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Norton the First posted:Yeah that's what I'm asking, if Kindred get anything out of drinking the presumably chi-infused blood of the kuei jin. I imagine best case scenario its like super potent blood, like that of an elder. Worst case scenario you puke it up and it makes you trip balls, like mage blood. But I don't have the kindred of the east book.
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May 31, 2019 02:17
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Zaphod42 posted:I imagine best case scenario its like super potent blood, like that of an elder. Worst case scenario you puke it up and it makes you trip balls, like mage blood. Is Mage blood that special? I really don't know that much about WoD stuff I never played White Wolf tabletops because they always seemed too edgy, and the one guy who wanted to play it in our DnD group was uh...wierd Then I played VTOMB and really liked the twist of gothic horror in modern day.
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May 31, 2019 02:22
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TulliusCicero posted:Is Mage blood that special? I really don't know that much about WoD stuff Yeah, VTM was big with goths back in the 90s, but I was into Anne Rice so I played some. But they were always a bit edgier than my normal D&D group. But I got really really into playing Mage Ascension and Awakening, IMO its a much more creative system for expression in roleplaying than D&D. In D&D spells are just video game buttons you push. In Mage, you actually make up your own spells. It feels liberating. Playing "vanilla" WoD as mortal humans is pretty fun too, for everything from zombie apocalypse to X-files type scenarios. But man I don't even know what the state of White Wolf is today. There's a ton of us fans, but the business switched hands a couple times, they tried to bring it back but it seems like they made some really bad decisions, and I don't even know what's up now. I don't think they're printing material at all? I'm glad someone cool has the licence and is making cool games with it. For awhile the EVE guys talked about an MMO and then they changed their minds and sold it off to Paradox?
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May 31, 2019 02:37
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TulliusCicero posted:Is Mage blood that special? I really don't know that much about WoD stuff Mage blood gives you Paradox. And i think KoE blood had unfortunate effects on you depending on whether they had more Yin or Yang imbalance.
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May 31, 2019 02:38
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Mages are kind of king poo poo of gently caress mountain in the power scales of the World of Darkness, with a giant caveat of their abilities to possibly run circles around Caine himself comes at the cost of being absolutely ravaged by a pissed off concept of reality, Paradox, that will ruin them the bigger and more impressive the magic spell is. Its why Thaumaturgy, Koldunic Sorcery and any other form of blood magic is super loving serious business and impressive even to a Methuselah. It completely skirts around Paradox without possibly being quite as potent as other magic.
Crabtree fucked around with this message at 02:45 on May 31, 2019 |
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May 31, 2019 02:40
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Crabtree posted:Mages are kind of king poo poo of gently caress mountain in the power scales of the World of Darkness, with a giant caveat of their abilities to possibly run circles around Caine himself comes at the cost of being absolutely ravaged by a pissed off concept of reality, Paradox, that will ruin them the bigger and more impressive the magic spell is. Its why Thaumaturgy, Koldunic Sorcery and any other form of blood magic is super loving serious business and impressive even to a Methuselah. Its true, although scions can be stupid powerful too and both become completely restricted by the drawbacks of their own godhood as they ascend. I did once have a campaign where we all played 5-dot archmages that was incredibly fun. But its not an easy thing to manage.
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May 31, 2019 02:45
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Zaphod42 posted:Its true, although scions can be stupid powerful too and both become completely restricted by the drawbacks of their own godhood as they ascend. How long did you get to play before someone destroyed the world?
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May 31, 2019 02:47
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Crabtree posted:Mages are kind of king poo poo of gently caress mountain in the power scales of the World of Darkness, with a giant caveat of their abilities to possibly run circles around Caine himself comes at the cost of being absolutely ravaged by a pissed off concept of reality, Paradox, that will ruin them the bigger and more impressive the magic spell is. Its why Thaumaturgy, Koldunic Sorcery and any other form of blood magic is super loving serious business and impressive even to a Methuselah. It completely skirts around Paradox without possibly being quite as potent as other magic. It does seem like from the lore mages can outright poo poo on a lot of vampire sects I guess what I was always wondering is WoD like everything wierd and occult exists in the modern day? And they just do their best to hide the freaky poo poo from mortals, so Inquisitions don't start up? Do the Vampires and the Mages and the Werewolves and the Mummies and whatever else just agree to keep things under wraps as much as possible? Like I get the Camarilla in Vampire do that. I always liked the premise tbh
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May 31, 2019 02:57
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jng2058 posted:How long did you get to play before someone destroyed the world? We actually got a handful of sessions in. It helps that we were all trying to prevent the end of the world, and so mostly restrained ourselves when on the material plane. (Or like, not in a demesne or whatever) My guy was an archmage of space. My favorite thing was his sanctum, which was built entirely out of stitched together co-located spaces. So a palace with one spire of the Taj Mahal, but also one of the pillars from the White House, and so on. And the entire thing was itself inside a grain of sand in a desert, so as to be nearly impossible to find. I also never actually moved, but just followed the party through scrying and did combat entirely through portals. Like Narbacular Drop.
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May 31, 2019 03:00
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Zaphod42 posted:We actually got a handful of sessions in. It helps that we were all trying to prevent the end of the world, and so mostly restrained ourselves when on the material plane. (Or like, not in a demesne or whatever) That sounds badass tbh
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May 31, 2019 03:03
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TulliusCicero posted:It does seem like from the lore mages can outright poo poo on a lot of vampire sects Yeah, the general premise which is kinda fun is that this IS the world of darkness more or less. Its compatible with our world, because we're just ignorant of the vampires and mages and werewolves. They each have their own reasons for generally "blending in" and keeping mortals ignorant. Most of the supernaturals have some kind of faction that attempts to keep order and keep mortals ignorant, like the Camarilla. Mages have the Mysterium in nWoD. And they're all compatible but you're free to like, use or not use anything in your world. You could have a game that's just vampires and humans, but I have had a lot of fun trying to mix multiple systems, like having an MTV Real World with a vampire, werewolf, mage and frankenstein monster (promethean) all living in the same apartment. Its a bit silly and contrived but hey, its fun. Who cares. If you're taking things more seriously, there's also reasons why the factions fight or leave each other alone, and it mostly works out to a balance that makes it plausible humans wouldn't know about it. Vampires need humans to live, Werewolves generally need to not be seen by humans all the time, so naturally Vampires are more Urban and Werewolves are more Rural, and they kinda stay out of each others' hair. (Not always, of course) Mages are trying to prevent the abyss from widening any further so they can't allow much paradox and have to hide their magic from sleepers. Etc. Etc. E: Another big reason I like WOD over like D&D, is you seem more pushed to create flawed characters. Which are more interesting and fun to roleplay. Every character, from Mortals to Vampires to Werewolves to Mages, has systems like Morality, Humanity, Wisdom, etc. which measure your character's mental state. Its more degrees than simple "chaotic evil" or "lawful good", and allows you to kinda fall into a dark phase, develop some kind of derangement (maybe you gain a phobia, and roleplay that for awhile) and then ultimately redeem yourself and grow out of your derangement. D&D seems all about being a heroic badass, not everybody plays it that way but it seems more catering to that. WoD is more about being a tragic anti-hero. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 03:07 on May 31, 2019 |
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May 31, 2019 03:04
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TulliusCicero posted:It does seem like from the lore mages can outright poo poo on a lot of vampire sects Typically if your game allows other monsters and mages to mingle and this is World of Darkness and not Chronicles of Darkness (New World of Darkness), they don't really get along in general, much less to keep mortals in the dark. They sort of unintentionally pull this off despite the animosity, though various groups also gently caress up and bring about inquisitions that are sort of blind and ignorant to about a quarter of the poo poo they could dare to "hunt". Also I just learned about Anarch Sorcery, and the technomagic of the Digital Draculas is just loving amazing.
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May 31, 2019 03:13
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While LaCroix's own Generation is debatable (it's probably 7th as if you're a Ventrue you can't Dominate him) the real piece of work is the Sheriff who is most likely an obscure Tzmisce bloodline from Africa and is also at least 7th Generation.
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May 31, 2019 03:47
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Thinbloods take a while to develop their clan-ness and your quest starting out is to find out who you sire was. So you could bumble around as a thinblood until you find a clue and your character can say "Ah I remember, they were a _____" which accelerates your clan curse. Then videogame magic makes you extremely powerful either supported by or despite the in game lore.
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May 31, 2019 05:35
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TulliusCicero posted:It does seem like from the lore mages can outright poo poo on a lot of vampire sects One thing with all the supernaturals of WoD that makes it hard to do a straight power scale kind of break down is they all have things that from one angle makes them possibly the strongest group but if you shift the focus a little suddenly they appear the weaker. As an example in Changeling The Lost some Mages will force their way into the Hedge to see the Arcadia where the True Fae live. Those that aren’t killed wandering the Hedge might actually get there but they get so ripped apart by the thorns in the Hedge and from the True Fae playing with them they end up as an Unmade; a creature that has no physical identifiers left just smooth grey skin, no face, sexless, hairless, and utterly insane. They only have their obsession of Arcadia left that they constantly mumble about in jittering speech while trying to find people in the Hedge to lead to it. The Gentry, of course, finds this all very amusing so they protect them and will wisk them away from harm if they get attacked so they spend eternity that way Each supernatural has its own unique kind of reality to it that can excel more than any other in certain scenarios which is nice as it gives everyone an option to play the type of monster they want to be and can result in interesting sessions if you have a mixed grabbag of creatures
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May 31, 2019 05:59
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Zaphod42 posted:E: Another big reason I like WOD over like D&D, is you seem more pushed to create flawed characters. Which are more interesting and fun to roleplay. Every character, from Mortals to Vampires to Werewolves to Mages, has systems like Morality, Humanity, Wisdom, etc. which measure your character's mental state. Its more degrees than simple "chaotic evil" or "lawful good", and allows you to kinda fall into a dark phase, develop some kind of derangement (maybe you gain a phobia, and roleplay that for awhile) and then ultimately redeem yourself and grow out of your derangement. All depends on the group playing the game. I've seen a ton of WoD games where it never gets any deeper than "We're loving vampires, let's tear poo poo up!" and some D&D games that get into some GoT level politics and character drama (before, you know, the show itself threw out the politics and character drama to do a heroic badass story, ironically enough). But you're right in that the mechanics of WoD encourage that kind of depth where-as D&D's pretty much doesn't. The problem, of course, is that if that kind of thing is mechanical it's also subject to abuse and power gaming, but again, that depends on the group you're playing with.
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May 31, 2019 06:02
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I mean, "you're forced to create flawed characters" and "you don't just make 'badasses'" isn't quite spot on. oVamp is the origin of "supers with fangs" and "trenchcoats and katanas" for a reason.
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May 31, 2019 06:08
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ProfessorCirno posted:I mean, "you're forced to create flawed characters" and "you don't just make 'badasses'" isn't quite spot on. oVamp is the origin of "supers with fangs" and "trenchcoats and katanas" for a reason. Trenchcoats and katanas was Shadowrun, wasn't it?
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May 31, 2019 06:10
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Khizan posted:Trenchcoats and katanas was Shadowrun, wasn't it? That's a good point; I'm honestly not sure which it came from first. It was definitely extremely prevalent in both. I think it's Vamp first, if only because Shadowrun was more trenchcoats and wolverine blades.
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May 31, 2019 06:20
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I mean in Shadowrun the sort of fighter class is literally called a "street samurai".
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May 31, 2019 06:51
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ProfessorCirno posted:That's a good point; I'm honestly not sure which it came from first. It was definitely extremely prevalent in both. I think it's Vamp first, if only because Shadowrun was more trenchcoats and wolverine blades. Katanas too. I mean it's based in 80s cyberpunk where 'the future is Japanese' is a whole thing.
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May 31, 2019 10:06
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TulliusCicero posted:It does seem like from the lore mages can outright poo poo on a lot of vampire sects At least in chronicles of darkness, a lot of the other supernaturals have built in powers to protect their secrets, so it's less of an issue for them. Werewolves inspire Lunacy in normal people which makes them flee in terror and only vaguely remember a scary animal. Non-mages forget any obvious magic they witness. Changelings have a magic disguise that is perpetually up and can't be seen through by mortals. It does matter a lot to demons since anyone figuring out something dodgy is going on has a chance of blowing the demon's cover and alerting the God-Machine.
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May 31, 2019 10:07
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Best way to run Kindred of the East is focusing on their own thing and forget about butting heads with cainites. Vampires loving ruin everything. This can be applied to all oWoD settings, they do not mix well.
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May 31, 2019 10:26
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Zaphod42 posted:For awhile the EVE guys talked about an MMO and then they changed their minds and sold it off to Paradox? Turns out they couldn't add enough 'psssshhhh'.
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May 31, 2019 10:34
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ProfessorCirno posted:That's a good point; I'm honestly not sure which it came from first. It was definitely extremely prevalent in both. I think it's Vamp first, if only because Shadowrun was more trenchcoats and wolverine blades.
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May 31, 2019 12:08
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HMHVV is maybe possibly an extension of a vast extradimensional hive entity that desires only to consume and spread, so. There's that.
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May 31, 2019 15:36
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Dawgstar posted:While LaCroix's own Generation is debatable (it's probably 7th as if you're a Ventrue you can't Dominate him) the real piece of work is the Sheriff who is most likely an obscure Tzmisce bloodline from Africa and is also at least 7th Generation. I'm pretty sure he uses Dominate on you in the dialogue if you tell him to go gently caress himself when he asks you to go on an errand too.
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May 31, 2019 15:39
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Yep. And it works.
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May 31, 2019 15:43
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Blunt Instrument posted:I'm pretty sure he uses Dominate on you in the dialogue if you tell him to go gently caress himself when he asks you to go on an errand too. Do they ever explain why LaCroix decides you are so useful, and doesn't just have his superpowered minion do it for him? TulliusCicero fucked around with this message at 16:42 on May 31, 2019 |
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May 31, 2019 16:39
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Because, unlike the PC, the Sheriff is a valuable asset, and hard to replace. Plus 80% of the city hates his guts, he literally cannot afford to be seen without his pet gorilla.
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May 31, 2019 16:44
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TulliusCicero posted:Do they ever explain why LaCroix decides you are so useful, and doesn't just have his superpowered minion do it for him? It's less that 'you're useful' and more 'you're expendable'. To LaCroix, using the PC works both ways. If they fail, then he gets to rub it in everyone's faces that he was 'so merciful', despite their failure, and then send someone else. If they succeed, then he gets what he wants AND gets to look merciful for 'guiding' the fledgling he 'granted mercy' towards, when he clearly wanted to kill them just to show how strong his hold was. Blunt Instrument posted:I'm pretty sure he uses Dominate on you in the dialogue if you tell him to go gently caress himself when he asks you to go on an errand too. He does, which makes the 'gently caress over LaCroix' endings all the better when he fails his roll.
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May 31, 2019 17:01
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You can put Dominate in a web video or sound file to make sure that no one you don't want can see or hear the message can understand or retain what they just watched. You can put blood disciplines into source code to create Celerity.exe and download shareware digitized vamp powers into your phone. And the only reason why Hacktivist Thaumaturgy isn't regularly utilized is because most vampire elders or anyone not embraced around the 21st century doesn't know how to turn on a computer, much less walk into a blood bond by logging into fangbook.
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May 31, 2019 17:03
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Crabtree posted:You can put Dominate in a web video or sound file to make sure that no one you don't want can see or hear the message can understand or retain what they just watched. You can put blood disciplines into source code to create Celerity.exe and download shareware digitized vamp powers into your phone. And the only reason why Hacktivist Thaumaturgy isn't regularly utilized is because most vampire elders or anyone not embraced around the 21st century doesn't know how to turn on a computer, much less walk into a blood bond by logging into fangbook. I think you mean .bat files.
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May 31, 2019 17:08
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Oh you gotta be careful what you name your files or else you could pull out Chiropteran when you didn't want to. Very few Tremere like Masika St. John, much less any vampire has ventured into this new era of Vampiric Technomancy, and those that actually learn the rituals involved could loving teleport or cast giant night like shadows across an area that even block out sunlight with their phone.
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May 31, 2019 17:16
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I think the "LaCroix is trying to get you killed by sending you on suicide missions" thing is a little overstated. The Warehouse and Griffith Park missions are stated to fit that motivation, but for the other main quests you're much more useful to him alive than dead. The Grout mission in particular is a complete waste of LaCroix's efforts if you fail to come back, and of course he'd want to have everything related to the Sarcophagus go as smoothly as possible for as long as he can afford to. Once the game railroads you into asking about the alliance with Ming he switches plans, but before that I'm a little skeptical he doesn't base his plan on you succeeding for as long as possible, probably planning to kill you once he has the key. I could see the stealth missions like the Museum and the Dane having the bonus of getting you to possibly endanger the Masquerade and thus giving him a pretext to execute you later, but imo he's too short on reliable agents to do it right away. YaketySass fucked around with this message at 17:35 on May 31, 2019 |
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May 31, 2019 17:32
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Started a new bloodlines run while waiting on 2 A few things always stand out when doing a new run: Do I want to be Gangrel this time? Nosferatu? Who am I kidding I'm gonna play Malk. Man the intro takes foreeeeeever, good thing mods let you skip it now. The Ghost Haunts At Midnight quest in the old hotel still gives me the heebie jeebies even knowing what's gonna happen. I think its those newspaper pictures of real people that creep me out so much. Game still holds up though, and if anything is so much better now with bug fixes and smoother performance. The game was so laggy when it first launched, being an early HL2 game with not enough valve support.
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May 31, 2019 17:34
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malkavians are in?sweet
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May 31, 2019 18:14
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TulliusCicero posted:I never played White Wolf tabletops because they always seemed too edgy, and the one guy who wanted to play it in our DnD group was uh...wierd Tell me about it. I consider myself a Werewolf guy because I played in one campaign under a good friend as ST but I avoided WoD material like the plague before that because of its reputation. And though I always knew our adventures featuring war-form werewolves crammed into a VW Beetle careening up and down the hills of San Francisco while shooting machine guns at the giant mecha-spider on their tails (there's another werewolf on the spider holding on by his claws and begging his friends to stop shooting) were a somewhat bespoke take on the setting, I've learned since there's a whole lot of "yikes" in there. Which makes me reluctant to seek out another WoD game to play. I still think "good WtA" is like those KC Green comics where everybody gets turned into wolves. Or the cover of Pentex Subsidiaries (I make no claims about the content because I've never actually read it). You know, with the exaggerated Men and Women of Tomorrow just kind of pointlessly pouring oil and pills on the ground while a werewolf bites a dude's head on the side? But the victim's neck is stretched cartoonishly, the chomping werewolf's fangs point out at odd angles, and there's no gore, so the thing reads as "hi-jinks?"
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May 31, 2019 18:22
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I was going to be surprised that there was an electronics path for Thaumaturgy but apparently there is a path for everything because the Tremere are dnd wizards.
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May 31, 2019 18:55
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wiegieman posted:I was going to be surprised that there was an electronics path for Thaumaturgy but apparently there is a path for everything because the Tremere are
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May 31, 2019 19:04
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