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Cythereal posted:Personally, I feel that statement comes with one hell of a caveat: WoD is awesome if the DM and players are willing to work to make it so. That's a caveat that fits pretty much all of the White Wolf games.
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Dec 16, 2013 15:11
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I ran a pretty goofy VTM game a couple years back set in Las Vegas where the PCs, among other things, fought Elvis-impersonating hunters and it. was. awesome. It worked pretty well and the setting didn't really need adaptation. Tone is really supplied by the players and DM. The actual facts of the setting themselves can lend themselves to some cartoonish. E: Ah the glorious details of that game are coming back to me. We had a Malkavian with aspergers based on Abed from community; a stage-magician Tremere; a Gangrel who was (in life) one of those animal handlers for a Sigfried and Roy type act, and a frat-boy Ventrue. insanityv2 fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 15:15
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Cythereal posted:True, I'm just noting that in my experience, WoD is one of those settings that takes a lot of work to make fun. At least if you prefer beer and pizza style gaming. I like nHunter and Promethean, but the other lines feel like they'd be so much work to turn into something my gaming group would enjoy that it's not worth it. Although from what I've been reading in this and other threads, an oWerewolf game starring the Get of Fenris could be workable. Mage can be like that pretty easily. The mage campaign I ran once was originally meant to be all about magical politics and intrigue but after a few sessions the players had tainted their bathroom with the Abyss. This led to them experimenting with abyssal magic and constantly kidnapping pizza delivery guys and locking them up in said bathroom, twisting them into horrifying creatures that were not meant to be. So instead of politics, it was mostly them trying to avoid being found out for all the heinous poo poo they were doing which was was played more for laughs than angst.
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Dec 16, 2013 15:18
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Cooked Auto posted:That's a caveat that fits pretty much all of the White Wolf games.
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Dec 16, 2013 15:26
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Cooked Auto posted:That's a caveat that fits pretty much all of the White Wolf games. Though you'd need much less work for, say, Aberrant than some of the more unfriendly to run stuff. Aberrant, for those not in the know, was a superhero game they did that wasn't part of the WoD but used similar game systems. It was part of three game series that were set in the same world at different times, Adventure! (which was pulp), Aberrant, and Trinity (which was sci-fi and you played as psychics). The idea of Aberrant was to pay more attention to the practicalities of having super powers. Since it used very similar game mechanics, I'm pretty sure some people did farcical crossover games where they beat the poo poo out of a bunch of angsty monsters with the sort of powers that make even oWoD stuff look modest. Feinne fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 17:06
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Tiggum posted:Any good RPG can be turned into a bad RPG by the wrong people playing it. And most RPGs can be fun if the right people are playing them. Some are going to be a lot more work to make fun, but it's always pretty easy to ruin them. Holy poo poo, no. Not many systems could be as destructive as Wraith: the Oblivion played by creepy fuckers. First, its universe is already bleak as poo poo and, when you visit it, it pretty much crumbles around you. It is wrecked by Maelstroms and besieged by Spectres that want to destroy everything, and your only meaningful protection is an oppressive Empire whose absolute ruler went missing. It is a worst nation ever, complete with slavery and the economy dependent on other wraiths forged into inanimate objects (which moan or sob sometimes). Also, the world of the living saw from your side appears plagued by entropy - people look like living dead, and buildings are crumbling. Vampire comes as Hello Kitty compared to Wraith. This alone can bring a lot creepy fuckers. Then there is the problem that most of wraiths are people who were either deeply unhappy with their lives or with the manner their died. They could be victims of violence and abuse, suicide, cancer or drunk driving. They could have died in an ordinary way, but deeply regret not spending enough time with their spouses and kids, or never being able to paint that one masterpiece. Their un-lives are kinda centered around these issues - it is not something that can be glanced away. This makes running the game safe as organizing a disco party on a minefield, because roleplayers can have some real-life problems too and there is a pretty good chance you are going to bring similar things to the session. I don't even mean the most obviously problematic topics, just imagine the player, whose relative recently developed cancer, playing in an adventure about busting up a ring of Renegade slavers, seeking fresh souls in the local hospital's oncology ward. And then there is the Shadow. It is a part of the wraith's mind that wants self-destruction. It is sentient and it sets up the character to fail. It knows everything that its owner does, can speak to them, either to tempt or abuse them. They can also talk to other Shadows and Spectres and possess some powers of their own so they could be even better in loving the player over. But, isn't running a hostile, constantly present NPC with their own goals in ambition for each player somewhat taxing on the GM? Don't worry, the W:tO writers also thought this could be a problem, so they had a wonderful idea: just let the players roleplay each other's Shadow.. I only need to think about some of the people I used to play with to know how a bad idea it is.
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Dec 17, 2013 01:04
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Stroop There It Is posted:So, for the people who are feeling lost right now... (Side note, I think we should be pretty explicit whether we're talking about oWoD or nWoD, since I have a feeling that this poo poo is confusing to unfamiliar people trying to relate what we're talking about to things in Bloodlines. For example, True Fae are not a Thing in oWoD.) As for others, Bloodlines was my first WoD experience, leading to me finding out more and starting LARPing and roleplaying. I would say it's an excellent entry into the world of darkness.
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Dec 17, 2013 01:05
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are all these different clans/factions/terms" at any point?
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If by 'excellent' you mean 'makes it look like not complete poo poo', then yes! Yes it is.
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Dec 17, 2013 02:39
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I'm glad to hear that it worked well for those of you who weren't familiar with WoD before you played Bloodlines. Kudos to Tiggum for having any idea what was going on in the plot with a Malkavian PC for your first run!Gantolandon posted:
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Dec 17, 2013 02:50
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about oWraith
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Stroop There It Is posted:See, all of this reinforces my book-inspired opinion that Wraith: the Oblivion is a loving awesome game (except for that one loving Holocaust book, but, you know, that's a given) They seem to have looked at the Gypsy book and gone "hey, let's never do that ever again".
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Dec 17, 2013 03:03
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Stroop There It Is posted:I'm glad to hear that it worked well for those of you who weren't familiar with WoD before you played Bloodlines. Kudos to Tiggum for having any idea what was going on in the plot with a Malkavian PC for your first run! I think people really over-estimate the difficulty of playing as Malkavian. NPCs generally have a couple of unique responses to Malkavian dialogue but mostly just like what you're saying makes perfect sense, so most of the information you get from NPCs is the same as it would have been anyway. I'd also assumed that playing as Nosferatu would be pretty difficult, but tried it out recently and was really disappointed with how little it actually effects anything at all. You don't even have to sneak around, no one notices you're a hideous monster unless you're right in front of them and they're looking right at you. And of course plot-essential NPCs will still talk to you and give you whatever you need from them.
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Dec 17, 2013 04:47
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Tiggum posted:I think people really over-estimate the difficulty of playing as Malkavian. NPCs generally have a couple of unique responses to Malkavian dialogue but mostly just like what you're saying makes perfect sense, so most of the information you get from NPCs is the same as it would have been anyway. It's not so much the difficulty, it's how much completely flies over your head because it's foreshadowing stuff that won't be happening for five or six missions. And it's really easy to mistake the foreshadowing, puns and wonky insight for fishmalk bullshit if you don't have a finished playthrough under your belt.
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Dec 17, 2013 05:06
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I think the reason that WoD games tend to have the reputation that they do for success or failure is that the interpretation that people are expecting can be wildly different to different people. I played a game of Mage with some friends and I thought of Mage as being more like Dresden style magic, where it can sometimes be flashy, but you have to keep it a secret from everyone else. Other people had a different idea of what a game of Mage should feel like, having played in the oWoD games and wanted something more like that. The ST wanted to play paranormal investigators but as mages instead of mortals, where we would use the spells we knew to assist against things which we couldn't possibly stand on our own, but covertly because we were fighting another faction. Needless to say that game failed miserably because the expectations were so different. The game that I remember from nWoD that was a ton of fun was an over the top hunter game where all the players decided after the first game that we weren't in a horror film, we were in Blade, and the ST ran with it and let us have it. We had a Valkyrie member that went rogue halfway through the game when he was told that blowing up an apartment complex known to be the haven of the Vampire Prince was not acceptable, and a member of Cheryon that would only return half the specimens to his handler and the hunters would use the rest for our own research and upgrades. It was silly and over the top, but it was what everyone wanted. Being on the same page is what makes any RPG work, and WoD is no exception. It just has a larger range of expectations that it pulls from compared to other table top games.
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Dec 17, 2013 05:15
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Tiggum posted:I think people really over-estimate the difficulty of playing as Malkavian. NPCs generally have a couple of unique responses to Malkavian dialogue but mostly just like what you're saying makes perfect sense, so most of the information you get from NPCs is the same as it would have been anyway. Tehan posted:It's not so much the difficulty, it's how much completely flies over your head because it's foreshadowing stuff that won't be happening for five or six missions. And it's really easy to mistake the foreshadowing, puns and wonky insight for fishmalk bullshit if you don't have a finished playthrough under your belt. Also, it makes sense that vampire NPCs wouldn't give as much of a poo poo about how ugly a Nossie is, since they at least know what the deformed monster in front of them is (and how it's useful to them). I can't remember what happens when you try to talk to essential human NPCs--do they still not react differently? Is that what you meant? In case it hasn't been defined yet... A "fishmalk" is a Malkavian played by a lovely player/ST who goes with the LOL MONKEYCHEESE RANDOM approach to playing a character with a severe mental disorder. You can guess how common they were. There are many things I miss about tabletop gaming, but this is most definitely not one of them. I think the origin of the term might be from this picture from a Vampire: the Dark Ages. (Linked because it's pretty NSFW.)
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Dec 17, 2013 05:48
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Stroop There It Is posted:Also, it makes sense that vampire NPCs wouldn't give as much of a poo poo about how ugly a Nossie is, since they at least know what the deformed monster in front of them is (and how it's useful to them). I can't remember what happens when you try to talk to essential human NPCs--do they still not react differently? Is that what you meant? Same as Malkavian, there's some altered dialogue, but mostly it's the same and you still get all the information.
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Dec 17, 2013 06:02
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Stroop There It Is posted:I can't remember what happens when you try to talk to essential human NPCs--do they still not react differently? Is that what you meant? Non-essential human NPCs (cops, bums, prostitutes, drunks, gangbangers, etc.) won't panic/attack/cause a Masquerade violation unless you pretty much walk into melee range. So you don't really have to crawl around sewers all the time unless you're roleplaying or run mods that change this.
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Dec 17, 2013 07:48
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Stroop There It Is posted:Also, it makes sense that vampire NPCs wouldn't give as much of a poo poo about how ugly a Nossie is, since they at least know what the deformed monster in front of them is (and how it's useful to them). I can't remember what happens when you try to talk to essential human NPCs--do they still not react differently? Is that what you meant? If you play as a nosferatu and talk to the woman in the diner, then she faints at the sight of you, and you have to take the purse that stands on the counter in order to continue the "thinned blood" quest double nine fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Dec 17, 2013 |
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Dec 17, 2013 10:37
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I really should have been reading this thread sooner. Loving seeing the patched stuff and how it differs from my unpatched playthroughs.Feinne posted:Though you'd need much less work for, say, Aberrant than some of the more unfriendly to run stuff. Ah, Abberant. A great fun game, and has the wonderful distinction of having the least-appropriate Player's Guide to give to a player ever. Seriously, that book should be GM-eyes only, considering it tells your players exactly what it is they need to be able to destroy the universe and make a new one.
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Dec 17, 2013 11:41
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Stroop There It Is posted:Yup, this is what I meant. A lot of that poo poo is nonsensical unless you have already played the game. I played as a Malk for my first two or three playthroughs, and it was great every time. I think playing as a Malk for your first game isn't to be avoided, however, the second time through the game it is even more fun. Also, for my first LARP char I was a Fishmalk   The organisers were first time storytellers, and I was overconfident, thinking that having done DnD and play by forum was enough for me to avoid the pitfalls. I was oh so very wrong. At the first possible opportunity, the ST's killed off all Malks and stated a rule that you had to bee involved with WoD for at least a year before you could play a Malk, Nossie or Tremere. I still feel shame thinking about it.
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Dec 17, 2013 17:23
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Elfface posted:I really should have been reading this thread sooner. Loving seeing the patched stuff and how it differs from my unpatched playthroughs. Breaking Aberrant is so comically easy that I suspect they didn't particularly care if players were clued into their favorite methods. We're talking about a system where you can take a point of Claws with the Aggravated add-on and then boom all your punches forever do aggravated damage at no cost to you beyond the build points/experience points. And that's a relatively PROSAIC thing to do.
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Dec 17, 2013 17:36
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Feinne posted:Breaking Aberrant is so comically easy that I suspect they didn't particularly care if players were clued into their favorite methods. We're talking about a system where you can take a point of Claws with the Aggravated add-on and then boom all your punches forever do aggravated damage at no cost to you beyond the build points/experience points. And that's a relatively PROSAIC thing to do. Just for reference, the transition from Aberrant to Trinity comes when certain Aberrants grow in power from "superhero" to "god-like" and cause a few minor apocalypse events (as in, only areas of a continent visible on a map of Earth explode instead of the whole globe). After that, the god-Aberrants still soft-hearted enough to pity us mere humans gather up the rest and blast off into space, never to be heard from again. A generation or two later, some individuals across the globe independently come across some strange vats or rocks or something which turn them into the first psychics. Psychics are less powerful than Aberrants, but their abilities are much more easily controlled and don't cause you to go insane as time passes, and so people who would have triggered as Aberrants are instead thrown into the vats and turned into psychics, which is a much better situation all around. Which isn't to say all the problems have gone away, though. Two psychic types, quanakinetics and telekinetics no longer exist: the former were deemed too close to Aberrants in power and crushed, and the latter managed to find an Aberrant colony, which got them in trouble when people panicked and called them Aberrant collaborators and crushed them (but really they all just teleported away because the more powerful telekinetics can travel distances measured in light years and bring rooms full of stuff with them).
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Dec 17, 2013 18:08
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Just for reference, the transition from Aberrant to Trinity comes when certain Aberrants grow in power from "superhero" to "god-like" and cause a few minor apocalypse events (as in, only areas of a continent visible on a map of Earth explode instead of the whole globe). After that, the god-Aberrants still soft-hearted enough to pity us mere humans gather up the rest and blast off into space, never to be heard from again. Yeah, among other things the Midwest gets turned into a wasteland filled with mutant nightmares and the network infrastructure of the entire world is destroyed by a literal fight inside it. The problem was that most Aberrants became increasingly crazy as they got more powerful, and all of them became increasingly less human. The basic idea of all three of the games in the setting was that humanity was evolving into something else, though what that would be wasn't entirely fixed. They had some cool ideas and a minimum of really lovely stupid stuff.
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Dec 17, 2013 18:49
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Just for reference, the transition from Aberrant to Trinity comes when certain Aberrants grow in power from "superhero" to "god-like" and cause a few minor apocalypse events (as in, only areas of a continent visible on a map of Earth explode instead of the whole globe). After that, the god-Aberrants still soft-hearted enough to pity us mere humans gather up the rest and blast off into space, never to be heard from again. Just to get pedantic, the Jumpers weren't teeks. The teeks are militant Aussies and the TK discipline covers TK, cryo- and pyrokinesis. The Jumpers were African cops and their powers covered short jumps, really, really long jumps and vast spatial awareness, IIRC.
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Dec 18, 2013 00:22
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Thesaya posted:I played as a Malk for my first two or three playthroughs, and it was great every time. I think playing as a Malk for your first game isn't to be avoided, however, the second time through the game it is even more fun. Wait, why Tremere? I'm drawing a blank on why Tremere would be a no-no for first time players. At least in the same way as a Malkavian or Nosferatu  (I also have wanted to play Wraith: The Oblivion since I learned about it with a relaxed group of roleplayers who want to play a, uh, different sort of tabletop)
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Dec 18, 2013 00:44
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Shugojin posted:Wait, why Tremere? Tremere are very institutional--if you're in a city and don't have a hand held by the local chantry, they'll work on fixing that. Abruptly. (keep in mind the clan "weakness" is their 1-step bond to the Pyramid) It's both subtle and overt, and new players can have a problem with it. It could also be because blood magic is broken as gently caress. You start throwing that around and you get Mystic Mike's House of Trinkets at the best case.
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Dec 18, 2013 00:55
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OAquinas posted:Tremere are very institutional--if you're in a city and don't have a hand held by the local chantry, they'll work on fixing that. Abruptly. (keep in mind the clan "weakness" is their 1-step bond to the Pyramid) It's both subtle and overt, and new players can have a problem with it. The Tremere "weakness" was always a stupid one, combined with the obvious boner the writers had for the clan - up to and including playing around with the notion of Tremere turning in to an avatar of the Wyrm itself in the halcyon days of pre-Revised. They fixed that weakness in V20 in a way that I approve of. Instead of being bound to the clan two steps while having no other real weakness, every Tremere skips over the first step of the blood bond and moves directly to the second. And THEN they get blood forced down their throat that bonds them to the Pyramid. They're also a headache to deal with online for exactly the reason you mentioned regarding blood magic. White Wolf really liked that whole "LOOKIT THIS REALLY COOL THING BUT YOU CAN'T TOUCH BECAUSE IT IS RARE OH LOOK EVERYONE HAS IT". Seriously, the Prince of New Orleans in NOLA by Night had dots in it and he was a Ventrue. About the only way I've found to fix it is to have the players have to go steal stuff from the Sabbat or other things and then have the Pyramid ship off the books for their own uses. Makes every character have to become a double agent for their own interest - they can turn in their clan mates for a reward (access to Thaum rituals) for doing exactly the same thing they're doing. Proper vampire style.
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Dec 18, 2013 01:29
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citybeatnik posted:The Tremere "weakness" was always a stupid one, combined with the obvious boner the writers had for the clan - up to and including playing around with the notion of Tremere turning in to an avatar of the Wyrm itself in the halcyon days of pre-Revised. They fixed that weakness in V20 in a way that I approve of. See, that's a marked improvement over the oWoD the nWoD has: If there's a power, you are expected to be able to gain it, or it's so morally wrong that nobody (that you'd actually want at the table) wants it because of the cost. The vampire clan weaknesses also become a lot more fun and logical, as of Blood and Smoke (Requiem 2nd Edition, basically). The Mekhet (the fusion of Tremere with several clans that didn't make the cut) are intellectual spies and assassins, so their weakness is becoming even weaker to sunlight and fire (since both their nature as sneaky gits and vampires run counter to illumination), and they lose access to one of their Banes, weird weaknesses vampires can accept in return for being able to indulge a specific Humanity-violating act to their heart's content without risking degeneration. Thus, they have to be thoughtful and restrained in their actions if they don't want to lose the Man and disintegrate into a shrieking undead hellbeast. Similarly, new!Nosferatu aren't always deformed, and not nearly to the extent of old, but they still repulse people. Why? Because a Nosferatu is nothing less than Fear, as a concept, made physical, although their personalities aren't directly affected by this. It's simply natural to be scared of a Haunt, and the mind finds a reason. They can weaponize this in the form of their Nightmare Discipline, but a Nosferatu can never "turn off the fear aura", they generate it simply by existing. Erebro fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Dec 18, 2013 |
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Dec 18, 2013 07:40
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citybeatnik posted:They're also a headache to deal with online for exactly the reason you mentioned regarding blood magic. White Wolf really liked that whole "LOOKIT THIS REALLY COOL THING BUT YOU CAN'T TOUCH BECAUSE IT IS RARE OH LOOK EVERYONE HAS IT". Seriously, the Prince of New Orleans in NOLA by Night had dots in it and he was a Ventrue. Generally, stats of many oWoD NPCs doesn't make sense. Frequently it has things like teenage mages with 4-5 dots in several Spheres, or supernaturals with powers they couldn't reasonably achieve going with the fluff. I remember the supplement about Mexico City being particularly weird. It felt like this weird city from D&D Planar Handbook which works like any other town, but everyone there is on epic level - so you have epic level guards standing around the corner and watching, if the epic level thief doesn't try to rob the shopkeeper, who is a retired epic level adventurer.
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Dec 18, 2013 20:11
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Gantolandon posted:Generally, stats of many oWoD NPCs doesn't make sense. Frequently it has things like teenage mages with 4-5 dots in several Spheres, or supernaturals with powers they couldn't reasonably achieve going with the fluff. WW is pretty bad about that, Aberrant has an NPC with a power that's specifically disallowed for example.
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Dec 18, 2013 20:20
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Finals are over (thank caine), so an update will come tomorrow or friday.
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Dec 19, 2013 01:38
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I do not remember the exact reason Tremere was banned for newbies, but it had a lot to do with the "I'M A WIZARD VAMPIRE, I CAN DO WHATERVER I LIKE!" That was a bit too pervasive. Also, despite the small town we played in being made larger in game, it was still too small to allow a larger amount of Tremere, since there was no established chantry and so on. But, the main reason was to discourage people who thought that being a Tremere would allow them to power game, despite what the ST's told them.
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Dec 19, 2013 04:17
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Thesaya posted:I do not remember the exact reason Tremere was banned for newbies, but it had a lot to do with the "I'M A WIZARD VAMPIRE, I CAN DO WHATERVER I LIKE!" That was a bit too pervasive. Also, despite the small town we played in being made larger in game, it was still too small to allow a larger amount of Tremere, since there was no established chantry and so on. Really being a Tremere is refusing to settle for the sort of prosaic powergaming you can get out of many of the other perfectly reasonable clans. No, I'm too good to zip around everywhere slicing off heads while everyone is stunned by Presence as a Toreador because they're a bunch of art freaks or whatever terrible opinion I've got because I haven't put much thought into things. I've got to like throw fireballs and poo poo. Honestly it's just lazy insisting on getting the most ridiculous and broken Discipline that is available to any clan a sane Storyteller would let you be. Just get a character with Celerity as a clan discipline and you're already pretty broken without needing to be Harry loving Potter with fangs. Feinne fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 04:51
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Cythereal posted: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. This is from a few pages back, but what I was getting at is that a Mage with a couple dots in Time and Fate in nWoD can set up some triggers early in the day then not worry about things later. The opposite of casting defensive spells every few seconds. The "next few seconds" bit was meant to mean "this spell will trigger in the instance that someone wishes harm to happen soon."
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Dec 19, 2013 16:53
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apostateCourier posted:This is from a few pages back, but what I was getting at is that a Mage with a couple dots in Time and Fate in nWoD can set up some triggers early in the day then not worry about things later. The opposite of casting defensive spells every few seconds. The "next few seconds" bit was meant to mean "this spell will trigger in the instance that someone wishes harm to happen soon." Perhaps, but my general thoughts on that are "Is it fun? If not, it doesn't need to exist." Nonsense like that is not, as a general rule, fun in my opinion.
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Dec 19, 2013 17:35
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Does the patch in the OP work with the steam version of the game ? I sort of really want to play this game after reading this far into the LP.
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Dec 19, 2013 18:41
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Cythereal posted:Perhaps, but my general thoughts on that are "Is it fun? If not, it doesn't need to exist." Nonsense like that is not, as a general rule, fun in my opinion. I would point out that nonsense like this appears to be White Wolf's entire MO. This nonsense is the selling point, and more to the point a big reason people get hideous aversion whenever White Wolf comes up. People saying how overcomplicated it was turned me off from Bloodlines for years, and then the game itself was simple, and then you read about other stuff and realize 'no, wait, they were right after all'. This appears to be the case for every single game line they do; I remember trying to follow some IRC acquaintances trying to talk about Aberrant and Exalted and coming away feeling it was an impenetrable mess a casual player had no hope of understanding. (Reading poo poo on Aberrant after it was mentioned in this thread has not changed my opinion much.) Like, I liked this game! I liked reading (kinda) through the core Vampire book with my friend (I think it was Revised?) and doing a small, self-contained bit. This is all fine, there's not too much here, there's no 'nonsense'. Apparently, though White Wolf does not know how to quit, and more casual players like me who just want to be mesmerist vampires or w/e feel kinda small compared to this expansive and ludicrous universe full of god-creatures and self-inserts. Yeah, I could play it without all of that, but everyone else will tell me about all this poo poo and pretend I should care. I think I'll stick to my other games.
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Dec 19, 2013 19:02
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Sinking Ship posted:Does the patch in the OP work with the steam version of the game ? I sort of really want to play this game after reading this far into the LP. Yes, although you'll want to turn automatic updates off in Steam or it will mess things up.
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Dec 19, 2013 19:13
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Sinking Ship posted:Does the patch in the OP work with the steam version of the game ? I sort of really want to play this game after reading this far into the LP. quote:On problems with Steam run Steam and game as administrator, then the
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Dec 19, 2013 20:52
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Queen Fiona posted:I would point out that nonsense like this appears to be White Wolf's entire MO. This nonsense is the selling point, and more to the point a big reason people get hideous aversion whenever White Wolf comes up. I'm a WW fanboy and even I tend to go with the "if there's no reason for it to be brought up in the game why on earth should we care?" That's not to say that the various plot points brought up don't have their uses. The breaking of the Assamite curse basically opened the floodgates for PK-based characters on the various chats I've worked with - people play them as an excuse to kill off and eat other people, flat-out. All it took to remove that hurdle was going "well, how about with this setting that hasn't happened yet?" Same with having the game be based before both the Week of Nightmares and Baba Yaga being killed off - although the latter was basically my attempt to keep people from playing random Russian mafia members in Washington state. We needed an excuse for the Sabbat heavy-hitters to be out of the city so beginning PCs would have a chance, so the game's set during the Siege of New York. Etc, etc. The problem comes when people treat the metaplot as something carved in to stone, not its existence. But then, again, I'm the dude that's wanting to play in a low-power Thinblood game where that poo poo just wouldn't matter. If you're doing an "Everyone's an Elder" game then I suppose it would matter, and the only real reason I've ever seen people want to do an Elder campaign is to get their hands on the juicy low-Generation abilities. Which, in one final segue, is yet another point in the nWoD's favor. Those overpowered Disciplines that most PCs would never get have been replaced with the Devotions, allowing you to combine the Disciplines that everyone has access to with one another to neat effect. I keep rambling like this and I might have to see about getting a Skype game set up at some point. citybeatnik fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 21:48
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Queen Fiona posted:I would point out that nonsense like this appears to be White Wolf's entire MO. This nonsense is the selling point, and more to the point a big reason people get hideous aversion whenever White Wolf comes up. People saying how overcomplicated it was turned me off from Bloodlines for years, and then the game itself was simple, and then you read about other stuff and realize 'no, wait, they were right after all'. This appears to be the case for every single game line they do; I remember trying to follow some IRC acquaintances trying to talk about Aberrant and Exalted and coming away feeling it was an impenetrable mess a casual player had no hope of understanding. (Reading poo poo on Aberrant after it was mentioned in this thread has not changed my opinion much.) Aberrant's pretty easy really, there's a decent amount of plot stuff laid out in the main books and all but you can still just use it as a pretty good superhero game that models being super badass really well.
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Dec 19, 2013 22:08
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