Kelly Chouette

Post 5: Final Edit of (Kelly) The comment about slander wasnt directed at you Sikla, but Fly for his comments here, which greatly exceed my equanimity, i didnt meant to accuse you of such. But its getting confusing now that everything is out of order. So im swapping stuff around so the newest is at the top (this) and the oldest at the bottom (my overly dramaic leaving comment).

For what its worth i do appreciate the apology, it means something to me to know that someone liked what i had made. However for the sake of all involved im not going to reopen the wereowls subject, I'm still not willing to compromise on what i envisioned and dont want to cause any more trouble trying to push the point. When and if i do get around to finishing the lore, I may put it up here so you can see it completed, and perhaps someone will come along whos less stubborn and make use of it. Im sure youll get a wereowl buddy to perch with some day.

As for hanging around, I'll have another look at vampire/werewolf/hunter/genius and see if something piques my interest. As for this one, someone can feel free to delete it, or leave it as a case study in unstoppable forces meeting immoveable objects. XD

Post 4: ST EDIT (Sikla Alkis):

After reading this page, first I'd like to publicly apologize to Kelly if I came across as slanderous. If there's anything I hate more than ever, it's slander. I am ashamed if I seem slanderous, and honestly? I did mess up royally. I am really sorry, Kelly; between multitasking and other factors, I was distracted, and at the end, I lost my patience. I really, really should have handled this better than I have.

If you wish to give the Dirge another go, please, by all means, do. I would not have said your concept was okay, and would have actively pointed that out, had I not had a big misunderstanding the first time. I tried to fix my mistake, but I will admit, I was snappy and really should have explained myself better. I'm just a fill-in RP ST, and the only authority I have is to approve minor things and enforce the guidelines we have. Shapeshifters need to be made with the War Against the Pure template, and I can't change that.

I would politely ask everyone to stop editing this page to try and go further with the issue. What's done is done. I can't overturn the rules of the site; if this was my game, which it isn't, I would happily work further with Kelly. She has a wonderful and original idea, but it can't have the same stats as a werewolf. That's the only thing that needs to change. In the future, I shall also watch my tongue far better, and do better to give everyone the respect they deserve. I should not have let my gloomy mood at that moment cloud my judgement.

- Sikla Alkis

P.S.: Yeah, I agree, we really do need to get the Guest Forum back up and going. I'll see if the General Admin can re-open it; we had to close it down due to a spambot problem. :-/

Post 3: Kelly Edit Uhh, you might want to ask people about what i did have here, before you start making assumptions and trying to use me as a example. What i had here i shared with others, and was showered with compliments at how good it was. i dont toot my own horn here, ask around, and youll find the truth, which is ironic, considering what you are asking others to do. My issue had nothing to do with my idea not being appreciated, infact it was just the opposite.

i ran afoul of arbitrary rules that have no effect on the actual playing of the game. to be specific, WW's methodology that all minor splats (and in this case, werebeasts) must always be 100% inferior to the franchise splats in every way. I merely wanted to stand on equal ground, and i didnt write a concept to justify this, the concept came first, and doesnt work otherwise. If it worked within the WAtP framework then we wouldnt be having this discussion.

And i wouldnt even have done that if i hadnt been told that it was okay first (apparently, i was misunderstood), and i wouldnt be as irked as i am if i didnt waste my 'weekend' on it. If you are taking tips to improve the site, for the love of god, give prospective players some way to communicate other than in sentice-long chunks in the chatbox, its horrible for conveying complex ideas

Ironically, i was starting to feel bad about the way i left, and i actually came back to put something nicer. But what do i see? slander. *clap*clap* Classy.

Also, if your curious, here is a email correspondence between me and nathan, and skia (with nathan as proxy)

-Nathan: Could you please explain to everyone in the cbox why you've abandon our group due to this problem?

-Me: Oh wow, someone who will talk to me outside that tiny little chat box, i tried to ask for this before, but no one was interested in talking to me over email or any other messenger. It was profoundly irritating trying to convey complex ideas in sentence-and-a-half blocks. And frankly no, im not inclined to try it again, given the results it has netted me so far. I will however explain to you now, and you are welcome to cut and past it there, or make a post to share it in its entirety;

Mhm, how to summarize....

To start, let me begin by saying that im a very... creatively generative person, i cant pick up a rpg book (any book XD) without having dozens of complex, well formed ideas. My normal process is to weed them out as best I can, untill only the best ideas remain, and if i cannot settle on one in particular, i will ask the group what sorts of roles/archtypes/etc, are lacking, to see if my concepts can fit into any of those, if they do, i can happily play that. Otherwise, and more often (ive never been able to wrap my head about why people refuse to give me such input, but it happens more often than not), i roll a die to pick which of my finalists i want to use.

Sometimes however, rarely and preciously, my thoughts crystallize into a single amazing idea. i dont have to pluck out the lesser ones, or agonize over which of my finalists to pick, there is just... The One :P. Such was the case with my wereowls, it all came together so easily, and i have pages of background for them, most still in my head, but its all there, just waiting to be used.

The problem comes in that they are very much true parallels to werewolves, not merely some other form of shapeshifting beast. Luna is their mother too, they have the same auspices, have a very similar spiritual nature, and fill a similar role, just guarding a different boarder. The Uratha are as strong as they need to be to fulfill their role, if they were weaker then they would hardly be good guardians. Its pretty simple conceptually. My owls, on the flipside, could be said to guard a even more dangerous boarder.

For these reasons, I wanted to use the werewolf template in my character creation, instead of the WAtP shapechanger's one. The latter is designed to be very inferior to the werewolves, in SC chargen terms, werewolves have four innate aspects (SC can only have three, and never more), and over a dozen dots of regular aspects (SC get seven to start), and that doesnt even count the much better bonuses they get from their auspices and tribes, or their Gifts. Or the exp cost breaks they get for their affinities. The net result is that SC start out much weaker, and the gap only grows with experience. Using the werewolf template is much truer to my concept, even though this isnt a combat focused game, its not about crunch, its about fluff, and none of what i have in mind makes any sense if my character is so weak it could get steamrolled by any uratha ever, even if only in theory. the changes would only have been minor, taking away some strength and resilience from their animal form in exchange for being able to fly, swapping some stats around the warform to make them more focused on endurance instead of causing damage, and a death-centric gift (Death, Endings, maybe Bone) list for their tribe, that would have literally been my only variations from stock werewolf crunch.

I explained this as best i could when i first arrived on the site, and was told that it was fine (by skia(i think) and alex, if your curious), so i started working away merrily, occasionally popping back onto the site to banter in the chat.... but then the subject ended up back on what i was making, and i was told that no, i couldnt do this, if i wanted to play any other sort of werebeast, i would have to use the SC template. i still dont know if skia changed her mind, or misunderstood me, she didnt seem to feel like it was a big deal, but wasting most of one of my few days off on something thats now invalid was a bloody big deal to me, to say nothing of what the whiplash did to my mood and enthusiasm for the game. (and to directly answer your title, her 'proposition' came everal hours after saying i could use the werewolf template :P)

Now, if you considering i had just spent hours working on my idea, refining it and typing it out... i was not terribly happy. But i moved on as best i could, spending hours more pouring over the SC template, trying to find some way to make it all work....

And then i decided that No, it wasnt worth it. I will not compromise this concept in the name of slavishly obeying some silly WW design philosophy that says that werewolves have to be better in every way than any other werebeast. That i would rather not get to use this idea at all, than break it down into a nonsensical shallow shadow of its true self and waste it on the Dirge. No, i will keep it, and hope that some day i find a group that is more interested in good fluff than hard rules.

That said, i have nothing against you all, every group is different, and some are more strict than others. As i noted; if i ever have a idea thats strictly by the book, and sufficiently safe and unambitious that i wont have to worry that you all might not accept it after i spend hours working on it, then i will come back and offer it up for your consideration.

-Nathan I've shared your email with Skia/Luna and she wanted me to relay this response.

Well, here's what happened, and you can copy and paste this PM to her:

Firstly, I am multitasking a lot when I do Dirge. I misunderstood what she said; I thought she wanted an owl with a similar combat role to the Uratha. That was my fault.

Second, I can't e-mail people or use Messenger because I've had bad crap happen to my computer by e-mailing people, and I don't have the resources to get it fixed if something blows up. Call me paranoid, and it's nothing against Kelly, but I need to save my computer for stuff that will be WAAAAAY more important than Dirge will ever be. Period.

Third, if this wasn't my game, I'd work with her. But it isn't my game; the Shapeshifter template is what we use, and it is in the site's rules. I made my shapeshifter werefalcon using the template, the other custom shapeshifters made theirs using the template, and Kelly doesn't get a free pass because she thinks her idea is "the one". I'm sorry, but rules are rules, and I am an RP ST; I can't rewrite rules, just referee.

Fourth, the way she was phrasing herself, she gave us lip. Period. We were trying to be helpful, and honestly, I was okay with her, even if we disagreed, until the point she said she'd leave and tell everyone how we were against creativity, not to mention the swipe she made at the Genius splat on her Wiki page. Instead of the immature fit she threw, she could have posted her idea outline on the page. Jim made a "Notes" section on his werecrow page where he put down all his thoughts, hopes and ideas, and she could have done the same.

In conclusion, Gene, one of our other players, said it best in the C-box after she logged off:

"And Miss Chouette..I have helped you so far..But at the moment you are coming across as a wanna be munchkin who is unable to follow the rules of the game and blames it on others[.] The game and the rules themselves are slanted to have the Werewolf as the primary shapeshifter and it is for this reason others are for one reason or another not as tough andor powerful andor prolific as them[.] Play a starting character as an actual starting character and build them up with XP..Like everyone else"

She can have her five auspices, the myth, the similar role, that's all okay. But the rules prevent her from making a wereowl version of the werewolf, and I don't have the authority to overwrite it. I'm sorry, too, if I came off as too cross, and I apologize if I was abrasive.

-Me Ah, sorry to hear that, if she likes, i can give her some tips, i have a degree in networking, and im quite handy with a computer; the easiest way is just to use a non-local client. like gmail or livemail (or whatever they call it now), they scrub everything for you to begin with, and you dont have to download anything to view the messages. Its very safe. But i understand.


 * shrugs* Ive always been of the mind that rules should serve story, and not the other way around, as long as everything is balanced and no one is (actually) munchkining, then things should be allowed, especially if they are backed up with good fluff. But I've always been a permissive sort...

As for being lippy, you should have seen what i had there originally XD, what i actually posted was very tame and honest, and i wont apologise for honesty. I do admit to being a fiery sort, but i like to think that a great many people would have reacted much worse to wasting their weekend due to miscommunication. And they might not like to think so, but telling someone they cant use a perfectly valid set of mechanics, and must instead use ones that are weaker and less suited to a idea, in the name of semantics and Holy Rules is infact very anti-creative.

And hypocritical... considering you have Geniuses, a fanline that is much more powerful and less balanced than what i proposed... and why did you allow that? was it because it came in a pdf? that it was like 300 pages long? No, i think it was because its good story, one of your STs read it, and liked it, and now your playing it. I ask for the same opportunity and get called a munkin. What little i had up of my lore was very well received, but i cant use it because it doesnt fit a arbitrary set of rules that arnt even relevant to the actual playing of the game? Pot meet kettle.

As for the other shifters going along with it... thats their business, and frankly irrelevant, if i was the very first shifter to apply to the site, would you have allowed me to make my owls as i envision them? If so, then theres no real reason to forbid it now, and if not, then pointing to the fact that others exist as no merit as a argument. Gene's comment is also not particularly relivent as he didnt even have as much information as you did, and most certainly didnt have my emailed elaboration on the subject, or im confident he wouldnt have wrote that, since my situation has nothing to do with what hes accusing me of (ie, wanting to start off more powerful for no reason, being a munchkin, etc).

Munchkins abuse rules for their advantage, but im not trying to get a advantage (hell, the limitations i had in mind might even have left me weaker than uratha even after everything was said and done) im merely trying to get a equal playing field, where i can stand on my own, and grow in time with others, while playing a character i want to play, instead of starting off weaker and getting even weaker by comparison, as time goes on.

I should be happy to accept being gimped in exchange for being able to play something /like/ my idea? I cant wrap my head around the mindset that would accept that.

(and my comment about the The One was purely internal to my own character creation process, not a assertion that it was somehow better than anyone elses, and latching onto it as a excuse to mock was excessively petty. Other than that i dont have a problem with what youve said, i like a good debate/discussion, even if its fractious, but i have little respect for mud slinging. I must say that actually being able to write all this out instead of struggling with that chatbox is very refreshing. sorry to nathen for having to act as a go-between D: )

'''Post 2: ST EDIT: Flyboy254 here, anyone new take this page as a warning. If you're gonna come up with an original concept, take time to think about it. We're fine with originality, but take time. Don't just grab something from the rulebooks and suddenly decide a few minor semantic changes makes a new splat. Think long and hard about the idea, let it simmer, think about before you try and shove it onto the forum. Run the idea by the other players. Take time to listen to what they're saying about the idea, take their critiques and statements in stride.

Kelly's player made the mistake of thinking "original" automatically meant "good". Instead of thinking that just because it's your idea that it's automatically awesome-mccoolness to the Nth degree, look at how it measures up to the canon in fluff and mechanics. Think about where it falls withing the greater cosmology.

And for the love of God, think about the fact that STs have editing privileges on the wiki.'''

Post 1: Wereowls: The Abandoned

Abandoned they are going to remain, I refuse to be punished for being original and inventive. So im going to go find somewhere that respects creativity more than slavishly obeying the 'franchise splats are the greatest and everyone else has to be very inferior' status quo.

which is a ironic stance for a game that seems dominated by Genuises to take, now that i think about it... maybe i need to make a pdf?