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Cythereal posted:Unless you exploit the mages' signature weakness: their own pride. That whole "we can win every time, we're OP since we can alter reality with our mind" mentality is both common and not conducive to long life. As antagonists, I've always viewed mages as the ones you really have to outsmart - they have more potential power than just about anything else in the World of Darkness, but the human mind wielding that power is as dumb, short-sighted, and arrogant as any other human mind if not more so due to overconfidence in the power it wields. All the arcane power in the world won't save a mage from simply getting hit by a bus while crossing the street. The thing is, the enemy of mages is almost always other mages, and those other mages are capable of making killer cyborgs which can beat rear end in ways Werewolves would give their left nut to possess. As a non-mage, you're best served avoiding mages, because only the really dumb or really weak ones are liable to be beaten in ways you have easy access to unless you want to get entangled in mage politics, and the really dumb ones tend to get themselves killed fairly quickly, while the really weak ones tend to have patrons who might get aggravated at your poking at their favorite students.
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Dec 14, 2013 16:59
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Cythereal posted:Unless you exploit the mages' signature weakness: their own pride. That whole "we can win every time, we're OP since we can alter reality with our mind" mentality is both common and not conducive to long life. As antagonists, I've always viewed mages as the ones you really have to outsmart - they have more potential power than just about anything else in the World of Darkness, but the human mind wielding that power is as dumb, short-sighted, and arrogant as any other human mind if not more so due to overconfidence in the power it wields. All the arcane power in the world won't save a mage from simply getting hit by a bus while crossing the street. Unless it's a mage who specializes in Fate magic, but gently caress dealing with those ones. That's more frustrating than anything, trying to get something, anything to stick to one of those bastards. Basically, yeah, you have to hit a mage when they're not ready for it. If they don't have any mojo going then they're just as squishy as any other schmuck out there.
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Dec 14, 2013 17:01
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UrbicaMortis posted:Of course, when it comes to supernatural fights, I kind of figure mages will win every time provided they know an attack is coming(and with Fate magic, they can find out well in advance)since being able to alter reality with your mind is kind of OP. There is Paradox, though. The stronger a mage is, the more destructive its explosions become. Even the least serious manifestations can include hurting you with aggravated damage, or applying some hosed up effect which either downright cripples you or forces you into hiding, as it broadcasts to everyone that you were loving with reality. And there are worse things that can happen to you - like insanity, or summoning a spirit bent on punishing you for your transgression, or imprisoning you in your own personal hell. And, unlike sissy Paradox from nMage, it can't be absorbed for damage. As an additional "gently caress you", Paradox eats up your Quintessence. However, if you manage to ramp up enough points for this to happen, having not enough Quintessence is the least of your problems.
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Dec 14, 2013 17:10
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MJ12 posted:The thing is, the enemy of mages is almost always other mages, and those other mages are capable of making killer cyborgs which can beat rear end in ways Werewolves would give their left nut to possess. As a non-mage, you're best served avoiding mages, because only the really dumb or really weak ones are liable to be beaten in ways you have easy access to unless you want to get entangled in mage politics, and the really dumb ones tend to get themselves killed fairly quickly, while the really weak ones tend to have patrons who might get aggravated at your poking at their favorite students. The only World of Darkness I play is nHunter, and with my players Task Force: Valkyrie treats mages like any other supernatural. If they endanger innocent people or threaten national security, Valkyrie can kick their teeth in until they stop misbehaving and has tools to make that easier. It's one of the fun things about Hunter, new or old. Every other game line is pretty isolated, with their own unique adversaries and machinations that rarely if ever intersect. For a Hunter game, the other lines are Monster Manuals. In my game group, Valkyrie has repeatedly clashed with werewolves because, well, they're psychopathic murderers who, at least in my campaign, are major players in the sex slavery industry - they claim they need the wolf-blooded so their society can cary out their sacred duty, but the wolf blooded women - and men - in supernatural witness protection have different ideas. Personally, I come down on the side of all these supernatural groups hiding from humanity because they don't want to admit that plain old mundane humans are the most dangerous thing in existence. quote:Unless it's a mage who specializes in Fate magic, but gently caress dealing with those ones. That's more frustrating than anything, trying to get something, anything to stick to one of those bastards. Basically, yeah, you have to hit a mage when they're not ready for it. If they don't have any mojo going then they're just as squishy as any other schmuck out there. Alternatively, have an Endowment that fucks up anything like fate magic. If the splats don't provide one, make one. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 17:10
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^^ I thought at least the Camarilla in oWoD was explicit about needing to hide from humans because they can be dangerous. IIRC, in between Vampire: Dark Ages and the "modern nights", a lot of vampires got killed after humans became more aware of them. Sure, the Camarilla will also refer to humans as 'kine' (cattle), but looking down on and being afraid of people at the same time is hardly exclusive.
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Dec 14, 2013 17:16
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Well, the things Werewolves fight are definitely a significant problem. The werewolves may be a more obvious problem in their own right, but given spirits hate them most of all they don't really have a choice but to be constantly fighting dangerous spirits that would otherwise pretty much kill arbitrary numbers of people with very limited means to detect or stop them.
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Dec 14, 2013 17:21
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apostateCourier posted:Unless it's a mage who specializes in Fate magic, but gently caress dealing with those ones. That's more frustrating than anything, trying to get something, anything to stick to one of those bastards. Basically, yeah, you have to hit a mage when they're not ready for it. If they don't have any mojo going then they're just as squishy as any other schmuck out there. I assume you are talking about Awakening, as Fate didn't appear until nMage - before, Death and Fate were a bizarre mix, called Entropy. The key of dealing with Acanthuses (Acanthoi? Acanthi?) is forcing them into situations where they have no choice. Threatening their friends and family, for example, should force them to attack you even if their magic tells them to lay low. If that fails, there's always attrition - hire several assassins who don't communicate with each other and set them loose on the mage. Sooner or later, he gets out of mana, or asks the wrong question during one of his divinations and misses the least obvious danger from the ones that threaten him.
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Dec 14, 2013 17:23
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Feinne posted:Well, the things Werewolves fight are definitely a significant problem. The werewolves may be a more obvious problem in their own right, but given spirits hate them most of all they don't really have a choice but to be constantly fighting dangerous spirits that would otherwise pretty much kill arbitrary numbers of people with very limited means to detect or stop them. My take on it in my Hunter games is that all of this is true and Valkyrie's leadership knows it, but by the same token the werewolves are an equally significant problem. Valkyrie's game plan is to slap down the werewolves until they get the message that they aren't alpha anymore and are willing to talk. Valkyrie would rather enlist the werewolves than fight them, but, well, werewolves are assholes and in the meantime the boys in R&D are working on the spirit problem. Not a perfect plan, no, but Valkyrie doesn't get the jobs that you can make perfect plans for. quote:The key of dealing with Acanthuses (Acanthoi? Acanthi?) is forcing them into situations where they have no choice. Threatening their friends and family, for example, should force them to attack you even if their magic tells them to lay low. If that fails, there's always attrition - hire several assassins who don't communicate with each other and set them loose on the mage. Sooner or later, he gets out of mana, or asks the wrong question during one of his divinations and misses the least obvious danger from the ones that threaten him. I had my players go up against one of these bastards, and the solution they found was to simply rely on the white noise of the modern world. There are a million ways you can die walking down the street of a major city, some of them intentional - gangs who think you're wearing the colors of a rival, or the homeless man who thinks God, in the form of a small dog, told him to kill you. Good luck predicting which threat exactly is which on any given day.
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Dec 14, 2013 17:35
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Cythereal posted:My take on it in my Hunter games is that all of this is true and Valkyrie's leadership knows it, but by the same token the werewolves are an equally significant problem. Valkyrie's game plan is to slap down the werewolves until they get the message that they aren't alpha anymore and are willing to talk. Valkyrie would rather enlist the werewolves than fight them, but, well, werewolves are assholes and in the meantime the boys in R&D are working on the spirit problem. Not a perfect plan, no, but Valkyrie doesn't get the jobs that you can make perfect plans for. One of the complications is always knowing with which group you are dealing. The Pure are far more rear end in a top hat than the Forsaken.
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Dec 14, 2013 17:37
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LeJackal posted:One of the complications is always knowing with which group you are dealing. The Pure are far more rear end in a top hat than the Forsaken. How large would you say the gap between the Pure and the Forsaken is, morality wise? Is it like the gap between the Camarilla and the Sabbat, or is it more like the gap between the Camarilla and the Baali?
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Dec 14, 2013 17:41
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Gantolandon posted:I assume you are talking about Awakening, as Fate didn't appear until nMage - before, Death and Fate were a bizarre mix, called Entropy. Even so, defensive magic lasts a long time (24 hours by taking a -2 penalty while casting, or spending a mana) and is a bastard to get past. It stacks with everything, so someone with a defense of 3, 3 dots in an arcanum, and a vest(1/2 armor) suddenly is subtracting 5 dice from every firearms attack and 7 from melee attacks, completely covertly, all day long. If an Acanthus has to step it up, a lot of them have access to Acceleration (a Time 3 effect), which (in this example) throws another 3 on the pile, and suddenly the whole -10/-11 penalty applies to firearms, too. They can't do that for very long, no, and Acceleration is vulgar, but that's a scary level of defense in the short term. Ten-ish rounds is enough time to kill some people that are loving with you in more mundane ways. That's a starting Acanthus, who admittedly focuses on Time rather than Fate. Though, it doesn't take that long to get from 2 to 3 in a ruling arcanum. Edit: the other thing you have to worry about with Acanthus, is that they can "hang" spells with conditional triggers. These can be super vague, like "if something wishes me lethal harm in the next few seconds" or "If I'm about to be hurt intentionally" or whatever. They're really, really hard to pin down. apostateCourier fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 17:42
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apostateCourier posted:Even so, defensive magic lasts a long time (24 hours by taking a -2 penalty while casting, or spending a mana) and is a bastard to get past. It stacks with everything, so someone with a defense of 3, 3 dots in an arcanum, and a vest(1/2 armor) suddenly is subtracting 5 dice from every firearms attack and 7 from melee attacks, completely covertly, all day long. If an Acanthus has to step it up, a lot of them have access to Acceleration (a Time 3 effect), which (in this example) throws another 3 on the pile, and suddenly the whole -10/-11 penalty applies to firearms, too. They can't do that for very long, no, and Acceleration is vulgar, but that's a scary level of defense in the short term. Ten-ish rounds is enough time to kill some people that are loving with you in more mundane ways. On the other hand, subtracting dice from firearms and melee attacks doesn't protect you at all from cars. Or ruptured gas lines. My guideline for Hunters is that the supernaturals they oppose tend to be very powerful in certain fields - overwhelmingly so in the case of mages and some exotic critters - but not only is their power not universal, few of them have any real respect for humanity beyond "oh, if they united they'd be a problem, so let's keep it on the down low." Much less the government, which as we all know is mostly controlled by vampires and mages and one or two actual humans who just landed their internships with the government. Werewolves, for example, are one of my group's regular adversaries, and the last time they tried telling a werewolf pack that Valkyrie's swatted down half a dozen packs, the werewolves just laughed in their faces. Come on, the US government means nothing to supernaturals! The only question is who orchestrated the destruction of those packs. It's a fun blind spot that seems endemic to all the splats. Hunters, and mundane human law enforcement/military, just don't get much respect from supernaturals. quote:Edit: the other thing you have to worry about with Acanthus, is that they can "hang" spells with conditional triggers. These can be super vague, like "if something wishes me lethal harm in the next few seconds" or "If I'm about to be hurt intentionally" or whatever. They're really, really hard to pin down. That assumes an unreasonable level of paranoia, though. It's a bit ridiculous to expect a mage to be doing that every few seconds they walk down the street every day of their life. Not even Stalin was that paranoid.
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Dec 14, 2013 17:52
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Cythereal posted:On the other hand, subtracting dice from firearms and melee attacks doesn't protect you at all from cars. Or ruptured gas lines. My guideline for Hunters is that the supernaturals they oppose tend to be very powerful in certain fields - overwhelmingly so in the case of mages and some exotic critters - but not only is their power not universal, few of them have any real respect for humanity beyond "oh, if they united they'd be a problem, so let's keep it on the down low." Much less the government, which as we all know is mostly controlled by vampires and mages and one or two actual humans who just landed their internships with the government. Amusingly the Predators book (which provides more detail than the werewolf book did on some of the things that tend to intentionally gently caress with werewolves) does suggest that some particularly intelligent Hosts have quite a bit of respect for how much difficulty calling the cops on werewolves can bring them.
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Dec 14, 2013 18:05
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Caustic Soda posted:^^ I thought at least the Camarilla in oWoD was explicit about needing to hide from humans because they can be dangerous. IIRC, in between Vampire: Dark Ages and the "modern nights", a lot of vampires got killed after humans became more aware of them. Sure, the Camarilla will also refer to humans as 'kine' (cattle), but looking down on and being afraid of people at the same time is hardly exclusive. The only people who look down on cattle are those who've never had to deal with them. Cows are terrifying. I still remember almost getting my hand bitten off by a cow at a petting zoo. 
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Dec 14, 2013 18:09
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edit: ^^Well that's rather typical of insults, isn't it? Especially the ones based on ignorant contempt. Calling someone a pig is an insult too, and pigs can be bloody murder machines.Cythereal posted:It's a fun blind spot that seems endemic to all the splats. Hunters, and mundane human law enforcement/military, just don't get much respect from supernaturals. That's true. It also isn't all that surprising, given that every single supernatural group has their own secret shadow government, mafia-esque in-groups. Since by definition their societies survive by avoiding official attention, it's easy to become convinced that human government is so blind it couldn't possibly be a threat except by accident or manipulation. The lack of respect for humans isn't helped by the various supernaturals tendency to puff themselves up, and how just their clan/tribe/House/whatever is so much better than those other schmucks. Caustic Soda fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 18:10
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apostateCourier posted:Even so, defensive magic lasts a long time (24 hours by taking a -2 penalty while casting, or spending a mana) and is a bastard to get past. It stacks with everything, so someone with a defense of 3, 3 dots in an arcanum, and a vest(1/2 armor) suddenly is subtracting 5 dice from every firearms attack and 7 from melee attacks, completely covertly, all day long. If an Acanthus has to step it up, a lot of them have access to Acceleration (a Time 3 effect), which (in this example) throws another 3 on the pile, and suddenly the whole -10/-11 penalty applies to firearms, too. They can't do that for very long, no, and Acceleration is vulgar, but that's a scary level of defense in the short term. Ten-ish rounds is enough time to kill some people that are loving with you in more mundane ways. That's why you send a lot of pawns at them to wear them down. Your strength lies in numbers here not only because someone might actually hit the Acanthus, but also because nMage actually distinguish between "covert" and "improbable". Even without vulgar Acceleration, enough misses in a row should trigger Disbelief and dispel the armor.
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Dec 14, 2013 18:12
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Feinne posted:Amusingly the Predators book (which provides more detail than the werewolf book did on some of the things that tend to intentionally gently caress with werewolves) does suggest that some particularly intelligent Hosts have quite a bit of respect for how much difficulty calling the cops on werewolves can bring them. Yeah, but supernaturals having a healthy respect for the Hunter PCs wouldn't rile up the PCs in question nearly as much.  A few have given my PCs some real respect, like the promethean who in hindsight was committing suicide by cop and the deranged changeling who recognized that the threads of the story had brought forth The Law to oppose her as the narrative demanded they must, but I enjoy portraying Valkyrie as extremely effective, superbly competent, and completely dismissed by the supernatural world as a legitimate threat. They're just humans, after all, and we all know plain old humans aren't a threat, don't we?
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Dec 14, 2013 18:22
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Cythereal posted:My take on it in my Hunter games is that all of this is true and Valkyrie's leadership knows it, but by the same token the werewolves are an equally significant problem. Valkyrie's game plan is to slap down the werewolves until they get the message that they aren't alpha anymore and are willing to talk. Valkyrie would rather enlist the werewolves than fight them, but, well, werewolves are assholes and in the meantime the boys in R&D are working on the spirit problem. Not a perfect plan, no, but Valkyrie doesn't get the jobs that you can make perfect plans for.
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Dec 14, 2013 18:41
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Cythereal posted:.... but I enjoy portraying Valkyrie as extremely effective, superbly competent, and completely dismissed by the supernatural world as a legitimate threat. They're just humans, after all, and we all know plain old humans aren't a threat, don't we? Most of the games I've played in, it was a rare player that treated humans with contempt. Then again, a lot of those games featured humans being used effectively and often as tools to do horrible things.  Humans are weak and pathetic! I could kill a roomful of them! Time to sleep in the basement of my house now. Welp, its high noon. Time to knock down this house. Blah, the light!
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Dec 14, 2013 18:50
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Cythereal posted:Yeah, but supernaturals having a healthy respect for the Hunter PCs wouldn't rile up the PCs in question nearly as much. The difficulty with something like Hunter is making the game be fun while trying not to completely undermine the horror setting and that even with the more modest power of most supernaturals there are still things that humans should just avoid.
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Dec 14, 2013 19:03
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LeJackal posted:Most of the games I've played in, it was a rare player that treated humans with contempt. Then again, a lot of those games featured humans being used effectively and often as tools to do horrible things. I never claimed every game uses those assumptions or has those blind spots. It's the sense I've gotten from most splats, though, and it's a vibe I've rolled with for my Hunter game. Valkyrie and its sister organizations VASCU (the FBI's supernatural division), the Barrett Commission (the state department's), and a compact I made up called Project Looking Glass (the NSA's) do a very good job of protecting the country from supernatural threats but are underfunded and get no respect. quote:The difficulty with something like Hunter is making the game be fun while trying not to completely undermine the horror setting and that even with the more modest power of most supernaturals there are still things that humans should just avoid. Eh. Horror's overrated, in my opinion. The campaign I run with my players has its creepy and horrific moments, mainly when dealing with the changeling side of the house or when Valkyrie went up against the Knights of Saint George, but by and large I dispense with the gloomy atmosphere. Sure, there's a lot of stuff humanity should just avoid. For now. But there was a time when taking on werewolves in a fair fight and winning was unthinkable. Human courage, innovation, and determination is what made humanity the dominant force on the planet, and they'll be what keeps humanity in that position. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 19:07
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MJ12 posted:killer cyborgs which can beat rear end in ways Werewolves would give their left nut to possess Actually, this happened. The Cyber Dogs were a faction within the Glass Walkers that came to prominence when they demonstrated in 1998 that cyborg werewolves wrecked poo poo about as thoroughly as you'd expect. They were on the verge of taking leadership when they fell from grace and were quickly and violently purged a year later when it was revealed that the huge strides in cybernetics came not just from being able to negotiate with the spirits of cybernetic implants, but also through extensive non-voluntary experimentation on lupus (wolf-born) Garou, which the Glass Walkers tend to venerate because they've got so drat few of them. There's still a few remnants kicking around - those that avoided the purges long enough to prove their ignorance of the experiments and rejoin the Glass Walkers proper, and those that quickly went into hiding. Also re: Hunters, about half the tribebooks outright scoff at the very possibility of their existence, which I find hilarious.
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Dec 14, 2013 19:28
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Cythereal posted:I never claimed every game uses those assumptions or has those blind spots. It's the sense I've gotten from most splats, though, and it's a vibe I've rolled with for my Hunter game. Valkyrie and its sister organizations VASCU (the FBI's supernatural division), the Barrett Commission (the state department's), and a compact I made up called Project Looking Glass (the NSA's) do a very good job of protecting the country from supernatural threats but are underfunded and get no respect. Generally your more horrific elements come out in the sorts of things that are intended as enemies in other lines, so if you're mostly focusing on the more mainstream supernaturals I could see things being more prosaic.
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Dec 14, 2013 20:09
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Feinne posted:Generally your more horrific elements come out in the sorts of things that are intended as enemies in other lines, so if you're mostly focusing on the more mainstream supernaturals I could see things being more prosaic. Bit of both, really. The only real horror session I've run was when my players had to go up against a True Fae who was warping part of the mundane world into the Hedge and then potentially into Arcadia after it had been stranded on Earth. They were able to cripple it, curtail its influence, and seal it away, but the session ended with Valkyrie HQ concluding that not only are they not currently capable of outright killing a True Fae, they may not ever be capable of it - True Fae are just too weird and play by such different rules from any reality humanity can understand that death might simply be something that doesn't happen to True Fae. My current plot for them certainly has the potential to turn ugly, though. The qashmallim have become very active as of late, and seem to have taken a particular interest in Valkyrie for unclear reasons. Simultaneous with this has been an upswing in pandoran activity, and several prometheans Valkyrie is in contact with have been acting strangely and reporting bizarre phenomena. Something is up with the divine fire... So, how about that vampire computer game?
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Dec 14, 2013 20:26
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Tehan posted:Actually, this happened. The Cyber Dogs were a faction within the Glass Walkers that came to prominence when they demonstrated in 1998 that cyborg werewolves wrecked poo poo about as thoroughly as you'd expect. They were on the verge of taking leadership when they fell from grace and were quickly and violently purged a year later when it was revealed that the huge strides in cybernetics came not just from being able to negotiate with the spirits of cybernetic implants, but also through extensive non-voluntary experimentation on lupus (wolf-born) Garou, which the Glass Walkers tend to venerate because they've got so drat few of them. There's still a few remnants kicking around - those that avoided the purges long enough to prove their ignorance of the experiments and rejoin the Glass Walkers proper, and those that quickly went into hiding. There's a Ronin werewolf in Kindred of the East or one of the supplements who's like that. He's got two bionic arms, so he can't change out of Crinos anymore or they'll fall off or something. On the upside, he's not bound by his Rage. He's completely Weaver-whipped and his heart is tranquil. Still, his physical stats and Weaver gifts make him a tough son of a bitch.
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Dec 14, 2013 20:49
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Is there a "Valkyrie" like version of the NKVD? Something like: -With sufficient true faith, boost your allies abilities by being a one man red army choir. If that doesnt work,  is also available without any true faith.-"This PPSH/sharpened Silver Spade killed Nazi Werewolfs in Stalingrad and is now loaned to you, go kill something nasty with it, for the Multiverse Revolution!". -Some access to Soviet/Russian high tech and gouverment resources. Have a critter that possesses whatever kills it? Seal it, ship it to Baikonur, fight of a siege of his buddies and launch a rocket aiming roughly at the supermassive black hole in the galaxies center. During the roughly 2 million years of travel time, said critter has ample time to ponder upon messing with mankind. -Since its the NKVD, propably a lot more experience on fighting unusual stuff on massive scales than the American counterparts. -Can true faith in Atheism/Very militant Nay-theism actually act as Magic resistance in either World of Darkness? -Fun with explaining Dialectic Materialism to a true Fae.
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Dec 15, 2013 00:25
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True faith in historical inevitability of worldwide communist revolution?
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Dec 15, 2013 00:31
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There's a decent chance a True Fae wouldn't even understand that the noises coming out of your holes were intended to have meaning, they're utterly inhuman things on a level that is difficult to even ponder. It's hard to say they're even alive, and while they can certainly be warded off it's hard to say what would actually kill them in the real world. It might be possible to kill them in Arcadia I guess, but at that point you're fighting in a place where things like logic and causality mean jack poo poo and the best you can hope for is a relatively painless death. True Faith is caused by the stronger than usual residue of the Divine in a human, so it probably doesn't actually matter what you might have Faith in. You're literally just a very slightly larger tiny fragment of God than everyone else.
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Dec 15, 2013 00:36
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Mightypeon posted:Is there a "Valkyrie" like version of the NKVD? Something like: A homebrew conspiracy could do what you're describing, but nothing really fits. Hunter: the Vigil assumes that the game takes place in America, though in my Valkyrie games the PCs have occasionally crossed paths with similar counterpart organizations from the Canadian and Chinese governments. Hunter also shies away from Cold War era stuff in general. You have the Loyalists of Thule for WW2 stuff, the Knights of Saint George and Malleus Maleficarum for Middle Ages connections, the Ascending Ones go back to the Islamic Golden Age and Ancient Egypt, and the Aegis Kai Doru take nods from ancient Greece and thereabouts. All the other conspiracies and compacts were founded in the 80s at the earliest. If you wanted to run a game with an organization like what you're describing, you'd have to make it up from scratch. quote:It's hard to say they're even alive, and while they can certainly be warded off it's hard to say what would actually kill them in the real world. What my players used was concentrated banal mundanity. To cripple the True Fae they had to confront, they covertly brought in the IRS, which severely hosed up the True Fae, existing as it did on passion and drama. Exposure to day-in, day-out paperwork with no human context or connection ate away at the very essence of its being. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 00:38
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Cythereal posted:What my players used was concentrated banal mundanity. To cripple the True Fae they had to confront, they covertly brought in the IRS, which severely hosed up the True Fae, existing as it did on passion and drama. Exposure to day-in, day-out paperwork with no human context or connection ate away at the very essence of its being. Hah, that would certainly be a good weapon against one. You could still probably only drive it back to Arcadia, but that's good enough.
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Dec 15, 2013 00:52
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Feinne posted:Hah, that would certainly be a good weapon against one. You could still probably only drive it back to Arcadia, but that's good enough. The bureaucracy is an often unappreciated weapon against the supernaturals. When you don't have any conclusive proof that a vampire's killed people, even though you know it has, get the IRS to nail them for tax evasion.
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Dec 15, 2013 01:09
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Cythereal posted:What my players used was concentrated banal mundanity. To cripple the True Fae they had to confront, they covertly brought in the IRS, which severely hosed up the True Fae, existing as it did on passion and drama. Exposure to day-in, day-out paperwork with no human context or connection ate away at the very essence of its being. I bet that's the only time anyone's uttered the phrase, "Get me the director of the IRS, I need him to help me save the world."
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Dec 15, 2013 01:16
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Cythereal posted:The only World of Darkness I play is nHunter, and with my players Task Force: Valkyrie treats mages like any other supernatural. If they endanger innocent people or threaten national security, Valkyrie can kick their teeth in until they stop misbehaving and has tools to make that easier. The thing is, like all gamelines, Hunter is biased (gamelines are generally biased towards their splat in general). It's just as easy for hunters to lose sight of how they stack up on the totem pole, as it is for mages to forget that they are (sort-of) mortal. The bonus that nHunter has is that humans, and human technology, are legitimately capable of evening the odds against the supernatural a little bit. Also, nDemons. Demons respect the hell out of humans, and are also basically impossible for witch hunters to find unless the God Machine is literally telling them exactly where to look and how. As a bonus, if you find them, and if you threaten them enough, the Unchained can Go Loud and will almost certainly at that point ruin your poo poo, because you have to survive a scene with a demon that suddenly unlocked all the magical powers its subsplat can use and has powerstat 10 for a scene, plus is fully healed and charged. This doesn't hold as much in the oWoD. As I said, it's perfectly legitimate for a starting Technocrat to have physicals equivalent to the mortal maximum, with minimal paradox, the ability to soak lethal and aggravated damage naturally, a bunch of innate armor, and twice as many health levels as the mortal, for a very low paradox cost. This is above and beyond the skills and magic he or she can have, which stacks the odds further in his direction, and the backgrounds he or she can have, which let him or her do exactly that. It's just as likely that you're going to be the one run over by a car, that you never saw coming ever. And unlike the Technocrat, you aren't walking away from that on your own power with maybe a minor paradox backlash to suffer for it. Do not gently caress with the Technocracy unless you're a mage. Actually, even if you are a mage, don't gently caress with the Technocracy unless you have very good reason to. Hunters fare the absolute worst, especially the ones without superpowers of any sort, because they're dependent on mundane infrastructure, which Technocrats can very easily suborn. There's a reason in oWoD the CIA/NSA/etc witch-hunter divisions are basically 100% manned by mages who are actually playing them, since mages in oWoD are totally undetectable to any sort of non-supernatural searching (and hard to find even with supernatural powers). MJ12 fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 01:49
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Pretty much, if you're going to take on a mage, do not give them time to prepare. The more time they have, the worse they get. This said, exhaustion is a tactic, threatening what they hold dear is viable, and unless they are stupidly well-rounded, they have blind-spots. If they are stupidly well-rounded, chances are they don't have as much punch. But really - either wear them down, or hit them when they don't expect it. The horror from WoD games, old and new, is often in what the PCs will stoop to doing. It's all about giving them plenty of rope. People asked about good vampire fiction; if you have a taste for Actual Play write-ups (and I suspect you might if you're in the Let's Play forum) - there are few excellent games I can recommend. Vampire: Dark Ages - hands down horribly disturbing in parts, including what the PCs do to others, and have done unto them. Lasombra, Toreador, Malkavian, Giovanni, and Ventrue PCs, many many Tzimisce in the plot, as well as a slew of other clans. http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?543080-Vampire-The-Transylvania-Chronicle V:tM: Sabbot game - also very disturbing. People wanted to see what it was like playing Sabbot in the modern day; this is an excellent example. It also includes some of the "how do you mess with vampires" ideas that have popped up in the thread. http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?676298-Vampire-the-Masquerade-Urban-Renewal-an-East-Bay-Sabbat-Chronicle V:the Requiem - exploring Requiem in modern times, but also exploring the End Times. Very good. http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?293605-VtR-Blood-Dimmed-Tide
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Dec 15, 2013 02:14
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MJ12 posted:The thing is, like all gamelines, Hunter is biased (gamelines are generally biased towards their splat in general). It's just as easy for hunters to lose sight of how they stack up on the totem pole, as it is for mages to forget that they are (sort-of) mortal. The bonus that nHunter has is that humans, and human technology, are legitimately capable of evening the odds against the supernatural a little bit. Also, nDemons. Demons respect the hell out of humans, and are also basically impossible for witch hunters to find unless the God Machine is literally telling them exactly where to look and how. As a bonus, if you find them, and if you threaten them enough, the Unchained can Go Loud and will almost certainly at that point ruin your poo poo, because you have to survive a scene with a demon that suddenly unlocked all the magical powers its subsplat can use and has powerstat 10 for a scene, plus is fully healed and charged. Alternatively, anti-tank weapons can deal with demons. I'm well aware that Hunter: the Vigil is biased towards its own line. It's the line my players and I enjoy, and we have the most fun when cleverness and tech can find even the most elusive supernatural, and even the most resilient of them can be brought low by the right plan and the right hardware - and when Task Force Valkyrie has a budget of "yes," there are tools in the armory to gently caress up anything that doesn't have a credible claim to godhood... and R&D is working on that. Then again, I portray a Valkyrie that offers free psychiatric care and counseling to changeling freeholds that accept Valkyrie's offer, and has a working relationship with most prometheans within the United States, complete with protocols and manuals for agents dealing with disquiet and wasteland. It's a more action-y kind of game than I think the game makers intended, and a heck of a lot more optimistic and light-hearted, but it's fun and that's what these games in the end exist for.
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Dec 15, 2013 02:29
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Cythereal posted:Alternatively, anti-tank weapons can deal with demons. I'm not sure this is such a good idea. They give examples of how Exploits (Demon "gently caress it I'm going overt" magic) work, and one of the things about Exploits is that you can create them out of whole cloth, and it's encouraged. They're explicitly labeled as 'sample Exploits' in the rules preview, after all. One of the exploits, for example, is Animate. As an instant action that costs 1 Aether (Demons have 100 at powerstat 10) they can roll a minimum of 11 dice to hack any equipment you have. Your guns? Your anti-tank weapons? They all become the demon's bitches. Demons in nWoD are possibly beyond Mage-tier broken. It comes with being the cross between Lucifer, Michael Thorton, and a T-800, after all. The background being that Angels are autonomous technomagical robot servants to the God-Machine, which is some kind of powerful magical super-entity which enforces the status quo and its own long-term plans. Angels are its equivalent of Predator drones or Terminators, doing tasks for it which it is too large to meaningfully interact with. Sometimes, Angels learn more than their mission, or go rogue. These Angels discard most of their power to hide in human flesh, and are called Demons. The thing is, the demon 'balance' is that the God-Machine wants to hunt them down, and its agents are ridiculous high-power killing machines that it mass produces (again, Angels). Demon powers are generally ridiculous, demon forms are almost as ridiculous as werewolf war-forms, and if a demon is in serious threat they can burn their current identity (a "Cover") and gain literally god mode (small g) where they can throw down with anything short of an archmage or very elder vampire. The main use of humans versus demons is to force them to act out of character to their Cover, because that makes it easier for the God-Machine's hunter/killers to find them. Cover, after all, goes down whenever you act grossly out of character. A mild-mannered accountant suddenly busting out the martial arts skills of an action hero is basically a compromise roll every time they're in a fight. Possibly as much as literally every turn they're using it, which adds up. quote:I'm well aware that Hunter: the Vigil is biased towards its own line. It's the line my players and I enjoy, and we have the most fun when cleverness and tech can find even the most elusive supernatural, and even the most resilient of them can be brought low by the right plan and the right hardware - and when Task Force Valkyrie has a budget of "yes," there are tools in the armory to gently caress up anything that doesn't have a credible claim to godhood... and R&D is working on that. Then again, I portray a Valkyrie that offers free psychiatric care and counseling to changeling freeholds that accept Valkyrie's offer, and has a working relationship with most prometheans within the United States, complete with protocols and manuals for agents dealing with disquiet and wasteland. It's a more action-y kind of game than I think the game makers intended, and a heck of a lot more optimistic and light-hearted, but it's fun and that's what these games in the end exist for. Well, that sounds pretty awesome. Definitely not canon, but awesome nonetheless.
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Dec 15, 2013 02:51
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Cythereals game sounds like a grand old time. Definitely not very World of Darkness, but good fun all the same. This talk of nWoD Demon is fascinating. I didn't even realize Demon got revived for nWoD. I sort od assumed it was dead like Wraith.
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Dec 15, 2013 06:08
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Captain Oblivious posted:Cythereals game sounds like a grand old time. Definitely not very World of Darkness, but good fun all the same. Nah. Demon came at the very tail end of the oWoD, and while it was received with more than a bit of skepticism (really? playable demons? Are you trying to fish for sensational news stories?) it was a damned well put-together line, from top to bottom. Unlike the older games that had already all but died in-house, Demon's survival was more or less assured in the new setting.
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Dec 15, 2013 06:27
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Yeah, OWoD Demon was pretty well thought out so it's not a surprise they wanted to do something with the idea again. And they seem to have done something pretty cool and out there, I kind of want to get the book on them now.
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Dec 15, 2013 06:46
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Feinne posted:Yeah, OWoD Demon was pretty well thought out so it's not a surprise they wanted to do something with the idea again. And they seem to have done something pretty cool and out there, I kind of want to get the book on them now. There is actually a full-text kickstarter preview that's 99% complete. This was linked on their Kickstarter, so it's not  or anything.http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/demon-the-descent-prestige-edition https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7FqViticwNueVdxTmVNTjE0MTQ/edit Disclaimer: It's got some somewhat serious balance issues at first glance, especially since God-Machine has broken quite a few things about nWoD, but in and of itself it seems to hold together very well thematically. It is, however, not a really great horror game-it's far more Bourne than Bram Stoker.
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Dec 15, 2013 09:11
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