Members,
I would like to say hello to everyone and introduce myself. My name is
David, and I have been an ST in one form or another for a few years
now in the Camarilla. As you might have seen, I have taken the
responsibility of conducting a grand resurrection – the recreation of
the Masquerade venue in the Camarilla.
I wanted to take a moment not only to introduce myself, but to share a
small glimpse of what I have planned to share with you all, and to
establish a few policies that will make sure I can fulfill my vision -
to provide the very best experience for the Camarilla Masquerade
players.
In order to fulfill that vision, I need to set a few guidelines that
will help me met my goals and help you be part of the process of
making the greatest game possible. The time of myself and my staff is
best used creating setting, providing guidance, and assisting your ST
staff. What we cannot do is get mired in the minutia, various proxies,
and arguments about individual rules.
To that end, I have the following policies:
1. I can not and will not endlessly explain/defend every decision I
make. This is not to say that the members do not deserve the “why’s”
behind a decision, nor will they be denied that information, but I
cannot spend all day debating the minutia of my office with all the
members.
2. If you have a suggestion, proposal, or similar email to the AMST
Masquerade, please understand that your wishes are one of a great many
that are going to be submitted. By submitting your proposal, you agree
to the following submission guidelines:
http://wiki.white-wolf.com/camwiki/index.php?title=Submission_Guidelines
3. It is expected that members check the Camarilla wiki and ask their
local resources (ST, Coordinator, other members) before asking a
question. If a question is posted to an open list or sent directly to
any member of the AMST Masquerade office that could be very easily
answered by any of these resources then it will not be answered by any
member of the office. This is not because we have any less desire to
help, but our time is much better used providing quality tools and
resources for all members.
I have seen quite a lot of excitement about the Masquerade venues
returning, and I want to share a little bit about what you can expect
to keep that excitement high.
If I have heard one thing loud and clear, it is that members are
excited for Masquerade, not Gehenna, nor the Year of Fire. For this
reason, we will not be setting the venues in a post-Gehenna setting.
There is so much revision that would need to be done to the rules and
settings that would warp the genre away from what the members want.
That informs the question – what about Gehenna? Well, the looming
sense of Gehenna is one of the important aspects about the setting
that eliminating or even fully realizing changes things drastically
about the venues. There will definitely be elements of Gehenna, such
as Goratrix’s ritual, the Madness network backlash, and the Maelstrom
present, but, as noted before, there will be no massively meta setting
such as the Year of Fire.
The next big question – who is winning? Well, many of these details
will be decided by you through Project: Manifold, but the main idea is
that no one is. There will be cities utterly decimated and controlled
by the Sword of Caine, and vast bastions of the Camarilla. This
back-and-forth is another setting element that is necessary to
establish (at least initially!) the theme and mood of the setting. You
simply cannot match the brutal fury of a Sabbat pack, but it is just
as impossible to stand up to the crushing might of the Ivory Tower.
Project Manifold is a whole new initiative I am going to be using – a
true opportunity for your character to shape the very foundation of
the setting. The basic idea is that players take the time to briefly
(think no more than a single spaced page) detail the setting they
would like to see and what the story they would like to tell with
their character. The VST then takes these, finds commonalities, and
sends the grouping along with their notations to the DST. The DST then
does the same for all venues within the domain and sends it to the
RST. This continues onward all the way to the Global level, where the
groupings will have become less individual and more broad strokes of
setting and common elements. My office then incorporates these
elements into the setting and works to provide the story hooks needed
to fulfill these broad story aspects. This is done again on the
national level, focusing more on the setting and theme for that
nation. Then again all the way back down to the local level where the
local game is built within the framework given by the Global,
National, Region, and Domain storytellers. More details and deadlines
are coming soon – but I was very excited to share this new initiative
with you.
This represents just a fraction of the pure, concentrated
marvelous-ness we have in store with you Work has already started on
many of the elements that, once combined, will provide the very best
in experience for the membership.
Thank you for your time.
–
David Bounds
WW2002021593
AMST Masquerade
amst.vampire.owod@gmail.com
2010 is the Year of the ST. Join us
http://wiki.white-wolf.com/camwiki/index.php?title=ST_Manifesto
– Michelle Webb
MST
WW2002021096
