|
Hattie Masters posted:I dunno, from the guy's name and dialogue, I figured that he wasn't a mage. I thought he was a Demon, specifically a Yama King. ...guys, call me crazy, but maybe he's just a weird old man in a Chinatown shop!
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 00:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 04:19 |
|
|
FM posted:...guys, call me crazy, but maybe he's just a weird old man in a Chinatown shop! This is the WoD. Of course he's something weird.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 00:41
|
|
|
Man is there anyone reading this LP that hasn't played the game before?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 01:58
|
|
|
insanityv2 posted:Man is there anyone reading this LP that hasn't played the game before? *raises hand* I did read the previous LP of this game in the archives, though. OWoD in general and Vampire in particular never interested me much. If they made a game where you can play as the Technocracy or a NWoD Promethean or Hunter, though...
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 02:19
|
|
|
Gantolandon posted:It would be really, really hard to properly put magic (OK, magick) in the video game without without just making a scriptfest level where we get hurt mostly in cutscenes. Given that most mages have to at least try and mask their abilities as coincidences, it would be a wasted effort anyway, as the players who don't know oWoD wouldn't know what the gently caress is going on. It's not completely impossible, but it would require a lot of effort - more than a brief cameo would be worth. That's why you end up meeting a Taftani. I mean, they really hate coincidental magic, they think it's Giving In To The Man, so they're always as vulgar as possible. As you might be able to guess, Taftani tend not to live very long.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 02:34
|
|
|
Gantolandon posted:It would be really, really hard to properly put The Sons of Ether actually have a deathray that is entirely coincidental if they make it look bulky enough and glue on enough blinking lights.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 02:44
|
|
|
FM posted:...guys, call me crazy, but maybe he's just a weird old man in a Chinatown shop!
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 06:21
|
|
|
insanityv2 posted:Man is there anyone reading this LP that hasn't played the game before?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 06:32
|
|
|
ArchWizard posted:I've never played the game and I haven't read the other LP. If I didn't have a copy of the V:tM 2nd edition player's guidebook, I'd be confused by everything. I've never played the game and know nothing about the setting. And honestly I don't even like vampire fiction. But I'm still enjoying the LP--Gatz is giving enough information that it's not too confusing so far, but I admit I'm not following 90% of the thread because I have no idea what anyone is talking about and also it looks like a CIA document. I'm just enjoying seeing a somewhat open-world game that seems to reward a subtle playstyle as much as shooting all the mans.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 11:16
|
|
|
I've played the game before, I have played OWoD before (both Vampire and Werewolf) but you still don't see me posting spoilery stuff all over the thread. Here, let me spoil something so I don't feel left out: Brujahs are cool. Hope that helps.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 11:20
|
|
|
ArchWizard posted:I've never played the game and I haven't read the other LP. If I didn't have a copy of the V:tM 2nd edition player's guidebook, I'd be confused by everything. Welcome to my world. I tried following along with all of the expanded universe stuff but I got lost pretty quickly. Which sucks because it all looks fascinating in an over-the-top trainwreck sort of way. The let's play is great so far though, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of it. I'd really like to try some OWoD stuff but I've never actually heard of anything mentioned in the thread beyond the video games themselves.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 11:43
|
|
|
insanityv2 posted:Man is there anyone reading this LP that hasn't played the game before? I vaguely remember playing the start of it at a friends house, or maybe I watched him play it. But yeah, I guess I'm one of the few who is reading that hasn't played Bloodlines, at least not fully.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 12:20
|
|
|
EphemeralToast posted:I've never played the game and know nothing about the setting. And honestly I don't even like vampire fiction. But I'm still enjoying the LP--Gatz is giving enough information that it's not too confusing so far, but I admit I'm not following 90% of the thread because I have no idea what anyone is talking about and also it looks like a CIA document. I'm just enjoying seeing a somewhat open-world game that seems to reward a subtle playstyle as much as shooting all the mans. I have played the game and most of what people are talking about in the thread is P&P RPG stuff, so I still don't know what they're talking about. I do love it though, because I really love dipping into very deep fantasy universes. If you get too far in you start noticing all the cracks and it stops working, but at this level you can really appreciate the insanity of it all because you're not invested. Kanthulhu posted:I've played the game before, I have played OWoD before (both Vampire and Werewolf) but you still don't see me posting spoilery stuff all over the thread. Here, I'll spoil something too: You don't need to know the backstory because the whole World of Darkness setting is about huge multi-layered conspiracies and you're not supposed to know what's going on. If you ever get to the bottom of anything it will be disappointing, the fun is in the hints and speculation and the little bits if plot you get from other people who've slogged through the details.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 16:04
|
|
|
EphemeralToast posted:I've never played the game and know nothing about the setting. And honestly I don't even like vampire fiction. One of the main reasons I love this game is that you don't need to understand or even care about the vampire setting behind it to enjoy your playthrough. I find the lore discussions in this thread interesting (mostly because the WoD seems to be completely insane), but for me Bloodlines is primarily a game about politics and various powerful groups scheming against each other. Granted, those groups happen to be composed of incredibly powerful, supernatural beings, but in the end their motivations are still very human ones: acquiring as much power as possible while screwing over everyone else in the process. It's a fascinating storyline that's exceptionally well-told and set in a unique universe.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 22:16
|
|
|
I actually find the lore of the oWOD to be really boring because, as someone said, at the bottom of any mystery is usually the stupidest possible answer or another ridiculous NPC. One reason Bloodlines is good is because it stands on its own two feet: You learn enough about the setting organically while playing to keep up with what's going on, and you're exposed to a bunch of interesting characters in the process. Meanwhile, you go from a terrified peon being sent out to die to one of the most valuable operatives in the city. You actually have some agency within the setting and get to accomplish and learn things, which is a hell of a lot more than you can say for most of White Wolf's own writing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 22:21
|
|
|
Tiggum posted:
Once upon a time, we got to the bottom of something. It was the True Black Hand. The backlash was so bad that White Wolf ended up obliterating them from existence using the ghosts of nuclear bombs. And don't worry, lost guys. I spent way too much of my misspend youth sperging out over vampires and werewolves, and I'm just as lost when magechat comes up as you are. Apart from a few rare polymaths, everyone's got their own favourite bit they've delved deeply into and only fragmentary knowledge of the majority of the oWoD. So it may seem daunting but it doesn't take much learning to catch up with what most enthusiasts know about any given thing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 22:49
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:at the bottom of any mystery is usually the stupidest possible answer or another ridiculous NPC. Hahaha this is a pro takedown of oWOD, nicely done. Accurate and funny at the same time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 22:52
|
|
|
To be honest, I'm finding the PnP lore talk to be one of the main draws of the thread. Obviously the LP is good as well but I've played the game before so it's not new to me, while my only exposure to PnP WoD is nWoD, specifically Mage. It makes reading about all this batshit oWoD lore very entertaining. In that vein, what's up with the True Black Hand? Why did everyone hate them so much that they were ghost-nuked?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 23:47
|
|
|
UrbicaMortis posted:In that vein, what's up with the True Black Hand? Why did everyone hate them so much that they were ghost-nuked? If I recall right they were just written to be ridiculously overpowered and knowing pretty much every secret in the lore or something in the lines of that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 23:49
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:If I recall right they were just written to be ridiculously overpowered and knowing pretty much every secret in the lore or something in the lines of that. And were working both of the sects in their master plan to serve the ancients and also everyone has these overpowered disciplines. That's one of the biggest issues I've come to realize with the chats I work with - by this point everyone's memorized the lore and trying to do something atypical tends to make people upset.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 01:34
|
|
|
citybeatnik posted:And were working both of the sects in their master plan to serve the ancients and also everyone has these overpowered disciplines. Isn't that why White Wolf added the one character who basically managed to dabble in every major splatbook? As a warning against powergaming?
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 02:10
|
|
|
Bobbin Threadbare posted:Isn't that why White Wolf added the one character who basically managed to dabble in every major splatbook? As a warning against powergaming? Oh yeah, Samuel Haight, I've almost forgotten about him and surprised none has actually brought him up in the thread earlier. (Or I just missed it.) Go figure with him tbh, I'd say he's most likely a joke that someone started with and then the ball kept rolling until they took it far too serious.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 02:15
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:Oh yeah, Samuel Haight, I've almost forgotten about him and surprised none has actually brought him up in the thread earlier. (Or I just missed it.) Given his career ended as a soulforged ashtray, I'd say he at least ended as a joke, too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 02:30
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:Oh yeah, Samuel Haight, I've almost forgotten about him and surprised none has actually brought him up in the thread earlier. (Or I just missed it.) Some of the people I game with take him -seriously- and are upset that he exists at all. These are the same people who do not like the idea of EL DIABLO VERDE!, and thus are terrible, terrible people.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 03:55
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:Oh yeah, Samuel Haight, I've almost forgotten about him and surprised none has actually brought him up in the thread earlier. (Or I just missed it.) Oooooh boy. Samuel Haight was a kinfolk of the Children of Gaia werewolf tribe. 'Kinfolk' are humans or wolves descended from werewolves, and the child of a werewolf and a kinfolk is much more likely to be a werewolf than the child of werewolf and a regular person, so most werewolf tribes consider Kinfolk to be property at worst and second-class citizens at best. Werewolves are dicks. Even though Children of Gaia (as you may guess, hippy-dippy types, or as close as werewolves get) are better than most tribes at how they treat their kinfolk, Samuel Haight still had a huge chip on his shoulder and decided he was gonna be oWoD's answer to Pun-Pun. First, he became a ghoul by hunting vampires and stealing their blood. Then he dabbled in sorcery (which is petty magic, distinct from Mage magic) and managed to whip up a ritual to turn himself into a werewolf using the skins of five murdered werewolves. He starts working for Pentex and the Wyrm, founds an entire sub-tribe of 'Skindancers' with his ritual, collects a whole bunch of major-league artifacts, and one ends up imparting on him Mage abilities. He has many adventures that basically involve him showing up out of the blue, making GBS threads on everybody, and going on his merry way. So he ended up a kinfolk-ghoul-sorcerer-werewolf-mage. That's when, if we're taking the theory of him being a cautionary tale about powergaming as true, the GM got pissed. Samuel tried to take a run at the Baali antediluvian with diablerie on his mind, and 'only' ended up finding a Baali Methuselah. He still got his poo poo kicked in and had his soul turned into an ashtray. Samuel Haight was probably a joke. The True Black Hand wasn't. The True Black Hand... okay, look, this is stupid. Really stupid. If you're already getting fed up with how stupid the oWoD could get, just walk away now, or at least keep in mind that all of this was retconned into a smoking crater, and then ghost-nuked into a more literal smoking crater. The True Black Hand fought aliens  Apparently Vicissitude (the discipline, not the forums poster) was really an alien infection from another dimension that would infect anyone that Vicissitude was used on and eat them and turn them into 'Souleaters' and the True Black Hand were dedicated to fighting off this alien invasion and keeping it a secret from the world. It was the very nadir of the vampires-as-angsty-superheroes phenomenon. Say what you like about Edward loving Cullen but at least he never fought aliens. Tehan fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Dec 7, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 05:11
|
|
|
quote:The True Black Hand fought aliens Hahahahahah - oh, that is priceless. I'd heard all sorts of grumbling and muttering about the True Black Hand, but no one ever mentioned exactly why they were so bad, only that they were. That is hilarious. I really enjoy all these distilled nuggets of oWoD - I'm well-versed in oWoD mage and love to run it, but I know very little about the actual canon plotline. Aside from a few later tidbits, that is, and the joy of the Technocracy finally pulling out all the stops to kill the Ravnos Antediluvian - because that's just fun. What's the point of the massive world-wide conspiracy if you never get to pull the trigger and use it now and then? I agree with how well Bloodlines manages to introduce the politics and draw the player into the world - the atmosphere of many of the areas is fantastic. I get the itch to replay it - and then I think about That Sewer.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 05:29
|
|
|
Tehan posted:The True Black Hand fought aliens Sounds like someone watched The Thing one night and decided to apply it to their game world. Anyways, I thought other planets were secretly different dimensions according to Mage, and the existence of outer space is one of those things the Technocracy is developing in the consensual reality. I recall a bit where Technocracy astronauts were pissed when they found out the Traditions had beaten them to the moon (Technocracy grunts usually aren't told what they're doing is literal magic, by the by).
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 06:55
|
|
|
Yeah, the oWOD posts in this thread are pretty good, despite me enjoying very much the sass about how stupid they are. I'm really glad to see them explained by people who know what they're talking about.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 06:56
|
|
|
Bobbin Threadbare posted:Anyways, I thought other planets were secretly different dimensions according to Mage, and the existence of outer space is one of those things the Technocracy is developing in the consensual reality. I recall a bit where Technocracy astronauts were pissed when they found out the Traditions had beaten them to the moon (Technocracy grunts usually aren't told what they're doing is literal magic, by the by). It's a very Mage-y line of thought to imagine, say, a Garou-Technocracy joint space mission. [inside the asteroid belt, for argument's sake] Werewolves don't need space suits, fit aside, because it's just a deeper part of the Umbra, right? But of course Secret Agent John Courage wears one. He's heroic, not crazy. Does he need one, though?
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 07:59
|
|
|
Yeah, the oWoD posts are nice - since you're not going to post on a fairly frequent basis, at least we get to hear some interesting and mostly related poo poo! I once tried to do a Vampire LARP thing back in college a decade or so ago, after a friend of mine kept pestering me to do it (she started the group on campus). I made a herpetologist vampire with a dart frog ghoul - man, that was really reaching there on "I'm a tenth level vice president!" grounds. In the end, I just felt really uncomfortable doing it and we didn't actually do anything so I didn't show up anymore. I DID end up playing this game because of that, though, since I wanted to know what the hell it was that Sara was talking about before I went. And yeah, this is a great game. I'll still pass on the LARPing, though (but it might have been fun to do the pen and paper game if I'd had friends that did it.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 08:50
|
|
|
Bobbin Threadbare posted:Sounds like someone watched The Thing one night and decided to apply it to their game world. It's based on weird Spirit metaphysics. Okay, in Mage there are three kinds of Umbra, which is the spirit world. The Penumbra, the Near Umbra, and the Deep Umbra. The Penumbra is literally the 'shadow of the real world', the Near Umbra is basically space up to Pluto, and the Deep Umbra is everything beyond that. Then there's a few not-quite Spirit worlds, like the Underworld (where the dead are) and the Digital Web (think TRON). Note that surviving the Near Umbra and Deep Umbra generally requires some level of assistance from magic (Spirit 2 or... 4, I think it was?) while the Penumbra requires no special survival stuff. Spacesuits are 'merely' the way the Technocracy explains how the Spirit magic that lets them survive works. However, nowadays, because outer space is a thing, you could survive the Near Umbra merely by wearing a mundane spacesuit. Spirit is an incredibly subjective sphere as well, and this means that two people in the same place at the same time in the same spirit world may see something completely different depending on what they're taught and how they interpret the spirit world. Technocrats and Hermetics have a unified cosmological view (spirits are "aliens" for Technocrats, there are clear hierarchies and relationships for Hermetics) while most of the other traditions are significantly less rigid and inflexible in their view of the spirit world. Of course, the Technocracy doesn't use Spirit because they have special spheres. It uses Dimensional Science, which has its own rules and its own interpretation of the universe. Spirit is stronger the farther you get from industry and human civilization. Conversely, Dimensional Science depends on industry and human civilization. Spirit beckons, binds, and empowers spirits, it awakens them and puts them to sleep. Dimensional Science is essentially entirely focused on two things: 1. Traveling through space 2. Killing the aliens you find in it. For example, Spirit 3 lets you walk the Umbra, summon spirits (but not yet bind them), heal them, or put them to sleep. Dimensional Science 3 lets you also walk the Umbra, but instead of summoning spirits? You get a loving phaser. You can stun, kill, or disintegrate spirits. As a bonus, it also works on people, because the Void Engineers see no difference between spirit-matter and real matter. These are similar spheres that do the same thing, BTW. However, because of how the world is interpreted by the respective paradigms, the VE one behaves entirely differently. A Dreamspeaker looks upon the Umbra and sees a rich universe full of thousands of teeming civilizations, who he can interact with in various methods. A Void Engineer looks upon the Umbra and sees a lot of nasty aliens that he needs to give a faceful of plasma to, XCOM style.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 08:53
|
|
|
Bobbin Threadbare posted:Sounds like someone watched The Thing one night and decided to apply it to their game world. It is important to note the impact paradigm has on that though - Etherites believe that there's ether out there, so of course they can breathe it. Hell, EVERYONE used to be able to breathe it. And then the Union came along and went to work transforming the space in, well, space, in to the Void that we know and love today. Yeah, you read that right - Carl Sagan's Cosmos being popular means that enough people believe it for it to be true. WELCOME TO MAGE (Also if you play anything other than an Etherite you're a pillock.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 09:02
|
|
|
citybeatnik posted:WELCOME TO MAGE Also, mage is the best game for starting philosophical flamewars between its fans. (The Etherites are also responsible for anti-vaccination hysteria and a bunch of New Age pseudoscience). And yes, it's pretty much exactly how things work. Mages can breathe in space because they think they can. Or maybe they can't because they don't accept it. Or maybe 'space' and the 'Near Umbra' aren't quite the same thing, as the VEs imply, and the Etherites/etc can 'breathe in space' because the difference between space and the Near Umbra is small enough that you can be physically manifest in both realms at once. Mage is also a game where there is often explicitly contradictory canon depending on who's telling you about the canon, and half the fun is figuring out what's real and what's not for the purposes of your mage game.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 09:18
|
|
|
I played the game and done a lot of Vampire LARPing, but I really don't know that much lore. What I like about Vampire, especially when LARPing is that it is social. You scheme and plot and bend the rules, and do your best to come out on top. I do enjoy a lot of the lore in this thread, but to be honest I skim over some posts. And when it comes to spoilers of the setting, I was at first not too happy learning so much of the Gehenna scenarios, but after all, no matter what scenario you are playing, your group and ST will make it different anyway, and if you can't separate your characters knowledge from your own you really isn't a very good roleplayed any way. Really, I enjoy both this LP, especially since I never got through the end game, and the lore is just interesting. So yes. Good LP, good thread.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 12:26
|
|
|
Kacie posted:Hahahahahah - oh, that is priceless. I'd heard all sorts of grumbling and muttering about the True Black Hand, but no one ever mentioned exactly why they were so bad, only that they were. Basically White Wolf never figured out during oWoD that sometimes the best thing you can do is not give an answer. Set up some mysteries and let the GM decide what he wants to do with it, that is really the best approach.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 16:44
|
|
|
Tehan posted:Apparently Vicissitude (the discipline, not the forums poster) was really an alien infection from another dimension Uh... yeah. Totally not me. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 17:55
|
|
|
Vicissitude posted:Uh... yeah. Totally not me. Hmmmm. Your hesitation makes me doubt. What planet do you come from?
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2013 19:57
|
|
|
This one, obviously. Definitely not Melmac.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2013 22:26
|
|
|
citybeatnik posted:It's all but flat out stated that you can have a Spelljammer-esque pirate ship, complete with people walking around freely without helmets, fire a broadside at a deep-space battleship piloted by the Void Engineers. And if I recall correctly, there's a cabal of Etherites in London that have thumbed their noses for years at the Union on account of them having enough proof that their wood-paneled Etherships landed on the moon. I believe no one explained the paradigms yet. The reality in old Mage is based on belief. Before Technocracy, dragons sometimes really appeared and saints could really do miracles, because enough people believed they could. After the Order of Reason started to promote their brand of magic, it slowly started to push other branches of magic out, until it became what we know as technology. Normally, the laws of nature are not very mutable and conform to the majority in the particular area. Certain individuals, however, get a certain leeway in following them. After the process called Awakening, they receive an addition to their soul - called an Avatar - which gives them power to rewrite reality. They are still humans, though, and don't start the game being fully in sync with their Awakened counterparts. That's why paradigms are for. A paradigm is the mage's way of manipulating reality and is based on his belief how does the magic works. To throw a fireball, a Hermetic mage could speak the words of power, using a brass scepter symbolizing his power over the element of fire. A Dreamspeaker would communicate with the spirit of fire, convincing him to lend him a bit of his power, Werewolf style. A Son of Ether could use some pseudoscience to come up with a device that would make a spherical forcefield that makes nitrogen inside flammable. A Virtual Adept would not throw a fireball because this is stupid, but would hack the universe to raise the temperature near the target instead... ...except that throwing a fireball could have really nasty consequences. The reality depends of belief, so doing clearly improbable things can activate its defense mechanisms called the Paradox. A willworker who doesn't like to suddenly explode, has their bones turn into glass or being vomited out into a hell tailored just for him, learns to conceal his magic. Instead of throwing a fireball, the mage could make it appear on the empty bottle of gas, which would make it appear like it exploded. Instead of teleporting a gun into his hand, he could reach inside the nearest trash bin, and... look what we have here! Of course, Technocrats have it a lot easier, because their magic is barely distinguishable from really advanced technology. Still, they also have to fear Paradox - a laser gun could barely pass, but an It-X cyborg shooting plasma is nearly as vulgar as a Tradition mage making a trash golem.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2013 01:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 04:19 |
|
|
Ironically the efforts of the Technocracy to boring up the world by replacing magic with sufficiently advanced technology are aided and abetted by none other than Lucifer, who has been working really hard to make the world a boring place where nobody believes in anything in particular because that's the only way to ensure his lieutenants never get enough faith together to destroy it. Basically to just nutshell it Lucifer broke them out of Hell without realizing what sort of place Hell was, and then realized they were crazy as outhouse rats and had come to the conclusion that he'd betrayed them all because he wasn't in Hell. This was rather a problem because if they can get enough people to worship them and power them up with faith there's pretty much nothing within their spheres of power they can't do. One of the signs of the End Times, for example, was several concurrent natural disasters they hit Los Angeles with when Lucifer briefly reveals himself to exorcise a demon from some poor woman. So, demonic miracles have their own wrinkle sort of like Paradox because of this. If enough people don't believe in what's going on within an area, it has a chance not to (though if it does it tends to be pretty bad for the people who didn't believe it was possible, because it shatters their sense of reality). This doesn't help much when Belial summons a loving earthquake under a major city because everybody believes there are earthquakes. Feinne fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Dec 9, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2013 01:42
|
|
