasting in the midwest right now. I don't really have much trouble with heat, but I don't miss temperatures so hot it just makes you want to sit around until evening. Brent and Val have this mini-AC unit which they hardly ever have to turn on, but even when they do, they turn it on for temperatures that we'd of just opened up the windows and turned the fan on for my Dad's house. So that's something.
Over here, besides looking for gainful employment and maybe combing Craigslist for roomies or something*, I've been combining my notes and working on gaming stuff. I spent about an hour looking into ghost rules for NWoD and finding them pretty good. I doubt we'll ever see a Wraith expansion for NWoD, but I'll try to deal.** I also spent, like, four fucking hours with the Changeling books again trying to puzzle out the mechanics to embody my character concepts for the Cam with Brent.
My disinterest for Contracts has found itself transformed into outright ire. What's up with that? One - I don't like their format. They're a bunch of individual paths, none of which simply scale up in scope, but offer a multitude of different abilities at scaling xp costs. So, if the only power I want is ***, then I have to buy * and ** before I can get it, nevermind that those are likely to actually be useless to me if I don't have the relevant Skill. The answer is to buy that skill up, but if it doesn't make a lot of sense to the concept, something's got to give. And either way, it kind of creates a cascading xp requirement that I like on one hand but the inefficiency of it I dislike on the other.
In addition, many contracts are a two-dicepool where one of those pools is Wyrd. Wyrd is just one pool because it goes up to ten, but it's the power stat, so it's hands down the most expensive ability on the list. Because you're not rolling dice, you're really forced to buy it up high if you want certain abilities to get past one success, which I feel is a real issue. OTOH, once it's up there, someone with a high Wyrd is really versitile in terms on Contracts, but it really favors high XP characters more then usual. At least in Mage, a focused younger Mage who picks his Rotes well is still going to be able to compete (or aid) the big boys with high Gnosis. So, that's thematic, it can go either way, I guess. You can either be mostly mundane and rely more on your skills and low-impact Contracts (Hearth is great for this) or just up your Wyrd and go batshit.
Still, if you don't have the XP to buy Contracts and Wyrd, you're looking at a prolonged period of time where you don't really actually do anything. Have fun being scenery again.
In addition, I was considering that I might not have the XP chops to pull off my first, favored character concept, so I decided to go with something low-key. Kind of an agrophobe who came out fairly rarely (which would explain if I didn't come to game often) who didn't need to be that powerful, but was a bit of an information broker and blackmarketeer who assisted his private eye partner. Autumn Court gets a neat Mantle that adds dice to Occult pulls/rolls revolving around Contracts. I don't like many of the Contracts, actually (I chalk this up to being a gaming curmudgeon a bit and decided to just roll with it), and figured I'd just take what I was given and look through the book to find out what Contracts had a fair number of Occult in the die pools.
Good God. Almost friggin' none. I need Summer 4 to get some, or 5's in the other seasonal courts. The only one that's going to apply to me, at least at first, is Autumn, which means I can summon a hailstorm. Which is neither in character nor of any goddamn interest to me at all. I had to have Brent look into the Summer Court book to find alternate Seasonal court Contracts before I found something thematic and Occult related in their Autumn alt.
Summer isn't vetted for play yet. OK. Great. So, I'm basically just going Fleeting Autumn 3, Hearth 2, Mantle 4, and just buying skills and merits, it looks like, on this one guys. What are the rules for mortal thaumaturgy in Changeling, because that's what I want.
Actually, here's what I'd of wanted over their power setup. Exalted style charmlists where the powers are tied to a concept and have pre-requisites but are paid for modularly because they're often unrelated. Problem - high XP characters are just going to buy record numbers of modular charms because they don't scale in XP. Not a problem in Exalted. Might be a problem in Cam Changeling because XP totals are so amazingly high.
Suggestion 2: Use Vampire magics as a template. Buy the Contract stat up from 1-5, but have powers purchased seperate, rated from 1-5, giving one power of the appropriate level to the character every time they increase the rank of their contract, but allow additional thematic powers to be purchased for a modular cost. This is my favorite suggestion because every time you want to come up with a new goddamn power, you don't have to make up four more just to justify creating a new contract, and you wouldn't feel obligated to add a whole new Contract list in every published splat. OTOH, it's a limited run that's already way, way past production, so it's not like these suggestions are useful now. They're just where I would have taken it. I just think this is, by far, the more elegant way to go. It also stops characters from having a bunch of grab-bag Contracts. You've just got the Corebook, plus a few others, so you can give the nod or stop seperate powers from being allowed into the Cam as they're released instead of having to ok or axe a whole Contract list.
Also, there arn't a lot of ass-beating Contracts. I guess this is on purpose, but I'd of liked a few more obviously helpful contracts for combat. I keep seeing all these, "Let's beat the Gentry's ass if they show back up again." in the books, but shit. They're better off just paying Mages or Vampires to do their ass-beating for them. Changeling gonna get his ass kicked.
*If you want to move up, now's a good time. I'm housetrained and I like doing laundry and dishes.
** Probably no Kindred of the East expansion either. That was a cultural artifact of when it appeared, no doubt.
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