Chap 2 Sanctioning Vote

[geeman]

At 06:20 PM 3/25/2004 -0500, Ryan Caveney wrote:



>How many registered users does the site have, and how many people are on

>the mailing list?



In recent months there are usually around 100-120 people subscribed to

birthright-l. Of course, people come and go, and I`ve no way of knowing

how many of those accounts might be dead or otherwise inactive, though a

couple dozen folks have to subscribed under the "hidden" option so as not

to reveal their presence to the rest of the list. There are probably less

than two dozen listers who are "active contributors" meaning they post more

than once a month.



The home page of birthright.net says there are several thousand people who

have signed up and have access to the message boards (I`m having trouble

getting to that page at the moment for some reason, so I can`t give you an

exact number.) I`m sure a similarly large percentage of those are inactive

accounts. At a guess, there are probably about twice as many folks who

read the message boards and actively respond to the posts there as there

are active listers. There are a lot more transitory folks on the message

boards, however, who pop on and off irregularly, so that`s really hard to

put a number on.



In any case, if the implication is that we don`t have enough votes to be

very representative of the community for a final project, then you are, of

course, quite right. I don`t know what there is to do about that

though.... We`re not going to get a quorum. You can lead a gamer to

campaign material, but you can`t make him vote. I guess one could view the

number of votes being small as a tacit abstention from most folks, but in

the long run I don`t know that it would make any difference.



Gary

[geeman]

At 11:44 AM 3/25/2004 +0100, irdeggman wrote:



>

>I think I like the Scion classes even less than the 7th ability score.

> >Maybe I`m old and grey, but I`d still greately favor a system for

> >bloodlines that were more like the 2E one.

>

> When it comes to portraying bloodline I`ve come to the conclusion that most

> of the actual mathematical values should just remain what they were to

> begin with. Certain things need to be updated or revised (a couple tables,

> for example, and the blood abilities themselves cry out for revision) but

> there`s really no need to portray bloodline as a character class (a la

> Savage Species) in order to do so.

>

> I guess you didn`t really pay attention to that link I supplied at the

> WotC` site or how UA is written. Sorry for sounding obnoxious and

> condescending here, no offense is intended. Really I mean I don`t want

> to sound that way but its hard to get around people not quite seeing the

> `obvious` trend at WotC. But the new "official" WotC standard

> for expressing level adjustments is to use a class based system. Now, if

> people don`t think that there should be level adjustments involved with

> bloodlines that is an entirely new arguement - especialy since in the

> past most people were in favor of some kind of level adjustment (people

> just couldn`t agree on the type).



I`ve paid attention to those things. In fact, I`ve gone out of my way to

say that SS is a very good text and I like things are based on it. (Please

take these comments in the same spirit you noted above, BTW.) It is

obvious that D20 is making level adjustments using a class based system in

D20 or, at least, in D&D--I`ve seen a lot less in other D20 products,

though the logic works the same, and it would seem like what`s good for the

magic good would be good for the mutated/genetically engineered one as

well.... I generally like that trend since it seems to make a lot of

sense, coincides with the level-based system, and has nice round numbers

associated with it. It seems to assume that "a level is a level" and that

ECL and CR are balanced systems, which isn`t necessarily the case, but

that`s really a core D&D rules issue, not a BR one. I just don`t find

ECL/class levels particularly compelling as a system for portraying

bloodline for all that it is the au currant method of doing things in D&D.



When it comes to an ECL for bloodline, I think the heart of the matter

isn`t really ECL vs. no ECL in an update. The argument is whether

bloodline should be accounted for or not with some folks suggesting that

bloodline shouldn`t factor in at all because it didn`t in 2e. ECL is just

the most obvious method of accounting for character level affects. It is

not, however, necessarily the right one for bloodline.



It doesn`t necessarily follow that either bloodline merits a level

adjustment or that even with the current trend towards portraying level

adjustments in D&D that means bloodline is apt for portraying them. What`s

less obvious is that bloodline should not be adjudicated using a level

adjustment at all. I suggested a couple of weeks ago (and Falcon did

several months back) that bloodline should just be factored into a

character inventory and used to determine things like CR. There are a lot

more similarities when it gets right down to it between bloodline and

equipment than there are between bloodline and a level adjustment as

portrayed in the original materials, so accounting for bloodline by

assigning it a gp value and then equating it to inventory is probably a

better way to go. In any case, that`s what I`m doing. When I get it all

written up (along with the update to the BP system of portraying bloodline)

I`ll put it up someplace and people can have a look.



> The other reason that a scion class level system works is that it makes

> things easier to port into an adventure-based or domain based campaign

> system, where the things that `contibute` to a level adjustment don`t all

> come into consideration.

>

>

>I also think that the Highlander-style elements should go dig a

> hole, hid

> >in it and never show its ugly head again.

>

> Well, I wouldn`t stick `em in a hole, but I don`t care for the exploding

> scion system either. It`s too weird, too different from the original ideas

> presented in the BR system and just seems like something that is

> unnecessary. Coming up with a method to portray being stabbed in the heart

> is difficult in D&D, but having scions blow up and disperse their

> bloodline

> in a blast radius isn`t the way to go.

>

>

> Actually the scion doesn`t "explode", that was never written

> in any version of Chap 2 nor in the Book of Doom , which had the

> concept first presented. What happens is that his regency or divine

> essence is released. One thing I found good about this system was that

> it reproduced in a minor way what happened at Deismaar. I`m surprised

> you hadn`t recognized the similarities.



The inspiration for the idea is pretty obvious. So obvious, in fact, that

I think it`s gone pretty much without saying since the first playtest was

released. The thing is... what`s it got to do with anything? (I`m still

trying not to be obnoxious here, but I`ve got to express how much I dislike

some of these changes.) Fundamentally, it looks to me to be one of the

folks on design team`s (Doom`s?) house rules--or it at least smacks of that

kind of thing. House rules are all well and good, but they are not

something that should be in the update of the setting. If it were

presented as somebody`s house rules in a post on the subject or alternate

download then I`d find it interesting and maybe I`d incorporate an aspect

or two of them into my own house rules, but that`s a far cry from

disseminating it as the official product. The official update shouldn`t be

used as a vehicle for anybody`s individual take on the setting, but should

be as direct a translation of the original material into a new rules set as

possible with as little extrapolation, elaboration or addition as possible.



Some things absolutely cry out to be added to. An actual method for

stabbing someone in the heart in 3e would be a a good addition, for

instance. But that`s one of those things that would have been nice in 2e

in the first place--which might be a good guideline for deciding what

should get added to in an update and what shouldn`t. To wit: "Should it

have been in the original materials?" The way bloodline gets transferred

just isn`t one of the things that needs to be further elaborated upon. The

methods in the original material not only covered it adequately, but also

coincided to several themes that, I`d suggest, this method in the proposed

Ch 2 either doesn`t recognize or ignores.



First of all, I feel obliged to note that you can have it both ways and say

that when a scion is killed he doesn`t explode, his "divine essence is

released" AND say that`s based on the what happened at Deismaar, since what

happened at Deismaar was an explosion. If it`s based on a scion-level

version of the battle of Deismaar "releasing essence" and exploding is a

rather semantic dance that is a bit out of step with the music. Sure, the

scion doesn`t actually, physically explode in the sense that his body gets

splattered all over the place, but releasing one`s energy in a radius is an

explosion. If you were to replace "RP" with "hit points" it could just as

easily be a hand grenade being described. It`s not much of a leap in the

definition to describe that process as an explosion, and the idea of

exploding scions IMO is rather silly.



Secondly, it makes godly energy both volatile and sticky. Heaven forbid

some scion might go off in a crowded room, splattering everyone with

ectoplasmic energy because not only is he going to explosively "release his

energy" but that energy is going to stick like napalm to those around

him. As has been noted, the process of transferring bloodline to a

commoner is too easy in the suggested system, and makes killing a scion a

jackpot for anybody with a bit of ambition. In practice, I`m pretty

confident that if one were to play a "commoner" campaign in which PCs

started off without bloodlines using the proposed rules any scion that the

PCs came across would be targeted faster than a computer nerd wearing

lipstick in the locker room after the football team has won the homecoming

game. Of course they players would roll the dice to see if they could get

a bloodline out of the encounter. From a player standpoint it`s a no

brainer. It also makes for all kinds of annoying things like commoners

running towards the site of a dying scion in hopes of gaining a bloodline.



Thirdly, I really dislike the change made that presents ALL acts of

bloodtheft as corrupting. One`s bloodline derivation can change with any

act of bloodtheft against any scion who has a derivation different from

that of the thief. This is a fundamental change from the original system

and one that again seems to miss the theme of the setting. ONLY Azrai`s

power is corrupting. All the gods worked in concert to defeat him.



At the core of the matter, however, is that all of that material is new,

extraneous material to both BR and D&D. To a certain extent, of course,

one has to elaborate on either in order to come up with a system that

portrays the original ideas in a new system of rules, but while doing so

why not come up with rules that are actually related to the original BR

material rather than extrapolate upon them in ways that, frankly, would

have been included in the original materials if they had been intended to

work that way.



Gary

[Birthright-L]

Ryan B. Caveney said:

> I am content to say it`s just not worth trying very hard at this.



I`m waiting for a plug for a preferred system Ryan. Ars Magica? HeroQuest

(if it is a sufficient improvement over HeroWars)?



--

John Machin

(trithemius@kallisti.net.nz)

"Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."

- Athanasius Kircher, `The Great Art of Knowledge`.

[RaspK_FOG]

Originally posted by Ming I@Mar 25 2004, 02:20 AM
:angry:

I don't know why, but I found your "Please, do us a favour and choose, not ask us to choose for you" statement really rude.

I am not asking anyone to choose for me, and in the future I will not Null Vote. I was just making my situation known and asking a question. If you couldn't answer it civilly (which you obviously couldn't), then you shouldn't have answered it at all.

I want to apologise for being so indignant (I am not sure if this is the right word)with my post; I really had a bad day, and was extremely moody by the time I saw your post. I know I can't change what I have done, but I want to say that I didn't actually mean it; not that this lestens my guilt...

In the past two days, I've been trying to enter the site, but I have failed to do so; whenever I tried, the server sent back no signal, and thus I could not apologise sooner for my actions... Hell, I even can't apologise right!

I am really sorry for what I said; please believe me to write so... :unsure:

[irdeggman]

I want to ensure that people don’t think that getting Chap 2 to where it is was done in a vacuum. So I’m going to attempt to capture the history of how it got to where it is now. This is also an attempt to capture a process used involving feedback and input from the group-at-large. I left out the timeline for preparing the BRCS-playtest, since it is really irrelevant to the final development/sanctioning process, it was only a designed to provide something to talk about.

Feb 5 2003 (My story is that it was issued on my birthday, the 4th, and I’m, sticking to it ) - BRCS-playtest posted for review/playtesting/comments.

Many, many comments on Chap 2:
Thread links to comments path:

Bloodtheft:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1395


Bloodlines and casting divine spells without gods:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1383


Level dependent blood abilities:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1361


Chapter 2 Blood Abilities:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1334


Level Dependent blood abilities:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1360


Tainted Bloodline:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1266


Chapter 2 bloodline saving throws:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1282


BRCS Chapter 2 the bloodline:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1275


The following polls were subsequently conducted:

Mar 9, 2003 - Should the blood ability score be treated as a 7th ability type score?

Results were: Yes – 18, No – 13

Mar 9, 2003 - Should scion templates be used to represent the strength of bloodline derivation?

Results were: Yes – 19, No 15

Mar 9, 2003 - Should ECLs be used for the different bloodline strengths?

Results were: Yes – 24, No – 13

Mar 26, 2003 – requested submittals for alternates for determining blood ability score.

Apr 27, 2003 posted various proposals on determining blood score.

May 12, 2003 (I actually think this was posted earlier, but I can't confirm that) – Poll to determine if people wanted a random, non-random or variant with both random and non-random methods of determining blood score. The results, IIRC were somewhere around 7 for random, 5 for non-random and 4 for variant with both random and non-random. Only obvious conclusion was that people wanted a system that worked for either random or non-random generation.

Chap 2 Even More Polls:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1645

July 27, 2003 posted poll to vote on which proposal(s) were preferred from those posted on Apr 27, 2003.

Results – Proposal A (BRCS – playtest revision) – 7, Proposal B – exp based – 0, Proposal C – Blood Point – 1, Proposal D (feat-like approach) – 7.

Threads for contents of discussion:
Chap 2 Blood Score Proposals (Revised):

http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=1815


{The revised Chap 2 contained Proposal A with Proposal D as a variant}


Dec 11, 2003 – The revised Chapter 2 was posted for review.

Chap 2 revision:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=2132


Mar 12, 2003 - Chapter 2 sanctioning vote was called for.

Chap 2 Sanctioning Vote:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=2346

[bulletmagnet]

1 of which had a slain Great scion obliterating the 2 undead legions that trampled him as his powerful bloodline was released in a divine blast

So now divine energy is positive plane energy? If a scion of Azrai dies is it negative plane energy? Wow I missed alot in the updates.


Overall i say nay to the revisions.Im not sure where i read this but Birthright regeants were supposed to start of 3rd level just like in Darksun,so ecl's really arnt needed IMHO. They are expected to be more powerful. I still think the main problems are trying to think 3rd edtion from 2nd vs 2nd TO 3rd edition. Everyone wants it to feel like 2nd but fits in with the rules from 3rd. We cant have everything i guess.

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by bulletmagnet@Mar 27 2004, 01:35 PM

1 of which had a slain Great scion obliterating the 2 undead legions that trampled him as his powerful bloodline was released in a divine blast

So now divine energy is positive plane energy? If a scion of Azrai dies is it negative plane energy? Wow I missed alot in the updates.


Overall i say nay to the revisions.Im not sure where i read this but Birthright regeants were supposed to start of 3rd level just like in Darksun,so ecl's really arnt needed IMHO. They are expected to be more powerful. I still think the main problems are trying to think 3rd edtion from 2nd vs 2nd TO 3rd edition. Everyone wants it to feel like 2nd but fits in with the rules from 3rd. We cant have everything i guess.

None of these quotes are from anything "official" or from the development team.

And no BR regents are not supposed to start off at 3rd level. That is to say that in none of the 2nd ed material did it say they start at 3rd level, like it did for Dark Sun. This was someone's house rules.

If you look at the relative levels of the regents listed in the 2nd ed material you will see that this rule really doesn't work for the 2nd ed Birthright material.

So in essence your logic is based on some else's house rules. This becomes a problem with things in general when people end up basing opinions on rumor, conjecture and being mislead (due to something out of their control) to believing that something they heard or read was in fact part of canon material.

Fairly recently an example of this popped up with Kenneth believing that there was a paladin of Erik in the BR 2nd ed material, when in fact it was someone's proposal on the boards that he had been using so long that he had just assumed it was from canon material. That is one reason I try to use quotes and references when I'm trying to refer to 2nd ed material - it helps keep me honest in my recollections and gives a point of reference for the source of the material.

[geeman]

At 11:04 PM 3/27/2004 +0100, irdeggman wrote:



>

Im not sure where i read this but Birthright regeants were

>supposed to start of 3rd level just like in Darksun,so ecl`s really arnt

>needed IMHO. They are expected to be more powerful. I still think the main

>problems are trying to think 3rd edtion from 2nd vs 2nd TO 3rd edition.

>Everyone wants it to feel like 2nd but fits in with the rules from 3rd. We

>cant have everything i guess.

> None of these quotes are from anything "official" or from the

> development team.

>

> And no BR regents are not supposed to start off at 3rd level. That is

> to say that in none of the 2nd ed material did it say they start at 3rd

> level, like it did for Dark Sun. This was someone`s house rules.

>

> If you look at the relative levels of the regents listed in the 2nd ed

> material you will see that this rule really doesn`t work for the 2nd ed

> Birthright material.

>

> So in essence your logic is based on some else`s house rules.



I`ve never heard of that rule either, and suspect it is a house

rule. There are several 2nd level regents in the original materials that I

can think of (though coming up with many 1st level ones might be a bit

tougher...) so it`s pretty clearly not a BR rule. I hadn`t heard of the

Dark Sun rule either, but perhaps its that rule that`s getting confused

with the BR domain rules?



When it comes to playing BR using 3e/D20 rather than 2e I personally don`t

want it to feel like 2e. 2e had IMO more problems portraying some of the

issues presented in the campaign materials than 3e does, and there are a

lot more D20 sources to draw upon which to model BR issues than there ever

were before 3e/D20 came out, so I`d prefer the new rules set.



Gary

[irdeggman]

OK, I'm now officially closing the poll like I said I was going to do.

It looks like Chap 2 is now sanctioned.

Results of the poll are:

Yes - 17
No - 9
Abstain - 1

That is pretty close to a clear majority. Twice as many for as against.

Let's use this process, feed/back/input/polls/proposals, etc for the next set of chapters.

That would be Chap 1. So now that this one os over with we can focus on that one now.