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Daeren posted:Rule number one, kids: you have to learn to laugh at the horrible stuff, because there's so much that pretending it doesn't exist isn't gonna work. What is this? The World of Darkness is a reflection of our own modern world... and yet... subtly darker. Shadows deeper, nights longer, the howls and whispers from alleys and streets more forlorn. A game of Modern Horrors. I just played Bloodlines and want to find out more (or, I remember Vampire the Masquerade!). Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines took place in the Classic World of Darkness (or Old World of Darkness). White Wolf shut the lights out on it back in 2004. They then rebooted the franchise into what we now call the World of Darkness (or New World of Darkness). Aside from some similar terminology, the two WODs are completely separate entities and have no connection to each other in terms of narrative, mechanics, tone, or themes. What's the difference? The new WOD rules are much more streamlined than the previous system. The Failure rules have changed and the "10-again" rule has been added, in that a "10" indicates a re-roll and the "10" still counts as a success. If another "10" is rolled, this step is repeated until anything but a "10" is rolled. Exceptional Successes are indicated by having five or more successes on the action, and can be regulated by the Storyteller. Dramatic Failures are now only possible on "chance" die rolls; when a dice pool is reduced by penalties to zero or less, a single chance die is rolled. If a 10 is rolled, it is a success (and as before, rerolled), if the result is less than 10 but not 1, then it is a simple failure. On a chance die, if the roll is a 1, then it is a Dramatic Failure, which is usually worse than a normal failure of the action, and is regulated by the Storyteller (although examples of Dramatic Failures in certain situations are occasionally given). The game also features a much more simplified combat system. In the old system each attack made during a combat scene could easily involve 4 separate rolls () and in many cases required more due to supernatural abilities possessed by the characters. Combat scenes involving large numbers of combatants could take a very long time to resolve. The new system requires only one roll which is adjusted by the defensive abilities of the person being attacked and represents both the success and failure of the attack and the damage inflicted because of it, (indicated by number of successes). On top of this, the Second Edition has introduced a new system called "Down and Dirty Combat" which can reduce a fight to a single attack roll. It's great for when you don't want to spend your time duking it out with some random security guard or drunk jerk. The new WOD also lacks the all encompassing metaplot of its predecessor. Much more about the surrounding world and history is left up to the Storyteller to decide. It is split up into several gamelines and they take a modular, toolbox approach to gaming. You can include some, or all of the splats into one giant clusterfuck of awesome. Or just use the core rules and gameline of your choice. House Rules are also encouraged. If you don't like something, feel free to change it! What's all this talk about White Wolf and Onyx Path? White Wolf was bought out by Icelandic videogame designers, CCP. CCP fell on some hard times right around the same time the tabletop market did a faceplant and had to lay off the majority of White Wolf. Onyx Path was founded by the old heads of White Wolf and hires out most of the old staff as freelancers to continue producing White Wolf properties with CCP's approval. They make liberal use of Kickstarter and have been doing fairly well for a company with three full time employees. What's all this talk about Second Editions and Chronicles? For a while CCP was worried about using the term Second Editions. So rules updates for various lines were called "The ___ Chronicle." Then the WOD MMO went under and CCP stopped caring so they're being titled Second Editions now. The Chronicle thing still stuck, though. Now its just more of a subtitle. We're currently in the middle of the Second Edition rules update. Four lines have updates available, two of those being fully fledged Second Edition Corebooks. Five more are currently in production. The Second Edition rules streamline a lot of things, overhaul the experience mechanics and serve as a setting update. The general consensus is that they've been pretty good so far (just don't ask Ferrinus about werewolves). Hopefully they can maintain the trend. The Core Line (AKA The Bluebooks, AKA Mortals) World of Darkness Corebook - Gives you all the baseline rules for running a game. If you want to play a game about ordinary people dealing with spooky stuff this is all you need. Its' second edition, Chronicles of Darkness is out now. Armory, Armory Reloaded, Dogs of War, Precinct 13, etc. - Stat blocks and alternate mechanic ideas for pretty much any kind of weapon, vehicle, or other you might use to wreck stuff. Also books about how different professions like the military or police might handle the WoD. Second Sight, Skinchangers, Innocents, etc. - I won't list them all, but they basically expand on ideas that you can use in your games. They can be pretty hit or miss, but just post a question and you'll get everyone telling you their favorites. Psychics, ghosts, monsters that don't fit the other games, The Goonies; it all goes here. If it doesn't exist it's easy as pie to stat it up for your own games. Dark Eras - A monster of a book that recently finished a successful Kickstarter campaign, it gives you setting information for various gamelines in various historical eras such as: Mages in the Hellenic Era, Changelings and Geists in Three Kingdoms China, Skinchangers and Demons in the Aztec Empire, and many more! Note: The Kickstarter got so big that it had to be split into two books. The Dark Eras Companion will be released shortly (or not so shortly) after the main book and will have even more period pieces including Vampires and Prometheans in the Black Death, Mummies and Mages in the Mutapa Empire, and Werewolves in Ancient Rome. See my post at the bottom of this page for a full list. The Gamelines Vampire: The Requiem - You're a vampire! Hope you like eating people and politicking! Its' second edition, The Strix Chronicle, is out and it owns. Werewolf: The Forsaken - You can turn into a wolfy killing machine! Find a balance between your human and animal sides. While at the same time being border patrol for the spirit world to keep them out of ours. Its' second edition, The Idigam Chronicle, is out and its pretty rad . Mage: The Awakening - You're a wizard! Reality hates you, so break it in half! Okay, that's probably a bad idea, you should just Join the Seers. Its' second edition, The Fallen World Chronicle, is out now! Promethean: The Created - You're a Frankenstein/Golem/Terminator! If you thought reality hated Mages just you wait! Find out what it means to be human, and hopefully become a real person! Its' second edition, The Firestorm Chronicle, is out now. Changeling: The Lost - You were kidnapped by fairies, but managed to escape! Now there's a weird Not-You living your life and your kidnappers are probably searching for you right now! The first edition was lightning in a bottle. Its' second edition, The Huntsmen Chronicle, is in development and we're all really hoping it doesn't let that lightning out. Hunter: The Vigil - You want to kill everything else on this list! Cruise around with your buddies like in Supernatural or join up with big Conspiracies. Also, try not to think about how jaded you're getting, everything will be fine, promise. Its' second edition, The Slasher Chronicle, will be coming out next year. Until then you can use the rules update in Mortal Remains. Geist: The Sin-Eaters - You died, but a superghost fused itself to your soul and you came back! The superghost is really weird though and now you have to live with it. Its' second edition will most likely be announced at some point, which is good because boy does it need one. Mummy: The Curse - You're a remnant of an ancient civilization! Too bad you can't remember much of it! Fulfill the arcane wills of your gods and try to figure out what really happened to you while you're at it. Probably won't be getting a second edition for a while. Demon: The Descent - You're a fallen angel! Also God is a gnostic reality-spanning computer machine thing. If you don't want to get re-assimilated you better find a person to sell you their soul so you've got a place to hide. The first game to be made for the second edition. It owns. Beast: The Primordial - Nope. Deviant: The Renegades - You're the victims of experiments that band together to bring down the monolithic organizations that twisted and warped you. Scehduled to be released next year. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sounds interesting! How do I get started? The easiest way to begin is to download the free Demos. Vampire Demo Werewolf Demo Mage demos Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Promethean Demo Changeling Demo Hunter Demos The Hunt One Year Later Geist Demo Demon Demo So I decided I want to actually buy some of this stuff, but there's a lot of books. Which are the good ones? If you're just starting out, stick with the Corebooks. Especially if they're Second Edition. I could use some Character Sheets. quote:http://sheetgen.dalines.net/wiki/WikiStart Any good Homebrews? Mugrim has run at least one really awesome homebrew in ST. (thread in archive) Ferrinus and VoxPVoxD have done an almost complete rewrite of Mage from base principles. It owns and anyone who likes Mage needs to read this ASAP. Luminous Obscurity fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Aug 5, 2016 |
# ? Apr 9, 2015 14:08 |
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# ? Apr 19, 2024 08:57 |
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NWOD sucks I want my Tzimiche/Fianna/etc back! Well you're in luck! Onyx Path has released several translation guides so you can take things from the Classic World of Darkness and put them in the NWOD. Or vice-versa! Currently there are guides for Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage with a Demon guide on the way. That's not good enough! Well that's okay, too! Onyx Path is releasing new material for the Classic World of Darkness in the form of the 20th Anniversary Editions. They're also taking the opportunity to clean up some of the more... uncomfortable aspects of the CWOD. People sure seem to like the CWOD. What's its deal? quote:The (Classic) World of Darkness is much like our world, but it is darker, more devious and more conspiratorial — an aesthetic we call “Gothic-Punk”. The dichotomy between the rich and the poor, the influential and the weak, and the powerful and the powerless is much more pronounced than in the real world. Decadence, cynicism, and corruption are common. Humans are unwitting victims or pawns of vast secret organizations of supernatural creatures. Vampires, werewolves, and mages (among others) struggle with internal factionalism and against other species in secret wars of intrigue for control. Like the NWOD, Classic is composed of several gamelines of supernaturals. However, unlike the reboot, these lines don't play very well together mechanically. The Gamelines The CWOD had no core, instead there were five major lines. Vampire: The Masquerade - You're a vampire! Hope you like eating people and politicking! Its' 20th Anniversary Edition is out now! A proper 4th Edition has also been announced but it's still too far out for us to judge. Werewolf: The Apocalypse - You're a werewolf. You fight for nature like only a proper 90s Environmentalist can. There's also all kind of other Were-stuff. Its' 20th Anniversary Edition is out now! Mage: The Ascencion - You're a wizard. Reality is consensual. Everyone loves the Technocracy. Its' 20th Anniversary Edition is out now! Wraith: The Oblivion - You're a ghost. Kind of. Held in very high esteem around these parts. Its' 20th Anniversary Edition wrapped up its Kickstarter last year and is currently in development. Changeling: The Dreaming - Hoo boy. For better or for worse its' 20th Anniversary Edition Kickstarter wrapped up earlier this year and will be released soon. On the bright side it really has nowhere to go but up. Later, several other lines were added to the mix. We most likely won't be seeing re-releases of these for a while: Hunter: The Reckoning - Hunters! You have superpowers granted by God, at least you hope the voices in your head are God. Mummy: The Resurrection - You're a mummy. One of the few instances of unquestionably "good" PCs. Not much going on with this one. Demon: The Fallen - You're a fallen angel as per Paradise Lost. It was designed by Greg Stolze. General consensus around here seems to be that it owns. What about Dark Ages? Wasn't that a thing? Dark Ages was a historical setting for (you guessed it) Dark Ages Europe. V20 Dark Ages is out now, and the overall reception seems to be pretty positive. Odds of seeing more books for the setting show up on Kickstarter are very good. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Previous Megathreads Archive: Megathread 1 Megathread 2 Megathread 3 Megathread 4 BONUS CONTENT: Time of Judgement Announcement Thread NWOD Release Thread Megathread: Alpha Edition Megathread: Beta Edition Luminous Obscurity fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Jan 21, 2016 |
# ? Apr 9, 2015 14:08 |
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I've heard it gets really weird. C/D? Honestly, Onyx Path has been shockingly good on the WOD side of the fence. What's full White Wolf? See FATAL & Friends, Page XX Reserved for words about the World of Darkness ST'ing Mage (But also good advice in general): Effectronica posted:You're going to want to tailor this to your group. A game where the players are generally drawn towards any one or two of the Pentacle is going to look very different from a fully mixed group. Demon Mors Rattus posted:Once upon a time, before man existed, there was a machine. This machine has been around for all of human civilization, but we can't see it. It hides itself in the world, both natural and man-made. It acts for a purpose, bringing forth terrible and glorious machine-angels, in order to fulfill arcane conditions needed to produce what it needs and to put it together the right way. We don't know what it needs, or why it needs it. It would be wrong to say it wants, because it does not think. It would be wrong to say it is malevolent, because it does not feel. It would be wrong to say it plans, because it is not a person. But it changes the world, and its changes are according to some design that no one could ever hope to understand. Its changes are not kind, though they can be positive. They are terrible, though not always to the people near them. The God-Machine takes what it needs, with neither remorse nor pity, and produces horrors and wonders with neither hatred nor pride. Luminous Obscurity fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Aug 19, 2015 |
# ? Apr 9, 2015 14:08 |
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If anything, good job on including changing breeds "art" right in the third OP, sets the mood just right.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 14:33 |
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Thread title works perfectly in a God Machine sense
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 14:35 |
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My thoughts exactly.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 14:36 |
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Is it me or did the good books recommendations get dropped from the (HUEG) op?
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 14:44 |
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5ed just for the title alone.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 15:38 |
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crime fighting hog posted:Thread title works perfectly in a God Machine sense But what does it MEAN?! DJ Dizzy fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Apr 9, 2015 |
# ? Apr 9, 2015 15:44 |
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Hey OP, where'd the far better rules for Mage go from the OP? e: And XP-based chargen. Real clown town itt
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 17:52 |
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This is why when I need to note dots in a text editor I just use asterisks. World of Darkness Megathread (*****) On the bright side, you got the tag right!
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 18:00 |
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Hey OP, where'd the far better rules for Mage go from the OP?
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 18:01 |
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I don't think XP chargen is important anymore, even if it is Etherwind's crowning contribution to our community (RIP Etherwind). I'll tell you what, though, I could do without the massive post of bad White Wolf writing. I don't know who that's for, exactly. The OP is a resource for people interested in learning about the games, who needs a post that rivals all the others for length full of reasons you should be embarrassed to play? But that's not a big deal, since once we're off the first page I'll never have to look at it again.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 18:05 |
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Attorney at Funk posted:I don't think XP chargen is important anymore, even if it is Etherwind's crowning contribution to our community (RIP Etherwind). I'll tell you what, though, I could do without the massive post of bad White Wolf writing. I don't know who that's for, exactly. The OP is a resource for people interested in learning about the games, who needs a post that rivals all the others for length full of reasons you should be embarrassed to play? That the older games used to be really really bad in some areas is a thing that people should be aware of, particularly when they're talking with other people about the game. I didn't get into Werewolf until revised so when people started harping on me for liking a game with neo-nazis or dick-ripping lesbian feminists or toothed volcano vaginas I was reasonably confused.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 18:42 |
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That's certainly an essay about how vampire horror shouldn't explore the discomforting intersection between sex and violence.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 19:05 |
Kurieg posted:That the older games used to be really really bad in some areas is a thing that people should be aware of, particularly when they're talking with other people about the game. I didn't get into Werewolf until revised so when people started harping on me for liking a game with neo-nazis or dick-ripping lesbian feminists or toothed volcano vaginas I was reasonably confused. Hmm, actually, I think that a new thread is a good reason to purge all the negativity and apologizing for liking stuff that isn't 100% good and cool.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 19:11 |
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Okay, so drop the last bit then? Because I'm not really attached to it and pretty much left it in because I figured the thread was into it or w/e.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 20:08 |
I feel that poking fun at the oWoD is fair game, but it could be trimmed. The 90s were a hell of a drug.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 20:36 |
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Keep it.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 21:18 |
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MalcolmSheppard posted:That's certainly an essay about how vampire horror shouldn't explore the discomforting intersection between sex and violence.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 21:23 |
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Just post my name for why you never go full white wolf. Let my madness be a cautionary tale, for the choldren.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 01:27 |
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Loomer posted:Just post my name for why you never go full white wolf. Let my madness be a cautionary tale, for the choldren. For those of you just joining, Loomer has spent the past few years working on The Project- an attempt to document every single canonical supernatural creature in the old World of Darkness, living, dead, and undead. named and unnamed. Not just game books, but novels, the card games, a couple somewhat canonized fanworks from Germany, etc. He posted a chart a week or two ago- he's got thousands of NPCs recorded.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 01:40 |
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Yawgmoth posted:That's certainly the complete dismissal of valid concerns without actually reading a word of said concern that I've come to expect out of you. But since I have time to post at work, I'll tl;dr it for you: the problem isn't that the topic is explored, it's how that exploration is presented. Specifically, a book titled "sexmurder" with zero other context (because it's a book cover) is, if nothing else, in extremely poor taste. If only there was some kind of signal about that context provided by it being a book for Vampire: The Requiem, a game about vampires struggling to maintain a semblance of humanity, that identifies itself firmly within the tradition of gothic horror and described its essentials in an entire other edition, for which these statements assumed familiarity, since the name was assigned to what was originally a supplement for that game. If only. Then there would be more than zero context for anyone who is not a cleverly disguised chatbot or largely interested in performing outrage for an audience so as to signal that they are in fact totally cool dudes. EDIT: Old argument, happy to move on. MalcolmSheppard fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Apr 10, 2015 |
# ? Apr 10, 2015 01:52 |
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Can we start a new thread already
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 01:54 |
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MalcolmSheppard posted:If only there was some kind of signal about that context provided by it being a book for Vampire: The Requiem, a game about vampires struggling to maintain a semblance of humanity, that identifies itself firmly within the tradition of gothic horror and described its essentials in an entire other edition, for which these statements assumed familiarity, since the name was assigned to what was originally a supplement for that game. If only. Then there would be more than zero context for anyone who is not a cleverly disguised chatbot or largely interested in performing outrage for an audience so as to signal that they are in fact totally cool dudes. "Performing outrage" is basically the worst way to dismiss concerns anyway, and certainly isn't going to win anyone new over to your way of thinking, so maybe moving on is best, yes.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 02:10 |
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MalcolmSheppard posted:That's certainly an essay about how vampire horror shouldn't explore the discomforting intersection between sex and violence. Wait a second... MalcolmSheppard posted:In what part of anything I wrote did I express an opinion on that name other than saying it was "tricky?" In what part of anything I wrote did I say that these criticisms were invalid? I DID remember this old-argument from the old megathread, where the discussion of how dumb it is to have customer-facing promotions branded as "sexmurder" came up and you backtracked immediately at the time.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 02:12 |
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Adept Nightingale posted:"Performing outrage" is basically the worst way to dismiss concerns anyway, and certainly isn't going to win anyone new over to your way of thinking, so maybe moving on is best, yes. I admit I'm pretty dismissive of concerns about violence from the person cited in the intro post, because he later wished I would for-real die. But in the interests of moving forward, given that for good reasons and bad it *is* tricky, how would the folks here go about handing the disturbing things about Vampire? Because previous discussions have ended with assertions that it's all going to be stupid and RPGs are an inherently untrustworthy medium. One of the issues is that there's a tension between the traditional gamer goal of using a character to satisfy personal fantasies and power trip, and playing characters who are Not Nice. The genre itself plays with that tension; vampires are cool, but they're monsters. Lots of CWoD books in particular were about playing characters you shouldn't feel good about or really identify with, but the games didn't clearly map them. Plus we have icky parts of player culture where some folks who want to use game and genre as a shield to play moral transgressors as an obvious form of wish-fulfillment--those guys who always play vampire Nazis in LARP and are way too into talking about "historically accurate" discrimination. MalcolmSheppard fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Apr 10, 2015 |
# ? Apr 10, 2015 02:32 |
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Vampire Goebbels did nothing wrong.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 02:40 |
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I think it makes sense to not gloss over the terrible stuff from OWoD, and this is as someone who was a fan of it as a kid. Part of it is the charm of a bunch of white guys not realizing why making supernatural faction: Gypsies might be a bad idea. Also getting that out in the open early instead of having constant debates popping up might be good. Hell, if only to know warning signs you might be getting involved with a creepy RP group. Kinda like how you wouldn't know there's a good chance an Exalted campaign described as being about "Lunars raising a beastman army" has a decent chance of being about dogfucking, without someone giving you the heads up about in game context. Moral of the story: Never join an online game of oWoD hosted by a friend of a friend you kinda know without making sure his friends aren't skeezy as gently caress.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 03:39 |
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e: removed
Kellsterik fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Apr 11, 2015 |
# ? Apr 10, 2015 04:35 |
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I'm just going to post this link to an article that I think is great inspriation to any nWoD game: http://www.sott.net/article/229112-John-Keel-and-His-Adventures-into-Unreality It was in the previous thread, and I think it's pretty core to understanding the differences between the two Worlds of Darkness: "Belief is the Enemy"
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 05:29 |
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So, here's something I noticed on a flick through my files. In 1995, the town of Evanstown, Connecticut - population of 543 - was wiped out, with one survivor. The population suddenly went berserk, killing each other, and then died of a filovirus believed to be an airborne strain of Ebola Zaire - one that 'replicates itself so thoroughly in the host that the host is partially transformed into a virus'. Could be progenitors, could be Pentex, could be just plain bad luck, buuut... The Tzimisce methuselah Demdemdeh, from Africa, is believed by Tzimisce involved in Biopreparat in the 80s to have transformed himself into Ebola. I wonder if it was a deliberate callback to the Evanstown incident. Even if not, it's certainly something you could link for a game. Obviously Evanstown was a Crazies reference, but still.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 06:49 |
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Myths Over Miami could have easily been published by somebody in the WoD.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 06:57 |
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Since they didn't write it, they used a good chunk of it as the basis of their Changeling: the lost core city, with the Blue Lady as a keeper.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 10:59 |
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So we now know the complete list of Dark Eras. I broke it down and sorted them by gameline. The ones marked with asterisks are getting dedicated expansions (as opposed to expansions that just add another line). Bluebook: Aztec Skinchangers, Second Sight Age of Spiritualism Vampire: Black Death, Elizabethan Werewolf: Neolithic, Rome, Viking, 70s New York City Mage: Neolithic, *Hellenic*, Mutapa Promethean: Black Death, 30 Years War, Year Without a Summer, Dust Bowl Changeling: Three Kingdoms, Elizabethan, Three Musketeers, Brothers Grimm Hunter: Sengoku/Tokugawa, *Salem* Geist: Three Kingdoms, Viking, Roanoke, 50s New Zealand Mummy: Cleopatra, Mutapa, *Fall of British & Ottoman Empires* Demon: Aztec, Fall of Constantinople, Russian Revolution, Cold War Luminous Obscurity fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Apr 10, 2015 |
# ? Apr 10, 2015 11:29 |
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DJ Dizzy posted:Vampire Goebbels did nothing wrong. Hitler did nothing supernatural.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 12:48 |
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Wow, I got my hands on a copy of the original Clanbook Gangrel and drat but they used to be The Gypsy Clan (also gently caress the Ravnos). Also:Clanbook: Gangrel posted:CJ: (in a pseudo street-rap staccato)
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 14:38 |
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Luminous Obscurity posted:So we now know the complete list of Dark Eras. I broke it down and sorted them by gameline. The ones marked with asterisks are getting dedicated expansions (as opposed to expansions that just add another line). Aside from the lack of Devil in the White City Vampire and Blitz Innocents, this is a pretty goddamn amazing list.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 15:11 |
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So Geist and Promethean get 4 eras each, as opposed to Hunter or Vampire, games that many more people play :/ Not saying it will not be a good read, but wondering how much of it will be really put into practice.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 15:22 |
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# ? Apr 19, 2024 08:57 |
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I think it's probably more important (or at least more interesting) to give the under-served, underplayed games more materials in exercises like this to try and entice people to try them out. And honestly, there's so much Vampire material out there you can already basically set a game when or wherever you want, so long as you're willing to do the reading on the time period and place in question.
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# ? Apr 10, 2015 15:26 |