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quote:Jo doesn’t tower over her prey — she’s short, but she’s all muscle. She enjoys letting other people challenge her, especially men. The challenge isn’t always or even usually physical. Sometimes they try to test her knowledge on topics they think she shouldn’t understand, or try to explain things to her that it’s obvious she knows. She destroys them; she knows what they know and she pokes holes in their beliefs and their facts, showing them sides of the topic they never considered. "Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug." "What did he do?" "He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire." (On top of this, this is literally a punisher of mansplainers. What's next, a Beast that preys on guys who spread their legs on the bus?)
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Apr 26, 2016 21:56
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Maxwell Lord posted:(On top of this, this is literally a punisher of mansplainers. What's next, a Beast that preys on guys who spread their legs on the bus?) It appears to have been cut from the final edition, but the original draft did have the Beast that preyed on people who didn't tip.
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Apr 26, 2016 22:00
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LatwPIAT posted:It appears to have been cut from the final edition, but the original draft did have the Beast that preyed on people who didn't tip. Sin-You is still in the book, she's in one of the interstitial fiction stories in chapter 2, she wasn't a sample hunger character.
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Apr 26, 2016 22:06
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There just... isn't a compelling story hook for Beasts, is there? You're all terrible abusive people, and you aren't even terrible people in interesting ways. The book doesn't portray any kind of inner conflict, it's just "You're a beast! You do awful things to people, and that's great! You are 100% okay with that, because it's for their own good." There's nothing about any of this that makes me want to play a Beast at all. I mean, the idea of one of the character being one of these great monstrous, well, monsters, that's neat! Except that they aren't even that, they're people with a voice in their heads and some supernatural abilities. What a goddamn waste.
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Apr 26, 2016 22:22
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 The Uldholm Commentaries I feel I haven't been doing this game justice, partly that's because we haven't gotten to the really neat and fun mechanics, but I feel like I've shortsheeted the lore. So, consider this an addendum to the last post about Uldholm where I share more of my thoughts and feelings about that bit of the setting. One thing I love is how they book will throw terms at you and they won't explain them yet, or never explain them. The world is explicitly built with large holes in the lore for GMs to fill in as they please, and what is there is just to spark some inspiration.  First off, look at that loving map! Now, as a navigational aid it is barely adequate, but as a map to give your party, it's loving amazing. Just in this map we have the concepts of:
Plus all those little other notes that hint at bandit strongholds, greedy merchant cities, a place of proposals you cannot refuse and other such fun events. Every setting bit will get a map like this, and they're great. Now as to Uldholm itself: This really does feel like the PC Starting Area, which is actually very nice. It's set up to be the perfect place for a good Rags to Riches story, the Guilds give neat definite character concepts, an easy-to-understand political system ripe for player manipulation and interferance. Want a war story? Uldholm borders two expansionist military powers and has a lack of dedicated top-flight soldierguys. Or, you could be in charge of one of the frontier towns out in the Truil Wastes. Uld has a definite police-system in the Soldier's Guild so it fits right in for playing a Night's Watch-esque fantasy Police Procedural. Uldholm is also home to two schools of magic that are actual... schools. Most magic in this game is... very unusual, but both the Stormtongues and Flame Dancers run actual dedicated academies of magic, and all the fun that comes from having two possibly rival magical tradeschools in your nation. Uldholm is essentially built to be a nice fairly easy to understand place for PC's to start out in which is literally designed to reward and allow the sort of independent daredevil actions PCs love to do, and while the lands themselves are not crazy, Uldholm is essentially climatewise central European, temperate and never hitting serious extremes at any particular time of the year, it is next to some very interested and fun places. That Lightless Jungle will be explained later, but it's exactly the sort of hideous death-trap place full of potential riches beyond belief that PCs loving flock to like moths to a golden spike encrusted light. Oh, and a note about Uldholm: The Uld are explicitly black. Like, African-featured, very dark skinned, with tones describes as "earth colored". Just changing that, making the Uld black can suddenly change completely what images go through your head, yeah?
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Apr 26, 2016 22:28
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No Thank You, Evil! (3) Equipment Equipment is usually purchased from shops with Coins. It's mentioned that it's rare to find equipment around on be given it. Every character starts with 1 Coin, and getting more is entirely up to the Guide, and here's what you can buy: Best Princess Dress Ever (3): Does absolutely nothing. Doesn't even give a bonus to Awesome. The text says you should consider "get all the colors.. or get one for your pretty pony!". Is this a way to training young girls to be cynical? Dangerous Dress (5): Or you could wear something that looks just outright terrifying, although they have at least managed to avoid making it look like something from a BDSM shop. Your dress has spines which do 3 points of damage to anything they touch.. but there are no rules for when they touch something. The text says you can "just run into the bad guys" so is that an action? Or an attack? What about if they hit you in melee? Well, who knows? And, yes, this is explicitly a dress and there's no equivalent for guys. Shining Armor (7): It's really strong and really light. If you have Hustle, you get Armor too; if you have Armor, you get Hustle too. These should not both be the same price. Catarang (6): It's not a cat you throw like a boomerang. It's a cat you use as a machine gun that shoots out stuffed rats (!) that do 3 points of damage. It "smells like cheese when it overheats". When does it overheat? Who knows. Tickle Lotion (1): prevents the wearer from being tickled, accidentally or on purpose. Note that it stops them being tickled, not from laughing when they are. Which could be a bit surreal. Bag of Scolding (5): a bit like your Gotcha Back Pack, but can taunt your enemies for you. Which doesn't do anything. 5 coins. Air Guitar (3): Doesn't do anything and doesn't exist. Wind Guitar (6): Creates a blast of wind when you play it that does 3 points of damage to all living things In Range. So, yea, stay away from your buddies or practice the Total Distortion song.. Dingbat (6): A baseball bat with wings that shouts "Ding!" whenever you hit someone with it. The wings.. apparently do nothing. But it does do 3 points of damage. just like everything else here. King of Swords (6): Oh look. It costs 6 and it's a weapon that does 3 points of damage. Candy Camouflage (2): A cellophane wrapper that hides you from anyone who doesn't like candy. The text says "maybe this isn't such a good idea". Well, is it a waste of 2 coins or isn't it? Map Turtle (4): Comes with a treasure map on its shell which is certain to lead to a real treasure. Nice adventure hook, but do you have to kill or deface the turtle when you've found the loot? That Dern Helm (3): Um, what? Whenever you are angry or sad, the helmet turns invisible. When it reappears, you can tell it what you want it to look like, and it'll probably look like that, depending how it feels. So it does nothing and can screw you over randomly. Kids, meet Uncle Monte! Third Arm (4): Lets you carry extra things or "scratch your bum without anyone seeing". There is no carry limit, so.. Third Arm Glue (1): Sometimes your third arm falls off and has to be glued back on. This contains enough glue for a lifetime, but since the Third Arm still doesn't do anything and there's no way you'd want it without this, this feels like filler. Bunny Bomb (1): Attach it to a weapon and the first time it hits, it goes off and turns the target into a bunny. Weedrobe (2): A robe made of weeds which provides camouflage in natural areas. Still no bonus to anything, though. Vile Vial (2): A vial full of nasty things which smells really bad when you open it. Tyrannosaurus Axe (4): An Axe with a T-rex head on the end which bites whoever you swing it at. How much damage does it do? If you said 3 points, have a cookie. Note that this is the cheapest 3 damage item and is therefore outright better than the King of Swords. Letter Bomb (6): Pick the letter it has written on it. When you throw the bomb it turns into anything you like which starts with that letter. Fair enough. Ampersand (2): Another very specific item. You can use it to link two letter bombs together to make something with an adjective - for example, tie an A and a T together with an ampersand and throw it to make an Apple Tree. See, if you wanted to make a spelling based RPG, that could have been the theme for an entire game, but instead we've got this kind of awkward partial thing. So, lots and lots of flavor but very little effect. "But surely that doesn't matter in a kids' game!" Well, I'm pretty sure it does, because a novice Guide is going to have all kinds of problems keeping the equipment balanced when some of it has a clear mechanical effect and some of it doesn't. The Setting And here things get pretty neat. As I mentioned, NTYE doesn't go for children's fantasy (ie, dumbed down D&D); it goes for the Roald Dahl surreal feeling, although a bit sillier. The setting is Storia, where stories come from, and it has four regions: Behind the Bookshelf, Under the Bed, Out the Window, and Into the Closet. If you're a kid who's been chosen to help save the world from evil, you can get to any of these regions by going through a portal in the appropriate location in your bedroom. The portal only works for you, so there's no risk of any monsters following you back. Behind The Bookshelf is where everything that's in books or written stories is found. Which, in Monte Cook terms, means a whole bunch of stuff you won't recognize from any book, ever (other than possibly this one). There you can find:
And that's Behind the Bookshelf. Sadly, there is absolutely no discussion of the nature of a land based on books, given the ability of humans to write or change books, or the existence of books in Behind the Bookshelf, and so on. Into the Closet is a fairy-tale land of queens, witches, dragons, green woods, magic books, and a whole bunch of other things which have obviously never been in a book, ever.
And that's the Closet, which has a lot of good ideas, but it's pretty clear that by putting "everything from books" in one region the authors basically shot themselves in the foot with an elephant gun. Plus, the high levels of everything basically make alliances with NPCs either impossible or an instant solution to everything, although that second might not be so bad when playing with kids. Next time, the other two regions. hyphz fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Apr 26, 2016 |
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Apr 26, 2016 22:41
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LatwPIAT posted:It appears to have been cut from the final edition, but the original draft did have the Beast that preyed on people who didn't tip. That must be hilarious to people not used to America's hosed up sub-living wage minimum wage obsession.
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Apr 27, 2016 00:49
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Well, this was an excellent point to catch up with this thread 
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Apr 27, 2016 01:07
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SirPhoebos posted:Well, this was an excellent point to catch up with this thread https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9270u0MkI2w It only gets worse, I'm afraid.
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Apr 27, 2016 01:20
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Beast reminds me of the second volume of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, in which several of Dream's favorite nightmares have broken loose into the waking world and one of them - the Corinthian - has decided to follow his lifelong ambition of becoming the world's greatest serial killer. The Corinthian - in Dream's design, humanity's darkest fears about itself, a sort of cinaedus to the collective unconscious - becomes a legend and a boogeyman, preying mainly on American gay men by luring them into trysts, then murdering them and devouring their eyeballs. At the height of his reign of terror, the Corinthian attends a convention for fellow "connoisseurs", and it plays out like a really twisted, hosed-up Comic-Con. Then Dream shows up, gets really embarrassed about how loving juvenile his "masterpiece" is, and erases the Corinthian like a penciled sketch so he can start over from first principles. Then he uses his mojo as one of the Endless to impress upon the other serial killers that they're a bunch of gross, delusional manchildren, and tells them to just go home already. Beast reads like the Corinthian's self-insert fanfic to the larger work of The Sandman.
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Apr 27, 2016 01:48
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Late to the party but it feels like, in your game about literal monsters, monsters that even with good intents are pretty much always abusers/cruel/whatever, using an image that looks a lot like one of those Indian lady vigilantes that wears pink and beats the poo poo out of abusive spouses/rapists/etc when the cops won't help is a bit...wrongheaded. Like, of all the vigilantes to pull the 'but aren't they just the monster in someone else's story' thing, are we really gonna do it to the people who's first rule is 'go to the cops, and if (when) they ignore violence against women like usual, then we'll club a dude'?
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Apr 27, 2016 01:52
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Wrongheaded misappropriation? Sure sounds like classic White Wolf writing to me. Ugh.
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Apr 27, 2016 02:57
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Bieeardo posted:Wrongheaded misappropriation? Sure sounds like classic White Wolf writing to me. Ugh. I dunno these ladies sound pretty monstery to me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulabi_Gang quote:Satbodh saindata was founded the Gulabi Gang, Sampat Pal Devi, a mother of five and former government health worker (as well as a former child bride) first started the group after having been beaten by an abusive husband. Since then, women have joined intending to punish oppressive and abusive men. The women scold men who abuse their wives and even publicly humiliate them if they needed to do so.[5] In some cases, they even go further and threaten the abusive husbands of beating them with laathis (sticks) unless they stop abusing their wives.[1][6] This has earned them the title of "vigilantes". quote:The Gulabi gang is not an actual gang, but rather a team of women working towards justice for oppressed and abused women.[5] The women wear uniform pink saris symbolizing strength, and carry around bamboo sticks that can be used as weapons if needed.[5] Most of the women are from a poor background and are of the lowest caste, the Dalit.[5] Basically the living concept of bestial vengeance right here sexpig by night fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Apr 27, 2016 |
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Apr 27, 2016 04:42
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Late to the party but it feels like, in your game about literal monsters, monsters that even with good intents are pretty much always abusers/cruel/whatever, using an image that looks a lot like one of those Indian lady vigilantes that wears pink and beats the poo poo out of abusive spouses/rapists/etc when the cops won't help is a bit...wrongheaded. Like, of all the vigilantes to pull the 'but aren't they just the monster in someone else's story' thing, are we really gonna do it to the people who's first rule is 'go to the cops, and if (when) they ignore violence against women like usual, then we'll club a dude'? And this is the core of it- offensive or not, the game can't make up its mind whether these are righteous teachers of lessons or horrible abusers. They want to have it both ways, AND they want to make Heroes the Absolute Worst despite the fact that they may be on to something.
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Apr 27, 2016 06:31
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The sad thing is, I can see room for an actual fun, albeit dark setup for Beasts being supernatural Dexter. So you have a monster in you, one may perhaps refer to it as a dark rider or something similar, and it wants to eat people. But you don't want to eat innocent people, so you have rules, perhaps a code of some sort. Or maybe the monster just has exotic tastes and won't eat just any random schmuck, it only wants to eat pimps or Redditors. And because you're a supernatural, person-eating monster, there are understandably a fair number of people out there trying to kill you, maybe for revenge or maybe just because civilized society doesn't stand for eating people, regardless of how bad they are. Boom, done, collect paycheck from White Wolf. It's not loving hard. It's not even original! Lots of people back in the day had vampires/werewolves/whatever with the character concept of 'well sure, Goth McBlackEyeliner does suck all of the blood out of people on a nightly basis, but he only drinks bad people so it's cool', and Beast could've just rolled with that and turned out fine. All they had to do was refrain from writing a book based around social activist buzzwords with random conservatives as the antagonists, and write it with some degree of internal consistency, but both of those hurdles were apparently too high.
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Apr 27, 2016 07:49
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Valatar posted:The sad thing is, I can see room for an actual fun, albeit dark setup for Beasts being supernatural Dexter. So you have a monster in you, one may perhaps refer to it as a dark rider or something similar, and it wants to eat people. But you don't want to eat innocent people, so you have rules, perhaps a code of some sort. Or maybe the monster just has exotic tastes and won't eat just any random schmuck, it only wants to eat pimps or Redditors. And because you're a supernatural, person-eating monster, there are understandably a fair number of people out there trying to kill you, maybe for revenge or maybe just because civilized society doesn't stand for eating people, regardless of how bad they are. Except Slasher already exists is the problem. And that really is the fundamental problem with Beast, even if you strip away the absolutely gross strawman/noble abusers/Beasts as persecuted minorities who get to abuse strawmen/etc. garbage, even if you jettison all of that into the sun, what you're left with is the question "What does Beast do, what themes does it bring to the table or avenue to explore humanity does it wander down, that you can't get anywhere else from another World of Darkness game?" And the answer is there isn't any. I think it's pretty telling that there have been dozens upon dozens of attempts at "I can see Beast being good if [THING]" both here and in the WoD/White Wolf thread and the problem they all run into is that no matter how people try to finesse it, the best that you can really do with Beast is turn it into something that resembles some other WoD line instead of its own thing. You can't even go for shallow "rule of cool" factor because nothing about Beast is cool, you aren't playing a literal medusa or Godzilla in the modern day, you're just some guy with a ~monstrous soul~, who gives a poo poo about that when you can be an actual for-real vampire or werewolf or biomechanical fallen angel? It really is a pointless game.
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Apr 27, 2016 08:01
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The more I hear...the more I think maybe the heroes are more interesting. Tell me that a struggle against a foe that is super naturally liked and powerful in a world that WILL tell you that you are wrong...and should you win...all that follows is the realization that there are so much more to fight...doesn't fit world of darkness better then. Monster: Abandoning the pretext
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Apr 27, 2016 11:29
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Cythereal posted:I've got some Hunters on line one, mister Beast, they say you're full of poo poo and they're far past mere students of the lessons you purport to teach. "They say they've got a lesson ready for you though. It's about fire."
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Apr 27, 2016 11:44
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Wapole Languray posted:Oh, and a note about Uldholm: The Uld are explicitly black. Like, African-featured, very dark skinned, with tones describes as "earth colored". Just changing that, making the Uld black can suddenly change completely what images go through your head, yeah?
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Apr 27, 2016 12:09
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I think the Truile are white (really white, comes from living in the Sunless Waste). Dindavarans are golden-brown, Ulds are very dark and Imperials are a mishmash?
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Apr 27, 2016 12:13
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There's two white groups actually; the Truils and the Ob-lobs. (Notably both are marginalized groups that have bad reputations with outsiders.)
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Apr 27, 2016 12:18
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Both also spend most of their lives in dark places (Truil lands are always night, and Ob-lobs mostly live on boats in the floating seas, at weird angles from the sun.)
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Apr 27, 2016 12:43
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Kai Tave posted:And that really is the fundamental problem with Beast, even if you strip away the absolutely gross strawman/noble abusers/Beasts as persecuted minorities who get to abuse strawmen/etc. garbage, even if you jettison all of that into the sun, what you're left with is the question "What does Beast do, what themes does it bring to the table or avenue to explore humanity does it wander down, that you can't get anywhere else from another World of Darkness game?" And the answer is there isn't any. I think it's pretty telling that there have been dozens upon dozens of attempts at "I can see Beast being good if [THING]" both here and in the WoD/White Wolf thread and the problem they all run into is that no matter how people try to finesse it, the best that you can really do with Beast is turn it into something that resembles some other WoD line instead of its own thing. You can't even go for shallow "rule of cool" factor because nothing about Beast is cool, you aren't playing a literal medusa or Godzilla in the modern day, you're just some guy with a ~monstrous soul~, who gives a poo poo about that when you can be an actual for-real vampire or werewolf or biomechanical fallen angel? It really is a pointless game. A friend of mine (speaking on the topic of a theme the Leviathan fansplat had chosen not to explore) suggested a novel niche that I think Beast could fill, and could be interesting to explore as a metaphor; as a Beast, you play someone who strongly believes that because of their birth they are special and are owed reverence, worship, respect, or an elevated status, and comes face-to-face with a world that does not give a rats rear end that you're the reincarnation of Medusa. To them, you're an ordinary human and they're not going to give you special treatment just because you think you're special and better than them. It would be a game about coming to terms with the fact that you're not any better than other people, and your brand of specialness doesn't actually matter to them. It'd be an artsy game about exploring a concept, and it would not be one that lends itself to the kind of wish-fulfilment power-fantasy Beast wants to be, and it probably wouldn't end up a very popular game.
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Apr 27, 2016 13:18
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LatwPIAT posted:A friend of mine (speaking on the topic of a theme the Leviathan fansplat had chosen not to explore) suggested a novel niche that I think Beast could fill, and could be interesting to explore as a metaphor; as a Beast, you play someone who strongly believes that because of their birth they are special and are owed reverence, worship, respect, or an elevated status, and comes face-to-face with a world that does not give a rats rear end that you're the reincarnation of Medusa. To them, you're an ordinary human and they're not going to give you special treatment just because you think you're special and better than them. It would be a game about coming to terms with the fact that you're not any better than other people, and your brand of specialness doesn't actually matter to them. So Otherkin, the game?
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Apr 27, 2016 13:23
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unseenlibrarian posted:There's two white groups actually; the Truils and the Ob-lobs. The Lightless Jungle natives are also white, and I'm semi-sure that the Sunless Plains natives and the people from the Wincu desert are, if not white, at least a few shades lighter than the rest of the world. I like that it makes total sense that black people are the symbol of civilisation and white people are savages in Reign - all the white people are white because they live in perpetual darkness and can't do agriculture or anything. It's proper worldbuilding instead of just an inversion for the hell of it. Same with the gender equality thing: the fact that only women can ride horses, the fact that magic exists and is independent of body size and the fact that the most powerful empire in the world has always exclusively been ruled by women means that there's just no stigma attached to gender. Women have nothing to prove.
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Apr 27, 2016 13:29
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Besides, everyone knows that men become sterile if they ride horses astride the saddle. I mean, that's just science.
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Apr 27, 2016 13:50
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hyphz posted:So Otherkin, the game? AKA oChangeling.
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Apr 27, 2016 13:58
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LatwPIAT posted:A friend of mine (speaking on the topic of a theme the Leviathan fansplat had chosen not to explore) suggested a novel niche that I think Beast could fill, and could be interesting to explore as a metaphor; as a Beast, you play someone who strongly believes that because of their birth they are special and are owed reverence, worship, respect, or an elevated status, and comes face-to-face with a world that does not give a rats rear end that you're the reincarnation of Medusa. To them, you're an ordinary human and they're not going to give you special treatment just because you think you're special and better than them. It would be a game about coming to terms with the fact that you're not any better than other people, and your brand of specialness doesn't actually matter to them. Having people be born the way they are kind of goes against the grain of the CofD. Werewolf is pretty clear on the fact that Luna's just doing whatever the gently caress she wants, and Mage states that anyone can awaken it just requires the correct kind of push. So let's do some more brainstorming, given as fact that "This game needs a Crossover Focus" and "Beasts need to do horrible things to survive" while also keeping "Beasts have to be compelling to play" and "Beasts aren't born the way they are." You don't choose to become a Beast, hell your Horror didn't even really choose you. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time and now you've got some unknowable horror where your soul used to be. Horror doesn't particularly care about you, you're some unwanted chunk of meat and sentience that it is stuck to, you dying would probably be the best thing that ever happened to it. But if you don't feed it, it starts to get stronger, it starts to rattle the bars of it's prison, clawing at the walls, screaming loud enough for Heroes and other Horrors to hear. Or it makes a hero, slipping away while you sleep to create its own worst enemy in hopes that it will either drive you to give in, or kill you. So you give in, in little ways. You direct the hatred and violence towards more constructive ends, because you aren't a monster. And hopefully in some way you can either direct your Horror towards some better purpose, or end it entirely. So how does this bring into the crossover angle? They're your support group. They're the monsters who are out in the world and doing what they can to make it a better place, or at least survive without turning it into a complete shithole. They're your friends who can help you when your Horror calls in backup, they're the ones who can call you back from the brink if your Horror gets too strong. They're the ones who are going to get you out of this mess alive. But that's a completely different game and would need an utter overhaul of the mechanics and morality system.
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Apr 27, 2016 14:12
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Werewolves are to an extent born werewolves - werewolf genetics certainly plays some kind of role. But it's a role no one understands, and it's not an exclusive one, since any wolf-blood can theoretically become a full werewolf under the right trigger conditions, and any human can become wolf-blooded after a particularly weird encounter with a spirit or werewolf.
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Apr 27, 2016 14:13
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Kurieg posted:Having people be born the way they are kind of goes against the grain of the CofD. Werewolf is pretty clear on the fact that Luna's just doing whatever the gently caress she wants, and Mage states that anyone can awaken it just requires the correct kind of push.
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Apr 27, 2016 14:18
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Mors Rattus posted:Werewolves are to an extent born werewolves - werewolf genetics certainly plays some kind of role. But it's a role no one understands, and it's not an exclusive one, since any wolf-blood can theoretically become a full werewolf under the right trigger conditions, and any human can become wolf-blooded after a particularly weird encounter with a spirit or werewolf. My fan theory, considering human genetic bottlenecks, is that pretty much everyone is Wolf-Blooded, it's just a matter of degree and bringing that to the fore.
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Apr 27, 2016 14:20
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Kavak posted:My fan theory, considering human genetic bottlenecks, is that pretty much everyone is Wolf-Blooded, it's just a matter of degree and bringing that to the fore. Yeah, .5% of the world's population can claim direct patrilinear descent from Genghis Khan, and that's not including anyone descended from his daughters, grand daughters, etc (Since we can't track that as easily as a single SRY phenotype). One werewolf a long time ago can have a whole bunch of great^n Grandkids. And yes I am a big fan of the new wolf-blooded rules as well, though I sort of wish they still allowed for the weirder physical ones to be included for Lunacy blooded just to emphasize the utter strangeness of it all. "Honey I have no idea what happened last night and I swear I have no idea where that wolf pelt came from. Now hand me that hamburger, he's hungry."
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Apr 27, 2016 14:36
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Well, there's no particular reason you can't just run it that way, at least.
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Apr 27, 2016 14:37
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I came up with an idea for a WoD game and posted it on that thread, but I thought I'd also post it here since I came up with it from reading all the chat here.SirPhoebos posted:...you play as aliens fleeing their homeworld after it got shitfucked by WoD shenanigans, only to come to Earth and find it engulfed by those same forces. With not enough supplies to go with any alternative, they now have to adopt to their new home, and figure out how to defeat the darkness and whether or not the Earthlings are acceptable collateral damage.
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Apr 27, 2016 15:06
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If you were to go back and gut the entire book, Beast could be an interesting basis for a game about free-will. You become a Beast, either by choice or accident, and then you struggle against the dark urges the nightmare in you is calling up. The conflict in the book is between your humanity and the thing inside you. You fight against Heroes who are targeting anyone they find abhorrent, Beasts that have just given up and let the nightmare win, and whatever else you hunt to keep your poo poo together. Even the Dark Mother aspect can be saved by keeping her plans completely unknown but establishing that all the Beasts she is creating are firebombs and monkey wrenches hurled at the God-Machine and anything else trying to dominate baseline humanity. The setup could create tension on so many different levels: keeping people free but using immoral activities to do it, having to choose whether the control another monster is exerting is better than letting the people make up their own minds, do you give in or keep resisting the monster inside you, etc. That could even be used to explain the hostility a chunk of the Beasts feel towards Demons.
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Apr 27, 2016 15:59
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SirPhoebos posted:I came up with an idea for a WoD game and posted it on that thread, but I thought I'd also post it here since I came up with it from reading all the chat here. This is just a perfect way to include Transformers into the WoD.
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Apr 27, 2016 17:43
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SirPhoebos posted:I came up with an idea for a WoD game and posted it on that thread, but I thought I'd also post it here since I came up with it from reading all the chat here. Hmm... but one of the key elements of WoD is that your monster-dudes can pass as ordinary people while secretly eating dreams or whatever. How do they hide? Do they use weird super-technology to disguise themselves? For that matter, is superscience their magic-equivalent? I guess one of their struggles would be finding the supplies needed to jury-rig their tech. In theory, you could take the idea of Genius's wonders, reign them in, and standardize them; turning tropes from alien abduction b-movies into powers for your splats that you literally assemble from junk, though eventually they'd fall apart (which is how you'd balance them to keep a Genius-style death ray or cloning machine from breaking the game like an egg). I'm picturing a power-set build on improvisation and urgency; your powers are actually blueprints (or equivalents) you can use during combat/downtime to whip up something useful, but they're prone to fail at dramatically appropriate moments. Tasoth posted:If you were to go back and gut the entire book, Beast could be an interesting basis for a game about free-will. You become a Beast, either by choice or accident, and then you struggle against the dark urges the nightmare in you is calling up. The conflict in the book is between your humanity and the thing inside you. You fight against Heroes who are targeting anyone they find abhorrent, Beasts that have just given up and let the nightmare win, and whatever else you hunt to keep your poo poo together. Even the Dark Mother aspect can be saved by keeping her plans completely unknown but establishing that all the Beasts she is creating are firebombs and monkey wrenches hurled at the God-Machine and anything else trying to dominate baseline humanity. The setup could create tension on so many different levels: keeping people free but using immoral activities to do it, having to choose whether the control another monster is exerting is better than letting the people make up their own minds, do you give in or keep resisting the monster inside you, etc. That could even be used to explain the hostility a chunk of the Beasts feel towards Demons. For that matter, you could spin this a little for the alien thing. instead of being turned into beasts, you get abducted by aliens and turned into one of them so they can keep their numbers up. You struggle to choose between empathizing with humanity and following the inhuman call of your alien creators (morality stat!), fight against the WoD bullshit that followed your creators here, replace the Dark Mother with said creators fused with Talsoth's idea and have them setting loose you and your comrades to throw up a smokescreen of destruction and shenanigans they can hide behind, etc, etc, etc. Also, Leviathan from earlier in the thread. I agree that it looks cool and a lot more structurally coherent, but, uh, there's a lot of  in the current documentation. Like, breeding  . I know a lot of that sort of thing comes with the territory here, but they barely bother avoiding it.
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Apr 27, 2016 19:42
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Falconier111 posted:For that matter, you could spin this a little for the alien thing. instead of being turned into beasts, you get abducted by aliens and turned into one of them so they can keep their numbers up. You struggle to choose between empathizing with humanity and following the inhuman call of your alien creators (morality stat!), fight against the WoD bullshit that followed your creators here, replace the Dark Mother with said creators fused with Talsoth's idea and have them setting loose you and your comrades to throw up a smokescreen of destruction and shenanigans they can hide behind, etc, etc, etc. Or you make it like in Parasyte where the alien entity that was supposed to take over your body failed in doing so and is now forced to join you in some jolly co-operation. But since this is the WoD, the co-operation will probably not be all that jolly.
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Apr 27, 2016 19:46
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Doresh posted:Or you make it like in Parasyte where the alien entity that was supposed to take over your body failed in doing so and is now forced to join you in some jolly co-operation. Was working on a concept semi-similar to this a while back -- except the parasites/foreign entities didn't fail to take over humans' bodies; in fact, they basically replaced the immune systems and important internal organs of the infected. But the parasites had a limited understanding of human society, so they'd retain the human's original consciousness to use to fit in with the herd, etc.; if that consciousness became a threat or useless to the parasite, it would just pare it down until the brain was compliant and barely sentient (which was how the Humanity-equivalent worked).
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Apr 27, 2016 20:18
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Doresh posted:Or you make it like in Parasyte where the alien entity that was supposed to take over your body failed in doing so and is now forced to join you in some jolly co-operation. This sounds like an excellent opportunity to make the game hard to play by invoking my favourite World of Darkness system; Shadowguides! 
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Apr 27, 2016 20:29
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