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I Am Just a Box posted:I think that to this day a lot of old hands who were playing tabletop during the oWoD/nWoD changeover still have the same image of the nWoD gamelines, especially the first core three, that they did when those first edition corebooks first released, and that has a lot to do with the impression of nWoD's settings as dull and diluted. The oWoD people were familiar with at the time had evolved and fleshed itself out through multiple supplement lines, crossover hooks, and integrations of that supplement material back into the core rules with Second and Revised Editions. The same has happened for the nWoD over time, but you only get one shot at a first impression, and a lot of folks read the first book of the line, found it wanting, and just assumed the game continued to be that book, but more of it. Mage: the Awakening 1st ed had the same problem: bland and dry first book was a real turnoff and the scant fluff there was pretty mediocre. The mage society, so well expanded in Sanctum and Sigil, looked like a bunch of larpers pretending to be ancient wizards, Paths were described as narrow stereotypes, and the world history was pretty much "Atlantis fell, then the entire society remained stagnant until 1900". It seemed like the game doesn't really know what it wants to be: its focus were "exploring mysteries", but the actual mechanics to do that didn't really exist. I was one of those people who were really convinced that Ascension was better until at least 2012. I never thought I will be able to genuinely say nWoD is better than the old one.
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Sep 24, 2019 10:35
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:one thing that’s always been a bit off putting to me about oWoD AND nWoD is the incredible amount of proper nouns. I know you can’t run a game without naming some basic concepts, but Promethean really struck me as the apotheosis (perhaps Apotheosis?) of this runaway idea: you have a Lineage which has a dominant Humour and Element and grants you Bestowments, and a Refinement which grants you Transmutations according to Role and Alembic, all of which are fueled by Azoth, which can also cause Wastelands, Disquiet, Torment and even Firestorms. In addition to accumulating Azoth to live you try to generate Vitriol to make an Athanor. You must beware of Flux, which leads to Pandorans, separated into different Mockeries and sometimes becoming Sublimati or Praecipati... Werewolf is the worst about proper nouns, because every loving single one of them is in a foreign, made-up tongue (some have English counterparts, which the authors sometimes use). So you have to learn that Uratha are split between Urdaga (the Forsaken) and Anshega (the Pure), that when you enter kuruth you spend some time in basu-im before entering wasu-im, that Hunters in Darkness are also called Meninna and when the text mentions an Iminir, it means a Storm Lord. If you like, you can even learn each Tribe's ban in
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Sep 24, 2019 20:44
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PurpleXVI posted:But what if they eat the chunk of a vampire's mortal existence that, say, includes their Embracing? Does that unvampire the vampire and/or cause any weird causal bullshit to melt down? The problem is that every time someone spots an inconsistency in your Cover, it frays a bit. If it's timeline is obviously borked, it won't stay on you very long. And pray you don't encounter an Acanthus mage, or kill the fucker on sight.
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Sep 27, 2019 21:07
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Freaking Crumbum posted:the godmachine seems like it's a tailor-made antagonist for demons, but the fiction around it also makes it seem like every other group of supernaturals should have some amount of knowledge about it. does the godmachine care about other supernaturals (as much as it "cares" about anything) and they're just an acceptable part of the status quo in chronicles, or are they actually aberrations that need to be expunged from the system, or is the answer just "whatever your ST decides for their specific campaign"? it feels like mages should definitely be all up in the godmachine's business, or that woofs should be real keen on hunting down angels, but everything i've seen re: the fallen makes it sound like only demons know about the godmachine and it is otherwise uninterested in any other kind of supernatural. which is weird, because it feels like the main reason a demon needs cover and can't be a 10 foot biomechanical monstrosity walking down mainstreet is because "oh poo poo the godmachine will see you and send an angel after you" but that same logic seems like it should be applied across chronicles lines, so a woof going warform should be at the same risk (in theory)? Seers of the Throne (the Mage antagonist faction) have a working relationship with the God-Machine, to the point where angels aid them sometimes and they send their pylons to guard the Infrastructure. But I agree that for such an omnipresent entity and the main antagonist of the basic Chronicles of Darkness, it's not tightly integrated with other splats. Even the Mage sourcebook, which describes ghosts and spirits, omits angels completely like they didn't exist. As for other supernaturals, they don't risk the wrath of the God-Machine, because it doesn't give a poo poo about them. It hunts demons, because they are former angels. Not only creating them is pretty expensive, demons have a nasty tendency to purposely destroy Infrastructure, subvert it or steal Aether from it.
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Sep 30, 2019 19:05
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Bieeanshee posted:I'd love to know what the actual lore behind the bugs is, because I remember them mentioned in Earthdawn in passing, they were a loving pushover in Queen Euphoria, and then went on to become Challenging poo poo for your Advanced Runners. They are inhabitants of some other world, which always has a bit more magic than ours. Generally, too much magic is a bad thing, because Horrors – eldritch monstrosities that feed by destruction – need a lot of it to survive. When its level rises, Earth becomes accessible to them. Because invae's world has more magic, they usually pass through, which causes a swarm of insect refugees go where the invaders can't (yet) survive. This is why their appearance is really bad news – it means that even worse poo poo is not that far away.
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Oct 8, 2019 23:16
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While the Fallen World is the glitchy, but functional code that composes our reality and the Supernal World is the operating system that lets it run, the Abyss is pure random, unaddressed data that produces weird and nonsensical results when ran as a code. Theoretically a functional alternate reality can be found there – just as random characters can sometimes produce working code – but the chance is incredibly small. There is another world completely inimical to life: the Lower Depths. It's not anti-reality like the Abyss, it's just a bunch of worlds that lack a crucial quality that we take for granted (i. e. space). What's worse, its denizens tend to consume that particular quality when they encounter it, which makes them as dangerous as denizens of the Abyss.
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Oct 15, 2019 21:54
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As for Abyssal beings, I like the Crossroads the most. It's a circular path, and every time you walk it, it sends you deeper into the Abyss. After the first full circle, people start to disappear and the ones that remain can barely interact with you. After the second one, they disappear completely and the path becomes pretty much a tunnel that unconvincingly mimics the real world. Then changes start – every time you return to the same spot, it looks weirder and more nonsensical. At first the difference is small (the STOP sign spells SPTO instead, the Coke machine distributes drinks that don't exist in the real world), but walk the Crossroads long enough and you'll eventually reach the point where the ground is flowing and the air is made of angry hornets.
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Oct 15, 2019 22:33
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Besides, they don't even fit. The Bale Hounds are your typical "kill puppies for Satan" faction who wants to spread as much suffering and misery as possible. The Abyssal entities don't really want you to suffer, they may even try to help you in their own way. More likely, they are completely indifferent. The Anumerus doesn't really want to kill people by making them accidentally overdose or get them fired by bankrupting the company where they work – it just happens that wherever it appears, you're completely unable to use numbers in a predictable way.
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Oct 16, 2019 09:04
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Rand Brittain posted:But seriously, the Example of Play was probably the most popular part of the book, and people complained vociferously when the third edition turned out not to have one. I think it's honestly way more useful to do it this way, where you play out an entire sample session, than to block out a single exchange of actions like most smaller samples wind up doing. Some of the older White Wolf books did multiple-page comic book sections but I don't think they tended to be very helpful. I like examples of play, because they help to pinpoint what kind of sessions does the system support best.
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Oct 16, 2019 14:33
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Omnicrom posted:Didn't Dragonlance's backstory have a full on repressive fascist empire that was still somehow Lawful Good? AD&D was notoriously bad with its own alignment system. The most egregious example is Duke Rowan Darkwood from Planescape, the leader of the "gently caress you got mine" faction. Aside from causing the Faction War, he notoriously seduced the (16 years old) factol of the Mercykillers, married her and sold them to some fiend slavers after she gave him control over her own faction. His alignment according to his stat block? Chaotic good.
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Nov 18, 2019 09:27
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PurpleXVI posted:Alignment was handled a bit different from game to game in the AD&D franchise, though. In many cases, it was treated as a "these traits and actions are universally good or evil"-thing. If I remember my Planescape right, it was a lot more in the direction of "this is how this character perceives themselves." So it didn't mean that Rowan Darkwood was a good person, it meant that he had convinced himself that he was a good person, whether that means doing right by the rest of the world with tough love, or that all's fair in war, love and business and so he couldn't really be held responsible for causing thousands of deaths and untold suffering. This is also why angels from Mt. Celestia in Planescape are capable of remaining Lawful Good despite committing the occasional atrocity because in their minds "the ends justify the means, I am totally doing this for the long-term goals of universal goodness." The problem with that interpretation is that pretty much everyone, except for fiends, should be good in that case. Why would Lhar, the guy who have overseen a massive soup kitchen expansion, be chaotic neutral? What makes Skall, who wants pretty much the same thing as every single Dustman, neutral evil? The not-factol of the Revolutionary League, one of the most sanctimonious and self-righteous factions, is neutral evil for some reason, even though his stated goal is to free everyone from the faction tyranny. Also, objective measure of good and evil does exists in Planescape – when Harmonium decided to set up
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Nov 18, 2019 12:10
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 Some of you have played Microscope. It’s even reviewed on this thread somewhere. Allow me to introduce its little, less well-known sibling. While the former focuses mostly on world-building, Kingdom is about… well… actually let’s allow the game to tell us that itself. quote:Kingdoms Are All Around Us… The Kingdom’s fate is in our hands. Yup, this is a game about an organization, or at least it claims to be one. In reality, this is a small deception on the part of the author, as we will see soon enough. Creating a new Kingdom The first part of starting a new game is creating the organization that your characters are going to lead. It can be done in 10 minutes, because there is very little mechanics that actually describes it. You start with a concept – any community with a common cause or identity is enough. It should include at least 20-30 people, so the characters have someone to boss around, but beyond that its size doesn’t matter. It can be a stellar empire or a criminal gang. The book gives an example of a concept. quote:Cactus Flats is a frontier town in the Wild West. There are ranchers, rustlers and gunslingers. The Sheriff wears a badge, but law mostly comes from the barrel of a gun. The next thing that needs to be done is to pick three Threats (let each player come up with one). Each is some condition that could destroy the community, or at least seriously threaten its well-being. The players will mostly use them to come up with Crossroads (choices that the community needs to make) and Crises (the special events that happen when enough players decide to gently caress the Kingdom over). The author advises that at least one of them should be an internal one. The example Threats for Cactus Flats are: quote:
The last thing that needs to be done is to come up with Locations, which will give the players ideas where to set their Scenes. Each person should come up with two. As the example shows us, the description doesn’t need to be very detailed. quote:
And… that’s pretty much it. We don’t get an idea if our Kingdom is rich or poor (unless lack of money is one of the Threats), if its army is powerful or not, or even if it’s relatively strong or weak. For a game about people leading an organization, it’s probably the sparsest description of one I have ever seen. That is because the game is the Great Man Theory in the form of a book – its entire focus are characters that lead the community in question. Creating characters The first thing that every player needs to do is to choose a Role. It’s the most important attribute of all and the only one that actually influences the mechanics. That’s why it’s picked before you even have an idea who your character is going to be. Powers are the ones who call the shots. When the Crossroads gets to its resolution, they are the one that actually make a decision what will the community do. They can also decide what actually happens to other characters (aside from killing them) – they can reward and punish them for support. This is purely narrative, though – an imprisoned character is still assumed to have enough clout to use their Role. Perspectives are experts and advisors. They actually decide what consequences a choice is going to have and their predictions by default are assumed to be true. This lets them push the Powers into making the decisions they want. You don’t want the town to pardon the outlaws? Just say that if it happens, they are going to get bolder and take over – and it’s true until someone does anything to remove your prediction or you decide that you no longer want it. Touchstones represent the common people: anything they say is automatically assumed to be the most popular opinion. If they’re tired with the war, everyone is. If they hate the outsiders, everyone does. Pissed off Touchstones can also tick additional Crisis boxes or clear them, so they can either blow the community up or make it content despite everyone else’s effort. It’s assumed that there will be at least one character with each role during the Crossroads resolution. If there aren’t (because someone changed their role, which they totally can do), bad things happen. After picking up the role, you actually decide who your character is. This should be someone that has a stake in the Kingdom survival – even if they can leave, this won’t be painless for them. What’s interesting is that the person’s description doesn’t actually need to correspond to the Role. For example, a King can totally be a Perspective, or a Touchstone – it just means they are a figurehead and someone else wields the actual Power. The next step is choosing two locations your character can be usually found. Again, this is for the benefit of the players creating scenes: if they want to talk to the captain of the guard, it’s helpful to know they can usually be found on the courtyard or the battlements. The next element to be chosen is the Wish or Fear. This is something that the character either really wants to happen, or is afraid it will happen if someone doesn’t stop it. The important thing is that Wish/Fear should be about the community, not anyone’s character. Therefore “I wish to be the king” or “I fear that I’ll be executed” are not valid; “I wish that the country becomes a worker’s paradise” or “I fear that our band of noble outlaws will become common criminals” are both great. This signals other players what issues do you really want to see in the game. The Problem is something that holds your character back in any way. It can be a personal issue, like alcoholism or a chronic disease. It can be a problem with someone else, like a good-for-nothing relative or someone blackmailing you. It can be a bad reputation, being actually terrible at your job, or anything else. To be honest, I’m not sure what it’s supposed to do – perhaps to give other players something to exploit or hold over your head. It seems like something that can be safely omitted; in fact, the update to the rules throws it out entirely (along with the Wish/Fear). The last step of the character creation must be done by all the players together. Each one chooses the bond they have with the character belonging to the person on their left. These bonds can have a bit of antagonism – your character can consider someone else an incompetent fuckup, dislike them for some past misdeeds, or even want to see them go. That’s all about preparing the game. Next time we’ll see how it is actually meant to be played.
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Dec 1, 2019 20:25
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After reading the dialogue with the gully dwarves, I can't stop imagining them as little clones of Baldrick.
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Dec 4, 2019 08:46
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