How can I balance and blend spotlight time between PCs of different Lodges?

Question

Recently, one of the players in my Werewolf game has taken on the Lodge of Spires, which is effectively "Batman: The Lodge". One of the benefits of this lodge (for those who don't play, consider a Lodge a prestige class), is to have a rite that gives one enhanced vision allowing one to differentiate between mundane mortals, possessed foes, werewolves, vampires, and the like.

Additionally, the lodges that other players have taken are two custom lodges (One based on being in a mafia, the other based on keeping the land cleansed and healthy) and The Lodge of Wires (using the internet to become big brother). Obviously, the Wires and Spires one are insanely well suited for one another.

I will add that I've so far limited "supernaturals" to spirits (and spirit-possessed humans), werewolves, and psychics, and may introduce one other 'splat' or 'weirdness source' though I'm reluctant about doing it on the basis that it may detract from what the players are and do.

Edit: I should clarify. What I'd like to balance is how to allow each Lodge's focus to shine and thrive. The Lodge of Wires is about using the internet to observe. The Lodge of Spires is protecting a city from the highest rooftops. The two custom lodges are based on "Protecting your fellow mafia/werewolf brothers with civilized intimidation" and "Nurture the lands rejuvenation". What I'd like are suggested ideas that could touch upon two or more of these focuses.

I hope that's a clearer question.

Answer 1

I've never played a WtF game that's gotten to lodges, but I've run Mages with Legacies, Vampires with Bloodlines and Changelings with Entitelements, so I have experience in this realm, and I can report on what I've found.

It probably goes without saying, but by choosing these Lodges, the players are telling you three things: I want the story to involve X, I want being involved with X to be useful, and I want to look cool when dealing with X.

Honestly, I think you're pretty lucky, here. None of the players -- aside from maybe the one playing the underworld lodge, and the one playing the environmentalist lodge, are going to stand in each others way, and even that, in WtF, isn't a sure thing. So you don't have to worry about the players actively stopping each other from satisfying the three things above. So the question then is, what do you do, as an ST, to get these three things to happen?

My method to insure that spotlight is balanced is that I draw up a rubric, where the columns are the players, and the rows are various avenues in which I want spotlight to be balanced. In this case, three of my rows would be the things related to their lodges I mentioned above. At the beginning of each session, and each story, I would write up this rubric for the session or story arc that I'm planning, and I'd check off every place I'm planning for a lodge to come up or a character to look cool due to their lodge. I wouldn't bother with the usefulness cube, because you never know what players are going to do, so that one is more out of your control.

At the end of the session or arc, I'd look at my rubric, and I'd check to see if my guesses were right, and to mark off where they actually were useful.

My rule of thumb is that players have probably a two week OOC memory for in-game glory. If you're in a weekly game, then, you can probably get away with missing one or two weeks for a single box. If you're playing every other week, then you might be able to get away with missing one week. Less frequently than that, you want to hit every box every week.

Finally, I would advise that you want to try to make sure that every player at least has one box marked every week. If you find that happens two sessions in a row to a player, talk to them about it.