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Now I have to know: was Hitler in league with the werewolves? And East Germany with vampires?Plague of Hats posted:I think it's just a typical social trend, one we see today with MRAs or grogs or whatever, where something that's always been a problem is drawn into prominence by broader elements of the community than just "Many WoD LARPers are wannabe rapists." In some ways the 90's darksplosion did enable those particular kinds of shitlords to come out of the woodwork, but I don't think that's really any more WoD's fault than it is, say, D&D4's or Fate's for the current prominence or awareness of MRAs in the hobby. There's more of that kind of stuff going on all over. Like every other social trend, despite protestations otherwise, RPGs aren't exempt from this one either. RPGs are far from being the only place for crazies. I just recently had a guy in a Youtube comment section trying to make me feel bad for ridiculing his belief in Slenderman. EverettLO posted:
That's the influence of post-SW d6. Star Wars didn't really use a points-based system to balance race abilities with each other. The later rules (d6 Space/Adventure/Fantasy and that one thing before) introduced the concept of races as templates with stuff you could already get directly (within reasons. Giant-sized flying humans are a bit uncommon outside of super hero campaigns). Night10194 posted:A lot of this problem could be solved if the supernatural elements of the gamelines didn't run the whole drat world. 'Oh poo poo, the Tsarist regime has fallen! What do the supernaturals do when caught up in the storm of a huge political storm and brutal civil war?' is a legit good hook. 'Oh no! The Brujah and Bone Gnawers have defeated the Silver Fangs and maybe some mortal politicians were used as dupe.' is just boring. It's amazing how these secret societies of supernatural critters whose exposure to the world public would drastically change everything spend so much time constantly meddling with human affairs. You'd think they'd be a little bit more careful and distant. Simian_Prime posted:Qelong Well, at least its more forgiving than "save or die". Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Doresh posted:Now I have to know: was Hitler in league with the Werewolves? And East Germany with vampires? It's very consistent, actually: some of the Nazis once they were in power colluded with supernatural powers, including a few advisors like Goring, but Hitler himself? Absolutely, 100% human no dealings of any kind with the supernatural. The Holocaust? Completely absolutely 100% human doing, absolutely no supernatural involvement or supernatural victims.
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Jan 29, 2015 18:18
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Later, Hunter: the Vigil has the Loyalists of Thule, founded by German occultists who hunted monsters to atone for the guilt of being involved with the Third Reich.Cythereal posted:It's very consistent, actually: some of the Nazis once they were in power colluded with supernatural powers, including a few advisors like Goring, but Hitler himself? Absolutely, 100% human no dealings of any kind with the supernatural. The Holocaust? Completely absolutely 100% human doing, absolutely no supernatural involvement or supernatural victims.
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Jan 29, 2015 18:21
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Doresh posted:Now I have to know: was Hitler in league with the Werewolves? And East Germany with vampires? There was a camp of the Get of Fenris called the Swords of Heimdall who allied themselves with the Nazis because they identified with the bits about Might making Right and Nordic Ancestry being the way to go. Though they really only exposed themselves to the already supernaturally aligned elements of the Nazi Party like the Thule Society and such. The Rest of the Get did their best to work with the Allies and rout the Swords out. Unfortunately 1st Edition made a lot of the Get NPCs be white supremacist neo-nazis because Gothic Punk. There's a sidebar in Get Revised that states "If you find some Nazis, by all means, let us know where they are. We'll kill them. And then everyone can get back to the real business of saving the loving world."
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Jan 29, 2015 18:22
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm certain there were supernatural victims. At least, plenty of Garou Kinfolk and Romany connected to the Gangrel and Ravnos. And of course, the Holocaust generated so many wraiths they devoted a book to it. In oWoD? Canonically nope, zero supernatural victims of or involvement with the Holocaust. The Shoah book was something very different, and the only time oWoD ever talked about it beyond to say "Nope, we aren't touching that with a ten-foot pole."
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Jan 29, 2015 18:39
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In the early V:tM citybook supplement for Berlin, Heinrich Himmler (former head of the SS) is an antitribu Tremere and Hermann Goring (former head of the Luftwaffe) is the leader of the Nosferatu. I apologize for anyone currently bleeding because the information contained in this post was so edgy. e: http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Hermann_G%C3%B6ring http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler FMguru fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2015 18:44
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Cythereal posted:In oWoD? Canonically nope, zero supernatural victims of or involvement with the Holocaust. The Shoah book was something very different, and the only time oWoD ever talked about it beyond to say "Nope, we aren't touching that with a ten-foot pole." World of Darkness: Gypsies talks about how the Roma part of the holocaust was perpetrated because Hitler and the SS had learned about the secret of their magical blood, and wanted to experiment upon and exterminate them. More tastefully, The Shoah: Charnel Houses Of Europe implied that both the Gangrel and Ravnos, the "traditional protectors of the Roma", were callous dicks perfectly happy with not giving a gently caress about the holocaust of the Romani, which is why so many Romani died despite how earlier books claimed they were speshul and protected by two vampire clans, a werewolf tribe, and one kind of Changeling. I really should do a writeup of WoD: Gypsies for this thread, but a) I'm not finished with Phoenix Command, and b) it's incredibly draining to read something that offensive.
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Jan 29, 2015 19:16
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LatwPIAT posted:World of Darkness: Gypsies talks about how the Roma part of the holocaust was perpetrated because Hitler and the SS had learned about the secret of their magical blood, and wanted to experiment upon and exterminate them. I'm mistaken, then. Never read Gypsies, and I must have missed that bit of the Shoah book.
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Jan 29, 2015 19:16
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Pretty sure Gypsies has already been done, though it might have fallen off the archives.
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Jan 29, 2015 19:39
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Mors Rattus reviewed it, and it's in the archives, but the links on the FNF Wiki are broken. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3421366&userid=126443&perpage=40&pagenumber=13#post401939822
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Jan 29, 2015 19:53
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The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Part 11h: Cyber_____ Fun game: Every time I say "cyber" in this post, drink! It's no fun running around CyberFrance without things to shoot at besides HoGs and Church operatives. Plus Malraux wants people to fear the forces of the Antichrist, so he makes sure that there are plenty of demonic things around to save the populace from. Which brings us nicely to the Creatures and Characters chapter, and as you can imagine most things in this chapter have "cyber" in their name. Some monsters are GodNet entities, formed by the Tech Surge and multiple axiom washes. They exist mostly in the GodNet, but can manifest in the real world by casting a materialization spell (which is apportation magic, since we have to have everything tie to the stupid magic metaphysics) with a difficulty of 8. Success means that the entity exits the GodNet though an access port or jack. One thing common to most creatures is a chance to be possibility rated, regardless of the nature of the creature. Even animals have a small chance to have some P-points, because we wouldn't want things to be too easy for the PCs. It does raise the question, however, how a cybered-up horse was capable of making a moral decision during their Crisis Moment to become a stormer. It does, however, raise the possibility of playing an animal. The section does contain the expected array of generic human threats; cyberpriests, Chruch Police, Inquisitors, and so on. I'm not going to get into much detail on them because they're about what you'd expect. Starting off the monster section are Booster Dogs, which are guard dogs that have been cybered up to guard important Church installations. There are a few different "builds", with different equipment for attack dogs versus trackers. Generally speaking, they all have dermal mesh armor, cyberfangs, and some form of eye implants so their handlers can track them.  They also look pretty rabid. The next creature is the Bright Bones, and this one needs a bit of set-up. In the province of Albi, one of the cyberpriests committed the heresy of taking his diocese off the GodNet. Once the Church got the connections back up, new entities had appeared and blocked access to everyone outside this area of the GodNet. Bright Bones look like glowing skeletons with lines of code crawling around their surfaces. They're generally hostile to everyone, but will attack Cyberpapal agents on sight. Because of this, Albi has become a pretty crime-ridden place, since the Church can't get in to enforce their laws. Cartagras are the husks of people whose minds have been permanently trapped in the GodNet. The Church hooks the bodies up to life support systems when not in use, and are used as disposable cannon fodder. They can be programmed to perform simple tasks using chipware, and can also be controlled remotely by cyberpriests. They can also be cybered to the gills because, being mindless, they don't need to worry about things like cyberpsychosis. If you have a Cyberchurch, you're gonna have Cyberknights. Don't let the fancy name fool you, though. CyberKnights are recruited from the streets, usually gangers who're sick of getting beating on by The CyberMan or normal folks who have no other survival options. They're lured into the order with promises of glory, heaven, big-rear end guns, and their own cyberhorses. Once in, they're indoctrinated, run through an assembly line to get chromed up, and sent out to be meatshields for the Church Police. One fun aftereffect of France's axioms swinging all over the drat place are cygoyles, a.k.a. cybernetic gargoyles. Some are originally from Manga Verita, others were statues brought to life by reality storms, still more were normal Core Earthers who got on the wrong end of a reality storm. Despite the name, generally speaking only those cygoyles in service of the CyberPope have any cyberware.  Remember this guy? Believe it or no, demons barely get any page time. This is the full description of demons, sans stat block. quote:Demons come in many shapes and forms, from small looking gremlins to large dog-headed monsters. The majority have large amounts of cyberware implants. Now it's time to talk about the CyberPapacy's gospogs. Gospogs, in case you forgot, are special troops High Lords can grow by planting corpses in specially-prepared fields. The field can be used up to five times, with each "planting" of gospog yeilding fewer creatures but generating stronger ones until the last planting creates one single uber-monster. First-planting gospog all look like run-of-the-mill zombies, but after that their appearance and abilities change depending on the High Lord in quesion.  A second-planting gospog
quote:The fifth planting gospog is an angel of death, complete with the ragged wings, tattered black robe, and grinning skull. But blackened bones are twined with NeuraCal, and CSI LED’s and other cybereyes are rooted in dry sockets. A chipholder is attached directly to its vertebrae. Slashers do impossible amounts of damage, and a crystalline mass projects holographic images into and in front of the angel. Hospitallers deserve special mention. As stated above (and because it's a 90's RPG), cyberpsychosis is a thing. Hospitallers are crusaders who believe that cyberpsychosis is the modern equivalent of speaking in tongues, and that the insanity is a sign from God. They are (unsurprisingly) loaded up with as much cyberware as the Church can cram into their bodies. Incubi and succubi are around, and have almost identical descriptions and stat blocks. The main difference is that incubi have higher charm skill, and succubi have a higher taunt skill. Interpret that how you will. Since it's been a few pages without a bad pun, we have the Jazuits (Jaz is a substance that eases cybernetic acclimation). They're the social warriors of the Church; they are the missionaries sent abroad to spread the word of Malraux and smite heretics as needed. Lastly, we have slinkers. quote:Cyberware has been added to cats in Paris by cyberleggers who want to maintain surveillance of the approaches to their hideouts. Known on the street as slinkers, these cats augment fixed camera positions and are wired with radio transmitters and receivers, which the cyberlegger uses to send pleasure/pain impulses to direct the cat’s actions. --- Surprisingly, there's not a lot of really thematic monsters here. You'd think that demons would get more attention than two paragraphs, given how important they are. Hell, the bright bones get more page space, and they only exist in the GodNet of one city! I think the idea is that the main threats of the Cyberpapacy are all human; cyberpriests/nuns, Inquisitors, Church Police, and so on. But if you've got this whole setup where faith and demons are known to be real, why not play to that more? The chapter detailing France down to the square foot is longer than the chapter of villain stats! It's like they don't understand "tone", or something. NEXT TIME: Where the chrome meets the meat!
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Jan 29, 2015 19:54
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"Let's turn cats into surveillance devices" is a thing at least one real-world intelligence agency has tried before (to no avail), so I guess it's not that weird really.
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Jan 29, 2015 20:00
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Kai Tave posted:"Let's turn cats into surveillance devices" is a thing at least one real-world intelligence agency has tried before (to no avail), so I guess it's not that weird really. "Sir, I think the cybercat is investigating that ball of yarn for heresy."
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Jan 29, 2015 20:02
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Evil Mastermind posted:"Sir, I think the cybercat is investigating that ball of yarn for heresy." "Whaaaat!? I can fix this!" (slams tech axiom back to the point where woven textiles can no longer exist)
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Jan 29, 2015 20:04
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Kurieg posted:"Whaaaat!? I can fix this!" (slams tech axiom back to the point where woven textiles can no longer exist) "I forgot how cloth works!  "
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Jan 29, 2015 20:08
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Kai Tave posted:"Let's turn cats into surveillance devices" is a thing at least one real-world intelligence agency has tried before (to no avail), so I guess it's not that weird really. Operation Acoustic Kitty being a real thing is the funniest bit of spy history in the world. As is 'We implanted the prototype, which then ran off and immediately got hit by a car.'
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Jan 29, 2015 20:46
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Night10194 posted:Operation Acoustic Kitty being a real thing is the funniest bit of spy history in the world. As is 'We implanted the prototype, which then ran off and immediately got hit by a car.' Our tax dollars at work. 
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Jan 29, 2015 20:50
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I kind of prefer hilarious CIA to competent, evil CIA, though. Or to 'Torture is the best keep torturing' CIA, which is incompetent, evil CIA.
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Jan 29, 2015 20:52
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Evil Mastermind posted:"I forgot how cloth works! A schizophrenic Dark Lord who keeps on changing his zone's Axioms at whim would make for a funny one-shot I'd imagine. "I take a shot at the archer." "The rifleman shoots at you with his laser rifle shortly before the Velociraptor attacks you with his psychic death fire cross."
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Jan 29, 2015 20:59
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Evil Mastermind posted:"I forgot how cloth works! "What is this strange fuzzy stuff?!" Evil Mastermind posted:The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Grim CyberReapers? Now Torg is just spoiling us  I wonder if the creators of Gargoyles knew of this sourcebook. Cythereal posted:It's very consistent, actually: some of the Nazis once they were in power colluded with supernatural powers, including a few advisors like Goring, but Hitler himself? Absolutely, 100% human no dealings of any kind with the supernatural. The Holocaust? Completely absolutely 100% human doing, absolutely no supernatural involvement or supernatural victims. So it was not some kind of gigantic blood sacrifice ritual with world-shattering consequences involving the ultimate evils of just about every supernatural faction? I am so dissappoint, White Wolf  LatwPIAT posted:World of Darkness: Gypsies talks about how the Roma part of the holocaust was perpetrated because Hitler and the SS had learned about the secret of their magical blood, and wanted to experiment upon and exterminate them. Oh well, now that's at least something. Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG  Appendix 2+3: Miscellaneous & System Notes Now on the the last two appendices! Animal Compantion Characters with the Animal Companion are like Nakoruru and Galford from Samurai Shodown in that they have a loyal animal to occasionally help them out. The level of your Advantage determines how easy and fast you can call your animal companion. I would also allow the level to act as the animal's style, as they don't really have one. Your choice of animal consists of alligator, bird of prey, camel, dog, elephant, horse, panther, boa, poison snake, tiger and wolf. Panthers and tigers have the best attributes (8 in Strength, Agility and Stamina). Elephants are extremely strong and tough (Strength 14, Stamina 20), but their Agility is only 3, which means that they can't hit for poo-poo and can't hope to dodge anything. Even parrying ain't that great as that is also based on your Agility. Sherry could totally own one, which I guess is always good for a laugh. Seeing how they can't really punch and kick, animals get their own set of maneuvers, like Claw or Bite (which is a lot better than the mutant animal version for some reason). Boas can of course Constrict, but I don't see that being useful seeing how Boas only have a Strength of 5, and contested Strength rolls are required to keep squeezing. All in all, animal companions are not nearly as good at fighting alongside your character than in D&D. Still there are some special maneuvers you can get for more utility.
So yeah, elephants may be worthless in battle, but you can just park them outside and enjoy your extra 24 Chi and 60 Health. Artifacts A bunch of example artifacts, a lot of which are greatly inspired by D&D. Note that you can start with any of these if you're willing to pay the CP.
I think you should be very careful with these artifacts. They range from "occasionally useful" to "absurdly large boost to your combat abilities". The Palladium Book of Weapons, Armor and Castles These are 2 short conversion tables for the "invaluable general sourcebook on ancient weapons and other tools of war from all over the world". I'm not going to copy these tables here as I've heard Palladium Books is kinda sue-happy. Generic NPCs A bunch of generic cannon fodder that doesn't pose much of a challenge thanks to mostly low Agility and styles. They range from beat cops and thugs all the way to SWAT officers and "warrior thugs", the latter two being closer to a poorly-optimized starting character. Kinda handy if you want a quick brawl. Appendix 3: System Notes This single page appendix gives you guidelines for creating your very own styles and maneuvers, both using a points system. The weaksauce Discipline styles all cost 0 points, and Jeet Kune Do and the Generic Style are both 10 (even though Generic is more versatile). The most expensive style is Wu Shu with 19 points, which I guess is kinda accurate as that style increases both Agility and AP. Wanna play a fun game and see how much CP a Light Punch costs? It's 8, making it the most expensive vanilla maneuver along with Dim Mak (which is both slower and less accurate and therefore not as good). Can we fix it? I must admit, Thrash has some interesting ideas. The AP system is a bit crunchy, but it's fitting for the source material and allows to emulate stuff like "frame advantage" (the difference in recovery time between your attack and the opponent's block). It certainly has a rather action-packed turn flow. However, the big problem comes with the AP costs themselves. It is always better to go for low AP maneuvers. The price in AP and low Accuracy you have to pay for the "stronger" maneuvers is just not worth the tiny increase in damage. After modifying the crap out of your maneuvers so they cost just 1 AP, fights against "normal" characters are already won, as they are toast when they run out of AP. Modifying also creatly encourages you to just take as few maneuvers as possible so you can pimp them up the whazoo. It's nice the book tries to give roleplaying justifications for the ominous "super meter", but most fighting games themselves don't really deal with that. Tying this to your overall state of rage doesn't fit a couple fighting game settings. And the optional rule of going crazy when your rage becomes too high doesn't quite work out as parrying high-Strength opponents fills up your threshold fast. Who goes into a frenzy from blocking three punches? So yeah, can we fix it? Well, I suppose the system could already benefit from just taking the average of your Soak roll. The roll is just a pointless extra step, with damage rolls already providing enough randomness. Most importantly however, you probably need to redo most if not all maneuvers from scratch to make the slower ones actually viable. It probably helps to make the AP costs much closer to each other, with maybe a range of 5-8 used for everything. When it comes to modifiers, I'd ban the AP-reducing ones, or at least drastically reduce the amount of AP they cut. Styles should be generalized into what is basically a Base Attack Bonus, or make the Generic Style the only one allowed. More detailed styles just introduce balancing issues, and several games just don't really lend themselves well to such a format. Abilities could also benefit from having less of an impact. Agility is a god stat, and if you're Strength is too low, it doesn't really matter with what you're hitting your opponent (making low AP maneuvers again rule supreme). With all said and done, The system's quite fun to goof around, but things get ugly once you exploit and break stuff. Kinda like a crazy fighting game with very poor balance. As for Ewen Cluney, he has moved on to much different and better projects, and I hope we haven't seen the last of him. Next Time?! There are quite a few of Thrash sourcebooks (not to mention Thrash 2.0 Beta), and it's not even the only fighting game RPG to try to fill the void SF:STG left. Though that's a story for another time... Since I'm currently a bit mecha-crazy and seeing how there seems to be demand for more Dream Pod 9 stuff, I feel like covering something from the last edition of the Silhouette RPG aka SilCORE. That edition put all the actual rules into a single book, giving the setting books more space for fluff and d20 conversion stuff I don't think anyone ever cared about. So, what should it be?
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Jan 29, 2015 21:26
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Jovian chronicles.
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Jan 29, 2015 21:29
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Cythereal posted:It's very consistent, actually: some of the Nazis once they were in power colluded with supernatural powers, including a few advisors like Goring, but Hitler himself? Absolutely, 100% human no dealings of any kind with the supernatural. The Holocaust? Completely absolutely 100% human doing, absolutely no supernatural involvement or supernatural victims. How does MachineGames' Wolfenstein have a better treatment of Nazis with mythic science powers than White Wolf?
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Jan 29, 2015 21:31
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Davin Valkri posted:How does MachineGames' Wolfenstein have a better treatment of Nazis with mythic science powers than White Wolf? Because Machinegames' Wolfenstein is actually pretty well written, considering?
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Jan 29, 2015 21:37
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It seems like this thread got kinda derailed. Is there even an WW game being reviewed right now? If not, maybe once I wrap up Qelong I'll do a write-up for Alien Hunger...
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Jan 29, 2015 21:43
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vuk83 posted:Jovian chronicles. I'm still kind of weirded out at how SilCORE had all these rules for small-unit tactics, something I'd never really seen in a RPG before, but it didn't have much in the way of rules for individual combat moves.
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Jan 29, 2015 21:44
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Doresh posted:So it was not some kind of gigantic blood sacrifice ritual with world-shattering consequences involving the ultimate evils of just about every supernatural faction? I am so dissappoint, White Wolf On the one hand, trying to turn an abhorrent historical tragedy into GOTH PUNK wank is kind of distasteful. On the other hand, when you have every last bit of human history be the secret work of supernatural creatures except the genocidal purges orchestrated by a syphilitic madman, that one humans get to own, it sort of swings back around and becomes its own kind of distasteful. Jovian Chronicles is a game that seems like it should have been interesting but my own personal experience with it is that it tried to emphasize the "hard sci-fi" aspects to the point where the whole "mecha Top Gun pseudo-Gundam" aspects were basically little more than an afterthought. Most of the Jovian Chronicles discussions I remember from the DP9 mailing list I used to subscribe to were people pondering how to best de-emphasize the mecha in a game with a giant robot plastered on the cover.
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Jan 29, 2015 21:50
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Jovian is pretty cool. I'm thinking about Gearkrieg now, speaking of Nazis.
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Jan 29, 2015 21:53
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Dammit I forgot GearKrieg >_< !Halloween Jack posted:I'm still kind of weirded out at how SilCORE had all these rules for small-unit tactics, something I'd never really seen in a RPG before, but it didn't have much in the way of rules for individual combat moves. That is kind of weird. Though the FAQ/errata thing for SilCORE does come with advanced combat maneuvers. Kai Tave posted:On the one hand, trying to turn an abhorrent historical tragedy into GOTH PUNK wank is kind of distasteful. On the other hand, when you have every last bit of human history be the secret work of supernatural creatures except the genocidal purges orchestrated by a syphilitic madman, that one humans get to own, it sort of swings back around and becomes its own kind of distasteful. It always boils down to consistency. That one time it's 100% human, and they do that. Is there something along the lines of "We need to control human history because they're pretty messed up on their own." in WoD? quote:Jovian Chronicles is a game that seems like it should have been interesting but my own personal experience with it is that it tried to emphasize the "hard sci-fi" aspects to the point where the whole "mecha Top Gun pseudo-Gundam" aspects were basically little more than an afterthought. Most of the Jovian Chronicles discussions I remember from the DP9 mailing list I used to subscribe to were people pondering how to best de-emphasize the mecha in a game with a giant robot plastered on the cover. Sure, you can make it more hard sc-fi-ish, but I have too much of a soft spot for giant robots.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:01
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Simian_Prime posted:It seems like this thread got kinda derailed. Is there even an WW game being reviewed right now? I'll be doing Changing Breeds as a "palate cleanser" between 1st and 2nd edition Warcraft, the creator of said book was kind of divisive back in Old White Wolf. Then we got into talking about the differences between old and new white wolf and now we're here.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:07
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Doresh posted:Is there something along the lines of "We need to control human history because they're pretty messed up on their own." in WoD? (As for mages trying to control and/or improve humanity, uh, I think Malcolm Sheppard could tell you more about that. If I understand correctly, the developers' intent was that in Ye Olden Golden Age, mages were rarely community-minded individuals.)
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Jan 29, 2015 22:13
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The Technocracy, the Big Bads of Mage, are all about imposing their view of reality on the world. But from humanity's point of view they aren't precisely evil, per se, outside of the fact that their view of reality doesn't have Mages, Vampires, or Werewolves in it. They are all for the advancement of humanity and the increasing standards of quality of life for all mankind, they just want it to happen on their schedule and their terms. They're a combination of a magical R&D Department, the Men in Black, the Illuminati, and a mad Geneticist, depending on which faction of the Technos you're talking about.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:27
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Kurieg posted:The Technocracy, the Big Bads of Mage, are all about imposing their view of reality on the world. But from humanity's point of view they aren't precisely evil, per se, outside of the fact that their view of reality doesn't have Mages, Vampires, or Werewolves in it. They are all for the advancement of humanity and the increasing standards of quality of life for all mankind, they just want it to happen on their schedule and their terms.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:36
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That was the whole idea behind the Player's Guide to the Technocracy: they're the good guys. You like being able to refrigerate food? You're welcome. You like having medicine when you're sick? You're welcome. You like being able to travel by car, communicate over the phone, live in comfort, warmth and safety? You're welcome. Of course, being oWoD, they couldn't resist the whole "the street-level people like YOUR PCS are good guys, the upper management is utterly corrupt" thing, and couldn't break away from the "the non-normal people are THE REAL HEROES" thing. And the whole idea that the Technos were actually mages who didn't realize they were actually doing magic was dumb from the get-go.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:42
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In other words, the Technocracy were making things better for everyone by replacing magic with science thus making things more consistent, safe, and happier for the average man, but that doesn't align well with the people who would suffer from the loss of magic -- like mages -- or cease to exist from its exclusion -- like vampires and werewolves. Am I reading this right?
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Jan 29, 2015 22:47
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Pretty much. Of course, it could be argued that the world would be better off without vampires feeding off everyone and mages poking holes in reality.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:54
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Kurieg posted:Mors Rattus reviewed it, and it's in the archives, but the links on the FNF Wiki are broken. Just a reminder that I have all the old reviews up at my site. (I haven't updated it since the FNF Wiki stopped being updated, but all the old stuff is still there.)
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Jan 29, 2015 22:57
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Evil Mastermind posted:Pretty much. Of course, it could be argued that the world would be better off without vampires feeding off everyone and mages poking holes in reality. This has always been my view of the oWoD: you are not playing as a good person. Even if there are other people who are worse, if your character seriously thinks they're a hero by any stretch of the imagination then they're deluded.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:58
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Well, it's not precisely magic. What the Technocracy cares about is Consensus. In ye olden days the Mages ruled their own little fiefdoms as kings while the un-enlightened existed to serve them. But since very few people have the awakened spark, and olden-mages were spending a lot of time blowing each other up to prove who was more macho, humanity moved on. Magic became superstition, and Consensus started to form. Consensus is what the teeming masses of humanity believe is true. They believe that internal combustion works, they believe that aerodynamics work, they do not believe that you can hurl fireballs out of your hands. And when a mage does that Consensus whacks them upside the head with Paradox. The Technocracy realized that they could use Consensus to their advantage, making magic 'real' by gradually convincing everyone that certain things did work. So while not everyone can shoot a fireball out of their hands, Everyone can use a gun. The Tradition mages want to achieve some mythical goal of "Awakening everyone" and thus winning the Ascension War, not really realizing or caring about the fact that a very large number of people will die as science breaks down and 7 billion people try to impose their will on local reality all at once. It gets more complicated once you bring Werewolves into play because Werewolves and Mages have two very different origin stories for the world and both are maybe correct, but the idea that the Technocracy can change Consensus doesn't really mesh with the Werewolf world view at all. And Werewolves being able to do all the weird poo poo they do without breaking Consensus doesn't really mesh with Mage. Cythereal posted:This has always been my view of the oWoD: you are not playing as a good person. Even if there are other people who are worse, if your character seriously thinks they're a hero by any stretch of the imagination then they're deluded. There's a lot of writing in Werewolf about how you do good things, and you might be an okay person. But you aren't a Hero by any stretch of the imagination. You love your family, and you don't precisely want to kill that kid who works at Pentex, but he came in on his day off and that building has to go. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2015 22:58
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Evil Mastermind posted:The next creature is the Bright Bones, and this one needs a bit of set-up. In the province of Albi, one of the cyberpriests committed the heresy of taking his diocese off the GodNet. Once the Church got the connections back up, new entities had appeared and blocked access to everyone outside this area of the GodNet. Bright Bones look like glowing skeletons with lines of code crawling around their surfaces. They're generally hostile to everyone, but will attack Cyberpapal agents on sight. Because of this, Albi has become a pretty crime-ridden place, since the Church can't get in to enforce their laws. Oh, wait, I know you skipped the whole CyberFrance section, but I think you missed out on the Neo-Cathars and hints of a new Albigensian Crusade.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:59
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Evil Mastermind posted:Pretty much. Of course, it could be argued that the world would be better off without vampires feeding off everyone and mages poking holes in reality. Of course. That is what I was implying: the only ones who hate them are the ones who benefit from magic or need it to exist. In other words, selfishness. After all, the world would be better off without vampire, mages, werewolves, and the like, but try telling that to them. But, unless I'm mistaken, wasn't there a theme in oWoD of trying to steer away from your curse? Like a vampire would want to remain as human as possible and hold off on their vampire side? So, shouldn't they like the technocrancy because it would mean less people would have to suffer like they did or may even end their suffering?
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Jan 29, 2015 23:00
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