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MonsieurChoc posted:I can empathize with accidentally writing something bad, as I do that everytime I post. This is a good joke but also it's pretty important to point out how incredibly hard writing something good is. Dave Brookshaw posted:Beast is the unique chimeric horror that results from a bunch of enthusiastic newbies writing CofD like it's a LGBTQ-metaphor supers setting, pressured old timers writing awful monsters, and a Dev who didn't have it in him to blend the two or provide the leadership needed. Honestly, this is probably a more accurate picture of Beast's flaws than "It's lead Dev is a rapist!" But the later explanation is just more compelling - it's personal and gossipy and intellectually sexy, and there is of course some truth to it in the specifics about his failing to blend the tones. But this is the internet, sober analysis will never trump sordid moralizing.
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Feb 16, 2019 07:56
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Digital Osmosis posted:This is a good joke but also it's pretty important to point out how incredibly hard writing something good is. 
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Feb 16, 2019 10:42
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I mean it's biggest flaw is there is no through line. Like, a nightmare spirit ate someone's soul and now they want to hurt people. Ok, then what? What's it all mean? The biggest failure of heroes isn't that they written off as being ineffectual or deluded, it's that they exist at all and this isn't examined. Jesus Christ, who the hell doesn't stop and have a serious moment of introspection about the the fact that whatever created them also creates something that exists only to oppose them? Explicitly all their powers only work on Beasts or people that tie themselves to Beasts, except for being incredibly healthy. Mages actually wonder about Banishers, even if the party line is to just go "Well, guess they were just terrible people in the first place." too. There is actually *some* study into the matter. But no, every single Beast is super cool with being a Beast and they love their mommy [Who evidently is pumping out assassins to murder them all on the reg]. So horrific abuse elemental being in charge of writing about horrific abuse elementals is....striking, but the problem with Beast is it doesn't know what it wants to be or what it wants to do first, and then that they are self insert characters second. If it knew what it wanted to be there'd probably be better clarity of purpose and intent behind....you know, most of it.
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Feb 16, 2019 10:44
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It also doesn't tread any new ground that other game lines dont already cover. The only unique thing it does is glorify the dark side. It would have to be very well done to be worth rereading the same tropes as Werewolf and Vampire and by most accounts, it's abuser apologia which seems....unneccessary.
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Feb 16, 2019 15:43
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Mulva posted:I mean it's biggest flaw is there is no through line. Like, a nightmare spirit ate someone's soul and now they want to hurt people. Ok, then what? What's it all mean? The biggest failure of heroes isn't that they written off as being ineffectual or deluded, it's that they exist at all and this isn't examined. Jesus Christ, who the hell doesn't stop and have a serious moment of introspection about the the fact that whatever created them also creates something that exists only to oppose them? Explicitly all their powers only work on Beasts or people that tie themselves to Beasts, except for being incredibly healthy. Mages actually wonder about Banishers, even if the party line is to just go "Well, guess they were just terrible people in the first place." too. There is actually *some* study into the matter. But no, every single Beast is super cool with being a Beast and they love their mommy [Who evidently is pumping out assassins to murder them all on the reg]. That's a great point. Werewolves get the Bale Hounds, although I'm pretty sure Uratha know where they come from. Vampires have the Strix, or VII, or both. All the game lines feel like they have their 'dark version' (save Changelings maybe, which already have the True Fae to worry about, and Mummy, which I don't actually care about) with some thought put in to how they interact with the splat they're in.
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Feb 16, 2019 15:49
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Let me be clear, my primary objection to the characterization put forward in the post that got the was the blatant dismissal. I'll allow that it wasn't entirely intentional, but it should not come as a shock that even the not-terminally-online might have a very real, very visceral reaction to Beast and, more specifically, its ringleader. Hell, even with the highly questionable text of the Black Furies revised tribebook ('sexuality is fluid and a choice' posited for larfs, I guess), That Guy being one of the contributors tanks even the "good" sides of the text for me, personally. Not necessarily because it was loving amazing to begin with - I don't have the kind of brainworms necessary to consider oWolf to be 'loving amazing' at anything but flaming elbow drops - but because of the subjectmatter. A rapist writing at length about a tribe of women that would have murdered him specifically for being just that has an incredibly smarmy feel to it. Beast has that x10 with its abuser apologia, and, intended or no, the name attached to it can and will create a visceral response. Let's not just dismiss it outright as 'sordid moralizing' when there's an emotional component baked in, even if, yes, characterizing the books themselves as entirely the fault of said rapist is going slightly overboard. Though only just. As strange as this sounds, things tend to trend in that direction when they strike a particularly nasty chord. Getting high and mighty towards the folks that have felt that way, and did ultimately say 'yeah I get that, I just loving hate this book so loving much' already, isn't helping anything, or furthering the discussion. Old Boot fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Feb 16, 2019 |
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Feb 16, 2019 18:04
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Dawgstar posted:That's a great point. Werewolves get the Bale Hounds, although I'm pretty sure Uratha know where they come from. Vampires have the Strix, or VII, or both. All the game lines feel like they have their 'dark version' (save Changelings maybe, which already have the True Fae to worry about, and Mummy, which I don't actually care about) with some thought put in to how they interact with the splat they're in. Changelings have Loyalists and Privateers who capture or lure and then sell other Changelings back to The Gentry or 'just' into Goblin slavery. Same as Demons have Integrators (or just God Machine moles) that will sell them out if they let their true nature slip to the wrong person.
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Feb 16, 2019 20:46
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Dawgstar posted:That's a great point. Werewolves get the Bale Hounds, although I'm pretty sure Uratha know where they come from. Vampires have the Strix, or VII, or both. All the game lines feel like they have their 'dark version' (save Changelings maybe, which already have the True Fae to worry about, and Mummy, which I don't actually care about) with some thought put in to how they interact with the splat they're in. Assuming she's a real entity in the CofD it'd be great if it turned out that Beasts aren't in fact the Dark Mother's favored children like they claim and are pretty much the unwanted red headed step children of the family. It'd also fit with the Dark Mother's depiction in the other WoD related settings. What little we know of what was planned in Exalted for instance suggested that she wasn't so much openly malicious and fearful in the ways that Beasts are as much as she was prone to creating things that would be likely to be heroic while freaking the gently caress out of the normies as a matter of course. Heroes certainly fit that definition given the monomania about killing Beasts. If nothing else, even if it didn't justify why the whole Beast/Hero dichotomy exists it'd at least take the wind out of Beast's sails a bit. Which, given that it's essentially abuser apologia as the poster above mentioned can only be a good thing. Edit: Also, I should mention that Beasts do technically have their own dark version. I forget what they're called, but the guy who posted that write-up about the monster-man that puts worms in you and makes you love it is probably a good example of them. It really sounded like some weird fetish poo poo when the description of him and the others like him got posted on here though. Outside of some pretty flimsy justifications it also wasn't really clear why they should be related as any given Beast's darker half too. Archonex fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Feb 16, 2019 |
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Feb 16, 2019 20:52
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Archonex posted:Edit: Also, I should mention that Beasts do technically have their own dark version. Insatiables. And the dude you're referring to is the fish eggs guy.
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Feb 16, 2019 21:21
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Old Boot posted:Let me be clear, my primary objection to the characterization put forward in the post that got the I uh, don't think we're disagreeing about anything? Or at least I didn't think we were until this post - while I absolutely think "not terminally online" people can have a bad response to the themes of Beast as presented, I'm not sure what people you think are "not terminally online" and yet know RPG industry drama well enough to have a visceral reaction to Beast's ringleader. The text? Sure. But the man behind the text? Not something I suspect many people who don't read about tabletop games online frequently know about. My point was that DaveB's point about institutional failure, and a leadership failure to blend disparate tones is a good way of looking at it. I also said, although I might not have emphasized this enough, that the specifics of his failure to blend the tones does come from McFarland's hosed up abused apologia. But I also think there's a tendency, based on the small size of the community and the way internet communities work, to overlook those specifics in favor of "Beast is a bad game made by a rapist!" Which, you know, it is - but which has also been discussed to death. I think "Beast is a bad game [because McFarland couldn't get a coherent game out of his underlings] made by a rapist [whose hosed up views bled through because of the half-assed job he did trying to manage the tone of the project]!" is a more complete and interesting perspective. I do think it's also the kind of nuance that gets lost in online communications, and that's what my snark about moralizing was about - trying to talk about how the rush to out decry something that can bury some of the real narrative. I found DaveB's post illuminating, and that's what I was trying to point out. I'm sorry if that seemed I was making light of McFarland's sins. Perhaps it would have been better to point the reasons why I thought the more complete narrative of Beast's failings wasn't well known in a separate post? Like I said above, I'm not sure we disagree much about Beast, although we might disagree a bit about, I dunno, the nature of discourse surrounding Beast.
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Feb 16, 2019 21:26
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Archonex posted:If nothing else, even if it didn't justify why the whole Beast/Hero dichotomy exists it'd at least take the wind out of Beast's sails a bit. Which, given that it's essentially abuser apologia as the poster above mentioned can only be a good thing. Honestly that dichotomy feels like it could just be a rewrite of the whole WoD cosmology, where Beasts can manifest as any number of splat-gribblies and Heroes are the hunter stand-ins/PCs. Which just makes it the FATAL-esque rewrite of the mainbook.
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Feb 16, 2019 21:34
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Digital Osmosis posted:Like I said above, I'm not sure we disagree much about Beast, although we might disagree a bit about, I dunno, the nature of discourse surrounding Beast. My point was more that the tone of the post came off as dismissive of the gut reaction the thread had to the material in general, and unnecessary when already the people making the more generalized comments had already conceded that, yes, that might be overstating the case. Like I said initially, I'll allow it wasn't intentional, but I do think there's a message to be heard in even the more heated discourse, in this case. That response comes from a place that's pretty far removed from the usual fan hyperbole, and, speaking frankly, if it's not all that difficult to believe that 'yeah this material was written by a rapist' (which, let's be real, it isn't difficult at all), then the only adequate move to make would be to pull the line from the shelves and rewrite the text to make it ultra-goddamn-clear that 'these are the ultimate shitstains of the CofD, they are delusional assholes, none of the other protag splats will willingly collaborate with them, this is canon now, there is no LGBT parallel, we were super wrong about this and we're sorry.' EDIT: It's unlikely to happen, but that's about the only 'fix' that can be made in the wake of all this. That, and removing the family of compulsive rapists who backpat themselves for not raping 24/7. EDIT 2: vvv Ah, christ, I forgot about that vvv Old Boot fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Feb 16, 2019 |
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Feb 16, 2019 21:43
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Old Boot posted:EDIT: It's unlikely to happen, but that's about the only 'fix' that can be made in the wake of all this. That, and removing the family of compulsive rapists who backpat themselves for not raping 24/7. The book with the family of compulsive racists also has a family that manifests as the fear of brown people and a new hunger for "Transgression" which seek to teach people that the truth is in the middle ala South Park. Just burn the entire beast line to cinders.
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Feb 16, 2019 21:53
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Old Boot posted:Insatiables. And the dude you're referring to is the fish eggs guy. Yeah. The fish eggs guy is what I meant. I try to block poo poo like that out when it's not necessary to remember it, really. PHIZ KALIFA posted:Honestly that dichotomy feels like it could just be a rewrite of the whole WoD cosmology, where Beasts can manifest as any number of splat-gribblies and Heroes are the hunter stand-ins/PCs. I mean, if the base game had been written from the standpoint of the heroes attacking a race of hidden predators trying to spread fear (and bigotry too, jesus. I forgot all about that particular mess.) I could see it working out and having the entire line be more acceptable. But at that point the best you've got is a sub-splat of Hunters in the vein of Night Horrors/Wicked Dead in Requiem. Either way, that particular part of the franchise is just hosed up and probably needs a whole new edition/rewrite to have a hope of getting rid of the stain of all the abuse apologia and general squicky themes it has attached to it. No amount of finagling about the finer details is going to get rid of what the author did with it. That being said, tier 4 beings existed as of mage 1e. There's been no updated word on them since in 2e, but we have poo poo like the God Machine and the Pangaean's that have made an appearance. So it's not outside the realm of probability for such a being to exist in the setting without a rewrite. The idea of the Dark Mother being anti-beast though came to me when I did a quick perusal back through all the info I had collected about Beast and realized that there's no apparent evidence that she likes Beasts at all. It's just a general insistence from Beast's that they're her special children and that she supports the hosed up poo poo they do to people. Hell, if anything, all the poo poo that gets sent their way just from doing their thing implies the opposite. Meanwhile the only other instances of the Dark Mother I could find are either apathetic to the world or straight up trying to manufacture beings that will defend everyone else from the monsters that come out of the darker parts of their portion of setting. Which doesn't jive with what Beast's claim to believe at all. Was just a neat little thing I noticed, and thought would be a good plot twist if anyone ever has to deal with that part of the franchise. Archonex fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Feb 16, 2019 |
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Feb 16, 2019 22:27
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So you’re suggesting a rewrite of Beast as Judas Goats to the other supernaturals that attract an endless stream of pissed-off hunters while the poochie aura prevents them from realizing this?
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Feb 16, 2019 23:49
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wdarkk posted:So you’re suggesting a rewrite of Beast as Judas Goats to the other supernaturals that attract an endless stream of pissed-off hunters while the poochie aura prevents them from realizing this? Pretty sure that a beast's regular behavior does a fine enough job of attracting hunters without requiring a rewrite. You're talking about a group of monsters that have themes such as "Inflicting fear on the unsuspecting." and "Hey, why not give racism a chance! The truth is in the middle, after all!". Handing something like that super powers themed around that sort of thing is bound to go wrong and attract some irate humans in short order. Beast's already kinda work like Judas Goats for splats like Vampire anyways. Just in a different way than attracting hunters. Their proclivity to embrace (or at least, be forced to perform) monstrous behavior means that odds are any vampire that follows them is going to start bleeding off their humanity fast barring one side or another saying "Hold the phone, this is going too far." or cutting ties. Which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what you want to be doing as a vampire. Hell, the first big fiction piece to do with Beast had exactly that happening from what I remember. I'm personally of the opinion that barring them just scrapping the entire line and maybe redoing it a few years down the line Beast is pretty unsalvageable though. There's just too much horrible poo poo to it and it seems like any attempt to repair the overall current structure of the thing would take more time than it'd be worth without at least the benefit of time justifying updating the line similar to how everything is getting a 2e version. To go off of what you suggested however, if I had to go with a fanfic tier rewrite i'd say that having them act as Judas Goat's for the more horrible monsters in the setting wouldn't be absolutely terrible. Not really good mind you. But at least it wouldn't be at the level of "let us tell you how the heroes are the bad guys for wanting to stop this fear inflicting monstrosity from terrorizing the neighborhood" levels of bad like the early versions of Beast. Basically just have them be the delusional assholes that buddy up to every evil low humanity vampire, low wisdom pro oppression mage, rear end in a top hat changeling, or whatever fits the bill and then let the karma come hard and fast if those characters are played by PC's. Suddenly their new super powered ally wouldn't seem too fun and they get a hard lesson on why playing a monster isn't always fun and games once the consequences come around. Now, how you'd make that work is beyond me. A lot of what I posted up above this post probably wouldn't fit into that, I think. Edit: Gonna be long and filled with  , but to go more into my thoughts about Beast:More than anything else though I feel like Beast's just won't work as an acceptable line if they're written from a sympathetic angle. Not with the way they're currently designed. The best you can hope for playing under the current design is some "Old Yeller" tier tragedy where some poor bastard woke up one day and realized he was infested with some nightmare inflicting super powers that compel him to hurt other people. At which point things slide downhill from there. But vampires do that a hell of a lot better anyways sans the nightmare powers and subbing in "slowly corroding under monstrous urges, near total alienation from their fellow humans, and a hunger for blood" while being far better established. And that's rather charitably ignoring all the really problematic stuff the line has going on with it. Adding onto that, there's no reason anyone (monster or otherwise) shouldn't sprint for the nearest shotgun the second they realize what a Beast really is. When you get down to it they're oriented around terrorizing humans. Which puts them at odds with pretty much any human that isn't a complete sociopath. Meanwhile any monster ought to take a look at the sort of trouble that'd likely create and say "gently caress no." if they had an iota of sense. And given that a Beast's end game states range from "hosed" to "more hosed except now the monster part of you is free" it's not like they have something to look forward if they tough it out and try to find a better alternative too. They're kind of like that fish parasite from the Wicked Dead book in that regard. It had a segment where it outright pointed out that if you play this character expect them to suffer a horrible fate. I have a hard time seeing why someone would even want to play one unless they ignore certain parts of the setting, have a certain amount of morbid curiosity as to what would happen, or just wanted to see how badly they could gently caress up this character's life. Now, maybe that Conquering Heroes book changed all that. But I never really got to read it since someone burned my house down. Dealing with that kinda took priority when it came to occupying my time, unfortunately. Archonex fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Feb 17, 2019 |
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Feb 17, 2019 00:16
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There's something I never realized that was staring me in the face: any hunter organization worth the name would loathe Beasts. I'm sure the Union or the Long Night or, again, any of them would just murk them on principle. Well, Ashwood Abbey might chop them up and then inject the remains into their eyeballs or whatever, but as it stands...
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Feb 17, 2019 01:00
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Dawgstar posted:There's something I never realized that was staring me in the face: any hunter organization worth the name would loathe Beasts. I'm sure the Union or the Long Night or, again, any of them would just murk them on principle. Well, Ashwood Abbey might chop them up and then inject the remains into their eyeballs or whatever, but as it stands... Yeah. That's another thing that occurred to me too. What's more, when you read between the lines Beast's ought to be hunted like crazy and barring some sort of bullshit deus ex machina be damned near driven straight out of society by the time the modern setting rolls around. And that's with the general advantage of secrecy every monster in the setting has. I mean, some of the poo poo they can do (and in some cases have) not only makes for a predictable pattern over time that should tip some of the conspiracies off that something is up in ____ area but also can be pretty drat overt when you apply it over a measure of time across a given city or town. If an entire area is living in terror of some sort of a boogeyman that only preys on fear/encourages bigotry/whatever, has some potentially mentally broken person running around claiming he or she will slay the monster at fault while making a mess, and all the other related stuff there's only so many times it can happen before the more established and organized conspiracies note the pattern and start getting really efficient at blowing away some nightmares. And that goes for the supernatural game lines too. While Beast is probably the closest line to Vampire (and even cribbed a lot of their themes from them in a nasty sort of way) in terms of themes they're also a great example of why other supernatural splats should hate the gently caress out of Beast's. The reason being that vampire's don't terrorize communities by default. Barring individual aspirations their optimal goal is to hide within them and subvert them. Or if not that then they subvert small parts of them to sustain themselves. Unless they're outright trying to make a scene then vampires are just not as blatantly overt when it comes to simple survival. Meanwhile Beast's really ought to have all sorts of problems with laying low and making ends meet in any given area. Case in point, a vampire sustains itself by blood. A beast sustains itself by essentially inflicting fear or some other horrid urge on the community. Terrorizing the community runs outright counter to the default vampire's aims. That's liable to not only make it hard to feed but also put everyone's guard up and over time create a ton of social dysfunction that'll draw potentially even worse attention in the bargain. Which also means that any monster that wants to stay secret and needs humans should want them gone ASAP when one shows up. Which is counter to the whole "Beast's want to be BFF's with all the monsters!" schtick. Or to put it in a more TL;DR way: There's a ton of reasons why every other splat should just be grinding Beast's into a fine nightmarish powder whenever they show up, really. And it seems like the author and editors really didn't seem to think some of this stuff through. Archonex fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Feb 17, 2019 |
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Feb 17, 2019 01:07
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Archonex posted:And given that a Beast's end game states range from "hosed" to "more hosed except now the monster part of you is free" it's not like they have something to look forward if they tough it out and try to find a better alternative too. I mean the Player's Guide adds 3 more end states, and one of them is explicitly "You kill the monster in you and replace your soul, because in the CoD they are basically interchangeable". There's another version where you basically become a Hero Beast, because you are extra pissed at what happened to you. So there are ways out. It's just, you know, poo poo like that would have had more impact in the core, especially considering both of them are inclined to gently caress with other Beasts.
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Feb 17, 2019 01:44
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Can anyone in here tell me if the Hunger mechanic in V5 is as clunky as it reads to me? I like not keeping track of a blood pool but not the idea that almost everything my character does can spark some kind hangry reaction.
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Feb 17, 2019 01:51
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It looks like this thread's personal horror is undergoing the retreat. So at least some good came of this.
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Feb 17, 2019 01:59
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Mulva posted:I mean the Player's Guide adds 3 more end states, and one of them is explicitly "You kill the monster in you and replace your soul, because in the CoD they are basically interchangeable". There's another version where you basically become a Hero Beast, because you are extra pissed at what happened to you. So there are ways out. It's just, you know, poo poo like that would have had more impact in the core, especially considering both of them are inclined to gently caress with other Beasts. Yeah. Those are good and they probably should have been in the core. Props to which ever author fixed that particular part of the line. On another note, I always figured souls weren't quite as interchangeable as lines like Mage suggests. In vampire it's heavily suggested that eating a soul can literally change your personality to include/outright overwrite it with the person that was being eaten. And I distinctly recall some other really notable soul hijinks in both that line, the Geist line, and the 1e book detailing the Underworld that suggested that it's essentially that person's character traits or self to some variable extent. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time a mage was wrong about something. 
Archonex fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Feb 17, 2019 |
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Feb 17, 2019 02:15
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Archonex posted:Yeah. Those are good and they probably should have been in the core. It has effects, just not game-mechanical ones. We don't have a persistent Condition for "your favorite food has changed"
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Feb 17, 2019 02:32
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My impression is that soul bleed is pretty subtle and seems to be comparable to moving into someone else's spiritual house - your core identity/furniture will be fine but you're unlikely to clean out all the corners of preexisting decor. Now, the explicit game setting description by the narrator's sidebar in Mage 2 states that souls are the psychic organ that maintains the self, like a foundation, and doesn't point to other effects, so I feel like that's good enough for me to say souls are meaningfully interchangeable in practice.
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Feb 17, 2019 02:43
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Archonex posted:Yeah. Those are good and they probably should have been in the core. Isn't the entire mummy game line a giant middle finger to this concept? Like the entire premise of Duat and the Judges is diametrically opposed to the mage understanding of souls.
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Feb 17, 2019 03:12
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AnEdgelord posted:Isn't the entire mummy game line a giant middle finger to this concept? Like the entire premise of Duat and the Judges is diametrically opposed to the mage understanding of souls. Duat is a Lower Depth, and mummies the Judge's ambulatory feeding appendages for Sekhem. So... No, not really.
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Feb 17, 2019 03:33
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TheKingslayer posted:Can anyone in here tell me if the Hunger mechanic in V5 is as clunky as it reads to me? V5 Hunger dice work very well in actual play - it's a fun conflict inducing mechanic that can push the roleplaying in interesting directions, turning the blood pool "gas tank" into a bit of risk management. It was also playtested way more than anything else in V5 (take that as you may).
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Feb 17, 2019 03:37
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Archonex posted:In vampire it's heavily suggested that eating a soul can literally change your personality to include/outright overwrite it with the person that was being eaten. That seems to be more of a Masquerade thing. You don't really get the 'antediluvian coming back to possess you after you commit diablerie on them' in Requiem. Though they can haunt you a bit afterwards, it's more a vengeful attempt to gently caress things up for you than crawling back from the grave. Though with diablerie you're not just eating a soul but the Beast-thing it's mixed with. Even the Ash That Devours, basically when a blood sorcerer dies and leaves a 'ghost' comes, it has to rebuild its own form by committing diablerie rather than taking over others. quote:And I distinctly recall some other really notable soul hijinks in both that line, the Geist line, and the 1e book detailing the Underworld that suggested that it's essentially that person's character traits or self to some variable extent. The first edition Book of the Dead seemed to use the terms ghost and soul interchangeably but that was first edition. And Geist was just a mess. The Mummy/Egyptian Ka thing seems to be some hyper classifications. They may be into seinen and shoujo, but it's all just anime. nofather fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Feb 17, 2019 |
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Feb 17, 2019 04:14
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Lost_Heretic posted:V5 Hunger dice work very well in actual play - it's a fun conflict inducing mechanic that can push the roleplaying in interesting directions, turning the blood pool "gas tank" into a bit of risk management. It was also playtested way more than anything else in V5 (take that as you may). Yeah having run the game for a about 8 or so sessions, plus run it for the podcast, the general consensus is that is is a tactile reminder of the vampire's hunger. Plus it being dice based in how it increases, "topping up" is not a number game you can just game. Players also find using Willpower to convert Messy Crits into just successes is also good, as it represents a tangible way of the vampire exerting their will to keep the Beast in control. Finally given how if a character has enough dice they can "take half" and not roll, and just auto succeed, and thus ignore Hunger. Overall, in all of that gameplay, Messy Crits and Bestial Fails have only led to 3 or so results, and most of the time that has opened up the door to narrative and helped remind players what a knife edge a vampire walks along.
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Feb 17, 2019 04:16
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That's good to hear. From my first read it seemed not so good but I'm glad it works in practice.
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Feb 17, 2019 04:24
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Archonex posted:Or to put it in a more TL;DR way: There's a ton of reasons why every other splat should just be grinding Beast's into a fine nightmarish powder whenever they show up, really. And it seems like the author and editors really didn't seem to think some of this stuff through. aahhhhhhh gently caress sorry to continue the beast rewrite derail (which is now in it's 4th incarnation as far as i've been reading the thread, my bad) but I just had the idea that it would be ironic in a too-obvious way if all the anti-PC splat gribblies (strix, the bad mages, the pure or whatever the Evil Woofs are, the sellout Changelings mentioned upthread) weren't true gribblies at all but Beasts trying to encourage the worst aspects of each specific splat. Like, lol, you thought the Antedilluvians were ancient badasses when it's actually just some dude who's really good at lying about himself. Every beast is just a man behind a flimsy curtain, trying to make everything around him worse. That would be a fun antagonist, if an utterly one-note one. It's the kind of reveal that only works once if the players aren't expecting it. So, in non-derail news, I'm ending my Tremere game tomorrow.  the players earthquaked an entire town to get at the Assaku and now they're chasing it back to it's home beneath Enoch. A player's Amnesia is finally going to pay off as they realize they were a Black Hand Manchurian Candidate sent to lead them here so they can be the ones to set off the spirit nuke that blows up all of Death or whatever metaplot wankery. Mostly I'm tired of the other players picking on this one for not having an elaborate backstory so I'm going to play it like he's been Would You Kindly-ing them along this whole time. One question, the V20 Black Hand book mentions that Enoch just survived a ghost war and is scattered about with caches of ghost weapons useless to Kindred, does that extend to folks with ghost-handling Necromancy abilities?
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Feb 17, 2019 04:25
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Here's a question for the old vampire heads: Did you ever do anything fun or interesting with the Malkavian Network? It has been a lot more distinctive to me whenever I've considered approaches to games, or characters in Vampire settings, than ~iNsAnItY~.
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Feb 17, 2019 13:09
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Joe Slowboat posted:My impression is that soul bleed is pretty subtle and seems to be comparable to moving into someone else's spiritual house - your core identity/furniture will be fine but you're unlikely to clean out all the corners of preexisting decor.
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Feb 17, 2019 14:50
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Nessus posted:Here's a question for the old vampire heads: Did you ever do anything fun or interesting with the Malkavian Network? It has been a lot more distinctive to me whenever I've considered approaches to games, or characters in Vampire settings, than ~iNsAnItY~. The only real use I found for the MMN was in a thinblood game where folks with Insight also had to be constantly dodging some pissed off Bedlamites for being able to tap in to it.
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Feb 17, 2019 15:09
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Dave Brookshaw posted:When I step down, I'm gonna see about putting it in the Storyteller's Vault, the way Rose did with hers for Requiem I'm interested in the vampire one, what's it called
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Feb 17, 2019 18:49
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What do you think would be the best line for a one-shot/mini-campaign for people who've never played WoD? My D&D group occasionally pauses our main game for a break or to let the GM actually play for once and I was thinking of running NWoD next time that happens. I'm leaning towards vampire right now since you need to do less explaining of the setting and the powers are fairly straightforward.
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Feb 17, 2019 19:02
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UrbicaMortis posted:What do you think would be the best line for a one-shot/mini-campaign for people who've never played WoD?
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Feb 17, 2019 19:10
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:I'm interested in the vampire one, what's it called https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/261142/BITE-ME-How-to-Write-Vampire
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Feb 17, 2019 19:13
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UrbicaMortis posted:What do you think would be the best line for a one-shot/mini-campaign for people who've never played WoD? Blue book mortals, car breaks down on a long road trip in a little nowhere stop where something isn't right, use the Horror creation rules, let their play decide if it skews more Twin Peaks, Scooby-Doo, or Army of Darkness. Thematic overlap with Hunter, but the extra mechanical doodads and tactics and organizations, except maybe risking Willpower, aren't really necessary and might just clutter a short adventure like this. Hunter provides a good place to take the group if they're really into it and decide they want more.
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Feb 17, 2019 20:05
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Nightmare on Hill Manor is specifically designed as an entry point for WoD, and is entirely self-contained, which makes it good for one-shots. It's also free, which is a big bonus IMO.
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Feb 17, 2019 20:39
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