/tg/ - Traditional Games

>>25720026
>Which books are your "must haves"?

For nWoD, the Core, obviously, and I think the Armory books are very useful. After that, it's "What interests you?" For me, it was Changeling.

>Which supers work the best together if one were to start a game with players as various supers?

Eh, I don't like to mix groups, personally. I feel like it dilutes the themes. Mages are likely to overshadow everyone. I feel like Changelings can fit into most groups because they won't step on any toes, usually. They'll also likely not be as powerful, outside of making oaths.

>Can you be a Mage and a Hunter?

Yes and no. Being a Hunter is a job or a calling, not an alterations of someone's humanity. With some twisting of the plot, you could have a Vampire working for a Hunter conspiracy, sure. But then I think you're back to diluting themes.

>Starting a game as mortals would allow you to "discover, awaken or turn" into most of the core supernaturals right?

That's one way to run things. I prefer the 'in medias res' style, but there's a lot to be said for starting as mortals and falling prey or turning into a supernatural. Prometheans and Mummies are special cases, yeah.

One fun way I heard of running things was having the players be mortal, slowly becoming aware of these things stalking them, only to be killed by some Changelings. Turns out, the 'mortals' were all fetches killed by the PCs, who take over their characters from there on out.

>Whats the hardest part about running a nWoD game in your opinion?

Finding the time.

I run more than I play.
I find the Night Horrors books to be a fantastic line, to the point that I wish they'd come out with one for Promethean and even Geist, despite never playing either.

Obviously the Core is essential, but in regards to running things I prefer Antagonist books (full of npcs or concepts for them, such as the left handed mage book).

You can't be a Mage and a Hunter, but you can be a Mage that hunts down and kills other supernaturals, just as you can be a Hunter who uses witchcraft.

Technically mummies start out as humans, so it's entirely possible to play a mortal one beforehand. It'd just be in a prehistoric Conan-esque world.

The hardest part for me is encapsulating things into an episodic format. I tend to run a lot of plots at once, and I've found my players can get tired of that at times because it doesn't give them time to enjoy defeating BBEG-A because they know BBEG-B and Plot-D are looming just around the corner.

I believe you should use GMC only for groups of experienced role players or friends. As it relies much more on the player/ST working together. Other groups will benefit more from core rules.

>>25721336
Oh yeah, in regards to playing (which I do, just not often) my favorite books are the ones that allow for a lot of variation and toolboxes. The bloodline/lodges books and things like Blood Sorcery for vampires or the book detailing oneiromancy and such for changeling.

On both sides I like players to be able to do a wide variety of things, if their characters put some effort into it.

OP here, I find the lore and the game pretty fascinating and REALLY want to run a game of it. I had ideas coming out the wazoo.

I don't quite have the mechanics down for it which is he biggest thing keeping me from going forward with a game.

I am also the kind of guy who just buys shit tons of books...I already own the core book, Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, Promethean, Changeling, Hunter and Geist. and Just ordered Antagonists and Armory Reloaded used from chapters. Contemplating biting the bullet on shit shipping for Mummy and GMC from drivethru.

Anything happening in your games? We had a break for a couple weeks due to a death within the family of ST, so about to have our first game in a bit.

>>25721609
My players are about to tackle an acamoth and bind it into a fetish providing they manage to get it to accept. They're offering up a small mage cabal that's been fucking up their territory.

What kind of game should I run?

Mortals game where the players want to believe in supernatural and all have their reasons for trying to prove their existence. Maybe eventually become hunters or something. Pretty basic.

or

Post apocalyptic mortals game where they are tasked with leaving the safety of their underground bunker in a 12 Monkeys style nuclear winter game for some reason and while they are on their mission some supernatural "mutant" is trying to hunt them down.


Honestly don't know enough about the various other games to comfortably run one. Especially vampire since a few players are owod vampire fans and Im sure I would not run one to their satisfaction.

>>25722937
Just my own opinion: the first.
There's a Hunter group that is based around proving the existence of supernaturals, they could recruit the mortals once you feel comfortable with the system.

>>25720924
Antagonists is, to me, a must-have book. It's useful in all the genres, not just mortals.

>>25723510

Welp, just found Antagonists, Second Sight and Armory Reloaded for $15 a pop so i got all three.

Thanks for some recommendations /tg/

What's the difference between an evil Mage and a Scelesti? I mean if you're a necromancer and raise ghosts and enslave them and use them to kill your mortal and supernatural enemies and in turn enslave their ghosts, are you a Scelesti? Or do you have to do something specific?

>>25723811
Sure thing man. I've used things in Antagonists to great effect in Forsaken, Requiem and Lost. The zombie creation kit in Antagonists is, by far, one of the best things ever.

Other books I've found useful in general are the Night Horrors books, but particularly the Forsaken one, Wolfsbane, has some more generalized enemies that can be used in any genre.

>>25723842
Scelesti are considered evil because they've chosen to gain power through the Abyss, in essence treating with and gaining power from the thing that is destroying magic and distancing the Supernal from the Fallen. They're generally given a death sentence by Pentacle mages, even if they haven't fallen far enough on the Wisdom train to be considered Mad.

>>25723887
So they just get their magic from some other source, they're not exactly evil (like murderers and such).

>>25723993
'Evil' is entirely relative in the NWoD. It's not like they're 'evil' like Pentex or the Black Spiral Dancers were in Apocalypse in OWoD. As a Sanctified in Requiem, I can look at the Crone and because they're against my ideals I can call them evil, but they may not be. Though they tend to be on the low end of Wisdom and doing things that most other mages consider 'evil'.

Gotta say, I've gotten alot of mileage out of Midnight Roads. From lots of nifty merits for my grease monkey Wizened, to plenty of good story hooks to let loose on my players.

>>25724156
When Midnight Roads came out, I went 'Well, someone's been watching Supernatural'.

>>25724069
Its pretty safe to call the Crone and the Lancea Sanctum evil. The Circle perform sacrifices, sometimes human (an example given of a vampire wedding ceremony was to culminate in draining a little to death) and tortures people because they believe "tribulations are good."

The Lancea Sanctum believe in going out and doing random evil shit... with no real rhyme or reason. You might think that they try to punish evildoers or whatever, but no, not really. They spread sin and corruption (example in LS book, they just cast a greed curse on a church to turn it into a den of evil), kill good and bad alike (example in the GMC nwod LS example: they drive a nun to suicide for no apparent reason), and so on.

Belial's Brood, the Nefandi, and Bale Hounds are definitely for the evulz, and Lancea Sanctum/Circle of the Crone might as well do it because "the evils." They're not even the petty, selfish evil of normal vampires; they go out and hurt and kill with the express purpose of causing suffering (Circle) or making the world a worse place (Sanctified).

The agents of the Wyrm had slightly more depth, because they believed destroying the Weaver would free the Wyrm and let the world become a better place. The LS/CoC don't even believe their actions make God/the Crone happy.

>>25724201
same,
used it as the base for my Supernatural game actually although the hooks are pretty much good for any splat. Anyone know if that Nomads vampire book was any good?

>>25724281
I more meant 'as a Sanctified, I can call a Crone evil, even if individual Acolytes may not be'. One of the longest played Acolytes in my game was Humanity 7, rarely touched Cruac, and was the 'moral compass' of many Acolytes.

So question /tg/.

Would you play in a WoD mortals game based on Scooby Doo?

>>25724302
I have it and it was good. It talked a lot about the ways Kindred travel and how they deal with the wilderness between cities. It's also got some neat NPCs in it (like a Mekhet I ripped off for my Nos/Galloi, who does things like shipping Kindred in boxes around). It's also got some rituals and devotions that are helpful for traveling Kindred.

>>25724317
depend on how based upon it it was

>>25724304
As an individual, you are rarely required to do evil acts, its just those groups are fluffed as doing random evil shit for a poorly defined reason (its not like the Lancea Sanctum believe God likes them or will forgive them, they're still damned). Come to think of it, BSDs, fomori, demons, etc. in owod weren't "forced" to do evil either.

So...

Is anyone interested in playing a game of Werewolf: the Apocalypse? Newb here, but I'd be very interested.

Changeling: The Lost is probably the best book that's come out for NWOD. It doesn't have any terrible non-core books, either, which is rare for any WOD product, n or o/c.

I encourage everyone who ever shows any interest in nWOD to pick it up and give it a go.

(because that increases the number of potential STs for it out there by one, and slightly ups the chances that I might actually get to play it one day. Do I sound bitter that yet ANOTHER fucking game that had gotten up to the 'all the characters accepted by the ST, did some inter-group brainstorming on character relationships, ST promises he's got tons of ideas for the game' stage has fallen into silence and decay with no word from anyone involved? Sorry.)

what kind of vampires would you find in a middle-to-upper class suburban sprawl, near some wilderness?

>>25724365
I've been playing my changeling game for almost two years now.

Perhaps you should bite the bullet and just ST to begin with.

>>25724341
Yeah; evil is, as I said, relative. The overall 'goals' of the Sanctified and Acolytes are 'evil' to outsiders, but again, not to them. 'Evil things' done for the sake of an ideology, is the specific thing of both of those Covenants.

>>25724365
Changeling is great. I love the fact that it was so good, and so well-received that it got extra books added to its limited line.

>>25724370
In NWoD, any of the Clans. I can think of reasons for all of the Clans to be there, ranging from Gangrel urban stalkers to Ventrue middle-management types.

>>25724370

Gangrel, probably. They are more in touch with the beast and living near the wilderness is generally a sign of wealth, not poverty, at least in our modern world.

>>25724396
True, but you were comparing them to the wyrmspawn and such of owod, and it was exactly the same for them: evil for the sake of some weird ideology.

>>25724348
What's your timezone?

>>25724443
True that. I should've tried to come up with a better example.

>>25724457

EST (GMT -5), but my work schedule is a bit weird.

>>25724337

Upon it? You mean like, the actual Scooby doo show? Cause I was thinking of just following a similar premise. IE: teens go exploring and uncover weird ass mysteries.

>>25724476
I'm the guy who was asking about the Scelesti.
While I'm aware that evil is relative and 'not a thing,' generally there are some things everyone on /tg/ would probably be willing to classify as evil (killing of children for sexual pleasure, for instance).

I was trying to get a handle on whether or not the Scelesti were evil because they dealt with the Abyss and that led to them killing children for sexual pleasure. And thus any Mage who killed children for sexual pleasure would be labeled a Scelesti.
Or if Mages just considered Scelesti a particular kind of evil cause they don't like people dealing with the Abyss.

And you did give me the answer (it's cause they don't like the Abyss).

Essentially I'm making a Wound, and I want a Mage (a couple of mages) to live in the area, propagating it. But I looked through the various Scelesti traditions and none of them seemed to fit the mood, though some of the non-Left Hand paths did.

>>25724540
Yeah, I've run and played games like that. I thought you were talking about kids finding 'supernatural' events but revealing them to be totally mundane except for their talking dog.

>>25724365

I'm going to say that both Changeling and Promethean had absolutely flawless lines. There is not a single bad book in those, and their lows are not nearly as low as some other lines I could mention.

>>25724540
Our longest tabletop mortals game started out similar. Five college students who got swept up into the supernatural (our ST ran our first storyline as going through the haunted tree story from the Ghost Stories book, then built from there).

>>25724607
Yeah; Scelesti are specifically hated by Awakened society for dealing with the Abyss. I could see a low-Wisdom, highly corrupted Thyrsus master of Spirit keeping a Wound open to maintain their spiritual power base.

>>25724613
Apparently the guy running WoD agrees with you. He apparently didn't like that they had to make a lot of concessions in regards to the books in order to keep on schedule with bookstores (else be penalized).

>>25724656
I didn't want them to be aware it was a Wound. Or at least not be invested in Spirit to do much about it. It's a werewolf game.

>>25724613
Well, I was kind of underselling it, but yes, I'd say the same about Changeling. I really haven't read enough of Promethean to speak on it, but I certainly can't recall reading anything not good there.

I'd go so far as to call Changeling (the Lost) my favorite WOD game ever. And I've liked a lot of them.

>>25724672
Hmm. Perhaps one of the Mages has been hti by the Influence of some spirit in the Wound, the Influence allowing it a measure of urging or control over the Awakened, which is pushing his/her cabal into doing things that maintain the Wound's status without a specific spiritual investment? They could be the only cabal in the immediate area, and the Consilium busy with other matters, so noone can really come investigate the small, somewhat antisocial, cabal. If they would even bother to do so.

>>25724723
Yeah that's doable.
do Cabals live together? I figured they were like...idunno, other folks, they had their own home and occasionally meet up at some special holy place? I figured two lived in the place (old ex-plantation house) and the others in their cabal weren't really fully aware on what they were up to. And one was about to betray the other (which would fit in with the wound's influence) for power.

>>25724607
Scelesti are hated amongst mages because their choice of masters is utterly insane.

Pentacle mages fight for the oracles who wanted magic to be for everyone (stupid idea)

Seers of the Throne fight for the Exarchs who think magic should only be for the worthy.

And the Scelesti fight for the chasm in between the the supernal and the fallen. Thinking it some new well of knowledge and power.

Scelesti aren't all baby murderers. The Key to the Supernal Tarot gives a pretty damn example of a reasonable scelesti. It's just that they're always something 'broken' in them.

>>25724672

I think it's proof that there's something to the limited line. The supplement treadmill, while a time honored tradition, tends to lead to diminishing returns, and tends to answer a lot of questions no one really had. I'd rather have only a few books with extreme quality out with possibly more books due to demand than subpar books out every month or so.

Orpheus is further proof. That is also a really good line, though I wouldn't necessarily call it flawless like I would Changeling and Promethean.

>>25724798
It depends on the mages in question. I played a Thyrsus that lived with his combat apprentice, an Obrimos, but the rest of our cabal lived in their own apartments elsewhere in the city. Two living there and the betrayal sounds good though.

>>25724798
>Do Cabals live together?

Sometimes, but not often. They mostly just have a sanctum space and a hollow that they share.

The file right here is my absolute favorite thing in nWoD. Both to play and to use as npcs.

>>25724859
I really liked reading the Purified and Blood Bathers from that book.

Also now that I think about it, that OP is all wrong. It needs the right Mummy skull. I don't care if you hate the game, look at this sweet Mummy skull. Goddamn, what a Mummy skull.

>>25724953
i think it's missing the promethean skull, too

>>25724866
I really liked the Body Thieves, though admittedly they are a bit harder to use.

Of course being able to outright fucking steal powers gives Body Thieves a pretty potent tool for humbling any supernatural who forgets that preparation is king.

Don't think I've ever come into one of these threads before, but I'm currently working on a hack of World of Darkness using ORE.

Would anyone like to see the PDF's I've made thus far?

>>25725094
well, it's just one power

>>25725101
Sure

>>25724281
>Nefandi

Nefandi's just an insult the Pentacle mages use for anyone not part of the orders, hell back in the day they used to call the Free Council Nefandi. Still do in some places.

>>25725416
Bah, the Pentacle. Dirty oracle worshiping scum...

Can't they see the Exarch's have already won, It's because we keep everything in order that they just don't destroy the fallen.

>>25725465
Big talk coming from someone who went begging to the Watchtowers for a teensy bit of power. Talked to the Exarchs recently? Oh yeah they got fed up with you morons when you decided that stabbing each other was better than doing your stupid god's will.

>>25725496
Hey guys, Aswadim here. We won.

>>25725496
Can we not argue, guys? I mean, come on, it's not like there are VAMPIRES out there, right?

>>25725532
>scared of someone who sleeps half the day and is afraid to go out in the sun

>>25725532
Ha, could you imagine if vampires were real? They'd probably be smarter than us, and handsomer than us, and they'd get to fuck this really hot half-owl chick

>>25725532
Bam, I just used life and death magic to make your flesh incredibly sensitive to UV rays, change your diet to entirely hemocentric (along with fitting vampire bat fangs) and you're body is technically no longer living.

>>25725595
I know right? Or werewolves! It's a good thing there's no real supernatural monsters out there! Right guys?!

>>25725518
What's that! Sorry I can't hear you over the sound of you being erased from history! Should have stuck to the Pax Arcana punk!

>>25725200
One power that the supernatural in question no longer has.
One power that makes it hellishly difficult to pin down exactly what kind of supernatural he is.
One power that could be vitally important, like say a mages magic armor spell.

One power can go a long way anon.

>>25725218

This is what I got down for Kindred.

>>25725681
Didn't you guys erase your own homeland from history?

>>25725742
We've erased a lot of people's homelands. Don't question archmages

>>25725791
See it's that attitude that makes it so easy to offer your souls up to the faceless angels. Well, that and the ability to completely nullify your witchcraft.

>>25725741

And here's the Shifter

>>25725681
It's okay, we'll be back. We always come back.
It's like an 11th Exarch or something is on our side.

>>25725840
Faceless angels? That sounds like demons to me! Have you been fucking my dad behind my back?

>>25723811
I'd also suggest Slashers and Immortals. So many games I hooked off of something in those books. I'm still pulling game ideas from them.

>>25724365
I could run a changeling game. Did that for about a year straight, every week. I've had really...REALLY bad experience with online gaming though.

>>25725741
I like this. Surprised we have such enterprising people here, no offense.

>>25726079
We all have, anon.

Even those of us who prefer it to in-person gaming.

>>25726154
Every time I tried it's fallen apart or I had to excuse myself because of all the yiffing.

Back in the Google Wave days I tried to start a Changeling game. Got mostly through the first "game" before everyone must have had heart attacks and died. Didn't even get through my first one-on-one with the ST of a Hunter game before he disappeared. Tried to play some pbp games and actually got pretty far into the "first" game before the ST disappeared and the yiffing got to severe. Was in the organization. character development step of a Mage game but someone wanted to be a catboi and yiff as much as possible so I never went back. It's...not pleasant.

>>25726296
you guys don't have a single friend also interested in world of darkness?

>>25726296
It's an unfortunate side effect of, well, being on the internet.

If you don't show up somewhere in real life when people are expecting you, they'll probably track you down and ask what's up sooner or later. If you don't show up online...what's going to happen? It's so much easier to flake.

And, of course, there's a lowered level of inhibition for many people, so they'll try and squeeze in concepts they know would never fly in a face to face game.

All I can says is that many of us are decent folks that really want to game and are the ones that show up on time, just like you probably think of yourself that way. The only trick is arranging a group made up entirely of those people, rather than the problem cases...and it's a tough trick to pull off. Sadly.

I've managed to have numerous very tightly knit and excellent groups of people in the past decade+ of online gaming, RL has just been hitting me with one crisis after another, so I've not had time to dedicate to a game (and thus haven't been gaming), and that changeling game was my first attempt to get back into it in the past three years or so. Felt bad to have it fall apart like that.

>>25726381
I have friends that play. But I had a hole in my gaming schedule and personal schedule I couldn't fill by in-person gaming. So I went to the web.

If I want to play nWoD in person, I'm saddled with running it, and sometimes I'd like to roll some dice on the other side of the table.

>>25726433
Your friends probably have internet access too, though.

And you can always just roll in real life, providing your friend trusts you or you him.

>>25724953
I love Mummy bro, you are not alone.

We stand together...for all time at our judges will.

>>25726503
>And you can always just roll in real life, providing your friend trusts you or you him.
Don't really get what you're trying to say here. If nWoD was going to be played by our group, I was the one running it. No one else would. Oh, they loved playing it, but no one wanted to do the work to run a game. So, so I could play a PC, I had to find something online.

Thankfully our group expanded recently and someone Not-me is now running a Vampire:tReq game

>>25726124

Thanks Anon! I aim to please.

>>25726615

I honestly really, really like Mummy. I like that it's a different approach to the WoD, and it has some of the best antagonists I've seen. Whipping up a quick Ahmkat is just so...enjoyable compared to trying to make a WoD antagonist and making sure it's viable for combat.

>>25720026
>Which books are your "must haves"?
Base. Changeling. Promethean. Immortals. Armory/Armory Reloaded. Slashers. Hunter. Vampire.


>Which supers work the best together if one were to start a game with players as various supers?

Mages can work with generally anyone, as long as they don't take dots in a Sphere that infringes on another splats "thing." Mages with Fate sphere and Changelings aren't really going to go well together. Mages with Death and Sin-Eaters aren't going to work well together. Sin-Eaters with a Fate Mage? Go for it. Changeling is also always a good splat to have around. Vampire and Werewolf work well since they're both at about the same level. Werewolf and Promethean....kind of work together but you better hope there's a Mind Mage to help prevent the wolf from frenzy. Hunters are...meh with others. They only really work well with other Hunters.

>Can you be a Mage and a Hunter? and gain the benefits from both. Or does hunter have the same "you can only have one of these templates" stipulations the rest seem to have?

If you have supernatural benefits from being a Hunter (Castigation. Benedictions, etc) you lose them the moment the Mage template is laid on the character. I had some Hunters turn Mages. Their Status(Mallus Mallificarum) and yada yada turned into Contacts or Allies merit instead to reflect they're loss of membership. They can keep everything else, but now they have to be extra careful when popping back up in those circles or they may get jumped.


>Starting a game as mortals would allow you to "discover, awaken or turn" into most of the core supernaturals right? I'm guess Promethean and Mummy being exceptions as I can't see you NOT knowing your one already.

Correct. As mentioned, played a game with Hunters to introduce the nWoD system and different supernatural splats. As someone mentioned, if they decided to go Changeling it turns out they were Fetchs this whole time, etc.

Continued...

>>25720026
>Whats the hardest part about running a nWoD game in your opinion?

Players not paying attention. I had an entire game where the players were freaking out and trying to figure out how to get in contact with a local changeling court. They completely forgot the fact the Changeling that approached them GAVE THEM a contact number to call if they needed them.

Also, lack of activity. When I run nWoD I'm CONSTANTLY throwing out hooks and links all over the place. One successful wits+(something) roll and the player has a huge storyline to pursue. If you're not rolling to track shit down, and just sitting at your home drinking beer watching the game waiting for the...fuck...Prince of Hometown, USA to knock on your door to engage you in a duel, you're gunna have a bad time.

>Now for controversy, core or GMC rules?

BWHAHAHAHAHAaa...Core. Fuck GMC

bump

Would Space 4 and Life 4 allow a mage to pretty much become intangible?

>>25727085
GMC's xp rules are better than core.

>>25727596
No.
Death 4 would, though.

>>25727688
>GMC's xp rules are better than core.
What? No. Gaining a single fucking XP and trying to keep book keeping on fucking "beats" is not superior to players receiving 3-6 xp a game. Like everything else I've seen from GMC onward, they've made shit even more complicated and time consuming in an attempt to make it "better" but keep fucking with shit that doesn't need any change.

>>25727694
>Death 4 would, though.
Why Death? He's not targeting a dead person. Unless you're thinking of phasing the Mage into Twilight. Which Spirit or Death could do. But they'd still need to use Life to target the Mage....I think.

>>25727880
Keeping track of beats is easy.
He was probably referring to the fact that things don't rise in price as they get higher and there's just a flat fee for increases across the board.

>>25727899
>targeting a dead person
>use life to target the Mage
What? Intangible means they have no physical presence, they are not physically there. Neither Space or Life can do that. Life can make you physically more durable, but you're always going to be there. Space can make you teleport away or block things from approaching, but you're still entirely tangible.

Death 4 would allow you to shift into Twilight, making you immune to physical attacks and intangible. You could be attacked in the Twilight or by beings that can harm Twilight beings, but that's a risk.

>>25727975
...I was largely referring to the flat rules, yes.

The beat rules aren't bad. But I can certainly see how they could be a pain for STs not used to them.

>>25727975
>He was probably referring to the fact that things don't rise in price as they get higher and there's just a flat fee for increases across the board.

I've heard that, but I figured it was too stupid to be true. Of course things should get harder the higher you try to buy them. Why would you want it to be dirt simple to buy Blood Potency 10 for a handful of XP?

>Death 4 would allow you to shift into Twilight, making you immune to physical attacks and intangible. You could be attacked in the Twilight or by beings that can harm Twilight beings, but that's a risk.

Ah. Ok. Space is out then. Wouldn't it be a combo of Death and Life then? Death to cross into Twilight and Life to target a living being?

>>25728065
>life to target a living being
Your first question was this:
>Would Space 4 and Life 4 allow a mage to pretty much become intangible?
Are you now talking about a Mage turning someone ELSE intangible? Because they don't need any more than Death 4 to send themselves into Twilight.

I'm sure it's possible with Spirit but I haven't checked so I'm just going to keep using Death. Though I don't believe you'd need Life for that either.

>>25727975

You would need to use Life. Just like how you use Life and Forces to make yourself walking flames or Matter to turn yourself into Titanium. In the case of space you'd be using Life to effect the living body of the Mage and use space to disconnect it from the space it occupies.

>>25727975
I'm thinking by the fact he mentioned space, he's thinking more of a phase shift type deal, which is already semi possible with space 4.

>>25728096
>Are you now talking about a Mage turning someone ELSE intangible? Because they don't need any more than Death 4 to send themselves into Twilight
Ah. For some reason I thought that you needed Life to manipulate a target that's living no matter who it is. Thought it was needed for the caster as well as a target. It's been a little bit since I've read Mage.

>>25728991
If you wanted a more complicated ability there would be ways to do it with Space, but you wouldn't really be intangible.
There's a way to send a decoy of yourself, and you can set things so that you teleport away when someone approaches you, but intangibility would require more.

>>25727880

It's the exact same gain rate as before, just without the fucking stupid exponential system. There is no reason to use the old XP system at all unless you like big numbers and hate rewarding players for actually playing. Say what you will about anything else, but the old XP system was bad and needed to be changed.

>tfw a WOD thread turns into a mage thread

>>25729128
oh come on there was one mage conversation

>>25729087
>Say what you will about anything else, but the old XP system was bad and needed to be changed.

I and everyone else I've ever played with or spoken with about the game never thought the rising XP cost was a problem. It made sense that things get harder to improve the higher you make them. That way you don't get monkey-tarded munchkin bullshit at the table. Well. Less of it.


>It's the exact same gain rate as before, just without the fucking stupid exponential system.

Oh. The exact same, huh? Then why the fuck even have the Beats system in the first place. Again. They've set out, in their minds to make nWoD 'totally not suck.' and introduced unnessessary fiddly bits and pants on head retarded book keeping for NO REASON! Fine. You don't like developing your character and power gaming like a mofo? Enjoy that flat XP cost. By why the fuck introduce a secondary system of xp gain in which you have to cash in chits to Xp, carry the one, and bingo you have some XP, ffs

>>25729193

It's never just one! Soon someone's gonna bring up the Exarchs and the Technocrats and we'll all be talking Mage till the end of the Ascension War.

>>25729256
Well would you mind responding to this one, then? >>25724370
My werewolf players are entirely unaware of the vampiric presence in town, but they're starting to make a lot of waves as they push the Pure out.

So what should I have? I mean it's not that populous an area but it's got some wealth and mystic areas (I don't want to say it's Silent Hill, but it's pretty much -next- to Not-Silent Hill) I do want a decent sized court.

I've never run Vampire, and I have a hard time imagining any court ruling an area without a Ventrue Invictus ruler. But I'd like some Circle of the Crone and Ordo Dracul and maybe even some Carthans. But no idea what that'd be like from an outsider's point of view. What do those guys even do if they're 'in power'?

Thoguhts on God-Machine? I just got that bad-boy and I'm dying to run a campaign.

>>25729380
I only have the rules update. Is it good?

>>25729241
>I and everyone else I've ever played with or spoken with about the game never thought the rising XP cost was a problem. It made sense that things get harder to improve the higher you make them. That way you don't get monkey-tarded munchkin bullshit at the table. Well. Less of it.

Well, for one thing, you can actually start out as a somewhat average person with low dots in a variety of skills, and be able to improve yourself into a competent and even highly skilled person in your chosen area of expertise, rather than only being able to start out a monkey-tard munchkin, as much of the community believes is the only optimal path now.

There was no way to do the former within the usual length of a campaign before, now it's possible. Which means STs can actually discourage the starting chargen monkey-tard munchkinism and make people make actually balanced and reasonable characters.

And, y'know, you could actually flesh out a character by choosing non-perfectly-optimal skills or magical abilities that fit your character rather than just focusing on making your starting already-optimized areas even more optimized, because you couldn't spare the xp for anything else.

>>25729241

Oh wonderful, I'm glad your anecdotal evidence works so well for you. But let's look at it this way:

Is it really getting harder? In the old XP system, all XP gain came down to GM fiat. Not a big deal, right? Except since the amount is determined by GM fiat alone. XP in core boils down to being a good attendance award. No matter how well you do, everyone is just going to get only one extra if you follow the rules.

Beats change this. Now the player gets rewarded for their good and bad rolls, and gets to make interesting choices to gain XP. And since the XP is a direct conversion ratio, the XP rate is the same with less book keeping.

I hate to break this to you, but when a game is nearing a decade in age, it needs to change. It needs to keep up with what we are learning about gaming. It's not about making it "not suck", it's about keeping it fresh and flavorful in a changing gaming ecosystem. These changes needed to happen. The execution isn't perfect, but this is only a good thing.

>>25720026
Mortal>Hunter>Vampire>Changeling>Geist>Mage>Werewolf>Mummy>>>>>>>>>>Promethean

>>25729419

I finished a campaign using one of the tracks and it was amazing. There's some great fluff and adventures in there. Time and Space might be the best camaign track, and Urban Wanderings is the coolest adventure.

>>25729435
>And, y'know, you could actually flesh out a character by choosing non-perfectly-optimal skills or magical abilities that fit your character rather than just focusing on making your starting already-optimized areas even more optimized, because you couldn't spare the xp for anything else.
yeaaah. We never had this problem. And I don't see how making costs flat doesn't cause people to be way too good or way too powerful in everything. Or something that makes zero sense. The nice thing about specialization is that it gives a good reason for the party to be together. The same way Mages piss in a cross-splat game cheerios because they do everything and better than the other splats, why would anyone want to play in a game where everyone is awesome at everything. In the Vampire game I'm in right now, I'm a bruiser. I'm going to be buying into Int skills because there's a bit of a gap in the group, and it makes sense for the character to get a bit better with the book learning. Rather than be awesome at everything 2 games in because everything is cheap as shit.

Yes. I COULD get that extra power...but the in-game benefits aren't near as good as being better skilled in something else. And I have to make that choice and weight those pros and cons. Rather than fling my XP-Poo at the wall and take everything it sticks to.

I, at least, rarely sink more XP into something I'm already brilliant at. That's stupid. I'm already really good at punching people. Being even better at punching people is less valuable than being able to track someone through a city so I can *then* punch him.

>>25729321

The Ordo in power would have full right to experiment on themselves and other Kindred. The Crone in power would have everyone pay tribute to the Crone in some way. Not forced conversion, but enough support to continue their rituals in comfort. Carthians in power depend on their political worldview. It will be a Domain sized version of that.

For your setting, I'd say a mix of Invictus, Lancea et Sanctum, and a dash of Ordo would be most appropriate, with Crones and Carthians seething at the sidelines. Standard vampire set up? Yeah. That's where the details of your city come in. Let that guide your decisions on the proportions.

>>25729480
>Beats change this. Now the player gets rewarded for their good and bad rolls, and gets to make interesting choices to gain XP. And since the XP is a direct conversion ratio, the XP rate is the same with less book keeping.
This sounds really stupid. Less book keeping? Are you fucking serious? And yes. Having an attendance incentive is a good thing since it's so fucking hard to get people to show up in the first place. The Beats system, again, is a fiddly, pain in the ass from where I'm sitting. And since it all boils down to "THE XP SYSTEM IS SAME HEHE" there's fuck-all reason to implement it.

>>25729649

Good for you and your group. This is not how most play happens, however. When a jack of all trades is actively punished by the Core XP system, something is wrong.

>>25729419
>I only have the rules update. Is it good?
Nope

>>25729721
>When a jack of all trades is actively punished by the Core XP system
yeah. We don't have that problem.

>>25729721
Don't even have to be a jack of all trades.

Just...like...a relatively normal person. Which is supposed to be what the majority of folks are before they get sucked into the WOD. Minmaxed characters are often bizarrely incompetent in basic areas of life.

>>25729771
>Minmaxed characters are often bizarrely incompetent in basic areas of life.
If you read the skill description you'd see basic areas of life aren't rolled. You are assumed to succeed them without penalty. The example is the Drive skill. Navigating traffic and going to and from work? Sure. No problem. High speed chase with gunfire whipping by your head? Roll Dex+Drive+etc

>>25729715

And where you are sitting is wrong. Basing XP on attendance alone is a horrible way to encourage player involvement! Players should be rewarded for what they DO, not just being there! Dungeons and Dragons knows this. XP is given out by monsters slayed, by gold stolen. Call of Cthulhu knows this, you decide your skill roll will be the one to increase it.

Why must WoD, a more modern game than either of those, have an XP system based in passive gain?

As for fiddlyness, it simply isn't in play. The player can be trusted to keep track of their beats and their XP. The system in which Beats originated, Apocalypse World, has no problems with this in active play.

It seems that you are too busy playing the imaginary GMC in your mind than actually taking iron an examining its merits and faults in actual play.

>>25729721
You don't know how most play happens.

>>25729664
thanks
I was hoping to avoid the invictus and lancea sanctum, but I guess they really are large and in charge for a reason

>>25729756

Yes you do. It is baked into the math of the system. A normal started character spends more overall XP to even get to the level of someone who decided to take three dots of a skill from the get go. This is not good game design.

You are letting your own biases get in the way of understanding the faults of the system. It is broken. It needed to be fixed. Your willfully dense nature won't make this go away.

>>25729909
>Basing XP on attendance alone is a horrible way to encourage player involvement!
I didn't say I do it by attendance alone. I have a base for showing up. I then increase increments by how much involvement in the game the players are. I've had as much as a 3 point swing from one player to the other at the table.

>It seems that you are too busy playing the imaginary GMC in your mind than actually taking iron an examining its merits and faults in actual play.

Yeah. I can't find anyone stupid enough to actually run this shit show. So I have to compare and contrast things in my headspace.

>>25730001
>Yes you do. It is baked into the math of the system. A normal started character spends more overall XP to even get to the level of someone who decided to take three dots of a skill from the get go. This is not good game design.

I don't see how that's a problem. If the character isn't good in that single facet, means his concentrations were elsewhere and he's good at something the other character isn't. I don't see a problem with this

You guys know that neither is going to admit they're wrong, right?

>>25729933

It's sort of baked into their fluff. They have the widest appeal and spring from the most basic impulses of Kindred.

>>25730066
Oh. I'll admit that regular nWoD had some issues. Fighting Styles were a big win button and cheap. My issue is they sat down to "correct" some really minor things and just fucked the chicken out the window. And now there's so much unnecessary fiddly bits and bullshit thrown at it, it causes more problems than it "solves"

>>25730001
The problem with your example is it implies only one method of growth or advancement.

With core rules, yes, Player A with 5 STR at chargen is going to have more exp if Player B with 3 tries to catch up to him. But there's no reason to believe he will. Perhaps Player B is fine with his stats, and only wants to focus on disciplines, or merits, or skills or rituals.

>>25730105
>fucked the chicken out the window
>so much unnecessary fiddly bits and bullshit
See you clearly don't like GMC, we all know this because you've posted before. But the simple fact is and always has been that not only do you not have to use the rules, but the rules do not change much.

Yes, all future books will be published with them in mind. No, they do not require you to download GMC or even read it. Dice pools are the same, willpower still exists, the only thing that would be likely to fuck you up is if you planned on using an SAS.

>>25730027

Then you have no merit in this discussion. You don't know how the game is played, you don't know how good games are made or how gaming changes, and I sincerely doubt you even wanted to give the game a chance in the first place. You don't even bother to learn. What a shame you are.

>>25730066

Oh, I know. It's the same idiot everytime. I just want them to know that they're making an ass of themselves. Someone might take them seriously if I don't!

Printed rules are only one half of the story to any game. Until the dice hit the table, the game does not exist. White rooms and headspaces are great and needed for making a game, but if you never play it, you can't make the right judgement call.

To judge a work of media, you must experience the work of media. Nothing else matters. Until then, you cannot trust a person's word.

>>25730270
>Then you have no merit in this discussion. You don't know how the game is played, you don't know how good games are made or how gaming changes, and I sincerely doubt you even wanted to give the game a chance in the first place.

You're incorrect all over yourself. I have a merit in this discussion because I'm a consumer of the product. And thus, I have feedback and concerns. I know how the game is played. I can read a rule book with the best of 'em. I paid good money for GMC. Read the whole thing and was sad for what I had seen. I've been playing tabletop RPGs for more than a decade. I've seen new games rise and fall, and games change. There were some things that needed tweaking on nWoD, but not this severe monstrosity. I was excited when I heard they were cleaning the rules up. Hoping for the problems to be resolved. But when I read it, I didn't see anything fixed and more stuff broken. It's a shame. They had a chance to make something better, but instead made something worse. I'm not sure what you wanted me to learn that I can't from reading the entire fucking GMC. But whatever. It's just one more system I've learned to run/play. I can mark it off of the other several I've been through.

As a longtime tabletop player, a longtime nWoD player, GMC is just bad. There's a few things I kind of like. But over all, the system is a mess. And it frustrates me a system I've grown to enjoy so much is so mangled by people trying to "help."

Stop having such severe bias as you claim I do, and realize that GMC just traded one system with some problems for another system with just as many problems (or maybe more).

Hey. Hey, who wants into a vampire game, irc based, 4pm PST on Saturdays? Emails in the field. Could use one or two players.

Anyone else fucking stoked for Demon: the Descent?
I'm not a fan of using the GMC in my games, or specifically, the god-machine itself, but Demon really got me interested in introducing angels in my chronicles.
Any ideas on the release date?

What's the verdict on Dudes of Legend?

>>25734363
I think I prefer the old Demon, though I don't like the Christian BS

>>25730872
Actually if you're not using the product you are not a consumer.

>>25729502
0/10, see me after class.

>>25730872
Actually he is correct.
Since you do not use the product, you are not a consumer. If you paid money for it and don't plan on using it you're just a sucker. And since you don't play the game, you don't have any valid feedback, as reading a rulebook is much different from actually using it in play.

And as people have pointed out before, your entire criticism has no basis in reality or anything other than your own personal opinion.

In the end, whether that is your intent or not, you serve only to troll otherwise good World of Darkness threads by derailing them into a useless argument that only serves to state, over and over again, that 'You do not like the rules in the book you don't play and you think everything is shit, stupid, retarded, and various other profanities.' We get it. You do not like it. You need to understand that other people do, and move on.

>>25734363
Nope, fucking loathe it. I hope that line dies with even less supplements than the oWoD version that actually entertained me received.

>>25735861
He's clearly stated that he's played WoD and I don't consider the fact that he can't find anyone willing to step into the massive pile of dogshit which is GMC as an argument against his complaints.

Now I remember why these threads devolve into nothing more than Mage fapfests.

>>25736728
These threads basically turn into Mage fapfests (and even more than that, Mage arguments about which Arcana are better) or GMC arguments, yeah.

>>25736728
>He's clearly stated that he's played WoD
He's also clearly stated, several times this week that he has never played GMC.

And if you're going to complain about GMC arguments perhaps you should stop egging them on.

>>25736728
Wow man, calm down.

Your opinion and experience does not make everyone else's opinions and experiences invalid. Your opinion of GMC is valid for you; there are those of us who have played it and have found everything to generally be an improvement. Our game, we've found that beats add a lot to our players being more involved in the narrative and willing to fail at times to be able to advance the story in a unique way (and get rewarded too). The only complaint we've had is the adding Athletics to Defense, but other than that we've found everything cool.

So stop being so butthurt about someone having a different opinion than you. THAT is what causes threads to devolve worse than D&D edition wars.

>>25736741
Mages being best? ha.
>>25724859

>>25736831
Who gets that?

>>25736867
The Purified, look in the pdf at:
>>25724859

>>25736867
It's a Purified power, a type of Immortal from the book of the same name. They essentially are humans who turned their souls into a spirit; if their body dies they go back to their sanctum and regenerate it, and get some pretty neat powers.

>>25736882
Considering how vulnerable their minds apparently are, they're pretty vulnerable to being ganked by Mages.

I'm a little disappointed, even as a Mage fan.

>>25720026
Geist Good. All else can fuck the fucking fuck off. Y'all a bunch a cunts.

>>25737042
Hence why their usual gameplan is 'avoid mages like the plague'.
I figure most would use spirit intermediary's, dead drops, time spent chilling in the shadow sanctum to let interest and such die down. That and the background that lets you hide from the world, starts with an O, I forget the name.
I really wish they were a full splat, chi going to 10, siddhi going 1 to 5 instead of just 1 to 3, things like that. But it'll never happen outside of homebrew.

Mages make surprisingly good addition sto Werewolf packs, but the right mage can be the equivalent of a Werewolf nuke. Nothing says "Fuck you" like a Werewolf pack appearing in your bedroom.

The right Possessed build can be someone who can fling aggravated damage fire ALL DAY LONG.

>>25730060
> means his concentrations were elsewhere and he's good at something the other character isn't.
No it doesn't.

Consider two players. Player A decides to start off with Intelligence 4, Wits 3, Resolve 1. Player B decides to be more even and he takes Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Resolve 2. They then play the game for a while and advance their characters. After 10 xp Player A has caught up to Player B in Resolve, but still has higher Int. For player B to catch up to player A he needs 20xp.

>>25738096
see
>>25730143

>>25737042
>>25737105
They can create wards vs magic, which alone means they have less to fear from mages, than mages.

>>25737119
>dealing with problems that take aggravated damage
oh I remember when I was pleb too

>>25738136
That doesn't change anything. Sure, player B could spend 10 xp on something else, but player A will still always be ahead.

The fact that Player B MIGHT not want to be similar to Player A doesn't change the fact that if he DOES then he'll always be lagging behind.

>>25738303
Except he won't always be ahead, he'll just be focused in some other direction.
Both players have to spend the same XP on disciplines or gifts, raising their power stat, dealing with their morality, whatever.

The exp imbalance DOES exist, but only under a certain set of conditions that are not present in all games.

>>25736728

They played lots of Core, not GMC. Their opinion is not informed and therefore invalid.

If I buy a copy of The Shining and just read the back of the box and declare it shit, my opinion would be invalid. I did not experience the work of media, I just read about it.

Such is true for RPGs. You can certainly get a good glimpse of a game from its rules, but you cannot make the final call until the game is played. Even FATAL was played before the amazing RPGnet review.

They boil it down for "just a new set of problems" without seeing how these things apply to the game. In fact, it seems like they just have sour grapes about the whole thing since they mentioned that their gaming group laughed at them for even suggesting they try it. A shame that they have a table of grognards, but their opinion still remains uninformed and invalid.

There are people who played GMC in good faith and still didn't like it. That's fine and good. They have a valid, informed opinion. GMC's combat is a deal breaker for some, and I certainly see why (an angel that can stunlock a player for three turns are you fucking KIDDING me, White Wolf?). But just saying you read it doesn't mean we have to take you seriously.

>>25738340

See, my problem is that the XP imbalance should not exist at all. Since everyone is getting the same amount of XP in Core, the problem will continue to lurk even in games where this seemingly does not happen. It becomes a trap, and unless said traps involve roguish types disarming them, traps are unacceptable in RPGs.

>>25738395
Except that's also ignoring all the many ways you have of raising your stats outside of just spending exp for an attribute.

I have an oWOD question for those in the know:
What are the "supernatural" skills (talents knowledge etc.) theat mundane human could learn?
I know in M:tA there is awareness (lets you see auras), do (martial art that lets a character wound as if he had a firearm) and knowledge of stones (at 5 dots stones speak to character);
in W:tA there's primal urge (lets you scare off humans with mere staredown or get a one night shag).
Is there anything else?

>>25735224
Anyone?

Alright guys, it was fun but lets face it, /tg/ is shit about talking about anything interesting.

It doesn't help that there's like three people who actually play the game and a dozen more who just think reading rulebooks means they can tell the others how they're playing incorrectly.

Enjoy your shitfests.

>>25738483
It's amusing, but nothing to take seriously. Kind of what you'd expect for an April 1st free dl release.

>>25738433
Which are?

>>25738340
The point is that if Player A chooses to be exactly the same as Player B then he can do so with less xp. Sure, they pay the same amount for Disciplines and Merits, but Player A doesn't needs to spend anywhere near the same amount on Attributes or Skills, so Player A will have more xp spare to spend on stuff like that.

Sure, it's an issue that might not come up. There are ways of avoiding it. That doesn't mean the issue doesn't exist.

>>25738433

That's still not a great way to ease the imbalance, especially since if it isn't in char gen, it comes down to ST fiat. I'm not a fan of having that be the number one solution, considering that I ST a lot.

>>25738489

Well, there's only one solution to that, isn't there? People gotta play more games. All of /tg/'s problems would be solved if we all just gamed more. People should play more WoD. It rocks with a great group.

>>25738350
>(an angel that can stunlock a player for three turns are you fucking KIDDING me, White Wolf?)

Man I hate stunlocking in any game. It's so frustrating.

Out of curiosity how aware of one another are the others?

Like if a mage was fighting a werewolf would they be surprised that such a thing exists, or would they have come across werewolf information in a book or something?

A vampire is being haunted by a particularly nasty spirit; could they go to like... Either a mage or werewolf to deal with their issue?

>>25738440
nobody knows or nobody want to help me out?

>>25738941
I have no idea, sorry man. I'd say anything that's not a lore, like Clan or Sect Lores, would be viable for a mortal to take (Enigmas, for example).

But that's just a guess.

>>25738696
The core books assume a 'we know they exist' insomuch as each clan has a one-line 'here's how we feel about X supernatural type' in their core book. Anything else is up to individual supernaturals. If supernaturals have good relationships with each other, they might be willing to help each other as long as it doesn't break their individual codes of conduct for their creature type.

>>25739551
I hit the submit too early. For NWoD anyway. Some supernatural groups might have more knowledge of each other due to interactions; a Forsaken pack might have run into Kindred of the Ordo Dracul, since they have interest in the same spiritual nexuses (Dragon's Nest and Loci), for example. But that's really dependent on game-to-game situations and what a given ST is comfortable with.

>>25739619
For OWoD, it's a lot more static. Werewolves hate vampires, as they are 'of the Wyrm' to the Garou. Mages and the Garou use the same Umbra (even though Mages look at it somewhat differently, like the crazy spacepunk stuff some Traditions work with within the spirit world).

>>25739551

Of course, this depends on how isolated a supernatural culture is, at least in nWoD. In oWoD, every supernatural being is connected to their allies in some way, so it's easy for them to know of their existence and to have a default response.

nWoD by default has a more isolated tone. It's more than likely that the local Freehold might be absolutely unaware that a Domain exists in their city if they're small and constantly fighting slavers and loyalists. On the other hand, Prometheans wander around so much that studying the WoD can be a path to humanity for them. It all comes down to a city by city, person by person basis.

>>25738941

If we're talking oWoD, there's always sorcery and mediumship.

>>25729128

Bow to the superior splat!

Just kidding. Everybody knows that Geist is the best splat.

>>25739807
Exactly. Our LARP organization locally had a year-long plot where the Consilium, Freehold and Domain all learned about each other while dealing with separate aspects of a cthuloid monstrosity being brought into our reality. Was fun, interesting to see a lot of the paranoia between the Lost and Awakened in particular.

>>25739850
Yes, oWOD.
You mean hedge magic and the supernatural merit?
I was looking for skills, talents, and such.

>>25739551
Thanks for reminding me of that one.

>>25739919

Well, you can't just say that and not tell us more about it. That sounds fun as hell!

>>25739877

That's not Promethean, Don Juan.

>>25740051
Okay, I guess I can storytime. Our domain in the Camarilla/MES chronicle had a year-long plot that ran concurrently in all four of our active venues: Awakening, Requiem, Lost and Forsaken. It involved a cabal of individuals, one of each splat and their subordinates in a cult, that worshiped beings from beyond our reality. It went on some craziness in all the venues; cultists infiltrating the Kindred domain and the Changeling freehold, while the Forsaken and Awakening dealt with more of the spiritual and spirit-claimed monstrosities that had been generated by it. It culminated in the elimination of the leaders by the various supernaturals, but not until they'd laid the groundwork for their God to come into the world.

There was some crossover leading up to the big weekend crossover event; my Thyrsus Arrow loosely helped the Changelings, both to get info on them and to help against the cult. My Forsaken fought alongside some of the vampires at other events, and my Awakened got on well with the Forsaken and the one Changing Breed we had.

It culminated in a halloween event hosted by the last remaining leader of the cult, who managed to summon a portion of their god into the city, where groups split up to go get the last pieces of the ritual items needed to stop the God, while the combat characters (led by my Arrow and the Changeling Summer Marshall) went to hold off the God while they did so.

>>25740133
Eventually, while we physically held the God off after it had killed most of the attendees of a strip club, two Forsaken and a Mage came with the last portions of the ritual, and that Mage sacrificed himself to shunt the God back out of our reality.

Was pretty fun. My Arrow learned a LOT about other supernaturals from that event, which he used to better plan for the eventuality of having to fight them if they got to it.

>>25740176
During that plot, my Changeling also died (consumed by what we had called the 'pet eater', essentially a Shoggoth), my Vampire was out of the country, my Forsaken was beating up other cultists so I could play my Awakened at the big event, and my Awakened directed the entire combat due to having the Slayer Merit.

>>25739640
>>25739619
The Pure fucking hate mages, and civilization in general. They hate mages like owod garou hate vampires.

And the Pure greatly outnumber the Forsaken.

When other splats encounter werewolves, they should probably hedge their bets on them being Pure, because that's who it'll probably be.

>>25724281

In my opinion "evil" in the context of the nWoD is the expression of an innate moral negativity which supersedes ethical beliefs. For instance, morality says theft is wrong,but ethically one might belong to a society where theft is an accepted part of daily living. You still degenerate, you still flirt with becoming callous and uncaring of your fellow human beings, but you aren't "evil", just unethical.

In the same way the Circle of the Crone and the Sanctified aren't evil, but they are societies with very different ideologies from what is construed normal by mortals because their moral compass is no longer based in morality, they instead cling to the ghost of humanity.

With that in mind, While the Crone do sacrifice people that doesn't make then evil. Today we wouldn't look at the actions of ancient south american empires or pacific island tribes evil for having different beliefs from modern monotheists. The Crone are just squabbling bands of polytheist cultists loosely affiliated by being a check against the rampant power of monotheist vampires, and often being ancient themselves pass as the memory of long forgotten faiths for long forgotten gods (Iya! Iya! Cthullhu Fthagan!)

The Sanctified by comparison aren't evil because while they do advocate that mankind should be punished for his sins and inequity in order to be returned to God's grace, they also believe in being redeemed to God's grace. You can't redeem a corpse. If the Sanctified choose to 'help' someone in their traditional way, it's often in the form of a life lesson where the presence of the kindred itself is an evidence of the existence of supernatural evil. The Sanctified think of themselves as holy outsiders, their entire purpose to be a signpost and warning to others that "Yes Virginia, evil does exist." This also means that among vampires, the Sanctified are the ones advocating restraint: (cont)

>>25740312
>>25740176
>>25740133

Wow, you were playing four characters at once? That's amazing! And a hell of a crossover! Your venue sounds pretty awesome!

Are the Kitsune any good? I've heard that they aren't able to heal like the rest of the Changing Breeds.

>>25740440
Not at once. We ran the LARP twice a month, two different games each day, about 5 hours a game (we'd run from 1pm to 12am, with a dinner break somewhere around 6).

So I'd play my character for each game regularly (my Fairest Flowering for Lost; my Ordo Gangrel for Requiem; my Thyrsus Arrow for Mage; and my Rahu Iron Master for Forsaken). My Mage was the primary character I used for the crossover event, with my Forsaken a LITTLE bit (mostly when other venues played in Forsaken, like the couple of Lost and the one Mage that were poking around with the Forsaken pack and the one Changing Breed).

>>25740433

"Why yes my lord, that human has offended you terribly. How dare his social advocacy group prevent your purchase of that native american land. However, do you really need to have his entire family killed to the seventh generation? Does it really serve a greater purpose to force him to consume the flesh of his children while his wife watches? Will it really heal the wound in your soul to know that by these actions you will have earned the ire of God?"

And since most vampires believe in the possibility if not the absolute surety of a divine plan and that they might be cursed, the idea of God being pissed at them tends to prevent the worst of indulgences.

>>25738150
>What is a Prime Ban

>>25740433
>because their moral compass is no longer based in morality, they instead cling to the ghost of humanity.

Humanity is in all cases equally or morally stringent. You can fairly call them immoral by human standards; but their actions are just as evil with regards to the beast.

That's the thing to remember about evil vampires: they know better. They don't have the defense of "oh, I was never human, your moral standards don't apply to us." They totally do -- and a vampire who pretends it doesn't can be wrecked by the Beast far worse than a mortal.

Vampires know better. They don't have an excuse for their actions.

>>25740354
I've been under the impression that the Pure are the reason why werewolves have such a bad reputation with any group.

>>25740584
That's the point of them. They want to smoosh the worlds back together and essentially shove EVERYONE back into the 'weak prey' role except for themselves. They outnumber the Forsaken and, unlike the Forsaken, spirits generally are okay with the Pure.

>>25740487
Hm. I guess, roughly, I can see how Sanctified can be occasionally viewed as a voice of reason (in the sense that in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king), although I'm still inclined to think the religious covenants are the worst of a bad lot. Vampires have a hard time resisting wrongdoing enough with the necessarily evils, to listen to dogmas that tell them to stir MORE shit up.

That being said, yeah, "vaguely try not to kill people" sorta lets me see how the LS might not be quite as bad. On the other hand, God's wrath? They're already damned. I don't get, at all, how LS function psychologically, because nothing seems to suggest God likes what they do, or that it makes God happy, or that anything they can do can earn his forgiveness or acceptance.

This is basically how the LS view God with relation to vampires:

http://media.oglaf.com/comic/sithrak.jpg

>>25740584
Yeah. In the nwod, werewolves are as big of dicks as in the owod. However, there are a few werewolves (Forsaken) who are somewhat tolerable, in that they provide a great free service to the world (hunting evil spirits). But most weres are Pure, regardless.

>>25740621
Their Testament states that their 'monsters that drive people to God' is their purpose for existing. There's a lot more to it, but they function on faith -- faith that God wants them to do this, as determiend by the Testament of Longinus. It's not about earning acceptance or forgiveness (except for a few heretical Creeds), it's about using your Damnation in service to God.

>>25740621
The Lancea Sanctum functionally believe they are already damned by God by their mere existence. However, being a dark ages cult, they believe that no God worth having would create as pervasive an evil as vampirism without a purpose. Therefore their purpose is to test mankind. They don't rule over the flock or domineer it from on high, but they act as shadowy trustees.They're only functionally supposed to bring God's wrath to those who defy God in a major way, and even then God's wrath can be incredibly subtle. For instance if a wave of atheism were to take a given state or county centered around one person, the Sanctified might work to discredit this person by releasing information they are a sexual deviant into conservative communities, starting a moral panic. Or, through the use of disciplines, cause the person's house to become infested with cats, and as they try to get the mess cleaned up the local animal control infrastructure is singly unhelpful (sanctified or ally controlled of course) until the offending party is driven to seek out God's approval.

As to actually knowing if God approves or not? Foolish neonate! Look to your Testament, for is it not said the Sanctified above all others will be redeemed!? (And that's where most of the roleplay actually is, not so much torturing mankind, but Vampires: The DaVinci Code arguing about the nature of or lack of God's sanction and what it means for their immortal and monstrous souls)

>>25740753
>Look to your Testament, for is it not said the Sanctified above all others will be redeemed!?

But I thought its an article of faith that they *won't* be redeemed. That's kind of why it seems utterly nonsensical to roleplay an LS -- God's gonna go full Sithrak on you now that you're a vampire. You're going to receive maximum punishment. No matter what you do, God's gonna give you the same punishment. But that's because you're embraced. Its sort of nonsensical for an LS to have a religious conversation with a Crony or an atheist Carthian or whatever, because the LS has to admit that the Crony or atheist is not going to get one iota of a worse punishment than they will.

I mean, usually God is kind of an incentives-based guy, so its... really, really strange how the Sanctified believe God wants them to do something, but he won't actually get more mad if they disobey, or less mad if they obey -- God's wrath is already on MAXIMUM RAGE, no matter what they do, ever.

>>25740639
>>25740599
>>25740584

Arguably, because your lore may vary, The Forsaken killed Father Wolf because he was weak and failing - Oh no Akela! - the Pure either:

A. Blame mom (She's a spirit bitch and not to be trusted, just look how cray-cray she is!)
B. Blame the Forsaken (You arrogant fuckers, you killed dad!)
or C. Cry about it and cut themselves (Oh no, dad is dead, the world is changed, everything is terrible!)

And overall they claim "We didn't have anything to do with Father Wolf's death, we're the purest of the pure, and we don't have anything to do with mom so we don't care about spirits or maintaining the balance or anything else but ourselves. The world is fucked anyhow.

Spirits don't "like" werewolves because werewolves - children of the supernatural super cop who prevented them from infesting and destroying every facet of reality as they remade it to suit their needs - are viewed as dangerous usurpers. Forsaken dare to think they can command spirits to abide the two worlds, and the Pure dare to think their vaunted purity entitles them to respect and servitude.

On the other hand, Spirits "like" the Pure because unlike the Forsaken the Pure aren't trying to prevent spirits from doing anything, and are even worshipful of the primal beings they call totems. The Pure don't pass themselves off as the spirit police, and so the spirits empower them and encourage them...

Which is why the Pure occasionally go crazytown and start murdering rather than converting the Pure. Because their hateful ultraconservative racist culture of shapeshifting monster klansmen says they should.

>>25740753
>cause the person's house to become infested with cats,


I want to make a dude with Animalism now.

>>25740898
>Because their hateful ultraconservative racist culture of shapeshifting monster klansmen says they should.

The Pure = raycist metaphor has always been incredibly hamfisted and ill fitting. I mean, the point of why racism is wrong, is because you're hating someone because of how they were born -- you aren't born Forsaken or Pure. So they're hardly racist.

The Forsaken believe all werewolves are born with original sin, and have to slave before a mad goddess who hates them (she won't even lift the damn silver curse). So of the two, the only that make a race-based condemnation are the Forsaken.

>>25740872

Funny thing. The testament says both and the Sanctified don't know.

Also, as an aside, one has to consider that most Sanctified view members of other religions - Carthian Atheists, Dragon Transcendentalists, and Crone Cultists - as pagans and not heretics. Undeath is big enough for many beliefs, and with presumably infinite time, they assume you will see that the LS is 'right' - the only true heretics are those who mix LS peanut butter with pagan chocolate, and The Brood who outright worship Satan through proxy.

>>25740980

Not true. You are born human with the potential but not the promise to become a werewolf. Without interference, you will if chosen be granted an auspice. The Pure nation believes these brands granted by Luna are a mark of slavery to an insane, fickle, alien goddess. From their lore everyone should want to be Pure. Anyone who refuses to be Pure is actively choosing slavery for their people. They are choosing to be less than perfect. This analogs very well to "can't you be less gay?", and it just so happens the same people who hate based on color tend to hate based on religious and social orientation. The Pure as a society just tend to care less specifically about color and more about ideology, that doesn't make them any less of a giant hate engine using the same tools

>>25738696
I thought that was Micky Mouse from the thumbnail.

>>25740980
>>25741062

Additional:

The Forsaken also believe that Luna's forgiveness is something which can be earned for a sin they actually committed. By taking Luna's brand the silver curse -is- mitigated. The Forsaken can at least touch silver, which the Pure cannot. It means when the war time comes around - which is when we stop counting coup - the Pure who hate technology are often left playing catch up while the Forsaken are perfectly willing to blow off limbs with fifty caliber anti material rifles at quarter mile out with silver hollowpoint rounds. It doesn't stop being a sin - you're not supposed to kill your brothers and sisters - but it happens.

What are the best contracts for a Metalflesh summer courtier?

>>25741118

Is it a sin against Harmony to order an assassin to kill another werewolf with silver? I'd probably rule it as yes with maybe a bonus on the degeneration roll because you are dissociating from the act but I'd like to hear other views.

>>25741193
... that's funny, considering I'm playing that exact thing in the LARP right now. Ex-US Army ranger and a tin soldier Metalflesh.

I'm getting a lot of use out of Hearth, Wild, Omen and Artifice.

>>25741207
Yes. In general because harmony knows what you did morally regardless of your ethical rationale. However I'd agree, you should get a slight bonus to the roll for being disassociated from the act. The real fun is in all the spirits who know, all the pissed off Pure who will want your ass, and your fellow Forsaken who do not approve.

Also the more times you do it this way the more often you're obviously involved and not broken up about it, the more likely that bonus should go away.

>>25741219
Huh. I'm playing a jockey turned knight gold metalflesh. But why Wild?

>>25741268

>Gold
>Knight

Oh some Vainglory stuff might be fun!

>>25741268
For me, it was an extension of his army training, the way the first two or three Contracts of the Wild function; he functions within the Summer society as a bushman of sorts, who deals with urban and suburban issues in the real world, and tracking in the Hedge (I have some Dream as well).

His Mein is that of a wind-up tin soldier; we have an entire motley of toy-themed Lost (teddy bear knight, velveteen rabbit merchant, 'evil mistress' doll social face).

>>25741327
Merchant should be messenger, geez, I can't type!

>>25741062
> This analogs very well to "can't you be less gay?"

That's not racism, though. Except you can't choose to be less gay (I assume), but you can choose to become Pure. So, err...

>that doesn't make them any less of a giant hate engine using the same tools

I'm also not sure why disliking the guys that tell you to feel shame for what you're born as should be viewed as "prejudiced" hatred. People consider it justified to hate religious people, for them knocking on your door and telling you to feel ashamed; so its entirely justified for Pure to hate the Forsaken too.

>>25741410
The Forsaken don't actually tell you that you should feel shame for being Forsaken, they more accurately present themselves as a support group because they're saying "This is the way the world works, we didn't start it, we don't like it, but denying it won't change it". The Pure actively denigrate the Forsaken and foster false ideologies of moral, ethical, and (among the Ivory Claws) genetic superiority among their membership. In The Pure book it even points out multiple times that pure ideology is functionally a self serving lie designed to prop up their leadership and convert the weak. That's why the most dangerous threat to the Pure way of life are the two-to-three lodges that exist expressly to convert members from the Pure who realize it's hurtful bullshit American History X style.

As an addenda as well: to become Pure, if you do get an Auspice or were a Forsaken? _they fucking skin you alive_, and they have to hide it because it's such an offensive act Luna can and will send Lunes to stop it if she can see it.

>>25741410
I think you just making excuses because you, yourself are a neocon piece of shit.

>>25740354
Actually they don't hate mages as much as they think the concept of a human having true power is laughable.
The only one really offended are the ivory claws, who believe that werewolves are supposed to be the true power in the world. They believe that mages should be killed but because of their power generally end up making bargains.

But yes, most werewolves encountered are Pure and Pure are pretty much the archetypal evil werewolf. If one looks at the examples across the Hunter books, most of the werewolves that start fights seem to be Pure, while the Forsaken tend to take hits simply because someone saw them do something hinky.

Forsaken aren't angels, of course, dealing with the spirit is weird and can often lead to engaging in criminal behavior.

>>25738696
The big answer to all questions like this with nWoD is it depends. You can have two hundred mages and two hundred vampires living in the same city and none might have ever met the other. Alternatively each splat has at least one subsplat dedicated to gathering knowledge about other supernaturals.
Essentially when you become a supernatural, no one gives you the Core rulebook, so you only know what you see.

>>25741268
hey my fairest's got gold flesh too
not a warrior, though, just perfect

>>25741652

I want to play a homeless Eldoloth Lodge of Mania who receives messages from spirits and goes forth to do their bidding in an effort to bring balance to the inner city by murdering predatory criminals who kill more than they can eat.

>>25741880
Whenever I think about playing werewolf again I can't imagine playing anything other than a shaman. I just had so much fun with it the first time, and we didn't have all the stuff that came later.

I'm just going to make this simple. Spirits are fucking asshole jerks, no matter how hilarious and fun they may be. Pure don't want to do shit about them cause they're all sad about things that may or may not have happened.

Ergo, fuck the Pure. Easiest decision I ever made. This ain't no Traditions/Technocracy argument, just fuck the Pure. They are terrible and I hope Father Wolf comes back somehow and is all like, "Forsaken you are all awesome, come into my awesome hunting lodge where we have nothing but Cabello's Deer Hunting for Free" and then turns to the Pure and said, "You didn't even act like wolves, what the fuck ya'll" and they have to sit outside in the rain forever. And then get eaten by True Fae.

Fuck the Pure.

>>25742547
>And then get eaten by True Fae.

That'd be sad...

>>25742547
> True Fae
You know we have worse out there, right?
But yeah, I hear ya. Fuck the Pure.

>>25742547
>>25742638
>>25742689

I approve of this.

>>25742698
... is it a bad thing that I like the Fire-Touched?

>>25742638

So, this reminds me of a question I have. Does anybody have any idea what the relationship is between the Fae in Changeling and the Fae in Mage?

Are they the same thing? If so, do Changelings seriously get dragged all the way to Arcadia in the Supernal World when they're kidnapped?

>>25742755
I like them too.
I'm not saying they're good guys.
But sometimes it's fun to play a zealot.

>>25742775
The relationship only exists as much as your ST wants it.

But Mages cannot enter Arcadia, and they have no special defenses against the Hedge, and can't teleport in and out of it.

Luna has the Forsaken.
What does the sun have?

I recall in the changing breeds of old that he had a connection to the were-dinosaurs and the were-ravens. And I think the Simba maybe?

>>25742776
I played an NPC at a large LARP con once that was a Fire-Touched. The Disease Gift was awesome in that combat; I almost caused five different Forsaken to either A) kill their allies, or B) lose Harmony by eating another werewolf (in this case, my NPC), or C) all of the above.

It was hilarious.

>>25742775
As much as your ST wants it to be. There's no overarcing 'Changeling Arcadia is Supernal Arcadia' written anywhere. There's anything from 'Changeling Arcadia is a Fallen reflection of Supernal Arcadia' to 'They're two different supernatural realms using the same name' to 'They're both, but Mages are screwed then, because what Oracle would allow an Other to continue to come to the Fallen World and steal people?!'

It's all up to your ST, nothing about them is written in stone.

>>25742840
There are a couple of Changing Breeds in the CB book that are in the sun, as well as (I think) the Werebulls from War Against the Pure. Of course, everything in CB is terribad and I recommend burning all copies of it you find. And when I say terribad, I mean 'encourages beastiality and the OWoD HOOMANITY AND TECH BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!' terribad. Not to mention the broken-ass mechanics.

>>25742840
In the books, the Baal-Hadad. STs can make up new ones as they want.

>>25742872
Yeah the Disease gifts are awesome, but it was the Fever gifts that turned me onto the Fire-Touched, though I believe they're learnable outside of the pure.

>>25741993
I've always had fun playing the shamanistic wizard in anything. Best character I ever made was a Plastic Shaman who awakened and basically got spiritually backhanded by the true shamans of the family.
It was fun.

I know it's not the most popular game in the world, but I'm still surprised how popular the game is when literally every book is essentially, 'And this is the truth about the supernatural. If you like it. If you don't you can use these theories. And remember the guys who thought them up can be entirely wrong. The only real truth is that This cannot happen. Except sometimes when it does.'

It's really satisfying there not being any real answers.

>>25743064
It was a design goal with the NWoD, to give tools and options, and not hamstring people into 'A leads to B, B leads to C, D references A and the change to B, and F says that these other things from Book Q and Book Y cause the changes in E.'

>>25742938
To be fair that is what the Changing Breeds were back in Forsaken. I mean, they mentioned that most of them lack the ability to see spirits or go into the umbra.

>>25743161
You mean Apocalypse?

>>25742776
>>25742755

Oh no, the Pure are fun to play and run. They're great Antagonists. I'm just saying, though. Fuck the Pure. Fuck them.

>>25742979

I ran Mage and one of my players played a Technoshaman and had the time of his life. His familiar was the spirit of an ambulance and it was great.

>>25742755

No, I like them too. Part of the Pure is also that you can play a "good" person in a "bad" culture, either undergoing the dramatic turn where you walk away or perhaps defending or even reforming it.

I've got a Fire Touched concept in a God Machine chronicle and he uses a mortal cult of wolf blood followers to fight infrastructure of the god machine's influence. He does this alongside Forsaken and vampires, the whole time talking about how he's doing this because the God Machine is a greater threat than either of them, and he's just saving their lives - again - because he's better than they are and can afford to be benevolent.

>>25742840
Some, but not all, Pure have offered their worship to Helios who largely ignores them. Also there are many,many, many human solar religions. The majority of lunar based human religions are in a poor state.

>>25742775
Imperial Mysteries gives a possible explanation, where Changeling Arcadia is Arcadia as it was before the Fall. Since Arcadia is the realm of Time the True Fae laugh at causality and cheerfully barge into worlds where they are not supposed to exist anymore.

>>25743182
In my defense Apocalypse sounds far gloomier than Forsaken.

>>25743315
Well it is about the upcoming Apocalypse.
Forsaken have it hard, but at least the world isn't about to end.

>>25743226
They threw in a lot of possibilities for Arcadia in Imperial Mysteries.
For example, there are apparently "Truer" Fae, so to say - the True Fae you usually encounter are patterns of Time and Fate as perceived by humans. And then there are these fuckers who are patterns of time and Fate perceived by Spirits and other things.
The weird thing with these guys was that they don't have much power over time because their very nature made them some sort of recurrence - they know they'll happen, so they don't give a crap about when, just how.

>>25742979
What is a plastic shaman?

>>25743333
THIS.

I have been told by oWoD grognards "Forsaken is horrible, the nWoD is horrible. oWoD is so much deeper and more interesting!"

Interesting how!? You're going to lose. The world is going to end. It's written into the concept of the game. And even when they released their end of the world schemes with multiple solutions, people still favored the mega suck ending overall. There was no winning, and the smaller moral victories weren't worth it.

nWoD in general is more holistic, allowing you to come up with what you want, and Forsaken in particular is about the fuzzies having a chance to win.

>>25743446
My experience with OWoD grognards going 'OWoD is so much deeper' involves their investment into the metaplot. The more books someone owns, and the more they've read about the plot and the ongoing story that WW told through their books, a lot of people feel that it's more 'deep' than NWoD.

>>25743221

That's pretty cool! I know God Machine is mostly a mortal thing and won't be touched by the supernatural chronicle books, but I honestly want to see how other supernaturals deal with the concept of a God Machine and how to deal with is infrastructures.

>>25743315
>>25743333

To sum up the difference between the two lines:

Apocalypse is a blood opera at the end of the world with wailing metal guitars in the background and a guy doing cookie monster vocals about the Triat.

Forsaken is a gritty crime drama with a few good cops dealing with the corrupt masses, and sometimes the cases involve terrible spider people and rat people and goddamn mindboggling abominations.

And that's why you should play Werewolf. Either one. Or both.

>>25743446
I posted this >>25743064
Generally I feel that there's a lot of people who just can't abide not having answers, and are probably frustrated by the lack of facts in the game.

Some people want a more consistent narrative, a metaplot or story. Some people like to be able to pull out trivia (but Caine did this with guy and so that one couldn't be this thing). So they'll prefer oWoD.

That's not a good reason to think nWoD is horrible, though.

>>25743525

In this chronicle the God Machine is known as a being called "The Truth" seeking to bring itself more and more into reality, forcing our universe to become more like it. Since the Fire Touched consider themselves ministers of truth then a supernatural being calling itself the one absolute and incontrovertible truth is the enemy.

>>25743502

There was also a shit ton of oWoD books. Like, you don't understand. If you were into RPGs in the 90s, especially White Wolf RPGs, you would probably blow hundreds of dollars buying the things. I have a buddy that owns physical copies of all the Apocalypse books. Every. Single. One. So there is no surprise that people got so attached to the oWoD setting and metaplot.

And for all the stupid, stupid, FUCKING STUPID stuff, there are some fun parts. I don't care what anyone says, someone launching a ghost nuke into ghost world and fucking up everything forever only because they could is awesome. It's just a shame it was only made to justify rules changes.

Again, this is why I really like limited lines.

>>25743525
Speaking of the Shartha. I had an idea a while back about the Shartha, as their spiritual aspects continue to get destroyed, slowly losing power and attempting to create 'true' hybrids, in the vein of the Forsaken's spirit/flesh hybridization, and using a ritual to 'steal' that capability from the Uratha. Essentially it would start with the Rat Hosts needing the physical merge in order to maintain 'mass' to develop ever-larger swarms of mutant rodent-spirits. Eventually, that same would come from the Azlu, who would probably be fighting with the Rat-Hosts (god forbid I could remember anything tonight!) for the process, with the forsaken caught in the middle.

Having read the Fera and Changing Breeds books for both; I have to admit that I like the WoA better. The shifters seemed more thought out and the had more story behind them, while WoF simply had more.

But I'm beginning to think that the Changing Breeds book might just be bad; I like all the others.

>>25743627
If you have an interest in the different types of shapeshifters, Skinchangers is a nice book, and there's a bunch at the back of War Against the Pure (the bull men, cockroach folk, deep ones, birdbrains, and cats, I think).

>>25743600
No, I get how many OWoD books there are. I was once an OWoD player consistently, and I had a large collection of Masquerade books. I just couldn't justify buying every new book after a point, just to keep up with rules compatibility; it was also about the time I moved and I had no gaming group.

I got back into NWoD in 2003 when it came out due to a co-worker bringing the Reqiuem and WoD cores into work to read. It has snowballed since then, but I love the fact that I don't HAVE to have Book C to know how to run something referenced in Book D or Book A.

>>25743396
Basically, a poser who claims to have "deep connetions" to some "old and mystical path" but in reality s/he is just pulling shit out of their ass and mixing it with bits and pieces of legit spiritualism.

>>25743627
From what I understand, Changing Breeds was written SOLELY to shut up the Apocalyse 'WHERE ARE MY CAT/LION/BIRD/ALLIGATOR/DINOSAUR SHIFTERS?! WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!' vocal crowd. It's why the book and rules are so shitty; I mean, whose bright idea was it to allow them to BUY FUCKING MAGE SPELLS?

>>25743672
That actually sounds like fun. I played an, easiest way to describe, 'hill magician' from Eastern Kentucky once and had a blast playing up the Appalachian Hoodoo from Magical Traditions (it helps that I grew up in deep-ass Eastern KY so I 'got' a lot of what they were doing with it.)

>>25743656
I did look into Skinchangers, a lot of pretty neat stuff. I liked the Snake sages and the Hyena chicks.

>>25743698
Its true.

That said, the beast magic isn't that broken. It's cost prohibitive in the extreme and there's no absolute that you'll have access to the lore to learn more of it should the ST allow you to pick it.

>>25743731
I played an evil curious woundborn. He was incredibly helpful for the pack and in order to keep himself from 'becoming evil' he decided he'd never kill anyone. Which just made things a lot worse, because when you're not going to kill an enemy you have to do something to them. And there was a Wound right there.

>>25743801

>>25743525
Honestly most Supernaturals would react in a similar fashion to Mortals simply because of how 'out there' the God Machine did.

Mages, WereWolves, and Changelings would have different opinions i'd think.

Changelings would likely assume it's some fae trickery they haven't learned to detect, which would cause immense panic. But at the end of the day they'd probably think it was still within their 'scope'.

Werewolves would probably see the God-Machine as some kind of Ur-spirit and be suitably wary.

Mages would take it the worst. Their whole thing is that they're so great and powerful, everything is a reflection of humans or whatever. But the God-Machine is beyond them. No matter what they do, no matter they try, the God-Machine is beyond them. To the point that a mage is no better equipped to stop or figure out the larger schemes of the God-Machine then the mortals they look down upon.

>>25743793
True, there are tons more broken stuff in there. Or downright stupid stuff like 'Awwww...'

>>25743698

That and this was still old White Wolf, when they still had to appeal to the great Suppliment Treadmill. It also didn't help that they hired Phil Brucato. He's not a bad writer when people are watching him, but leave him on his own and he'll go full on Saytrblade on you.

Which is why I'm not so hyped about Mage20. He's leading the line, and mostly focusing on pre Revised stuff. It's understandable, that was when people were most interested in Ascension, I just prefer Revised's version. Now, if we don't get Wraith20, that's when I start throwing rocks.

>>25743964
I'm looking to Wraith 20 myself.

>>25743964
Myself, I'm not interested in the 20th lines, so I don't have a lot of concept of what'll be bad or good from them. I skimmed the V20 book and was like '... I know these some of these people in these photos, who the fuck took a photoshop crayon to everything?'

Mostly I'm looking forward to Blood and Smoke and the hopeful, eventual update to Awakening and Lost.

>>25744024
I'm fine with Lost the way it is, though I guess the aspirations and a revamped clarity system could be useful. I could care less about Mage, especially with Dave B taking over, but I do want the Werewolf one.

>>25744024
W20 Werewolf has some good art.

>>25743857
>Or downright stupid stuff like 'Awwww...'
do I want to know?
Or do I want to continue misreading that as 'd'awwwww', and think that it means your creature form is super cute? (Like if you turned into a corgi.)

>>25744084
THE MONSTER IS GOING TO KILL YOU!

*Strike pose with huge eyes and drooping whiskers*

Awwwww so cute.

The power.

>>25744084
Itt's an Aspect.

Aww!!! (•to •••••)
Some critters are too cute for words, even if they can rip your arm off. A feral with this talent can cute her way out of most kinds of trouble, adding a +1 bonus per dot to all Social rolls that emphasize her adorable qualities. This
trick can be used in any form, but grants only half of the usual bonus to attempts made in human shape.

>>25744022

High five, bro. If they manage to drag Richard Dansky away from Tom Clancy games for Wraith20, I am dropping 50 dollars day one. Throw in a conversion guide to nWoD as a stretch goal and I'd drop 70.

>>25744024

I thought Vampire20 should have focused more on what the Final Nights would look like now. Not get into metaplot or anything, just take a page from Requiem and show us how Nosferatu have their spying network in a world with social networks.

I am waiting on baited breath for Blood and Smoke. Strix are great villains, and I cannot wait to see what Blood and Smoke does with them. I would like to see the GMC Awakening have Paradox with a little more teeth, and GMC Lost should have some cool as hell Contract updates if Blood and Smoke is anything to go by.

>>25744216
I would like a GMC Forsaken myself, of the game lines Forsaken suffers the most from the XP rape

>>25743853

Alternatively, there's nothing (to my knowledge) that says the God-Machine isn't some Exarch plot.

>>25744216
I've always found the MET alteration to Paradox to work well; eating it for Resistant Lethal is much more of a thing.

I hope B&S does well; I really do. I have the Reaping the Whirlwind preview and it left some things to be desired (mostly due to editing), but I like what they've done with the Disciplines so far and I like the previews for Humanity and Banes. The Strix, I'm interested to see their 'base' Striges, along with the kit in there to make your own.

I also hope they touch on Belial's Brood and VII, though I can honestly, easily convert Investments over to GMC-styling myself.

>>25744281
Which it can be, if you want it to be. But it's explicitly not directly tied to any other line except Demon: the Descent.

>>25744278
on the boards they call it the Idigam Chronicles
they seem pretty sure it's going to be made but the company is trying not to make any promises

Note: (this game is using nWoD crunch)


I have a vampire character who was made into a koldun by a changeling or some other kind of other-worldly creature while on an unplanned jaunt to some sort of pocket dimension.

Mechanically this is represented by 1 dot of the Path of Earth on his character sheet.

One’s natural talent with a given path of koldunic sorcery is determined by a given attribute. The attribute that determines raw talent for the path of earth is Stamina. The "Skill" half of koldunic sorcery, the accumulated knowlege, practice and understanding needed to perform at a certain level of competence, is mechanically determined by how many dots you have in knowledge occult: koldunism.


My character has stamina 1 and currently 0 occult


So he's getting his start in the mysteries of koldunic sorcery in a path he is naturally challenged in with no training, and no teacher. And in order to make any use of his powers he's going to have to overcome his natural handicap through building up his occult skill before he can begin to manipulate the earth.
I'm wondering if any of you have ideas on how I could go about introducing my character to to the mystical side of reality since koldunic sorcery is mystically and spiritually based compared to the systematic and almost more scientific magic of thaumaturgy.


The character is a camarilla toreador who enjoys the more technical side of creativity and tends to find beauty in the inventions, systems, architecture, and technology of humanity. He is knowledgeable, educated, realively inteligent, creative, given to different ways of thinking about things. He was around 60 at the time of his embrace (a few months ago) and was relatively grounded in "reality" beforehand.

>>25744433
Yeah, I've just been let down about Forsaken enough times I'm not getting my hopes up.

>>25744433
They already said that if B&S and GMC sell well enough, they'll review the pitches for the other lines. Yes, the people involved with Forsaken, Awakening and Lost already have pitches in to OP for the GMC-style updates.

>>25744295

Resistant lethal? Huh, yeah that'd be way better. And while we're all daydreaming:

GMC Werewolf should focus on the Idigam and retool Renown. Renown as it is now tends to be a big XP hog and has some baggage from Apocalypse left over in it.

In a GMC Promethean, I'd love to see Vitriol Beats, Disquiet as a Condition (honestly with how it works I think it would be great as one) and for it to center around the Centimani.

GMC Hunter, I would like to see focus on the Tier 2 groups a little bit more than the line did. I suppose you could center this one around Slashers. Maybe the Undead for something a little less niche.

For GMC Geist, I'd like to examples of what a greater Sin-Eater community would look like. They keep teasing how it was before 1900 and I would be interested in seeing that for running more historical Krewes. Not sure who you would center this around.

GMC Mummy should definitely have the curses cause Conditions. The Cult stuff works fine, and will be easier now that everyone's doing 10 merit dots. The line's still too early for any antagonist to really come into their own, but I'd say they should focus on the Deceived.

>>25744558
MET Awakening deals with Paradox much the same way as tabletop (more vulgar in a scene gives penalties to it, etc.), and 'eating' the Paradox rather than releasing it causes a Resistant Lethal for each point eaten. >>25744558
>>25744558

>>25744548
Yes, but promising to review pitches is different from promising to publish a new ruleset for those splats.

>>25744688
Oh, I'm aware.

>>25744558
Here's an attachment of the MET Paradox stuff.

>>25744448

>The character is a camarilla toreador who enjoys the more technical side of creativity and tends to find beauty in the inventions, systems, architecture, and technology of humanity.

>tends to find beauty in the inventions, systems, architecture, and technology of humanity.

Here's your entrance. Maybe they start to see literal ghosts in the machine. Maybe they get the equivalent of Jerusalem/Paris Syndrome when looking at a highly spiritual work of art. For your vampire, the beauty of things naturally flows into its mysticism, as the "why" behind the beauty. Something like that, anyway.

>>25744558
I want some love for the Bale Hounds if they do a werewolf thing.
There's a lot of concepts there that can be worked with. Rather than just 'Yeah it's the world of darkness, so lets be wolves of darkness.' Though that's fine too.

The Ninth Firstborn, Soulless Wolf, who was a Sin-Eater (not related - or are they?) who the others refuse to talk to after the contested death of Father Wolf, which none of them seem all that torn up about.

>>25744860
Soulless Wolf was a good guy all along. He has a soul, it's just buried under everyone else's sin.

>>25743581
>>25743525

On a related subject, since day one WtF came out I've wanted to play a member of a five man werewolf metal band that eschews territory and instead goes on constant tour. When they encounter a problem they just happen to kick its teeth in and ride on. Wolf blooded or other supernaturals could cover the more social aspects that aren't werewolf friendly, like management and publishers.

>>25744932
I'm imagining a Hills Have Eyes scenario when the pack omega gets lost while it's his turn to drive.

Maybe throw a little Deliverance in there, too.

>>25745053

ALL OF IT!

>>25745102
>>25745053
>>25744932

*Sudden realization* Especially if you use the Slashers rules for mutants!

>>25745053
Have just one radio station in the middle of nowhere, some mad fire-touched prophet preaching purity.

They get one call out to their manager before the phone died. He's really a Bale Hound, decides some suffering in Pure territory will be good for the band.

Chased for hours by relentless Pure in urshul form. Or so it seems. They all disappear when the sun goes down. That's when the unihar come out.

Of course it depends on how brutal you want to ravage Forsaken ass.

>>25744932
>>25745053
their publisher is a vampire (who they never meet face to face, he uses them to fuck with things)

Is there a good way for a vamp to drain essence?

My vamp's gonna be looking to deal with a spirit invasion. Go into the spirit world, nightmare, and drain away... And at first I thought blood drinking drains Essence... but it drains Corpus. Thoughts?

>>25745259

"I suppose this is all gonna be my fault."
"Oh jeez here we go."
"Its because I'm fat isn't it? I'm the fat one!"
"It's not because you're fat you useless tub of shit."
*to the side* "You know, it is not the best to tell someone they aren't fat and call them tubby."
"I know what I mean! Uuugh... so fucking hot... I need a beer. Lost in the fucking desert. Should have gone Storm Lord. This never happens to Storm Lords."

>>25745294
their manager is a mage, who works at counter purposes to their vampire publisher.

>>25745311
You're fucked.

Vampires are pretty bad when it comes to spirits.

That said there's some rites and shit you can do with Cruac. One to create essence to bargain with spirits. But nothing that's going to really drain the essence out of an invasion.

In that case what you're going to want to do is to make the place unappealing to them.

Do you know what kind of spirits they are?

>>25744791
>Jerusalem/Paris Syndrome

This seems to be an altered state of mind brought on by encountering a place and finding it to be grand did incongruent with what you thought it would be. Am I correct?

>>25745452
Gluttony, with my char not knowing that Murder spirits may start showing up soon.

There's gotta be SOME convenient way to siphon Essence out of somebody...

>>25745354
>>25745359

"Of course our publisher would have to be a leech, always trying to fuck us, what did you sell us out for?"
"My masters thought a change in format was neccessary!"
"Format? What format?"
"We're changing sponsors, and we're giving exclusivity to KX73: The Night."
"The Night? That easy listening station for pousers with pony nubs and polo shirts?"
"You can steal our money, you can call us big stupid idiots, but you do not try to make us sell out for easy. fucking. listening."
*DEATH RAGE!*

>>25744791
>For your vampire, the beauty of things naturally flows into its mysticism, as the "why" behind the beauty. Something like that, anyway.


Can you go into a bit more detail of what you mean by this?

>>25745542
Werewolves have one ability that lets them do that, providing the spirit agrees in the first place and you don't kill them and you perform a ritual.

Your best bet would be either to grab a mage, simply be somewhere else when the spirits come, bring OTHER spirits over, or make the place as unappealing as possible (someplace gluttony wouldn't fit, which would be hard for vampires).

>>25745729
The spirit doesn't have to agree if you use the spirit hunting rules from the ST guide

Some dudes on the white wolf boards (general discussion) are recruiting for games. One seems to be a MUSH thing (with every splat, though they seem intent on getting some changelings), the other an IRC/roll20 mortal thing.

Anyone ever been to one of those MUSH things? I played MUDs, but I imagine the community on MUSHes are pretty insular (harsh to newcomers).

Regardless, their website is pretty interesting, and there's a good amount of 'This is my character Mr Studly' for laughs. thereachmux.org

>>25745542
Be friends with a Spirit/Prime Mage. Can probably just make some essence for you.

Can a vampire abuse there disciplines to cause groups of people to behave strangely without causing a masquerade breach?

>>25745968
It's only a breach if you get caught.

>>25745944

What is a MUSH?

>>25745958
The goal is to deplete spirits of essence so you can kill em, otherwise even if you are the supreme master of ass whooping the spirits will just return angrier and angrier. But yes, a spirit mage or something is probably gonna be necessary to finish 'em off.

>>25746024
a MUD is a multi user domain/dungeon
it tends to be an adventure thing, like a roguelike (but text, like zork) where you go around killing shit and getting exp and increasing your killing shit ability

a MUSH is a variant of that made more for role play. there aren't specific combat mechanics and such (though there can be), it's like a chat room with...rooms (you can be in the throne room and move to the dungeon and move to cell a then back to the dungeon and then cell b, then the secret tunnel, etc and each usually has a description)
you chat and emote, probably have a description for your character
there tends to be base mechanics for shit, it depends on how invested the folks are in coding for it, but there's probably a dice pool simulator that allows for personal and public shows of results

>>25746115
>vampire vs gluttony spirit
>vampire1 uses FANGS on gluttony spirit
>there is no effect
>gluttony spirit uses INFLUENCE
>vampire1 uses FANGS on vampire2
>its super effective!

>>25746024
It's like an always-on in character chatroom people can use to role play.

You have to telnet in.

>>25746170

Nightmare's SUPER EFFECTIVE on spirits and... everything, though.

So, is this thread in auto-sage yet? If so, are we starting a new one? Because I want to ask some stuff, but I'd rather just ask it in the new one if that's the case, as it may become a decent-length discussion.

>>25745455

Yeah, that's about right. People sometimes just go nuts when they've arrived at something that's even grander than they imagined. It seems to follow the same mechanics as a religious experience. Hence why it happens in Jerusalem a lot.

>>25745623

It's something I just kind of threw at the wall, but bear with me. Since I don't know too much about your character this could get rambly.

The idea is that since the vampire is a toreador, they can't really MAKE art anymore. They can appreciate it, they can take it in, they can patronize artists, but their art will never be as good.

So, what are you missing? What gives their work beauty that Kindred can not? Perhaps the exposure to Kuldun sorcery was the trick. Exposed to something otherworldy, you realize that this was originally an innate connection that the artist has, that you'll need to figure out.

This'll lead your character to approach Koldun Sorcery in a slightly mechanical way to start, and then whammo, Occult 1.

Does anyone here have experience with pistols?


I need a way for a Glock or Glock knockoff to fall apart when pulled out, fired, or possibly used to pistol whip someone, that doesn't involve the users hand getting blown off.

>>25747350

It could be a way for it to fall apart when cocked too.

>>25746893

Interesting. he was originally embraced as a shovelhead but ended up coming to after the camarilla had taken the area away from the sabbat and he ended up not being summarily executed.


So as far as art goes think less critic or painter and more Jamie Hyneman, but less grumpy, more bohemian, and possibly with an even more varied past.

>>25720026
Oh hey, It's my old icon set (except that one with the ankh at about the 10 o'clock position -- no idea what that's supposed to be). Haven't seen those for a while.

>>25724953
Thanks, I'm happy with how that image turned out.

>>25734363
Tentative release date is on our site. We probably won't hit GenCon with Demon like we were hoping, though. Maybe September.

>>25748274

take all the time you need to work out bugs.

Have a nice day.

>>25748334
Thanks. We're either going to have the Fallen<->Descent Translation Guide or a Demon Quickstart out, though. So Demon fans won't have to walk away entirely empty-handed.

>>25748463

honsetly I'd be more excited about the translation guide.

BUT

I have no idea what the average player would want and I am to crippled to make it to the con anyway.

>>25747350

Glocks don't fall apart.

Does the Fate arcanum affect changeling pledges?

>>25720026

what is the deal with these skulls?


does each one represented different splat?