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Ferrinus posted:I aleays assumed that 1e Changeling was designed specifically to be lower-key than any of the "big three" splats to reinforce the idea that you're playing fugitives and unfortunates more so than you're playing Real Monsters. It jived, too, with the fact that changelings were the #1 most benign playable supernatural; they didn't eat people, they didn't let demons into the world, and they were in general capable of being genuinely and unqualifiedly wondrous/magical without there being some catch that exported the true costs of that magic onto innocent bystanders. The area they were also uniquely gifted at was also healing, due to the power of goblin fruits. And for those you were generally at personal risk, too. What I'm saying is that changelings are awesome and definitely (broadly speaking) the good guy splat of the nWoD.
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Jun 8, 2015 19:53
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Kavak posted:How have your games been when you do crossover play, Ferrinus? I'll freely admit to being biased against it from bad chat game drama when I was in high school, but that was mostly the result of dick players and STs. I've been a player or ST with Ferrinus in most of these games and 1E works so well for this kind of play I'm at the point where I can't personally conceive of a WoD that doesn't involve all of the splat lines variably interacting (except, of course, for Beast). There is, however, a bunch of tweaking that usually gets done whenever a new supernatural splat is introduced, especially as a PC. The only time we've ever thrown up our hands and punted on something that I can recall was a couple years ago when I was trying to figure out a way to make 1E Fetches playable, balanced, and fun.
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Jun 8, 2015 19:56
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Gerund posted:What would be the purpose of designing a game with that intent in mind, other than to provide a talking point in a discussion about brand-level game design? Maybe the low power splat would know they're little fish in a big ocean, and the design would reflect that-- the fearful outsider peering too long into a much wider world they're only just barely entitled to see. Is there a splat whose gimmick is knowing too much, and being endangered because of it? I mean, aside from mages sticking their nose into poo poo it doesn't belong. Like some sort of witness shtick I guess.
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Jun 8, 2015 19:58
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Kavak posted:How have your games been when you do crossover play, Ferrinus? I'll freely admit to being biased against it from bad chat game drama when I was in high school, but that was mostly the result of dick players and STs. I've played a precocious teen werewolf in a longrunning game about nomadic vampires but otherwise my group's games are pretty much mono-splat. But, the game I'm in and the game I run are powerfully informed by the potential for, and functionality of, crossover. Our coterie had tangled with greedy mages and thrown down with Pure werewolves and temporarily adopted an orphan changeling; the cabal in my game's alternately struggled and allied with a couple of werewolf packs, been careful not to disrupt vampire politics for fear of reigniting a mages on vampires war that left both sides devastated, etc. We can only do this kind of stuff because we're playing in a setting in which all the "big" monsters have equal primacy on the character-meets-character level that RPGs run on and so there's no need to invent excuses for why so and so vampire can possibly ever stand up to such and such mage.
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Jun 8, 2015 19:59
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Ferrinus posted:I've played a precocious teen werewolf  Sorry, I couldn't even read the rest of that.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:01
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Cabbit posted:Is there a splat whose gimmick is knowing too much, and being endangered because of it? That'd be ma- quote:I mean, aside from mages sticking their nose into poo poo it doesn't belong. Like some sort of witness shtick I guess. Carry on. More seriously, Changeling, kinda? They usually know very little about the actual mechanics of the Fae itself, but they have their attention, and it's never a good thing.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:01
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I think I just witnessed something incredibly sad.quote:I’m Autistic. No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, I’m going to end up sooner or later misreading social cues or misunderstanding the situation in a way that hurts or upsets people. Despite my best intentions, I have been more work for my parents than an non-autistic child would have been.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:03
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Gerund posted:What would be the purpose of designing a game with that intent in mind, other than to provide a talking point in a discussion about brand-level game design? We've done four games in a row now dealing with the cosmic limits of the nWoD - Geist, Mummy, Demon, and Beast. If we do another game, I'd like it to be closer to Vampire or Hunter, simply because doing the same thing over and over again is boring. Eh, we'll see what happens come Pitch season. Just musing.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:05
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Cabbit posted:Winson's not been a mod for awhile, that was probably Ettin. Oops  Ferrinus posted:We can only do this kind of stuff because we're playing in a setting in which all the "big" monsters have equal primacy on the character-meets-character level that RPGs run on and so there's no need to invent excuses for why so and so vampire can possibly ever stand up to such and such mage. So it's more the implications of the mechanics (We have no clear advantage over X, we should be wary of them) that you want?
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Jun 8, 2015 20:05
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Dave Brookshaw posted:We've done four games in a row now dealing with the cosmic limits of the nWoD - Geist, Mummy, Demon, and Beast. If we do another game, I'd like it to be closer to Vampire or Hunter, simply because doing the same thing over and over again is boring. What I want is Hunter 2e. I want this so badly. Mortal Remains makes me sad because it pretends Integrity is Morality and that breaks a good number of Castigations and Benedictions, which really need to be utterly reworked. (Also a lof of Endowments probably need some boosting to match up to Advanced Armory's toys. A lot of the times, the rest have a lot of drawbacks if you try to use them and fail, and they're really niche compared to, like, 'a flamethrower' or 'lightning gun' or 'ghost bullets' or 'thing that keeps monster from using powers at all'.)
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Jun 8, 2015 20:09
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The Beast Kickstarter rewards indicate a Hunter 2ed is in the works.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:11
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If you want a game line where ferrinus is ok with and in fact demands splat power disparity, look to Exalted, where the entire setting conceit is predicated upon a forever slightly better Solar contingent vs justifiably weaker and more numerous Dragonblooded etc. It can happen and make sense when your setting is going for that story from the ground up. Meanwhile Beast is just "you can't like balance a game man. The difference between explanation and excuse.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:12
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paradoxGentleman posted:I think I just witnessed something incredibly sad.  I seriously hope this person can find their personal heroes in a place other than this book.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:12
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Kavak posted:So it's more the implications of the mechanics (We have no clear advantage over X, we should be wary of them) that you want? I don't think the actual mechanics are usefully divisible from their implications. I want it to be actually true that none of the big three really have an easy time destroying or driving out the other, that in cades where their powers explicitly clash the contest generaly comes down to personal power/situational advantage rather than splat, etc. A lot of the work I did on Mage for my own group emerged from the desire to not have it be true that mages could just brute force or scry and fry any problem that wasn't another mage. To an extent, the everything-goes-to-eleven style of 2E accomplishes this, but not in a way I can trust or use. It's important that I can put the same powers my players use in the hands of the bad guys and have the results feel fair.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:13
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Mors Rattus posted:What I want is Hunter 2e. I want this so badly. After seeing how Beast is shaping up I'd be careful what you wish for.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:14
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Kai Tave posted:After seeing how Beast is shaping up I'd be careful what you wish for. I want to remain confident that this is an edge case, because every other 2E thing has been or is shaping up to be good. The 2E Mage stuff looks great, even the Changeling stuff that looked a little out there seems to be falling into place.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:16
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Kai Tave posted:After seeing how Beast is shaping up I'd be careful what you wish for. "No Matt, we don't need your samples for the Ashwood Abbey art. No really, it's okay."
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Jun 8, 2015 20:16
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Kavak posted:The Beast Kickstarter rewards indicate a Hunter 2ed is in the works. Excellent. Now I would also like a unicorn, a million dollars and a game where I can play as a take on the whole king-and-land-are-one thing like that one Hungarian Vampire bloodline does. E: I fully believe that Hunter will be handled better than Beast because Hunter has historically been handled better than Beast. I choose to believe that Beast is a Bad Day For Onyx Path but that every other 2e property is reason for hope.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:17
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paradoxGentleman posted:I think I just witnessed something incredibly sad. I hope this person finds the help they need, and a better game than Beast.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:18
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Beast managed to find an audience simply because there are people so starved for representation that they'll even take being the abusive nightmare demon.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:27
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Mors Rattus posted:Excellent. That bloodline was the first thing I wrote for White Wolf. You and me both. The million dollars wouldn't go amiss, either.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:32
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paradoxGentleman posted:Beast managed to find an audience simply because there are people so starved for representation that they'll even take being the abusive nightmare demon. I know this gets said a lot about tradgames that miss their mark but, well, not the worst thing about Beast but one of the bad things about it is the missed opportunities.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:32
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paradoxGentleman posted:I think I just witnessed something incredibly sad. Just think, if he got angry at people for mistreating him or defended himself against bullies, he'd be the bad guy who is automatically wrong!
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Jun 8, 2015 20:36
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Mors Rattus posted:whole king-and-land-are-one thing like that one Hungarian Vampire bloodline does. Which bloodline is this? I'm about to run a Vampire game and I've always loved Fisher King characters
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Jun 8, 2015 21:10
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Kaza42 posted:Which bloodline is this? I'm about to run a Vampire game and I've always loved Fisher King characters Csalad, it's all descended from this one really old and potent Ordo Dracul guy some people think is Dracula. It's from Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners.
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Jun 8, 2015 21:12
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The Csalad are really cool. They'r eone of the two things I remember from that book. The other thing I remember is that none of the NPCs had the requirements to learn the devotions they had created.
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Jun 8, 2015 22:21
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Dave Brookshaw posted:If we do another nWoD game, I kinda want to do a deliberately lower-powered one compared to the others. I'd definitely be really into this. Personally, I'd like something lower power than vampire. The best game I ever ran was with Second Sight and that 'little fish in a big pond' feeling was really fun. Plus, giving your players just enough of a supernatural edge to get in trouble but not enough to easily beat anyone makes things very interesting.
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Jun 8, 2015 22:47
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Wait, people thought Mage was balanced against other splats? Because as someone who played mage for a few years (and is playing a new game right now) it totally isn't. Anyone with some experience with Forces can instantly disintegrate vampires, anyone with enough Life can heal and hulk out, and there's an amazing exploit you can do with Ritual Casting and Fate which pretty much allows you to accrue roughly x3 the successes you would normally be able to expect on any given ritual casting, which can do horrible things with Life, Mind, and Spirit. I suspect that last one is why Ritual Casting isn't the thing it used to be, now. This isn't even getting into the horrible things you can do with Matter if you have an understanding of chemistry, or in general how you can do anything from across the planet when using Space. God help you if you try to compare Archmastery to the post-6 power stat conditions of all the other splats (hey vampires, you have to go to sleep now!). Each Arcana is a toolkit which can be on par with the full spread of another splat's powers. The only real balancing element is that, aside from these amazing powers, Mages are effectively human. And if they don't want to they don't have to endure those conditions for long.
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Jun 8, 2015 22:49
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Ironslave posted:Wait, people thought Mage was balanced against other splats? The other thing, iirc, is that their supernatural ability progression scaled a lot better compared to the other splats since each dot in an Arcana opened up gobs of new tricks whereas the equivalent in other splats opened up only one (or less in Werewolf's case). Geist had a progression that was the closest to being on par to Mage's, but I haven't looked a Mummy's bag of tricks so they might have more things per XP than the Sin-Eaters.
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Jun 8, 2015 23:32
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How can any other supernatural creature hope to stand against a Mage with a high school chemistry textbook. they'll just turn the air into fire, man. game over
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Jun 8, 2015 23:37
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Yeah, splats with quadratic power progression will inevitably outpace splats with linear progression. That's not even counting things like how mages can do most of their stuff at range.
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Jun 8, 2015 23:43
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Ironslave posted:Wait, people thought Mage was balanced against other splats? Well? Show your work. How does someone with some experience with Forces instantly disintegrate vampires? Everyone knows the ritual casting system, which allowed mages to stack the numbers on their uncapped spells arbitrarily high, caused extremely straightforward and measurable balance problems that came down to "this guy's stats are higher than everyone else's and this guy gets to take more turns than anyone else does". But it's not true that mage powers were pound-for-pound stronger or trivialized other characters by the simple fact of being aimed and activated. Mages rolled stat + skill + power to inflict damage or overcome resistance, same as vampires and werewolves.
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Jun 8, 2015 23:43
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It always confuses me when people imply it's a problem with the game itself that certain tables will allow Matter mages whose players took a chem course or two the privilege of bypassing the game rules entirely to narratively one-shot whoever they please.
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Jun 8, 2015 23:47
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It's not like the Resources merit doesn't do the exact same thing.
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Jun 8, 2015 23:47
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Well the "right" answer as a mage isn't to turn the air around a player into rock. It's to turn a section of rock into air and then cancel the spell when your opponent steps into it, because it can't be countered.
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Jun 8, 2015 23:55
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Ferrinus posted:Well? Show your work. How does someone with some experience with Forces instantly disintegrate vampires? A Mage with (I think it was) Forces 2 can outright create sunlight. If your sole criteria for what "balanced" is in nWoD 1E is "they both have targets and they both roll stats to be used" without taking into account things like scale, ease of access, general usability, splat weaknesses/strength, scope of a given power, the evolution of a character sheet, effect vs. time invested, and so on, you're doing a pretty poo poo job of arguing on what balance is. Edit: nMage 1E was balanced relatively well against itself. Not against the rest of the WoD.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:01
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The thing is, there's no reason that doesn't just result in your prospective victim getting smoothly and nonviolently ejected, or the rock pushing itself off as it congeals back into shape and winding up just standing adjacent to them, or something. These people always think they're so drat clever because the million and one hidden assumptions they're making happen to all fall in their favor!!Ironslave posted:A Mage with (I think it was) Forces 2 can outright create sunlight. Well, that's just wrong. Sorry. You need Forces 5 to create sunlight. Here's the thing, though, let's say you use Forces 5 to create sunlight: now a vampire that's standing in the area of effect takes 3 aggravated damage. You know how else you do 3 aggravated damage to a vampire? Just loving... swinging a torch at them, or something. There's nothing special going on here!
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Jun 9, 2015 00:02
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Ironslave posted:A Mage with (I think it was) Forces 2 can outright create sunlight. Sunlight requires Forces Mastery. Corebook, page 176.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:02
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Gerund posted:Sunlight requires Forces Mastery. Corebook, page 176. Yeah, been a bit. That's still a hell of a power to have in any situation against Vampires. Not to mention by that point you're also immune to fire and electricity, can create fire, can cause storms, can cause lightning strikes, turn all forms of energy into other forms, fly, run super fast, shield themselves, see in other spectrums, browse all forms of electronic information with their minds- the list goes on. Edit: turn invisible, turn off gravity in general
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Jun 9, 2015 00:06
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Since the Higgs Field is not mentioned in Forces, logically, I can just use Fraying to weaken it locally, decreasing the mass of the constituent quarks enough that they break free of the strong-force bonds, disintegrating the target within a matter of seconds~ There we go. Forces 3 can be used to not only kill someone instantly, it can also be used to tear buildings apart. Prove me wrong, funhaters.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:08
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