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IntelligibleChoir posted:Are there any good resources for a guide for building npcs quickly? Specifically changeling but any core would be handy too. quote:Every NPC statblock ever: Rather than stat out every last thing, cut the NPCs into short summaries. Does it matter if this throw away mook is also an excellent weaver and a master chef? Nah. He just needs an attack pool, defense stat, and health bar. And the big secret is that for super important NPCs, the same rules apply. Just list what they can do as far as the character-in-your-head looks like, how many dice they have to do it (i.e. how powerful they are), and don't worry if it matches up to a specific power(s) in the book or not or a specific XP cost for a character of whatever level. NPCs get to break the rules. Edit: So rather than work out how Dave the 50 XP Winter Court Beastling Night Court Judge had spent all his XP, I'd just write: Large dice pool: 8 Small dice pool: 4 Skills: the law, attack with gavel, filibuster Stats: good intelligence, wits, presence, low strength Powers: Can sequester any one PC by making an attack that locks them in an invisible cage of force (4 successes to break free), Can throw hammers ala mario bros, 2 targets, 7 dice attack pool How to kill: argue successfully that he's corrupt, beat him at his own game, frame him for a crime and try him, beat him into submission Plot: Judge Dave has finagled his way onto the local bench and his begun to issue utterly bizarre rulings that aren't at all in line with the proper spirit of the law, which is a pain for the PCs. They can either use his stubborn mindedness to their advantage and try to ally with him, or try to get him deposed while also dealing with the Pixie invasion. Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 23:18
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Spoilers Below posted:Rather than stat out every last thing, cut the NPCs into short summaries. Does it matter if this throw away mook is also an excellent weaver and a master chef? Nah. He just needs an attack pool, defense stat, and health bar. This pretty much. I would only add (as I should have before) that the way the dice math works out is that any given d10 has around a 33% chance of coming up a success. So, for me, I average things out that 3 dice is likely to make at least 1 success in most cases, and I stat out my NPCs that way. As I need more power I go up by 3 dice.
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Jan 27, 2014 23:36
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I would add that NPC's don't need to stick to the powers in the rulebooks, to a certain degree of fairness. Unless the mystery of how Charles Kand the Gangrel is doing hydromancy is part of the plot it's probably not a good idea to have him do that. On the other hand, Charlie doesn't need to roll to jump across one rooftop to another, he just does. Unless you want him to have that chance of failure so that the scene is random and crazy, even to you.
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Jan 28, 2014 00:42
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Rich Thomas posted:- Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil on the very last sections of the book. Reviewing full pages in b&w first from Mike Kaluta. Five pieces of the Traditions two-page spread art have been approved by CCP. Going to do its Kickstarter after Anarchs Unbound‘s, and had a really fun conversation with Phil about how we can do the KS and how involved he wants to be. He said something about a fire and video. This can't possibly be good.
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Jan 28, 2014 03:28
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So just in case anyone's missed it: Promethean, which is considered to be one of NWoD's better done splats, is the greatest game you'll never play. Here's your chance.
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Jan 28, 2014 04:11
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Quantumfate posted:So just in case anyone's missed it: Promethean, which is considered to be one of NWoD's better done splats, is the greatest game you'll never play. Here's your chance. I will be joining I just need to think of a character since I never actually played Promethean.
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Jan 28, 2014 04:29
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Yue posted:This can't possibly be good. 
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Jan 28, 2014 04:51
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Baby Broomer posted:I would add that NPC's don't need to stick to the powers in the rulebooks, to a certain degree of fairness. Unless the mystery of how Charles Kand the Gangrel is doing hydromancy is part of the plot it's probably not a good idea to have him do that. On the other hand, Charlie doesn't need to roll to jump across one rooftop to another, he just does. Unless you want him to have that chance of failure so that the scene is random and crazy, even to you. This is fine for narrative things, but if your NPC has powers that can affect the players, you should probably roll for them. As usual, though, just eyeball how powerful you want these techniques to be. Depending on whether you're using the GMC rules update or not, the average defense of a changeling would be about 3, so if you want your powers to affect them reliably, you'll need at least 6 dice. If it's a magical contesting power, they'll roll about 4 dice (1 Wyrd + attribute + relevant bonuses), so do more than that.
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Jan 28, 2014 07:49
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So for Anarchs Unbound does anyone know if they're going to incorporate stuff from Vampire Bloodlines? Because a few people are asking for that in the comments but the developers aren't saying anything.
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Jan 28, 2014 08:20
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NutritiousSnack posted:So for Anarchs Unbound does anyone know if they're going to incorporate stuff from Vampire Bloodlines? Because a few people are asking for that in the comments but the developers aren't saying anything. They posted the text of the book already, you can look for yourself? I saw a little bit on Smiling Jack at the least when I skimmed it.
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Jan 28, 2014 08:26
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Did they post all of it like they did the new Thaum book? I only saw that one redlined excerpt Justin posted.
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Jan 28, 2014 08:28
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Pope Guilty posted:Did they post all of it like they did the new Thaum book? I only saw that one redlined excerpt Justin posted. Where did they post the text of the new thaum book?
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Jan 28, 2014 08:34
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Error 404 posted:Where did they post the text of the new thaum book? It's not the final text, I don't think, but if you're really wanting to read it now, check out the Google docs linked from these posts.
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Jan 28, 2014 08:38
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Pope Guilty posted:Did they post all of it like they did the new Thaum book? I only saw that one redlined excerpt Justin posted. It's linked from the Kickstarter page, but here it is for convenience. It's the whole book.
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Jan 28, 2014 08:42
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I Am Just a Box posted:It's linked from the Kickstarter page, but here it is for convenience. It's the whole book. Well dang, this'll definitely do til the DriveThruRPG version comes out.
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Jan 28, 2014 08:47
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NutritiousSnack posted:So for Anarchs Unbound does anyone know if they're going to incorporate stuff from Vampire Bloodlines? Because a few people are asking for that in the comments but the developers aren't saying anything. I don't see any references to any of the Bloodlines Anarchs. Nines, Skelter, and Damsel don't make an appearance. Jack's in because, well, he's Smiling Jack and has been one of the go-to Anarch badasses since I think first ed.
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Jan 28, 2014 08:54
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Well crap. Was reading it for myself and saw that now too. In other bad news there is a stupid Slender Man reference.
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Jan 28, 2014 09:55
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I was doing okay with Anarchs up until I hit the section regarding technology and the Internet. If you excised those pages you would lose nothing of value.
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Jan 28, 2014 15:04
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PantsOptional posted:I was doing okay with Anarchs up until I hit the section regarding technology and the Internet. If you excised those pages you would lose nothing of value. Are there WoD books that isn't true of?
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Jan 28, 2014 15:05
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Very fair point. I suppose it was kind of like a blast from the past in that sense.
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Jan 28, 2014 15:08
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The redline notes in that section are just kind of embarrassing. Please do not end a sentence with "[/sarcasm]".
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Jan 28, 2014 17:01
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Im looking forward to getting my copy of Mummy: The Curse. To you fellas out there who have already played it, did you enjoy it? How was it? How did the mechanics flow? Did you like the experience?
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Jan 29, 2014 19:18
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Yggdrassil posted:Im looking forward to getting my copy of Mummy: The Curse. Only played one session so far, but liked it a lot. The powers are great, though in a big fight you can burn through Pillars pretty fast if you're unleashing Utterances all over the place while sealing the flesh - make sure that there's something you can still do once your pillars are running low. The Sekhem/descent rolls are pretty cool and don't tend to pull you out of the game, and the cult rules flow pretty well in terms of what favours you can grab from them. I will say though that the book itself is incredibly badly organised, and you have to read the player's section cover to cover to make sure you've got a grasp of all the little rules.
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Jan 29, 2014 19:37
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My group wants to get back into WtA after looking through my W20. We were pretty hardcore with this game since 1st ed. I'm trying to help my GM streamline the combat rules since W20 kept the old, convoluted rules, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. As much as I like the gifts section of W20, Forsaken seems like a much better design to me. I bought the translation guide, and have The God Machine update. He seems to think the characters are going to get murdered easily using Forsaken/God Machine combat mechanics. I've never played Forsaken, so are his concerns valid? They don't seem like they would be.
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Jan 29, 2014 22:41
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fidgit posted:My group wants to get back into WtA after looking through my W20. We were pretty hardcore with this game since 1st ed. I'm trying to help my GM streamline the combat rules since W20 kept the old, convoluted rules, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. As much as I like the gifts section of W20, Forsaken seems like a much better design to me. I'd say the biggest problem is that Forsaken's warform is crippled and toothless compared to Apocalypse's, and GMC combat is pretty gruesome without some counterbalancing to make you swole early. I haven't seen the translation guide, so I don't know if the nApocalypse war form/combat stuff is any scarier than Forsaken's. Seriously, though, one of the biggest issues imo with nWerewolf is that it builds you up to be a monstrous combat machine, then completely shits the bed when it comes to supporting mechanics for it. You're infinitely better served by building a gunslinger constantly in near-human form than you ever will be trying to go warform and do anything useful beyond "chewing angrily on a lamp post, unable to use 95% of Gifts."
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Jan 29, 2014 23:19
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Daeren posted:I'd say the biggest problem is that Forsaken's warform is crippled and toothless compared to Apocalypse's, and GMC combat is pretty gruesome without some counterbalancing to make you swole early. I haven't seen the translation guide, so I don't know if the nApocalypse war form/combat stuff is any scarier than Forsaken's. Which is why many groups houserule death rage and warform differently, and more in line with apocalypse. in fact, one group a friend of mine played with, their ST made it that the "wolf man" war form was considered to be the "spiritually pure" form, the outward expression of what all Uratha should strive for (a balanced blending of beast and man stronger than the sum of it's parts) and so he made it so Uratha could better speak the spirit tongue, and better deal with spirits in that form, as well as restricted some gifts and fetishes to only work in war form.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:27
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What you do is, you make all actions a werewolf in war form takes that don't threaten death rage have the 8-again quality. Also, you ensure that the war form's natural weapons are either inherently equal to or trivially upgradeable to the same level of lethality as the best mundane weapons, i.e. they deal +5L on the offense. The Apocalypse war form is insanely lame. The spirits should feel either bone-deep disgust or blood-freezing terror when they see a werewolf in the war form, and at least a tinge of disquiet when they see dalu or urshul. Flesh and spirit aren't supposed to combine like that!
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Jan 30, 2014 00:57
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Great feedback. Thanks! My main concern was the drag of Apocalypse combat, and the minimum 4? dice rolls to resolve. I was thinking of adopting Forsaken's/God Machine's Defense stat and giving the characters an armor stat instead of rolling soak. I thought the 1 armor of the Gauru was kind of lame, and that a 1/2 Stamina, round up armor might work.
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Jan 30, 2014 01:45
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Ferrinus posted:What you do is, you make all actions a werewolf in war form takes that don't threaten death rage have the 8-again quality. Also, you ensure that the war form's natural weapons are either inherently equal to or trivially upgradeable to the same level of lethality as the best mundane weapons, i.e. they deal +5L on the offense. Can you elaborate on this a little bit? I'm new to WtF so I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "actions that don't threaten Death Rage." What other mechanical changes did you make to war form? I'm planning on running a one-shot for a group of people who've played Apocalypse, but don't know anything about Forsaken. They're going to expect old fashioned Crinos murderbeasts, and they're going to get pretty ok fighter guys and I am not going to sell them on the nWoD this way.
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Jan 30, 2014 05:10
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Gilok posted:Can you elaborate on this a little bit? I'm new to WtF so I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "actions that don't threaten Death Rage." A werewolf in Gauru always has to be attacking or moving to attack. So, it gets 8-again on a roll to bite someone, or resist a supernatural power, or leap across a ravine separating it from its prey. It doesn't get 8-again on a roll to remember a fact or hold a door closed, because even trying to do either at the cost of fighting risks Death Rage. quote:What other mechanical changes did you make to war form? I'm planning on running a one-shot for a group of people who've played Apocalypse, but don't know anything about Forsaken. They're going to expect old fashioned Crinos murderbeasts, and they're going to get pretty ok fighter guys and I am not going to sell them on the nWoD this way. In our game: * You can make one attempt to shapeshift reflexively before you take other actions, for free; it's not your entire turn * Werewolves are assumed to have +2L natural weapons in gauru, urshul, and urhan forms but there's a merit to boost any attack form to a maximum of +5; if you don't want to implement that, I'd just make gauru +5L, urshul +3L, and urhan +2L, or similar * The 8-again thing I already mentioned If you're curious, a huge repository of house rules we use are here https://the-act-of-hubris.obsidianportal.com/wikis/main-page but they involve some pretty sweeping system changes that you'd probably be cagey about implementing wholesale. For instance, we use rolled defense, which Gauru get 8-again on; without that, you might want to make Gauru werewolves degrade the first point of damage they take from each attack, or maybe take bashing damage from all conventional weaponry the same way vampires do. (We might implement the latter thing either way, we haven't completely assimilated the GMC/B&S material yet) Here's a crucial part of our rules, though: we don't use multiattacks, listed fighting styles, etc. A big part of supernatural power in the nWoD is the dearth of other options. The reason the +3 Strength in Gauru form is such a big deal is, how else are you going to get a strength bonus that high? You can't. The important thing is that relative to every other option, Gauru is the beefiest, and you get there through a combination of amping Gauru up a bit and ruthlessly pruning away things like Gunslinger. Incidentally, Rage Gifts can make Gauru really beastly, because you can for example use the ** Gift to turn +3 Strength for 5 turns into +6 strength for 2 turns.
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Jan 30, 2014 05:24
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Can anyone recommend published Hunter adventures for a new-ish group? I GM'ed "Chicago Workings," and got the feedback that the players wanted to fight more and be confused less, so I think that Hunter might be a better experience for them. I've looked over "The Hunt" and "One Year Later" (the free demo Hunter campaigns), and I like the general direction, but want to leave my players room to create their own characters. I've also read through "Murder Will Out," and like that it's designed to work with basically any group, but I'd prefer our introductory story to be more of a morally-un-ambiguous "destroy these inhuman monsters," challenge. (To give them expectations which I can later challenge.  ) I have very little ST-ing experience. I ran a D&D campaign like 12 years ago in high school, and I ran "Chicago Workings," as mentioned earlier. I don't quite feel up to creating my own story from scratch, in part because I don't know what makes for a fair and interesting challenge in the WoD system, and in part because I don't consider myself particularly creative. Are there any published adventures which will do a good job of introducing my group to the system while I'm getting my bearings?
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Jan 31, 2014 10:00
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Gravity Pike posted:
My first time STing nWoD, I ran just straight up mortals from the core book and used one of the scenarios from Ghost Stories. It went pretty well and I didn't need to worry about all the splat specific stuff so the players and I could just focus on the core mechanics. The players were new to WoD entirely, and I had only played (but not STed) oWoD a bit. I think it was a good way to go.
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Jan 31, 2014 14:36
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Watch Supernatural, rip off episodes from it wholesale. It is pretty much precisely just an NWoD Hunter show.
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Jan 31, 2014 20:39
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Nightskye posted:Watch Supernatural, rip off episodes from it wholesale. or if you want to go more Taskforce Valkyrie/Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit/Cheiron Group etc, go with X-Files, Ghostbusters or Men in Black (the comic series).
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Jan 31, 2014 20:43
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Nightskye posted:Watch Supernatural, rip off episodes from it wholesale. And remember, it's really not jumping the shark if you never come back down.
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Jan 31, 2014 20:47
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Senior Scarybagels posted:or if you want to go more Taskforce Valkyrie/Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit/Cheiron Group etc, go with X-Files, Ghostbusters or Men in Black (the comic series). Or read the Delta Green books. Delta Green feels like it's a NWoD hunter conspiracy already.
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Jan 31, 2014 23:10
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I'm working on an "After the End" WoD game where the various gameline ends happened and wrecked the world into a post-apocalyptic state. What exactly happened is unclear and up to the characters to discover, if they want. I realized when I was reading around that this would be a perfect way to combine the best aspects of Old and New WoD. For example, fragmenting the Camarilla and Sabbat into new, smaller sects, getting rid of Generation and introducing Blood Potency, probably because the Antediluvians were either destroyed or left the Earth, etc. I'm probably going to go with the NWoD system using the various translation guides. Does anyone have any ideas I should use? Is this a fool's errand? Yue posted:This can't possibly be good. Based on the track record of the OWoD revival so far, I'm willing to bet this is just some sort of shoutout and nothing else. I doubt they'd let Brucato come back in full force and poo poo all over everything. The guy seems to me like Evil Greg Stafford.
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Jan 31, 2014 23:59
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MonsieurChoc posted:Or read the Delta Green books. Delta Green feels like it's a NWoD hunter conspiracy already. I've honestly never read Delta Green
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Feb 1, 2014 00:01
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Lightning Lord posted:Based on the track record of the OWoD revival so far, I'm willing to bet this is just some sort of shoutout and nothing else. I doubt they'd let Brucato come back in full force and poo poo all over everything. The guy seems to me like Evil Greg Stafford. Last I checked, he was heading up the M20 rewrite.
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Feb 1, 2014 00:38
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Daeren posted:Last I checked, he was heading up the M20 rewrite. Really? drat. Well, I hope the years have mellowed him out.
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Feb 1, 2014 00:41
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