Narrative Control Forums

Been thinking on this for a bit and frankly I haven't hacked WoD too much. Here's what I've done, but I'm not sure if any of this makes it more cinematic.

Trash virtue and vice, they are useless. Replace them with Beliefs (ala Burning Wheel), one of which must be tied into your supernatural nature (ala High Concept in Dreden). That one comes from Travis Lindquist. Reward with willpower as Virtue/Vice.

Treat equipment bonuses as extra successes on a roll that gets at least one success. Thus if you have a Knife that does 2L, make a melee attack roll with just Str + Weaponry - Defense and then add 2 damage on a hit. It means big weapons never just nick you, if they hit, they hit hard. Armor works the same way, it just takes damage off on a hit. Got this one from Andy Hodges in his EndGame Mini con Changeling game.

I haven't read Armory Reloaded but you've got me interested. I'll see if I can check it out and see what they've got. Good Hunting!

Sean, can you point me to somethng that will help me fill out

"Trash virtue and vice, they are useless. Replace them with Beliefs (ala Burning Wheel), one of which must be tied into your supernatural nature (ala High Concept in Dreden). That one comes from Travis Lindquist. Reward with willpower as Virtue/Vice"

I don't have burning wheel or the Dresden Files RPG yet. Thanks.

Sure thing. Lemme back up a tiny bit and say that I FULLY support the idea that a character sheet is a love letter to the GM. It's the player's way of saying "Hey GM, this is what I really want to see in the game". For instance, if I have 4 dots in firearms with a sniper specialty, you can be pretty sure I want to be a bad ass sniper.

But the problem is that most character sheets are incomplete. Maybe that 4 dots is because I want to be a bad ass sniper but, like the proverbial gun slinger, I've put down the gun and what I REALLY want are situations where violence would make things easier in the short run but destroy me as a person. So the fight I want to have, is convincing people they don't need to shoot. Even though I've only got 1 dot in persuasion, THAT is what I really want to use. But... how is the GM to know. Even if I make my vice Wrath, or my virtue Hope, he still doesn't know exactly what I want in the game for my character.

So... what if instead I had a stat on my character sheet that read like this:

So as not to become the monster, I have put down the gun. May I never pick it up again.

Boom. That tells the GM exactly what I want. At least I hope it does. And if it doesn't, it at least makes him look at it and ask me "what's this about, do you want to get in fights or not?"

Okay, so what is a belief, and how does it replace a Virtue/Vice. A belief is something just like the statement above, followed by a direct action the player wants to take. For instance. I won't pick up the gun; to stop these gang wars I'll first have to meet the leader. This is even better than the above, it tells the GM exactly what I want and i creates an achievable goal. It's a lot better than I won't pick up the gun; I'll end violence in the city. Why? Because the later is never achievable, and achieving (or abandoning) you beliefs is important, because when that happens your beliefs change and that creates character growth.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. What does all this have to do with getting me 3 extra dice on a roll? Here's what it has to do. Every session (or every scene or every action at the groups discretion) that someone tries to achieve a belief, the get a willpower point back. You've pursued something you believe in and that gives you strength. Every time a character achieves their belief they get ALL their willpower back AND their belief must change. So, lets say my character has me the gang leader and decided he was worthless thrash, but his 2nd in command had promise. Now maybe my belief is "I won't pick up the gun; to stop these gang wars I'll get the 2nd in command to take over". Now I've got a new direction and the GM knows it.

So... that may have gone a bit esoteric (talking about character growth and love letters and such) when your original question was about making a game more cinematic, but that's the hacks that fill my brain space right now. What systems will we use to make the things I care about in game matter mechanically.