töff
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2007-06-01
08:06am
68.127.88.64
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I can reveal a few things so far:- I registered the domain: http://PaleRavens.com.
- The game is set in a skyscraper in Manhattan, probably overlooking Central Park. There's an adjoining clinic (multi-use!).
- Vampirism is a biochemical condition, not a Satanic curse. There is no magic or occult in the game. There are no monsters, werewolves, harpies, frankensteins, ghosts, etc. This is not Dracula Meets The Wolfman, not a free-for-all echo of the American horror-movie industry.
- Vlad Tepes, a.k.a. Dracul ("son of the drake/devil"), was not a vampire. The game history of vampirism will go back into the mists of time, modern fact fading into ancient legend.
- I finally settled on a rating. I figured the genre needs to have a bit more leeway for sex & violence, but I just could not bring myself to throw out the ban on porn & gore (sex & violence taken to the extreme). So the "PG" rating that operates for all M&M games will be relaxed a little bit to "R minus."
- The setting is current-day real-world, but due to an interesting conversation in the Worlde Arcane modship, Pale Ravens will have a unique and flexible canonline that allows stories at different times of the year or century (and maybe beyond). In some ways Pale Ravens is an experiment; in some ways, our other games were experiments leading to this new philosophy. Canon will be a particularly important part of the game, and all play & writing will be subject to conformity review. Because policing is generally difficult, the acceptance standards for this game will be high; "let's give the newbie a chance" is not an operable policy here.
- Every classic vampire trait will be dealt with: either confirmed and explained such as sunlight harming vampires, or debunked such as the turning-into-bats nonsense.
- Vampires can and do walk among humans, even in the daytime. Our lives, and theirs, overlap in many ways. They have careers, families, money, homes, pets. "Vampires are people too." But they do have that thing about being, well, vampires. They keep it secret for various reasons.
- Human blood is the only nutrient that can sustain a vampire. Consider the implications.
- Last but not least, as you can see from the splash page, vampires are far superior to humans. However, because they arose from humans, and live among them, the various factions of their culture suffer from certain conflicts of ethics where humans are concerned.
- The game will have a dual focus of solo & collaborative storytelling.
- Much else will be as other M&M games: probably Discus-based, a nice background/tour area, character profiles for the RP (collaborative) characters, etc.
This is a popular genre and I hope the participation will be robust. |
töff
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2007-06-01
02:57pm
68.127.88.64
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And the FAQ begins ...[ squidberry ]: I'd play a psychic human. Maybe a remake of [previous character].
[ töff ]: no psychics
[ töff ]: no monsters
[ töff ]: no magic
[ squidberry ]: Damn!
[ töff ]: just vampires
[ töff ]: soz, why not kick up [previous character] again if you want [previous character]
[ squidberry ]: why no psychics, they sort of exist naturally
[ töff ]: whatever exists naturally IRL, you can have
[ squidberry ]: Sooo ... psychic?
[ squidberry ]: Maybe I'll look at some other naturally occuring phenomenon
[ töff ]: meh sure as long as it's the same kind of psychics we have here ... which is basically just their word against everybody else's
[ töff ]: it's not as if telepathy or anything has any proven scientific basis
[ squidberry ]: Hmm
[ töff ]: we will have a strong scientific definition of vampirism. This is all to say, in Pale Ravens, the only element of "fantasy" (meaning "something that doesn't occur in the real world") will be vampirism. It will be our own brand of vampirism, clearly described in advance. |
guest
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2007-06-01
03:36pm
85.195.119.14
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Just in a skyscraper and a clinic? That's the whole gameboard? |
töff
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2007-06-01
07:25pm
68.127.122.14
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No.
The RP will center on a community of vampires in living in a skyscraper enclave in Manhattan. Because we can't build an unlimited RP environment, the further you get from that skyscraper, the more difficult it will be for the RP board to accommodate you. We'll likely have scores of individual detailed rooms in the skyscraper; outside the building, we can have quite a few locations around the city. Once you get off the island, geographic-based RP pages will get more vague and generic. By the time you leave New England, let alone the USA, the chances of having detailed RP pages, like for Malibu or Marseilles or Mumbai, are low. We'll see what we can do, but the focus is the Manhattan pack. That is an intentional part of the game design. I suspect it will provide plenty of challenges and opportunities.
But that's only the side for the RP collaborative fiction. The solo fiction can go anywhere on Earth, past or present.
It's rather Einsteinian, really, this new approach to game canon. Space and time are really the same thing, from the player's POV. |
bullocks
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2007-06-01
09:43pm
209.197.163.188
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Outstanding concept and terrific name Toff!
There are a lot of different ideas about what vampires are and what they can or cannot do. I would think (and you have probably done this) have a clear notion of these creatures, their limitations and "superhuman" qualities. I'd love to see what you've got down! A scientific
definition eh? Biology is so much more fun than physics.
Out of curiosity, why Manhattan? Personally I would have thought a post Katrina Louisiana would be more fitting (albeit almost cliché). I guess Interview was always one of my favourite tales of this sort. Prodigy already takes place in the north east and Spiderman claimed that city as his home town. It would be interesting to go South or West... though don't get me wrong here - the city has a great history.
Also interesting... the geographic restriction I get but won't the lack of temporal limitations have the same result as you start moving backward in time? Thinking out loud here... I think you've kinda answered this.
On another note... If you are looking for volunteers to help set up areas and such I would be happy to lend a hand. |
töff
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2007-06-02
10:06am
68.127.122.14
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Glad you like it, and thanks for the offer of help. You are already helping by making comments and asking questions. That's the whole purpose of this discussion page. If/when other needs arise, I will surely keep you in mind and welcome your company.
Why Manhattan, I don't know. I find myself fascinated by the city, mostly from its geography I guess. Maybe I just think it's really cartogenic ("photogenic for maps," and don't try to etymologize it!). I think Central Park is awesome; I imagine in my research I'll learn who ordained it. That was a ballsy move! ... Well, I guess at some point you just have to pick a place. Why NOT Manhattan? Prodigy's a different universe, and so is Spider-man. My second choice would probably be Boston, also extremely cartogenic and rife with history. Heck, I might even move the Ravens to Boston (unlikely but possible).
The geographic "restriction" is less than you think, because it does not apply to solo fiction at all. True, if we want any kind of RP as we know it, we have to group the players into a locale, and that kind means "restriction." But Pale Ravens is wide open to a solo story set in Paris in 1920, or Paris in 2007, or Ulan Bator in 1303 (if there even was an Ulan Bator in 1303). I'm still trying to think outside the box for msg-board design, because we've had geo-based pages for so long, I'm struggling to find a new design that really fits, but that's also non-uber-high-maintenance. But this gameworld will have a strong component of solo fiction, which I hope will mitigate the problems that arise when players have to drop out for weeks on end, leaving their mates stranded with nothing to do.
There's a middle ground between solo and collaborative fiction, a gray area in which for example I can write a solofic sequel or prequel to one of your solo stories. That's collaborative writing but it's not post-trading RP. This is the kind of opening up of writing vistas that I am trying to achieve here. We will all share the same milieu, but we don't necessarily have to post back & forth in a roleplay SL. Whether RP or solo fiction or something in-between, we will all be writing, together, the histories of the Pale Ravens universe.
Which brings me to "time travel" (sorry for the quotes but you said it, and it's a great point). Of course, there's no literal time travel in the game, forward or backward, in case anybody was wondering. But look for example at the Star Trek franchise. They had Kirk. Then 100 years later they had Picard. Then (after DS9-Voyager) they had Archer, 200 years EARLIER. but they made it all fit within the same canon. OK, not the greatest example, because they had serious canon issues and they also had time travel. OK, another example: Star Wars. They had the first trilogy, then renumbered it 4-5-6 and made a prequel trilogy 1-2-3, occurring before the first set. And it all fits.
It's just different stories at different times, but all in the same milieu. Wayfarer is already doing that for Worlde Arcane -- Pale Ravens will have this all-encompassing timeline built directly into the gameworld itself. |
bullocks
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2007-06-03
05:33am
209.197.166.202
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I get where you are coming from with the temporal feel. I began a campaign in Arcane that started in the early spring. We had a few people with and a slow batting order so about a year later in real time we had only moved a few days into the future. I am sure that would have put us well out of sync with everyone around us. As you move further backward in time however things look different physically, culturally, politically etc. I can see what you're saying about players needing to be more sophisticated. "Time travellers" (that's to say in the sense you are using - not Dr. Who types). If you were going back a couple of years there would be no issue, but going beyond that could become problematic. Unlike Arcane - the modern world changes more rapidly. For folks trying to read your solo story it would become very hard to follow where you are going if you are simply skipping things that aren't there in the time you are posting, but should be passing - seeing or playing some other kind of role in the story. It may also cause further confusion if players are adding areas to existing areas but making them look like they did at the time they were posting. Okay, that sounds a little confusing... here is an example...
The mods create a detailed subway system (current and up to date) with each stop having a dedicated area. My hippy eating vampire is going on a rampage in the summer of love. I get to where the Hudson Terminal is in '69 - and lo it's not there, so I add it along with the other stops. I fail to post in the description of that stop that it was only in operation from 1909-71. Now there's a problem because someone might think it is current and use it in their story that takes place in 2007 or prior to 1909.
There are solutions to the problem:
1. Areas (player and moderator) created should indicated when they went up and came down (at least major ones). e.g. Hudson Terminal Subway Stop 1909-1971
2. All existing areas are current. Any noncurrent places should say the date they some place in them... e.g. Hudson Terminal Subway Stop 1969....
3. Players posting outside of the current date must create their own areas entirely for that era (this was done by a cleaver player in Prodigy posting in 1995. 1995 became the 1st area, than the actual building street etc. under that). e.g. player creates the following areas 1969.... Manhattan... Subway System... Hudson Terminal Subway Stop.
4. Moderators create the play areas in layers based upon specific periods Manhattan 2008, Manhattan 1970, Manhattan 1945....
Crying baby have to cut this one short...
1. Am I totally wrong here?
2. Can I play a space vampire (say in the year 3008?)
3. off topic: What is the cause of vampirism (genetic, retrovirus, bacteria, spore) |
töff
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2007-06-03
11:30am
68.127.122.14
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quote:campaign in Arcane that started in the early spring. We had a few people with and a slow batting order so about a year later in real time we had only moved a few days into the future. I am sure that would have put us well out of sync with everyone around us.
Correct, because Arcane--all our games really, some minor exceptions--all operate on the concept that there is one official game time. There's no way parties can comply, quickly getting out of synch not only in day/night but in seasons & years. Then when out-of-synch parties meet, they fudge a compromise. It doesn't bother most people but it's bothered me forEVER and I am trying to create a new system that eliminates all the fudge.
quote:very hard to follow where you are going if you are simply skipping things that aren't there in the time you are posting
The system will have (probably manually per post by the players, as necessary) time marks to indicate very clearly when each scene is occurring. If there are "blanks" or gaps in storylines--whether anything important occurs in there or not--we'll know exactly when they are. And we might later fill them in!
Many players try to keep track of time now, by posting little descriptive comments like "the sun had already past the zenith" and "it was late twilight and the stars had already appeared" or "she woke before dawn and by the sun time sun rose she had a rabbit on the spit." But often such efforts fail even to keep the other party members in synch (bin thar dunit!), and of course in the grand scheme of a whole gameworld their efforts are doomed from the start.
quote:may also cause further confusion if players are adding areas to existing areas ... Hudson Terminal is in '69 - and lo it's not there, so I add it
Right, you are still thinking in geo-based board design (and so am I, but trying not to), which is pretty much our entire experience in M&M. Pale Ravens will not work like that. The board will be a "spacetime" board. How exactly I implement that, I'm still scratching my head, but it will reflect not only place but also time. I'm counting on a lightningbolt inspiration sometime well before 2008. (Of course, I didn't say WHEN in 2008 the game will open. It might be Boxing Day.) But rest assured, there will be no confusion about either where or when stories are unfolding.
quote:1. Areas ... should indicated when they went up and came down
I imagine that will be pretty much automatic if the system is designed well enough.
quote:2. All existing areas are current.
Well, I realized, after I last posted, that I had mentioned RP becoming ever-less-practical the further from the skyscraper you go. I should also have included time in that comment, not just space. The further back from the present you go, the less convenient it will be for the boards to accommodate an RP environment. I hope we can have at least a century or so to RP in, and it'd be a blast if I could take it further ... but at some point the building of a msg-board becomes impractical, at least in the sense of spacetimes wherein parties might unplannedly run across each other because their storylines converge at the same place & time, which is one of Sir William's favorite things about the "old" Worlde Arcane. The further away from current spacetime you go, the more isolated you will be from such a random-encounter game space, and any board that tries to build spacetime without bounds will bloat beyond comprehensibility, or should I say manageability ... maybe both. But if authors want to collaborate in a storyline at West Point in 1782, or in the Yucatan in 1527, well, we could build places on the boards for that ... they would not need to be RP areas as we M&M'ers are accustomed to thinking of them, with various pages for the locations, and characters OOC'ing from page to page. They just need to accommodate those individual stories.
See, I am trying to focus here on storytelling. Stories occur in places, of course, so all our other games have built area-based game boards, and it's worked pretty well. But stories occur across discrete times, too. Due to the party synch concerns, and the fact that Wayfarer opened up new horizons for describing past & future events, it has become clear to me that we need to try something wider and see how well it serves us. It's always been about the stories, anyway. Why were we focusing on space and ignoring time? (Aside, long ago I experimented half-heartedly with switching The LATTICE from area-based to story-based, but it didn't work well, wasn't popular, maybe the time wasn't right, and I really had no idea what I was doing.)
In part as a concession to our M&M RP tradition, we'll have the area-based boards. They're a blast, full of opportunity, gotta love 'em, and the Manhattan skyscraper will be our official identity, the "game-center," in much the same way that the English language has "the Queen's English" or the Bureau Of Standards has that platinum bar that's exactly a meter long. But that's not the overall intent here. The intent is storytelling, whether solo or collaborative, and the RP post-trading that we are used to is one kind of collaborative writing, but not the only one. Those who read or write for Wayfarer (or the foundered Fanfic Arena) know well how the solo fiction works. Pale Ravens is all of that put together.
quote:3. Players posting outside of the current date must create their own areas entirely for that era
Well, if the system works properly, this will not be a concern. On the one hand, the isolation you are looking for, to avoid confusion about the TIME a story is occurring in a particular PLACE, will be clear, because time & place will both be specified for each story. A story in Room 1210 at 8:00am on 12 Mar'07 will not overlap or crash into a story in Room 1210 at midnight on 31 Dec'93. But on the other hand, nothing will be isolated at all, because this is one big canon-based gameworld and everything you contribute becomes part of the whole.
quote:Moderators create the play areas in layers
Right, "layers," I don't yet(!) know exactly what that means in msg-board terms, but that's exactly what I am thinking of, yes. So far in my head I see a 2D system, place & time. Place, however, is of course 3D, so time would make it 4D and that's difficult to represent in a msg-board topic layout. Again, I'm waiting for that lightningbolt ... layers, dimensions, charts, timelines, maps ... they must fuse. I will synthesize something.
quote:. Am I totally wrong here?
Nope, sounds like you are fascinated and brainstorming--that's right on schedule. I'm grateful for your participation!
quote:Can I play a space vampire (say in the year 3008?)
Nope, sorry, the gameworld (except for vampirism only) is the same as our own, incl. up-to-the-minute news. We don't have a future yet, so Pale Ravens won't have one. Everything that happened in our real world, that's the history of Pale Ravens also, except for our characters being spliced in, fantasy icing on the historical cake. You could play (or maybe "write" is a better term!) a space vampire on the ISS in 2007  or on the Moon between 1969 and 1972 ... although his difficulties in hiding his vampirism from NASA or the ESA would be quite a challenge, unless he had a vampire or sympire associate in the administration somewhere.
quote:off topic: What is the cause of vampirism
How is that off topic!? It's caused by a chemical compound. I haven't decided yet whether it's an amino acid, a protein, a mitochondrial variant (very promising if you read the history of mitochondria!), or some sort of weird three-sided ribonucleic acid ("triple helix" would be fun but might not be my final choice). I'm leaning against virus just because it's been so over-used lately. I'm leaning against a non-organic compound but it could be anything from a bizarre plastic molecule to a polymer or catalytic hydrocarbon. I have decided, there's no known "cure," and there's a huge taboo in the vampire communities about even experimenting for a cure, because it could mean the end of their people ... but you know how there's always some rogue breaking taboos somewhere. I haven't given the compound a name yet, either. I'm settling now on its effects on the human body and the stages of vampirism that arise from (need a better word here) "infection." The blood thickens and darkens, the canines extend, the haploid chromosomes disintegrate (vampires are sterile, but not impotent), several skin and bone changes occur, the usual ageing processes are halted based in part on the chemical's effect on telmoeres (vampires are "immortal" in that they don't die from old age, but physical damage [disease or injury] can kill them), the digestive organs atrophy ... mostly over various extents of time, of course, and this leads to quite a few different sorts of vampires, depending on whether they allow or hamper these changes, if in fact any particular change can be hampered. For example: any decent dentist can easily replace the long sharp vampiric canines with false teeth, to give a normal human appearance; any vampire spending a lot of time amongst humans will want this done. Another example: although human blood is the only nutrient that can sustain a vampire, he can still eat and drink food early on, and his stomach, kidneys, intestines etc. will continue to function as long as he uses them. If he gives up eating for long enough, though, his gut will completely atrophy. He can live only on drinking blood; his only method of excretion is a curiously-odored gas and dust exuded from his skin (the really old/advanced vampires have a strong smell, repulsive but not repulsive, kind of like when a vegetarian drools over the smell of BBQ); if he drinks or eats anything other than blood, it'll be as toxic to him as a hunk of raw beef embedded into a normal person's abdomen; if he's lucky he be able to regurgitate it, but otherwise it'll fester and eventually kill him unless he gets it extracted, probably surgically (one very important reason they own their own clinic!). This will all be specified in the official physiological definition of vampirism. Much of it is already clear in my head but I have much more to research and to write. The design of a modern-day vampirism is proving be a lot of fun It doesn't hurt that I've been thinking of it for years, but a lot of it is fresh and new as various concerns arise. |
bullocks
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2007-06-04
06:08am
209.197.168.108
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Re: Time.
My suggestion (for what it's worth) is that a limited area is built around the skyscraper. To start one main street, perhaps one neighbourhood, Central Park and the subway below. Mirror this through three epochs. Say the turn of the century, some mid point (perhaps the '60s or '80s) and the present. So your file trees would begin with an Epoch as opposed to a piece of real estate like they do in Arcane. e.g:
Arcane: Ufaeria>Rondor>Castle>Boudoir
Pale Ravens: Turn of the Century>Manhattan>Skyscraper>Suite 13
The purpose for this is two fold. 1. Players don't always like to create their own areas (can be a distraction), don't always do it so well (most especially if we are talking about real history), and having some standard features adds continuity and history to the game world (story world... what have you). 2. To give a model of what is expected when creating areas - such as the order of the file tree, the amount of detail needed and continuity with other areas in the same epoch. This will be most especially be needed in the beginning and to help players who might be new to M&M and Discus (if that's the system you choose to go with). As an aside - I think the subway would be a great feature as it could give a physical representation of a time line.
Re Vampires:
A chemical mutagan (e.g. Agent Orange one of the most horrible of these), ionizing radiation (most common cause of mutation) or any other factor (e.g. a retrovirus) would not likely change an adult significantly. Much of a adult's body has already formed. Getting pointed teeth from flat ones would be really hard to explain. A vampires mutations are global. You can take a steroid that would make you stronger or HGH to make you live longer, I'm not sure what you could possibly take if anything that could change the shape of adult teeth... perhaps the old ones fall out and new ones grow in - but that would be a profound change on two levels (the change in shape + the falling out/regrowing).
Thus I'm just not certain you could mutate an adult into a vampire without pushing genetics and biology so far you might as well be talking theology or magic (incidentally the theory of evolution ends up doing this... but that topic is for another day). The best possible explanation along these lines would be a retrovirus because those buggers recode DNA in a specific way. With a chemical or something else you not only have to explain how it changes something but how it affects folks in roughly the same way (unless the chemical were to be administered in a clinical environment).
I think the very best, and easiest explanation of a vampire is that it is a genetic abnormality like down syndrome. A chromosomal abnormality could have these effects. Down Syndrome will affect bone development, neural architecture, eye site &c. The problem here though is that it is not as interesting as your idea but more importantly - the only way you get more vampires is by normal sexual reproduction.
One solution might be that vampires are born with a predisposition to vampirism but need to come into contact with something that makes these "mutant" chromosomes go to work. Again though - you run into trouble when your changing adults - particularly when you're talking about changes to bone and brains.
That of course does not mean one can apply artistic license but if you are going to do that you might as well keep the spooky stuff and stay within the tradition... It could also mean that I havn't taken a biology class in more than 10 years and only got a C+ when I did... so I could thus be totally out to lunch. (that's what you get from reading something from a guy that uses bullocks as his handle) |
xerestal
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2007-06-04
06:49am
71.197.84.142
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Fascinating read so far, gentlemen.
The space-time conundrum of the message board got me thinking - if you want to do both co-op and solo play, maybe you might try a sort of dual-message system.
What I have in mind is something like a diary (Raven's Journal?) that accompanies posts - one message addresses whatever is going on in the scene, akin to what goes on in all our other games, while a second, connected message is a 'Journal' entry which addresses the scene - or perhaps unrelated events (i.e. those in a discontinuous chronology) from a first-person perspective.
Of course, I don't know if that solves anything or not, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I had a few questions about Vampirism, but I think I'ma hold off on them for a bit, and see where the current discussion goes. |
töff
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2007-06-04
09:45am
68.127.88.64
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One quick reply to one comment ... more later ...
quote:you run into trouble when your changing adults - particularly when you're talking about changes to bone and brains.
... does not mean one can apply artistic license but if you are going to do that you might as well keep the spooky stuff and stay within the tradition
(I don't recall having said anything about brains. But my own brain is half-shot.)
This is an excellent point, and I guess to convert it to a question, I'd say, "Why are you trying to do it THAT way when all the other vampire iterances (the 'tradition') kinda do it THIS way?" I apologize if that's an unfair condensation & paraphrase.
I have three main parts to the answer. First and by far foremost, it's a matter of taste and vision. Anybody creating something has a certain idea in his head of which way he wants to go. He wants to accomplish some things that maybe other people will recognize and relate to, but he also wants to satisfy his own notions about how his creation "ought to be." In that sense, it comes down to pure preference. For sheer practicality, he might get roped into using an element here or a tweak there that he just can't do without, but otherwise the creator is chasing a concept, and it's that concept that rules his direction and his choices. He will probably answer a "why?" with either a "why not?" or a "because that's how I want it." And anybody else trying to create something will do exactly the same thing.
Second, I don't think the post-pubescent changes in human physiology are as slight as you seem to argue. Mostly they are degenerative, but they are certainly significant. Menopause comes to mind as an excellent example. (Side reference: Larry Niven, in his Known Space series, used late-adult human physiology shifts quite cleverly to explain & describe his Protectors.) I don't think it's that much of a stretch, given a wildfire crashing through your entire endocrine system, to believe that a couple of your teeth could grow longer and sharper, and produce new enamel, over the course of a month or so.
Third, I hope that Pale Ravens in some way will be unique and individual. I definitely don't want "same-old same-old tradition," although there are parts of it that I'll keep just because if I want to have a recognizable and accessible vampire-genre property then I have to have some links to the genre as a whole. But on the other hand there are parts of the genre that I definitely do NOT want, and the best example (we talked about this somewhere else forever ago) is the Satanic curse part. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a zealot of any sort, and I have no religious agenda to press here. But defining vampirism as a curse would be literal proof of the existence of Satan, which in turn is literal concrete proof of the existence of God, and that would have profound implications to the whole game universe: it would throw sociology and physics on their heads, and I don't even want to think about how I could build such a gameworld. On the other hand, making vampirism a chemical-based condition leaves us right back in the real world, and we don't have to worry about metaphysics any more than we already do. Another example: I definitely do not want sexual reproduction of vampires, because it would aggravate the already-difficult notion of why vampires don't just decide to conquer the human world once and for all ... if they could make their own little baby vampires, they'd see humans as food sources only, not as the sole source of more vampires. The symbiotic (okay, parasitic!) equilibrium would be damaged, and the game/drama dynamic would suffer.
I think the definition of vampirism that I am pursuing, in specific detail, will lend to a point of view of what it's like to live as a vampire, which honestly I haven't seen much of before. I want to nail down the specifics and develop a culture that players and writers can feel at home in, with a lot of rich single points that can be exploited for storytelling and atmosphere. Each point is like an ingredient in a dish. I'm trying to cook up something that everybody will find delicious. I hope people will say, "You know those Ann Rice books are kinda okay but I didn't really get into them, and Innocent Blood and After Dark were kinda cool views of vampires too but meh whatver they didn't blow sunlight up my skirt that much, but Pale Ravens, you know, those vampires are just really awesome! That's more my style of vampire than the others." Yeh, I know, that's what all creators hope for. |
töff
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2007-06-04
10:40am
68.127.88.64
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quote:through three epochs. Say the turn of the century, some mid point (perhaps the '60s or '80s) and the present.
Not enough! I want ANY time, ALL times. I mean, I do not want to try to quantize certain windows of time that are open for story writing, because all other times would be closed.
quote: your file trees would begin with an Epoch as opposed to a piece of real estate ...
Pale Ravens: Turn of the Century>Manhattan>Skyscraper>Suite 13
It is proving to be a daunting task, reconceptualizing a storyboard into 4D.
I can almost see it in my head, but what I see requires me writing my own msg-bd software. I don't think I have time to reinvent the wheel.
I am still waiting for that lightning bolt. |
töff
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2007-06-04
10:43am
68.127.88.64
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quote:your file trees would begin with an Epoch as opposed to a piece of real estate ...
Pale Ravens: Turn of the Century>Manhattan>Skyscraper>Suite 13
See, that is 2D: place and time. It really doesn't matter which comes first. In fact I'd like neither to "come first"; I want a grid (ideally, a graphic time-proportional grid). Lemme knock out a quick sketch and maybe it'll lead to a spark, if not a lightning bolt. |
töff
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2007-06-04
12:57pm
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Champagne dreams on a beer-time budget ... I envision a system that maps all activity in 4D gamespacetime.
Wouldn't it be cool if we had a main board like this:
And then if you clicked on any active story, it would give you an expansion maybe like this:
Of course, individual characters would be marked on such timelines, too.
*sigh* Yeh right ... Discus really can't do this ...
And anyway, the space dimension is reduced from 3 to 1 there. Not to mention a few other weird problems, such as, how does a single storyline fit into multiple pages ... what does a "page" represent, anyway, if not an area? I said before I want STORY pages rather than area pages ... but what if 2 two stories intersect? as RP is wont to do!
See, this is really requiring a total overhaul of the way other M&M games work. I have to be careful or I'll think myself into a corner and not be able to find the way out. |
töff
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2007-06-04
12:59pm
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Ooops, LOL, canon issue. How could they go to the clinic in 1871 when the clinic was founded in 1931? Hahhaha what n00bie made up THAT timeline! |
töff
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2007-06-04
01:04pm
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This does bring up an idea that's relatively clear for me already, though. I figured in reviewing ("policing") storylines, if a canon issue arose, I could just tag it for repair, like Wikipedia tags various articles for things they need improved, kinda like:
- [CANON] The Clinic doesn't exist before 1931. Suggestion: Ariel goes to a private physician instead?
The author(s) would have first crack at repair, of course, but if something went too long without a fix then maybe somebody else could hop in and patch it into shape. |
töff
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2007-06-04
09:25pm
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I think a lightning bolt might have struck nearby, re 4D story & character tracking. I'm going on an investigation, and maybe another bolt will hit me while I'm there. Unfortunately it involves some graphics generation that I don't know how to do. But it's worth a look, you know, in that thought-experiment sort of way. I might come back with a fried scalp and a grin.
Xer, please go ahead and post your questions re vampirism. |
xerestal
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2007-06-04
10:58pm
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Okay - what about Vampirism as an STD? Or is that too close to Vampirism through sexual reproduction? |
töff
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2007-06-05
09:37am
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LOL! An interesting thought! Problematic in a few ways ... First, though vampirism as a biochemical concern does tend to suggest a pathology, I am hoping to express the condition from the vampire POV not as a disease but as a zoological/evolutionary superiority (albeit the various factions will have different interpretations of this concept). Second, I don't think I want to base the game's central component on something tantamount to gonorrhea or AIDS; that would taint the whole atmosphere with both sexual-morality taboos and unpleasant thoughts of poor hygiene, not to mention lend to all kindsa jokes about garlic condoms! And thirdly, I do want to keep the "vampire bite spreads vampirism" tradition, which implies saliva as the only bodily fluid that vectors the condition (although now that it's chemically described, they can spread it intentionally in other ways); a bite is nearly a kiss, and vampires have that whole seductive aspect going on, which I hope to keep, and which is how I ended up having them sterile but not impotent. Good question though, and LOL again! Though I decline, I think it would be a totally valid way to go, and I don't think I've heard of it anywhere else before. |
bullocks
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2007-06-05
08:03pm
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Re Time:
I don't think our general views on time are too far apart Toff - I think the biggest difference is the visual component. Behind the scenes (if we were to use Discus or something like it) would it really be that different?
I think I may not have been very clear on epochs. What I had intended to do was lay out what the game would look like on day one based on the current Discus system which uses file trees. Players could of course add epochs and real estate as they liked - but there still needs to be something to work with. It would simply be impossible for you and your moderators to describe every place on earth at every period of time. Conversely, if you just had a small section Manhattan in 2008 laid out it would be no different than Prodigy without the rule about pocket dimensions. Further, if you are going to use Discus (or anything like it) you need a filing convention. You can't let one person post space (e.g. Paris>1700 and another person 1900>Paris) or the board is going to quickly become a confusing mess.
One thought - could you lay out a time line like the world map in Arcane? When you load Arcane you get a map with links to established areas. Could you paint a time line and have folks click on the blips to get to where there are established areas to post in? It could not be as detailed as you have described without a lot of updating which with yet one more game on your plate would be awful demanding.
In any event.... sounds like you are onto something so I don't want to distract you from it with any more ramblings. Last point... I think that relying on policing and/or frequent updating is not such a good idea. Self-sufficiency would be a better target. I have not seen policing work terribly well in any M&M game except in a very few places (perhaps only one).
-----
Onto Vampires....
I think old Xer is going for an X rating... har-har! Serious X, I think Toff is going for a more conventional vampire transmission method (like a bite) - though a retrovirus like HIV might still be a good cause as it changes DNA.
It is always easier to break something than to fix or improve upon it. I can't think of too many things that can happen to an adult that make that adult physically better - most especially globally. I could take steroids to help out my workouts for example and thereby become stronger. PCP also makes muscles contract with greater strength. Both result in inhuman strength but only to a point. PCP nor a steroid will increase bone mass proportionally with muscle strength. The result is that, at some point, bones will snap under the pressure of the contracting muscle. Thus just to increase strength in an adult you need two positive changes. If you want to increase the speed of reflexes or improve upon the sense of smell you have to change brain and neural architecture. A dog does not have a better sense of smell just because he has more receptors in his nose - the area of his brain that processes scent is much larger than our own (vision hogs all the space in human brains). This lets the dog not just register more chemicals but also distinguish them from each other. A dog does not smell a stew like we do - It smells each individual ingredient. This is not because his nose is picking up many more scents than our own but because his brain can distinguish between the scent of each individual ingredient where ours cannot. So to get a smarter, stronger, faster human with improved senses takes a lot of explaining... unless of course you want to leave it at a much less detailed level.
I had a couple of options you might want to consider:
1. A secret chemical compound with a history dating back to mummification rituals in ancient Egypt, S. America, the Ireland... &C.
2. Puberty is the only example that I can think of as something that creates positive changes in bone, muscle, brain &c. Perhaps the compound in 1 triggers a second puberty (or something similar). Of course it could only work on those who have this already in their genetic code - perhaps all humans do - perhaps only some. CS gas can trigger a woman's cycle so the is perhaps a precedent here.
Just an aside though mute because sexual reproduction is repugnant in this context:
1. Mutations are rare - there would never be enough vampires to take over the world
2. Vampires keep their own populations in check - too many blood suckers would expose them and threaten food supplies
3. Women stop producing eggs at puberty. Once a woman turns 40 her eggs have been so exposed to things that harm them that the probability of a birth defect jumps from 1 in 2000 to 1 in 200. This increases exponentially as a woman ages. What would the probability of viable offspring be at 400? This assumes as well that sexual organs don't rot away like her other bits
4. Who the heck would want to be king of Gaza or Iraq? Being king of the world is great title but a rotten job - just ask Mr. Damocles
So let's here a bit more about what these blood suckers of yours can do? Can they see in the dark, turn over tanks, weeble and wobble but not get knocked down. Do they live forever or just a long time? How do they pull this stuff off.... e.g. If they see better in the dark do they have a tapetum, or just more rod cells and bigger eyes? |
bullocks
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2007-06-05
08:13pm
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That was a horrible post... I wrote half of it before I left for work this morning and the other half after I put Emma to bed... Hope it makes sense!
I should have added a bit about the bite! Perhaps the bite is a finishing touch. A vampire's bite could be like that of a komodo dragon or gila monster - its teeth are chalked full of nasty bacteria. It is the bacteria that provide the final touch to the compound. It could be spat into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients but the act of the bite is part of a ritual that is part of an inherited memory along with the compound. An interesting story might be an underground pharmaceutical company seeking this compound. Rather than traditional vampire hunters or slayers running around with stakes you have scientists with note and cheque books (Buffy could look sexy in a lab coat right?). |
guest
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2007-06-05
10:34pm
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(Hmmm... seems my account croaked at some point. It's been a while)
Posted by Evan:
Innnnteresting...
Firstly, as cool and exciting as these musings as to novel and multidimensional board structures are, I can't help but feel upon reflection that such overcomplicates the situation to the point of unfeasibility. Not in theoretical terms - theoretically it's supercool - but in the practical terms of a human being with finite time (or even a group of them) actually implementing this. Get too ambitious and the whole things baloons into a pipe dream that never actually happens. I've certainly made that mistake myself.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you don't have the time to actually implement something that epic, do you?
I think the best feasible solution to the board architecture issue is to simply use story-threads rather than area threads. So a thread might be, "The conspiracy to assassinate Doctor Samuelson, February 1973", or "The rise of the Vincetti family, fall 1932". If two storylines collided, then they could be merged, with the exact details determined on a case by case basis (plus, of course, characters from previous storylines etc. could wander in and do a a quick cameo appearance in a given storyline). You get pretty decent functionality without recreating the wheel. Then you could have an all-important Timeline page where anything that happens in a given storyline and would likely impact future storylines would be clearly noted. "1931, November: Clinic officially opens", "1942, October: The Ragozi family line is driven into extinction for their heinous crimes. Rumours of a lost heir unsubstantiated", "1853, June: Carlos von Strauff establishes behind-the-scenes control of local newspapers", etc.
Not as cutting-edge or fancy, but it would do the job and more importantly it's easily achievable. Plus, story-threads (or story superthreads with internal location threads, or however you work it) would foster a focus on story in the sense of salient plots that come to a climax and conclude, rather than a general character-stories bouncing around running into eachother melting pot.
Let me say that I very much do enjoy the area-based architecture of our existing games, and that it leads to a sense of having a shared world (or Worlde) in a way that story-based can't duplicate. However, I don't think a location-based structure can handle the unique demands of what you're proposing. As cool as having the board architecture based on the building's physical geography would be, I honestly don't think we can have our cake and eat it too on this one.
Finally, I think your Wikipedia-style policing strategy is definitely the best way to handle continuity. |
guest
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2007-06-05
10:57pm
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Evan again.
Bollocks' last post (pair of posts, I suppose) came up while I was typing mine, so I hadn't had a chance to read them. Yeah, that initial timeline (storyline) layout thing is kind of what I'm going for, although I still feel the time/space 4D organizational grid is kind of stabbing oneself in the hand needlessly.
Also, I agree with the points on biology. Unless we're going for really soft sci-fi, some random mutating agent isn't going to be able to effect changes on the scale we'd be talking about. You would either need:
A) A dormant set of genes in the human genome that would activate these changes when triggered by some more simple agent in the bite (I love the second puberty metaphor here). Why is it there? Did mankind evolve an extra life-stage at some point in our distant evolutionary past that eventually became vestigial and dormant in our modern genes (unless triggered, of course). Did we interbreed with another (vampiric) human subspecies (or an alien species?) in prehistory, leaving some of their genes imbedded uselessly in ours until triggered? What about fossil evidence? I suppose it isn't totally unfeasable that nothing of this would have survived, given the existing gaps in the record... or maybe there'd be something to justify this in the anthropological literature - I'm no expert. Or,
B) The transformative agent, even if not a virus, would have to be something deliberately designed for the function. We're constantly being fascinated by ancient cultures performing feats that would be difficult even with our modern-day science (pyramids, etc.). Is ancient and forgotten bio-engineering absolutely out of the picture (a bit of a stretch, I know, but more biologically sound). Or,
C) It's something that couldn't just blindly happen, but there it is and nobody can actually say why. Characters can argue rival viewpoints about dormant genes, intelligent design by a deity, alien meddling, ancient bioscience, sheer unimaginable 'lucky chance' or any of a million other crackpot theories, but there's simply no way of proving them. We know what the agent is, and how it effects human physiology, but nobody knows how such an unlikely thing came to exist. |
xerestal
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2007-06-05
11:38pm
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quote:I do want to keep the "vampire bite spreads vampirism" tradition, which implies saliva as the only bodily fluid that vectors the condition
My second suggestion/question was: what about Vampires injecting venom into people they wish to 'turn'?
Of course, there are a lot of other, better-thought-out ideas flying about at the moment, so I'll just sit back and be quiet for now. |
töff
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2007-06-06
06:57am
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If by injecting you meant the bite, then yeh I am really hoping to keep the bite. Sorry I missed that comment from you. Of course, now that they know how it works, they can use syringes too ... maybe even a little droplet in a Coke & Rum ... or maybe even spike a girl's lipstick (probably not--it's a poor vector). But there are many options that lead to some delicious scene opportunities.
Of course, turning is a serious matter, and most enclaves will have some laws & oversight about it.
Don't let "ideas flying" intimidate you into silence, Xer.
I'm trying to catch up on a lot of points here.
Hi Evan, glad to see you again |
töff
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2007-06-06
07:07am
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Re timeline, I begin to think that no "msg-board structure" such as Discus's tree heirarchy is going to have any semblance of practicality for this multithreaded canonline. It's pretty clear in my head what those threads represent: action, across a span of time, in one or more places, with one or more characters. But I have no NAMES for such threads, no way to title them singly. Numbering them would look stupid. Naming them by place and/or time is no good either, because places & times can change. Naming them by character is no good because the characters come & go in each thread. I begin to get a clear vision of how the 4D gamespace will look, but a lot of details are kinda just missing.
And the system to represent the game space graphically might be beyond my abilities; or should I say more precisely, beyond me to find the time to learn to program it. I did start looking at PHP though.
This is about STORIES first and foremost, whether rp-type or solo or inbetween. But all the stories have to fit into the same world. And I've never seen any really snazzy convenient system for displaying and exploring the stories that exist in any particular fictional universe. I can't even find a prety StarTrek timeline ... and look at the quillions of manhours that have gone into that franchise! |
guest
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2007-06-06
05:06pm
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Posted by Evan:
quote:Hi Evan, glad to see you again :-)
Ditto. Thanks for the heads up. I guess you knew that the prospect of a new M&M game with some novel ideas on storytelling would be just the thing to draw me out of my cave.
quote:But I have no NAMES for such threads, no way to title them singly. Numbering them would look stupid. Naming them by place and/or time is no good either, because places & times can change. Naming them by character is no good because the characters come & go in each thread.
Would organizing and titling them by plotline/storyline not work here?
Now, desplaying all the important canon information is indeed the tricky bit. I don't think there's really an answer other than old-fashioned elbowgrease. Franchises like Star Trek keep their consistency because writers are required to really do their homework - made easier by the fact that such stories are produced (in realtime) one after the other, rather than simultaneously as we're trying to do here. I think the best answer is a detailed and meticulously updated (and frequently referenced) timeline briefly listing all major events that have taken place in game.
I'd like to toss in one more biological explanation for vampires. I just thought of this, so I haven't had a chance to flesh it out yet - bear with me. Different creatures on earth have widely differing lifespans, and a mathematical connection has been found between generational length of a given species and the age at which they die of natural causes. This has lead to a theory that living things have genetic programming that deliberately causes their cells to break down at a given age, so that the process of natural selection is not railroaded by a bunch of still-healthy parents hanging around when the next generation reaches sexual maturity. In theory, there's no external reason why a human being's body has to break down any sooner than, say, species of tortoises that can live well into the triple digits. Maybe even the most long-lived of species are genetically programmed to break down before physics and biochemistry strictly require it. This theoretical genetic aging-trigger is the target of a lot of research into extending the human lifespan.
So, what about building an idea of vampires around people who simply lack this trigger and carry on living for generation after generation (whatever the vampiric agent in the bite was, it would deactivate this particular genetic sequence). In theory, even if the triggered aging was forestalled there would be some unavoidable deterioration in the human body. One could likely justify deterioration such as an increasingly finicky digestion system (leading to the need to injest human blood, where the nutrients are already broken down and formatted for delivery to the body's cells), and an increasing sensitivity to light/UV radiation. Meanwhile, the body would continue to improve in some ways, such as an immune system stregthened by a century of antibodies. Without significant degeneration of the brain, people could keep getting more and more knowledgable and efficient in their thought processes, leading to mental faculties that would seem almost supernatural to those of a human lifespan (what happens when you study hypnotism for a century or more?).
If the bodily systems inherent in puberty were somehow reactivated by these changes, such a second puberty could potentially explain things like changes in muscular systems as well as going through the process of replacing baby-teeth all over again (this occurring in an adult-sized body resulting in some unusually shaped teeth), etc.
I haven't had time to go over the ins and outs, but there could be something there. I think this can explain pretty much everything we need - unaging, blood-drinking, sun-avoiding, moderately superior, fanged humans. The only thing I haven't explained is the transformative agent itself - explaining it as a virus would be easy, but given that you don't want to go that route some other toxin that kills a couple genetic sequences might be viable. |
bullocks
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2007-06-07
06:10am
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That's good stuff Evan! I am going to need some time to processes it - but at on a first read I like it... pressed for time this am.
re Time:
How would this scenario be posted:
SL1: Romance: 2 player story. Time: 1912-1914. Location: Newfoundland. The story involves a romance between a female protagonist ( a vampire) and her mortal lover. The male protagonist is being shipped overseas to fight the Germans. Vampires can be patient - but the vamp worries he will be killed and offers him her "gift".
SL2: Action/adventure: Solo Story. Time 1914-1918. Location: WWI Western Front - Allied Trenches. The story is an adventure and involves the complexity of concealing a vampire's identity among the dearest of comrades.
SL3: Romance: 3 players. Time 2008. Location: Manhattan. The male protagonist in SL1, SL2, SL3 is searching for his long lost lover (from SL1). The story is about immortal love standing time and separation.
So how could this be posted and make sense? |
bullocks
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2007-06-07
06:13am
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Sorry... one thing more. The stories are concurrent - with hints and flash backs between SL1,2 and 3. They have to be read together to make sense. |
töff
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2007-06-07
07:22am
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I still think I am pretty much married to the chemical-compound idea for vampirism, but I gotta admit you guys are throwing some innovative stuff out here.
Man, I am really falling behind in reading & responding (surprise surprise). Thank God I have the weekend off. |
guest
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2007-06-08
02:13pm
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Posted by Evan
Okay, Bullocks, here's my crack at how to present your example multi-pronged storyline.
Firstly, as the storylines have to be read together to make sense, my suggestion is that the overall story be presented in the order in which it's meant to be read. So, let's say we want to open with the male protagonist arriving in Manhatten in SL3, then flash back to a scene in SL1, then continue to flash back and forward as we move through the scenes. I'd suggest that all three interlinked sub-stories be organized within a master story-thread (Named "Undying Love" or what have you). Therein it would probably be best to have a series of chapter-threads, each one in a given time/place. For example you'd start with Chapter One, call it "The Seeker, Manhattan, 2008" or whatever, and play through as much plot in that time and place as feels appropriate. Then play moves to the next thread, Chapter Two ("Bittersweet, Newfoundland, 1913", or whatever). That plays out for a while, then we move on to the next chapter, set wherever, and continue jumping about from chapter to chapter until the story's told.
Now the fact that one of the storylines is a solo throws a bit of a monkeywrench into this plan, as you'd have one or more players sitting out during the SL2 chapters. You could always have the other player(s) take on alternate characters as the protagonist's squadmates or what have you so that they can keep playing during those chapters. Alternately, if the player really does want to write SL2 solo, it could perhaps be a side-story independent of the chapter structure, or SL2 flash backs could be incorporated into the SL3 scenes.
Generally speaking, there shouldn't be a fixed format for telling this type of stories, other than the basic story-thread scaffold. Rather a number of examples would be provided, and players could build story-structures based on the needs of their particular story. Write in the order that the story should be read would be the basic guideline. That's my idea for how to handle this type of thing, in any case.
If the board's archetecture was to be based on a location-tree that also included time as a dimension, I guess you'd need to have links between space/time threads suggesting what order a story should be followed by a reader.
Toff: Could you tell me more about the biological mechanics behind this 'chemical-compound' idea? If we're going for a scientific, non-supernatural explanation for vampires, there would need to be a better explanation than "there's this compound, and it just does that to people". Otherwise it really just boils down to it happening by 'magic', and if we're taking the easy out of a pseudo-magic compound, why not just go whole-hog supernatural? |
bullocks
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2007-06-09
05:10am
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If you silo stories into one heading - e.g. Undying Love, you run into some problems. In a Discus based system we are all familiar with this creates two main problems with multiple effects. 1. Players are forced to create all of the play areas and 2. There is a tacit implication that the stories are being run by an individual.
1 is a rather serious problem I think from the standpoint of a community.
a) You drive a stake into the heart of any organic development. This is a story that grows out of the talents and personalities of players and characters who just bump into one another by chance. It is really common for players not to have a story in mind. A bunch of them gravitate to some common place (e.g. 7 Oaks Inn in Arcane), a conversation strikes up between individuals and a story blossoms from that. P1 "A dragon ate my family boo-hoo", P2. "Bad turn gov. Too bad, I'm just a tracker - now if we had us a dragon slayer we could get some payback", P3 "Yar, did som'un say they be need'n a dragon slay'ed"...
b) You give up any history or continuity in the world when you silo everything into the heading of a story. If the first thread in a story is its title than there can be no pre-existing threads. I am forced as a player to describe every area. Other players are not building onto threads unless they are part of the story they were created for (e.g. the threads created for Undying Love cannot be used in Manhattan Meltdown). If I am describing every area myself (or with a group of other players in the same story) than I am in fact creating my own little reality. If what happens in my story will have no ripples in other stories than I should be free to write about whatever I want. I don't really need an outline at all. Why limit my story to vampires? ... This is an interesting idea unto itself. A place players could post their own stories in their own worlds free from any direction except a rating (e.g PG, R, X whathaveyou)... but off topic.
bi) Related to the above... Prodigy takes place in one city. When I add to that city by creating a new thread it builds onto the place. It provides an opportunity for a new story, offers inspiration and direction. The world grows with each new thread this growth creates continuity and a history. That is a horrible thing to sacrifice. P1. "That's swell you guys offering to help, but we don't have any dragonsbain. We'll get smoked!". P2, "I knows just tha place to go for that!", P3, "Yar and I be know'n where to score us a dragonlance for to tickle the ruddy beast's belly yo-ho! Dragons-R-Us be we bound mates!".
2. If stories follow just one title, there is an implication of authorship. If the author leaves the game, the story might also be lost. This is likely to be the case. I start with an idea and this will likely centre around my character. You may join my story, but if it is my story, begun about my character you are going to have to think about how that story will run if my character drops out of it. P2. "P3, Why were we huntn' this beast again?", P3"Yar, far to help that young fella who fell off a cliff back yonder"...
I suggested earlier that the mods set up three main epochs with pre-existing areas in each. These would give a place for organic growth and development and to serve as templates. Now this layout escapes the problems above but runs into others that may be worse still. Think what happens if the posting frequency between the players in each story differ? You would have three file trees with multiple threads in each. Trying to follow my three stories would be like watching the film Reservoir Dogs in five minute intervals with a week between each interval. Imagine now if other players start using some those threads for their own unrelated stories! You would end up with a file thicket rather than a tree.
Toff's solution avoids the problem in both cases if he has the mechanical support he is looking for (and he get hit by the bolt of lightening). |
töff
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2007-06-09
10:18am
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Semi-random un-proofread replies to snippets ... I'm still not caught up ...
quote:could you lay out a time line like the world map in Arcane? When you load Arcane you get a map with links to established areas. Could you paint a time line and have folks click on the blips
What I hope to do is (a) finalize the vision for this 4D map, for which I feel I am close but just not quite there yet; (b) program a system that draws player-provided data from the stories (time & place marks) and create a custom map on demand by generating graphics that display whatever time from start/end points & place at whatever radius from a centerpoint that the visitor requests. It's still very much a champagne concept.
quote:It could not be as detailed as you have described without a lot of updating
If I program a 4D map generator, it will update itself. the primary concern would be getting players to make sure their spacetime markers are in place (easy to do, but you know how people don't comply! but if they saw their own storylines fludged on the map, maybe they'd go back and update their posts), and make sure everybody is in canon (which is partly spacetime, but much more too). As an aside, I hope people don't get scared by the canon concept. It's really not remotely as scary as it sounds. I have to find a clean way to describe it.
quote:epochs. What I had intended to do was lay out what the game would look like on day
In this sense, we can easily have a historical page for any location. That will suffice. The Clicnic? Founded in 1931, here's a pic & floorplan, then in 1976 we had this radiology wing expansion, then in 2002 after 9/11 we opened the Environmental Illness Lab. Here's a list of founders and associated physicians over time, here's the latest floorplan. This is the classic 2D approach, where we pick a PLACE and make a page for it, and then describe it across TIME. The challenge here will be breaking places into subplaces in some logical manner.
quote:don't want to distract you from it with any more ramblings.
Meh. Me like 'em rambles.
quote:relying on policing and/or frequent updating is not such a good idea.
Excellent point! I don't wan this to become "the game you can't play because it's too hard to comply."--and I don't think it will be. Our canon problems in other game arise from a lack of coordination and accessibility of info. The 4D map will help a lot, which updates itself. By "policing" what I hope to do is just read every post on the boards as the stories play out (something I've not been able to do even in our other smaller games, but now I have a strong reason to make a better effort), and maybe even develop a "canon hotpoint registry," an index that people can refer to for summaries of particular story elements that really pose the potential for screwing up storylines, which I suspect will be few, but who knows. I know this game cannot be high-maintenance; that would kill it; it would fall into unrecoverable disrepair in discouragingly short order.
quote:retrovirus like HIV might still be a good cause as it changes DNA.
It will defintely change DNA but I am rejecting anything disease-related. One of the ironies of Pale Ravens will be the fact that the humans have always thought of vampirism as a disease or a curse (it's neither), and they've shunned and hunted vampires as super-taboo-type deviants; vampires, on the other hand, who get the other side of the story after having turned (LOL it's all about POV!), understand that they are not sick and they are not cursed, but rather "evolved" (not in the mutational/generational Darwinian sense; I know what the word means, need a better one) into SUPERIOR beings. On several points, they are just better than humans: stronger, smarter (this idea is in development), longer-lived ... sure they have their limitations and concerns, but they are just higher forms of life. Where the vampire-chemical is concerned, there can be no hint of "disease"--it can't be a virus or even something considered endosymbiotic, it can't be a living or even semi-living thing. At best somebody might call it a poison, but poisons damage, and the end results of vampirism are not damaging, they are beneficial ... from the vampires' POV, of course! because humans don't understand what it's like to be a vampire and few would choose it intentionally (I think I would, if the longevity portion is in play).
quote:I can't think of too many things that can happen to an adult that make that adult physically better - most especially globally
Well, remember, this is fantasy! I'm no biochemist, and even a (modern) biochemist could not build a real compound that causes a person to become a vampire, even along the semi-believable lines I am envisioning. That said, if I have a chemical compound that affect various body system, including DNA and hormones etc., then global changes can occur, or at least shall I say, changes can occur in any portion of the body, which gives global scope. We see it in cancer, obviously; also in various physical traumas where body pieces or brain peicesare lost and the body compensates; also in medical conditrions such as the thing I saw recently about Yao Defen, a Chinese woman who has a tumor on her pituitary gland and her bones and heart and skull are still growing--she's now close to 8ft tall (and she's not unique), and if growth and shape-shifting (you should see the shape of her face) is not "change" then I don't know what is. We even see it in repetitive-stress syndromes, which can bend spines for example. I don't think the adult body settles into immutability as significantly as we'd like to think. I hope to describe the physical changes in terms believable enough that a newbie reading the Intro might say, "Wow, I dunno if that could really happen, I'd hate to have my canines lose their enamel while the root & pulp grow, and then have to grow new coverings over a period of 6-8 weeks ... but it's not that far-fetched, it makes sufficient sense here in a vampire game. Heck, the dentist put enamel-formation encourager on my teeth last week in real life." And anyway, ever heard of stem cells? They just made some adult cells exhibit stem properties in a lab this week. Stems cells can become anythying. There is more possible thant we know, "know" meaning knowledge, the Latin word for which is science (okay, that means thought, what's the diff?), and this specualitve vampire chemical is not constrained by the bounds of modern science--I just have to make it sound believable with reality, not within "can a scientist do that?" but within "can an affected human body do that?"
quote:you have to change brain and neural architecture. A dog does not have a better sense of smell just because he has more receptors in his nose
Agreed completely. Will do.
quote:chemical compound with a history dating back to mummification rituals in ancient Egypt
Interesting! *thinking* \quote {Puberty is the only example that I can think of as something that creates positive changes in bone, muscle, brain &c. Perhaps the compound in 1 triggers a second puberty }Yes yes yes this is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about, yes!
quote:Of course it could only work on those who have this already in their genetic code
Not if the compound in question is the sort of chemical, say a (fantasy) amino acid, that can alter genes. I think this part is indispensible. It's the only way to explain (partially anyway) some of the changes ... and plus, it closes the door on a vampire ever becoming a normal human again.
quote:Mutations are rare - there would never be enough vampires to take over the world
I envision most vampires trying to live "underneath" human society. There might be some world- conquering idealists in the vampire ranks, but humans and vampires alike are scared of such vast changes, and this one would be irreversible, and remember vampires can only feed on, and make more vampires from, humans. If vampires took over the world, they'd be directly responsible for maintain the human race as an agricultural animal ... and if the survival of your whole species rests on it, that's a scary thought! especially if the animal seems to be living pretty well so far on its own. Why risk it? Better to try to ensure world pease and stop the nuclear arms races, and cure AIDS, than to assume the burden of artifically managing a natural asset that you simply can't live without.
quote:what these blood suckers of yours can do? Can they see in the dark, turn over tanks, weeble and wobble
Nobody can see in the dark vision requires light. Can they see beyond the human-visible spectrum, maybe into infrared? I dunno, not decided, I don't think it adds much. But they will be superior in some significant ways, yeh. Turn over tanks, no. Win just about any fistfight, oh yeh. On my TO DO list is to go through each traditional vampire "ability" in history, and either explain it in offical game terms or trash it as myth.
quote:Who the heck would want to be king of Gaza or Iraq?
Not me, but obviously many historical figures would. Power hunger is a well-known human trait. I'm sure that trait is present in vampires. One of the fun things in development will be to take some historical figures and mark them as having been vampires of one sort or another. Rasputin, maybe? Qin Shi Huang? Achilles? I already decided against Vlad.
quote:That was a horrible post
I thought it had tons of great stuff!
quote:Perhaps the bite is a finishing touch. A vampire's bite could be like that of a komodo
To keep the bite (dunno why I want it, but I do, it seems quintessential), the chemical has to be present in saliva (I reject snake-like injector glands & hollow teeth). But beyond that, I think the turning of a human into a vmapire, which I mentioned previously would be controlled by various social & legal customs, would be a semi-religious experience. It would almost be like having sex, and conceiving a child, although rather than a couple of parents and an embryo it's a vampire and a "victim." And just as child-conception can be done in a lab, so can vampire-turning ... but it just ain't the same, is it. I think the mysticism and ritual of the event will lead to wonderful scenes. I don't think any of the current vampire properties have ever played this up sufficiently. They always had it more like a guy and a girl in the back seat having sex, excuse me "making love" hotly, and the act itself was the focus, but the consequence ... "Billy Bob, I'm knocked up" ... was a side effect. I think such scenes should be full of seduction and passion and a bit of fear and a lot of heavy breathing. Of course, you can always get a 2-minute quickie up against a dumpster in a back alley, too. I'm a romantic, but also a pragmatist.
quote:its teeth are chalked full of nasty bacteria
NO DISEASE! That's how HUMANS think of vampires. Vampires are an oppressed minority.
quote:An interesting story might be an underground pharmaceutical company seeking this compound. Rather than traditional vampire hunters or slayers running around with stakes you have scientists with note and cheque books
Oh yes, yes yes yes, good good! Absolutely! (But be careful not to smack too hard of Kolchak The Night Stalker.)
quote:(Buffy could look sexy in a lab coat right?).
I think she could look sexy in or out of just about anything ... except food. Sex and food don't mix for me. I guess we are each into our own things.
quote:multidimensional board structures are, I can't help but feel upon reflection that such overcomplicates the situation to the point of unfeasibility.
Maybe. I might cut from champagne back to a decent red wine. I could do it now as Schlitz ... but .. why would I?
quote:Get too ambitious and the whole things baloons into a pipe dream that never actually happens. I've certainly made that mistake myself.
Yes yes, I am quite worried about that myself. I'm pondering and ruminating, and keeping in mind that the thing actually has to be done it it's ever to get, well, done. I am making it sound impossible, and I am trying to figure out how to make it possible.
quote:you don't have the time to actually implement something that epic, do you?
I hope to. We'll see how clever I am. It won't ever be as super-awesome batmobile as I'd like, but if I can actually get in running, in significant percentage of the vision, then I'll call it a success. You guys are helping a lot here.
quote:use story-threads rather than area threads. So a thread might be, "The conspiracy to assassinate Doctor Samuelson, February 1973",
That's how I am leaning, with the one big concern being, how do you title a story at the very start? In RP, stories tend to drift & merge & split & flat-out tangentialize. My only solution to this is to allow title-changes after the fact, and that might get a bit confusing, but it's as far as I've got. For solo fiction, of course, it works fine.
quote:"1853, June: Carlos von Strauff establishes behind-the-scenes control of local newspapers", etc. ... Not as cutting-edge or fancy, but it would do the job and more importantly it's easily achievable.
That might be all I am capable of. We'll see. I am still aiming higher for now.
quote:I very much do enjoy the area-based architecture of our existing games, and that it leads to a sense of having a shared world (or Worlde) in a way that story-based can't duplicate
I was hoping to have a synthesis of area-based and story-based, but that just ain't gonna happen without splitting the board in two. I don't want to divide this house against itself.
quote:I still feel the time/space 4D organizational grid is kind of stabbing oneself in the hand
It's infoporn, which is my latest addiction, and I think it will really serve a purpose here. Imagine (forget my last graphic), you go to a page and say, "Show me all the events in the skyscraper from 1900 to 1910" and the system makes a map of that place for that timespan. Then you can "zoom in" to 1908 exactly, or even 3 Feb 1908. Or you can display "The skyscraper, Suite 1212, from 1805 to 2007" and see all the storylines that have crisscrossed through it since it was built until now. I think it would be a really sexy cherry on the sundae, and also a wonderful tool for new players to join existing stories, or find places where they have room to write new stories. And while I'm on it, another serious concern I am facing right now is how to display 4 dimension son a 2D picture. I can display 3 dimensions, with clever transparency and oblique vanishing points ... but that amounts to a flat map projected up through time ... tough, for a skyscraper!
quote:A) A dormant set of genes in the human genome
I kinda think I don't want anything in the human genome that might be discovered. If it's in there, it can be found and studied at leisure by any genetics lab. It's just not controlled and hidden enough, if it's in every human. It would be a viable way to go, for some other property, but my own taste says no.
quote:not a virus, would have to be something deliberately designed for the function.
Yep, that's the idea. I've been reading about chromosomes and genes. Man, it's really complicated. A weird new protein is looking like the way to go. It's not yet decided.
quote:It's something that couldn't just blindly happen, but there it is and nobody can actually say why.
This is how many people view life itself, which is irreconcilable with the "law" of entropy. To many, that constitutes proof of God. I don't want to get into metaphysics. I don't want to infuse the game with a lot of arbitrary paranormality that we have to keep up with. The ONLY speculative element here is the vampire chemical (okay, and the vampires who result from it ... and their syscraper. And the clinic.) Everything else is just the real world. We should all be comfortable with that.
quote:Characters can argue rival viewpoints about dormant genes, intelligent design by a deity, alien meddling, ancient bioscience, sheer unimaginable 'lucky chance' or any of a million other crackpot theories, but there's simply no way of proving them.
That's real life. Exactly. There it is.
quote: I don't think there's really an answer other than old- fashioned elbowgrease.
Certainly some such grease is necessary, yeh. No way around that.
quote:Franchises like Star Trek keep their consistency because writers are required to really do their homework
But they have a lot of inconsistencies. The worst is the "Transporter/replicator tech can resolve any conflict" problem that I complain about all the time. Others are just weird little things that make no sense and would earn a Wiki-style fixit note.
quote:a theory that living things have genetic programming that deliberately causes their cells to break down at a given age ... the vampiric agent in the bite was, it would deactivate this particular genetic sequence).
Promising! Point me to an easy article about it? That idea might best answer the agelessness.
-STOP- I must say I just now(!) turned on a Nova episode I TiVo'd, and it's talking about epigenetics. *FASCINATING!* I'll see if I can find an online link; I think Nova webcasts. This is EXACTLY what I am looking for.
I'll continue later. |
bullocks
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2007-06-10
07:43pm
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Wow!
And Toff wanted to avoid the metaphysics because it could get complicated???? Epigenics less complex? I'm on dialup and missed the Nova program, but did a bit of reading. Couple of questions... 1. Are you sure this will apply to adults and not just zygotes (at least at the level we are talking here and sure enough to be workable here? 2. The changes would have to be a) positive and b) affect multiple systems - you think this would work?
quote:Well, remember, this is fantasy! I'm no biochemist, and even a (modern) biochemist could not build a real compound that causes a person to become a vampire, even along the semi-believable lines I am envisioning. That said, if I have a chemical compound that affect various body system, including DNA and hormones etc., then global changes can occur, or at least shall I say, changes can occur in any portion of the body, which gives global scope. We see it in cancer, obviously; also in various physical traumas where body pieces or brain peicesare lost and the body compensates; also in medical conditions such as the thing I saw recently about Yao Defen
We are still talking pathologies and not positive changes. It's easier to break something than to fix it. Thus a global positive change is going to be much harder to explain than the cascading effects of a disease. Your example of giantism is a good one - sure there are changes, but like menopause few of them are beneficial. Giantism is deadly disorder and Yao will die as Andre the French Giant did. Cardiovascular systems, muscle, bone can't keep up with the growth. Giants end up needing walkers because they can't support their own size and their hearts fail to keep adequate pressure.
This seems to me to be pointing toward a deliberately crated compound rather than a natural one. A bit from column A to increase muscle and a bit from column B to add bond density. In any event, I can't wait to see what you come up with. You are a true genius my friend!!!! |
bullocks
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2007-06-12
08:15pm
209.197.161.207
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We love as though we know not
better. A trick, biology, it claims
more worthy selves and gentler aims
and still this doom is ours. We sought
late wanderings and soft light, dim,
and then the first embrace, the touch
as if those hands were all the world -- for such
their beauty seemed; he carried gods with him.
And these loves, so celebrated, sung
so painted, danced, idolatrized, these scenes
are but the tantrum of our genes,
which we their slaves embellish -- strung
like puppets, till they break their strings
and all that's left are our imaginings.
- Old Song And Dance K.Speirs
Read this on the subway on the way home and though I would share it |
guest
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2007-06-15
07:53am
129.69.229.78
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This is from Kensei/Duke/etc., I can't for the life of me remember the account name I had here, nor the password, and I can't find the email that specified it from my lab.
So, first of all, it's a great idea, Vampires, a different concept, no supernatural/religious waffle.
I do have some comments:
- Scientific explanation: Do not imagine this will make anything more simple. If anything, creating a BELIEVABLE explanation will be much more difficult.
I have a few suggestions/comments:
a) Vampirism should have a base in the human physiology, and should be quite specific to humans, or else you could make non-human vampires. This goes in line with the idea that it is already pre-coded into the genome, it just doesn't break out normally.
Vampirism as a chemical should trigger things that are already present in the human genome. After being triggered protein agents like hormones will be created that cause the changes in the physiology. The changes could be at least partly due to genes left over from our animal heritage. Canines, stronger muscles, more acute senses of smell and hearing suggest animal heritage. The blood deficiency will have to be explained another way. Perhaps the vampire actually becomes incompatible with his own blood, and needs a resupply from other humans? That would make the need for blood rather dramatic, because from early on the new vampire will just die if he does not get more human blood. Perhaps the blood is not really necessary as nutrition, but as a means of keeping the physiology running?
I suggest not going too deeply, but this seems like the most simple explanation that is just remotely believable.
b) What do Vampires need from human blood that is NOT in the blood of other animals, or could not be replaced with a synthetic product? Is it hemoglobin, do they become unable to produce red blood cells, or something entirely different?
Can drinking blood be substituted with blood transfusions? You have to think about how the critical substance in human blood can actually get anywhere to feed the vampiric physiology. If the vampire's stomach atrophies, where does the blood go after it is swallowed? (From my earlier ideas, if the blood were not the actual food component this problem does not arise.)
c) Why should only saliva transmit vampirism? If you want to have it that way, I suggest a gland, or at least a modification of existing glands, perhaps one that used to produce digestive enzymes.
I have a few more thoughts, but I've run out of free time for now. |
guest
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2007-06-15
11:09am
64.230.44.11
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Kensei: There's a separate sub-thread for discussions on vampire physiology, in which there are some posts that might interest you.
-Evan |
töff
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2007-06-19
01:16pm
71.137.158.75
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Mary had a lamb
his eyes black as coals.
If we play very quiet, my lamb,
Mary never has to know. -Evanesence |
Kensei
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2007-06-25
04:56am
129.69.229.78
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Evan, after finishing the post I saw the "Vampire Physicality" thread. Doh. But thank you. |
xerestal
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2007-06-26
02:29pm
71.197.84.142
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I didn't mean to hurt you, boy.
I didn't mean to break you. Oh
Uh oh.
I didn't mean to hurt you boy,
But this is how it's done. - The Vincent Black Shadow, "House of Tasteful Men" |
bullocks
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2007-07-19
09:15pm
209.197.167.66
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I would be curious to see how the game space is laid out. Is there just one contemporary period that is flushed out (e.g. buildings, trees, etc.) and players establish those areas as they would have existed in other period themselves? If that is the case, will players have any access to administrative controls allowing them create their own permanent areas (such is given only to moderators currently)? Will players running solo have any way to physically restrict access to their story (e.g. through a closed message board) or will curtesy and rules protect a solo-writer's work? I am still thinking Discus here.... That is the system being used right?
Am I asking for a spoiler of the "big reveal"?... If you haven't guessed I was the kind of kid who hid out to watch for Santa!
Last question... Has much thought been given to audience and marketing? |
bullocks
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2007-07-19
09:53pm
209.197.167.66
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Last ramblings....
I think a few important "NPCs" (for lack of a better word) could help establish the culture and "world" (excessive use of quotes... yes I'm being lazy)....
Bankers: One sure fire way to catch a vampire might be to follow its paper trail. An active bank account in the name of the same person stretching over 100 years might raise an eyebrow or two at the IRS... if for no other reason than a likely case of identity theft. Even moving accounts around would still create a trail. It would help if you had a Vampire's Credit Union or Bank of the Damned.... These guys could help shift money, investments and property titles around. Money lending also factors in life expectancy, you could have a lone stretch over 100s of years.
Forgery: Hand-in-hand with the above would be master forgers able to create documents needed for a vampire's daily life... How would a cop see a young spry looking vampire with a driver's licence that states he was born before the civil war?
Doctors: Vampire physiology would make for a funny face on an x-ray technician.
Entertainment: How would this change with the immortal demographic? Unless there was a vampire baby-boom or catastrophe at some point I would think it more likely that there were more vampires from the past than the present. It has been my experience that most people prefer the entertainment they grew up with (you don't see to many seniors rapping). Ballet and opera have been with us longer than hip-hop... so it would seem that we would see more vampires at the symphony than the disco. |
töff
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2007-07-20
09:01am
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quote:how the game space is laid out. Is there just one contemporary period that is flushed out
The current concept is a two-fold environment: an RP side that has the Manhattan skyscraper and surrounding areas, built like M&M's current gamespaces, with AMPs and message pages; then, a story-based side that focuses on traditional fiction, not threaded across area-based message pages but written in standard prose. The latter's primary utility is for solo fiction, but collaborative fiction is also possible, and if the collaborations split into different scenes then that's where it begins to resemble the area-based RP of the former. The trick will be to build a system that facilitates both kinds of writing, and whatever's inbetween. The system concept is still evolving in my head. Currently my thoughts are centering on a scene-based heirarchy.
As for the fleshed-out areas/periods ... the thing is, what we have to realize is, the line is blurred between (on the one hand) storyworld background & definition, the "fixed" descriptions, and (on the other hand) atmosphere & props & stages that exist in traditional fiction as part of the text stream itself, integrated by the author amongst the plot elements (which is not easy, IMHO; writing's hard).
So, yes, there will be defined gamespace, and perforce it will be limited (can't build an infinite gameword; believe me, I've tried!). But the storyworld system itself will lend to the creation of new spaces, not as we know them now, like a "Tavern" page with a subpage for "Rooms Upstairs," but as an open field that encourages writers to take their characters and stories anywhere they need to go, not bound by area-based PBP pages.
quote:will players have any access to administrative controls allowing them create their own permanent areas (such is given only to moderators currently)?
Probably not if we use Discus, because every player would be a mod then. But consider the previous concerns.
quote:Will players running solo have any way to physically restrict access to their story (e.g. through a closed message board) or will curtesy and rules protect a solo-writer's work?
Yes they will, and the precise mechanism is not yet determined, although I lean more toward a simple courtesy rule. The canon concept will come into play also, because in one way of looking at it, nobody's story is "protected" if we all share the same world, but in another way of looking at it, the world is big enough that isolated events can occur, and that amounts to protected storylines. Bottom line, yes, solo fiction is welcome, and by definition that is "protected" because it's solo.
quote:I am still thinking Discus here.... That is the system being used right?
Probably. It's what I am most familiar with, and contains many wheels that I'd rather not reinvent. Like most things, devil's in the details.
quote:Am I asking for a spoiler of the "big reveal"?
Nah, you know me, I'm not a big surprise-popper. If I were, I'd never have made this forum.
quote:Has much thought been given to audience and marketing?
No. Audience, a little: the vampire enthusiast culture is large, and I hope to learn more about them (well, I guess I should start saying "us") and make Pale Ravens known as a place they are welcome to participate in ... which I guess is marketing, but marketing is one of my weakest suits and if any serious marketing is to be done it will have to be via the hands of a lieutenant. |
töff
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2007-07-20
09:28am
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quote:think a few important "NPCs" (for lack of a better word) could help establish the culture and "world"
Surely there will be some established characters, yes, as part of the storyworld launch. In Worlde Arcane we call them "LPC's," a term I invented to put a handle on a concept that I can't claim to have invented. Yes, we will have many characters in the storyworld definition! I have several in mind. Characters are a dime a dozen, and worth their weight in gold. They are the heart of any story or storyworld. They are our windows and tickets into that world. We will have (just like in our other storyworlds) more characters than we can handle.
quote:to catch a vampire might be to follow its paper trail. An active bank account in the name of the same person stretching over 100 years might raise an eyebrow
Part of the storyworld will be an overview of the continually-evolving techniques by which vampires manage their long existences. The simplest trick of course is periodic identity change: you become your own son; your father is deceased. There will surely be other tricks. A brainstorming session ahead of time would be helpful. Any identity thieves amongst our player population? Come forth!
quote:Vampire's Credit Union or Bank of the Damned
The skyscraper and clinic already represent this concept: that vampire enclaves will have built their own portions of "The Establishment." There are probably a few international banking outfits that cater specifically (probably not exclusively) to vampires. I figure the world vampire population is a few million, spread through almost every eddy and rivulet of civilization. The enclaves (the skyscrpaer is one) are the "nodes" wherein vamps come together for mutual support of all kinds. That will include banking in many forms.
quote:Hand-in-hand with the above would be master forgers able to create documents needed for a vampire's daily life
Oh sure. Remember, this is REAL LIFE. Forgery is commonplace. Remember remember remember remember remember remember -- if it exists in real life, it exists in Pale Ravens. You name it, vampires are involved in it somewhere. Heck, maybe one or more of the Popes was a vampire.
quote:Doctors: Vampire physiology would make for a funny face on an x-ray
Yep. Living secretly is a HUGE challenge for vamps. I envision factions that want to end the secrecy and just go ahead and take over the world and keep humans as food herds. The storyworld will have an established major majority of vamps that is holding to the tradition of secrecy, even with its complications and difficulties. Mentioned before, a vampire gets run over by a truck in the street, rushed unconscious to the hospital ... you can see the hazards.
quote:Entertainment: How would this change with the immortal demographic? most people prefer the entertainment they grew up with (you don't see to many seniors rapping).
You don't see ANY seniors more than 120 years old. I bet any 200-year-old could eventually tire of the same old Joplin rags and decide he likes Kelly Clarkson and Evanescance (I like them; and I'm 42 and grew up with Wings and Kansas). This is an individual character-design decision. If you want to have your guy stuck on 18th century opera, that's fine. Many people are. (I also love Brahms & Praetorius.)
quote:Unless there was a vampire baby-boom or catastrophe at some point I would think it more likely that there were more vampires from the past than the present
True. But there is a turnover rate. Eventually death finds us all, and new vampires are being created regularly. |
bullocks
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2007-07-21
03:58am
209.197.168.114
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Wow!
Good stuff Toff, I see there is a good deal you have worked out already. This all sound really interesting. Thank's so much for taking your time to answer my questions.
Cheers! |
bullocks
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2007-07-24
08:24pm
209.197.160.5
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Does anyone know of any really good gothic/horror pbp freeform games out there that are still active? Alas, Aeturnus Noctis seems to have closed its doors and it seemed to be the best that I found.
One element of Aeturnus Noctis application that might be applicable here is minimum lengths of character descriptions. They wanted a 6 para minimum writing sample for example. I thought that was good idea in terms of securing commitment to the game and full character development. You write 500 or 1000 words about your character just to get in the door and you have exhibited a commitment in time at the very least! Minimum numbers of words or paras in character descriptions also weeds out weaker players. Imagine if you had to give a 3 paragraph physical description.... eyes blue, hair black, wears black trench coat just doesn't cut it! |
guest
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2007-07-25
06:54am
155.232.128.10
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Oooo, that sounds wonderful! Need to think about if I have time for it but it sounds very exciting! |
bullocks
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2007-08-24
11:10pm
209.197.168.67
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I guess this is all worked out but I have been visiting other boards lately - just to see how other folks run things. One thing I did note is the number of dead horror genre games out there. Actually, there are a lot of games that have come and gone - but this one area does seem to have suffered. I was trying to make a couple of notes to see which ones were more successful and determine why.
Size: It seems better to start small and grow. Games that are too spread out geographically do not permit for communities to develop. If one group of characters is in Africa and the other in North America - they may never meet up. It seems to me the joining of characters together in stories forms relationships between players and it is those relationships that keep players coming back. Kind of like being married rather than casually dating. Its easy to walk away when there is no personal commitment.
Game world perimeters: One thing that always got me down about Prodigy is that there is no story behind it. Play a hero or a villain or something else. Here's a fun city, now get out there champ. How are supers looked on by the public? By the media? What makes a super a super? Compare that to Arcane or the Lattice... They have a past, a present and a future can be built on that. I can build my character into that history and that makes me part of the game. I feel like I'm contributing to the world rather than just floating.
So where am I going with this?
Pale Ravens runs the risk of being too large. Players can post anywhere any time. This means that players will, by in large, operating in isolation. Sure I can post in different times and therefore places at the same time - making the world a bit smaller, but that requires more work. 2 time lines = 2 stories. That's a lot of posting, just like having 2 characters. Think about it this way. If I have time to write 400 words a week and I have one story taking place in 1914 and another in 1941 than I only have time to devote 200 words in each story a week. That's not so bad if I am flying solo in one, but still that story is going to start to drag if I am filling my obligations to a story that involves a few other players who are counting on me to keep up the pace some place else. It will be an interesting experiment to see if the solo story aspect works. My fear is that it will not create the communities that create the commitments to the game that sustain interest in that game.
The other concern I have (only based on what has been developed here and thus could be premature) is a huge amount of effort going into the mechanics of a vampire, and very little comparatively going into the world itself. The scientific aspect is interesting but the stories evolve not from the atomic structures but from the interaction of players in the environment. An undefined environment does not draw people into it. The word vampire will make some people come, but there needs to be a hook. A realistic vampire just does not seem to me catchy enough. There needs to be a rich game world. Arcane is just such a brilliant example that way. There are histories and cultures, relationships- things that players read and want to be a part of, to build on. A healthy number of NPCs to serve as archetypes. Established clans, cultures, hierarchies denote the kinds of relationships that might or could exist in this alternative reality. I think there needs to be some structures with respect to how individuals react to one another. Just because the story permits for real history, does not let you off the hook from explaining the ripple effects of this twists in real history would have. What would the world be like if physically powerful, long lived creatures walked the earth? How much different would the world be if there were creatures that lived longer? Imagine if Einstein lived to 400 - how much more would a mind like his have been able to accomplish? How much more harm would have been done if a guy like Hitler could have escaped his fate? The world would be a much different place with real vampires in it. I think its important to lay that out. There are a thousand different approaches that could be taken and if you just leave it up to the players to make up completely as you go along you end up with inconsistencies that could become fatal... like building a house or going on a long hike without plan. The point is that there needs to be something in the game world, some kind of hook to really get this thing started and to draw people to it. I just don't see describing how the enzymes function in a vampire's stomach is going to cut it.
Again, this might all be premature and there might be lots of stuff going on I don't know about, but it is an honest opinion from one player's perspective. |
töff
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2007-08-26
03:49pm
69.236.137.176
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The focus did begin heavily on physicality, didn't it. Everything else you mentioned, I am intending to address, yes yes. And I think we've made such progress on physicality, I'm about ready to call it a wrap, really, and get on to other things. |
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2007-11-09
07:50am
144.147.1.66
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CPT Rose here . . . .
Sounds like a blast, Toff!!!
I am looking forward to it. |
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2007-11-23
02:39pm
86.133.247.137
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Hi Toff, its Rotgut from Worlde Arcane. I would love to give a helping hand but not entirely sure where to start. To be honest the whole vampire physicality section is little technically explicit and the level of detail, akin to medical textbook, turned me off reading it. However I can be relatively creative and am somewhat of a history buff so I might be able to help with culture, history, clans, family groups etc. I am little unsure where to start, is there anything I can particularly help with? |
töff
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2007-11-23
08:22pm
69.238.18.180
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Short answer is SURE.
Longer answer is, well, I'm not close to opening the thing yet, so obviously the framework is not in place to accommodate anybody with the sort of fully hosted participation that I hope to offer in the "ready/open" version. But there's no reason why you cannot come on in and help me nail up some boards and run the electrical wires through the plumbing. That assumes you have a grasp of the storyworld's aspects, which I'm not confident you can get from this pregame discussion ... but maybe there's more laid out here than I realize. I begin not to be able to distinguish between what's been written & said, and what I thunk up alone in my head and never communicated to anybody. That's a difficulty for me. But I digress.
The middle & best answer is, what do you want to do? I'd guess, build a character, is the place to start. Maybe you want to build an enclave. Or ... I dunno, what jazzes you? There are a LOT of ways that writers can add to this storyworld!
I started building a character, John Danner. Much more in my head than is online yet. But that goes for everything in the storyworld.
Yeh, the physicality got hairy here in the Forum, granted. I can say three reasons why, as if they matter. But it will be a small part of the game background: there if anybody wants it, but mostly easily ignored as long as the writers comply with the broad outlines. I'm sure most stories would have little to do with the details of physicality. |
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2007-11-26
03:10pm
86.133.247.137
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Rotgut again:
I am currently thinking about creating a British vampire (I would make a very poor American one as now next to nothing about NY) though I haven’t decided whether to have him in the skyscraper (the main enclave) or create a separate enclave. What I was thinking was suggesting a enclave fronting as a large 5 star hotel near JFK which is home to a foreign consortium (English, French, German, Italian) of vampires who represent a fair more conservative side the vampire society back in Europe. Possibly with the intention of re-establishing some form of lose control over the US ever since they were driven out by the Americans in the civil war. I like the idea of having vampires secretly manipulating history and possibly having major human events actually caused by Vampires. Its proximity to the airport will mean most of its guest a invariably short stay and wont ask to many questions and they will be able to leave the country easily and smuggle things in too. Well I will think on it
I may just make a enclave in a hotel anyway though as it makes sense. You can feed at your leisure and hotels are active at all hours of the day so no one will wonder why you might be wondering around at night. |
eyvind
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2008-04-11
03:20pm
91.149.6.200
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Any hint on when PR is getting released? We're already in April, *nudge nudge*.
Any updates at all about it? |
töff
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2008-04-12
10:48am
69.236.137.122
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guest
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2008-04-17
07:57pm
74.38.220.140
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Ahhh, the waiting is killing me. |
guest
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2008-05-04
09:21pm
68.237.169.133
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Hey--
This is CPT Rose, Toff!! I sent an email, too--but can you get me my registration information so I can hop back into this!!
Thanks, Brother!!!! |
CPT Rose
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2008-05-20
08:42pm
68.237.169.133
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Good to be back on the boards.
Now I just need to read . . . a lot!!
I am so looking forward to this!! |
töff
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2008-05-25
02:48pm
70.162.68.116
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Hey Toff....it's Sharon (Elysion) from WA.
I would be interested in having a character in this set up when you are ready. I have read all the posts so far on PR and there is a lot to think about, different concepts for me, I have written Vampires for 13 years with a friend of mine...and some of the stuff resonates...other parts are different...but hey I am all for writing change...its how one develops.
Keep me posted XX |
töff
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2008-05-27
09:12am
71.137.158.28
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Oh THAT Sharon, LOL, I was wondering who just posted in the Fanfic Arena.
Of course you are more than welcome to join us in PR, if I can get the durn thing launched. Heck, I haven't even posted for Mursh for like a month-plus. |
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bullocks
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2008-06-27
10:13pm
209.197.166.240
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How do vampires fit into the storyworld? If I told you Sally, who works the night shift and sits in cubical next to me, was very nice but I couldn't date her because I thought she was vampire would you...
a) walk away slowly and try to avoid eye contact
b) note your honest agreement
c) give me a detailed history of vampires and VEC and tell me I have nothing to fear because Sally is bovinetarian
d) start wearing garlic cologne and hang a cross in your cube when you work nights
e) try to get Sally to bite you
Would your answer change if it was asked in a different time period? |
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2008-06-28
01:15am
71.197.84.142
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Random aside - For another interesting scientific take on vampirism, I recommend Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. |
töff
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2008-06-28
08:33am
69.106.132.214
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Knowing what I know about vampires, My answer would be E, definitely! It's the best available ticket toward immortality! But the answer depends entirely on whom you ask. I'm sure you would hear all those answers and more.
quote:Would your answer change if it was asked in a different time period?
Absolutely. In medieval Europe, most people know that vampires are real, but they mistakenly believe them to be Satan-cursed humans, or maybe demons rather than humans. In modern times, the majority mistakenly believes that vampires are myths ... thanks in no small part to efforts by the vampires themselves! See "agno."
quote:bovinetarian
LOL! Excellent idea! (But she would have health problems from not ingesting a long list of human-blood-only biological substances that I have yet to reasearch and compile ... if possible. See the history of John Danner.) |
bullocks
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2008-06-28
01:10pm
209.197.167.220
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Thanks Toff!
So there are people who know that vampires exist and there are even those who seek to become them -or at least recognize their strengths. |
töff
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2008-06-28
01:22pm
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Sure. See "sympire" for example.
Vampire hunters, obviously, know about vampires also. |
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2008-08-15
05:55am
159.182.38.8
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Hi there! I'm waiting on a login, but until then I can't wait to start yakking. I haven't played on M&M for aaages, but I'm very excited about this game.
I was wondering certain things though, and while I've tried to be thorough in reading all the FAQs and posts, please excuse me if I ask a question that's already been answered.
I've seen gameplay described as both collaborative and solo, and that there will be that building in Manhattan as a detailed gaming space. And also that there's room for writing about past events. Are we allowed to "game" in the past with multiple people? The character I'd like to play was written for modern day, but I wouldn't mind taking her back a couple centuries, or playing an original character from 18th center Nawlins, for example. Is that possible?
Also, I've been trying to keep track on what's decided about vampire physicality. Is there a running list of what traits vampires will/won't have? ie, Enhanced strength, senses, etc. |
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2008-08-15
05:56am
159.182.38.8
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Hi there! I'm waiting on a login, but until then I can't wait to start yakking. I haven't played on M&M for aaages, but I'm very excited about this game.
I was wondering certain things though, and while I've tried to be thorough in reading all the FAQs and posts, please excuse me if I ask a question that's already been answered.
I've seen gameplay described as both collaborative and solo, and that there will be that building in Manhattan as a detailed gaming space. And also that there's room for writing about past events. Are we allowed to "game" in the past with multiple people? The character I'd like to play was written for modern day, but I wouldn't mind taking her back a couple centuries, or playing an original character from 18th century Nawlins, for example. Is that possible?
Also, I've been trying to keep track on what's decided about vampire physicality. Is there a running list of what traits vampires will/won't have? ie, Enhanced strength, senses, etc. |
töff
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2008-08-15
06:47am
70.235.225.59
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quote:writing about past events. Are we allowed to "game" in the past with multiple people? The character I'd like to play was written for modern day, but I wouldn't mind taking her back a couple centuries, or playing an original character from 18th century Nawlins
Yes, you can write in any era, from prehistory to the current hour. (No future, sorry).
What does "multiple people" mean? Multiple characters? Yes because there is no character limit in PR. Multiple players? Sure, of course.
NB: If your character is not a vampire, she would not survive from the 18th century to the modern day.
quote:vampire physicality. Is there a running list of what traits vampires will/won't have? ie, Enhanced strength, senses, etc.
There is ... probably not as concise as it should be. Let's call it "under development."
The main list is / will be here.
See also myths. |
guest
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2008-08-19
01:18am
92.40.97.101
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I love the POV stance of Pale Ravens. As mentioned above Matheson's stunning final chapter brings this to light wonderfully. I thought there were many great things about the film, but even before I saw it I knew they would shy away from his ending, which of course negated the 'true' meaning behind the title. He had become the monster preying on society (the norm), its all about POV.
I'm slowly catching up with a years worth of posts on this forum, but I think I have most things covered. Something that keeps creeping into the back of my mind is the length of post. Pale Ravens seems to suit a more leisurely/detailed story-telling (novelistic almost), where peoples posts would be longer than average with lots of internal thoughts. No way (or need) of enforcing this, but I feel the rapid RP posting that can sometimes occur would detract from the emphasis on story-telling that Ravens seems to extol.
Petra |
CPT Rose
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2008-08-24
03:27pm
96.229.201.127
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Hey, Toff!!
I have registered for a character . . . now back to reading . . .
Looking forward to this!! |
töff
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2008-08-24
04:29pm
69.229.118.138
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I knew it was you! Congrats on another promotion. Where's your ceiling, man?
Wow, we have several writers on board and we're not even open yet. Next week after Wayf 31 goes out I'm gonna commit some serious time to PR. |
CPT Rose
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2008-08-25
08:47pm
96.229.201.127
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Sounds great!!
I am actually showing a buddy the whole site now . . . Ah! Recruits! |
töff
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2008-08-25
08:52pm
69.229.118.138
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Just remind him we're still under construction! We open on Hallowe'en. |
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2008-09-08
06:16am
159.182.38.8
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I'm not sure exactly where I saw this, and I'm very lazy to go searching for it, but did someone mention playing a vampire in an enclave roosting in a 5 star hotel that would play host to international vampires? Because I think that would be a great idea, and there are a few players/characters I know who could use that. Is this still someone's plan?
-Raye |
töff
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2008-09-08
09:04pm
69.237.91.20
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guest
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2008-09-10
11:29am
76.24.219.156
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Oh yes, it was Rotgut! I really do like that idea, if he's still planning to go through with it.
And by the by, has anyone seen True Blood on HBO? It's a vampire show that just aired. They "come out of the coffin" in America after the Japanese perfect synthetic blood, which satisfies their hunger with no more need to feed on humans(though of course the option is still there, and feared). There's a Vampire Rights advocacy group and everything.
I'm not a vampire fangirl myself, but the show is really good. I like some of the touches they threw in, like calling sympires (especially ones who love to be bitten/sleep with vampires) "fang bangers", and the concept of vampire blood being consumed by some humans as a sort of drug, which supposedly makes one feel healthy and vital, and since it's HBO they also suggested it improves one's sex life.
Of course in this setting, they don't talk about whether it's a curse, biological condition, or what (or they have yet to), but so far the vamps in this show are dead, have retractable fangs, super speed, can't go in the sun, and are incredibly weak against silver - one is pinned to the ground with only a length of delicate silver chain draped over his wrists and neck. This was the method of restraint used by two drug dealers who are "vampire drainers", who sell pints of vampire blood for tons of dough.
Ain't that interesting?
-Raye |
CPT Rose
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2008-09-21
06:25am
96.229.201.127
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I am trying to work through everything on posting. And, of course, trying to developed a relatively fleshed out character . . .
This is gonna be fun!!! |
töff
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2008-09-21
07:37am
68.127.120.115
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Yeh look at this and tell me what you think. |
CPT Rose
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2008-09-21
08:25pm
96.229.201.127
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Yeah, I am trying to use a wiki (www.pbwiki.com) for my 4E D&D sojourn with my Wednesday night crew. It's working pretty well.
I am not so much intimidated by the postings as just making sure my PC is legit, on the up and up, and fits in with the overall vision of the website. (You of all people know how I can be with just following the rules and what the history of the setting is!)
But, I think I am on to something and will be ready to make him up sooner than later.
I am taking a different approach than others that are up, but it should provide some interesting places and times to post in the scene-based format.
Looking good!! |
töff
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