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Evil Mastermind posted:Oh man, I completely forgot how White Wolf did that with both oVampire and oWerewolf.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:35
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Halloween Jack posted:Nephilim is a game about spiritual beings endlessly reincarnating in the search for mystical enlightenment. It's French, it was translated by Chaosium, and I have it on good authority that it's 90s as gently caress. I'm enjoying this review since this is a game that I have a vague interest in but not enough to warrant a purchase. It's nice to get acquainted with it until the new Torment comes out.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:40
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Cardiovorax posted:And in Mage. People who played that game just didn't pay any attention to the plot. Who got wiped out in Mage? I know it was the Ravnos (because their antideluvian woke up) and the Stargazers (who just took their ball and went home), but I don't remember Mage having anything that earth-shaking happen.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:42
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Halloween Jack posted:Metaplot was also especially terrible when it came in the form of "The entire Platypus Clan died in the Eggstorm, if you're a Platypus you're either dead or alone with a bullseye on your head."  Why would you want to invalidate a portion of your possible playable characters in one swoop like that? I thought the general trend was supposed to be expanding those options, for better or worse.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:43
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Evil Mastermind posted:Who got wiped out in Mage? I know it was the Ravnos (because their antideluvian woke up) and the Stargazers (who just took their ball and went home), but I don't remember Mage having anything that earth-shaking happen. House Janissary got murdered by Golden Chalice commandos around the switch between 2E and Revised, and there were a few Euthanatos groups which got the poo poo purged out of them, but the latter is more forgivable because the purged groups were generally crazy serial killers with no redeeming qualities.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:44
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Evil Mastermind posted:Who got wiped out in Mage? I know it was the Ravnos (because their antideluvian woke up) and the Stargazers (who just took their ball and went home), but I don't remember Mage having anything that earth-shaking happen. Mage had the Avatar Storm the occurred between Mage 2E and Mage 2E Revised, which destroyed access to the pocket dimension where all the super-powerful setting NPCs lived and made it much harder to do any kind of astral travel.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:51
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Davin Valkri posted:
But yeah, it was pretty much game lines shooting themselves in the foot. If my campaign isn't following the metaplot, then any book that happens after The Big Event That Changes Everything probably isn't going to be that useful for me. Case in point: the transitions between the various eras in Deadlands. Deadlands and Hell on Earth both ended with adventures that more-or-less wrapped up everything going on in that era (or at least stopped caring), and used various methods to bring the PCs to the next game line. These adventures pretty much assumed that that's what everyone wanted to do: leave everything established behind and do an effective hard reset of the campaign. But if you liked running around the Weird West, then odds are you didn't care about Hell On Earth. And if you did transition from Weird West to HoE, then your old established characters couldn't take advantage of the cool new character types available, making those pretty much useless for you.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:53
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Davin Valkri posted:
Ravnos were written out for a couple of reasons, their clan power was Chimerstry, which allowed them to create illusions that were more real than reality. Used properly you could invalidate any social or combat encounter by making your foe react to false stimuli and do something dumb. They were also the "Gypsy" clan, and they fell onto a lot of the same problems that the Gypsy oWoD book had. They also had a clan specific path known as the 'Path of Paradox', more commonly known as the 'Path of whatever I was going to do anyway' because of it's hierarchy of sins. quote:10 - Refusing to commit diablerie on the elder of another clan Stargazers got shipped overseas because they had 5 Willpower and Kalindo. Before that change almost every single combat monkey was a Lupus Ahroun Stargazer with 5 dots in kalindo.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:54
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Davin Valkri posted:
In theory it was to get rid of unbalanced or widely hated groups, but if that were true then crap like the True Brujah from oVampire would've been iced ages ago. In practice, all it did was make it seem like the metaplot was coming to a head and that the finale was on the horizon.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:57
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Davin Valkri posted:
But you can still play a Gangrel. You're just on your own, and your life pretty much sucks. Then a big red star shows up in the sky, that only the supernaturals can see, and everyone goes, "uh-oh", but no one can figure out which game line it affects. "Is that the eye of the Wyrm?" "I dunno." "How 'bout the first sign of the Final Nights?" "I dunno." Only a lone pooka discovers the truth: "Watch out, it's a cross-over metaplot coming!" But he's killed before he can reveal anything to the unsuspecting world. Then a bunch of randy vampires start showing up, some even able to survive the day, and the vampire community is sent into a tizzy. "You mean, this is the first time we've ever had 14th or 15th generation vampires? No one's ever done this thing before? The Tremere didn't even experiment?" "Nope. See. The red star. It's all in the red star. Nothing can happen before the red star." "Well, that sucks. What should we do?" "Well, we do what we always do. Whenever something shows up we don't understand, we interpret it as the first sign of Gehenna and kill it." "I thought the return of Aerosmith was the first sign?" "Well then, the second sign." While down in Mexico, a bunch of Sabbat Tremere antitribu are invited to this big piñata party being hosted by Tremere/Goratrix/Saulot, or whoever ~ it's a party, who cares! From all over the world, the Tremere antitribu show up, most likely summoned with mondo Presence, and also because they've never been known to miss a party, especially with the promise of free Cuervo. Only one Tremere antitribu is suspicious enough to wonder, "Why are we all here?" Another Tremere antitribu says, "Probably so we can all get killed." And they both have a good laugh, cuz they know how contrary that is to vampire beliefs. Elders killing off their offspring? Get outta here! Besides, being Sabbat, they're ready for any antediluvian nonsense anyway. So, everyone's having a rocking good time, dancing to some Prince tunes, maybe a slow song or two for the lovers out there, and then the host suddenly decides to up and kill everyone. Talk about a party pooper. Just because someone forgot the salsa! And as he's disintegrating into ash, the lone suspicious Tremere antitribu says, "Dammit! I knew that red star meant something!" But you can still play a Tremere antitribu. You're just on your own, and your life pretty much sucks. Then out of nowhere, the Kuei-jin start showing up, having this sophisticated society no one noticed until now. And boy are they pissed. Look at what these Westerners have done to Hong Kong and Tokyo ~ help to raise their economies, raise everyone’s standard of living, and now even the lowliest peasant can eat by buying a happy meal at McDonalds. "Those bastards!" they all cry, "We must have vengeance." So some of the cool Chow Yun Fat-looking Kuei-jin ~ never once taking off their sunglasses ~ head out to California, and in a short period of time, manage to dismantle the entire Anarch Free States. No one can figure out how, though ~ not even the elders of the Blood Court or the Camarilla. The anarchs are even more confused, because each fight they got into, always the same thing seemed to happen. The Kuei-jin would start to do some dance, and say she was using Superdooper Shintai 4: Thrashing the Tongue of the Immortal Serpent. And then the Kuei-jin would stop and say, "Wait, does that cost Yin Chi or Yang Chi? What do I roll again? Do I need to make a P'o roll? And what does it exactly do again?" The fight between the anarchs and the Kuei-jin comes to a grinding halt, as all the Kuei-jin pull out their rule books, and start looking up their powers. The anarchs don't stomp on them during that moment, cuz they all are known for fighting fair. Sometime during this whole mess, almost all of the Stargazers leave the Garou Nation, mainly to help out their brothers in the Beast Courts back home (who are just having the hardest time of it, the tea ceremonies and all), and mainly because they are sick of being asked, "What country are you from?" and "Do you speak English?" by all the other Garou. The other Garou are happy to see them go. "They were a stupid tribe to begin with!" The only people that seem to miss them are the munchkins who played Stargazers with Kalindo 5. But you can still play a Stargazer. You're just on your own, and your life pretty much sucks. Then, out there in India, Bangladesh, or Pakistan ~ somewhere that Americans don't have to deal with the consequences ~ the Ravnos antediluvian pops up, and the first thing he wants to do is get into a massive kung-fu fight. Three bad-rear end Kuei-jin show up to avenge the death of their masters, I think, or just to show off their Dragon-Tiger-Crane Style kung-fu. The Ravnos ante previously sent a summons out to all the Ravnos in the world to join him in this WWF no-holds-barred title match, cuz, dammit, he's an antediluvian and he wants that belt! Ravnos start showing up, and no one suddenly notices all the pale bloodsuckers on the airplanes, or the fact that their wallets are missing. Only one Ravnos is suspicious enough to wonder, "Why are we all here?" Another Ravnos says, "Probably so we can all get killed." And they both have a good laugh, cuz they know how contrary that is to vampire beliefs. Then, the Technocracy ~ those masters of logic, deductive reasoning, technology, and Dr. Strangelove type thinking ~ decides to nuke the site of the battle from orbit. Just in case. Killing or radiating millions of innocent, non-American, non-European people, effectively destroying a vampire clan, and the three kung-fu bad-asses, and the whole world goes, eh, so what. A nuke went off in an area known for being a hotbed of war tension, but no one really says or does anything. After all, it was just a nuke ~ jeez, it's not like it was the first time a nuke has been set off in the world. After the fall-out, Kuei-jin wonder if they should have sent Jackie Chan instead, and the Ravnos have been stomped into a bloodline like those silly opera singers. But you can still play a Ravnos. You're just on your own, and your life pretty much sucks. Somehow, during this whole mess, the Rom from the World of Darkness: Gypsies book don't get involved, even though the book is being reprinted. Maybe it was because the book got such harsh criticism that it forced White Wolf to shelve World of Darkness: Whitey and World of Darkness: Negro and World of Darkness: Heathen Chinee ~ but all the Gypsies were pretty much kept out of the fray. But the Ravnos antediluvian is not the only one to have appeared. The Tzimisce ~ you know, the guys who always pronounce their names with a lisp ~ ante is now underneath New York City, mainly because he's always wanted to see Cats live and on stage. He's still waiting for a show that isn't sold out. And in Russia, Baba Yaga dies at the hand of bigger bad-rear end vampire, and all the Garou in Russia go, "drat that was easy. Why did we even bother to fight? All we had to do was wait." And the Assamites are having a time of it, because they are no longer cursed, but their risen Methuselah super-badass wants them to go out and kill even MORE people. What is an Assamite suppose to do? At least, Ur-Shulgi didn't invite them to a party. The Technocracy isn’t the only nuke happy bunch. In the Underworld, wraiths are basically having ectoplasmic orgasms with all the bombs they found. They decide to use it on the vampire city of Enoch, for no real reason, except they just hate those bloodsuckers, and because lots of people didn't like the Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand book. Someone points out to the Smiling Lord (I think) that the last great Maelstrom was caused by a nuke, and it nearly destroyed the underworld. The Smiling Lord (I think) says, "So? And what's your point?" Charon doesn't get involved because he's mortal now. Apparently they could never get cable down in Stygia, and he's been missing all his Buffy episodes. Besides, he finally gets to eat pizza that doesn't scream at him as he bites into it. Oh, yeah, nearly forgot, the Jade Empire decides to attack Stygia, because heck, the Kuei-jin are doing it, why not them? Nukes go off and boom goes the most of the Underworld. Stygia and several necropoli are destroyed, and there's no longer a civilization for most Wraiths. But you can still play a Wraith. You're just on your own, and your life pretty much sucks. While in the Mage world, everything also blows up. Basically almost every supplement written before Mage Rev has essentially been destroyed and made irrelevant to the current metaplot. Chantries, Horizon, the Digital Web, Book of Barriers ~ all wave bye-bye. Now Mage can have more of that gritty Matrix feel. However, there is significant net criticism from the Holy Blood Cult of Brucato that they don't like this new Matrix feel, and they wish they had taken the other pill instead. In the new book, the Technocracy discovers that humans are mostly apathetic. Duh, a nuke went off in India, and no one even batted an eyelid. The Eastern Technocracy is known as the Zaibatsu (?), and they have different goals from the regular Technocracy ~ and they figure if this Technocracy gig doesn't work out, Zaibatsu would make a great name for a new car company. Even though the Ascension War is over (a war that no one to this day still fully understands), everyone's still shooting each other. The Technocracy has won, but that's mostly because the Traditions were still trying to figure out what was vulgar and what was vulgar w/o witnesses and what was coincidental. The last Mage who brought up the whiskey flask example was drawn and quartered several years back. But you can still play a Mage. You're just on your own, and your life pretty much sucks. In Changeling, High King David suddenly ups and disappears, which is the first time this plot point has ever occurred in a White Wolf book (except maybe with Charon, or Dante, or Caine, or Saulot). Everyone's now at war with one another, and all the pookas can do is wonder why every one is so drat serious all of a sudden. Once upon a time, the worst enemy was the schoolteacher. Maybe the Fae have been itchin' to get into a major confrontation for a long time now, ever since they didn't have to use those drat cards anymore. So a war is going on, with people waving fake swords around and saying "forsooth" a lot, and no one really pays attention. As a result of the destruction of the Underworld, wraiths and spectres are forced out into the mortal world, where they haunt people more, or where they become zombies, or where they just leave the toilet seat up ~ just being nuisances all around. A chosen few known as the Imbued ~ not because of alcohol intake, but because they couldn't figure out another cooler sounding name, since all the other game lines had taken the best ones ~ they start to notice all the supernaturals around them. Upon doing so, they get neato powers, too, so they can kill these monsters. But they must also choose one overwhelming philosophy, called a Creed, that dictates what they think of supernatural creatures. The Do-I-Try-To-Heal-Them Creed, the Kill-Em-All Creed, or the Protect-Humanity Creed. For some reason, there's no Oh-poo poo-I-Run-Like-Hell Creed. There's no mixing and matching, you pretty much view all the supernaturals the same. The old hunters in Hunters Hunted are just normal humans, even more normal than these hunters with powers, so they must suck. But you can still play an old Hunters Hunted character. You're just on your own, and your life pretty much sucks. And as a result, culmination, whatever, of all these preceding events, Osiris finally gets his lazy rear end out of bed, just in time for the Ghost Storm to hit the Egyptian underworld. He protects some mummies, while the rest get shredded to bits. The few mummies that survive in the mortal world end up getting weaker. Osiris goes, "well, that sucks", and distributes a new spell of life to all those cults that have been waiting for his return all these thousands of years. They make brand new, fresh off the lot mummies, and the assembly lines can't move fast enough to meet the demand. Since the cultists don't have an emergency pull chord like those guys who work for Saturn, some of these mummies are a little, uh, off. All new mummies have to take these occasional doctoral exams in front of the Big Bad Mummy Committee to see if they can get more buff. Osiris is the harshest judge, saying things like, "Is that your final answer?" No new mummies can use a life-line or call a friend. But you can still play one of the original Mummy characters. You're just on your own, and your life pretty much sucks. So now, when you're walking down the streets of the World of Darkness, and you meet some guy in a black trench coat, with long hair in a ponytail, in dark sunglasses, and holding a katana, you can ask: "What are you? A vampire?" "Nope." "A mage?" "Nope." "A hunter?" "Nope. Keep trying, you'll get there." "Are you from the Net Highlander supplement?" "Nope." "A gamer with an inferiority complex, social problems, and some deep-seated aggressive feelings?" "Nope." "Then what are you?" "I'm a Mummy." "Uh. Yeah. You're kidding, right?" "Mummies never kid! Die, agent of that big evil snake thingee that I can't quite pronounce!" And btw, Xavier never got hold of Mulder. Some guy named Doggett was there.
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Nov 12, 2013 21:58
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Evil Mastermind posted:Who got wiped out in Mage? I know it was the Ravnos (because their antideluvian woke up) and the Stargazers (who just took their ball and went home), but I don't remember Mage having anything that earth-shaking happen.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:05
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Didn't the Technocracy do that thing where they used satellites to Sun Laser Ravnos? Or was that in addition to a nuke instead of in place of?
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Nov 12, 2013 22:06
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Mr. Maltose posted:Didn't the Technocracy do that thing where they used satellites to Sun Laser Ravnos? Or was that in addition to a nuke instead of in place of? Men in black suits explained it away as "phosphorescent swamp gas".
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Nov 12, 2013 22:08
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Mr. Maltose posted:Didn't the Technocracy do that thing where they used satellites to Sun Laser Ravnos? Or was that in addition to a nuke instead of in place of? In addition to. And it wasn't just a nuke, it was a spiritually awakened nuke, so it not only wiped out the real world, it destroyed the spiritual reflection of it. One of the Kuei-Jin Bodhisattvas was conjuring a perpetual storm over the site of the fight so that they could keep going even during the daytime and to keep the mortals away. The nuke didn't kill Ravnos, but it killed her, so then they pulled the sun-mirror thing from Batman and Robin to burn him to ash, because regular sunlight wouldn't cut it.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:11
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The best summary of oWoD metaplot. If you don't mind me asking, what's the whiskey bottle trick?
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Nov 12, 2013 22:13
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I didn't write it. I got it from an archived RPGnet thread, which was itself quoting a now-lost post. I wish I could give proper credit to the original author. I think the "whiskey flask trick" refers to an old chestnut in debates about what counts as coincidental magick, e.g. "I heal the bullet wound with Life magick and say it hit the flask in my pocket." Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Nov 12, 2013 |
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Nov 12, 2013 22:14
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Evil Mastermind posted:Don't forget the heavy dose of metaplot. If you look at the large game lines of the era (oWoD, Deadlands, Torg, Shadowrun, even Paranoia), there was always some sort of big story going on despite the actions of the PCs.
Davin Valkri posted:Why would you want to invalidate a portion of your possible playable characters in one swoop like that? I thought the general trend was supposed to be expanding those options, for better or worse. Kurieg posted:They were also the "Gypsy" clan, and they fell onto a lot of the same problems that the Gypsy oWoD book had. They also had a clan specific path known as the 'Path of Paradox', more commonly known as the 'Path of whatever I was going to do anyway' because of it's hierarchy of sins. It bears adding that the Ravnos were not only terrible Romani stereotypes, but had a psychological compulsion to commit crime. The metaplot was lovely and heavy-handed but they totally deserved to be excised from the game.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:16
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I'm sorry, WHAT?! Go back to the bit about Tremere and Gangrel, I know those guys from Bloodlines and Beckett was cool! Jeez, if I want to play a game like that, I'd play it in FATE or maybe even Neon Abyss...
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Nov 12, 2013 22:17
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That is still the greatest oWoD metaplot summary ever written. 
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Nov 12, 2013 22:17
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AccidentalHipster posted:The best summary of oWoD metaplot. If you don't mind me asking, what's the whiskey bottle trick? The whiskey bottle trick was from the old Mage mailing list (to give you an idea of how long ago this was; forums really didn't exist yet). In the original Mage book, one of the examples of using magick to defend yourself was to create a whiskey flask over your heart that blocked a bullet. Unfortunately, they didn't explain how you'd actually do this; it was just a throwaway example. A huge argument erupted on how you'd do this (did you use Matter to create it? Correspondence to transport a flask from home?) and if it'd be vulgar or conincidental (creating matter out of thin air was vulgar, but nobody'd know there wasn't a flask in your pocket, so is it coincidental?). Basically it was an early warning sign that WW didn't think as much about the magick system as they should have before releasing it to the public.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:22
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Davin Valkri posted:I'm sorry, WHAT?! Go back to the bit about Tremere and Gangrel, I know those guys from Bloodlines and Beckett was cool! In Vampire 2nd Ed. Revised, most Gangrel left the Camarilla because their Justicar found out that although the official Camarilla position is that the Antediluvians are either long-dead or never existed, the rest of the Council of Seven and upper Camarilla leadership had been trying to plan for their return, just like the Sabbat. I can't remember exactly how the Tremere antitribu bit the dust. It involved some kind of triple threat cage match between Tremere, Saulot (the Antediluvian he diablerized), and Goratrix, Tremere's sidekick.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:23
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It bears adding that the Ravnos were not only terrible Romani stereotypes, but had a psychological compulsion to commit crime. Well of course, it's a hierarchy 2 sin to not steal, I'm just doing what I have to to keep from becoming a ravening beast. They tried to 'salvage' the Ravnos by turning them into a tribe of Indian mystics who tried to understand karma and dispel the illusions that shrouded the world, but it didn't take. And their hierarchy of sins had "failure to kill another vampire" on it, so it made you a hit in groups.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:27
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Halloween Jack posted:I can't remember exactly how the Tremere antitribu bit the dust. It involved some kind of triple threat cage match between Tremere, Saulot (the Antediluvian he diablerized), and Goratrix, Tremere's sidekick.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:27
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Evil Mastermind posted:Didn't the three of them get into the huge fight in the desert in the Middle East that got magic-nuked by the Technocracy? According to my oWoD Cheat Sheet, Saulot took over Tremere's body, Tremere's soul fled and took over Goratrix' body, Then Tremere bound Goratrix in a magic mirror, called the Antitribu to a house party in Mexico City and killed them all.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:32
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Halloween Jack posted:I can't remember exactly how the Tremere antitribu bit the dust. It involved some kind of triple threat cage match between Tremere, Saulot (the Antediluvian he diablerized), and Goratrix, Tremere's sidekick. Yeah, once Tremere began to awake from torpor in the end times, he jumped into Goratrix's body, pied piper'd all the Tremere Antitribu down to Mexico, and made a bonfire out of their assholes, because gently caress traitors. I get the impression it was to A) get rid of them, since they were a bit crap (their "weakness" was that other Tremere could automatically see they were traitors, which is academic when you're in the Sabbat), and B) to give the Camarilla a monopoly of the magic vampires to give them something special, since the Sabbat had a monopoly on Cool Stuff at the time.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:34
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Evil Mastermind posted:Didn't the three of them get into the huge fight in the desert in the Middle East that got magic-nuked by the Technocracy? quote:Then, out there in India, Bangladesh, or Pakistan ~ somewhere that Americans don't have to deal with the consequences ~ the Ravnos antediluvian pops up, and the first thing he wants to do is get into a massive kung-fu fight. Three bad-rear end Kuei-jin show up to avenge the death of their masters, I think, or just to show off their Dragon-Tiger-Crane Style kung-fu. The Ravnos ante previously sent a summons out to all the Ravnos in the world to join him in this WWF no-holds-barred title match, cuz, dammit, he's an antediluvian and he wants that belt! Ravnos start showing up, and no one suddenly notices all the pale bloodsuckers on the airplanes, or the fact that their wallets are missing. Only one Ravnos is suspicious enough to wonder, "Why are we all here?" Another Ravnos says, "Probably so we can all get killed." And they both have a good laugh, cuz they know how contrary that is to vampire beliefs.   death ever.Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, once Tremere began to awake from torpor in the end times, he jumped into Goratrix's body, pied piper'd all the Tremere Antitribu down to Mexico, and made a bonfire out of their assholes, because gently caress traitors. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Nov 12, 2013 |
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Nov 12, 2013 22:35
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Halloween Jack posted:Look at what these Westerners have done to Hong Kong and Tokyo ~ help to raise their economies, raise everyone’s standard of living, and now even the lowliest peasant can eat by buying a happy meal at McDonalds. "Those bastards!" they all cry, "We must have vengeance." Wow; it's the perfect storm of unironic, totally-lacking-in-self-awareness racism.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:39
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Nah, man. China and Japan are super awesome in the World of Darkness because the Kuei-Jin are so much smarter and wiser and prettier and cooler and better with katanas than you.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:40
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And the Hengeyokai are so much better than those baka Gaijin Sunset People because they've never warred against their own kind, except for that one time they warred against their own kind. But that doesn't count because the vampires tricked them.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:42
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One other source of these Dumb Metaplot Tricks of the 1990s has its origins in the 1980s. Namely, the discovery by TSR that you could turn RPG settings into big-dollar multiplatform media IP, like Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. So in the 1990s, most RPG settings (and their supporting RPGs) were built to be turned into novels and CCGs and LARPs and computer games and tv shows and deluxe pewter figurines and tactical miniature games and comic books and novelty radio singles. An RPG setting should be static - it's presented in all its details, and then turned over to the GMs and players to stomp around in. But 1990s settings were dynamic, like a soap opera, and full of critically plot-important NPCs, which helped give an identity and focus to the line of tie-in novels, but really hampered their utility as RPG settings. Also, I'm pretty sure the percentage of people who followed the WoD metaplot to the letter was very, very small compared to the number of people who, when told that the Tremere antediluvian had just woken up and completely wiped out all the antitribu said "not in my game he didn't" and kept on playing. Metaplot events were great for creating enormous online discussion threads, but I doubt they had much effect on peoples' actual games.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:47
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I think it reached a point where people bought books to keep up with the setting (and argue about it online) whereas others ragequit buying books because something they liked got smooshed.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:54
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The Changeling metaplot, I had forgotten how terrible that was. High King David is missing? Who's High King David? He's way more special than you and important shut up. Given that he (and the whole of Changeling rulership) had essentially been completely just a setting footnote at that point, trying to sell it as a big deal was perhaps more forced than any other WoD metaplot. It was creating an event and trying to sell its importance after the fact. Then there were entire swaths of metaphysics and mythology which were shoved in at the last moment resulting in unstoppable super-faeries from the Nth dimension crapping out of nowhere to murder everyone (and they were deliberately unstatted for just that purpose). Maybe. It really was the crappiest metaplot in retrospect, it had no point but to try and up the ante because well, every other game was doin' it. FMguru posted:Also, I'm pretty sure the percentage of people who followed the WoD metaplot to the letter was very, very small compared to the number of people who, when told that the Tremere antediluvian had just woken up and completely wiped out all the antitribu said "not in my game he didn't" and kept on playing. Hell, the death of the Tremere Antitribu was not presented as an "event". It was a sidebar.
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Nov 12, 2013 23:00
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Halloween Jack posted:I think it reached a point where people bought books to keep up with the setting (and argue about it online) whereas others ragequit buying books because something they liked got smooshed. Like I said, 3.0/D20's emphasis on "lots of poo poo you could use in play" was a real breath of fresh air. And while we're talking about terrible RPG metaplots leading to ragequits, how about F&F's favorite chew-toy 7TH SEA, which had several later supplements that pulled the ol' "You thought the setting was about X, but it's really about Y, and the people you thought were good guys are actually the bad guys, and vice-versa".
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Nov 12, 2013 23:08
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Black Tokyo Unlimited - The Races of Black Japan The Nikusui has some seriously loving creep-o writing. It's the worst. quote:A Nikusui is a razor blade with a candy shell, a guillotine wrapped in a pretty bow, poison that tastes like sugar. Like many fey, the Nikusui have a love for innocence, but theirs is so great that it pushes them to violent action. The Nikusui leave the forests of the Tatakama to seek violent retribution on those who would harm mortal children. This doesn't sound too bad, until you remember that this is Black Tokyo so "harm" only means "rape". Honestly, I'm just going to post the rest of this first section in it's entirety because it's so bad. quote:Nikusui kill by seduction and deception, willingly allowing themselves to be abducted, molested and manipulated if suffering these indignities will save one mortal child from the same suffering. They wonder the world as unaccompanied minors, as lost children and seductive little lolitas…as bait. Their every word, every move, every gesture is calculated to entice pedophiles to them; they are like deep sea angler fish reeling out a glowing lure.  Nikusui look like a pre-teen human and never age. quote:Even a thousand old Nikusui samurai looks as helpless and hairless as an eight year old boy. The only hint to their true nature are the vengeance prayers tatooed on their backs and bellies. "When a Nikusui drops her pretence of iPhone helplessness," whatever that means, they're cold-hearted murder machines who are "decisive as a drawn katana". The Reproduction section informs us that they almost never take lovers, not entirely ruling out creepy bullshit. This loving race sucks. The Nikusui almost never return to their homelands, since in a Field game children are always at risk for abuse. Their methods are very brutal' "Black Tokyo's newspapers carry regular stories of child pornographers found strangled on their own severed cocks," which is the best sentence in this entire shitshow, Salarymen going out on dates with highschoolers get flayed alive, and rapists are burned alive, one square inch of skin at a time. They are also found all across Asia, Europe and "the worst corners of the American hell." Nikusui are small fey who of loving course get a +2 to CHA. Fun fact: All but one race gets +2 to Charisma. They also have a magical pedophile radar which lets them know if anyone within 30 feet of has ever had sex with someone who was a Child or younger at the time. Nikusui also receive bonuses at pretending to be a kid. A Nikusui can use their Charisma modifier instead of their Strength modifier because they get -2 to strength because they're kids. They also have the ability to make a 5 ft step whenever they kill a pedophile with their CHA modifier. Finally, Nikusui take penalties on skill check attack and damage rolls if they're doing anything other than killing pedophiles while pedophiles are within range of their pedosense. Alternate racial traits! In exchange for the CHA Bonus and 5 ft step, a Nikusui can transfer any damage taken by children onto herself and gets a 5 ft step whenever this activates, but she must move toward the creature that did the harm. The Nikusui can also be the ghost of an abused child, which changes their type to undead and they can be harmed by positive energy. They cannot, however, be harmed by clerics who are pedophiles or have otherwise harmed or killed children. They can get rid of their 5 ft step ability to get the spooky ability to walk on ceilings and walls, but can't use it within 60 ft of any child or pregnant woman. In exchange for automatic success on imitating a human child, the Nikusui can become a horrifying noseless and blind monster that exists only to murder pedophiles. Aside from looking all spooky , they get blind sense within 120 ft. That is their only mechanical benefit. I decided to look up the Nikusui to see how much Chris Field was bullshitting here, and as it turns out he bullshitted nearly the entire thing (which should be no big surprise). According to the internet, the Nikusui took the form of a young woman and would suck all the flesh off of its victim's body. The only way to kill it was to show it the bones of those it had slain, which is way cooler than anything Chris Field could come up with.  POETICA androids are androids that have true souls because they are gestated in magic wombs of shimmering energy. Surprisingly, they are not sexbots, but are designed to support people emotionally and tactically. They are often found as the personal assistants of wealthy businessmen, as glamorous high-tech geisha, and have even set off a boom of custom-grown idol singers in the J-Pop industry. Some are even being used in the military. If you are thinking that this is uncharacteristically noncreepy for Field, that is because they are originally from a different book. As he mentions in a sidebar, they were first introduced as a player character type in his book "Synthetic Heroes II". Anyway, there are no males because male souls don't "congeal" properly into a working form (in other words, there are no males because gently caress you). They have flourescent polymer hair, headphone-like sensor modules, and "utterly perfect, ageless beauty." Factory POETICA's are infertile, although they can purchase an upgrade that allows them to bear children. If the child is a girl it is a POETICA, if it is a boy it is a smarter and slightly smaller version of the father's species. They are "programmed with both skill and enjoyment of virtually every sexual act and position a potential buyer might ever desire." So close to not being creepy, Field. So close. POETICA usually live in tiny private apartments in Tokyo's financial district. Some live and work alongside their purchasers, and others live in special dormitories with the rest of their production batch. Rural areas make them nervous if they can't get a reliable wi-fi signal. Poetica get penalties to Strength and Constitution but bonuses to Intelligence, Wisdom and (of course) Charisma. They have lowlight vision and can pick up and communicate unencrytped radio, cellphone and wi-fi signals. At chargen, a POETICA chooses a racial ability package that determines their skill bonuses as well as their occupation. There are Creative, Doctor, Domestic, Entreptreneur, Technician and White Collar packages available. They also receive one bonus skill rank at each level and four bonus skill ranks at first level. In exchange for the skill bonuses, they get an additional Spell Point every level they take in the Modern Spellcaster base class. There is the DARK POETICA, a POETICA illegally modified to be a torturer, "girl butcher" and predator's assisstant. Instead of one of the other racial skill sets, she gets OCCUPATION: PREDATOR. She also gets an additionaly +1d4 points of damage when attacking a bound, unconscious or helpless opponent. It stacks with sneak damage. This also replaces the skill bonueses. Again replacing skill bonuses, the POETICA can be a servant of destiny, with the kanji for good fortune hidden "just above her pert left nipple." Three times a day, the POETICA can declare that she gets a minor bit of good fortune out of combat. She'll choose the shortest and fastest line at the bank, a light changes right as she approaches the intersection, she meets an old friend unexpectly and so forth. Mechanically this provides a +1 luck bonus on Profession checks to earn money. Again in exchange for the skill bonuses, the POETICA can be a cop! They get OCCUPATION: LAW ENFORCEMENT. POETICA prefer non-lethal takedowns. We're taking a minimum-force approach. We're cops, after all.  I'm glad we're to this race. Not necessarily because it's a good race or anything, but because it's the last race and after it I can move on to maybe better things. That said, this race is the best, partly because I get to use the word "murder" a lot when describing it. The concept is that they can see and know all of their past lives in Black Tokyo, and they're all so lovely and awful that it turns them to the only reasonable action to take when in Black Tokyo: murder, and lots of it. They are out to murder all the evil in Black Tokyo to prevent anyone else from falling victim to it. Basically, they are out to murder the setting itself, making them the best thing. Not murdering is not an option; if a yurei isn't murdering it is more or less a countdown to the next time they do. I can sympathize with this race a lot, actually; if I lived in a world penned by Chris Field I'd want to murder all life too. A yurei's eyes are literally made of blood, and their teeth are sharp and jagged. When they go into murdermode, they start smiling constantly. Their eyes are hidden behind a mat of scraggly black hair. If they keep their head down they can pass for human. Yurei can't reproduce. They are born to ordinary human parents, and at a young age are already murderous and hateful. When they reach their teens, their eyes become blood and they wander off to learn murder from elder yurei. They can live as long as a century, but usually die before that in the midst of their murder-fest. No matter how much tactical planning the police or other organizations might do, a Yurei will always murder at least one cop. Yurei are solitary creatures, but can sometimes be seen travelling with a younger Yurei apprentice murderer. They don't bother with wealth or trying to become happy, instead squatting in abandoned buildings until they decide to murder again. They stay almost entirely in the Earth Realm, where they wage their murder war against the forces of misery. Yurei rarely settle in the Tatakama. They usually pass by the Tatakama for the Black Else itself, in order to murder an Oni Lord on his own territory. The Yurei are the only race without a charisma bonus. In fact, they get a charisma penalty of -4. They get bonuses to strength, dexterity, and wisdom (wisdom to know that Black Tokyo is awful and should be killed). They can see only in shades of black and crimson, "the colors of blood." Yurei are so angry and terrifying that their negative Charisma penalty is reversed for Intimidate checks. Yurei also have access to "Ghost Angles", meaning they can teleport 30 ft + 5ft/lvel as a swift action, so long as it's one of the following: the corner formed by two walls, a television or computer screen for the yurei to step out of, an area adjacent to someone who has inflicted HP damage to the Yurei or one of its allies within the past hour, beneath a staircase, or a bathroom stall or shower/bathtub. Their wicked murder claws do "1d6+STR" points of slashing damage, which if read as raw is hilariously powerful. If they inflict a confirmed critical hit with thier talons, the Yurei can choose to do savage damage, where they roll a d4 and for every 3 or 4 they roll again, adding the damage until they roll a 1 or 2. At 10th level, this becomes 2d4. Alternate racial traits include trading in the Ghost Angles for the spooky ceiling walk of the Nikusei, or trading it in for Suicide Spellcasting. Trading in the Savage Talons gives the Yurei Spell Points equal to the CHA penalty, and she can overcast necromancy spells at one level higher than normal. The Yurei can also trade in their talons in order to get HUGE HANDS for strangling people. That's it! That's the book! I don't feel like the murder race was worth the other lovely races, but that's all of the Field from me! I don't know what I'll do next, I've been thinking of doing Superhero 2044, the very first superhero RPG, but it is a very 70s RPG that is kind of hard to follow and very much follows a wargame aesthetic. I'll check my used book store first to see if they have anything else cool and old I can share.
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Nov 12, 2013 23:15
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Of course Fields was able to gently caress up a vocaloid d20 race.
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Nov 12, 2013 23:22
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FMguru posted:Like I said, 3.0/D20's emphasis on "lots of poo poo you could use in play" was a real breath of fresh air. At least until all the people who didn't actually play picked up the books to write up builds and character guides on the WotC charop forums, or post creepy wank books on RPGNow. And the cycle continues. 
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Nov 12, 2013 23:23
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This may be the most "RPG!" art I've ever seen. Note: I do not mean this as a compliment.
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Nov 12, 2013 23:38
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Speaking of '90s game design, would anyone like to me cover Metropolis? It's a supplement for Kult concerning the stuff covered here by Purple. Featuring: Giant centrifuges which liquefy people by the thousands and pour their remains into a sea of flesh, the foetus shawls, a towering citadel filled with portals to every movie ever made, and more!
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Nov 12, 2013 23:44
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Bigup DJ posted:Speaking of '90s game design, would anyone like to me cover Metropolis? It's a supplement for Kult concerning the stuff covered here by Purple. Totally. That sounds amazing. It sounds like an entire game setting based off of taking brown acid and staring at prog rock album covers.
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Nov 12, 2013 23:46
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Alien Rope Burn posted:At least until all the people who didn't actually play picked up the books to write up builds and character guides on the WotC charop forums, or post creepy wank books on RPGNow. Having played with some of them it's less that they don't play, and more that they play a VERY different game than normal D&D. At its best you have a gonzo world of constant weirdness and at its worst you have a massive circlejerk of smugness about how "obvious" a given part of their world is that other people are just too stupid to pick up on.
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Nov 12, 2013 23:46
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