>Previous Thread: >>47849477
>Pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/7sSgGVPH
http://www.mediafire.com/download/n7htcqyqk0y0acy/%5BWtF%5DThe_Pack.PDF
>Latest News
http://theonyxpath.com/a-bucket-of-beckett-monday-meeting-notes/
>Question
Have you ever made you own setting?
>tfw the main NPC gets snuffed
I am looking for the PDFs of V20 Ghouls & Revenants, and V20 The Black Hand: A Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra
Also, any opinions on these two books are appreciated, i might actually Buy a Hardcopy of the Black Hand one if i like it.
Any suggestions for an adventurer archaeology Mage game?
I'm talking Uncharted or Tomb Raider style stuff. Specifically the Indiana Jones/Uncharted set up of going from one location to another to follow a trail of clues and try to get ahead of the bad guys, who were secretly trailing you the whole time and have an army.
>>47894640
>>47894718
Not bad.
>>47894691
Since I know the games way too well, I tend to mix and match. I made a Slasher with five dots of Vampire 2e Disciplines and a few Numina, for instance.
>>47894805
>Have you ever made you own setting?
Yes, but it was more of a collage of cool ideas that I plagiarized from everywhere.
Most of the writing that I did for it was just to smooth out the inconsistencies of borrowing from so many different sources.
>>47894880
You'll need to give everyone a tight niche. Action Archeology is very much like a heist game when you get down to the nitty gritty.
>Have you ever made you own setting?
Presumably you mean for WoD, but do you mean, like... what? A fansplat?
I've come up with an idea for an alternate reality WoD game that's a portal fantasy/sword and planet type thing. The KonoSuba thread said that's called "isekai". Main characters are all mortals who end up in a fantasy realm loosely based on the Woundgate Shard from Mirrors. A patchwork realm with little bits of Astral/Hedge/Underworld/Shadow/Material/etcetera stuck together, essentially all the places that have been dropped off the real map due to drastic world changing events and time line fuckery.
I also started making a full fantasy homebrew that just uses the basic mechanics and cosmology (i.e. Spirits and Ghosts and Shadow and Twilight and maybe the Hedge and Underworld are all the same) and was sort of Ravnica meets Elder Scrolls. But I didn't like the way I was making the template, and creating powers by myself is a chore.
They were basically reverse Prometheans; If they stayed in one place they'd become antsy and shit, instead of creating Wastelands, they'd give themselves Disquiet.
>>47894825
Is that even one of the times Professor X actually did die, or is the cover a lie?
>>47895032
>Is that even one of the times Professor X actually did die, or is the cover a lie?
Lie
Which Legacy has the most Dakka?
>>47895257
Infinite Ammo & Rage
>>47894718
ST=Seers of the Throne feels a little arbitrary, considering the other 2 are both one-letter-one-word.
>>47895566
Technically it's also God-Machine, and no one would call it a G-M.
>>47895590I do
>>47895521
And where are they?
>>47895521
You know what that made me think of.
>Order: Adamantine Arrow
>Path: Moros
>Arcana: Space
They use Space+Matter to make increasingly bigger guns by grabbing smaller guns with Space and then bolting them onto the ones they are currently holding with Matter. Also they use Death to make arms out of ectoplasm so they can hold more guns.
>>47895811
So you made Reaper from Overwatch, but as a Mage.
>>47895868
The only part that even vaguely feels like Reaper is using Death. Not even the effect of it, either.
Reaper just teleports around and fires his two shotguns. He doesn't grab more guns and stick them together to get more dakka like an ork.
>>47895934
You'll be surprised to hear that one of my inspiration was that Serious Sam game that let you stack guns on top of each other.
Also the gun you are actually holding can only have (Gnosis) other guns you own attached to it, that's the entire first Attainment in a nutshell.
>>47895662
I mean with the hyphen. It's just GM.
Also, did I already ask how to run an Uncharted/Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones inspired globe hopping Mage game?
>>47896156
Not gonna lie, I'm very much down for a Serious Sam inspired Legacy.
>>47896181
So do I
I call it the G-M a lot of the time
So. I’ve been thinking. Since the revelation in Beast that all monsters are related, via the Dark Mother, I’ve been thinking about how that’d work. I think I have a hang of most of it, and I think it’s something like this: She is the Astral embodiment of Monster, and thus has a hold of every lesser monster in the setting.
>Vampire
Obvious, the Crone
>Werewolf
Just as obvious, Luna. Or Wolf, now that 2e did the gender-swap.
>Mage
This one is a bit harder, but probably it’s something like this: Mages have to travel through the Astral to Awaken, and only those who are fitting according to the Dark Mother can are allowed through to the Supernal.
>Promethean
Women are prominent in the creation of four of the five lineages. Twice as Demiurge, once as a Progenitor, and once as a chronicler of it all. All obviously aspects of the Dark Mother. It then stands to reason that it was the Dark Mother who tore the first Ulgan apart.
>Changeling
Not directly related; as Beast says, the True Fae are much closer, but since we don’t know much about them, it’s hard to tell. Most likely, she’s the source of the Keepers though.
>Geist
No coherent backstory. Hard to tell.
>Mummy
Most likely Fate
I've left out Hunter and Demon because they aren't related to the Dark Mother.
>>47896250
>Or Wolf, now that 2e did the gender-swap.
It's less a gender-swap and more like "powerful enough spirits don't really give a fuck about gender if it's not part of how they get Essence."
>>47896250
I really wish that Beast was an earlier game, it'd be easier to work them in as the proto-monsters of all these game lines.
>>47896250
Doesn't Beast straight-up say that Demons and Prometheans aren't considered 'kin', since they were never human to begin with?
Mages, also, are barely family, iirc, because they're "basically human, but--"
>>47896250
>Since the revelation in Beast that all monsters are related, via the Dark Mother, I’ve been thinking about how that’d work.
The Dark Mother is a proto-Pangaean metaphysical concept. She was the progenitor for all of the first supernaturals, not directly the cause of them. Acolyte vampires worship the Crone, but as far as I'm aware she didn't actually create any Vampires, other than The Unholy (Although The Unholy as "Vampire-with-a-Horror-instead-of-a-Beast" might be a neat concept to explore). You could also say that the Strix are Horrors or descendants of Horrors who fled into the world's dark places.
I feel like you're mostly misinterpreting Beast beliefs, though. They don't believe the Dark Mother directly created any of them, just that she was the originator. Beasts are the closest to her. One rung down the geneology chart, instead of six or seven.
Also, for Mages, she's clearly the source of the Dragons (and there is clearly some kind of connection between the Dragons and the Pangaeans, as the later are capable of Supernal Magic without being Awakened or Human). The True Fae may likewise be cast out Arcadian Gods.
The Deathlords are likely to be Cthonians, the native Denizens of the Underworld, and that's a good place for Sin-eaters to be related, through their Geists. Could also be that the Strix are Cthonic in origin, as they are the Owls of Dis.
I don't know much about Mummy. I figure the Judges stole some Atlantean knowledge or something.Although I *could* see The Dark Mother as being another aspect of Luna
>>47896477
>Although I *could* see The Dark Mother as being another aspect of Luna
Considering that Luna has an Abyssal aspect, that wouldn't surprise me in the least.
>>47896477
>Acolyte vampires worship the Crone, but as far as I'm aware she didn't actually create any Vampires, other than The Unholy
There is one vampire, mentioned in Shadows of Mexico, who is similar to the Crone, but with a few differences: She is white, rather than black, and a snake, rather than a bird.
So the Crone might have more childer.
>>47896250
This pretty openly ignores stuff that Beast actually establishes, namely that a) the Dark Mother is related to werewolves because she created Wolf, Luna, Helios, and all the other first spirits and b) that her connection to Promethean is nebulous, but has more to do with her and the Principle rather than her and the Demiurges.
>>47896250
Fuck that, I like to thing that instead Beasts are just connecting their Lair with the Astral representation of the other splat, something they do through time, effort and personal interaction.
The concept of the Dark Mother has no actual power, Beasts just like to make up stories about that to assure them that they come from some actual grand heritage of monsters, rather than horrible parasites that mankind has outgrown the need for.
>>47896472
I think it's just Demons that aren't kin.
I do like to think that the Demons think of the DM as Daddy's estranged ex.
>People talking about one of Beast's more contentious aspects without misquoting the first draft
Amazing
>>47896549
Does she?
>>47896629
I don't remember anything about her directly creating the first Spirits.
>>47896956
This is also a possibility, and a reasonable one. Beasts are like Lorwyn Changelings, in that they reflect the things around them.
>The concept of the Dark Mother has no actual power
Disagree here, though. Beast is after all about spooky concepts that may not have really existed but are still powerful. The Astral too is about how things have power whether or not they exist. Also, I need to read up on it, since one of my Mage concepts involves the Primordial Dream and the Dark Mother and Horrors, but weren't Horrors not originally bound to people?
>>47897274
It is just Demons that aren't Kin.
And oh God, if the Principle and the God-Machine are connected they really would be the Ex
>>47898506
>Does she?
Looks like it at least. The Crescent Moon aspect is at least slightly tainted.
Guys, one of the players in my Hunter campaign took the merit Contacts (Paranormal Forums). I need some good screen names for the kind of people who would take stuff posted on /x/ seriously.
>>47899349
Hrmm...
TruthIsOutThere
ExThrall
Check out the old WoD hunter.net's users.
http://theanarchstate.wikidot.com/hunter:list-of-hunter-net-posters
>>47899349
><<<XxXEdwardfanaticXxX>>>
>Mr.Mysterioso
>Dedmangwalkin
>GreyHat
>SacGeoMaster
>Lady Lightbulb
>>47899349
Card names. "NineofSpades", shit like that.
>>47899349
ButtSmasher6969
He made the account when he was 12 and doesn't want to have to make a new one.
>>47899410
>>47899434
>>47899457
Rad, thanks guys!
Hey WoDbros.
I am... curious. Does anyone have a copy of Vampire: Undeath, that funky NOT WHITE WOLF SRS GUYS thing?
What level of Mind magic is required for Freaky Friday body-swapping shenanigans?
Does the existence of the Supernatural work as a trigger for Dissonance?
Say you see a Ghost created using the Death Arcanum. Even though Ghosts are entirely natural and it is not obviously Supernal, would this trigger Dissonance? The Supernal is in no way evident, and it may be entirely possible that the individual knows fully about Ghosts to such an extent that he wouldn't be surprised or shocked by them?
If this trigger did occur, it would mean that Dissonance occurs regardless of individual awareness of the Supernal's existence, which seems to be counter to the concept of Dissonance. However if it didn't, then this would mean that if you could convince individuals your telepathy was entirely natural or that Ghosts normally cannot travel outside of (magically constructed) barriers drawn in chalk, then it wouldn't be subject to Dissonance, which seems absurd.
Suggestions?
>>47899668
I don't think anyone actually has a copy. Anyone at all.
So a Pistol has a three dot cost. If my character has one dot in resources that means he needs three successful rolls to buy one right? How much time between roles?
>>47900271
Probably Mind 5 with the practice of making.
I mean, that's what you need for possession, and that's just mutual possession.
>>47900271
>>47900629
Yeah, it's just Possession with multiple targets.
>>47894805
OK SO! Question!
This is for nWoD 1E, VtR
If a vampire is using Majesty to control another vampire, and a ghost successfully possesses the vampire that's being controlled, does the ghost now assume control, wresting it away from both vampires?
>>47901265
Yes. Counts in 2e too. Majesty makes someone WANT to do things. After possession, what the host wants doesn't matter any more.
Dominate would be iffier. In 2e I'd say it's a clash of wills, to see who is in control, but I have no idea how to do that stuff in 1e.
(Also, why do you play 1e?)
Are there any good oWoD literary approachs? I don't have people to play with. I've read most of the 20th anniversary manual, played VtM: Requiem and Bloodlines and I'd love to see more about the setting. It's a shame the MMO got canceled.
I really like street level vampires in street level quests that can go to ancient evil tier with the right storytelling.
>>47901550
A bunch of VtM books. Most are pretty meh tier. Not terrible but not amazing.
>>47901316
I play 1E on a MUSH lol, surprisingly enough they still exist. But this is good to know! My vampire has a rival that loves to use Majesty, but he's also got a Ghost familiar with posession. So I think if she ever tries to control him, his ghost-buddy will be able to take control right out from under her.
>>47901550
>It's a shame the MMO got canceled.
Not really. It was a directionless clusterfuck. Anyhow, it wouldn't have been a Masquerade game. It would've been a new iteration of WoD.
>>47901645
NOT ENOIUGH PSSSSSSSH!!!!!!
Seriously, it would've been a clusterfuck. Blood as MMO currency was a horrible idea.
>>47901877
It was a clusterfuck throughout.
Still, will be interesting to see what Vampire Grand Strategy will look like.
>>47901567
Any particular recomendation?
>>47899322
What makes you say that?
>>47899349
I had a character I don't use. Transgirl nerdo who likes photojournalism and urban exploration named Simon Pascal Dresden. Goes by Pascal, and her handle is @GodsWager (as in Pascal's Wager). Her character quote was from Haruhi: "if any of you are aliens, time-travelers, or espers, please come see me." and her "faceclaim" was Swedish J-pop star Yohio. I was just going to link the character page, but apparently the MUX I was going to play her on died and the Wiki is gone except for one of those "I can't afford to host this shitty WoD game so I apologize" messages.
>>47900282
No. They have to be aware of the magic, and that only works if the Abyss knows it's Supernal. I actually made a 2e homebrew version of Magical Tradition based on that fact.
>>47900629
>>47901155
People have made very good arguments that Possession should be a lower practice. Weaving, I believe, would allow mind swapping.
>>47901486
Take it to the /srg/, you Humanis freak.
>>47903379
>They have to be aware of the magic
So it's entirely possible to use Mind Magic (as it was in 1e) to make everyone completely rationalise all spells as terestrial coincidences, meaning no spells will trigger Paradox or Dissonance from observation as Obvious Supernal effects?
>>47901316
>>47901572
Wouldn't the Ghost have to deal with the Majesty?
>>47900567
>Availability and Procurement
>The dot cost of a piece of equipment relates directly to the Resources cost if your character wishes to purchase it (or the components, for some things). It also reflects the level of Allies or other Social Merit required in order to find the item and the Skill level required to procure it with a single dice roll. For example, if a Party Invitation has Cost •••, a character with Larceny •• should not be able to find and steal an invite without a roll, but a character with Politics •••• might be able to get one by virtue of saying the right words to the right organization. If your character wishes to obtain higher Availability items with her Skills, it requires a deeper effort.
Honestly if you've got like 50$ and some Streetwise, you can probably get a gun without a serial number.
>>47903379
>Humanis freakFuck you, the land of Saints and Scholars shall be free once more!
>>47903419
No, because I'm talking about 2e.
Their mind isn't the problem, the Abyss is. Although in 2e it's less "you have a piece of the Abyss in your soul" and more "that scene from They Live where he puts on the glasses".
>>47903379
>What makes you say that?
Wisdom Gifts in Signs of the Moon. The final one gives forbidden knowledge from beyond this world, and causes Resistant damage.
This knowledge is explicitly given by Crescent-Moon aspected lunes.
>>47903424
>Wouldn't the Ghost have to deal with the Majesty?
If they apply it again, sure. But that's not the mind that got struck with the mind-whammy, no?
>>47903379
>I actually made a 2e homebrew version of Magical Tradition based on that fact.
Speaking of which:
>Traditional Magic (•)
>Prerequisites: Techne in the tradition in question
>Sleeper society has many occult traditions, some members of which are able to perform magic of their own, even if they can only use the occulted secrets of the Fallen World. While Diamond Mages may say these are nothing more than shallow, blurred reflections, the Free Council knows better.
>By "hiding" her Supernal magic in the occult practices of a Sleeper magical tradition such as Vodoun, Catholicism, or even stage and street magic, a Libertine may avoid Paradox. When you purchase this merit, choose a Rote with a spell and skill that fit your magical tradition. When using that Rote, consider it to be a Dedicated Tool in addition to its skill bonus. If the Paradox dice pool is less than 1, you don't risk Paradox at all, and if no successes are rolled, your spell doesn't suffer Dissonance and the effects of Quiescence are lessened. The spell won't cause a Breaking Point, but Sleeping observers will still find it hard to accurately recount the specifics of your spellworking. You may purchase this merit multiple times for different Rotes or traditions.
>Drawback: While a Mage can hide her light in a bushel to keep the Abyss at bay, it's a trick that requires carefully treading the line. Sleepers still add to the Paradox pool, and if there is a Paradox roll that succeeds, this Merit's effects are negated and the Paradox gets one free success. If that light of the Supernal shines through the symbols of the Fallen World, the Abyss perverts them that much more, like a bright light to eyes used to the dark.
>>47896197
The other Attainments include creating bullets that home in one people and cause either Tilts or Persistent Conditions, using matter to convert your clumps of small guns into bigger guns, giving your guns infinite ammo with Space and Matter, and a final Attainment which lets you unlock Enuff Dakka.
These are in no particular order and only one of them has the optional Death thing that lets you form (Gnosis) additional arms from ectoplasm, I'm not sure what effects the other optional Death things should have.
>>47894805
>Have you ever made your own setting?
Like, from what perspective? I'm assuming you mean "...that involves WoD/CoD." Like, have I ever made my own city? Or have I ever made my own cosmology that explained why I leave out or outright change the fluff of certain games in the line (like Mummy, Beast, or Demon)?
I suppose yeah. I've done a game that took place in a world that was just straight-up a Gotham-like city. It was a sort of "twenty minutes into the future," thing where it was straddling the lines of light cyberpunk. The City was huge. And pretty much all of the books took place (except Mummy--because I just couldn't explain it and haven't read all their books because I thought the idea was meh--and Beast, because it hadn't come out yet).
The players liked it enough. Almost all the more generic fluff of each book was still involved. But it's still something I use. There were some occasional moments of going into the suburbs or small country-side around the City, but it was hardly ever necessary.
I've also played a game without Demon involved as well, because I wanted to approach the thing from an actual "All Religions Are Real," Supernatural-style approach. And Demon's fluff really clashes with that, in my opinion. I'm tempted to use its mechanics to represent people as actual Fallen Angels hiding from God.
I dunno, it's a bit hard to do.
>>47903802
>I'm not sure what effects the other optional Death things should have.
5th Attainment: Reaper's Scythe
Spend 1 mana and make a Firearms attack. If you hit the target they take a Potency 7* Making Death spell Withstood by Stamina that instantly kills them if any of it's Potency gets through.
Free Reach spent on Instant, and I figure 1 mana should cover making it "reflexive". If you prefer, you can treat it as a Ritual to make the bullet ahead of time. You can autofire if you add more mana for each target (or more boolet if you make them in advance).
.
*or depending on how you read "When required, the Attainment is also considered to have acquired additional spell factors that would incur a penalty (if cast as a spell) equal to the Attainment’s lowest prerequisite Arcanum (rounded down)", Potency 10
>>47903999
I can dig, also checked.
In case you hadn't guessed, this Legacy quickly gets rather ridiculous.
>>47904040
Checked?
And yeah, even without your silly gun on gun action, most Mages get ridiculous quickly. I realized that my Whipping Boys write up could have had [Life] healed in Lethal damage every scene. Like a regen. For a fucking week.
>>47904097
Indeed, I even have the perfect quote for a member of this Legacy, who has gone off the deep end.
>"I am the scales of justice! Conductor of the choir of death! Sing, Brother Heckler! Sing, Brother Koch! Sing, brothers! Sing! SING!"
So if I hate how stupid powerful Mages are, what are my alternative options?
How are Second Sight thaumaturges or the rules in Witch Finders?
>>47904351
Limit them to their Ruling arcana and reduce the dots they can learn to
Gnosis 1-2: 1 dot
G3-4: 2 dots
G5-6: 3 dots
G7-8: 4 dots
G9-10: 5 dots
This puts them closer to other splats in terms of power, but Mages are still broken because of their unfettered access to the astral
>tfw people only ever discuss the core Hunter groups
>those from the supplements are only ever mentioned when they get bashed
feels bad
>>47904436
Nobody ever bashes the hippies who consider wolves and mages eco-terrorists for using loci and hallows
That guy from last thread has me thinking. How would you handle Alchemy in 2e?
I'm thinking Create Gross Matter as an Attainment at Matter 3.
>>47904351
Depends on why you feel they're too powerful. You could make Paradox worse, you could limit the Practices, or you could... just not play wizards and leave them as mysterious NPCs to aid or be conquered by your players. There's no way to tell you an alternative if we don't know what you want. If you're looking for things for players, you could probably tweak Mages to be less powerful by doing things like turning all spells into rituals, or things like that. But if your players want to be wizards, then you should let them be wizards and roll with the punches.
If you're looking for antagonists or NPCs, then you don't need Mage in the first place, you should make things up with whatever splat you're using (the Mage's mental domination is just Dominate, their lightning fingers is the Blast Numina, their miraculous powers are the Miracle Dread Power, etcetera).
>>47904372
I don't think most people even use the Astral at all, and I'm not sure how it's all that powerful. It's just a neat thing to explore.
>>47904436
People routinely talk about the other groups. Hell, between me and Amatajakki there's plenty of talk about Maiden's Blood Sisterhood, The Knights of Saint George, Utopia Now, and Habibti-Ma.
>>47904454
I'm not sure "man, I really like these groups" counts as "plenty of discussion."
MODS ARE ASLEEP
POST FURSONAS
>>47900282
You actually make a pretty good point, and I suppose at that point if I were DM I would rule that they only generate dissonance if they can see the Supernal on it. So say, they can see the ghost because they have death sight on and thus can scrutinise the spell. Oooor for instance if they witness a ghost gate in action.
>>47904372
I would really like you to elaborate on how strong you think their access to the astral is. Like don't get me wrong, it's DECENT, but its not a place you can bring anything useful back from unless you get deep enough for it to be lethal as all fuck.
>>47904535
No.
>>47904490
Iunno, I've at least talked about my groups a lot. I love 'em. Although it's been ages since I talked about the Dragonslayers. Not since Mortal Remains came out, I think.
>>47904726
If I ever get off my ass and work on it again, All Along The Watchtowers is definitely gonna have Division Six and the Keepers of the Source as antagonists.
God, I wish Hotel Mascaron could be made canon somehow.
>>47904770
I don't see why it would need to be made canon. You can still use it.You should use my Magical Girls
Although I have no idea what All Along the Watchtowers is. I think I saw it on the forums but didn't actually read the thread.
>>47904795
It's my 1960s America Mage setting that I work on while I wait for OPP to finally decline my submission
>>47894805
>Have you ever made you own setting?
Yes, by changing the main lore of V:tM since the event at the Convention of Thorns and changing other parts of the lore to account of the strength of certain nations.
Tremere don't go to Ventrue for alliance, but to the stronger France/Toreador. This makes the Ventrue uneasy, since they were unquestioned power and they can't rally a fractured empire to attack France or try again their strength against Tzimisce. They need another ally - Salubri. The Convention of Thorns is set to not only stop the ever growing force of the Anarchs, but also conflicts between clans due to the alliances (Tremere want to kill Salubri, Tzimisce want to kill Tremere). During the Convention the major parts of Tzimisce and Lasombra come back to the fold, while the Warrior Salubri leave to form the Sabbat. The Concept of High Clan and Low Clan stays. A new and different Camarilla forms. The High Clans rule the cities and form Primogens, while the Low Clans are mainly seen as advisors/seneschals. Always five pairs Toreador and Tremere, Ventrue and Salubri, Brujah and Settites, Tzimisce and Nosferatu, Lasombra and Malkavians. Assamites are granted a place in the Camarilla as peace keepers and justice (Justicars), like Haqim was in the past. Most of the Children of Haqim agree to the terms, wanting also to keep Alamut safe. Ravnos are made Mediators, but not part of the Camarilla. Gangrel went independent, so did Giovanni. Nobody cared about Cappadocians.
The High Clans: Ventrue, Lasombra, Tzimisce, Brujah and Toreador
The Low (Seneschals) Clans: Salubri, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Settite, Tremere and Assamite
>>47904945
Ventrue and Salubri? This is explained before. Their bond forms because the Ventrue need a powerful ally to guard them. Why not have those that can heal your wounds with greater ease than with Vitae? People who can save your brightest and best soldiers and generals? This gave them an edge above the Toreador/Tremere, especially at the time of Black Death. The Salubri that went with Ventrue were of the Healer caste, while the Warriors grew weary of their machinations, wanting to find a better way (they found it in Sabbat). Watchers were few in numbers to mean anything. The Ventrue part of Sabbat was those Crusaders that didn't want peace and found their Warrior Salubri a better option.
Toreador and Tremere? The Tremere needed a strong ally to fight with them. The Ventrue failed in their conquest of Tzimisce lands and were seen as too weak. France was an ever growing power and the mages predicted that the HRE will fall sooner or later and France might be their ticket to ensure their existence. Toreador didn't see a problem with betraying the Salubri and allying themselves with Tremere.
Lasombra and Malkavians? The Malkavians during the Convention went mad saying that "history went a different way", "this shouldn't be like this". Yes, they went mad because the metaplot/history was changed by the ST. Some 4th Wall breaking. The main part of the clan was devastated by this. They couldn't find any peace, until the Lasombra came to them. The Magisters needed allies and prophecy seeing madmen was the only option they had. They took them to the New World, where Malkavians found their "peace" and started working with Lasombra. Their goal now isn't to cry in bed about the change, but to amend it. Change it back to the way it should be. This also made them more in tune with their prophetic skills, but at a cost - during their sleep, their minds peer into the Abyss. Not quite a good trade off.
>>47904953
Tzimisce and Nosferatu? This alliance comes later, when the Nosferatu get attacked by an unknown force (Niktuku) and almost gets wiped off, before being saved by Tzimisce, their old lords. Because of that the two full of secrets clans decide to work together to keep their secrets secret and stand against other forces.
Brujah and Settites? This comes back to Carthage. The Brujah and Settites were friends, but once Baali came to the picture, the Philosopher Kings started to trust the satanists. Settites warned them that they are going into a more dark path, but the Brujah didn't listen. Carthage fell and the Brujah's status also. Maybe some regarded them as a High Clan, but without their own place, why would anyone keep them as one? Here comes Constantinople. The fall of Michael made the Byzantine Empire weak and ripe for the taking. The Brujah came and took over, with the help of Settites. A bond formed between those clans. One full of emotions and the other that was willing to bring new emotions and feelings to the table. The Sabbat Brujah are those that didn't want the rule of High Clans over others, so not much change there.
Where are the Gangrel? During the Convention of Thorns, they saw Camarilla for what it was - another way to control people. They didn't find their place in that sect nor the new forming one, the Sabbat. Misplaced in politics, they decided to opt out and went to the North. The Scandinavian countries were wiped, no other clans than Gangrel were found there. The Country Gangrel and City Gangrel worked together to guard this place as their own. The unforgiving winters were too much for more than one clan to prosper, so the Gangrel grew strong and became independent from the politics of the sects.
>>47904965
Assamites? The main body of the clan saw the Camarilla as a good way to stop bloodshed and when they were asked to help to keep justice, they were more than happy to oblige. Of course, the Baali curse was substituted by the Tremere one, but it wasn't that severe. The Children of Haqim found themselves in a new political power. Justicars. Their goal is to defend the Camarilla and destroy those that break the laws. As true keepers of Justice, like Haqim would have wanted.
Ravnos? Almost nothing changed here. They still didn't join the Camarilla, but found themselves in more power than they would otherwise. The High Clans were a peaceful sort and the Camarilla needed to keep them in check, so they wouldn't eat each other apart like before. So a new position was created - the Mediator. When two vampires feud and it starts to become increasingly deadly or at the point of breaking the Traditions, the Prince appoints a third party and that's mainly someone outside of the Camarilla politics - in this case a Ravnos. His job is to find a compromise and if the parties don't agree to it, he chooses what the compromise should look like and tells the Prince, which finally decides the punishments. Not only as part of the compromise, but also for not agreeing to what the Mediator wanted. Many Kindred die because they can't find a peaceful way to settle their differences.
Giovanni? Nothing changed here. They are still the creepy, incestful necromancers.
Cappadocians? Nobody stood for them. Sorry.
Sabbat and Salubri? The idea is from DAV20. A Sabbat that's more philosophical and nice. Their goal is to save the "soul" of Kindred, because they believe that Camarilla is steered by Antediluvians. They prepare for the coming of Saulot that will save their "race" as a Messiah. Antitribu Lasombra and Tzimisce aren't big in numbers here, making the Salubri Warriors the spiritual and war leaders.
So now that 2e mage is basically out, how do I work up the energy to get into it? I ran a few 1e games and enjoyed them, as did my players, and they have been asking to go again. But I just can't get into the new ruleset. Subnet going down didn't help my enthusiasm, either.
Any advice for getting the passion back or advice on how to slog through the rulebooks?
>just realized that the Skinchangers setting in Dark Eras gave them a 2e patch
>meaning there's a slight chance that the Second Sight setting in the Companion will update Thaumaturges
I'm excited for damn near everything in that book.
>>47904878
I still need to figure out what to say about myself and send in my submission...
>>47904976
Read the book.
>>47904878
>1960s America Mage setting
Noice.
>>47904535
Fuck off.
>>47894805
Can a Mage form a pact with a Fallen?
>>47905104
yes.
what changed when it became CoD?
>>47905166
Rules for Social Combat. Because the system needed more rules.
>>47905130
But doesn't the pact work by using the Faith of the mortal in the demon? I would think a mage has too much faith in their own Paradigm and convictions to actually empower the Fallen.
>>47905185
demon storytellers guide pg 65 has a whole section on mage-demon pacts.
short of it is, they can.
>>47905166
More story-based XP system, combat overhaul, formalised buffs and debuffs, social interaction system, fixed morality.
>>47905166
The name. We were already moving into the second edition when the name change came.
>>47905179
Social *Maneuvering*. It's not really Combat. Also, yes, the system does need the rules it added, which also include Chases, Monsters, and Investigations. On top of everything >>47905240 lists.
I'm noticing lately that a lot of games put all of their mechanical subsystems into combat. Everything else is a bland single roll, maybe a few repeated rolls. That's not really all that interesting. More rules for handling non-combat story aspects are not a bad thing.
I like to think that the world of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is just a single True Fae,and the main characters are all Changelings under going their Durance within it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_HReR_McQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtkGtXtDlQA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXOdn6vLCuU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9FGgwCQ22w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS_Xq7gSCBM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbL-NSkXnl8
>>47903983
>no tie
>collar outside the suit coat
Someone call the undead fashion police, 500 years and this faggot still doesn't know how to dress
>>47905617
He liked the 70s, don't judge him .
>>47905256
>Defending Investigations and Social Combat
You for real? It's shit bro. Before you almost not needed to make any rolls. Now you NEED to roll at least once, because some fuckhead took a Merit.
> "Blah blah blah"
> "I want to roll because I need a DOOR!"
> "Why can't we RP this?"
> "FUCK THAT! I HAVE SUPER SOCIAL POWERS!"
This is bad design brah.
>>47905549
>Shilling this pretentious garbage
>>47905848
>"Why can't we RP this?"
You mean
>"whine whine why can't I get around my character being shit at social stuff buy talking my ST's ears off with pretentious pseudo rp
Guess what, a player being good at social stuff shouldn't give a character any more advantage in social encounters than a player being good at combat gives to a their character.
>>47905869
>"I hate this thing, am I popular yet?"
You seem to be lost, >>>/v/ is out of this office, next corridor clockwise and fifth on your left.
>>47905919
>player being good at social stuff shouldn't give a character any more advantage in social encounters
>Shitty Storyteller for not taking into account character stats
or
>Shitty Player for not taking into account their character stats
Pick one. It's not the problem of the system. It did not needed more rules.
>>47905848
Why can't you RP your way out of combat by describing how well you hit the bad guy?
Because it's an RPG, and to get shit done you need to actually interact with the game part. That means using the social rules.
Freeform RP and improv theatre both exist. They're cool and fun! They're not RPGs (and they're not 'worse' or 'lesser' than RPGs, either).
>>47905978
Combat has 'down and dirty combat' and 'regular combat'.
Why shouldn't social interactions have 'down and dirty social' and the Doors system?
Right, looks like my next Werewolf game is going to be set in Hong Kong. Started brainstorming on unique oddities, Lodges, weird local Uratha social structure, etc. Already have some ideas for new rites.
Anyways, anyone have some notions for Things Wot Are Hong Kong that anyone setting a game in the region should definitely take note of? I'm less interested in 'Triads!' and more the strange customs or traditions or places that aren't necessarily so well known outside the city.
>Death 4, Suppress Other's Life
Are there any moral issues with using this spell as a glorified "sleep" spell? It doesn't even hurt the target, it just makes them temporarily dead.
>mfw finding a Covert Death spell
>>47906120
My grandma would rub us down with an egg before smashing it whenever we visited. Always thought that was odd.
>>47905848
>>47905978
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Any important part of the game should be mechanically interesting. After early D&D we realized we needed things like skill rolls instead of just talking through everything and having the DM arbitrarily decide failure or success. It's about time that we realize that aspects of the system should be more mechanically interesting than a single check.
>>47906009
>>47905978
This honestly doesn't make sense to me. Are you saying you should be able to ignore rolling entirely and just "take into account character stats"? That's nice in theory, but a) no one does that, they pretend their Presence 1 character is able to talk the panties off of the Prince, and b) people who do "take into account character stats" may have different opinions of what that means in the first place, so despite best intentions they're over or underselling something, and c) why take those stats if they're just a lie that never actually gets used?
>>47906802
This kind of thing is really not as necessary in 2e, and your ST may argue that it counts as Obvious even if it isn't Vulgar. That said, YISS. That spell was my bread and butter in 1e. Grab yourself Aikido 3 from Armoury Reloaded so that you can get around 1e's shitty grapple system and if anyone comes at you its nighty night.
>>47907368
Clearly it was to cleanse you of your many sins.
How would you adapt the Midnight Circus for CofD? Mr Bile as Sublimatus Extempore?
>>47905234
Thanks.
A but of a slowpoke here, but holy fuck. Fuck Paradox. Why would they shut down the subnet? That website is insanely helpful, it doesn't remove the need for the books in ANY way.
Better save the pages now before they take it down from archived websites.
>>47908545
>oh hey someone archived this extremely useful webpage, I'm glad that archive.org is still doing their thing
>"This webpage was not archived because of robots.txt, which opts the page out of archival."
FUUUUCKK YOOOOUU
>>47908585
It's there! Not sure how long it'll last.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160305092247/http://rp.thesubnet.com/
>>47908130
The chief strength of the ST system is that it is mechanically shallow, and most stuff is left up to GM discretion. Adding more rules makes the game harder to play and run, and less fun.
>>47908545
I don't understand the supposed utility of this. Character creation is blatantly obvious in every game and the newer ones basically have this in that section anyways
>>47908699
It's like a wiki. It's good to pull some information you need quickly. Not as useful now that you have new editions that compile everything, but I still put it to good use.
Brujah are the most underage tier clan
>muh fuck the system
yeah fuck off
also lol at Gangrel
>defending fucking gypsies
not only furries but complete retards as well
>>47908765
I like Nosferatu because they get obfuscate:)
>>47907368
That is spectacularly weird.
Any idea why she did it?
>>47908765
>also lol at Gangrel
>>defending fucking gypsies
You actually have it the wrong way around, the Gangrel hate Gypsies (Well, Ravnos to be precise, but w/e)
>>47909234
WoD wikia states the protect them.
>>47908699
>I don't understand why having all the merits in a single place is useful
Even if you just want to be a mortal character, there are several CofD merits not in the corebook. Beyond that, if you want to play something from 1e, it's *ridiculously* useful to have several hundred books worth of info right there. I mean, I pirate this shit and it's still easier to have one site with all the Bloodlines or Legacies I might want to use.
>>47908646
I disagree. The chief strength is that it provides options. A lot of people would also disagree that it's mechanically shallow. I've heard plenty of people (Touhoufag included) who say the game is more complicated than D&D. They're wrong, but still.
Adding additional rules doesn't make the game harder to play. It might mean there's more to remember, but it also means there's more to DO. It's also not like they're super in depth and impossible to keep track of, or even 100% necessary.
>>47908765
>Complaining about a clan being "underage tier"
>making this post
>>47909234
Actually, a Gangrel and a Gypsy made friends when the Gypsy stripped naked and power wanked. I'm not kidding, he got naked. And started melting rocks with his blood.
>So Jorsca did what he thought was sensible; he took off his clothes.
There is no context. He saw a big wolf (which was a gangrel) and took off his clothes.
This book was dumb. I only read half of it.
https://vindae.tumblr.com/post/105644491755/wolfsbane-curses-and-thievery
>>47908765
Brujah can be cool when they're played as they were meant to be, passionate intellectuals. The problem with them is when people just make them angry berserkers.
>>47909533
>This book was dumb. I only read half of it.
>https://vindae.tumblr.com/post/105644491755/wolfsbane-curses-and-thievery
Don't remind me, i once did try to read Gypsies as well, once...
Has the fluff for the Lower Depths changed? I remember it being this fucking awful place in 1e with little to incentivise going there save that it was awful enough that noone would follow you, but descriptions in 2e seem to go as far as "90% risk of being telefragged upon entry".
>>47909631
It's basically Hell. As far as I know, you could never really get there.
>>47909630
Part of me wants to finish it. I mean, it has *some* good ideas, but most of them just don't... work. And a lot of them are wrapped up in not actually telling you anything.
>>47909599
The invention of the True Brujah totally killed that angle though.
>>47909533
Rules don't expand your ability to do things, they constrict it. They also increase the difficulty of running and playing the game, because that difficulty comes almost entirely from maintaining knowledge of the rules.
WoD's mechanics are intended to be shallow because they're supposed to be simple. The depth in the game lines comes from the richness of the setting and lore, and the inherent interestingness of the splats.
>>47909631
>>47909679
You could always get there, if you had enough Space dots or found an Iris to take you there.
1e left the Lower Depths vague af though, iirc; you seem to be thinking it's all one place, which fits what I mean. They didn't really go into detail on it, aside from it being a horrible part of reality.
2e expands on it a bit more. The Lower Depths aren't 1 location, they're an infinite number of worlds within the Fallen World's Tapestry, that are all missing *something*. Inferno, the closest thing to "Hell" in CofD, is one of the Lower Depths.
Generally, you don't get telefragged on entry. It's just advised not to go to any of them, because you never know what the thing they're missing is, or what it could mean for you when you arrive; iirc the book gives an example of a world without solidity, or consciousness. One could theoretically find a way to counter that lack, but until you enter the Lower Depth in question you have no way of knowing you need to counteract it, so your existence as you know it is going to cease immediately on entering.
Also I was gonna joke about how the Marvel Cancerverse is a good example of a Lower Depth, but then I checked the book and that's literally one of the examples they give:
>A Depth realm without Death might be choked with endless knots of imperishable flesh and plant matter.http://marvel.com/universe/Cancerverse_(Reality-10011)for those who don't know about the Cancerverse
>>47909736
Rules do expand your ability to do things. Without Social Maneuvering rules, people tend to just turn social interaction into a single roll. Games NEED rules, that's the whole point of them. By giving rules, you also create incentives and mechanistic feedback.
One of the reasons that Requiem 2e has Humanity be meaningful while Masquerade doesn't is because Requiem has more rules to it. There are more mechanically meaningful things, and that helps create narratively meaningful things. You can argue that "you don't need those things", but the fact of the matter is that carrots and sticks will always be more meaningful than nothing.
Mechanics contextualize play. I'm not saying that we need mechanics for every little thing, but if you tell me "this game is about investigation and mysteries" but the only thing that gets detailed rules is combat, well... then it's hard to say that the game is about investigations and mysteries. It's the mechanical version of "show, don't tell". I mean, no one would complain that a game shouldn't have combat rules, why do people complain if a game gets rules for creating equipment or investigations or long term social interactions, or chases? (as an aside, Mage's Scrutiny system may be better than the Investigation rules in the corebook, though I think putting the two together and taking out the Mage aspects might be a perfect thing).
>>47909846
Oh don't get me wrong, I always understood it was Depths PLURAL. But like, 1e seemed to imply that their absences just made them barren, hungry, hell realms. In 2e you immediately have to contend with the consequences of say, entering a world devoid of life and instantly dying. It makes simply being in the world far more deadly than anything that might try and hungrily pick you apart while you're in there.
>>47909969
I guess what I mean is that your own pattern used to retain its own physics, much like say, a supernal denizen can wander around on Earth for a couple of hours before they start to fray apart.
>>47910000
>Dem quads
Well, if you know that the Depth your entering is going to lack Life, or anything else you could enforce on yourself with an Arcanum, you could certainly keep yourself from being immediately subject to the lack of it.
But it's kinda difficult to know what you're walking into when most people avoid the Lower Depths, and those who don't rarely survive the ones you'd need preparation for.
(Granted, you could look through the Iris with Space, but that doesn't immediately tell you what the given realm is lacking, unless it's something like the Cancerverse where nothing dies and everything is mutating.)
Mr. Robot - Demon inspiration? As the plots progress I'm getting a lot of ideas from the inherent paranoia in the different groups. Also, I'm currently on episode 8, and I think I got an idea for a cryptid or stigmatic that eats data from the guy in the data cleaning office that was just eating his lunch. I started imagining him eating computer parts, then that became data.
>>47909846
Am I correct in remembering that even Archmages don't like poking around down there too much because of the chance something could go wrong?
>>47910346
Well, there's risks, and almost certainly no reward. It is the most desolate place in the entire world of darkness. The underworld is alive with energy by comparison.
But meanwhile, there's several stories from 1e of mortals going there and coming back alive. Like, they had an awful time and it was implied the locals kill most people, but as long as you got out quickly you'd be fine without protection since you're carrying around a piece of the mortal world with you. You know, that body you're in.
>>47910415
Where do you get that?
>>47910523
I'm pretty sure it was like, Mysterious Roads, Mysterious Places, Glimpses of the Unknown, maybe one of the adventure books? This is from memory, its been many years since I read through all the mortals material.
>>47909878
>meaningful
>meaningful
>meaningful
You keep using this word and it always feels so empty. You don't even explain how more mechanics are "meaningful," only that they are.
Either way you're both wrong, it's not the amount of rules that determine mechanical effectiveness and depth. Polaris is much lighter than something like Burning Wheel, yet they know how to utilize their rules for the gaming experience they want to create.
>I mean, no one would complain that a game shouldn't have combat rules, why do people complain if a game gets rules for creating equipment or investigations or long term social interactions, or chases?
Because 99% of the time, gaming violence ends in a dead/not-dead binary, where the goal is for all the PCs to be in the "not-dead" camp. Since being on the wrong end of that question straight up ends play, it's a gamer's incentive to make that system as complex and fair as possible. All those other things don't stop play if you mess up, which incentives keeping them as shallow as possible.
>>47909727
Why not make one with Celerity instead of Potence then?
>"Don't worry luv, cavalry's 'ere."
>>47910648
>it's the "RAW doesn't need to match RAI" retard again
It'll be another 3 threads before his autism calms down.
>>47910648
>You don't even explain how more mechanics are "meaningful," only that they are.
"Has more meaning". Like, literally, if something has mechanical AND narrative significance, it by definition has more meaning. I didn't think I'd need to explain that. And I'm not saying that a game 100% always needs more rules. As is, CofD very much sits somewhere that I'm very fond of in terms of mechanical systems that give weight and feedback to player choice while not overburdening the players with hundreds of things to keep track of.
>Because 99% of the time, gaming violence ends in a dead/not-dead binary, where the goal is for all the PCs to be in the "not-dead" camp. Since being on the wrong end of that question straight up ends play, it's a gamer's incentive to make that system as complex and fair as possible. All those other things don't stop play if you mess up, which incentives keeping them as shallow as possible.
First, gaming violence, especially in World of Darkness, should not be a binary. This is the reason for things like Tilts and Conditions. Beaten Down and Surrender keeps it from being binary. Combat isn't about whether you die or don't die, it's about how far you're willing to go, and if you want to back down once you've gone there. One of the reasons people deride games like D&D is because the combat is treated as pass/fail instead of graduations of victory and defeat. Hell, plenty of situations have gone away from dead/not-dead, instead turning defeat in combat into an opportunity for more story development. "You drop to 0HP" may mean sudden existence failure, or it may mean you pass out and are taken to the prisons.
>>47910714
First off, choke on a dick and quit begging for games to spell simple shit out for you
Second, that's not even remotely related to what he said.
Also, *I* was the one who's argument kept getting dismissed as "RAW doesn't need to match RAI".
>>47910797
>>47910648
Even then, in an investigation or even social interaction, you've also got situations that are treated as pass/fail and end a game or at least shut off meaningful interaction. Meaningful here again meaning "having meaning"; or, if you prefer, rewarding player agency instead of shutting off options. This is why almost every investigation mechanic subsystem starts out with "give the players clues even if they fail". Not finding the clue means the rest of the game is pointless, or has to involve arbitrarily creating some other way of finding that same clue.
But really, what it comes down to is the fact that meaningful mechanics--again, giving choices and weight to something beyond a simple roll--are just more engaging. This is why most of us don't play simple games where the only stats are "ATK", "DMG" and "HP".
A mechanic provides feedback. It tells players that something is important. It encourages them to care about it. It makes it more engaging simply by virtue of being more involved.
I have a bunch of Youtube videos about these kind of things Re: Vidya, but unfortunately I don't know any channels that dissect ludonarrative concepts re: tabletop. Not even for board games.
This is probably the most relevant one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bsxQZ5JDec
Essentially, if you want something to matter, show that it matters by making it an inherent part of the game.
Masquerade can be played as a high action superhero game because there's nothing mechanically that prevents that. Requiem 2e on the other hand gives mechanical weight and consequence to things related to Humanity. By allowing you to regain Willpower through interaction with your Touchstones, you're mechanically encouraged to actually interact with them, instead of just *say* you have a friend. That's a mechanic that guides play. It provides incentives. It provides context.
>>47910797
>First, gaming violence, especially in World of Darkness, should not be a binary. This is the reason for things like Tilts and Conditions. Beaten Down and Surrender keeps it from being binary. Combat isn't about whether you die or don't die, it's about how far you're willing to go, and if you want to back down once you've gone there.
That's a really cool mission statement, but all Beaten Down and Surrendered tends to be for many people is just a limbo state in between "about to be killed" and "killed", especially considering that those Conditions and Tilts are tiny footnotes compared to the many maneuvers you can use to take someone's life. Engaging in the violence binary still appears to be the optimal choice. That's not a problem with a player's moral code, that's the result of over 30 years of expectations in the gaming scene. CofD doesn't exist in a design vaccuum. It talks big but it knows where its bread is buttered.
>Requiem 2e on the other hand gives mechanical weight and consequence to things related to Humanity. By allowing you to regain Willpower through interaction with your Touchstones, you're mechanically encouraged to actually interact with them, instead of just *say* you have a friend. That's a mechanic that guides play. It provides incentives. It provides context.
And ultimately, it doesn't prevent the game from being "a high action superhero game". All you "actually" have to do is defend the Touchstone to regain Willpower, a resource you can more easily regain in the moment by indulging in your Mask and Dirge. To some gamers, that's a very limited benefit and a fiddly mechanical addition compared to simply roleplaying out the relationship between the Vampire and what matters to them.
This is why the OSR movement rose up as a response to both the rise of D20 and the Forge movement: What specifically makes a rule to simulate this action any better than actually doing this action and have the group figure it out?
>>47910797
>CofD
I ain't time for that weak-ass shit.
The rules in WoD are shallow by design, and that's a good thing because having more rules unnecessarily complicates the game. The bedmst mechanics are those which are simple and effectively universal. WoD manages that by resolving all conflicts with a dice pool. Figuring out what the appropriate pool is is something that you're supposed to be able to make up on the fly, and it works so well because there's nothing else that goes into the equation. The complicated bits in WoD: the Disciplines, Spheres, Lores, etc. are often difficult to keep straight, but they are really only need-to-know for the one using them. This is how smooth, genuine roleplaying happens, by refusing to let numbers get in the way of reasonability.
>>47912384
Is "shallow" really the right term for it? I figured "abstract" was the design goal for a lot of early 1e nWoD.
>>47911796
Engaging in the violence binary is not the optimal choice. Saying "Okay, I surrender" so that you can keep going and find a way to fix the set back is the optimal choice. Hell, it's not even the optimal choice in most RPGs.
Also, a mechanic doesn't need to be massive to be meaningful. Just because something is limited doesn't mean it isn't there. A small carrot is better than no carrot.
>This is why the OSR movement rose up as a response to both the rise of D20 and the Forge movement: What specifically makes a rule to simulate this action any better than actually doing this action and have the group figure it out?
OSR is all about playing "Mother May I". It's bad game design and that's why it's completely niche. Many OSR proponents laud the bad game design.
>>47912384
>Spheres, Lores
Oh, you're talking about oWoD.
oWoD is more complicated than nWoD, and has the mechanical consistency of vomit. The creators didn't even take five minutes to think about the math of their game, and didn't care, either. They barely cared enough to think about the fluff, either. Powers are arbitrary and stupid, and not only do the numbers actually still get in the way, there's also nothing reasonable about them. Many powers, especially ones that are in supplements, aren't thought through and might as well not exist. There are Werewolf rites that do nothing, Gypsy blood magic that does fuck all, and Disciplines with no internal consistency between what they do at each level.
Even then, you act like the new rules in CofD are somehow harder than creating a dice pool. They're not ridiculously complex. The most complex mechanic in the game is Mage's Creative Thaumaturgy system, and that's not all that difficult. Everything else, even the new rules you seem to be complaining about, isn't even as complicated as the rules D&D would give for the same action.
>>47912466
He's talking oWoD. It is shallow, but not in a good way. It's shallow because it lacks depth or coherency
What would you want in Demon: the Fallen 20th?
>>47912752
cleaner mechanics and high level lores.
yeah i know.
OPP needs to make a standalone gameline like CofD or Scion but with furries
they'd make enough money to buy their freedom
>>47912515
>Engaging in the violence binary is not the optimal choice. Saying "Okay, I surrender" so that you can keep going and find a way to fix the set back is the optimal choice.
You surrender, and then they kill you. You find out that you can't walk it back, and they kill you. That's the genre expectations we've come to expect from both years and years of gaming and also from the very media we consume. Surrender and compromise lead to death. Death leads to the end of play. Since you can never be sure that the ST won't kill your character (talking about social interaction at the table is useless for high level discussion for the same reason we don't use anecdotes as hard evidence), the optimal strategy is to make sure that they can't kill your character. So you kill their characters, so you can keep playing.
This is why combat is always expected to be complex whereas other aspects of the game are expected to be simple, because it's the only system that can straight up end the game. The traditional combat system, even with small patches like CofD's, is essentially playing a mini-game to make sure you aren't booted out of the exit.
It's a political expectation as much as it is a mechanical expectation, though some games like Golden Sky Stories manage to break the violence binary entirely by straight up focusing on stories that aren't interested in the severe kind of violence. CofD doesn't have that luxury.
>It's bad game design and that's why it's completely niche.
If bad game design were why some things are niche, the tabletop gaming scene would look very, very different. The point isn't to proclaim that one gaming philosophy is superior to another, the point is to explain why people would have difficulties with these kinds of rules and play-style. Nothing exists in a vacuum and understanding this wider context can help you out in future gaming discussion.
>>47912857
>Since you can never be sure that the ST won't kill your character
In 2e you're now required to declare the intent of combat when you start it. You CAN be sure (or the ST can lie, but then they wouldn't be a good ST, now would they?)
>>47913015
The ST never has to state their intent. Murder is just as valid of method as stopping you as anything else is. Murder is also just as valid a method of getting what you want as beating them down or making them surrender. The violence binary still remains, and that's why the combat system must still be so complex.
>>47897274
>>47898506
What if the DM is the Principle's ex, and the GM is it's current main squeeze? Beasts and Demons are then completely unrelated to each other, yet both have immunities to Disquiet. (That also creates a nice "become human" / "pretend to be human" parallel between Franks and Demons)
>>47912857
>That's the genre expectations we've come to expect
Maybe you have. I think that's bullshit and stupid, and even if it is true that's not something the developers should just shrug at and accept. Just because you were ruined by D&D doesn't mean we all were.
>The traditional combat system, even with small patches like CofD's, is essentially playing a mini-game to make sure you aren't booted out of the exit.
And that's a) a shitty game that shouldn't be default, and b) not a reason to ignore mechanics in every other area. You believe there should be rules for skills and things, don't you? I mean, are you really arguing that the game should be no rules but combat? Why? A game is not simply about having as few mechanics as possible.
>the point is to explain why people would have difficulties with these kinds of rules and play-style.
This might surprise you, but many of the same people playing Lamentations of the Flame Princess are also playing Traveller and GURPS and CofD.
>>47913110
At this point your argument really is boiling down to "The ST could be bad" which leads us back to the question of why mechanics for these other important parts of the story is somehow bad. Combat doesn't need to be complex any more than anything else does. You're making arbitrary arguments. In an investigation story, the investigation should be the most important. In a political story, the politics should be most important.
Why should a game spend the most amount of time on the parts that aren't important to it?
>Start campaign prologue with another guy solo to introduce him into mechanics and the setting.
>First session has a little backstory about what's been happening such as it relates to the player, who winds up having one of the most important evenings of his life wrecked by a man with a cane who prevented him from meeting his bosses at an important gathering.
>Entire office of workers is mysteriously emptied the next day, no one remembers anything at the building or the space ever being occupied.
>Man finds him again somewhat concealing his identity, tells the player he has answers and arranges a meeting.
>Player attends meeting late at night in a deserted park.
>Man starts to explain some things, but finds himself attacked by a creature of the night (Vampire, but player doesn't know).
>Man buys time for the player who escapes.
>Sounds of fighting go silent.
>Cue weakened vampire attempting to follow the player for an introductory fight.
>Player instead mistakes the weakened vampire for a wounded human, rushes to aid.
>Tries to get her to stop fighting, vampire is severely damaged, out of blood, and about to frenzy.
>Even after the girl vampire starts dealing lethal damage, he still continues to fight with his fists and finally succeeds in bashing after I understand he's not going to draw his knife.
>Immediately write a backstory for the vampire to reuse as a later, friendly NPC.
Fuck, this guy is going to be great. Even when presented with a clear reason to kill something in self defense, he restrains himself. I haven't had a player ever do this before.
>>47914366
On the one hand, I hate when characters are all like >>47912857 and think the only choice when presented with a combat is someone's death.
On the other, this WAS a girl vampire, and he might be that other kind of player who needs to adopt or romance anything they come across.
>>47912854
Pugmire?
>>47914366
you sound like a fun ST.
>>47913208
>Just because you were ruined by D&D doesn't mean we all were.
Please name a modern day urban fantasy/horror setting where compromise and making peace is seen as a good thing and actively practiced. Please name one where the solution isn't just "we kill the bad guy."
Violence, especially violence that ends in murder, is hand-in-hand with the kind of genre CofD is a part of. The violence binary is not only there, it has to be there if there's going to be any kind of personal horror. And yet, because it's a game, the player wants to avoid it because it ends play experience. Hence the problem, one that few games solve.
> I mean, are you really arguing that the game should be no rules but combat? Why? A game is not simply about having as few mechanics as possible.
Your reading comprehension is about as poor as your knowledge of the game design that you pretend to understand. I am explaining why, in traditionally designed games, combat is so prevalent in the ruleset while other aspects are hand-waved, and why people might balk at this kind of change. My actual approval or disapproval of this philosophy does not matter. Unfortunately, you interpret every attempt at critical game discussion as an attack on you and you beliefs, so this may be hard to get across.
There, now that I've attacked you, you can feel better about responding.
>This might surprise you, but many of the same people playing Lamentations of the Flame Princess are also playing Traveller and GURPS and CofD.
These are all traditionally designed games. Do you actually know how design trends work? Did you ever care to learn?
>this point your argument really is boiling down to "The ST could be bad"
Why is the ST being bad when they're doing something that's common in the genre the game is trying to simulate? Dealing with the violence binary is not some kind of GM sin, especially not in a gritty horror game.
>>47906120
>(You)
Do Reverse Rush Hour. Inspector from the US gets to Hong Kong for a cooperative investigation into artifact smuggling (which is run by a Razilu, I dunno) and have the two cops run afoul of the werewolves. Time and time and time again.
>>47914366
You've got a gift on your hands, and you must treasure it. That sounds like it's going to be an awesome storyline!
>>47908499
Depends on what you want; direct translation, or a more spiritual expy route?
The former is harder. For the latter... I once suggested on the OPP forums that a circus run by a malevolent "infernalist" Beast ringmaster might make sense. Bale Hounds, Belial's Brood (especially if overlapped with the Carnival bloodline), Sclesti, Centimani, Pandorans, Claimed... lot of NWoD nasties who can take up the old role.
>>47915127
>Please name one where the solution isn't just "we kill the bad guy."
Considering the next supplement is all about "violence has consequences and you should avoid it at all costs (even if it is cool and we're going to give you rules to make it cooler)"...
It's not about compromise and peace being a good thing. It's about people not wanting to die, and not wanting the fallout of having killed. Plus, I mean, it comes up all the time in Dresden Files and the next book is literally called Peace Talks.
I've also played plenty of games were violence wasn't binary.
>I am explaining why, in traditionally designed games, combat is so prevalent in the ruleset while other aspects are hand-waved, and why people might balk at this kind of change.
And I am explaining why that is an arbitrary and fallacious stance to take. Your argument is that violence needs the most rules because it's a binary outcome. But everything is more or less a binary outcome. There's no reason the entire game can't only use the Down and Dirty combat mechanics, but we treat it as a given that a game's combat will be the bulk of it's mechanics. There's no reason you can't make the pass/fail into a single roll other than the fact that these games are the descendants of tabletop wargames with playing pretend tacked on.
To those of you who have played Nosferatu in Bloodlines (especially the clan quest mod), do you miss out on side quests if you play as them? How good is obfuscate?
>>47915929
>How good is obfuscate?
Good. Play Malkavian.
>>47915929
>do you miss out on side quests if you play as them?
I did nos my first playthrough, so most of the quests I missed were due to me not knowing about them. Haven't played clan quest mod, so I can't speak to that.
>How good is obfuscate?
Obf ● is ass. You need ●●+ to really do anything with it, at which point it starts to break the game's already iffy stealth system.
>>47915995
>Play Malkavian.
Caveat: Don't do this unless you've played through the game before. After that, DEFINITELY do a Malk run.
>>47915995
>>47916109
I've played a Toreador that I've gotten to the Nosferatu Network missions with, but the stealth sections are a real bitch and a half with the Clan Quest mod. I'll probably end up doing a Malk since Obfuscate will probably stop me from spending 2+ hours on simple missions trying to not get spotted.
>>47916109
>aveat: Don't do this unless you've played through the game before. After that, DEFINITELY do a Malk run.
Agreed. Do a Tremere run first. Blood magic is crazy good, so is Dominate.
>>47916141
You should just turn on noclip, because the Warrens are garbage. In fact, everything after Going the Way of Kings is garbage game design.
>>47916154
I feel like Toreador is the best for first time, but then again it's the only one I finished the game with.
>>47916154
>tfw spamming blood bullets for infinite Vitae
>>47916154
I preferred Ventrue, myself, but Tremere is also pretty solid. I also think Gangrel's pretty fun.
>>47916423
I feel like Gangrel gets a little overshadowed later on, the aggravated damage warform is nice once you get it, but later, you have other ways to deal it.
I have never played vampire but have read the manual and played the videogames. A couple of friends want me to be their ST but I don't really know how a campaign sheet should be. My idea of a mision would be something really simple like a prince asking them to retrieve a briefcase from some drug dealers or something like that but also i'd like it to be interesting.
Also should it be a detectivesque story or more combat centered?
Sorry if these questions shouldn't be asked. I'm not a regular of this board.
>>47916989
Try at least skimming through the V20 book.
>Also should it be a detectivesque story or more combat centered?
The first.
>>47916989
>>47917211
>Also should it be a detectivesque story or more combat centered?
Ask your players which they'd prefer. That way, they won't be disappointed/frustrated when they don't get what they wanted.
Also, are you wanting to play Masquerade or Requiem?
The games are based on Masquerade, but Requiem is generally more modern and, in many people's opinions, better.
I'd recommend looking at both. If you can, grab the V20 core book, and the Vampire the Requiem: Second Edition book, and give them each a look.
>>47917211
>>47917288
>I'd recommend looking at both. If you can, grab the V20 core book, and the Vampire the Requiem: Second Edition book, and give them each a look.
I read some of the V20, it was a gift from my cousin as he was done for with playing and I've been reading it peacefully the last time, skipping most of the technical stuff though.
My friends wanted to play Masquerade because of the Bloodlines videogame but I'll try to see how is Requiem, even when I heard that it changed some of the lore, which until now seemed really fun and interesting.
>>47917413
Requiem doesn't have that much lore as it is intentional in order to avoid some silly things that Masquerade had and to make it easier to create a story on the go. Personally I'm not a big fan of requiem, it lacks a decadence distinctive to vampires.
>>47917578
>Personally I'm not a big fan of requiem, it lacks a decadence distinctive to vampires.
Eh. I kinda disagree there. It isn't NECESSARY, but it is there.
>>47917578
>Personally I'm not a big fan of requiem, it lacks a decadence distinctive to vampires.
My friend read New Wave Requiem because she's a 20 year old who loves the 80s. She was turned off by the stupid for the evulz blood orgies about the royal wedding. Conversely, she loves Masquerade because of Bloodlines.
Much like >>47918475 I don't think decadence is needed, but also it's still there.
So, I'm sure older fans here know that there's fanbooks out there for running Silent Hill or Parasite Eve games off of the NWoD engine. I'd really love to get a ChroD ruleset splat for doing the same with Resident Evil, but I really haven't the faintest clue how to do so. Anyone interested in giving a hand?
Hell, I'll take just some commentary on the drafted material I've got so far. I'm desperate.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HnKvCbqvzWcmxdNqPUKMgvpfg6fnHJd22_0xHv35-7I/edit#
>>47919360
Ask the OPP forums.
While you seem to have done a good job, I feel like almost everything you've written so far has been entirely pointless. I've taken the liberty of making a crapton of suggestions.
Don't try to be just some sourcebook that gives the canon characters' stats and acts as a Monster Manual.
DO give advice for running a game inspired by the Resident Evil series, or even set in an alternate version of events.
As it stands, what you're trying to do seems like its something that would fit better in a Cortex game based on a licensed TV show. "You're the Leverage crew, what will you steal this time?" (although their suggestions for creating characters based on Smallville is great, with them outright suggesting to treat the game as an AU).
You should think of this more like a Dark Eras book if you do want to just be Resident Evil in the Resident Evil universe. You could also try to put it in the WoD and have Umbrella be Umbrella, but experiment with occult things like Shadow and demons. Or you could have it be Cheiron instead. They're so obviously inspired by Umbrella as it is.
I'd also suggest looking at the Silent Hill one and seeing what they actually do, though if I remember it does a lot of the things I suggest you not do.
>Other than a few pictures of Moira the only RE images I have are porn
>>47915762
Would there be any Shukansen or Huntsmen?
>Belial's Brood (especially if overlapped with the Carnival bloodline)
That should be interesting and horrifying.
I haven't GMed a proper WoD game in years, anyone got tips for starting off a new sandboxy game? To be clear it's cWoD.
>>47921652
Make it in a very small place with limited amount of NPCs (Mortals and Supers). This way, whatever the players do, will have a huge effect on the other characters.
>>47915762
I don't think they could get away with moving from place to place on Earth, so they should use the Underworld and Hedge for travel.
>>47921652
Make it a dating sim. With wizards and vampires.
Actually, after watching a Youtube video suggesting Twilight would be better as a visual novel/dating sim, I kinda want to do that...
>>47915392
Yeah, I'll probably have law enforcement related shenanigans occurring at some point.
Anyways, I've cooked up a few ideas for making the local Uratha society and spirit world unusual but not completely aberrant; time to write up a basic pitch for the players.
>>47915762
>malevolent "infernalist" Beast ringmaster
He only thinks he's in charge, but he's only the current body of Ringmaster, this would explain why he acts completely different when a performance is on. In truth, even the ringmaster answers to his employers, which include some of the most dangerous creatures that any of the supernaturals can face.
>mfw the Garou killed pretty much all of the other Shifters during the War of Rage.
How could they all be so stupid?
>>47920140
I asked there. I got a little initial help, which is where the draft outline of what to make each chapter about, and then it all dried up. Which is why I thought asking here might be a better bet.
Also, while you did bring up some ideas I found useful, and thank you for that, could you please use Comment as well as Suggest?
>>47921084
Probably not. Shukansen have no real "minds" that I'm aware of, whilst Huntsmen only care for hunting changelings and wouldn't be capable of or willing to diverge from that to run around with a dark carnival.
>>47924049
Well, what I'd had in mind was a Beast who has formed kinship with the Inferno, forsaking any pretense of morality except the need to feed on mortal sin.
In its own mind, the "Ringmaster" has its own perversely noble goal: the degradation of mortalkind, until darkness saturates the world so heavily that its kindred may openly rule over a cowed mortal populace, as it claims was the case in a mythical lost age. In reality, it is little more than a modern-day Satan figure; a predator who has allowed its ego to consume it, so that it refuses to accept mortals have a right to protect themselves and it petulantly seeks to punish them for their defiance, one of the few sins that other Beasts recognize.
>>47925528
Fuck your gay ass bats
>>47925637
Commissioner?what are you doing here? I thought you were on a date with the Joker.
>>47925593
>Shukansen have no real "minds" that I'm aware of
They do have minds, and remember everything that happened to them, it's just that talking about in any great detail gets them silenced by The Devourer. Otherwise, they're sentient beings that can even subvert Cults.
Can anyone give me any good tips on how to run Seers in a Mage game?
Like, not "what the seers are" or even "what kind of people the seers are" or indeed "what the seers do", more the latter with respect to how the players would actually encounter them.
I'm having trouble envisioning how they actually run into Seers except for "You find another cabal that broke into the museum to steal the artifact on the same night". The odds of randomly running into a Seer, or an entire pylon, are basically zero in a normal days work, and while I can see the Seers investigating and getting on the tail of the PCs if they leave evidence behind at a notable incident, I can't figure out how to REVEAL to the party that Seers are on their trail because even the most hubris filled Seer won't cackle "HAHA, PENTACLE FOOLS!" until he's got you outnumbered and leg wracked with most of your health gone courtesy of a car accident.
I guess what I'm after is the practical aspects of how anyone who has actually used Seers in their chronicle revealed and characterised the Seers. I can likewise easily come up with positively labrynthine backstories for each Seer in the city but I just cannot envision any way for it to be relevant to Pentacle PCs.
>>47926112
First you need to think about how the Seers are supposed to interact with the players and as what.
Bitter, lethal enemies? Obstacles? Rivals? Tempters? Unseen foes?
That will inform how you can introduce them.
>>47926189
Well, I don't intend them to function as tempters, since I don't think the party will go in for that, but they're the ultimate enemies of the chronicle and thus anything is fair game.
My small list of shit I've come up with so far:
- The PCs are considered low risk as Seer infiltrators because the Seers couldn't realistically have gained their loyalty in the time prior to their awakening followed by months of training
- I'm thinking I'll have someone come to them and dob a Pentacle member in as a Seer infiltrator. This tip is completely true, but the person who gave it is ALSO a Seer infiltrator, looking to deepen his trust/cover.
Beyond that, I guess I would summarise how I want to play them as "Smart, but Petty". Being in the Seers immerses them in a constant environment of paranoia and barring one or two exceptions they wouldn't be there in the first place if they weren't a greedy sort, but they aren't idiots, have a sense of self-preservation, but are optimistic enough to see the elimination of the local consilium as possible, within their own careers even.
The player's overplot is likely to deal with countering a more global level Seer operation, but the majority of their squabbles with the organisation (however they eventuate) will be local.
>>47926469
I guess to be clear I'm struggling to reconcile the most optimal way for them to operate (Unseen foes until the party are suddenly picked off by snipers while being sympathetically cast on to stop them rallying) with the fact that I'd actually rather like their conflicts with the Seers to feel at least SOMEWHAT personal. Have a couple of recurring Seer personalities etc.
>>47926530
Some ideas then:
1) The Seers kill off another Cabal the players are familiar with
2) Have the Cabal and the Pylon meet on neutral ground or under diplomatic circumstances (e.g. supernatural auction or alliance of convenience against an Abyssal threat)
3) Have members of the Cabal interact with the Seers under other circumstances (same hobby or interest or whatever)
4) Build the setting so the local Pentacle-Seer conflict is much stronger on the Cold than the Hot side. Offing random mages from the other group just upsets the apple cart in a way neither side wants.
5) Give the Seers personal flaws or outside reasons that make them not choose the most optimal way to off the Cabal. Go wild here.
>>47925593
>Also, while you did bring up some ideas I found useful, and thank you for that, could you please use Comment as well as Suggest?
I wouldn't know how to change it to comments. What's the difference?
>>47925528
Almost every action the Garou Nation has ever taken is incompetent. Even from an in-setting perspective, it's incompetent, and any Werewolf more than a week changed should keep their Rage in check long enough to think about what they're doing. You know, the thing the Nation always says is the thing they need to do, but only actually do for simple things like not murdering their family.
>>47926112
>even the most hubris filled Seer won't cackle "HAHA, PENTACLE FOOLS!" until he's got you outnumbered and leg wracked with most of your health gone courtesy of a car accident.
I'm just imagining a car coming out of nowhere and hitting a player and then someone jumps out cackling like a supervillain.
>>47926469
>>47926530
As a suggestion, read that one Awakening chronicle. Not Dave's, though that's a possibility, but the one who's cover is Jason Chan art of a chick on a throne summoning badass magic at these two guys.
As for making the fight feel personal, well, the first time they meet it won't be, but after both sides have thrown wrenches into each other's works, it quickly will be.
>>47927113
>I'm just imagining a car coming out of nowhere and hitting a player and then someone jumps out cackling like a supervillain
Ah the wonders of Acanthus Seers who only use Fate for acts of petty evil.
>>47927113
>I'm just imagining a car coming out of nowhere and hitting a player and then someone jumps out cackling like a supervillain.
That made me think of Crime Man, but with more bowel control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYRojAVsAvU
In werewolf 2e can the ragabash gift Open Seal be used to make people shit themselves? It says open physical closed or locked device, and I'm wondering how far I can push this, a sphincter being a closed physical device and all.
>>47927283
it would certainly be a shitty way to die.
>>47927283
No. Also, it's Irraka.
>>47927357
Maybe he was talking about Apocalypse 2e?
>>47927283
You're playing Werewolf, not Mage.
>>47927383
Yes, should have clarified sorry
>>47927283
>>47927415
Take it up with your ST.
There's nothing in the book saying it can't, but if your ST says no, then you can't do it.I certainly wouldn't let someone do that. The Gift is made for getting into places, not incapacitating/debuffing/whatever people
>>47927044
>Even from an in-setting perspective, it's incompetent,
Even the Red Talons wiping themselves out because the contracted a version of BSE from devouring human flesh?
>>47927653
I don't know that one. BSE?
Also, probably yes. Red Talons are one of the dumbest tribes
>>47927718
>BSE
Bovine Spongiform Encepholopathy, or give it's more common name, Mad Cow Disease, it's caused by Prions in contaminated meat.
The Red Talons gave themselves this when they started eating people.
the Red Talons, like most of the Tribes in Garou Nation, are a bunch of fucking morons.
>>47927774
Oh and I forgot to mention, this disease kills 90% of all wolves, everywhere, in Times of Judgement, while the actual Garou members of the tribe look bemused about the fact their doggos are karking it.
How do you resolve ties in storyteller?
>oWoD Orang Utan Shifters.
How would you flavor this?
>>47927983
Defender
>>47904351
Way I see it, once a mage goes higher than 2 dots in an arcana, they've genuinely surpassed every other character type at that point. So for players, I limit the shit out of them trying to pass two dots in an arcana.
If they want to get more dots, they have two choices: Find someone who knows that sort of arcana at that rank, or learn it yourself through experimentation. If you find someone, you'll probably wind up having to convince them to actually teach you, which is a pretty massive undertaking in itself, not counting the time he'll have to spend training you. Experimenting to get that higher rank means casting magic beyond what you understand, which causes things to often go haywire while you work out how to control it, and even then, your mastery over it is usually still imperfect and more susceptible to failure.
Also, for my mages, I make spells be something that has tons of ritualized components so that they can't really be casted on the fly. The exception to this is the rare few rote spells a mage possesses, typically their go-to combat spells or something else they find themselves casting often on the spot.
Also, paradox the shit out of magic being used in the public eye. Something usually goes wrong when casted, though it could be something very minor all the way to catastrophic, just depends on how gross of transgression it is and how many see it. Mages in my games stay humans first and mages second until they cross a line of no return, at which point they usually wind up becoming pretty detached from everything and don't really feel like interacting with the fallen world much anyway.I played a game once where the ST never paradoxed us at all since we were rarely in public, which meant our mages became utterly gamebreaking pretty quick.
>>47928161
>I played a game once where the ST never paradoxed us at all since we were rarely in public
Presumably this was 1e.
>>47928032
With a less stupid name, for one
>>47928196
Right I will change the name...as soon as I can think of one, how does Pustakawan strike you?
Hey is Mage 2e out yet?
>>47927547
Well I want it for its intended use, but we have an edgelord silverfang "high king of the silver fangs" who constantly feels the need to use his grand klaive and openly challenge elders, who's getting on everyone's nerves. So the ST will probably be cool with it.
>>47907368
There's a lady in my hometown who does stuff like that. Still practices the evil eye in a slightly different way (Egg is placed under the child's bed while they sleep, any curses they have on them seep into the egg during the night). She also used to dump a bunch of food scraps from a cooler at the center crucifix in our cemetery before we asked her not to. She does it at the side of the road now before dancing and shouting/moaning something I can't understand.
I made a whistle noise driving by late at night once and she went batshit insane, thought La Chusa was going to get her.
>>47926608
>>47927044
>>47927168
Just to follow on even further to the technical side, what combats have you guys had in Mage that were memorable? The best abilities an Awakened has access to tend to run rather towards the abstract (IE direct damage spells are worse than just hitting someone even, unless they can agg damage), and I'm always going to be at a disadvantage relative to the PCs as far as how much critical thought I can apply to each mook's actions.
The best Mage punchup I ever ran had the opposing cabal bringing out a bargain basement pandoran-styled construct, possessing groups of sleepers while feigning unconsciousness from bashing, etc. but it was styled a lot whackier than I'd like to run this.
So while I do have some more prominent seers written up with personal styles, and a short list of tactics mostly revolving around hitting the PCs with a car and then shooting them, I'd like a few more all comers options when it comes to how mook Seers (Probably statted as 0XP Mages) in 2e might engage a cabal with only a small amount of intel.
I'm flavoring that a local Paternoster runs a bit of a 'faith retreat' on behalf of the other ministries where their initiates are taken out to the country and compete to hunt down and (mostly) kill cabals of Apostates in the mana rich areas out there. Which means even most entry level troops have had at least one real experience in fighting another cabal, albeit with numeric superiority and a Master mage in the shadows as backup if needed.
I'm wondering what sort of tactics constitute well... a show that these guys are fairly well trained and drilled at fighting Mages. I can just improvise based on circumstances, but I worry that if I do that it'll look like THEY are as well. I'd like the weakness of the rank and file to be their underestimation of how prepared the PCs are given the nature of their training, rather than the strategies themselves being inadequate against what a Mage can pull out of their ass.
>>47928285
Hell yeah, motherfucker.
>>47928343
I am now imagining the protagonist of Paint The Town Red as a Mage. He's most likely a Thyrsus with Forces. (explains him being able to punch someone so hard their head disintegrates into grainy red goo, and the whole smiting explosively thing)
>>47928039
Where is that written?
>>47928626
It was an explicit rule in 1e, but I was never able to find it in any of the 2e books.
The only time it talks about ties in contested rolls is Clash of Wills where it is explicitly a reroll.
>>47928394
Anything neat for Moros?
Watching stuff for Rise of the Tomb Raider and A Thief's End makes me unsure about what kind of Mage game to run.
https://youtu.be/Nd6evo2X5fw
https://youtu.be/bTspjWYVmgk
https://youtu.be/JBCJDd95JIc
https://youtu.be/wndoLRMpDaA
https://youtu.be/AAoc30NK0vY
My two ideas are either just full on treasure hunting world spanning "find the clue that leads to another clue, avoid the Seers chasing you" action adventure with going to Atlantean Ruins and Realm hopping and dealing with Bound
or
A more traditional city based game where the Primordial Dream is close enough to the city that it creates Astral Verges that can be crossed into bodily, with people being made to face their fears as some potentially misguided intelligence tries to help people over their guilt and emotional baggage.
https://youtu.be/Bl5DnkGWdWg
https://youtu.be/3-ZMU5AgKSM
https://youtu.be/5SBY_fUpmnQ
>>47928285
It's been out for a while, though not the final final version.
As an aside, do they continue to update things? I swear Vampire got updated months after the crowdsourced edit pass to remove an unexplained reference to Golconda.
>>47909631
The Lower Depths in 1st ed were a single throwaway line in the corebook and then a protracted low-stakes game of Writer-Tennis between me and Malcolm, where we were teasing rival versions of what they were like in books. Initially because we had no idea we were both teasing what the depths were like, and Mage at the time didn't have a line Developer to keep that kind of thing straight.
Then, in Left Hand Path, my version of the Depths ate Malcolm's, describing the things he'd been writing as a subset.
And now in 2e's corebook, Malcolm wrote the Depths section, and Mage's writer's bible has a fuller description in it to stop that kind of thing from happening again.
it was cut down in Development, even - we lost brief mechanical notes on how to summon things from them (and how to model those things) in favour of the archmage section).
The Depths-as-codename-for-Inferno and Depths-as-far-cosmos mismatch wasn't the best such thing to come out of those early crazy days after the CCP buyout. My very first book, I wrote a Coil for Requiem only to learn another freelancer had independently written a Coil on the same subject in *his* first book. Both saw print. They were even named the same thing.
>>47929048
>A more traditional city based game where the Primordial Dream is close enough to the city that it creates Astral Verges that can be crossed into bodily, with people being made to face their fears as some potentially misguided intelligence tries to help people over their guilt and emotional baggage.
I'd recommend looking at the Los Angeles info in the Mage 2e book, if you haven't. That's basically what's going on in it.
>>47929123
>Both saw print. They were even named the same thing.
Which one was this? Also, hey, Dave. Not to be a bother, but how soon is the final draft of Mage coming out? I'm going to be running my game soon.
>>47929130
I did. I didn't really care for it that much. I thought it would be more helpful, but it wasn't.
>>47928305
>La chusa, is an owl shaped like bird, disfigured, with a witch's head.
>They also say if you whistle and you hear a whistle back that it is coming
Now that I have context, that's actually kinda funny.
Is there any WoD character archives, or deposit, you guys know about? For D&D it's easy to find one, but for some reason it's hard to find one for WoD.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-v20-becketts-jyhad-diary
If you liked that Beckett guy from that there video game, he has a book now.
What do ya'll think of Storypath/Scion so far?
I've always wanted a generic WoD, and this really seems like it's going to be that.
>>47931503
Storypath doesn't really seem all that WoD to me, but that's probably because it's only been utilized for pulp action and urban fantasy action so far.
>>47931503
I meant to link this
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tWNQe4TAnKjyHA2TDqIki7hK6Vob0w8oX94SjC2kBis/
>>47931550
They're probably very much going to keep the two separate and not release an urban fantasy horror version of Storypath, but I mean mechanically. I've always wanted nWoD's (and now CofD's) mechanics in a more generic format.
>>47931503
Has more of the system been shown? I don't really know all that much about it, but I'm interested to say the least.
One of my good friends started RPGs playing first edition Scion, so I'm excited to see what he runs once 2nd edition comes out.
>>47931587
See previous post. It's the Alpha Slice.
I like that they're handling increased power level by shifting the target number for a success. That makes a lot of sense. Even the weakest Gods are going to be getting one success per die a little under half the time.
>>47931583
Where did you get a hold of this alpha?
>>47931655
Friend linked it. Looks like it's from here
http://theonyxpath.com/nine-years-and-a-week-scion-second-edition-open-development/
I haven't been keeping up as much with Scion as I'd like to, so I only know about it when she starts babbling in the IRC room or someone brings it up in these threads.
>Momentum
>Perhaps the most common kind of Consolation is Momentum. This is a resource that players spend to control the story’s narrative pacing and help out their characters. By default, it is an “out of character” resource, though some settings may claim it’s the very real hand of destiny at work. Each character can have up to 12 Momentum at any one time, though their Momentum pool starts out empty, and empties at the end of each story Arc.
>Players receive a point of Momentum whenever they suffer a failure or setback as the result of a Challenge, or if they fail and accept Momentum as their Consolation. They also receive a point if they allow a Director-controlled character to manipulate them into doing something with a social roll, or whenever such a character ignores one of their own successful social actions.
>Sometimes, a Director may see an opportunity to make failure more awful (and interesting) than usual. For example, rather than just whiffing their attack, a character’s weapon outright slips from their grasp. This is a botch, and if the player accepts the offer, they receive even more Momentum as their Consolation.
>Director characters do not generally gather Momentum, though nemesis DPCs might be the exception to the rule. If so, their starting Momentum is noted in their traits, accruing bonuses at different points in the narrative.
I love mechanics like these. Reminds me of M&M's Hero Points, but with a better way of handing them out and tracking them. The name is good, too. You fail, but you still get enough narrative juice to move the plot forward with the momentum of your actions.
I like games with failure that isn't binary. This and the Complications system seem really good. Hell, I might pilfer some of this for CofD.
>>47931317
>https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-v20-becketts-jyhad-diary
>85$ for the Physical Book
Wew Lads, that's quite a price-hike
Is anyone else worried about Promethean after what happened with Beast? I don't think it will run into the issue of shit lore and direction, since it already has a good base. I'm moreso concerned with how bullshit Prometheans might be, especially since Beasts could do shit like swing skyscrapers like baseball bats.
