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Blood Sorcery is out for nVampire. Anybody read through it yet? I might get it just because it sounds like another Danse Macabre style retooling book, and Danse Macabre was loving amazing.
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Sep 15, 2012 00:33
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Daeren posted:Blood Sorcery is out for nVampire. Anybody read through it yet? I might get it just because it sounds like another Danse Macabre style retooling book, and Danse Macabre was loving amazing. Oooooh, I want this so much!
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Sep 15, 2012 00:42
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Fuzz posted:The ONLY oMage book worth reading is Guide to the Technocracy. That's it. The core isn't even worth bothering with, and GttT is really only good because it's chock full of awesome poo poo. The Guide to the Technocracy is The Wave for nerds.
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Sep 15, 2012 00:50
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I've skimmed through it and it looks pretty good. It opens out cruac and theban sorcery quite a bit in a not-particularly-broken way, and the threnody system (improvising blood magic rituals by undisciplining your disciplines, essentially) looks flavourful and pretty fun. It's quite light, but it still has some room for antagonists of the political and metaphysical varieties.
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Sep 15, 2012 00:54
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Loomer posted:...the Clan Novels weren't particularly good... Flavivirus posted:Greg Stolze's books for nVampire are pretty good (A Hunger Like Fire, A Marriage of Virtue and Viciousness). There were a couple of unanswered questions: interesting stories about playing a Fetch, and how to get around the mirror issue as a Lasombra.
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Sep 15, 2012 03:36
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I haven't read much WoD fiction, but I can wholeheartedly recommend five books by Greg Stolze: Ashes and Angel Wings, The Seven Deadlies, The Wreckage of Paradise - oWoD Demon A Hunger Like Fire, A Marriage of Virtue and Viciousness - nWoD Vampire Stolze wanted to call the first vampire book "My Drinking Problem", but they wouldn't let him. Careful! There's a Vampire book by Lucien Soulban (or some other really cool sounding name) called "Blood In, Blood Out" ostensibly set between the two Stolze books. Don't read it!
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Sep 15, 2012 03:43
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The Victorian vampire trilogy was also fairly good for the oWoD stuff (for starters, I actually enjoyed them.). From memory, some of the Dark Ages Vampire novels were alright as well (Gangrel, maybe? I'm a sucker for Gangrel stuff though.)
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Sep 15, 2012 04:32
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MalcolmSheppard posted:The Guide to the Technocracy is The Wave for nerds.  If we're going to gush over oMage material, Sons of Ether Revised was the line's last, best hope. These guys had plans and strategies and goals to win the Ascension War. And they were actually capable of cooperating with other factions in the broader context of the war. That was loving amazing. Every loving paragraph provided some sort of inspiration, character concept, plot hook, or some kind of scenery or odd bit of stuff to say in the background.
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Sep 15, 2012 04:45
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MalcolmSheppard posted:The Guide to the Technocracy is The Wave for nerds. The thing about the Guide to the Technocracy is it is full of the good guys fighting the good fight in an unwinnable war against the internal corruption of their own side. It was a beautiful book because it's all about how the technocracy itself isn't evil, it's just full of old angry dudes who have grown so far removed form humanity they don't give a gently caress. It's also all about how the conventions get along (and often don't) and why their goals are so out of joint. It's told from the perspective of a mage who's slowly turning into a technocrat without even realizing it, and it's a brilliant book for helping an ST make strong Byronic heroes out of his villains. The convention books are mostly great, too, and slowly explain why each part of the technocracy is failing and why the whole thing is coming apart now that they've won, and each book is chock full of the subgroups that might save or destroy their own group. They're each brilliant, and they allow for heroic technocrats fighting the same fight as a Mage would be, just differently. They also go into what technocrats are fighting against, and how in most cases they're fighting their own organization and their boss structure. It doesn't make you want to play a villainous technocrat, it makes you want to create the technocracy that should have been, the one mankind deserves. Finally it catches some of the generational struggles, too... the people holding back science are the ones at the top of the technocracy, and a great deal of that is because their ways work fine for them why should they have to change or update? The SoE leaving the Technocracy was basically old people saying "what? space? Who cares about space? get off my lawn you little bastards!"
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Sep 15, 2012 05:01
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I have a really underdeveloped appreciation for Mage, but I did get a copy of Dark Ages: Mage and I'm really digging it so far.
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Sep 15, 2012 05:07
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ErichZahn posted:
You're welcome. I think that's the one where I really nailed paradigm.
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Sep 15, 2012 05:26
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My favourite character I ever got to play was a Son of Ether. I put so much though and effort into it before the game even started - about the internal resolution of paradoxes (small 'p'), how scientific realism would shape the way he worked, his family life and personal history... he died about 8 sessions in, hurled into a wall by a pacifist while riding a mine cart (the pacifist was on his side, and the mine cart was to hold his Death Ray) 
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Sep 15, 2012 12:24
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The Tradition books are pretty hit and miss, Order of Hermes is a favourate of mine since it helped define them as actual good guys as opposed to a more arrogent version of the Tremere. Vebrenna was a bit of a dud however. On a general level they're all pretty useful for foci suggestions, rotes and in tradition perks. EDIT: i'm thinking about running a changling the lost game and wanted to involve actual Demons are their any rules out their Daemons or should I just crank out my own? Zombiejack fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Sep 15, 2012 |
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Sep 15, 2012 13:42
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So we decided last night in our Mage game that if our Mastigos messes up a Teleportation spell to somewhere he has low sympathy, he basically ends up in Bupkis, Idaho. If he really messes up a Teleportation spell (2+ successes on the Paradox) he LITERALLY ends up in Bupkis, Idaho. It's a very unsettling place. We also (on suggestion from my players, actually) made the penalty for absorbing a Paradox backlash be resistant Aggravated, not resistant Bashing. Given that they've not actually absorbed a backlash so far, this won't change much but it does give the option some teeth. Quantum Mechanic fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Sep 15, 2012 |
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Sep 15, 2012 14:43
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Waaaah the Christians are out to get me
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Zombiejack posted:EDIT: i'm thinking about running a changling the lost game and wanted to involve actual Demons are their any rules out their Daemons or should I just crank out my own?
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Sep 15, 2012 15:44
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WELP! My Mage count file got loving corrupted. I had a raw-count form, which doesn't have what book they're all from, so I'm working from that, but it means I'll have to bloody go back and do 1993 - 1994 all over again later. gently caress's sake.
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Sep 15, 2012 15:46
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Somewhere, a member of the Technocracy laughs evilly.
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Sep 15, 2012 16:25
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I'm running a Hunter one off tomorrow, I've only ever run the demo before. I've got a good plot concept worked out in my head, but I'm not sure how to go about making stat blocks for enemies or however it works in nWoD. For gang thugs I can steal the template from the HtV demo, at least, but I don't know how I'd stat, for example, a swarm of thousands of psychic rats.
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Sep 15, 2012 16:30
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WINNERSH TRIANGLE posted:Somewhere, a member of the Technocracy laughs evilly. It also corrupted the global chantry map, and as far as I can tell, only those two files. I ain't even kidding, and I don't recall having them open last time I crashed.
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Sep 15, 2012 16:42
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Speaking of oWoD fiction, back when WW published novels and anthologies under their own imprint (Psalms of Herod was really loving good, as I recall, and had nothing to do with the WoD), they put out an anthology of vampire stories. They did a number of these, some abhorrently terrible, but there was one collection that had a story where I poo poo you not, Jesus was embraced. As awful as it sounds, it was actually quite good, and the author used it to explain/showcase Paul's corruption and reformation of Christ's message into his own psychological crutch. I'm fairly sure that in the same book there was a story about a vampire who lived through the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which I loved. Does anyone remember these stories, or which collection these were from? One of the Dark Descents books or something?
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Sep 15, 2012 17:40
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What, uh. What clan was he?
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Sep 15, 2012 17:45
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1995 is on the agenda now. To-do: The Inquisition Fragile Path Project Twilight N.W.O 1st Ed Destiny's Price Mage 2E Core Ascension's Right Hand Halls of the Arcanum Clanbooks: Assamite, Setite, Tzimisce Giovanni Chronicles 1 D.C. By Night Masquerade of the Red Death trilogy Freak Legion Tribe Books: Shadow Lords, Glass Walkers Rage Across Appalachia Changeling 1E Core Nobles: The Shining Host Freeholds Immortal Eyes Changeling Storyteller's Book Autumn People Changeling Player Kit Dark Kingdoms of Jade Adventures Guild Books: Artificers, Sandmen, Masquers Wraith Player's Guide Dark Reflections Sea of Shadows Quick and tge Dead Outcasts Midnight Circus Probably some others. If anyone knows of them (novels/books from 1994 I missed), let ,e know. EDIT: Oh, and Vampire: the Eternal Struggle and VTES Dark Sovereigns Loomer fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Sep 15, 2012 |
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Sep 15, 2012 18:20
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TheAnomaly posted:It doesn't make you want to play a villainous technocrat, it makes you want to create the technocracy that should have been, the one mankind deserves. I'm only just reading through Technocracy (and reviewing it over in Fatal & Friends), but that's pretty much spot-on. It's adorably dated in terms of tech (removable drives?! HOW HIGH TECH) but god drat if I don't want to run Deux Ex: The Union Edition with it.
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Sep 15, 2012 18:22
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Hey folks, Past Mage developer, WW contributor to many more games and Star Trek Online designer Jesse Heinig suffered a drug-resistant Strep infection that nearly took his leg. We've been fundraising to help him out with some of his expenses. Is it all right if I put a link here?
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Sep 15, 2012 18:22
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MalcolmSheppard posted:Hey folks, As a mod, Winson Paine is the goto guy for permission for that. but My opinion is that it's a good idea, provide a link and I'll put it in the OP.
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Sep 15, 2012 19:02
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MalcolmSheppard posted:Hey folks, PM me the link, I don't think it will be a problem but it needs a quick vette first.
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Sep 15, 2012 19:05
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Loomer posted:EDIT: http://www.vteschecklist.com A fair number (if not most?) are "canon" characters from the books, so you might get some overlap.
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Sep 15, 2012 19:09
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Quantum Mechanic posted:We also (on suggestion from my players, actually) made the penalty for absorbing a Paradox backlash be resistant Aggravated, not resistant Bashing. Given that they've not actually absorbed a backlash so far, this won't change much but it does give the option some teeth. Holy poo poo this sounds pretty cool actually. I always did think that it was way to easy to get around paradox and this actually makes it dangerous now.
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Sep 15, 2012 20:16
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At that point it's better to just eat the paradox because the vast majority of them do little to nothing of importance.
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Sep 15, 2012 21:09
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Zombiejack posted:The Tradition books are pretty hit and miss, Order of Hermes is a favourate of mine since it helped define them as actual good guys as opposed to a more arrogent version of the Tremere. Order of Hermes Revised was a mixed bag if you wanted to use it as an actual source for the OoH. Its tradition/faction writeups were overwhelmed up by pointless mid-Revised-edition metaplot twists. Mainly, though, it sidelined coverage of Hermeticism itself in favor of giving extensive coverage to Kabbalah, I guess because Kabbalism was trendy at the time among the neopagan set. Ironically enough, the best treatment of Hermeticism in oWoD (fluff-wise, at least) was in Vampire's Blood Magic sourcebook.
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Sep 16, 2012 00:30
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Zeithos posted:http://www.vteschecklist.com Almost all of the characters from the White Wolf-published sets originated in the sourcebooks or novels, but most of the ones from the WotC sets (aside from some major princes and a few iconic characters like Smiling Jack) were original to V:TES.
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Sep 16, 2012 00:30
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There are also a lot of V:tES vampires that "do it wrong" - not-extinct Baali, normal looking Nagaraja and Harbingers of Skulls, white male Ahrimanes, and the arguably transgendered Daughter of Cacophony.
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Sep 16, 2012 01:17
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They gave the Harbingers more blacked-out eyes than the Kiasyd, yeah.
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Sep 16, 2012 01:36
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moths posted:There are also a lot of V:tES vampires that "do it wrong" - not-extinct Baali, normal looking Nagaraja and Harbingers of Skulls, white male Ahrimanes, and the arguably transgendered Daughter of Cacophony. Baali never really went extinct though, and the transwoman Daughter of Cacophony and her male sire actually originated in one of the game books (Nights of Prophecy, IIRC). And let's not forget Christopher Shy's interpretation of the Nosferatu from their revised clanbook ("Clanbook: Space Elf", they called it).
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Sep 16, 2012 01:42
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Hey now, let's not say anything about Christopher Shy we can't take back.
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Sep 16, 2012 01:47
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gtrmp posted:Baali never really went extinct though, and the transwoman Daughter of Cacophony and her male sire actually originated in one of the game books (Nights of Prophecy, IIRC). Yeah the idea of some Baali persisting was always there, but in HttB they got a non-unique low cap named The Horde to (presumably) represent hordes of Baali. I didn't know that about the Daughter though, I thought it was a nod to fans who couldn't deal with a girls club. e: They did some proper corpse-like Harbingers, but this guy looks like he's about to address a UN subcommittee. Here's the white male Ahrimane, the hottest Nosferatu, Harlan Graves, and The Baali Horde. It's weird because they got all the Samedi right. And despite being one of the rarest of bloodlines, there are a total of twenty-five Salubri and !Salubri. moths fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 02:45
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Reene posted:At that point it's better to just eat the paradox because the vast majority of them do little to nothing of importance. This is exactly what I wanted - the default should be to just allow the Paradox to happen. If it's a REALLY important spell, like the one to telekinetically grab your sister who is also Mage Jesus from the bottom of a helicopter, you have the option there. Absorbing the backlash shouldn't ever be the default choice. My players actually fear Paradoxes, and it's kind of nice. Quantum Mechanic fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 04:27
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That's more my wistfully wanting Paradox to do more than make you have frog eyes for the rest of the scene. The metaphysical weight of an action like conjuring up a Paradox is kind of lacking.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:34
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Zeithos posted:http://www.vteschecklist.com This should really come in handy. I have a lot of holes in my cards and I wasn't relishing scouring the internet for them and buying exorbitant costs for the ones I can't find. Also, they finally got around to offering a pdf of the VtM 1E Player's Guide. Would have been nice to have had that before I bought a hard copy. EDIT: If memory serves, the trans-Daughter was actually Celeste, but Google suggests Harlan Ellison was the sire of Celeste, introduced in Nights of Prophecy as one of the male Daughters who were purged. Heirs to the Blood, which postdates Nights of Prophecy by about 10 years, didn't introduce him. The Horde, though, is just silly, yes. Loomer fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 04:39
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Quantum Mechanic posted:This is exactly what I wanted - the default should be to just allow the Paradox to happen. If it's a REALLY important spell, like the one to telekinetically grab your sister who is also Mage Jesus from the bottom of a helicopter, you have the option there. Absorbing the backlash shouldn't ever be the default choice. What she means is that paradox is weak and dumb. First, you roll paradox BEFORE you cast the instant spell. If it's the first vulgar spell in a scene and there are no witnesses, you can just spend 1-2 mana to drag it down to a chance die. Second, the paradox chart is loving dumb. Let's walk through it. 1 paradox hit: Your spell goes wild! This is the worst possible result if you care about the spell going off. All of the higher effects still result in your spell happening as you wanted. 2 paradox hits: You have to RP minor mental illness for one scene, or longer if you've cratered your wisdom. For up to 3 dots it's "Ooh, I'm so depressed, wah wah." 4+ dot effects are slightly more threatening but you may or may not care because your spell still goes off. 3 paradox hits: Some weird poo poo happens nearby that is not aimed at making your life worse. It's just Weird poo poo That Happens and will help or hurt you as much as your enemies. 4 paradox hits: For dots 1-3, you look weird for a scene to a day or two. For 4 dots, you have to dress up like a nosferatu for a while. At 5, you just don't leave the house for a while. 5: Evil spirit shows up! You can also soak just some of the paradox. So if you get super-unlucky and get 5 hits, no big deal, just soak two and the nearby area is weird for a while.
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Sep 16, 2012 04:44
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