World of Darkness Megathread: Curse of the Were-Poster

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Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

First post ever, oh boy.

So, I've been GMing for a couple years, but only in the last four months really got into STing. I started with VtM, but that went nowhere fast on account of half of my players being...less than ideal, we'll say. Lesson learned, I've been with my current gaming group since then.

My question for you all, then, is Why do I feel like I'm a lovely Storyteller? (For reasons other than that I am)

My game that I have the most experience running is Savage Worlds. For those whom never ran it, it's a game that can very much work and even thrive on sitting down to a session with nothing in mind than a beginning, a couple possible endings, and just going from there and seeing what happens. Why is it that I feel terrified to do the same in M:tAw? I read the book cover-to-cover twice and have a handle on how most things work, (still struggling with Spirits, but it hasn't been an issue yet) and I've even ran five sessions that were just fine according to my players. But I'm constantly nervous that if I don't have have two or three backup Mysteries for the Mages to find if they get bored, the game will just stall out. Is there a structure that veteran STs have that allows them to run games off-the-cuff smoothly?

Any advice for Demon would also be welcome, as I'm planning on starting a game of that soon.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2016 09:08

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 04:44

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

So, the Mages ran across a Demon in the middle of some issues. Over the course of explaining the situation, as well as an Angel dropping in to ask if the Mages would help her instead, the Mages decided to help out the Demon Mr. Veils.

One of my players, who read the Demon book, asked for a Pact. Considering that they were PCs and that their friends and family were...mutable at best, what would you have done in my situation?

What I did was that I gave them penalties to their attributes symbolizing what they gave up. Moros gave up some of her raw physical presence (-1 Presence) to get a boost to refined Expression. Mastigos gave up a very sentimental token (-1 Composure) to get access to a Space Arcana mentor.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 23:29

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

The Demon is only around at all because none of the Mages have Destiny, and it's worried it's on the verge of being caught. So when Veils saw that Mages were poking around, he took a gamble.

XP Dissonance is a pretty good idea though.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Somebody's been playing Fallen London.

I actually made and am playing a Savage Worlds Fallen London game. It's a setting I enjoy quite a bit.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 18:43

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I would pay money for a Fallen London setting bible, because yeah, it's great, but the computer game(s) that use it are awful.

If you follow the IRC, they're helpful in question answering. The Community put this together:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CpnhakUKxFeXzONYyccrrWhvc7kZeIK4q7gcEtK6sQo/edit#heading=h.j351djrsqj4f

...which was pretty helpful.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 18:50

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

So, I sort of backed myself into a corner. I'm STing a Mage game, and the Moros is putting together a Gothic rock/metal band that will have its songs secretly be cult-indoctrinating messages. She's doing this on behalf of a Demon, whom gave her a nifty gun in exchange for doing so.

Over the course of the auditions, this blond-haired fuckboy auditioned for guitar, and was generally mediocre so the Moros passed him by.

Then he came back the next day, claiming to be his twin, and auditioned for guitar. Similarly mediocre.

This process would go on about four or five times, and each time the kid would show up looking slightly different but not in any way talented. Eventually the Moros peered out into the audition line and saw two more guys looking exactly like them waiting to audition.

Eventually two of them were in the room at once; Carriless and Connor (They've all had names starting with C). Carriless was actually pretty good at keyboarding, which is what finally set the Cabal's Mastigos off. She peered into Connor's mind and saw a normal life, until he got a sudden impulse to go audition for this band. She also looked at their Sympathy, and found that all of the Cs have incredibly strong sympathetic bonds. The Acanthus was finally intrigued as well, and saw that they had an incredibly tightly woven fate.

They let them go with the intention of following them, and the session ended there. It was only later that I realized I wasn't prepared for what these guys actually were.

My assumption and plan was that Carriless got a hold of some imbued item that allowed him to summon and control alternate versions of himself, and that opened him up to Abyssal influence. But if that was the case, shouldn't the PCs have noticed by now?

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 13:52

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Axelgear posted:

Hive-Souls are a thing, yeah; 219-220 in the Seers book. They don't have a rule about getting better when more of them are present (they get better at teamwork) as written, but that idea in and of itself could be fun.

Another idea would be that this person is a result of a shattered timeline. They're all the same person and, until recently, were the same person. Then some magical disaster (perhaps a botched Acanthus Awakening or a temporal fracture caused by a piece of Infrastructure) refracted the guy's personal history so that possible C's are all flooding reality. Rather than recognize each other for what they are, each knows that the other has some sort of direct personal connection and simply assumes they were brothers. After all, they remember the same home, same family...

All the more worrying, there might be more C's being produced at all times; just an endless lineage of alternate C's, getting slightly more diverse as the refraction of the timeline expands in a Fibonacci-level rate of increase. Within a very short time, the whole world could be drowned beneath a tidal wave of blonde fuckboys; like being in the cheap seats at a Russian rock concert. Plus, for now, most of the C's produced are benign as the timelines are fairly close together, but as they spread out and get more diverse, worse things might start crawling out of the prismatic time fracture.

Flavivirus posted:

Alternative explanation: one of the Seer ministries has a servant race that's made of entirely identical people - Hive-Souled I think? I'm not sure what benefit could be gained from this - maybe this is a group of Hive-Souled whose master died, and have standing orders to investigate mages without knowing why.

E: I think they get better at actions the more of them are present, which would explain the increased keyboard skills when the two were in the same room!

So, what happens if alt-timeline Hive-Souls get into the same reality? I think that's where I'm going to go: a timeline shattered and sent a poor soul into spacetime, except that Soul was a Hiver.

The original Hiver (Carriless) now has a lot more bodies with different memories, and some of them want to go to this audition. That resonates with the rest of them, so now Carriless (who has 'ascended' to be a meta-Hive-Soul in charge of two Hive-Souls) has to find out how to get a handle on this before the timeline spits out an infirm body and ends up potentially killing everyone.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 16:07

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

So, as someone who might be interested in making a few Division Six guys to follow around my Mage players (Whom would probably get a kick out of, considering we also play Delta Green), is there any way I could find a few generic Hunters without having to read the books and potentially sup-optimally build them myself?

# ¿ Jan 26, 2017 04:29

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Benagain posted:

Invade the Tenemos reshape people's notions of currency to be actually reflective of people's worth as determined by their peers. Have the good people actually be the wealthy ones.

This seems like a plan that is either highly risky, difficult to the point of impossible, or both. However, I'm new to the lore of WoD, so I'm not sure if that plan is as hard as I think it is.

What are the dangers of doing something like this? Should I get the Astral Realms book for the full picture?

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 17:54

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Wait, while we're on the subject of the Tremere, I think I missed something. Left-Handed Legacies has the Tremere Houses and that's super helpful, but it looks like a lot of the actual mechanics behind eating souls are in Mage 1st ed. Do I need to go get that book to understand the full picture, or did I miss something and is behind able to make a person's soul take 1 Agg the 'eating' part?

# ¿ Feb 6, 2017 14:31

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

It seems like, as far as demographics are concerned, Mages should rarely ever run into other Mages to conflict with, Seer or otherwise.

From MtAw 2nd ed:
(Regarding Toyko, a city with 13.62 million people)

"...or a majority vote from the Consilium at large.
This means getting over 100 Awakened to both congregate,
and agree on a single agenda. (This also assumes a unanimous
vote, since over 200 Awakened reside in the metropolitan area.)"

Let's assume there are 250 Diamonders. Since the Free Council is larger than any one diamond Order, 40% of that is 100. If there were an equal amount of Seers, that brings the Mage total to 600. Adding some Selesti, Tremere and other Nameless orders we'll estimate the total to be 675 since the Free Council is supposed to be the largest of any Nameless Order.

That makes Mages 0.00004955947% of the population, with that estimate. Keeping that number, there are:

192 Awakened in LA.
417 Awakened in NYC.
26 Awakened in Tuscon Arizona.

That seems a bit low to me, but it that roughly how it is (or should be) in the World of Darkness?

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 00:39

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Gerund posted:

Pizza is Matter unless you wave your hands really hard at what the Arcana mean.

If you argue that eating a silce pizza is a form of damage to the pizza's structure and that Pizza is a machine (designed to feed people) then it would be a Self Repairing Machine spell.

The sliced pizza would be damage too, so wouldn't the slice regenerate into a whole pizza?

That's my ruling if my players try that, anyway.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 01:53

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Senior Scarybagels posted:

Throw in Life 5 (or is it 6) to get Pizza the Hutt.

Add Mind 5/6 to make Pizza the Hutt the greatest crime boss in the galaxy.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 02:22

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

quote:

Abigail Stone was a wonderfully insightful girl. She had the knack of seeing what wasn�t there; connections. It is what made her very good at her job as a Private Detective, where others saw a clean apartment; she could see that it was meticulously kept up because of a secret. She could search the spotless place and find one smudge to the perfect image, and that is when she would hunt.

From a young age, Abigail had been exceptionally smart compared to most of her peers; this was most likely due to her father�s strict upbringing in that he allowed for minimal error in her work. She would have to do it again with even a single mistake, which brought out her perfection in spotting the smallest of abstract errors.

In Elementary school, Abigail underwent a psych evaluation to see if she had been abused at home or at school; everyone in her grade had to. Thanks to her father�s teachings, her scores were even more abnormal than those who were abused. Her scores were extraordinarily unremarkable. Out of everyone in the class, she stood out the most, even though her scores were perfect with normalcy. The ones who found this most abnormal, were her teachers, who knew that Abigail acted completely different now, then when it was just her and her friends.
When out on the playground, Abigail would often play hide and seek with all the other children from her grade; she always volunteered to be �it� first. After only a few moments of studying the ground where everyone had started, she looked up from the counting place, most of the times with a smile. She then ran, quickly and efficiently, to each of the students and where they were hidden. Even the students who had the most clever of spots, would be found only minutes after the game had begun, even if they were the last to be found.

More and more, as they played the teachers noticed that Abigail was getting better, faster even, at finding the children. They never used the same spots and even increased the size of the playing field to include inside the schoolhouse; nothing changed. It was as if Abigail could put herself into the minds of the other children, able to assess where they would go. Eventually, the children tired from hiding from the unstoppable monster-girl, and made her hide; if only they knew what they were about to get into.

Even more than finding people, Abigail had a talent that the other kids just simply didn�t understand; hiding. In her home, her father and her would play hide and seek, as the children played on the playground, but with a twist. If Abigail was caught, she would undergo �treatment� from her father. It wasn�t torture, or abuse of the physical nature, but her father would make her find items that have been hidden around the house before she could do anything else. Most of the times, her father would not give her an exact name for the item she was looking for, only a vague description, which continued getting more and more vague as she kept losing to her father.

Compared to her father, the children were quite easy to fool in her hiding spots. She would most always choose a place that cast an obscure shadow which could hide her in plain sight, or a place high and dark. Not even the teachers could find her most times, and if they did, it was by accident. All this is what made it more abnormal for her tests to be normal, and the teachers told the �doctors� about all of it. This peaked their interest.

After her evaluation, the doctors had torn her from her home, as to study her further. For one year of her life, she was away from her strict father and loving mother. Day in and day out they would hook her up to machines, to watch her repeat the astounding normal results which rarely ever happen.

Of many the things they considered with how she was so normal, they suspected brain-washing from her father, who was a detective for the city police. They had assumed he was trying out torturous interrogation techniques on his daughter to make her respond the way they wanted to, they were wrong.

Near the end of her year in the facility, the questions started taking a turn for the weird. They were asking Abigail about things she never expected, like ghosts, or things being not the way they should be. The questions threw her off, she reacted. Finally, the doctors all rejoices as they knew cracking her would soon be at hand. And then the lights went out.

The sound of water hitting the floor erupted all around Abigail, she couldn�t see anything though. The smells didn�t match the sounds, she heard water, but smelt something like iron. And then, the sounds of large heavy sacks hitting the water on the floor started, but slowly increasing in number as the buckets of water kept splashing onto the ground. Her restraints were freed by something, although she felt nothing loosen them. At last, a bang erupts and the sound of a small metal object hits dry floor, and then the lights came back.

Blinding at first, Abigail had to squint to let her eyes adjust; when they did, she almost let out the most terrifying of screams, but something held it back. What she thought was water all over the floor, was really blood! The bodies of all of the doctors were around her, looking in a very gruesome state. Their stomachs were blown open, almost like a toad with a firecracker inside. She searched to try and find a reason for the madness, and found one person standing in the middle of the blood, holding a gun and dressed in all black with a black overcoat; her father.
Her senses were no longer right, she wept for joy and seeing her father, but also out of terror for what was around her. She heard her father mumble something about a �Mayfly� or something, but she couldn�t be sure. Her father now crouched near some of the dead bodies and the blood on the ground seemed to ripple almost, then return to the bodies. The stomachs would repair themselves almost, but a wound in their chest would appear, leaking the blood that had just been put back. He did this for all of the bodies. It was at this point she stood from her seat, and noticed a hempen sack lying in the center of the room, she desperately wanted to know, but was unsure of what was about to happen to her.

Once finished with the bodies, her father went to the sack, and pulled out a smaller corpse, which made Abigail almost vomit from the smell. Her father strapped the body into the chair where she sat, and then the body began to change. The decaying skin returned color, the hair turned black like her own, the entire body started to look as if though Abigail were looking into a mirror! It wasn�t until the end that her father pulled back up the pistol, and right in front of her eyes, shot the life-like corpse in the head. Under normal circumstances, the sight would have disheartened Abigail fully to the point of a break down, but she didn�t even notice.

Her gaze was instead pulled to the gun her father held. Having helped him clean many pistols, taking them apart, and returning them to their original state, Abigail was certain the gun her father held now was no more than a toy! The pistol had no place to insert a clip for ammo, and no revolver clip to reload either! It was flush along the side completely. The top, which should normally jolt back when fired, stayed completely motionless. The part of the gun that unnerved her the most, was the trigger, or lack thereof as it didn�t have one! Something clicked in her mind at that point as it looked as though some, smoke like essence came out of the bodies on the ground, and flowed into the pistol.

Her father looked at her and then back to the gun; quickly he put it away, as if to hide it from her eyes. He picked her up and whispered to himself �She isn�t ready yet to be awoken.� This statement confused Abigail as she thought she was already awake! Was she sleeping and this was a dream? Before she knew it though, she had indeed fallen asleep due to the stress on her psyche. When she awoke, she was lying in her bed in normal clothes, her blood stained rags from the testing facility were gone. Her father and mother walked into the room and she jumped back, against the wall, frightened of her father now. With a low tone, her father calmly speaks, �Have the nightmares returned? Was it the same one or different this time?�

The normal demeanor of her father and mother shocked her almost, but quickly she became on edge again, that is, until she thought about it and talked with her mother about it. To her, she had been taken from the facility only hours prior, but to her mother, it was a year ago entirely! Not only that, but she was released normally and the doctors constantly call to check up as if they hadn�t been murdered to her! She spoke with her mother about what she remembers, and her father being a murderer, when her mother explains that it was all in her head. It was a vivid reimagining of the night her father had to shoot a suspect carrying a bomb, causing it to blow up and kill a few bystanders nearby, and Abigail was in the front of the patrol car watching the whole thing! It was an accident that she can�t come to terms with and thinks her father as a murderer for it. This whole concept takes a while for Abigail to cope with, but after a few weeks, comes to accept it, and the nightmares go away.

Shortly after her accepting things, her family moves to the other side of the country to hopefully give her father another shot at being a detective, as he was terminated after the incident. For four years, nothing strange happens, and her father continues to hone in and teach her certain skills that he has obtained as a detective. Although, on her sixteenth birthday, he and her mother just vanish. Nothing left of them, or their possessions, as if they had never really been there. The only evidence that would even give away that they existed, was a gift left on Abigail�s bedside table, with a note stating �From Mom and Dad�.

Abigail ran all over the house, searching, tears streaming down her face. She ran through the town, asking neighbors who now knew nothing of her or her parents. She ran to the police station and there she was met with similar looks of unfamiliarity. Nothing. No one remembered her at all, let alone her parents who she didn�t even have a photo of! She sprinted home, hoping that this was all a terrible nightmare, but alas, she was wrong.

She sat in her bed for nearly two whole days, weeping, before she could even bring herself to even look at the present her parents had left her; it was still sitting unopened on her table. She edged herself onto the side of her mattress where she grabbed the present, and slowly placed it upon her lap. Slowly and carefully, she unwrapped the gift, making sure not to rip a single thing as if every spec of paper was a clue now about her parents. Once opened, she looked inside and her heart sank five layers instantly.

Inside the box was a wallet, a note, and the gun. The Gun! The one from her nightmare, which she now believed was just a figment of her imagination. First, she pulled out the wallet, heavily stuffed with cash. She opened it to reveal an ID, with her face, but not her name. The Name on the ID read Abigail Stone. Also inside the wallet was a black card, and the cash of course.

The next object she pulled out was the note:

Dear XXXXX,
I know you must be wondering where I have gone, but I cannot tell you. All you need to know is I have been found by people who are trying to find you. They tried to awaken you before you were ready, but I had to stop them. I left to lure them away from you, to allow you to awaken by yourself and start a life free of their control. I left you a wallet, and a card tied to an account that I have been saving for you, you should not need much.
I am sorry.
Dad

Quickly, she threw the note back into the box, tears now streaming faster and harder from her face. She was more confused now than ever. Finally, she calmed herself down enough as to reach into the box and pull out the toy-looking pistol from the box. As she inspected it, she noticed that there was no way this could ever fire a bullet. She felt it ever so gently in her hands until she found a seam she could work with. She took out some tools of her own and started to slowly take apart the toy. With each peace off, the more she became convinced that there was no way this could have all these parts stuffed into it. Once fully apart, she looked at a small etching inside the casing where the firing spring would be. Closer she inched to it, trying to make out the scratches. Finally she stopped after being able to decipher what it was; her father�s name. Instantly, the memories exploded back into her mind of that night, seeing everything around her, the small life like puffs of smoke coming from the bodies, the gun and its miraculous shooting.

She looked down to the scratches again as everything slowly started to click inside herself, just as the scratches in the gun started to change. Screech, Sckkk, Ssss. The scratching went on for a moment, but as soon as it was finished, Abigail could read everything much easier now; Abigail Stone. It was the same name that was on the ID! But who was this person! Just as she asked herself these things, puffs of smoke started to shoot out from where the clip would normally be, although now, she could see faces inside the puffs. One after another they shot out and escaped from the house by going through the ceiling or wall. Finally, the last puff shot out, but didn�t escape, instead it slowly morphed, taking a shape. Ever so slowly it started to resemble a human shape. Abigail gasped as before her, now stood her mother, in all the translucent, smokey, demeanor that she could have as something without a body.

�Abigail, I need you to shoot me with that gun, if you do not, I cannot help you, hurry!�

Confused, Abigail looked to the dismantled gun as the apparition of her mother began to slowly dissipitate. Quickly she burrowed down and tried to force the gun together, but the parts wouldn�t fit! More and more her mother�s appearance was fading. In a fit of despair, Abigail grabbed up the still apart frame by the handle and pointed it at the image of her mother, refusing to let her leave again without trying something! In her mind, Abigail screamed for the gun to fire!

Just then, the parts on the table sprang to life and shot towards the gun, putting itself back together, although the look was off from her father gun, this one now had a trigger! Abigail squeezed the trigger and felt a little of herself sting as a bullet erupted out and pierced her mother. The apparition smiled as it turned back into smoke and was pulled back into the pistol. Abigail dropped the pistol out of fear, but she knew deep down what had just happened. In her ear, she could now hear her mother�s voice, talking to her about how her real name is Abigail Stone and how her mother had died fourteen years ago but kept there to help her father. And now, it was her mother�s turn to help Abigail.

Abigail found herself in Stygia, where her mother now stood fully beside her. In front of her was a plate, full of coins. Her mother pushed her forward, motioning for her pocket. As she reached in, she pulled out a heavy coin, made of lead. As her mother instructed, she dropped the coin into the plate. The entire scenery morphed to Abigail as she was transported almost instantly to another place, where a large book now rests before her, a quill to the side with a small jar of ink. A small dip of ink onto the quill and then with a quick slash, she signs something into the book; Abigail Stone.

Abigail then left the town and roamed for a while, before settling in in a Private Eye agency as a temp worker before getting to finally prove herself in the field, becoming a detective herself.
In the age of Facebook, Tinder, and Snapchat, old fashioned PI�s were dying out, even the really good ones. The only reason Abigail was able to stay in this industry is because she was scary good at finding people, and secrets. The matter in the places just seemed to talk to her about the secrets she wanted to hear, as well as she inferred with ghosts to find the information as well. While she was exceptionally good at finding secrets, she was equally good at hiding her own; the secrets of another world, and working desperately to hide them from the mundane sleepers who should happen upon them.

How does this look as a background for a Moros?

Also, for the STs who have ran Mage: How do you describe Mage sight? Each Path is supposed to see weird symbolic stuff, so do you take the time to describe what it's like for each Mage who turns on Mage sight, or do you abstract it and explain the information they're able to glean?

Spector29 fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Feb 15, 2017

# ¿ Feb 15, 2017 19:49

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

hangedman1984 posted:

Are you the GM or a player? I would love to play mage but don't feel confident in my GM'ing abilities to run it.
Also in my group historically we played whatever someone was actually willing to run.

If you want to run the game, you'll find many players online.

Dunno if this is the thread for it, but I'd be down to play as well.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 04:37

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

As someone who finds Changelings interesting enough to maybe include them in a campaign, what books should I pick up or avoid?

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 23:57

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

With my Mage group meeting less and less frequently, I've found the most success in creating ~3 session arcs of, "Hey look at this thing happening."

Right now the Acanthus who just hit Gnosis 3 and Life 4 (I don't understand why either) is leading an investigation into a supernatural plague that's the Infection sub-splat from Hurt Locker.

I've been eyeing what to do next, and Princess: The Hopeful caught my attention. Skimming the books, I think a story about some girls in an LA suburb Blossoming (Awakening as a Magical Girl) and immediately getting in over their heads fighting evil seems like a cool idea to explore.

Anybody have any opinions yay or nay on if this is actually a topic worth the planning hours?

# ¿ Feb 18, 2017 09:03

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

I think i figured out how to run Demon based on reading this thread.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it appropriate to run it like a heist game, with the added caveat that you can't trust anyone because they might be Cultists, Angels or Integrators? That's the current plan.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 11:57

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

spectralent posted:

Well, poo poo, I don't know that

I barely knew Princess existed before the thread mentioned it.

Princess, in my completely unqualified opinion, is a great tool for STs to have around when nothing's going on. I couldn't imagine actually playing it, but statting up an NPC or two or using some of their weird shadow monsters seems perfectly alright.

One of the Twilight Queens (mostly bad guys but playable) has a specific, "What will you do in defense of everything you love?" that I think works really great if you introduce one of her Princesses to a Demon or Guardians of the Veil group, for example.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2017 15:17

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Yawgmoth posted:

I was in a vampire game where a Princess came into town to stop us from being Literally The Worst (we had all independently specialized for getting the most out of diablerie in ways that were hugely synergistic so you can just imagine the kind of vampires they were) and to say that it went poorly for her is a colossal understatement.

Yeesh. I hope she died, because if you let her go she'd probably break down into a kill-frenzy.

That's pretty close to how I ran a Princess encounter: Some Guardians were doing some investigation on Non-Awakened magic and uncovered the story of a Vampire attack on some girls in an alley Blossoming, like, six of them.

The vampires (Ventrue and Daeva) started seducing and corrupting them as the Mages arrived to the situation. Between defending against hostile vampires and deciding on whether to 'sanitize' the new Supernaturals, it became a good kind of mess very quickly.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2017 16:01

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Kurieg posted:

Yuri's Group.

The Yuri Group is a completely different game line.

Fan game line, at that. Something about hope, or somesuch. :v:

Spector29 fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Apr 26, 2017

# ¿ Apr 26, 2017 16:08

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

So, as someone who's pretty familiar with Mage and moderately familiar with both Demon and Vampire, what do you think I should pitch to my friend who just left his oWerewolf game?

Alt Question: What book should I look into next? Changling, Werewoof, Hunter, Mummy?

# ¿ May 5, 2017 22:28

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Spector29 posted:

So, as someone who's pretty familiar with Mage and moderately familiar with both Demon and Vampire, what do you think I should pitch to my friend who just left his oWerewolf game?

Alt Question: What book should I look into next? Changling, Werewoof, Hunter, Mummy?

Rand Brittain posted:

Are we talking WoD, NoD, CoD, or hot bod here?

(This joke is not very good. Ultimately I regret not having more openings to tell people that the CoD acronym is pronounced "Sea of Dirac".)

New world of darkness. I dislike how inconstant the rules are (and in some case hard to find) in the Old World.

# ¿ May 6, 2017 03:04

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

So, can a Fractal become another type of Supernatural? Obviously Awakening and [insert term for becoming a Werewolf] is probably off the table, but what about being kidnapped by a Fae or turned into a Vampire?

# ¿ May 8, 2017 01:59

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Kurieg posted:

Why couldn't a fractal become a werewolf? 2e let's anyone become wolf blooded if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.And you don't have to be wolf blooded to be a werewolf, Luna is a fickle bitch.

*shrug*

I know literally nothing about Werewolf, but something about being Wolf-blooded sounded genetic. Which, as a Fractal, would be complicated at the very least.

# ¿ May 8, 2017 02:28

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Are there any games that were particularly damaged by the shift to 2nd ed?

# ¿ May 10, 2017 23:25

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Speaking of Requiem, can anybody give me a refresher on the Stryx? I remember them being owl-demons that hollowed out Vampire souls or something, and don't have a copy of the book to be able to double check.

# ¿ May 11, 2017 02:52

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

So somebody a while ago posted that they were doing a Magical Academy, and I decided to steal that idea wholesale. Some key notes:

-Everyone has a Family Merit, from 0-3. Determines your pedigree and your expectations.
-The Central Mystery is that the Midwest United States are having what can only be called 'partial' Awakenings. Mages who awaken and don't seem to remember or otherwise have a tenuous grasp on their time in the Supernal, but aren't suffering from the same condition Banishers are. Partial Awakenings seem to be most common in late high school/early college age.
-The Academy [name pending] was set up by the Pentacle to educate these new Awakenings on their new life expected of them, with 'Houses' dedicated to the Diamond Orders (because Harry Potter is popular with this generation and the founders are leveraging that).

Some complications:

-The Free Council contributed, and has a presence in Club Activities and the Student Senate (opposed by the Student Council), but no formal House. This has made some faculty supportive of...subversive behavior.
-Students who have Partial Awakenings seem to draw large amounts of Supernatural Power, and many Students bring the Abyss along in their spells whether they intend to or not.
-The Seers of The Throne are infiltrating The Academy as hard as they loving can. This ranges from subtle tempting and propaganda, to outright enemy agents inserted among the staff and students.

More details will be posted if anyone in interested, but I have a small question:

How do the Faculty deal with the Abyss? Is there a way to purge or otherwise deal with Abyssal nonsense, perhaps with Prime? It would probably be difficult, but there are always more Arrows...

# ¿ Jun 5, 2017 05:54

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Thousand Years of Night seems pretty okay, I'm glad it wasn't just a list of "Disciplines, but MOAR".

# ¿ Jun 25, 2017 01:52

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Since we're wrapping back around to Magechat, I have a question. I'm setting up the BBEG of this campaign (well, one of the three considering it's a good idea to have backup plans when things get derailed) to basically be The Lich King from World of Warcraft. The plot goes:

In the Northern UK around the 1920s, an Abyssal Aberrance opened. It came out swinging, spitting Gulmoth and Acamoth so aggressively that the Pentacle was certain an Annunaki was behind it. They were right; some kids had found a corrupted Grimoire and tried summoning something with it, calling He Who Died And Laughed forward and giving him an opening to try and enforce his version of reality, in which all life is actually a form of undead and are completely subservient to immortal feudal Lich Lords.

Obviously this didn't work out well for the teens involved, but rather than killing them, he branded all five of them with Abyssal Runes that consumed their souls and replaced it with a direct connection to his power. Incidentally this made them Mages, but if the Rune is ever removed they lose their Magic and would probably become Banishers even if they Awakened later on. My question is thus: What powers should I give to the five Death Knights? If an Awakened ever gets Branded, the Rune will morph to consume their soul as well and change them into a Death Knight of the corresponding Path, so should it just be Abyssal Versions of Path Arcana? Is what I'm describing just an Abyssal Legacy?

Death Knights in mind:

Brand "Consumes Choice" - Anti-Acanthus.

Brand "Consumes Resistance" - Anti-Mastigos.

Brand "Consumes Service" - Anti-Moros.

Brand "Consumes Hope" - Anti-Obrimos.

Brand "Consumes Life" - Anti-Thyrus

# ¿ Aug 14, 2017 04:03

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Question about Sympathetic Magic:

The book says that a mage casting a Sympathetic Range spell needs a sympathetic Yantra, as well as a sympathetic bond. That would mean that you could only cast spells on people you had *at least* a casual acquaintanceship with.

The Book posted:

Weak - The two subjects have barely touched one another metaphysically; the subjects of a mage�s spells, or items she has used as Yantras. Casual acquaintances, coworkers, replaceable belongings.

So what's this I hear about knowing somebody's Sympathetic Name being a free pass to nuke them from orbit even if you never seen them before? From what the book says, knowing the Sympathetic name should only stop you from having to pay an extra Withstand penalty.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2017 04:16

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Crasical posted:

Doing the Bon Jovi thing with a crossbow is actually REALLY HARD in the only version of Darkness that I'm familiar with.

2 damage weapon, you get a -3 to hit, and you need to deal 3 successes total to actually get the bolt through the ribcage.

Even if you're an phenomenal marksman (Composure 3, Dexterity 3, Firearms 3, and that combat merit that lets you aim up to Composure+Firearms), you're gonna get 6 dice from aiming, six from having really good combat stats, and spend a Willpower to negate the aiming penalty to end up with a ~75% chance of pulling it off, and that's assuming that the target's not wearing armor and you've got six rounds to line up the shot.

A Vampire Archer who's using Quicken Sight to do all his aiming instantly and has had time to grind their stats up to 5 and put a specialization in Firearms is better off, but I'm still dubious about their chances of being able to nail another vampire and send them into Torpor.

You do still deal damage on a hit, but it feels like those instant death spells in an RPG where it /does/ have a chance to instantly eliminate an enemy but you never rely on them.

That sounds like an interesting thing to steal for my mage game!

How would that work for an Adamantine Arrow in nWod, then? I can't find a stat block for Bows, should I buy Dark Ages for that?

# ¿ Aug 23, 2017 22:49

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

I don't really know anything about the content of first edition Mage books, is there a Legacy out there that specializes in Undeath?

# ¿ Aug 26, 2017 10:30

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

So, as someone who wants to spitball character stuff, I'm noticing a few things missing. (obviously, since the kickstarter isn't even over)

I'm not exactly a scholar on CTL's 1st edition, but did they have rules for restoring the heart of a Huntsman? Because from what I can tell, 1st ed Hunters were always just Fae who didn't put up with Fae poo poo(tm) and hunted runaway changelings to pass the time. Seems like that's someone with no heart to restore.

Is it assumed then that Hunters are getting a rewrite as well, or am I missing something from another book?

# ¿ Nov 26, 2017 05:21

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Mors Rattus posted:

Huntsmen aren't Hunters or the Wyld Hunt. Huntsmen are new.

I keep forgetting that WoD has 'Hunters' as it's own splat, so you can't use Hunter generically without sounding like a dumbass. Thanks, though!

Any speculation on what they are? From the sounds of things they're abducted Mortals who've had their personality replaced with a Fae title. If that were the case, would that make them more or less interesting?

I don't hear about Changeling very often as a Mage player, so I'm genuinely curious.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2017 05:49

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Am I understanding spirits correctly? ( :20bux:

says no)

They exist primarily in the Shadow, in which they run around and eat their Essence, fight other spirits and defend territory. Sometimes, especially if there's an Iris or a Locus, they cross over into Twlight to...do the same thing, but with marginally less spirits over here, and it's easier to hit humans with Numina?

If the rules say that Spirits suffer Essence bleed even if they're in the Shadow, why stay in the shadow at all? The only thing I can think of is that it costs one Essence a day to stay active over in Twilight, but isn't there also much more food over here?

Is the answer Werewolves?

Spector29 fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Nov 28, 2017

# ¿ Nov 28, 2017 15:40

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Gerund posted:

This is severely Not Good unless you want to pull the game back into the Banality Debates again. Science is not some scary boogey man.

Seems like the 'without wonder' part is the linchpin, here.

Although it's not like these things actually remove glamour (yet), such that I can't imagine a random scientist is sucking away Arcadian Magic just by going to his day job. If it were the concerted effort to run soul-crushing and repetitive lab experiments that sucked away the fun-juice, I'd understand.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2017 20:41

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

So, are there spirits for every Noun? Light, Dark, Fire, Ice, Beds, Carpet, Grass, Air?

How is the shadow not oppressively overcrowded? I can reason that thematically related spirits eat each other, so the bed and carpet spirits are actually part of a House spirit, and the grass is likely being digested by some Tree or Nature spirit, but what about the tens of nouns that are unrelated in any given area?

# ¿ Dec 6, 2017 05:59

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

I can't figure out where the rules are in 2nd Ed Mage that specify what, if any, penalty Mages have for including other Arcana in their spells. /Is/ there a penalty?

# ¿ Dec 11, 2017 20:36

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

I've got a mage who wants to set triggered landmines up with nothing but Magic. What does he need in this specific situation, and is there an easier way to do it other than described?

"Basically, I want to use my 4 dot Forces to Thunderbolt (the rote, he intends to just use fire) any fucker who steps on my sticky notes. I've got space to carve Runes onto them, and don't want it to trigger as soon as I finish, so with two dots of Fate I'm casting Hung Spell, targeting my Thunderbolt, and giving Hung Spell the Runes and a Conditional Duration of 'when not-me steps on the rune'."

Does that spell result in a fiery explosion when someone other than the caster stands on the runes? Is there a better way to do it?

# ¿ Dec 19, 2017 01:50

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 04:44

Spector29: Nov 28, 2016

Jhet posted:

Not really that terribly difficult, just use Fate as well. Just exclude the people who are supposed to be there (the mage) and use Prime to turn it into a permanent imbued item and then use your juicy willpower capacity to tie it off and stick it to the floor if you're putting it into a sticky note. I might just put it into the actual floor somehow though.

If it's really that important, something permanent and not a spell you're holding in capacity is the way to go. Or just use a Willpower Point to relinquish it and hope it doesn't go pear shaped when it begins to malfunction.

Or use an alternative relinquishment method that your table comes up with (or crib from 1e Awakening).

I guess I'm firmly in the boat of "you want magic landmines? OKAY" and then having them show up in 6 months when they're about to break down the door to a Banisher's sanctum too.

If you're talking about turning it into an Imbued item for the purposes of reusability, won't the spell be destroyed when the Runes explode? Or does the imbuing serve some additional purpose?

# ¿ Dec 19, 2017 20:20

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