[DL] Re: deadlands-digest.20000725-3

["Reuben McCallum" <bloopy40@hotmail.com>]

>Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:56:46 -0500
>From: toadpooka@juno.com
>Subject: Re: [DL] only a little OT, or not even, really.
>
>In it's day, Vampire wasn't a "Substance-over-system" game, it was a
>"style-over-substance-over-system" game, which is far more obnoxious.
>With such a hands-off rules approach, the game becomes almost entirely
>dependant on the person running it, which is not at all the hallmark of a
>good RPG.  Hell, I could run a fun game of Rifts with a lot of heavy
>rule-retooling, but I'd rather spend that time writing a good scenario.
>Besides which, the non-system system encourages munchkinism a lot more
>than a game like Deadlands does.  Compare the Deadlands groups you know
>to your average Vampire groups.  You'll find far better roleplaying at a
>Deadlands game, since the rules can be used to rein in the more
>outlandixh players.
>And I really can't figure out where the slamming of Changeling is
>justified.  Everything anyone's ever said in Vampire's favor should count
>doubly so for Changeling (even moreso for Wraith, but I won't delve into
>that today).  There is a game that actually has enough  substance to
>overcome the lack of a system, and style to boot.
I'm gonna have my 2c here. I was 14 when vampire 2nd ed came out. I was 
earning 5 dollars a week pocket money. I put myself in debt for 12 weeks to 
buy that 60 dollar rulebook (Australian dollars, folks - you know, the ones 
you americans use a fire starters-except they're plastic, so you'll get 
cancer-but now I'm rambling...). And I was not disappointed.
It was neat, a cool setting, with the threat of impending doom, a real look 
at some psychology, nasty horror of a personal kind, and a good reason not 
to kill people - all pretty novel at the time.
The biggest mistake I ever made was buying a sourcebook.
They didn't go anywhere. The sourcebooks were collections of stats and 
"here's are new type of vampire/character class" and all the stereotypes 
they could think of - Aquatic gangrel for god's sake!
In the meantime, the big picture they were alluding to in the rulebook - 
Cain, the Antediluvians, Gehenna, Golconda - all ignored in favor of Ad&d 
style character kits. Each of the clans became a stereotype - "I'm a 
Tremere" became a valid method of describing your character. I played some 
LARP for vampire for bit, and that was all these problems accentuated to the 
Nth degree. And the Sabbat - originally a dark mirror, they brought out the 
books and became a case of a "Choose Your Own Morality" adventure gamebook. 
The whole idea of become removed from your humanity became irrelevant. It 
was all about "pick the morality you'd like to play".
The other books in the series continued these flaws. When I first read mage 
I was stunned - that book got me to read 1984, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle 
maintenence, and a whole host of other Philosophical texts (at the age of 
16, mind). But the supplements were weak (except for the book of madness, 
and some of the technocracy books), but importantly, their story remained 
undeveloped.
Werewolf could have been so neat, but instead it always looked to me like 
"Bash-for-Gaia". Wraith had an extraordinary setting, but it was nigh on 
unplayable. I never read changeling, have by this time become the cynical 
hunchback you see before you today.
Then I discovered Deadlands.
It encourages Enjoyable roleplaying - not angsty sequences of self loathing, 
but stuff that's fun for everyone invloved. And it really encourages it. 
Even gun-monkeys roleplay in Deadlands, because the rules encourage it 
instead of beating you around the head with the line "think about your 
character". But best of all, it had a plot that it's writers were obviously 
going act upon.
So now I'm the beaming, maniacal hunchback you see before you today.
Reuben McCallum
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