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Kurieg posted:Paradox actually does not care about the CofD and will not be making books for it. Their lead storyteller is also way too in to Mark Rein*Hagen. I know, I'm just saying I'll still play new oWoD video games. It'll take me a while to come back around on them. If Beast receives Geist levels of "support", I'll feel better about things. There's a good question- what the hell kinds of supplements would you release for this thing?
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Apr 9, 2016 15:54
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Dark Eras Beast was entertaining because of how clear it was that the writers for main Dark Eras wanted you to know that everyone hates Beasts ICly. There will be a few supplements because of Kickstarter stretch goals, but I suspect that'll be it.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:11
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Beast still holds an important place in my heart, mostly as a source of schadenfreude.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:19
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Mors Rattus posted:There will be a few supplements because of Kickstarter stretch goals, but I suspect that'll be it. I'm really dreading the fiction anthology. Is there really a market for a whole book ok full of gringeworthy edgelord prose featuring squid tumblrina and friends? (OK, I'd probably read that if you hold a gun against my head and give me the choice between that and anthing by Soto...)
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Apr 9, 2016 16:23
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Doresh posted:I'm really dreading the fiction anthology. Is there really a market for a whole book ok full of gringeworthy edgelord prose featuring squid tumblrina and friends? Well, people still play oWoD games, so yes.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:26
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Doresh posted:I'm really dreading the fiction anthology. Is there really a market for a whole book ok full of gringeworthy edgelord prose featuring squid tumblrina and friends? Beast is the #2 best seller on Drive Thru Rpg behind a V20 product, proving that the wretched MRAs of the Something Awful forums cannot stop progress.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:30
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I mean Beast is basically everything an oWoD fan would want in a game.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:33
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Night10194 posted:I mean Beast is basically everything an oWoD fan would want in a game. It is, quite literally, everything I could want in a game I'd probably not play.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:36
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Beast is also the kind of game that drives me to want to play Hunter so I can play as someone whose job it is to deal with creatures like that. One of the most laughable bits in Beast is where they go 'When confronted with a Hunter, the Beast will ask them WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO HUNT and mind will be blown!' as if that isn't the main driving point behind every single Hunter ideology and something every Hunter works out over their vigil.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:44
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Kavak posted:There's a good question- what the hell kinds of supplements would you release for this thing? If the history of White Wolf has taught me anything, I would never underestimate their ability to commission word vomit on any goddamn subject. Put out one on families, another on hungers, another on heroes, maybe another on, I dunno, lairs and broods, and another on avatisms, there, that's like a six-book line. It's a formula that's depressingly easy to sketch out.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:46
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You know...when your lead-off description of your game is a near school massacre started by the "protagonist", maybe you're working off a flawed premise.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:48
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Bedlamdan posted:Beast is the #2 best seller on Drive Thru Rpg behind a V20 product, proving that the wretched MRAs of the Something Awful forums cannot stop progress. Well, being a big DriveThru seller is not necessarily the highest bar to leap over, so I wouldn't despair too much. #5 is Absolute Adventures: Sewers Under Sandwall.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:55
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Alien Rope Burn posted:If the history of White Wolf has taught me anything, I would never underestimate their ability to commission word vomit on any goddamn subject. Put out one on families, another on hungers, another on heroes, maybe another on, I dunno, lairs and broods, and another on avatisms, there, that's like a six-book line. It's a formula that's depressingly easy to sketch out. Beast is a good idea in theory but it falls into many common mistakes a lot of things that try to flip the script make. There's a lot to talk about what you would change and a lot of discussion to be had about what should be different but they clearly didn't go that direction and because they didn't, that's what makes it Beast and not something else. Best you can do is see what went wrong and take it in your own direction if you decide to steal or borrow parts of it for yourself. (personally I would make the Beasts a thematic mix between Sin Eaters and Prometheans. Beasts have to devour human misery but they can also eat places with bad pasts and because it's the World of Darkness they don't necessarily have to cause a ruckus to get fed, they could devour things like "bad memories of a relationship" or "dad's drinking problem" or "that place on the side of the road where the crash killed nine people". Beasts would represent man's ability to heal and forget and move on but personified in a monstrous way. Also being full of bad things makes you a magnet.)
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Apr 9, 2016 17:11
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A thing to remember about Beast products is that there is a certain amount of work that they are required to do as per their Kickstarter and work that was already in place by the time the final version of Beast came out. I don't imagine there will be much else coming out unless they pull a Demon and release a Storyteller's guide that includes alternate settings where Beasts either admit their monstrosity or have better justification.
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Apr 9, 2016 17:13
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, being a big DriveThru seller is not necessarily the highest bar to leap over, so I wouldn't despair too much. #5 is Absolute Adventures: Sewers Under Sandwall. Build'a'Bear workshop but with monster's**** This books works really well with cross over campains, npc creation for different and unique nasties, and for new player introductions to the world of darkness.As it allows you to bring in any new player with them having minimal knowledge into any going campain. Allowing them to learn as they play and transition later on; all while letting them feel unique and powerful with out being overpowered so they can have fun with more advanced player characters. That's really where this book shines. Other then that it really doesn't add a whole lot to the WORLD or lore of WoD if that's what your looking for. Its Kind of the opposite of demon the decent in that regard. (Aside from all that, I'm really liking "Demon the Decent" way more than I ought) Kurieg posted:A thing to remember about Beast products is that there is a certain amount of work that they are required to do as per their Kickstarter and work that was already in place by the time the final version of Beast came out. I don't imagine there will be much else coming out unless they pull a Demon and release a Storyteller's guide that includes alternate settings where Beasts either admit their monstrosity or have better justification. I heard that the alt setting for Beast gonna be set in the Reconstruction Era South? I could just be remembering a wacky rumor though.
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Apr 9, 2016 17:14
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I really liked one of the proposed alternates which is that the Beast and Hero are both trapped by a narrative that is the real villain. But I think that's basically just Changeling, isn't it?
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Apr 9, 2016 17:15
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Bedlamdan posted:Build'a'Bear workshop but with monster's**** DriveThru reviews can be weird. And how is "You're a monster that is somehow good despite only really causing suffering, but nobody can see your monster self because reasons and you have to watch out for these Heroes who aren't actually heroes but rather evil bullies and...[more nonsense]" an easier introduction for a new player than "You're a vampire"? Night10194 posted:I really liked one of the proposed alternates which is that the Beast and Hero are both trapped by a narrative that is the real villain. But I think that's basically just Changeling, isn't it? Or a more morally grey Princess Tutu? Doresh fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 17:21
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Beast is getting at least two more books. They have a Storytellers' Guide and Night Horrors (translation: antagonists) book in the works.Bedlamdan posted:I heard that the alt setting for Beast gonna be set in the Reconstruction Era South? I could just be remembering a wacky rumor though. They have a chapter in the Dark Eras Companion and it will be set during the Reconstruction, yeah. They might even be able to do something interesting with it if they draw parallels between Beasts and people like Sherman who did horrific things to break the wills of literal slavers. Edit: I mean, I'm not expecting that because that seems a bit too... subtle for Beasts' purview, but hey.
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Apr 9, 2016 18:59
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There is literally 0% chance that a Reconstruction Era Beast is going to be tasteful, good, subtle, or meaningful.
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Apr 9, 2016 19:02
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I am honestly curious why they would pick the Reconstruction of all times. Like the weird brutal black and white moralism would actually kind of fit if you were doing some biblical or mythic timeframe but hey lets pick one of the most murky and complicated parts of American history no bad could come of this
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Apr 9, 2016 19:08
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Beast is a game whose author is determined to find and step on every single landmine.
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Apr 9, 2016 19:10
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Night10194 posted:Beast is a game whose author is determined to find and step on every single landmine. It's great because they redid it at least once due to all the complaints, but that didn't work because everyone's first impression was terrible.
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Apr 9, 2016 19:28
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Even before all of the stuff about how bad the game's writing is came to light, my first reaction to it as a whole was "Uhh, okay... Isn't playing a monster something you can already do in every other game in the line?" It sounded incredibly generic and like they were just scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas.
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Apr 9, 2016 19:57
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Angry Salami posted:So... is there any way a player (or, indeed, any character) could work out how these are meant to be used? Because, sure, maybe I just play with boring groups, but I'm pretty sure nobody I know would react to "You find a mysterious orb of unknown magical power" with "I swallow it!" The orbs only have to be eaten in order to complete the final transformation into Kalid-Ma, for ordinary use they merely need to be in the user's possession or (for some uses) held in the hand.
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Apr 9, 2016 20:05
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Not to spoil later F&F posts, but I learned from a friend that the mechanics aren't the best written either. A lot of it feels like the creators didn't fully understand the system they were working with.
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Apr 9, 2016 20:05
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Bedlamdan posted:It's great because they redid it at least once due to all the complaints, but that didn't work because everyone's first impression was terrible. Well, yes and no. There were things he could have done to salvage it, but that would have meant making heroes sympathetic and beasts not justified by divine fiat. We're never told what would happen if beasts didn't do what they do, because it's just a given that they are. The idea is there that they're preventing something worse but the best assumption I can figure out is "a world where people no longer remember that fire is hot."
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Apr 9, 2016 20:12
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Kurieg posted:Well, yes and no. There were things he could have done to salvage it, but that would have meant making heroes sympathetic and beasts not justified by divine fiat. It's an idea that gets worse when put into any modern society. In some extremely ancient world that predates the earliest civilizations, then the existence of monsters to teach and remind people about the dangers of the world could make sense, if their punishments were lowered or at least made less abhorrent. But, in a modern society with education systems, written languages, the internet, and other such oddities, monsters to teach people about the dangers of the world is arguably redundant and, with how it seems to be implemented, malicious. One could argue -- coming from someone who never read the book -- that the game line might not be as terrible if monsters weren't played up as objectively good and right or if them being played up as objectivity good and right was done as some play on Gnosticism and at attempt at cosmic horror.
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Apr 9, 2016 20:30
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oriongates posted:The orbs only have to be eaten in order to complete the final transformation into Kalid-Ma, for ordinary use they merely need to be in the user's possession or (for some uses) held in the hand. Each defiler/psionicist undergoing dragon metamorphosis has to acquire, consume and excrete X number of obsidian orbs to serve as foci for their growing power, according to the Dragon Kings rulebook. It's not too far a leap for a potential dragon aware of these things to get the bright idea of using these ones (and presumably binding their power to themselves) instead of farming up their own orbs.
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Apr 9, 2016 20:38
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Doresh posted:And how is "You're a monster that is somehow good despite only really causing suffering, but nobody can see your monster self because reasons and you have to watch out for these Heroes who aren't actually heroes but rather evil bullies and...[more nonsense]" an easier introduction for a new player than "You're a vampire"?
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Apr 9, 2016 20:39
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Heroes sound like they would be better named Stalkers or Obsessed. Experience a beast and become so focused on it your entire life revolves around it until you destroy it and find a new one to move onto. That right there could be a good plot hook if you made the conflict between humanity and the beast important. How does a Beast deal with those who are stalking it? Does it take the easier, and more bestial approach, and murder them or does it confront them and try to help them heal? That would tie into the aspect of them teaching. Also being a murder engine having to find a place in this new world where you are redundant would have been another interesting direction. How does the hot stove teach people when most people willing accept you don't touch a hot stove?
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Apr 9, 2016 21:13
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I assume that the entire point was that Hercules is an rear end in a top hat. That is, Heroes represent a modern version of mythological heroes such as Hercules, Perseus, Susanoo, etc. who are famous for their feats of monster slaying while the PCs are playing the Hydra, the gorgon, the manticore, etc. The idea being that the reversal of perspective shows that the monsters are the persecuted "Other" while the Heroes are bullies and brutes who are known and loved because history was written by the winners. Thus the foes of Beasts are sarcastically called by the same title. Except of course, from the sound of it, Heroes are pretty much perfectly justified in their desire to slay Beasts and apparently the only reason Beasts could even be remotely considered positive is that they serve some kind of cosmically necessary role...because the game says so.
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Apr 9, 2016 21:33
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oriongates posted:I assume that the entire point was that Hercules is an rear end in a top hat. Like someone doing a really, really, really lovely job of making a grim-dark Undertale tabletop roleplaying.
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Apr 9, 2016 21:37
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Tasoth posted:Heroes sound like they would be better named Stalkers or Obsessed. Experience a beast and become so focused on it your entire life revolves around it until you destroy it and find a new one to move onto. That right there could be a good plot hook if you made the conflict between humanity and the beast important. How does a Beast deal with those who are stalking it? Does it take the easier, and more bestial approach, and murder them or does it confront them and try to help them heal? That would tie into the aspect of them teaching. Also being a murder engine having to find a place in this new world where you are redundant would have been another interesting direction. How does the hot stove teach people when most people willing accept you don't touch a hot stove? Actually Leviathan does a lot of stuff Beast could do but in a much better way which is interesting for a fan game that predates it.
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Apr 9, 2016 21:45
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Asimo posted:This is a big thing. I admit I haven't followed WoD stuff for ages but I still don't "get" what the hell Beast is supposed to be. What do you do in it besides be a colossal abusive rear end in a top hat? There's no mythic or cinematic archetype you can point to as a quick mental example, and frankly it just isn't adding anything to the setting. All its problems seem to revolve around desperately trying to justify its existence, and that never makes a good product. A lot of the fan-favourite "minor" gamelines in the nWoD were well-known for being not-so-veiled metaphors for something. Changeling: the Lost is the most well-known one with its blatant abuse metaphors, but there's also Promethean with a metaphor about being some kind of outsider. The major gamelines are often also described as a metaphor for something (though in the major gamelines, it's more like a structure, theme, or simply a lens to view the game through); Vampire is about playing feudal mafia sex criminals, Werewolf is either about playing a gang with a turf to protect or beat cops depending on who you ask, etc. Anyway, the point is, nChangeling and Promethean's success comes in part from the monster-type being somewhat incidental to the story being told; abuse and alienation respectively. So Beast seems to be an attempt to work further on that - the monster-type isn't important as long as your game is about something compelling, so they just went with generic monsters. And a metaphor about playing a minority who chooses to reject respectability politics in favour of bring prideful of their differences, or something like that. The net effect is a game with an uninteresting monster archetype coupled to a hilariously misguided and offensive tone.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:02
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Every time I think of Beast, I can't help but think someone was really affected by John Gardner's Grendel... and didn't realize that even in his own retelling, Grendel was utterly unsympathetic and incorrigible.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:05
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Asimo posted:This is a big thing. I admit I haven't followed WoD stuff for ages but I still don't "get" what the hell Beast is supposed to be. What do you do in it besides be a colossal abusive rear end in a top hat? There's no mythic or cinematic archetype you can point to as a quick mental example, and frankly it just isn't adding anything to the setting. All its problems seem to revolve around desperately trying to justify its existence, and that never makes a good product.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:08
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Hostile V posted:Actually Leviathan does a lot of stuff Beast could do but in a much better way which is interesting for a fan game that predates it. I dare say that Beast might just be a crappy ripp-off. It even keeps the "Monsters living in a world that is no longer their own, no longer needs them and in fact actively hates them" part while at the same time ignoring it (if I remember correctly). Nessus posted:My impression from how everyone's talking about it is that it's a system meant to let you play Hannibal Lecter, only without the grandeur or menace of that actual character; bisexual aro hanni is just really a good guy at heart you know, he just likes to sometimes kill and eat rude people. But really, Hanni teaches humanity an important lesson: He reminds them that people die when they're killed.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:18
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And that you can make anything delicious if you prepare it right.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:21
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It feels like its trying to channel righteous fury but completely misses why oppressed people are furious and just winds up being petulant. The big problem is that things like Ferguson or Stonewall are reactive. Most oppressed people don't want to smash stuff and flip cars, but the pressures society forces them to endure leaves them without another option. It's like MLK said, "A riot is the language of the unheard." Beasts, otoh, are entirely active. They hurt people because it fulfills them spiritually and emotionally. Even if you leave a Beast alone, they'll still hurt people because hurting people is who they are.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:27
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Luminous Obscurity posted:Even if you leave a Beast alone, they'll still hurt people because hurting people is who they are. And it comes out about as cartoonish as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvHjCCs_kh8
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Apr 9, 2016 22:35
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