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By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


Hyperbrains are better implemented in Progenitor:
One is a bit of an anarchist, developing technologies to improve mankind's lot without tying himself to any one government.
One creates a third superpower in the cold war.
The lesser hyperbrains have lesser effects on history.
One creates a hypermeme that makes legalisation of weed more acceptable, because she wants to export it to the U.S.

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Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

The Morning After
No, this isn't the gnawing regret one has when you realized that you've spent almost a year hate-reviewing a terrible game. It's the name of the sample adventure put forth by Onyx Path. Yes it has some meaning within the context of the adventure but it doesn't come full circle until the end.

quote:

The Begotten of the French Quarter in New Orleans all know one another. They don’t all belong to the same brood, but they do their best to make sure the Quarter stays friendly. That means being courteous to one another, being polite to the local supernatural population (especially vampires), and helping each other clean up, when necessary.

The Apex in the Quarter is Esmee Childress, an Ugallu on the verge of becoming the Beast Incarnate. Everyone knows Esmee, and while she’s difficult to get along with sometimes, she’s a good friend to have when things go bad. But as she’s leaving her Legend behind and forging a Myth, she’s on the verge of doing something that will change the Quarter irrevocably, invite scrutiny from all over the country, and sour relations between the Children and the Kindred forever.

The characters have the chance to prevent Esmee’s plans from coming to fruition, but do they want to? Do they support her intentions and ambitions, even if it means ruining their homes? If they do stop her, are they prepared to have such a powerful enemy? And in the midst of all this, a group of Heroes casts about blindly for a monster to slay. They’re on Esmee’s trail, but Esmee is happy to distract them with younger Beasts (read: the characters) until she’s ready to party.

The game suggests running this as a part of a long term chronicle with the characters already established as residents and players in the French Quarter. Which is extremely limiting. They can be visitors but they take hefty penalties on investigation rolls for being newcomers, and the entire point of the adventure is that there are going to be far reaching and long lasting consequences for the Beasts of the French Quarter as a whole, and not having people with a stake in that fight will lead to a game where the players don't really give two fucks about what happens once they're done and just want to watch the fireworks.

In addition to Esmee, who is basically a plot device wearing a skin suit, there are two Hero NPCs that are relevant to the story. Allain Bourmand is an underground concert promoter who has been newly awoken to his Hero nature, mostly because Esmee hosed with him for this explicit purpose. Rhonda Blank is a Beat Cop who found out that her Detective Mother was killed by a Beast who wanted her position in the force and ended up killing him. She's not great at detective work and isn't exactly the best Officer, but she wants to be. Which makes her the character you want to sympathize with most in this story. Except the game wants you to murder her.

Esmee Comes Calling
Esmee shows up at one of the players homes or place of work and chats for a while, shares some rum, and leaves. The players can roll to talk her up and figure out what's going on but all they can figure out right now is that she's planning something, and that she's ludicrously powerful.

Explosion on the Water
Some time after Esmee leaves, there's an explosion near the riverfront. If the characters can get to him in time they can try to question him before he dies.

quote:

“Paid…she paid me. Make this. Came back.” The man isn’t making sense, and you can’t stop the bleeding. He’s against the back wall, a bloody smear leading down to his prone body. The wail from approaching sirens mingles with the cry from a riverboat, and he shifts slightly. “She took it. It’s not here no more.” You glance around the ruined shop, but how will you figure out what was taken?
Of course the only way they'd get there in time is if they decided to follow Esmee after she left their place, because yeah, she was here a minute before the place went up. If the players are knowlegeable about New Orleans they might recognize that this guy is Stephen Olmos, who's ex EoD and sometimes works with the police department. If they have a mage who can heal him or a vampire who can embrace him they'll find out that Esmee had him build two bombs loaded with a potent toxin capable of killing anyone near the blast site. If they investigate the shop they'll find identifying personal effects of the place where Esmee met the characters, but they can't be sure they found them all.

NOPD
Rhonda Blank approaches the characters at their home or business in the french quarter, accompanied by a few uniformed police officers. This scene isn't much else than a way to get Rhoda on the scent of the Beast party so she can use Loremaster to put Anathema on them. If they perform particularly poorly in the opposed roll they let slip that they were at the shop so she has even more reason to think they're behind everything.

Trace Chemicals
Somehow the party needs to find out that Olmos had a supplier. Either from Olmos himself, or some streetwise rolls. This is Ghist, another one of the named NPCs that is a supernatural OF SOME KIND THAT ISN'T SPECIFIED AND IS SUPER COOL AND AWESOME AND WILLING TO ENTER INTO A FAMILY TIES CONDITION WITH THE BEAST AND GIVES THEM SPECIAL NIGHTMARE POWERS AND goddamn shut up. Anyways they find out that Ghist gave Esmee the poison that sill murder a bunch of people. If they're particularly adept at talking to Ghist they'll(BECAUSE NO GENDER IS SET FOR THIS CHARACTER WHO'S SO AMAZING AND GREAT) maybe tell the players about the fact that they've had dreams about the concert venue where Esmee is planning her big thing.

Concert Promotion
As they're leaving Ghist's place they find a bunch of fliers advertising for an underground concert. The Genre and Band are left ambiguous so you can pick whatever will get the players more likely to care and attend. They can interrogate the flunkies who are putting up the fliers, or just ask around about the concert. Which might let them find out about Allain, and that the concert is happening illegally because there's no way that Allian has permission to use the space.

Heroics
Rhonda attacks the players in a back alleyway. Allain doesn't participate but he does lend Rhoda some of his swayed followers and is watching from a nearby rooftop with binoculars. The players should have no reason to find him unless they're hyper paranoid and spread out to search for him immediately. This is meant to be a slaughter of Rhonda's followers by the player party and probably the death of Rhonda herself, if she gets away she'll put anathema on someone else and try again the next night, either way the party has bodies to hide and if they don't the cops will definitely find out about them.

Meeting with Esmee
At some point during this whole affair the party is meant to confront Esmee about what they've figured out.

quote:

Esmee will answer the characters’ questions, provided they’re respectful. Some likely questions and answers include:

What’s going to happen at the concert? Esmee is happy to reveal that the concert is a trap for Allain and his flunkies; she intends to kill him, publically, and then take her leave of the city. She doesn’t reveal that she’s near her Inheritance (partially because she’s excited about it and doesn’t want to jinx it, and partially because she sees it as her business), but if the characters pry, she reveals that she’s “on the verge of transformation.” A character can realize what she means if the player makes an Intelligence + Occult roll (see below).

Why did you lead Heroes to us? Esmee says she figured a brood of Beasts could handle a little attention from a Hero, and anyway she’s going to kill him soon. If they mention Rhonda, she apologizes and says she didn’t know about her (which is true). If they press the issue, she offers to kill Rhonda herself and will indeed do it that night, in whatever dramatic manner you wish.

Why did you kill Olmos? Esmee was concerned that Olmos would talk to someone, and she was also hungry at the time.

What about the French Quarter? If the characters raise the point that her plan is going to damage the Quarter, she claims the damage will be minimal. If they point out that explosions and poisons tend to have unpredictable effects and are likely to bring to mind “terrorism” more than “unholy monster,” she takes their point and agrees to leave the explosives and gas out.

Who gets your store? Esmee had been planning on burning her little mask store down, but if one of the characters wants it, she’ll sign over the deed.

This is the only time the players have to point out to Esmee that her plan is pretty loving stupid. Mainly that killing a bunch of people and poisoning them isn't going to cement her legacy so much as remind people of a Terrorist Attack. Also the players can't really stop Esmee, she's got Lair 8, she will murder them. The only way to 'stop' her is to kill Allain first, which will just piss her off.

THE CONCERT

quote:

Cheers erupt as the band takes the stage for their encore. They’ve only done a few songs, of course — when you don’t have permission to use the space, you can’t linger. But the crowd seems to be enjoying the music, the drugs, and the overpriced beer. That’s when Esmee appears.

She walks past the musicians and shoves the lead singer. He goes flying off the stage and collides with a wall with a wet thud. She grabs the mic and her voice flows like spiced rum. “Allain? Where you at, sweetie?”

This isn't set up to be a massive brawl unless that's what the players want. This is the denoument as Esmee gets everything she ever wanted and flies away. If Rhonda is still alive and the players don't stop her, she might injure Esmee, or distract her long enough for Allian to do so, which ruins her plans.

quote:

Explosions
If the characters haven’t talked to Esmee or have failed to convince her to leave the explosions out of it, she steps on stage and calls Allain out. Allain rouses his troops and draws a pistol, but Esmee activates the bombs. Anyone standing near them suffers nine levels of lethal damage, and the area immediately takes on the Noxious Gas Tilt (as the Lair Trait; p. 106). Esmee uses it to impose her other Lair Traits (she doesn’t impose Downpour, though; she wants everyone to see her). Using Wings of Shadow, she leaps high in the air, and then dives straight down and lands on Allain, crushing him. With the crowd in a panic, she takes to the air, gives a cry that shatters windows for blocks, and flies out over the river.

The Storm
If the characters have talked to Esmee and convinced her that the explosives are unnecessary, she still takes the stage but calls upon her Storm-Lashed Atavism and strikes Allain with a lightning bolt, killing him. She then uses the Atavism to call up winds, doing minor damage to the area, and takes flight, again becoming the Beast Incarnate.

So yeah she's had the power to one-shot kill him for years but wanted an audience and to murder a bunch of people in the process instead.

Remember that one of the themes of this adventure is "Do the players even have the right to stop Esmee?" I think the answer at this point is 'loving yes she's a psychopath like all Beasts are.'

Aftermath
And now the party's over, so it's THE MORNING AFTER.

Except with more cops, and probably Werewolves, and angry vampires, and mages, and VASCU, and Task Force Valkyrie, and the Quarter just lost it's Apex. Basically the point is that if the player characters are actually residents of the French Quarter they're in deep poo poo and that was the intent all along.

This is apparently the ideal Beast story, the players are just living their lives, someone comes in and fucks it up for them, they deal with it, then go back to watching TV.


That said, the book is now done. It's over. I no longer have to read the Beast Core Book ever again. That isn't to say that we're done with Beast yet, after all, Halloween is coming up. And what's Halloween without some scary stories?

Well, maybe not 'scary', more 'a whole bunch of justification that Beasts are actually terrible people in every conceivable way'.

Up Next: Gaslighting.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Man. And I thought those Brave New World adventures were gallingly stupid.

Rigged Death Trap
Feb 13, 2012

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Ah
More excerpts from the books of iredeemable fuckwittery.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Kurieg posted:

In addition to Esmee, who is basically a plot device wearing a skin suit, there are two Hero NPCs that are relevant to the story. Allain Bourmand is an underground concert promoter who has been newly awoken to his Hero nature, mostly because Esmee hosed with him for this explicit purpose. Rhonda Blank is a Beat Cop who found out that her Detective Mother was killed by a Beast who wanted her position in the force and ended up killing him. She's not great at detective work and isn't exactly the best Officer, but she wants to be. Which makes her the character you want to sympathize with most in this story. Except the game wants you to murder her.

Beast subverts the hero myth by having the Beast just hanging around till a totally unrelated Hero just pays them a visit. Except when you can apparently just create a Hero to mess with people. That's actually pretty handy considering one of their methods to go Super-Saiyan is "curbstomp a Hero n00b".

Oh, and would it be fitting to just use the noun "Mascot" for mascots, or should I WoD it up into "Masquotte" or something?

Doresh fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Oct 23, 2016

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

There is absolutely nothing in the adventure that wouldn't prompt a "Screw this, I'm out" reaction from the characters - Esmee's too powerful, the best anyone could do is to minimize damage, and if you botched the key rolls or just didn't get to the set piece to prevent it, you can't even do that.

Out of character, the players would be throwing their dice at the DM

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Robindaybird posted:

There is absolutely nothing in the adventure that wouldn't prompt a "Screw this, I'm out" reaction from the characters - Esmee's too powerful, the best anyone could do is to minimize damage, and if you botched the key rolls or just didn't get to the set piece to prevent it, you can't even do that.

Out of character, the players would be throwing their dice at the DM

Beast - bravely challenging the hero myth. And the notion that railroady adventures are a bad thing.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Bieeardo posted:

Man. And I thought those Brave New World adventures were gallingly stupid.
In their defense, those premade missions are both stupidly convoluted and had the player agency of a David Cage game...but came from a point of naivete, in a sense. The way they were actually written in the book were written in the sense that they never had anyone ask them "but why" or "but what if the players say no". In the case of Brave New World, I'd argue that they were written from a sense of ignorant exuberance which is why there's generally no answer to "but why".

But Beast is a game where MANY people asked "but why" and so much so that there had to be some pretty significant revisions. You're absolutely right, it's gallingly stupid but that's because it stuck to its stupid guns. In fact, hearing it spelled out, it's not that convoluted of a plan. It's a pretty classic villan ascension plan. But you're not allowed to truly stop it, just delay it. It's barely even Peak Beast because this is the same gong that's been banged from page XX. In short, when faced with the question of "but why" instead of really examining why they were asking the question they just changed some wording and doubled down on that bullshit like it's between two buns made out of fried chicken. It's bad not because it's a poo poo play experience but because it actually is a logical extension to all of the crap that came before it and is in fact in line with the rest of the stupid book.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I was definitely looking at them from outside their own context. I need to watch that.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

No worries.

Man I wonder if the Victoriana core has a sample adventure...oh thank god it doesn't.

Tasoth
Dec 13, 2011
So wait, the Beast adventure has the Beast players standing around while, interested in stopping another beast, they just let it happen? What's to stop the players from phone-treeing werewolf packs or leaving anonymous tips in the voicemails of entities that can beat down a high end beast? It seems like it fails to take into account the ability for Beasts to just buddy up with anything.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

well like stopping another beast is wrong, it's not okay to ostracize someone in beast society

Wrestlepig
Feb 25, 2011

my mum says im cool

Toilet Rascal
Or just call the cops.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Cythereal posted:

There was never a formal decision as such, but yes many Allied leaders later in the war agreed with the sentiment that Hitler was Nazi Germany's worst enemy.

Still disappointed by the treatment of women in Godlike. If I were to run a game, one of my first thoughts for a Talent is a member of the Night Witches.

Wasn't there a PBTA hack of exactly that title, dealing with that subject?

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
And because cops are the enemy, as evidenced by the fact that a cop is the enemy.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Kurieg posted:

And because cops are the enemy, as evidenced by the fact that a cop is the enemy.

Crasical
Apr 22, 2014

GG!*
*GET GOOD
So what if the party DOES have a Vampire who's hanging out with them and helps them save Olmos via Embrace or Ghouling, and objects to this massive, public display of supernatural power/masquerade breach?

"I mean, sorry, bro, we can't really stop her, she's -family-, you know? And like crazy strong, so we don't really wanna make her mad."

Or even if the beasts do agree, and go to New Orlean's Prince for help, or try and solve this on their own, is the Storyteller just supposed to scratch his head and say "Well, she kills you all for trying to stand in her way, I guess?"

I feel like "Do the players even have the right to stop Esmee?" has no teeth if the players CAN'T stop her, even if they want to.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Yup. Again, it seems like the Tenets of the Beast-litany are there only to stop the PCs from killing NPCs who are doing ludicrously stupid things that will move what amounts for a plot along.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


Beast: a game without teeth.
there's railroading a group into situations they like and agree with, and then there's "because I said so".

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Horrible Lurkbeast posted:

there's railroading a group into situations they like and agree with, and then there's "because I said so".

Because the logic here is, if you're playing Beast you want to play stories where Beasts are awesome and family and their actions are always justified.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Kurieg posted:

Because the logic here is, if you're playing Beast you want to play stories where Beasts are awesome and family and their actions are always justified.

"While you're debating, a Task Force Valkyrie team kicks in the door and just... well, have you seen the 2008 Rambo? Yeah, you're going to need to roll for agg."

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

chiasaur11 posted:

"While you're debating, a Task Force Valkyrie team kicks in the door and just... well, have you seen the 2008 Rambo? Yeah, you're going to need to roll for agg."

Predator is also an acceptable movie homage for Beasts. Or more likely, Predator 2: even more weapons and gear than the last supernatural gribbly, but you go down fighting a balding middle-aged dude with a paunch rather than Arnold Schwarzeneggar at his prime.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The more I've thought about it, the more this game actually would've gotten THE INTENDED THEME across better if the Hero was the guy who, whenever they felt down or sad or wronged, the world rushed to comfort them like the Gaston song. And who could whip up a mob of whatever whenever they wished. It would be a great way of getting at the concept of a privileged foe: The world automatically takes their side first, their grievance is always treated as legitimate, and you're constantly trying to avoid or deal with their insane obsession with hurting you.

Of course, if the Beasts were still horrible monsters that feed on peoples' misery this would still fall apart. I'm sorry I've committed the cardinal sin of Beastchat but come on, if it's going for the idea of a marginalized protagonist up against a privileged antagonist, having the antagonist have everything fall all over itself to default to catering to their obsessions (and one of those obsessions being hurting your protagonist) is so goddamn obvious and even fits with the idea of Gaston: The Douchening. Giving that ability to the Beasts is just maddeningly stupid.

ZeroCount
Aug 12, 2013


Beauty and the Beast was made 15 years ago and still does all of Beast's attempted themes better in every way.

Angry Salami
Jul 27, 2013

Don't trust the skull.
I still don't get why Beast thinks "Whoa, what about looking at things from the monster's side?!" is such a mind-blowing idea. Were the writers somehow oblivious to, I don't know, the entire rest of White Wolf's oeuvre?

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Beast steals mechanics and themes from several different games and welds them together. The problem is that within their own game lines, the mechanics serve the story, but putting them in beast doesn't.

The feeding mechanic in vampire is supposed to show how much of a monster you are, and one trapped in the realm of the physical, but beasts can go literally anywhere through any door. The worlds of flesh and spirit work in werewolf because they are compelled to protect them and their morality mechanic punishes them for favouring one over the other, whereas beast's "morality" will take care of itself and just ruin the lives of others. The disquieting effect of promethians distances them from the humanity they pursue and idolize. But in beast that disquiet is turned into a person that's demonized and flanderized into a plot device in human shape that you're explicitly told it's okay to kill.

Back when heroes were created by beasts, there was a mechanics> story> mechanics feedback loop that was at least functional. But nothing about beast as it stands supports it's own fiction.

DeTosh
Jan 14, 2010
Slippery Tilde

ZeroCount posted:

Beauty and the Beast was made 15 years ago and still does all of Beast's attempted themes better in every way.

If you're looking for a palate cleanser, or a story that does the whole "there's more to the legend than hero defeats monster" thing better, I'd actually recommend Cucumber Quest. The monsters are compelling and lovable, to say nothing of sympathetic. So are the heroes. And the webcomic itself is hilarious.

http://cucumber.gigidigi.com/

DeTosh fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Oct 24, 2016

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Night10194 posted:

Of course, if the Beasts were still horrible monsters that feed on peoples' misery this would still fall apart.

That's the core of the problem. Having the heroes act more like Gaston would be a great way of fixing them and further the metaphor of privilege, but you'd have to completely revise beasts to have them function similarly. The whole feeding mechanic would have to be tossed to start with. Then do something about how the narrative reality by default disadvantages beasts. Which, like Kurieg said, will step all over promethian's toes. The entire lgbtq metaphor will still probably come off tasteless though. Maybe going a Better Angels route would be better? People voluntarily take beasts on to prevent awful people from being possessed and slowly/suddenly transformed into dangerous abominations? They work to find ways to help or minimize the damage caused by the beast possessing them and sometimes have to step in when someone gives up and lets the monster out?

Basically, take everything beast did and do the opposite.

Simian_Prime
Nov 6, 2011

When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.
I still think it'd be funny to troll OPP by running a Hero: The Legend game where the characters literally are the inheritors of Herakles and Beowulf taking down smug Beasts, but I realized that's probably just going to be Scion 2e.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Nuns with Guns posted:

That's the core of the problem. Having the heroes act more like Gaston would be a great way of fixing them and further the metaphor of privilege, but you'd have to completely revise beasts to have them function similarly. The whole feeding mechanic would have to be tossed to start with. Then do something about how the narrative reality by default disadvantages beasts. Which, like Kurieg said, will step all over promethian's toes. The entire lgbtq metaphor will still probably come off tasteless though. Maybe going a Better Angels route would be better? People voluntarily take beasts on to prevent awful people from being possessed and slowly/suddenly transformed into dangerous abominations? They work to find ways to help or minimize the damage caused by the beast possessing them and sometimes have to step in when someone gives up and lets the monster out?

Basically, take everything beast did and do the opposite.

It'd be better if you were more of a muse. You're just a cosmic workaday guy, a monster that's able to LOOK human to other humans as you go about your business. Beasts as an 'invisible' class of people who are genuinely different from humans (and always will be) but are forced to appear human and hide their abilities for the most part again would fit the metaphor of a marginalized group. You were never human, you're something different that goes and does its thing and isn't really hurting anyone, inspiring stories and legends, maybe occasionally getting to show off what you really are in an extraordinary circumstance or before people who could use knowing there's more to the world than what they see. And then one day one guy looks at you and goes 'gently caress! DRAGON!' and you're like 'what but I'm still glamored' and then a week later a bunch of people with torches are storming your lair in that abandoned house the neighborhood kids tell spooky stories about and you have no idea what's going on or why none of your human guise's friends will believe you that this guy is nuts.

I think I will go write that, actually. A game about how suddenly and terribly things can turn awful that way.

E: Thinking further, the other thing is, NONE OF THIS SHOULD BE PART OF THE WoD. Because for the story to work, the Beast actually has to be mostly harmless (maybe there are some evil ones, but probably not the protagonist) which doesn't gel with the shades of grey WoD likes to require. Like, this should be its own thing, with storybook creatures and dream-weaver things that just suddenly find themselves under assault by crazy people who can influence the dreams towards violence.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Oct 24, 2016

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Kurieg posted:

And because cops are the enemy, as evidenced by the fact that a cop is the enemy.

Well, with all the messed up and twisted minority and abuse allegories going on in this title, a little bit of #BeastLifesMatter doesn't come of as too suprising. This is just effed-up.

Night10194 posted:

The more I've thought about it, the more this game actually would've gotten THE INTENDED THEME across better if the Hero was the guy who, whenever they felt down or sad or wronged, the world rushed to comfort them like the Gaston song. And who could whip up a mob of whatever whenever they wished. It would be a great way of getting at the concept of a privileged foe: The world automatically takes their side first, their grievance is always treated as legitimate, and you're constantly trying to avoid or deal with their insane obsession with hurting you.

Of course, if the Beasts were still horrible monsters that feed on peoples' misery this would still fall apart. I'm sorry I've committed the cardinal sin of Beastchat but come on, if it's going for the idea of a marginalized protagonist up against a privileged antagonist, having the antagonist have everything fall all over itself to default to catering to their obsessions (and one of those obsessions being hurting your protagonist) is so goddamn obvious and even fits with the idea of Gaston: The Douchening. Giving that ability to the Beasts is just maddeningly stupid.

It is suspicious that Heroes don't have Privilege checks to make.

Kurieg posted:

Back when heroes were created by beasts, there was a mechanics> story> mechanics feedback loop that was at least functional. But nothing about beast as it stands supports it's own fiction.

Didn't the super-awesome metaplot NPC lady create one?

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Doresh posted:

Didn't the super-awesome metaplot NPC lady create one?

It's implied that she just knew that he was a nascent Hero and used a special nightmare that Ghist gave her that lets her literally control his dreams and directed him to fixate on her but fail at every turn.

It could also just be a last bit of chaff that hasn't been sifted out of the kickstarter copy.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

No, but seriously: a situation where no matter the truth your attacker's word will be taken over yours unless extraordinary efforts are taken is a horrifying one (and one plenty of real people find themselves in).

Meanwhile, on an island the size of Pennsylvania, it's time for more Ironclaw!

The Rinaldi Foxes are the richest and most cosmopolitan of all the Houses, and once ruled the entirety of Calabria. Now, despite their repeated military defeats, they still hold the largest and wealthiest urban center (and the most important sea and river port) in all of Calabria, the great city of Triskellian. The foxes claim they were the only original inhabitants of the island, and that all others are intruders and immigrants. They also claim that the noble Grey Foxes of the past slew the Autarch wizard kings and freed the island, a claim most people doubt. What's known is that millennia ago, a fox noble by the name of Jon the Wise (who is said to have descended from the Autarchs themselves) set about uniting the various fox clans to control the southern delta of the of the all-important Granvert river. The coastal plains around the delta were rich and fertile, the fishing was good, and the river itself navigable. Fresh water was easily available and the bay would eventually prove very accommodating to shipbuilding and docks. It was the ideal place for a town to grow, and then a city from that. The fertile plains and the mercantile skill of the foxes quickly saw them incorporating other minor alliances and Houses into their growing sphere of influence, and the plains saw them make a great breakthrough in military technology. Predatory, aggressive lizard-beasts called Destriers roamed the lands, you see, and the foxes managed to capture and tame them. This meant they had raptor-dragon-knights; The Rinaldi had heavy cavalry before any other power on the island. The Rinaldi also armed and paid off the Chervenaise, mysterious goat-tribes of the northern mountains, to close the narrow passes and ensure it was difficult to reach the northern mining territory of Epinian without going through Rinaldi ships using the river and bay, since the overland route was suddenly so dangerous.

With their fingers in most of the trade of the island and their military secure, the Rinaldi set to improving their grand city. Not only this, but the foxes' legions and engineers began to construct aquaducts, sewer systems, and a great road that went from the west to the east coast, and that was patrolled by the famed legions and Rinaldi cavalry. It was named the Via Salutis, the Safe Road, and it was said that during the golden age of the Rinaldi any man could walk it without fear or need for guards for his goods. Safety was guaranteed by the greatest army and the richest nation the island had ever known, while the Minor Houses sung the praises of the mighty foxes and their High King, the Don (or Donna) Rinaldi.

Naturally, no empire lasts without difficulty. By the time of the 14th Don, Don Rafael de Rinaldi, several years of extreme weather had damaged the sea trade to Epinian and the lack of funds caused some of the public works to fall into disrepair. Poor harvests helped people to begin losing faith in their city and their Don. Soldiers could not be paid, and the extravagant security of the Via Salutis fell. Legionaries turned to banditry, and minor houses stalked the trade routes to threaten and extort. On top of all of this came the threat that would give this period its name, the Time of Weeping: Trade from foreign shores brought with it a new disease, one the Rinaldi had never seen, and the shadow of plague and death stalked the streets of Triskellian.

As the Don died of plague and the sickness ravaged his household, however, one common red vixen saw a strange vision of a great and warming light surrounding all things. She was Helloise, nursemaid to the Don's young son, Constantin. The boy lay sick with the same plague that had struck down his father, and much like his father, the finest doctors in the land could do nothing. Helloise took the boy into her arms and prayed for his safety, and suddenly, the sores healed and the fever passed in an instant. All around swore they could see the same light she'd witnessed in her vision, suffusing both the vixen and the kit. She rushed to the streets and began to go house to house, using this strange new power to cure every person she could touch, until she realized one woman could not save an entire city by hand. She prayed to the light for the strength to save her city, and suddenly, a white flame swept all of Triskellian. By the time it was complete, not a single bubo or sore remained; the plague had been burned away, eradicated, and the city delivered. The effort of the great spell had cost Helloise her life, however, but she had discovered the power of White Magic. The people Helloise had spared came together to wonder at what the light had been, and founded the church of S'Allumer, the All-Giving Light, in the name of her selflessness and sacrifice. Don Constantin's mother became the first Arch-Cardinal of the new church, and a great cathedral was constructed upon the spot of her sacrifice, to mark forever the founding of the faith.

Next Time: Italian Foxes versus French Horses, From The Fox Perspective!

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015
What if Beasts were not only not assholes, but haunted by some kind of abstract entity eager for some kind of "narrative energy"?

Bedlamdan
Apr 25, 2008

Doresh posted:

What if Beasts were not only not assholes, but haunted by some kind of abstract entity eager for some kind of "narrative energy"?

Some sort of "Storyteller," maybe?

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Hostile V posted:

In their defense, those premade missions are both stupidly convoluted and had the player agency of a David Cage game...but came from a point of naivete, in a sense. The way they were actually written in the book were written in the sense that they never had anyone ask them "but why" or "but what if the players say no". In the case of Brave New World, I'd argue that they were written from a sense of ignorant exuberance which is why there's generally no answer to "but why".

But Beast is a game where MANY people asked "but why" and so much so that there had to be some pretty significant revisions. You're absolutely right, it's gallingly stupid but that's because it stuck to its stupid guns. In fact, hearing it spelled out, it's not that convoluted of a plan. It's a pretty classic villan ascension plan. But you're not allowed to truly stop it, just delay it. It's barely even Peak Beast because this is the same gong that's been banged from page XX. In short, when faced with the question of "but why" instead of really examining why they were asking the question they just changed some wording and doubled down on that bullshit like it's between two buns made out of fried chicken. It's bad not because it's a poo poo play experience but because it actually is a logical extension to all of the crap that came before it and is in fact in line with the rest of the stupid book.
Brave New World had a problem that pretty much all Pinnacle adventures had at the time: it was never assumed anyone would ask "why are we doing this?" or "what if we do something else?" But that was pretty much the way things were done back in the 90's.

Beast does not have the excuse of being written in the 90's.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Night10194 posted:

E: Thinking further, the other thing is, NONE OF THIS SHOULD BE PART OF THE WoD. Because for the story to work, the Beast actually has to be mostly harmless (maybe there are some evil ones, but probably not the protagonist) which doesn't gel with the shades of grey WoD likes to require. Like, this should be its own thing, with storybook creatures and dream-weaver things that just suddenly find themselves under assault by crazy people who can influence the dreams towards violence.

Just replace Beast: the Primordial with a Gargoyles: the Vigil update. No matter how bad it might be as a fan splat, Disney did persecuted monsters better two decades ago.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015
I thought it was Gargoyles: The Flappening?

Bedlamdan posted:

Some sort of "Storyteller," maybe?

The Plot-Machine.

It always creates the right kind of Hero to counter you, because it is attracted to your potential narrative energy and adapts. This also means Heroes will never pop up in areas were you or you buddies aren't around.

Is your presence what creates them in the first place, or does your presence merely act as a beacon for them, sparing the innocent because they aren't quite as yummy?

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
I still think you could do a lot with Heroes as the super-privileged.

They'd basically be the cosmic equivalent of people who never gain weight and love exercise, and think anybody with any fat on them is just lazy, because that's how it works for them.

Although obviously you'd have to fix the way Beasts are currently super-privileged but pretending not to be.

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unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.
The ideal ending for 'The narrative is the real jerk' is for heroes and beasts to team up and punch it in the face, as personified by Herr Drosselmeyer.


Princess: The tutuing.

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