[Cam} UKG - What a laugh
Jan. 23rd, 2004 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyMany of my more sensible frends have now pulled off UKG due to it being a complete waste of time, but I maintain web-based access in order to remind myself periodically of the Hell it represents.I seomtimes read it and wonder what happened to the good natured nonsense that I remember back in '97, but I suppose that the inevitable fate of all online bulletin boards had to come to it sooner or later.
The latest topic has two threads: first, whether the Uk should petition the MST to slow down the year of Fire, and second, the validity of polls on a mailing list. Due to general boredom at work, I'll tackle some of the more absurb things I've read there:
The background is that Oz Davis has asked for a vote at the society AGM to petition the MST to slow down the Year of Fire. I can actually appreciate his point, although I disagree with him - the YoF does feel rushed, I'll thought out, and ill-adminstered as a result. I appreciate where he's coming from, and even he is wise enough to acknowledge the essential futility of such a petition, instead the inference that I get from his posts is that he feels this is the only way to register the dissatisfaction of the rush-job that has been put through with the powers-that-be and hopefully to give the membership a better deal next time round. Personally, I'd vote against the measure as I find time too important to waste upon what I consider to be futile gestures, but his motives are understandable and even laudable and I wish him the best.
Sadly, his original request has been siezed upon by somepeople with their own political agenda who seem determined to strip the sense from Oz's basic idea and instead to hop on their own soapboxes.
1) We didn't join an organisation that would reflect the end of the world, we joined one with enormous international links. Half true; we joined a society with international lnks that *also* has the end of the world built in as an integral piece of background. Saying that we shouldn't run the end of the world as it isn't what we signed up for displays a stunningly blinkered view of the game world as presented in the books, and indeed many of the 'Harbingers of Gehenna' plots that have cropped up over the years. To run such plots and never follow through has the same artistic validity as, say, it suddenly turning out that the immortals in Highlander were actually aliens, and that there were lots more of them than you'd've thought from the first film ("You know when we said the end of the world was coming? Well, it wasn't really the end of the world, but just the set up for a sequel. Oh, and all your vampire characters are actually aliens.").
2) That a poll on the list would be nothing more than a reflection of views and would be for no other reason, oh no, not at all.
The fact is that nobody ever asks for an opinion poll on anything if they aren't planning to try and make hay with the results. Hell, I've done it myself, but that experience just makes other people trying it glow that much more brightly under scrutiny. Hilary, thankfully, is far too clever to fall for this obvious ploy (instead preferring to hold valid polls on matters in an orderly and ordered way), and now the argument in favour of a poll has degenerated into 'Let's have a poll, at least it'll shut me up', which at least demonstrates an awareness of the intellectual failure of other arguments in favour.
3) That petitioning the MST would acheive anything.
Let us now be honest. Artistic integrity in this situation is playing a distinctly quiet second fiddle to the bottom line of White Wolf Publishing, inc. The sales of World of Darkness products are faltering and, as Mike Tinney has prevoiusly observed. White Wolf is a publishing company that makes games, not a games company that publishes. They're in this to make money, and putting out a big new edition is the best way to do so.
To the considerable credit of WW, however, they're rounding off the old product line in style. In fact, they're dedicating an entire year in which they could be shipping lots of shiney new product to closing down their old game world - for no other reason than to give people a good send off for their old games. They could have just dropped the line like a hot potato, as has been done so often with underperforming product lines by other companies in the past (Al-qadim, Dark Sun, Runequest, WFRP etc*), but they didn't; and this is unprecedented on this scale.
Naturally, as many gamers are born whiners who seem to feel that the world owes them a living, this ain't good enough. WW should continue to produce, at a loss, support product for their favourite game. We should have a long, drawn out end of the world over a period of many years - or perhaps even never - and Mike Tinney (who, let us not forget, actually owns the damn thing) should subsidise this out of the shrinking revenues of his own company. Why? Because, at heart, someone else putting food on the table for their family is less important than my hobby.
Yes, it's a laugh a minute on ol' UKG.
*Yes, I know some have subsequently been picked up by other games companies, but you see where I'm coming from.
The latest topic has two threads: first, whether the Uk should petition the MST to slow down the year of Fire, and second, the validity of polls on a mailing list. Due to general boredom at work, I'll tackle some of the more absurb things I've read there:
The background is that Oz Davis has asked for a vote at the society AGM to petition the MST to slow down the Year of Fire. I can actually appreciate his point, although I disagree with him - the YoF does feel rushed, I'll thought out, and ill-adminstered as a result. I appreciate where he's coming from, and even he is wise enough to acknowledge the essential futility of such a petition, instead the inference that I get from his posts is that he feels this is the only way to register the dissatisfaction of the rush-job that has been put through with the powers-that-be and hopefully to give the membership a better deal next time round. Personally, I'd vote against the measure as I find time too important to waste upon what I consider to be futile gestures, but his motives are understandable and even laudable and I wish him the best.
Sadly, his original request has been siezed upon by somepeople with their own political agenda who seem determined to strip the sense from Oz's basic idea and instead to hop on their own soapboxes.
1) We didn't join an organisation that would reflect the end of the world, we joined one with enormous international links. Half true; we joined a society with international lnks that *also* has the end of the world built in as an integral piece of background. Saying that we shouldn't run the end of the world as it isn't what we signed up for displays a stunningly blinkered view of the game world as presented in the books, and indeed many of the 'Harbingers of Gehenna' plots that have cropped up over the years. To run such plots and never follow through has the same artistic validity as, say, it suddenly turning out that the immortals in Highlander were actually aliens, and that there were lots more of them than you'd've thought from the first film ("You know when we said the end of the world was coming? Well, it wasn't really the end of the world, but just the set up for a sequel. Oh, and all your vampire characters are actually aliens.").
2) That a poll on the list would be nothing more than a reflection of views and would be for no other reason, oh no, not at all.
The fact is that nobody ever asks for an opinion poll on anything if they aren't planning to try and make hay with the results. Hell, I've done it myself, but that experience just makes other people trying it glow that much more brightly under scrutiny. Hilary, thankfully, is far too clever to fall for this obvious ploy (instead preferring to hold valid polls on matters in an orderly and ordered way), and now the argument in favour of a poll has degenerated into 'Let's have a poll, at least it'll shut me up', which at least demonstrates an awareness of the intellectual failure of other arguments in favour.
3) That petitioning the MST would acheive anything.
Let us now be honest. Artistic integrity in this situation is playing a distinctly quiet second fiddle to the bottom line of White Wolf Publishing, inc. The sales of World of Darkness products are faltering and, as Mike Tinney has prevoiusly observed. White Wolf is a publishing company that makes games, not a games company that publishes. They're in this to make money, and putting out a big new edition is the best way to do so.
To the considerable credit of WW, however, they're rounding off the old product line in style. In fact, they're dedicating an entire year in which they could be shipping lots of shiney new product to closing down their old game world - for no other reason than to give people a good send off for their old games. They could have just dropped the line like a hot potato, as has been done so often with underperforming product lines by other companies in the past (Al-qadim, Dark Sun, Runequest, WFRP etc*), but they didn't; and this is unprecedented on this scale.
Naturally, as many gamers are born whiners who seem to feel that the world owes them a living, this ain't good enough. WW should continue to produce, at a loss, support product for their favourite game. We should have a long, drawn out end of the world over a period of many years - or perhaps even never - and Mike Tinney (who, let us not forget, actually owns the damn thing) should subsidise this out of the shrinking revenues of his own company. Why? Because, at heart, someone else putting food on the table for their family is less important than my hobby.
Yes, it's a laugh a minute on ol' UKG.
*Yes, I know some have subsequently been picked up by other games companies, but you see where I'm coming from.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 07:00 am (UTC)That said, my motive as a player for the entire YoF is to be as big a plot spanner as I can be to it...as my brother has observed about players before now: if people feel they cannot fail, they will try to. If they feel they cannot succeed, they will work all the harder.
I'm damned if I'm not going to try and derail the metaplot if I possibly can.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 07:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 10:42 am (UTC)Did your character not teach my character that forbidden Elder Art?
Did we not obtain the newts?
Will your (entirely appropriate) sacrifice go for nothing?
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 10:45 am (UTC)Futility Watch
Date: 2004-01-24 01:48 am (UTC)Oz does raise valid points but on one thing above you're wrong...
"Half true; we joined a society with international lnks that *also* has the end of the world built in as an integral piece of background."
The myth, the rumour, the sense of doom is part of the background, an actual revelations style gehenna needn't ever have been on the cards and, if it had happened, needn't have actually have been the end.
In many ways an 'after' game would have had more appeal and a great many wonderful possibilities.
What we signed up for was an open ended game set in WW's WOD. Now they've decided to end it, fair play, but that's not what we joined which is part of the reason people are upset.
Gehenna might be avertable, it might all be a bunch of bullshit, the signs may be things manipulated by elders to panic people.
You know as well as I that every WW book has an annoyingly different and inconsistent perspective, nothing is set in stone and you have to interpret to an extent for your own campaign.
The myth of gehenna is part of the world, actual gehenna isn't.
G
Re: Futility Watch
Date: 2004-01-24 12:28 pm (UTC)1) To continue to exist as a going concern, WW must continue to sell product. I think that we can be fairly sure that WoD 3rd ed is now not selling well enough to justify continuing to support publication in the long term. Thus a new edition is called for. Bearing in mind the long-term and oft-mentioned flaws with in the WoD setting, the idea of creating a new game world is justified within the parameters of 1a and 1b, below.
1a: They're business people. They are not about the kill the goose that laid the golden egg. The new product line will have Vampires and garou and Mages galore, oh my. they know what people want, now, and they've had 10 years of criticism (some of it constructive) to base the new line on. Thus we may be sure that the new game will be very similar to the old game, with refinements. Thus we will The Cam is dead, long live the Cam.
1b: Your continuing the cam suggestions just don't work artisticly, I'm afraid. Not for me they don't, anyway. The 'day after Gehenna' idea is as valid as adding the extra immortals to the Highlander franchise, and also the campaign world *could* no longer reflect the real world as does the Cam, as I think we can expect the end of the game world as we know it being noticed by the mortal world and reflecting it. A plot device wherein mortals quickly forget gehenna would be as hokey and believable as the mortals forgetting the effects of the Kost King. Less believable, in fact, as Gehenna is likely to be far more wide reaching. Running a day after gehenna campaign would lose the advantage of being able to pull things out of the papers for game purposes - i.e. the atmosphere of a quasi reality that the game possesses at the moment - and as such a lotof atmosphere would be lost.
As for gehanna being just a hoax, this leads to the suggestion of it being *always* a hoax, and the players knowing that, at which point bang goes your suspension of disbelief. If the Players *always* know that any harbinger of the end of the world isn't actually going to be real, then the game loses something.
Re: Futility Watch
Date: 2004-02-05 12:59 pm (UTC)Is dressing up the old tart in slick new threads going to do it?
The ending books have been... a disappointment. No great truth, not even a truly apocalyptic ending in some, no secrets revealed, a bit of a damp squib (though Apocalypse is better than Gehenna so I hear tell).
Is doing the WOD again, only different, going to have the same impact or sell as well as... say.. Exalted or their d20 lines?
What I was saying was that White Wolf could have done the post apocalyptic route, it would have opened up lots of possibilities and changed things a great deal, there was continuity left. Indeed I think that a last 'corebook' dealing with that possibility would be a _better_ ending and a _better_ seller than the actual ending books. Then they could leave that open-ended and player created and move on.
As to the second one, you could play that out forever.
A thousand years isn't that long for a prophecy, or for an immortal.
The year 3000 IS imminent to an ancient creature of the night.
G
Re: Futility Watch
Date: 2004-01-24 12:33 pm (UTC)I think there will always be other games, other characters, and other worlds, and if i don't find them in WoD2, then I will find them elsewhere. However, as I've always said - it isn't the game, it's the players. I know enough cracking players in the Cam to know that if they stay then whatever comes next will be enjoyable to play.
Re: Futility Watch
Date: 2004-02-05 01:02 pm (UTC)The end of the world is NOT part and parcel of the WOD setting.
The _myth_ of the end of the world is.
Is revelations key to how you live your life day to day?
If you played a game set in a realistic dark ages Viking game would you really expect the GM to set off ragnarok?
Some people believe, but by and large they are ranting fools and the signs they point to are explained by other things. Street ranters and people who pore over quatrains are justifiably classified as 'loons' IRL.
As to the players and the structure of the Cam, well, that's a whole other rant and this reset is an opportunity to fix some problems that I hope doesn't get passed over.
G
Re: Futility Watch
Date: 2004-02-06 04:47 pm (UTC)Post-gehenna is the answer that makesa good deal more sense than a pretend one, but that's not a bottom-line friendly, so I suppose it is inevitable that it wasn't going to happen.