Should Potence, Celerity and Fortitude have sinergic effects?

[Heavy Arms]

OK. So you seriously want to go there....

First things first. How do you plan on making this any sort of fun to use in play? Is anyone going to want to use Celerity if they have to make 3-5 reflexive checks to make sure they don't destroy themselves from the speed? Are they going to want to track a dozen modifiers to different types of actions?

What's your idea to abstract this enough to be playable?

[monteparnas]

OK. So you seriously want to go there....

First things first. How do you plan on making this any sort of fun to use in play? Is anyone going to want to use Celerity if they have to make 3-5 reflexive checks to make sure they don't destroy themselves from the speed? Are they going to want to track a dozen modifiers to different types of actions?

What's your idea to abstract this enough to be playable?

This is basically the main question, although there's a lot to unpack here for people that aren't familiar with the design discussions from the 90's and 2000's. I'll try to be concise, whomever can help, please do.

1 - Making vampires deadlier against mortals, making Disciplines have more cool interactions and applying Physics to Disciplines are all distinct design goals. No matter how much you see them as related (and they can be), they must be understood as their own, separate things;

2 - The examples given about Physics are still just scratching the surface. There's the effects on the vampires surroundings, how those added forces interact with other force vectors like gravity and spin, friction and drag against both the street and the air, and many others;

3 - In the end, that means that describing reality faithfully, even a single aspect of it, is an extremely complex task. One that, working in the framework of an RPG, you'll fail at. It is impossible, because of the other design goals a game must have: be playable and be fun for the players, that are normal human beings;

4 - Also because you need a near perfect understanding of Physics to do it correctly. Whatever doesn't make sense for you, given a lay understanding of the field you're bound to rely on things that you think make perfect sense, but doesn't for other people with other equally incomplete information about this;

5 - Never lose sight of the three major design goals: playability, fun and thematic coherence. Verosimilitude seems extremely important at first, but it actually derives a lot from the other three, especially thematic coherence. You must pay attention to it still, but not primarily;

6 - Understand, while you may disagree with this, what are the design goals of the game, because there's a lot of difference between proposing a change you think serves better those design goals and proposing a new design goal entirely. Both are valid things to do, if they're clearly and correctly stated. What you're proposing is a fundamental change in design goals, and people won't answer the same way if you try to present it otherwise.

Since you propose a new design goal, state clearly what you want to accomplish, what you want to replace as a goal, why you think it would be interesting and how would you pursue it.

[adambeyoncelowe]

Yeah, the more you pull at these threads, the more the WoD falls apart. It's probably easier to just leave the abstractions as they are.

[Solomon Draak]

What's your idea to abstract this enough to be playable?

Long story short: for low level disciplines, we can go with "a vampire's dead body is more resilient than a living one and can adapt".
Penalties to adapt after learning new Disciplines should last only a game session or two at best, just the time for the kindred to get used.

For mid to high level physical disciplines, I think have at least 1 point of Fortitude should be a Required Secondary Power.

About ghouls... hypersemplified: even if he has the same dots in Celerity, Potence and Fortitude, a single ghoul should lose pretty badly to a single vampire in a head-to-head.
An elder ghoul should adapt better to the strain.

If two ghouls with Potence, Fortitude and Resilience 1, roughly equal in stats, fight and the first has been a ghoul for a month while the second is a century-old, the older ghoul should win by a fairly neat margin, no rolls required. The younger may win by pulling out some trick or strategy, but in a clean head-to-head duel he should be overwhelmed because his movements lack control and he has not developed the fine-tuned reflexes needed to use his physicality at best.

[MyWifeIsScary]

While it's an interesting mental image to have vampires torn up by their own speed or strength, perhaps wearing goggles to protect their eyes from winds, it doesn't do well for a game that's supposed to have some semblance of a sustainable masquerade. If you have vampires tearing themselves up and regenerating instead of simply having an advantage in movement then it's only a matter of time before the hunters follow the blood trail (it's also an oddly harmful use of the Rule of Cool, which normally lets characters get away with more than they should)


Also I think the lines you're drawing are weird

guy moves too fast for his eyes to bare -should go blind.
guy doesn't actually have living cells in his organs- totally fine.

[Heavy Arms]

For mid to high level physical disciplines, I think have at least 1 point of Fortitude should be a Required Secondary Power.

So, your solution is a 10 XP tax to hand-wave away everything? Why even bother in the first place then?

I would point you over to the Exalted forums for lots of very long threads about how annoying three core editions of a game have been where they setup all these rules, and then you pay a char-gen or XP tax and then get to ignore them to go play world conquering demigods. People that like the details and how it works for playing lower powered characters get frustrated because a bit of XP and all that detail stops mattering. People that want to skip over all that detail hate having to spend character resources just to get to the core character types of the game doing what they're supposed to do.

Who actually gets excited for the idea of a "Required Secondary Power," in a game where you're supposed to be able to make whatever vampire you want within the limits of your starting points and XP?

[Solomon Draak]

HeavyArms, I have the impression that my post keep irritating you so mabye is better than I avoid talking with you. Sorry.

@MyWifeIsScary: yep, it's bloody hilarious. ^ ^

But I wouldn't be so harsh. As I wrote, the acceleration should do damage only at very high speeds ( Celerity 3+ ) and even then, only bashing ( compressed flesh, broken cartilage and the like ).

Yet if a vampire with Stamina 1, no Resilience and Celerity 5 tries to move at full speed, I think his flesh would rip.

Also I think the lines you're drawing are weird

guy moves too fast for his eyes to bare -should go blind.
guy doesn't actually have living cells in his organs- totally fine.

Vampires can have their lungs, sleen and livers holed by bullets and it barely sting. They're quite hardy.

[Heavy Arms]

HeavyArms, I have the impression that my post keep irritating you...

Mildly. But what do you expect. Consider that the conversation basically went:

HA: "Do you really want to consider all the physics of this?"
SD: "Actually yeah, I want to pay attention to these things."
HA: "OK, so what's your plan to make it fun to use considering how much stuff that means taking into consideration?"
SD: "Actually, I want to completely ignore all those details I just said I want to pay attention to."

Mild irritation seems like a normal response to that, yeah? Don't you get annoyed if you feel like you're being jerked around?

Yet if a vampire with Stamina 1, no Resilience and Celerity 5 tries to move at full speed, I think his flesh would rip.

Actually? Nope. Even at the speed of sound, the friction of air on human skin isn't enough to do lasting harm (baring an existing open wound). It isn't a pleasant experience, but the US Air Force did all sorts of testing in this area for jet pilot safety (like, can you safely eject out of a jet going that fast?), and test pilots have subjected themselves to these sorts of conditions on purpose to prove the hypothetical that science said should happen.

People think of dangerous winds as starting at 100 mph, but that's not because of your skin ripping off, that's because of the wind throwing something at you at 100 mph, or knocking you off your feet and dragging you on the ground at 100 mph.

The place where a high Celerity character's skin would be in danger if physics applied to them, would be their feet. The friction of running on pavement, or many natural soil types, or shred shoes, socks, skin, tendons and so on. We're talking about falling and skinning your knee, but 100x worse.

[Sultanabdal]

Meanwhile, Brujah and Assamites leave such speculation on the physics of Celerity to the likes of Douglas Netchurch, and zip around like the wind and take names.