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Daeren posted:Like I said, they aimed for a metaphor about family dynamics and out-groups and misfits creating their own working families, and hosed it up so badly they more or less wrote fascist propaganda that can actually operate on two readings at once. Either it's a game about playing the unfettered exploitative supermen dealing with the Enemy who are incompetent, stupid, easily tricked, and yet a pervasive and immanent threat to all good folk, or it's a game about playing the diabolical manipulative Other who eat babies and seed nightmares, evading legitimate attempts to punish them, and painting the people trying to enact some form of justice against them as horrible monsters persecuting down-on-their-luck misbegotten schlubs to anyone who is foolish enough to listen. And just writing that made me feel a little dirty. It was most amusing when they tried to equate Heroes with MRAs and Gamergate, because that naturally carried the implication that feminists were, in fact, sadistic cannibals. A friend of mine who enjoys superhero comics commented, paraphrased, that "The X-men are a better metaphor for xenophobia than this, because when someone claims that mutants are all genetically psychopaths, at least they're wrong." Loomer posted:I think some of Matt's personal hangups from being involved in the fetish scene might be coming through. I don't normally leap to ascribe that sort of thing but what I'm reading so far is really quite strongly suggesting it to me. Could you elaborate?
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Jun 3, 2015 06:31
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Night10194 posted:The other thing that makes the whole 'Heroes are stupid idiots who are wrong about everything and also weak and dumb' bit so bad is that a protagonist is judged partly by their antagonist. When your splat needs its antagonists to be easily foiled, helpless, and objectively wrong, you make your protagonist look pretty loving pathetic for picking on these poor bastards. What threat do they actually pose? How do you write a story around them if they're objectively wrong and again, *easily beaten*? Apparently some of the chievos Heroes get for confirmed kills actually make 'em really powerful? That's what I heard re the leak anyway.
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Jun 3, 2015 06:34
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The strong sense of retaliation against persecution is a big give away. There's a huge chip on a lot of shoulders in the fetish world about that issue (and it's not a completely imagined issue, either) and the combination of 'yeah gently caress those normies!' and some of the specific language being used is setting off my radar.
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Jun 3, 2015 06:35
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And like I said with True Blood, it's entirely inappropriate because BDSM practitioners don't devour people.
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Jun 3, 2015 06:40
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There's something to salvage in there, or at least having Beasts as weird hangerons that turn into antagonists for other splats when the awful poo poo they do comes to light. Work computer sucks and gently caress navigating Kickstarter on my phone. What do I need to contribute to get just the hardcover +pdf? Is that the +50 contribution, or is that a softcover and a hardcover?
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Jun 3, 2015 06:42
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Pope Guilty posted:And like I said with True Blood, it's entirely inappropriate because BDSM practitioners don't devour people. Yknow I was gonna make a joke here about that German cannibal guy but I know a ton of people into kink scenes and I can't in good taste (  ) compare them to that. Or this.
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Jun 3, 2015 06:44
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Soonmot posted:There's something to salvage in there, or at least having Beasts as weird hangerons that turn into antagonists for other splats when the awful poo poo they do comes to light. Actually yeah, I kind of dig the idea of having a Beast in the role of that onion thing from Aqua Teen Hunger Force who seems like a bro right up until they realize he's filled the attic with dead bodies.
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Jun 3, 2015 06:45
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Ferrinus posted:Apparently some of the chievos Heroes get for confirmed kills actually make 'em really powerful? That's what I heard re the leak anyway. Yeah, Heroes aren't actually chumps in combat, you're just supposed to think they are because look at 'em. With their stupid clothes and their weird hobbies. Fuckers.
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Jun 3, 2015 06:45
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Pope Guilty posted:Actually yeah, I kind of dig the idea of having a Beast in the role of that onion thing from Aqua Teen Hunger Force who seems like a bro right up until they realize he's filled the attic with dead bodies. But you could just do that with a real monster, not a quasi-imaginary one-size-fits-all metamonster.
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Jun 3, 2015 06:47
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Pope Guilty posted:Actually yeah, I kind of dig the idea of having a Beast in the role of that onion thing from Aqua Teen Hunger Force who seems like a bro right up until they realize he's filled the attic with dead bodies. Look, dude just liked juice. He was willing to share!
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Jun 3, 2015 06:50
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I think my main problem is this. If your response to people finding your villain splat sympathetic (and in fact preferable to the player splat) is to codify the rules such that the villains are required to be reprehensible monstrous bastards to continue existing, you may want to rethink the fundamental assumptions of your game line. The fact that there are uncomfortable parallels to be drawn between real world oppressed groups and beasts is just icing on the cake of terrible that is this game.
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Jun 3, 2015 06:52
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Night10194 posted:Look, dude just liked juice. He was willing to share! ...the Shaving!
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Jun 3, 2015 06:53
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Heroes are also basically just contractually fanatical Hunters, meaning they lack a unique conceptual space. (Also, lawls, that line about Beasts asking Hunters what gives them the right to kill pulling the rug out from under the Hunter's moral worldview, as if "do we really have the right to kill something for what it is?" hasn't been pretty core to Hunters since boody Reckoning.)
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Jun 3, 2015 07:03
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Kurieg posted:I think my main problem is this. If your response to people finding your villain splat sympathetic (and in fact preferable to the player splat) is to codify the rules such that the villains are required to be reprehensible monstrous bastards to continue existing, you may want to rethink the fundamental assumptions of your game line. Ha ha ha, not just bastards, but retarded bastards. There is a little sidebar that explains that it's almost impossible to explain to a Hero he has the ability to place weaknesses on Beasts, because his hosed up and obsessive mind won't accept it's not something intrinsically wrong with the Beast that's been there all along. Even if he knows it's something the monster wasn't afraid of before through practical experience. And even if you DO convince him, through a moderately challenging social maneuver, he'll probably just rationalize it away eventually. Heroes have mechanically imposed stupidity.
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Jun 3, 2015 07:04
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LatwPIAT posted:Heroes are also basically just contractually fanatical Hunters, meaning they lack a unique conceptual space. (Also, lawls, that line about Beasts asking Hunters what gives them the right to kill pulling the rug out from under the Hunter's moral worldview, as if "do we really have the right to kill something for what it is?" hasn't been pretty core to Hunters since boody Reckoning.) There's also something hilariously stupid about 'The Beast has THE SCRIPT' All should bow before his cunning genre savvy! I imagine the average Hunter cell just shrugging, torching the thing, and moving on to the next maneating horror.
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Jun 3, 2015 07:06
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Vampire doesn't suck because even though they believe they have God literally telling them 'eat people it's super cool' the point is they're loving dumb and probably wrong to think that, they're a bunch of sad corpses who are clinging to memories of human ritual and justifications. It's also not the default. What makes the Lancea Sactum, Circle of the Crone, and Ordo Dracul (all factions that are all about how cool vampires and sucking blood are) work is that they each represent minority opinions among other alternatives. Not every vampiretakes killing people as a holy mission. In Beast, it's an editorial statement that yes, Beasts rule, Heroes drool, and that terrifying people until they get permanent psychological damage is not only cool and fun, but also deeply significant to the human condition. Dammit Who? posted:That's the thing, though. Per Kinship, everyone who matters actually loves Beasts or at least is well-disposed toward them. Heroes are all weird outcasts explicitly compared to people who argue about console sales numbers on the internet or, well, tabletop roleplaying gamers. You're the cool normie kid insanely brutally murdering the stupid fuckin' nerds. It's not like WoD can't have bullies, or even sympathetic bullies, but bullies who are objectively in the right is fuckin' unpleasant. The Heroes sections do say that the Heroes have a strange magnetism that draws people to agree with them and support their efforts, but the fluff and sample characters do not bear this out at all. All the chapter fiction features Beasts in loving relationships with either other Beasts or monsters (from what I remember, mainly vampires). Heroes are always portrayed as weird loners whose psychological hangups leave them alone and without families, loved ones, or friends. Again, it's just incoherent. Ferrinus posted:Apparently some of the chievos Heroes get for confirmed kills actually make 'em really powerful? That's what I heard re the leak anyway. quote:In relation to Heracles’ twelve labors, many Heroes tack “Hercules” onto their name after achieving twelve kills. Those who claim the name are expected to show trophies for all twelve of those kills.
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Jun 3, 2015 07:20
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I think the worst part of the book for me is actually a tiny part, where it talks about how the Beasts are sort of warily respected by the Gentry and how Changelings will sometimes feed powerful Beasts in the hope they will intercede on their behalf if the Gentry come. gently caress you book, your poo poo-tier nightmares are exactly the sort of thing every single Changeling risked their soul to get away from, and even the most amoral of them would probably stomp a Beasts dick into the dirt just to show off to other Changelings how badass they are. That or the fact that the majority of the Hunter entry talks about killing Heroes, or how the poor Beasts might make Hunters morally conflicted rather than the obvious just killing the God drat monsters. Jesus Christ are the writers in love with the smell of their own farts on this one.
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Jun 3, 2015 07:34
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So if a Union or Ashwood Abbey cell targets a Beast, do they all grow neckbeards and fedoras? Under what circumstances can you want to kill a Beast without being a douchebag?
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Jun 3, 2015 07:35
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Pope Guilty posted:So if a Union or Ashwood Abbey cell targets a Beast, do they all grow neckbeards and fedoras? Under what circumstances can you want to kill a Beast without being a douchebag? In fairness, Ashwood Abbey can't do basically anything without being a douchebag. That's their entire hat as a faction.
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Jun 3, 2015 07:45
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Somewhere in a Null Mysteris research facility there's a cell with a normal dude with a gut that hangs over his belt, terrible acne, and a dragon shirt. He beats at the bars, screaming that he's just a regular internet dude who got caught up in hunting monsters, but the hunters know better. He looks just like... a Hero. wait poo poo that's like 2/3 of Netzo, how does this even work
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Jun 3, 2015 07:49
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Okay, I haven't been following Onyx Path stuff at all since Demon. I'm having a little trouble understanding this beast stuff, is this close?: 1) The Beast and the Hero do the same awful things. 2) The Beast does awful things because they are supernaturally pressured to do it. The hero also does awful things because they are supernaturally pressured to do them. 3) The Beast does the awful things to a lot of people. The hero mostly does it towards the beast. 4) It's good when the Beast does something awful because they are supernaturally coerced into it, but when the hero does something awful because they are equally coerced by supernatural powers to do it this is bad because????
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Jun 3, 2015 08:04
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Mormon Star Wars posted:Okay, I haven't been following Onyx Path stuff at all since Demon. I'm having a little trouble understanding this beast stuff, is this close?: Add the fact that heroes are only coerced to do terrible things to the beast because the beast infected them with a supernatural compulsion to kill all beasts as a direct result of the beast doing something spooky, and yeah, you've got it. If you're confused, it's actually because you understand.
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Jun 3, 2015 08:08
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There is massive dissonance in the book, and it contradicts itself wildly. Like the Storytelling section talking about rejecting the monomyth and not just reversing it where the Beast is the real hero, but the entire loving point of their main transcendent path is that it requires you to humiliate and degrade a Hero. It is impossible to integrate those two points. And yet there you are, preaching that Beasts are all about subverting the stupid and regressive myths that keep down cool sexhavers like them, but then handing them ultimate power for embracing it and making themselves the stars in the end. Basically everything good happens to the Beasts, and everyone that opposes them is poo poo, and all the supernaturals of the WoD stood up and clapped when they realized this.
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Jun 3, 2015 08:17
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I donno. I think having all the other supernaturals clap is kind of the #1 sign that these guys are shitheels just like the rest of them. Not sure if that's me reading text, subtext, meta-text or something else. Also lol to the Beasts asking the question all games of Hunter constantly ask the Hunters every second of every hunt and which every faction of the game has a clear answer to.
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Jun 3, 2015 08:24
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It sounds like there's the potential to read the book as some kind of in-character artifact of how Beasts see the world, fundamentally not understanding why these humans keep trying to kill them for just doing their thing. It reminds me of this bit from Sandman:  
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Jun 3, 2015 08:25
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Kellsterik posted:It sounds like there's the potential to read the book as some kind of in-character artifact of how Beasts see the world, fundamentally not understanding why these humans keep trying to kill them for just doing their thing. And thus we come full circle back to oMage, the infinite, bloated ouroboros at the center of the RPG world.
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Jun 3, 2015 08:33
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White Wolf is a flat circle. Everything they've ever done or will do, they're gonna do over and over and over again. And that weird 90s high school poo poo, they're gonna put that in a game again and again and again forever.
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Jun 3, 2015 08:50
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It's insanely cool we're back to Werewolf the Apocalypse unironic parody liberalism, where the feminist and environmentalist messages warp around back around to being offensive and bigoted.
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Jun 3, 2015 09:26
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The monomyth thing is extremely hosed up when reading in the context that the killer is 100% right that the "lying bitch" is just eating the fear in the room, and the hippie jam circle he killed were all horrible monsters.
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Jun 3, 2015 10:21
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So... I'm guessing that Demon (which as far as I know, was written by Onyx Path) is a crapfest then? Because everything I'm hearing about Beast is that it's rubbish.
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Jun 3, 2015 11:52
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CommissarMega posted:So... I'm guessing that Demon (which as far as I know, was written by Onyx Path) is a crapfest then? Because everything I'm hearing about Beast is that it's rubbish. What? Where are you getting this? Demon owns.
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Jun 3, 2015 11:53
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CommissarMega posted:So... I'm guessing that Demon (which as far as I know, was written by Onyx Path) is a crapfest then? Because everything I'm hearing about Beast is that it's rubbish. Nope, people's opinions on Demon range from "pretty dope" to "the best thing ever, gently caress sliced bread". The sudden decrease in quality makes Beast all the more jarring.
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Jun 3, 2015 12:00
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CommissarMega posted:So... I'm guessing that Demon (which as far as I know, was written by Onyx Path) is a crapfest then? Because everything I'm hearing about Beast is that it's rubbish. No, that actually worked to a near perfect degree fluff wise. In the real world as opposed to something like Beast: The Strawmen, people are varied can do good things and bad, and have diverse opinions. Demon is a game about deception, open and changing motives, and true ambiguity of people you do and do not know.....and follows through on it perfectly on being in a scary but cool robot spyworld built on those premises. Also reading through Beast gets better and better. Bitter nerd Thaddus gets great grades in college but is stuck in deadend job, constructs sexist conspiracy theory that his co worker slept her way to the top and spited him career wise. She ends up a being Beast (briefly mentioned in one sentence) so the author overlooks given how Heroes are made he is actually probably right and she was directly responsible for her own murder. I'm getting Swords of Truth level "These villains are one dimensional straw men but also right in every way". EDIT: I want to write a Fatal review for this game because wow this fluff is bad.
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Jun 3, 2015 12:22
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paradoxGentleman posted:The sudden decrease in quality makes Beast all the more jarring.
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Jun 3, 2015 12:31
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Exactly. Until this, OP has been pretty good about everything (on the WOD side, at least) and the most of the issues people have had were relatively minor nitpicks with certain rules or bits of fluff. Beast is just a massive brick wall that sprung up seemingly out of nowhere. Even though Matt McFarland was the dev on Promethean 1E, I'm still kind of worried about 2E now that we've got a complete view of Beast.
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Jun 3, 2015 12:35
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Huh, I haven't been keeping up with WoD stuff, and all I heard about Demon is 'Fallen Angels are Matrix Agents who've turned good'. Nice to hear it actually is something nice.
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Jun 3, 2015 12:36
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CommissarMega posted:So... I'm guessing that Demon (which as far as I know, was written by Onyx Path) is a crapfest then? Because everything I'm hearing about Beast is that it's rubbish. See, up until now, the Onyx Path games have had a pretty good track record. Mummy's a weird game that's not for everyone, but it's a solid entry into the WoD. Demon is the absolute coolest. I can't stress enough how cool it is. It's so different yet somehow so in keeping with what a Demon is that it's a shame folks don't seem to play it more. Earworm is one of my favorite powers in any World of Darkness game. The Second Editions of Vampire and Werewolf have their problems, but they're generally pretty good. Mage looks like it's going to be the same. And that's what's baffling about how bad Beast is. A good portion of the people working on it are the same people who developed and wrote for at least Vampire and Demon. Unless there's some occult clause built into the very foundation of White Wolf and its descendants that they need to write the most juvenile fluff every once a decade to keep the money flowing, there's no reason Beast should have turned out like this. I guess some folks must like it, though, cause it's been funded with an extra thousand as of right now.
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Jun 3, 2015 12:45
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Being a miserable and hateful person, I'd say that the writing's been on the wall for a while. Rather a lot of OPP's output lately has been heavily influenced by the oWoD thematically, with all that entails.
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Jun 3, 2015 13:02
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Like people have said earlier, the worst thing is that the core concept is pretty cool. Like I really dig the idea of Heroes as these terrifying forces of will and pride who hear everyone saying "Someone kill Smaug" and go "I'll kill Smaug." That baseline idea of the only person willing to challenge Smaug being a delusional egomaniac is cool. There's a story in that. Same with the idea of someone being a horrible monster by nature and coming to terms with that and their role in the ecosystem of the world. Even the question of "Does someone who's joy comes from the suffering of others deserve a chance at happiness?" can make for some good pathos.Free Cog posted:I guess some folks must like it, though, cause it's been funded with an extra thousand as of right now.
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Jun 3, 2015 13:03
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I feel like Beast would work if it wasn't all about embracing your beast side. You have to feed it but if you can feed it through small things, intentionally not harming others, you get rewarded. Falling all the way into being a monster leads to a loss of the human part of you. I think it would also make sense if the Beast was more like a Geist. It is part of your soul but is a lot older then you and you are not it's first ride. On the flip side heroes can be people given that same power but choose to embrace it. The heroes that take them are just as old, have spent all this time chasing these monsters for centuries, and have become just as beastly. The only difference is they have a friendlier face and promise you a lot of power for embracing them as a part of you. This makes Beasts interesting as a balancing act between their 2 sides and Heroes are actual antagonists because they are power tripping assholes like the game wants them to be.
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Jun 3, 2015 13:03
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