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Basically I'm pretty sure it's because they wanted to make their two overarching mythologies explicitly incompatible, because that's how the CoD rolls.
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Apr 24, 2016 03:44
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MJ12 posted:Clearly it's because the God-Machine persecutes the Beasts and they get crushed under the heels of The Man, man. Well, I think the God-Machine is way more "God as a dream of a government." Part of the metaplot is that the God-Machine ISN'T good. At best it is entirely neutral towards humanity and uses them to achieve it's own inhuman goals. The world is lovely, and it wants the world to STAY that way.
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Apr 24, 2016 04:04
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ProfessorCirno posted:Well, I think the God-Machine is way more "God as a dream of a government." Part of the metaplot is that the God-Machine ISN'T good. At best it is entirely neutral towards humanity and uses them to achieve it's own inhuman goals. The world is lovely, and it wants the world to STAY that way. It's really more "nobody is really sure what the God-Machine wants, and we aren't actually sure that it has a coherent agenda at all."
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Apr 24, 2016 04:05
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The God Machine is the Sex Robot from The Whitest Kids U Know and Demons are the cops.
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Apr 24, 2016 04:13
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Hunter quotes about beasts "Burn them out. Burn them all, they are monstrous and smug about it".
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Apr 24, 2016 05:55
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Between Beast and the worst parts of the Exalted 3e kickstarter and development mess, the running comment among my circle of gaming friends was "White Wolf. White Wolf never changes." for most of last year. All I know is I got annoyed enough I'm pretty much not cutting them the benefit of the doubt on stuff again.
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Apr 24, 2016 06:13
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Hostile V posted:The God Machine is the Sex Robot from The Whitest Kids U Know and Demons are the cops. Oh god, now I've got the Sex Robot music going in a loop in my head and I'm just imagining the Angels coughing awkwardly and looking away like they don't even want to be associated with it.
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Apr 24, 2016 06:15
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Josef bugman posted:Hunter quotes about beasts I would put the smug part first. There's plenty of monsters, but pretty much the defining Beast stchick is that they're the smug ones. They're smugger than vampires, fer crissake.
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Apr 24, 2016 06:56
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Ratoslov posted:I would put the smug part first. There's plenty of monsters, but pretty much the defining Beast stchick is that they're the smug ones. They're smugger than vampires, fer crissake. Deva's ditch them an hour in when diving into "authentic" urban hotspots already infested hipster bullshit.
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Apr 24, 2016 07:20
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It feels weird that they used the 'My place or yours?" line more than once. I mean, over the course of 25 or so soundbits two occurrences is relatively nothing, but it gives the weird feeling of Beast sidling up to the more established WoD lines at a bar and waggling it's eyebrows while saying "ey, bby"
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Apr 24, 2016 07:22
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Bought into 3e Exalted in part because of the ongoing review here. Gotta say, despite the reputation, it seems like a fun time. Then again, my group's been slogging through a Hero System campaign of late, so maybe I'm just desperate.
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Apr 24, 2016 08:50
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Cythereal posted:The promethean one-liners strike me as particularly tone deaf to that game line. Not surprising, I suppose, given that Beasts feel like they're ideal antagonists for Prometheans to come into conflict with. Or possibly "Aagh, aagh, why am I on fire?"
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Apr 24, 2016 09:01
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Beast is probably the first WoD game where I really can't see how you'd even play it.
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Apr 24, 2016 10:33
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Kemper Boyd posted:Beast is probably the first WoD game where I really can't see how you'd even play it. My impression of a lot of World of Darkness games, especially the ones that get released late in a line, is that they're all character concept and very few immediate hooks for what you should do as that character, other than exist. Most of the major gamelines i the nWoD were organized around the existence of several types of antagonist that you could face off against (other types of supernatural creature, organized enemies of your own supernatural type, and individual enemies of your own supernatural type), while the oWoD's major gamelines were big on major antagonists (the Sabbat, the Wyrm, the Technocracy). Beast is a shittier form of Vampire where all you can do is fight hunters, and the game is incredibly smug about your moral right to kill the hunters. Besides, beating up comatose girls isn't all that interesting. Mummy: the Ressurection had a similar problem, and skimming Demon: the Fallen has left me with a similar feeling that someone was pushing a concept without really making a good game out of it.
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Apr 24, 2016 11:00
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Cythereal posted:I also get the feeling all one-liners about Hunters would have been "lol hunters."
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Apr 24, 2016 13:19
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What I like is that the various descriptions for possible Beasts makes it clear that they really don't have a firm idea of what a Beast is or does. It's all over the goddamn place.
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Apr 24, 2016 16:33
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oriongates posted:Has there ever been a white wolf RPG in which the snide little "this is me smugly talking about X other being in the WOD" ever been any good? I should write a Dude: The Bro or Mahou: The Shoujo where all cases of snarky bullshit are replaced with "Man, these guys are awesome". Except for Beasts. They should be killed with fire. NutritiousSnack posted:This fiction is so bad it's unbelievable. Like the anti feminist mass murderer/Beast Hunting Hero who was arrested but the women he killed were indeed mass murdering beasts. Or the MRA programmer who is supposed to the bad guy because he wears a fedora and is mad at his female coworker, but thanks to the way Beast works she is indeed responsible for his creation and why he never did get that promotion. Do they also have a homosexual Beast who brainwashes children into becoming homosexual themselves? Or a Beast from the Middle East whose lessons involve explosions? MJ12 posted:Clearly it's because the God-Machine persecutes the Beasts and they get crushed under the heels of The Man, man. God-Machine? More like Jock-Machine. Maxwell Lord posted:What I like is that the various descriptions for possible Beasts makes it clear that they really don't have a firm idea of what a Beast is or does. It's all over the goddamn place. That's because there are so many lessons to teach to us humans. Which we already know.
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Apr 24, 2016 16:58
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God, I wish they didn't write the game so poo poo. The concept of a stronger foe, being harried, losing important things, etc as a vehicle for learning could be good. Just leverage it so people adapt to it over time and become a better human. But they didn't do that. That really makes me sad.
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Apr 24, 2016 17:05
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I have this wonderful image of a Vascu agent getting really sick of the Hannibal Lecter bullshit that a beast keeps trying to pull and just "accidentally" flooding the containment tank with bees and fire. They probably wouldn't even write it up except to say "subject again proves unrecoverable due to extreme Smugness"
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Apr 24, 2016 17:13
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Hell I'm just imagining a Beast in the Lansing Supermax being starved of prey so its soul just goes on a rampage until you've got a bunch of Michigan Heroes trying to break into a heavily guarded federal prison to try and kill a prisoner. "3/19/16 10:43 PM loving god drat federal fat cats who do they think they are trying to keep me from the TRUTH. I am absolutely in the right, my mission is just and my cause is good, I will protect America and the world but I just have to get in there to get at Prisoner 27. They asked me how I knew about their facility and I told them I had seen it in my quest's visions and that's when they slapped me with trespassing. My hearing is in a month but I've got the books I need to beat this charge. Filed under: THE TRUTH, righteous quest, Prisoner 27, thanks Obama" Alternately it has to try and prey on the more human of the Slashers and ha ha good luck.
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Apr 24, 2016 17:28
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And it's amazing how awful they talk about the lines where the subjects had no choice in their creation, the rest could have volunteers - and Sin-Eaters had to agree to the bargain to be come one, but Changelings were basically kidnapped and abused, and Prometheans never asked to be born. So it ends up reading like the person who picks on the disabled kid to feel better about themselves.
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Apr 24, 2016 17:30
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Robindaybird posted:And it's amazing how awful they talk about the lines where the subjects had no choice in their creation, the rest could have volunteers - and Sin-Eaters had to agree to the bargain to be come one, but Changelings were basically kidnapped and abused, and Prometheans never asked to be born. Well Beasts are abusers so it checks out.
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Apr 24, 2016 17:34
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This has a probably been said a hundred times already, but the whole "teach people lessons by doing terrible things to them" is essentially apologism for abuse. It's the kind of nonsense I hear unironically coming out out of people's mouths that the reason kids today are so out of control is that they don't get smacked around enough. Now, if the game at least took that and said "this is the bullshit reason Beasts use for hurting people", that'd be another story, but as it is, it wants to eat the whole cake and still have it afterwards. Also the cake is frosted with poo poo in this metaphor.
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Apr 24, 2016 17:48
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Hostile V posted:Alternately it has to try and prey on the more human of the Slashers and ha ha good luck. Oh my goodness I want to see one of the brutes tear through one of these poseur motherfuckers like tissue paper.
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Apr 24, 2016 17:57
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Josef bugman posted:Oh my goodness I want to see one of the brutes tear through one of these poseur motherfuckers like tissue paper. Interesting thing is, Slasher suggests that legendary figures like Hercules, presented here as Heroes, could have been Slashers themselves.
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Apr 24, 2016 18:23
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Slashers are somehow more sympathetic and interesting than Beasts. Somehow.
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Apr 24, 2016 18:24
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Alien Rope Burn posted:This has a probably been said a hundred times already, but the whole "teach people lessons by doing terrible things to them" is essentially apologism for abuse. It's the kind of nonsense I hear unironically coming out out of people's mouths that the reason kids today are so out of control is that they don't get smacked around enough. Now, if the game at least took that and said "this is the bullshit reason Beasts use for hurting people", that'd be another story, but as it is, it wants to eat the whole cake and still have it afterwards. This was one of the primary problems with beast's first incarnation. If you were a beast, then any abuse you suffered was just because you were different and those people just didn't understand you. If you weren't a beast, then you deserved it because you were a horrible person. Beasts were the embodiment of the cycle of abuse, but everyone else was scum for succumbing to it. The "we teach lessons" bit was added after the fact to try and give them some validation and justification but they did this without actually changing much of the underlying text. So you have the beasts who stalk and murder bad tippers without actually teaching anyone that Tipping 15% is a good thing. Or, you know, justfying the act of murdering someone for being a bad tipper. I still say that they should have just abandoned the crossover angle and made beasts own up to their monstrosity.
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Apr 24, 2016 18:28
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Night10194 posted:Slashers are somehow more sympathetic and interesting than Beasts. Most Slashers aren't half as smug. Brutes and Masks can't be smug. Beasts will kill you to "teach you a lesson." Slashers will kill you because they can.
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Apr 24, 2016 18:30
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Slashers are refreshingly honest. They're not about to tell you that you shouldn't be mad at them for killing people.
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Apr 24, 2016 18:35
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I mean it'd be one thing if the Beasts went after other monsters to teach them a lesson. "Hey shitlord! I'm the REAL monster here, stop loving up our legacy!" would be an okay crossover conflict, especially if coupled to 'Yeah I am totally a monster and embrace it'.
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Apr 24, 2016 18:42
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Kurieg posted:I still say that they should have just abandoned the crossover angle and made beasts own up to their monstrosity. Speaking of: I'm wondering when this whole crossover thing will pop up. As it stands now, the only other splat who would want to have anything to do with this weirdoes are Hunters, and only because they are somewhat servicable for Slasher hunting practice.
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Apr 24, 2016 19:05
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Doresh posted:Speaking of: I'm wondering when this whole crossover thing will pop up. As it stands now, the only other splat who would want to have anything to do with this weirdoes are Hunters, and only because they are somewhat servicable for Slasher hunting practice. I could also see Beasts being a fine villain to Prometheans. If Beasts are supposed to be about teaching harsh lessons, then suitable students are the monsters trying to learn what it means to be human.
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Apr 24, 2016 19:08
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The guy who wrote the Promethean section in Beast said that he basically saw Beasts as "inhumanity cheerleaders"—they're bad examples for Prometheans who want to lead them away from their Pilgrimage.
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Apr 24, 2016 19:23
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The werewolf-->Beast relationshp always struck me as a little weird too. A Beast's feeding would pollute the local spirit landscape with so many pain and suffering spirits that no werewolf would willingly associate with them, but having a werewolf on hand is probably the best way for a Beast to deal with Heroes. A Gauru werewolf can turn a hero into sausage.
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Apr 24, 2016 19:38
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The only crossover I can think of is a vampire, a werewolf, a mage, a changeling, a Promethean (somehow), a hunter, a sin-eater, a mummy and a demon all coming together in the same room and going "we are the literal scum of the earth but those fucks don't get a pass," and then fixing the World of Darkness - Beast by bloody Beast.
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Apr 24, 2016 20:06
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I imagine the other splats and beasts as that Mad Men scene in the elevator with Don Draper and the guy who's not a main character.
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Apr 24, 2016 20:19
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Zereth posted:I'd bet on "unintentionally comic failure to understand the Hunter's point of view". That's basically exactly how the later stuff about hunters goes. Alien Rope Burn posted:This has a probably been said a hundred times already, but the whole "teach people lessons by doing terrible things to them" is essentially apologism for abuse. It's the kind of nonsense I hear unironically coming out out of people's mouths that the reason kids today are so out of control is that they don't get smacked around enough. Now, if the game at least took that and said "this is the bullshit reason Beasts use for hurting people", that'd be another story, but as it is, it wants to eat the whole cake and still have it afterwards. Yeah. I expect Kurieg to have words about this when it starts coming up more in earnest, but I have some of my own when I go into the mechanics. Anyway, I also have a bad, bad idea. Apparently, the fansplat Leviathan: the Tempest has been getting a 2e do-over on Onyx Path's forums, and I'm considering picking at it - especially in context of Beast, since while the original Leviathan had a shitload of problems, its fluff served as a pretty hilarious mirror to hold up to Beast. I might even compare the two drafts to each other.
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Apr 24, 2016 21:33
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I keep forgetting that I never got around to the powers for Leviathan because I got buried under it being a giant pile of words on a wiki. I still find it hilarious that Leviathans are the better Beast because Beast is like "well uh what do you do with the world and other supernatural species" and Leviathan is like "you don't know how to interact the world and other supernatural species and there's the main thrust of your conflict". I would love to see how 2e Leviathan is because ha ha the original certainly was designed by RPG.net guys and it's 1e Storyteller like a motherfucker so I really hope that this interesting premise can actually be playable.
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Apr 24, 2016 21:48
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Hostile V posted:I keep forgetting that I never got around to the powers for Leviathan because I got buried under it being a giant pile of words on a wiki. I still find it hilarious that Leviathans are the better Beast because Beast is like "well uh what do you do with the world and other supernatural species" and Leviathan is like "you don't know how to interact the world and other supernatural species and there's the main thrust of your conflict". I'm doing a very quick skim right now. It's still kind of ill-thought-out in a lot of the crunch, but it's still got compelling hooks and ideas under it, and I haven't trivially found a way to roll 98 dice to throw a house on somebody right out of chargen like 1e Leviathan's powers let me. And yeah, honestly? Leviathan does a significant chunk of Beast's more salvageable concepts much better. For instance, Ahabs are basically Heroes that aren't completely awful in every way, and Atolls can be used for all sorts of entertaining/horrifying things. What's an Atoll? Imagine being the incarnate bloodline of the Old Gods, your psychic pressure intense enough to force your worst enemies to bow before you in fear and reverence. You probably haven't interacted with someone who wasn't bending over backward for you in decades. Then, all of a sudden, you meet someone who makes your constant inner anxiety chill the gently caress out, and you must get to know them...but your mojo doesn't work on them. At all. And now you're a centuries old squid god babbling like a goon trying to impress this random checkout clerk who's getting more and more weirded out, and oh god your fish eyes are starting to pop out :spaghetti: Ahabs, meanwhile, are basically people who respond to your psychic browbeating with murderous rage and become, well, Captain Ahab. They will not rest until you're dead, and the sheer level of their obsession with killing you empowers them to do so. Again, you're probably so used to scaring trained soldiers into submission with a mean look that some accountant with a baseball bat who will not lay down and die is going to be a big, big problem for you if you've gotten out of shape.
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Apr 24, 2016 21:59
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Ahabs are much better heroes than Heroes because not only are they normal people with a dark compulsion just thrust upon them, they can actually try to suppress their quest and force themselves to be normal until they can't take it anymore. A lot of Heroes will, like, laugh triumphantly as they attack Beasts but Ahabs are more plausibly human, like you might end up with one terrified of who they are and are incredibly apologetic about trying to murder you. Also I like how the Marduk Society looks in 2e.
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Apr 24, 2016 22:08
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