[Maina]

I believe it’s been mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but Nova has indicated that the type of RP matters also. Power-seeking RP vs mundane RP.

If your RP with the higher tiers was mundane in nature, it may have decreased more slowly.

[Maina]

I spent four or five hours in a scene with a t3 that was mostly 1-on-1. It was in public, but nobody else lingered beyond walking through. Have engaged in other shorter scenes and interactions with them before and since. Still at Invitation 0.

Also done a lot of 1-on-1 RP with monsters, which are mechanically t5. Not sure if they’re exempt, but have not been punished for it.

I can’t speak to daily private interactions and how fast those might increase it, but I don’t think there’s justification for avoiding t3s entirely based on Invitation alone. Casual interaction does not seem to be a problem, at least. Again, can’t speak to being besties.

Just don’t want people thinking that hitting 10 is inevitable from interacting with t3s at all. You can definitely RP with them!

[Maina]

The auras are IC. All parts of them. From the old forum’s launch thread:

Making someone’s moral tier a specific IC lore concept with a name and description and letting everyone else see what it is makes it a lot harder to wiggle out of being a bad guy.

It’s also as a IC concept just easier to RP about, you can see someone’s invitation, that level of invitation has an in-lore name and you can talk about like hey, you’ve been hanging out with demons too much, more evil things are going to nom on you if you keep it up. And I think can be an interesting source of story in that sort of balanced on the edge he who looks into the Abyss sort of way.

Someone being fabled is visible in their aura, although they themselves can never know or realize that they are fabled.

When monsters are asking for them, especially when there is recent history of giving monsters fables and it working, especially when there is established lore about Fables and what they do, I don’t think it’s cringe or metagaming to use this knowledge. They are a known facet of the world with known uses. That’s part of what makes their life “interesting” per the stated intent.

With fabled there’s this issue where generally the more interesting you make the game the less convenient it is and the more people get grouchy about having their planned fun times interrupted by big scaries etc. So the idea was to make it sort of opt-in by creating a type of character who is a lot more interesting to play, like a lot more stuff is going to happen to them but you have to choose to be that type of character so people who don’t wanna deal with the hassle can side step it. And then a lot of the mechanics are just sort of playing with chosen one tropes, but in particular ones which aren’t like I’m chosen to be able to beat people up good.

While the city of New Haven is only a few months old, both ICly and OOCly, the supernatural world is much older. These concepts are new to us, but there’s no statement that they must be new to our characters any more than the Families or Factions are. It’s not metagaming to say “guns don’t work offworld” even though it is both mechanics and lore. Same here.

That said, it also isn’t failproof. There’s nothing that requires a monster to actually accept a Fabled. I don’t think there’s any prevention of them just killing a helpless fabled instead, but if nothing else they don’t have to accept non-violence.

Characters are also… characters and what they support in one situation may not be something they support in every situation. Wouldn’t assume this is just the way the game is going because of how some characters react to a particular monster with a particular design and personality. Some that were for using a fabled might be antagonists, or they might just be traumatized and wishful thinkers. Some who were against might legitimately think it a bad course of action or maybe they’re just bloodthirsty. All are valid and in-character approaches.

[Maina]

Werewolves require also being active in the supernatural world, like most Veterans. Just being one long enough isn’t enough.

The vampire ones do read like they will just go more corrupt over time no matter what, but also one that gets that old is going to have killed someone. I don’t really see a 500 year old vampire who still feeds off animals for all that time.

Anyway, I’m just one person. But going into H7, I got the impression that Invitation is partly intended to just rise over the lifespan of a PC. And bargains are for deliberately increasing it, with the XP bonuses being a little extra. Nova said as much with bargains, though maybe I only inferred the ever-increasing part.

Anyway, the point of this isn’t to say it does work this way, but more that I went into the game expecting Invitation to be unavoidable. I haven’t avoided anyone for their tier. It never even occurred to me a t3 might have that much impact. I’ve played with a few, even had scenes and patrols. No extended one-on-ones, but that’s just because that’s how it went. Not deliberate avoidance.

And despite going into the game thinking it inevitable and making no particular effort to avoid it, I have I0 after 700 hours. Not changed since chargen.

So mostly, Invitation feels opt-in to me right now, contrary to my expectations for the game.

If T3s are this debilitating, my suggestion would be as follows:

Have RP with a high-tier give mostly personal invitation, not global. Give global only if the RP specifically justifies it. The personal invitation system is cool but woefully underutilized, and this way you mostly only risk someone you consider a good enough writer to spend extended time with, not just every person on the grid.

[Maina]

I can say, contrary to some other posts here, I am in a large group and get considerably over the minimum (if nowhere near a thousand).

I think there is a definite trap in looking at an extremely complex system and assuming you know why things are happening. I don’t think it’s a matter of society size (or not exclusively so) as some in small groups get little and some get a lot and that’s the same in big groups.

My own personal experience is that it’s about variety, and that feels in line with the other design decisions regarding activity, but this is just my personal experience. I get more when I do an activity that I didn’t do the week before. I get more when I do more of an activity I don’t often do. I don’t often go to events, and I got a lot more after going to two in one week despite my other activities taking a dive. I forgot to do an encounter for a few weeks, and I got a huge boost in a week where I did one. Political capital explicitly follows this same pattern, where things done less are worth more.

So again, I think it’s impossible to really say what’s going on based on personal experience, but I do think doing three different activities is worth a lot more than doing one activity three times. I’d be curious to see if other people experience similar or if it’s just another imagined pattern in this complex machine.

[Maina]

I usually spot someone on ‘order survey’ once every other day or so. It’s a good way to match up antagonists with people who want to be antagonized, so definitely don’t worry about overdoing it. Whole point is to match people up who are into it so you aren’t wasting your time with people who are not.

I definitely wish I could find people on the list more often, so I’m really glad this was posted.

[Maina]

Definitely not combat focused. Not any more than any previous version. Almost certainly less. I play a character that will never be good at combat, and if I do raids or don’t over the course of a given week, it doesn’t really affect how useful I am. My biggest contributions have been from LLM patrols, running scheme thwarts, and regular Encounters. None of those require combat.

I don’t really think factions are any more required, either. Used to require them for Sanctuary. Now you just need them for Favor, which is for optional goodies. Not required. Just something to give you something to work towards. Wouldn’t hate for there to be a way for civvies to get some favor at cost (maybe for activities that have no reward otherwise for them), but I wouldn’t say the game requires participation in the faction game.

Can’t speak much to the college. I do remember past iterations (even with the clinic) largely designed around being split from the main grid since not everyone vibes school RP or being made to engage with student RP. The clinic forced some very limited cross-RP, but it was limited. I’m curious what’s missing there that you want? It’s a place for supernatural school roleplay. Is it not fulfilling that purpose? Does something stop you from going to other spheres to do things you want that aren’t supernatural school roleplay?

[Maina]

In theory, a larger society has more boroughs and this should balance out the fact that it’s being split between more people. Each borough is supposed to produce a given amount of Favor per week, split between those in charge of it. If a big group loses one, they’re going to feel it pretty bad due to the split, but it should be easier to replace it.

The amount they produce is reduced by schemes and raids. When a scheme has been up for weeks, for example, you should expect the borough owner to not be getting much.

The system rewards variety. It is much harder to get control of a borough entirely via one method, intentionally. A wide variety of character concepts approaching borough control from multiple angles is the most effective route. It’s certainly not combat-only. Though someone who does everything is likewise going to have an edge over someone who does everything but combat.

I’ve seen a huge swing of favor gain, including 0, so it probably needs some adjusting. But it also feels like some people are missing key parts of the system that are explained in files like the politics guide.

[Maina]

Generally speaking, people in these PvP RP games tend towards extreme escalation. This isn’t often actually very fun for either party so much as an emotional reflex.

Whatever your gut instinct is, dial it back a few steps from there. It’ll probably be closer to something fun for everyone, including yourself.

Dial it back a bit more after that and you might approach an actual realistic human response, but none of us expects those here.

It was pretty clear in the original announcement posts that killing was meant to be a last resort. Politics are subterfuge are meant to come first. It’s more interesting to have a slow escalation, and it’s best to just ignore people who won’t do that rather than try to make them play the way you want. They won’t

Personally also strongly recommend giving opportunities for people to back down instead of endlessly escalating. Most any story has periods of escalating conflict balanced with calm periods between. And most people don’t enjoy a constant, unending, “and then it got worse.” It’s very human to back off after you’ve shown your teeth a bit, it’s a better story, and it’s more fun for most everyone.

(I have zero involvement in any of the events discussed thus far in this thread. These are just generic thoughts after doing this for over 20 years.)

[Maina]

Last I played, newbie credit didn’t count for these purposes and didn’t go to the shop owner. Has that changed? Or could this account for the difference?

[Maina]

Thanks for the reminder. My strong suspicion is that ‘weather’ is more accurate. I think the map on the website only updates every fixed amount of time, not on-demand like GPS does. I imagine ‘weather’ is just printing an existing variable. Hard to say for sure, though.

I don’t have the CXP to go testing that theory.

[Maina]

I’m sure most people know about this, but I didn’t see it in the thread: if you type ‘drive slow’ BEFORE entering the mist, you will almost(?) never crash. Played less than many here, but I’ve never had a wreck with even a junker car so long as I ‘drive slow’ if there is any chance of mist-travel.

You can even toggle the command before even getting into the car.

There is also a command that tells you which intersection the Mist is currently centered around. Unfortunately, I can’t find the documentation for it or remember what I typed. I found it on accident. I’d be curious how it compares to the visual map.

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