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pospysyl posted:Yeah, one on one, it's absolutely useless. With more people, it has a marginal use. Let's say we have 6 people, 3 good guys, 3 bad guys. Initiative goes like this: Except it doesn't matter because he loses his turn.
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Nov 26, 2013 00:12
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I don't think that is right because you are still losing out on a turn though. Barring a new person entering combat I think it is just moving you into last in initiative order.
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Nov 26, 2013 00:14
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pospysyl posted:Yeah, one on one, it's absolutely useless. With more people, it has a marginal use. Let's say we have 6 people, 3 good guys, 3 bad guys. Initiative goes like this: No, because he's used an action to move to the top.
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Nov 26, 2013 00:19
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Is there a list of Blood and Smoke preview rules and disciplines up somewhere? I'd like to use some of it in a one-shot I'll be running in a couple of weeks but I don't know where to find it all.
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Nov 26, 2013 00:34
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Even in the one on one match, Fresh Start does precisely nothing because the turn sequence is still A-B-A-B-A-B, it's just technically A(shoot)-B(delay)-B(shoot)-A(shoot) etc. Here's the scenario in which Fresh Start actually does something: you're having a fight with someone. Between round 2 and round 3, a monster is scheduled to appear and attack you. The monster has Initiative 40, Defense 0, Health 1, and deals 9999 aggravated damage with an attack that always hits. So, on turn 2, you use Fresh Start to set your initiative to 50. That way, when the monster appears at the end of turn 2, you're ready to instantly kill it on turn 3. Hooray! Edit: I'm actually slightly off here. Anyone could manage this by simply delaying their initiative in the old fashion way, so Fresh Start's only critical if identical monsters will appear on turns 3 and 4. I'm gonna make a claim here, though: it's good that Fresh Start is functionally useless and best ignored. It's the very worst kind of WoD game mechanic, the kind that plays numbers games with abstract and probably-combat-centric derived game statistics with no real reflection in the narrative whatsoever. Even if it did allow you to make some kind of beneficial tactical trade between initiative and Defense or attack dicepool or maximum health or the 10-again rule or some drat thing, it would be a waste of everyone's time. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Nov 26, 2013 |
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Nov 26, 2013 01:35
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It's a newbie trap and should thus be eliminated.
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Nov 26, 2013 01:42
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Honestly, supernatural powers do enough to screw with the combat system that you could essentially throw out all combat merits for all non mortal games and it would be either fine or better. Given the whole draw of the system is abstraction there is little to be gained and lots to be lost by getting too weird (see fighting styles if you really must.)
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Nov 26, 2013 02:43
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I'm actually curious how many people in this thread run their wod games anywhere even close to RAW. I'll arbitrarily define "close to raw" as 4 or fewer house rules. I definitely don't qualify. Last time we did a wod game it was VTM using nwod rules, for which our storyteller wrote pretty much an entire document to port the powers/clans over, as the translation guide made some very dubious assumptions. If a rule necessitated needing to look at something in the book, we pretty much winged it and checked later.
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Nov 26, 2013 03:14
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I gotta question, what does RAW mean?
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Nov 26, 2013 03:19
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Rules As Written.
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Nov 26, 2013 03:21
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Mr. Maltose posted:Rules As Written. Thanks that makes a lot more sense now.
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Nov 26, 2013 03:40
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Varjon posted:I'm actually curious how many people in this thread run their wod games anywhere even close to RAW. I'll arbitrarily define "close to raw" as 4 or fewer house rules. I just have like piles and piles of houserules. I'm shocked that there's people who not only play without any houserules but seem offended by the idea of changing the rules in any way. I've talked to these people and they are terrible.
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Nov 26, 2013 03:44
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Playing a mage game with Dave's GMC (house)rules, and we're kind of at a loss for magical conditions. Anyone got any good ideas, preferably for a Thyrsus with prime and mind?
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Nov 26, 2013 03:45
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So I'm going to be running a semi-comedic one-shot Vampire in Space thing. I just need to find a way to include a line from Space Olympics in there. We can't really enforce a curfew, as there is no light or sound...
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Nov 26, 2013 03:57
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Varjon posted:I'm actually curious how many people in this thread run their wod games anywhere even close to RAW. I'll arbitrarily define "close to raw" as 4 or fewer house rules. Currently I'm running a Mage weekly campaign that's been going for a year and 2/3rds, and running it pretty much rules as written aside from some removed mana costs to make Time and Fate more worthwhile and using Ferrinus' (I think) paradox rules, where you can't take backlash, but outright negative paradoxes only start occuring at 3+ successes. I'm also running a series of GMC one-shots taking place in a small town in the middle of the woods, and for that I'm pretty much using the GMC rules except I'm calculating Defence as Wits + Dexterity, and giving everyone at the table an XP when we get to 5 group beats rather than when we get to 5 group beats per member of the group. It speeds up advancement, sure, but it also gives XP a use in a one-shot setting.
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Nov 26, 2013 09:10
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Can't think of a better thread to ask this in: I'm thinking of reviving as a pbp a Mage game I ran last winter with an alternate setting that was still recognizably nMage, but through the filter of Tim Powers (especially Declare), Salman Rushdie (magical realism in India/Pakistan/Kashmir) and David Lynch. I'm not so sure about the system though. So main question: what system would you use to play nMage if not Storyteller? Or, sell me on the ease and speed of pbp using world of darkness.
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Nov 26, 2013 23:15
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You know about Unknown Armies, right? It's basically Tim Powers the RPG.
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Nov 26, 2013 23:19
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Kellsterik posted:Can't think of a better thread to ask this in: I love Tim Powers - my own Awakening game owes entirely too much to Last Call. FATE seems popular for running nWoD games in - just be aware that Dresden Files isn't a good system for Awakening. it's a good system for the Dresden Files, though.
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Nov 26, 2013 23:52
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Unknown Armies and FATE are pretty much the other two contenders right now, actually. UA holds a very special place in my heart and would fit in a lot of ways, my biggest concern is that altering the cosmology and general tone from Mage to the more low-key and humanistic adepts and avatars and the Occult Underground would take some doing and might take away the advantage of being able to use prep material I already wrote. FATE Core may end up being the way I go if Dresden Files doesn't fit, everything about it seems like it would fit what I want to do if I can just get a handle on the finer points of the rules in play. I used a system where the PCs had a +2 bonus to one particular type of magic (affecting computers, Life magic on their own body, detecting mind-affecting conditions like Dominate or hallucinogens, etc) that they could change whenever they regained Mana based on how they did oblations that would translate perfectly into Aspects. The Mage Chronicler's Guide was a great resource when I was developing this campaign by the way, the Over the Falls campaign was the initial seed for the idea. I wanted to run something more like Legacies but there just wasn't time for a long term game unfortunately.
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Nov 27, 2013 00:50
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Kellsterik posted:Unknown Armies and FATE are pretty much the other two contenders right now, actually. UA holds a very special place in my heart and would fit in a lot of ways, my biggest concern is that altering the cosmology and general tone from Mage to the more low-key and humanistic adepts and avatars and the Occult Underground would take some doing and might take away the advantage of being able to use prep material I already wrote. FATE Core may end up being the way I go if Dresden Files doesn't fit, everything about it seems like it would fit what I want to do if I can just get a handle on the finer points of the rules in play. I used a system where the PCs had a +2 bonus to one particular type of magic (affecting computers, Life magic on their own body, detecting mind-affecting conditions like Dominate or hallucinogens, etc) that they could change whenever they regained Mana based on how they did oblations that would translate perfectly into Aspects. I've actually been giving serious thought to a Fate Accelerated Mage hack, where you'd use your Aspects as "permissions" to do magic stuff with your Approaches. So, f'rinstance, your High Concept might be "Acanthus Deal-Maker," which means you can pull off magical effects related to Fate and Time. Other Arcana would come out of other Aspects--which could be as boring as "Adept of Death" but ideally would be more along the lines of "Unlikely Apprentice of Master Caligari" or what have you. It removes some of the granularity of measuring magical skill and makes the Paths more archetypal, but I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. Hell, you could model magical skill advancement by flagging each Aspect with a rank (i.e. Initiate/Apprentice/Disciple/etc.) and "improve" them with milestones.
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Nov 27, 2013 01:04
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You could also adopt something that Dave Chalker did with hacking Leverage to play Mage. I think it was with Ascension, but it could probably be retooled for Awakening without much fuss, and it would transfer more easily to Approaches than Skills, perhaps. Here's a little bit about it though I'm sure there's possibly other pieces out there. In Leverage terms, you turn Spheres into the same mechanical place that Roles play. To put it in Accelerated terms, pick the most apropos Spheres and make them Approaches. If you want to keep all 10, maybe you would give more of a spread to put in them or just deal with people not being able to do certain things. Otherwise maybe use 5 Approaches to signify your Watchtowers and then maybe a sixth Approach if you want to reflect mundane abilities/skills or just make everything a matter of one of those five Approaches, even mundane actions, like I believe the Leverage hack does with Spheres. Distinctions would be more or less Aspects, and you could probably treat a Cortex Plus d6 as equal to a +1 or so, maybe adjusting up or down, in Fate Core terms, and for every die step shifted go +/- 1 as necessary. A d4 would be a +0, I think, which makes a d12 on that scale equal to a +4 in Fate terms. I think Ryan Macklin is also working on the beginning of a Fate Core fan conversion of Ascension. Gasperkun fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 12:03
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Is there anything approaching a set of rules for crafting in OWOD? I've been scouring the internet and my books for references, but no cigar.
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Nov 27, 2013 18:02
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Plotac 75 posted:Is there anything approaching a set of rules for crafting in OWOD? I've been scouring the internet and my books for references, but no cigar. The craft skill covers this. Page 57 of the core book. A lot of it is down to fiat on a case by case basis. Ie, does the character reasonably have the knowledge and resources to do this. If they don't, then accumulating knowledge and resources can become a story branch that gives modifiers to the extended roll.
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Nov 27, 2013 18:19
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Varjon posted:The craft skill covers this. Page 57 of the core book. A lot of it is down to fiat on a case by case basis. Ie, does the character reasonably have the knowledge and resources to do this. If they don't, then accumulating knowledge and resources can become a story branch that gives modifiers to the extended roll. I've... never really understood the point of mundane crafting, the oWoD in particular. At least not as its own thing - knowing how to bodge together a makeshift weapon, sure. It's mostly used as a roadblock tossed in front of players from what I've seen, but then my primary experience is with online chats which kind of messes with the usual time-scale stuff.
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Nov 28, 2013 00:57
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I agree there's not much reason to use it beyond what you said, cobbling together some improvised whatever. Most vampire games take place in the modern age, and wal-marts are everywhere. I can see it being more of an issue in games set earlier, maybe. But honestly, if how they get the item can't be made interesting or relevant to the story, then they just get it, and shut up. That's my take.
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Nov 28, 2013 01:14
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citybeatnik posted:I've... never really understood the point of mundane crafting, the oWoD in particular. At least not as its own thing - knowing how to bodge together a makeshift weapon, sure. Well for my changeling character I took craft (animation) because it was relevant to the character himself and his goals and hopes and fears and it works for him, I think it depends on what you use craft for and what character you play as.
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Nov 28, 2013 01:26
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So I've been working on an extended project wherein I write up the specific capabilities of the ten Arcana by Practice (as in Veiling, Patterning, etc.) to serve as a reference document for a version of Mage: the Awakening that doesn't use a spell list. I've been doing the Paths in alphabetical order, so only Thyrsus is left and I'm just now tackling Spirit. Ideally, each Arcanum is a broad enough toolkit that you could play a character who specializes in it and always has stuff to do in the scene, but Spirit of course has the problem where as-written it's basically all about A) a particular kind of NPC and B) a particular kind of place, so whether or not its mechanics are actually balanced the experience of playing a Spirit mage boils down to "okay, I look around, are there any spirits here". Spirit needs some kind of inherent and independent verb set that works in the presence or absence of actual spirits, just like Death can do stuff even if there aren't any ghosts around and Space has a lot of utility even if you don't have any sympathetic connections to distant targets on hand. So, it's occurred to me that if any Arcanum deserves to have the power to influence or actualize memes and abstract concepts like brand names, bureaucracies, or agreements, it's Spirit. You know, like, the spirit of the law, or the spirit of camaraderie. Even the word "essence" fits in here! Plus, it could do a Fate-y kind of thing where it enhances or sabotages things' abilities to propagate themselves and fulfill archetypical, animistic roles - so, to Matter a boot is some leather in a particular shape, but to Spirit a boot is a thing that protects your feet, or stamps on the faces of underlings, or whatever. To an extent Spirit already does this through the narrative contrivance of awakening an object's dormant spirit, but maybe it'd be well-served if you were to cut out or at least minimize that middleman.
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Nov 28, 2013 01:36
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Ferrinus posted:So I've been working on an extended project wherein I write up the specific capabilities of the ten Arcana by Practice (as in Veiling, Patterning, etc.) to serve as a reference document for a version of Mage: the Awakening that doesn't use a spell list. I've been doing the Paths in alphabetical order, so only Thyrsus is left and I'm just now tackling Spirit. I would love to read this when you're done. I also like the route you're going with abstract concepts. I conceptualize these ideas as passions, and I conceptualize spirits more as passions than NPC creatures anyway. I do the same when I think about death and ghosts, because that's because I see one of the best aspects of Mage and the WoD in general the ability to exist because of beliefs. So jurisdiction over these areas seems only natural for me, as giving it solely to Mind would be folly. I can think of a certain brand of Seer that would just probably love your Spirit idea as well.
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Nov 28, 2013 02:04
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Ferrinus posted:So I've been working on an extended project wherein I write up the specific capabilities of the ten Arcana by Practice (as in Veiling, Patterning, etc.) to serve as a reference document for a version of Mage: the Awakening that doesn't use a spell list. I've been doing the Paths in alphabetical order, so only Thyrsus is left and I'm just now tackling Spirit.
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Nov 28, 2013 02:25
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Ferrinus posted:Ideally, each Arcanum is a broad enough toolkit that you could play a character who specializes in it and always has stuff to do in the scene, but Spirit of course has the problem where as-written it's basically all about A) a particular kind of NPC and B) a particular kind of place, so whether or not its mechanics are actually balanced the experience of playing a Spirit mage boils down to "okay, I look around, are there any spirits here". Spirit needs some kind of inherent and independent verb set that works in the presence or absence of actual spirits, just like Death can do stuff even if there aren't any ghosts around and Space has a lot of utility even if you don't have any sympathetic connections to distant targets on hand. I've been following this in your Mage thread and I'm really eager to see it finished. I'm not sure what your point is here - I thought spirits were everywhere, in everything. If they're not, making them omnipresent might be a solution - make the world totally animistic. What's wrong with the narrative of awakening the dormant spirit? The middleman's cool - it plays into the Thyrsus' animist aesthetic, you can turn it into a character. I don't think it's a contrivance - it's an opportunity! If it is a contrivance, think about making it worthwhile before you get rid of it. If these spells are doing a Fate-y kind of thing, why not just do it with Fate? Fate's all about getting things to fulfill their narrative roles. Also, what's the difference between the spirit of the law and the Astral representation of the idea of law?
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Nov 28, 2013 02:51
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Bigup DJ posted:I've been following this in your Mage thread and I'm really eager to see it finished. I'm not sure what your point is here - I thought spirits were everywhere, in everything. If they're not, making them omnipresent might be a solution - make the world totally animistic. I didn't realize anyone was reading. It's, it's not done! Don't judge me! What first got me thinking about it is the fact that there are places that are actually metaphysically spirit-less, like certain parts of the astral plane or the underworld. Theoretically, you want to have something to do in a place that's barren or possessed of an extremely thick gauntlet or something before you have the practice of Making to draw on. You're right that waking up an object's spirit is a cool narrative - I guess I'm just saying that I'm gonna dig around for a way to phrase/describe it such that it's less reliant on creating or summoning up a pre-existing thing that's distinct from the object (and, like, made of glowy and translucent ephemera, etc) but rather an inherent property of the object that tends, in the material world, to generate an entirely independent spirit being but is tangible and effect whether or not the occult infrastructure (small i) exists to allow for such a creature to be born and nourished. It wouldn't actually have the same metaphysical driving force as Fate - it's about emergent properties and Darwinian winnowing/propagation rather than coincidence. I'll keep what you said in mind, though, because having weird NPCs to play with is absolutely a big draw of Spirit. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Nov 28, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 02:59
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Pope Guilty posted:It's a newbie trap and should thus be eliminated. I think it was probably written before the playtest rules eliminated multiple actions and other oddities from the combat system (in v1, anybody could act more than once per turn). It's not worth t now in any event.
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Nov 28, 2013 05:37
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Spirit is powerful enough as it is and "meta" stuff is better handled under archmastery, in my o.
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Nov 28, 2013 06:16
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I've always had to house-rule Spirit. It's so close to being awesome but it suffers from some nasty limitations. 1.) Lesser Spirit Summons does like, literally nothing. It doesn't give the spirit any special ability to reach you faster, it only works on Twilight entities unless you're in Shadow (which are already pretty rare unless you have a locus handy), and it's limited to sensory. It's only practical use is to shout at a spirit who is hiding behind a couch and refusing to listen to you. I'd be fine with limiting it to Twilight, but I'd probably allow a character to shove more and more potency into area, using some kind of scale moving up to geographic. Alternatively I'd just scrap the idea entirely and give Spirit the ability to find a specific kind of entity anywhere up to a small geographic area (up to, "the whole city", for instance) in defiance of normal Area factors just because I think it'll get players in more trouble than help them and that's fine for a 2 dot power. 2.) Greater Spirit Summons is better but it's still limited to sensory range and doesn't give spirits any special ability to cross the Gauntlet or manifest without other magic; it doesn't do anything that peering across the Gauntlet and yelling at the closest Spirit wouldn't already do. In fact, since you need Space to do anything of consequence with it anyway, you might as well never use it, since Space 2 and Control Spirit work just as well. 3.) Shamans lack the ability to bribe Spirits with Mana until Spirit 4. This is a sweet draw and a practical use for Mana, and should be made available earlier. I think removing redundant or practically useless powers and replacing them with something that approximates or simulates dealing with spirits would be better than what we have now.
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Nov 28, 2013 06:35
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See, these are outgrowths of the problem that the Spirit Arcanum does basically nothing but interact with NPCs classified as "spirits" and either persuades or forces them to do things for your character. If it had a broad and improv-friendly ability to fiddle with elements of the caster's environment the way other Arcana do it wouldn't need, for instance, special exceptions to the normal rules for range/area-of-effect. (It should definitely be able to create some sort of obvious beacon that distant spirits can perceive and choose to approach, of course, the same way that you don't need a ton of area factors to cast a Forces spell that shines a bright light above your location.) I'm not worried about power because the other thing our writeup does is brutally simplify and compress the spellcasting rules into an Ascension-style (and Demon: the Descent-style, a lil bit) "these are the maximum game-mechanical consequences of your rolled successes" system and also sharply curtail spell durations. Choirs of fanatical 15/15/15 spirits of what I was going to do anyway aren't a thing from where I'm standing. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Nov 28, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 06:50
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Ferrinus posted:So I've been working on an extended project wherein I write up the specific capabilities of the ten Arcana by Practice (as in Veiling, Patterning, etc.) to serve as a reference document for a version of Mage: the Awakening that doesn't use a spell list. I've been doing the Paths in alphabetical order, so only Thyrsus is left and I'm just now tackling Spirit. I think the word "egregore" might serve you well.
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Nov 28, 2013 08:29
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For my mage game I boosted spirit in a slightly different direction. The spirit world is powered by the emotional and conceptual ephemera put out by the natural world, right? So why not give spirit mages the power to manipulate that, making themselves super-emotive or able to instinctively glide through social situations, reading the ephemera rather than the people?
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Nov 28, 2013 08:47
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Yeah, I definitely want to include stuff like that. If high levels of Spirit allow you to incarnate a relationship or community as a self-willed supernatural being, earlier applications should let you analyze and navigate them or bend them to your advantage.
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Nov 28, 2013 18:00
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We all know that the five realms and ten Arcana represent transcendent truths that encompass all other fiction and nonfictional magic systems, but the question is, how specifically do they map onto the Magic: the Gathering color wheel? Well, I'll tell you. Each of the five realms is a "wedge", one of the five colors of magic contrasted against the two colors opposite it. Specifically, the singled-out color represents the actual substances/phenomena that a walker on the appropriate Path predominantly wields, while its two enemy (and allied with each other) colors represent the underlying philosophy and ethos of that realm. For instance, the Stygia is the triangle containing black, white, and green, because while Stygian magic generally involves darkness, death and decay, the purpose of that power is to clear away chaff to allow for peace and renewal. Or have I just blown your mind
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Nov 28, 2013 19:14
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Ferrinus posted:We all know that the five realms and ten Arcana represent transcendent truths that encompass all other fiction and nonfictional magic systems, but the question is, how specifically do they map onto the Magic: the Gathering color wheel? Well, I'll tell you.
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Nov 28, 2013 19:38
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