Sick of Vampire: Well, that's not the end of the world. We've had an attempt to run a Werewolf game that went really well (except for the personality conflicts...) and most CoD doesn't have the same issues of the previous games. Still, I'm open to other ideas if anyone wants to get on board, or at least humor my insanity.
Bad Josh, No explaining Plot (That everyone should know by now): When I was setting up deeper mysteries for the campaign I attempted to follow a Three Clue Rule. But, I guess while I was thinking of plot and how the PCs advanced the plot and the slow learning of said plot... it hit a number of major snags.
- PCs horde information: and share it with no-one. So, clues (or later clues) need to target people willing to share information, or there has to be enough to give every secret-horder (secret-hodor?) a clue plus one.
- Characters Die / Retire / New Characters: This is the later clues I mentioned. Even major plot points that were publicly revealed in the middle of court need ways to come out again. The 12 people who were there might not remember, might ignore it, might retire, and then the twelve completely new characters have no way in. This is especially true of new players.
Punch it in the Face!: This, is my issue, not the game. So, I need to get over it and let someone better than me handle conflict.
Stupid Staff: So, I've had more than one "total badass" NPC or group of NPCs get completely destroyed by above players. Half the time, this was due to narrators completely not reading the NPCs.
- "I'm sorry, but the players killed Carl." / "How'd they get through his Majesty? The one that reduces your Willpower by 10(!) and forces you to make a will test to attack him?" / "Wait, what?"
- "I'm sorry, the PCs killed the garou SWAT team." / "How? Every member of the team has the camouflage gift?" / "What's that do? Some bonus to stealth?" / "It's full Obfuscate." / "Oh..."
Any other ideas?