White Wolf Publishing

so i was wondering what the new year has in store for everyones favorite game of bloodsuckers. WW's main site doesnt seem to have a current "whats new" section, so i thought i'd ask here.

I'm hoping that the speculation is right and Danse Macabre has information using the Tier system for Vampire.

A bizarrely popular idea concept in Hunter: the Vigil, and I assume, elsewhere, too, in which gameplay is split into tiers. 



In tier 1, your group does not extend past your individual party.  You also get absolutely no special powers or abilities whatsoever, so you might as well be playing mortals.



In tier 2, you are affiliated with others at a local level.  You are part of some city-wide, or maybe even region-wide organization.  You still have absolutely no special abilities or powers, except this time, you have people that tell you what to do.



In tier 3, you are affiliated with others on a global level.  You are part of some world-wide organization.  You finally get access to special powers, but the annoyances of a global level game are so great, its not much fun anymore anyway.



Ok, so that's probably a biased opinion, but it still stands.  Tiers are levels of organization.  If this were applied to vampires, it would probably be something like:



1) There are no covenants

2) There are covenants that are city specific and have ties beyond the city limits

3) The covenants are globally connected, and actually give you the special powers that you joined to get.



To be honest, I don't really understand why you'd need a book to explain such a thing to you, as it is pretty straightforward.

My impression is that intent of the Tier system is that it's a toolkit (there's that word again) to let the players be able to play a game at any mode or level of play.  I always got the impression that Vampire the Requiem was solidly in Tier 1 and 2.  I would like to see information about expanding a Vampire game into a more national or global mode, that's what I think Tier 3 could offer.



Of course, some may say that mindset of the game is to keep it at a local, city level, to tap into the isolated, "midievil" city mode.  I think that's the stated intent of the Vampire core book.  There's a reason vampires keep it local, so I'd expect any information about vampire's going into a Tier 3 mode would include the challange of doing so.

While I am neutral on it, (didn't like new Hunter), th concept is kind of cool.  It does, in a way, make a single gameline into three seperate games.



Playing in a Tier 1 game is basically all the nWoD gamelines already, (possibly Tier 1.5). Tier 2 throws in much more potential options, because you can be daling with things like State-wide troubles, or multiple States. It is sort of like playing a game with 50 - 100 starting XP. Well sort of.  Your just on a higher, more powerful level of play.



Tier 3 is you are the power players.  Among the best of the best. Now, your not actually starting with a lot of XP or anything, it is more like your starting amongst the ranks of powerful groups, ratherer than spending a year getting your character up there. In a one-on-one, a Tier 1 has a 50/50 chance of beating a Tier 3.  The difference is, a Tier 3 can push a button and callin the swat team.

Yes, I'd agree with that.  However the Tier concept still doesn't mesh well with Lodges and Refinements.



The Tier concept is also pointless to WtF or PtC.  There aren't Tiers to deal with, and even if you're trying to introduce them (like Max Roman is, essentially, trying to do) it comes down to the same issue.  You can't dissolve the individuality of the packs into a larger unified social structure.  Just getting a bunch of them to get along well enough to cooperate isn't the same thing as described in either Hunter or Geist.







This, though, is flexible and varied to the nature of each game.  This is true of Promethean, but they're described as being so rare that anything more is impossible.



Werewolf can be played that way, or can be played with the Tribes having more social impact depending on how you set things up.







Again, it can be played that way, but it doesn't have to be.  The Covenants might be locally focused but the books don't actually say each is an island and nothing sails between them.  And it is variable by Covenant. The OD and CM are much more likely to be in regular contact outside their local group than the CotC is.



Requiem is more flexible than what you're describing.  Forcing it into the Tier model takes away that flexibility.  And more importantly?  It offers nothing in return.  In the end, it's just a short hand method of sorting the influence of groups.







If you want them to.  The Orders can also be groups that don't have any real organization beyond a city-area level.







I disagree.  Nothing in the Tier 3 material suggests this is the purpose of a Tier 3 organization.  TFV is not the Technocracy.  They aren't even global.  They barely have influence outside of the USA.  Les Mystères is as decentralized as the CotC.



Tier 3 games are not about epic level stories.  They don't change the scale of the game.  They just delve deeper into specific concepts.  Tier 3 games are still just as much about the individual cell/krewe you're playing with.  You don't acquire world shattering powers (most Endowments don't come close to matching what supernaturals can achieve individually without membership in a Tier 3).  You're part of a shadow organization that may have political influence... but last time I checked the Invictus and Carthians amass large amounts of that themselves.



I think, quite frankly, this is becoming much like the word template.  The writers coined the term as a short hand to represent a concept, and the fan-base is taking it way beyond intention.

We can't assume Danse Macabre will present the Tiers without adapting them to VtR setting. Covenant sure is Tier 3, I think, and Coterie is Tier 1, but how about Tier 2? Or the authors just created something new to fill this space, or they changed something in the Tier System. Maybe we should also consider that the Tiers will only have some utility when players or storytellers decide to create a new, smaller, Covenant, like those the book sure will present (like the Brides of Dracula and the Foundation).

I think you mean athanor, sir.  Not Refinement.



And you are being unduly rude about this entire thing for some reason.   You are completely misreading what I wrote, turning what is my personal interpretation of a tier into some odd monstrosity, and being insulting about it.   I'm sorry if you're finding the use of tiered systems offensive for some odd reason, but I stand by my conclusions drawn for the currently available data.

Zeev, your ability to take things wildly out of context simply astounds me.

By and by, this does not mean what you think it does.   Passive aggressive behavior is about covert abuse and personality disorders, and neither applies to this situation.   Don't insult me in such a fashion.



And, no, I'm not going to make a counter point when you refuse to acknowledge that any of my positions have value, make personal attacks and insults, and wildly misinterpret (possibly deliberately) what I say.  There's no possibility of common ground to have a debate on. 







To everyone else: I am sorry about the gross diversion from the topic.    Please ignore me, and continue discussion on the Dance Macrebre or Mirror books.   Maybe some other Vampire / WoD ones that I don't know about.

Danse Macabre is a guide to those who would like to customize Vampire the Requiem. It brings new rules and factions (new covenants, and I hope it brings Broods), and setting variations. I dont know who developed it. 

I seem to recall hearing something about revised social combat rules, like the ones found in Requiem for Rome.   Could all be in my head, but it would be sweet if I'm wrong.

I think there might be some of that in Mirrors.   Over on rpg.net, Blackhatmatt (I think it was him) said that he wrote a bunch of hacks for different types of game play, and it sounds like the kind of thing that would go into Mirrors. 

No, I think I said I wrote some hacks for Morality. But regardless, that's not what I did for Danse Macabre. I did other stuff for that book.



Russell Bailey developed Danse Macabre, BTW. There are lots of really awesome people in its author list. And that's all I'll say, since I have no idea what stage of production/development it's in.