Topic "Hors Personnage"/OOC Thread

Between his wardrobe change and his appointment with Martin, Edouard want to text Jake to plan their next sortie. Should I put that on the main channel or do we open a "smartphone and email" channel?

Main channel. It's part of the adventure.

Since this looks like it could be a long and/or interesting discussion, I fell it might be a good idea to move this discussion here instead to avoid taking up posts in the Storm thread...

So to summarize...
Yeah, storytelling games can be a bit difficult to grasp at first. So far, my experience with PbtA has been much better than Phil's. Guess I was lucky and got good GMs in those games (even if then ended prematurely). I'd like to think they gave me a good idea on how to frame PbtA games. Players certainly have a lot of liberties in their narrative (especially since the lore can be established as we play the game), but the GM must also be able to set his boundaries and step in if he feels a player has overstepped their boundaries.
Basically, I have a good idea which direction this Storm should take, and I can try and steer the game towards that end, but at the same time, the actions of the players could influence that, and there is always the chance that a player might come up with a much better idea for something than I have.
So give the players the freedom to explore and do as they please, but remain close so you can intervene if a player does something you feel would not work for the game. That is my philosophy and I hope it will work well.

Dropping in to say that I read this information! This is my first time participating in a PbtA game, though I have listened to podcasts of playing. It does seem like it can be tricky since things are by nature narrative-driven and somewhat open. At any rate, I'm still around, observing the action going on with other players until it makes sense for me to be involved.

I think my problem is that, there seems to be no way of resolving debts without meta-gaming. The narrative doesn't flow smoothly because we have obligations to each other, but not the kind that evolve over time. We start out owing each other, and it skews the game. My experience, and granted it is small, would be that the game should stipulate thet characters should have developed a bond, or more as the game evolves. The debt system really messes with the flow of the game. I've also seen people grumble with a lack of group actions for PbtA games. Can't really comment on that one yet, but I've seen it come up.

I kinda like owing debts as the Vamp, it gets my character involved and gets others to start the habit of asking help from him.
I see the bonding simply as mutually beneficial debts and it allows the possibility of reluctant teamwork that always happens in those kinds of "dark story"

I have to agreewith grouse, further though I feel it makes total sense for debts to be a thing in a game with vampires and fey, it doesn’t matter how well they get to know you interactions with them are going to be transactional.

Given the mechanics they gave to debts in this game, they make complete sense. It's what makes the game move and it's part of your "experience" to "level up".
The way you cash in debt is a great roleplay opportunity which requires the player to mention the event which cause the debt to be owed in the first place, enforcing the bond each players have toward each other. The fact that there is a move to attempt to weasel out of a debt owed enforces this IMHO.

Hey, all, I've had a death in the family. I am going to be out of town/out of pocket for several days getting things sorted.

My condolences for your loss. Please, take the time you need.

Man, that sucks. My condolences.

I'm bowing out of this game. I'm sorry if that causes any problems. I'm just not enjoying it, like a book you just can't get into. Thank you for letting me join up.

Okay, no problems.

Hey, everyone, I'm really sorry to have to do this, but I am dropping out of this game. Things are complicated for me right now and I am not sure when they will clear up. Thanks for letting me be part of it and best of luck to all of you.

Hey Vagrant and Genisisect, there seems to be a sudden interest in my game. If you are still around and I managed to find new players, might you be interested in a do over (yeah, I know Vagrant, that would be the third time for you...)?

I’m still about

Well, 3 new players seem to be interested in my game. So the questions to my current players are as follows:

1) Do you want to continue playing your former characters (Édouard the Vamp and Victoria the Wizard)?

2) And do you want to continue this storm or do you want to start over with a new storm?

I'm a bit torn on that one. I did enjoy Edouard, however, I believe this kind of game is better when the characters are build together with ties and connections.

Unless there is a very engaging idea of how to introduce new characters in this storm, id vote for a new cast of characters (i dont have any issues if you recycle your storm element though, its not like we saw any spoiler yet :P)

I do have a few new character idea, ive been looking at the Oracle since the beginning and i also have a concept for a hallowed archetype from Dark street.

We could start over and redo the whole debt things while keeping your characters, sort of like what we did when Khoning left the first time around. But if you want to try a new archetype, it's cool too.

Introducing new players in the middle of an existing storm is not that complicated, I could introduce them as some contact you'd need to see for whatever reason, or I could simply use the Love Letter mechanic like when I introduced Pavel... the only real problem I can foresee by continuing with the current storm is that you'd have valuable debts tied to retired characters.

I’m keen to keep playing Victoria, but do think we should at least reform the debts and restart the storm. It may not need to be a ‘new’ storm per we, but I think it would be better for the new players to be involved in the start of it. If that ind of makes sense.