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Can I just say how  I am about it being called Going Loud? Every Demon is a hybrid Uboat, whispering along the ocean floor, but when poo poo gets real out come the diesels and ICBMs.
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Jun 9, 2015 23:23
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I'm not the person to wade into the deep end and declare which splat is comparatively more or less powerful than Changeling. However I will state that Changelings probably get less out of the purchase of their mystic powers on a one-to-one basis and depend more on their non-mystic skills, to the point where the purchase of regular-human stats like Strength and Presence are as equally important as getting to the next clause or rank in a contract or court mantle. However a 1E Forsaken starting Werewolf is probably equivalent of a starting Changeling with the Ogre seeming.
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Jun 9, 2015 23:32
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Ferrinus posted:There's no listed "provoke terror" spell, and forcing someone to attack you has very different balance considerations from forcing someone to flee you, so there's no reason to believe that it's also Mind 3 to force a vampire or werewolf into fear frenzy. For both monsters, fear frenzies are much more niche than anger frenzies - vampire anger frenzies explicitly trump vampire fear frenzies, and for werewolves the fear frenzy is a subset of the anger frenzy that only occurs under certain conditions. It's not even necessary to talk about rituals to explain the utility of getting up to a +5 on one of two-thirds of your attributes or 5 ranks in any skill. Even an instant spell doing either of these things with no preparation has a ton of utility. And I will continue to bring up buff stacking because the argument you made isn't "vampire powers are stronger than instant spells" it is "1E vampires were roughly balanced with 1E mages because vampire powers are stronger than instant spells." But having a singular ability that is slightly stronger than a similar singular ability isn't the whole equation. Thus the Wizard/Fighter analogy: At equal levels of optimization at mid levels, a full-attacking fighter is better at dealing hit point damage than a wizard. That is, however, all the Fighter can do, whereas the Wizard has the easy ability to make himself better, a vast selection of options, and the ability to optimize those options for any situation, and in fact can at higher levels be better at the one thing the fighter does than the fighter is. So the Fighter is a weaker class than the Wizard. The vampire with Nightmare 3 is really good at stunlocking a single person with a mind-affecting ability, but that's all he does, he can't easily get better at it (or anything/everything else) like the mage can, and at higher levels even the one thing he does is done better by the Mage. So the vampire is a weaker splat than the mage. This really can't be any clearer. Tezzor fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 23:48
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Also, fictionwise, Mummies and Demons are on the lower end of the scale, even though mechanically they're pretty powerful.
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Jun 9, 2015 23:49
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Tezzor posted:It's not even necessary to talk about rituals to explain the utility of getting up to a +5 on one of two-thirds of your attributes or 5 ranks in any skill. Even an instant spell doing either of these things with no preparation has a ton of utility. And I will continue to bring up buff stacking because the argument you made isn't "vampire powers are stronger than instant spells" it is "1E vampires were roughly balanced with 1E mages because vampire powers are stronger than instant spells." But having a singular ability that is slightly stronger than a similar singular ability isn't the whole equation. Thus the Wizard/Fighter analogy: At equal levels of optimization at mid levels, a full-attacking fighter is better at dealing hit point damage than a wizard. That is, however, all the Fighter can do, whereas the Wizard has the easy ability to make himself better, a vast selection of options, and the ability to optimize those options for any situation, and in fact can at higher levels be better at the one thing the fighter does than the fighter is. So the Fighter is a weaker class than the Wizard. The vampire with Nightmare 3 is really good at stunlocking a single person with a mind-affecting ability, but that's all he does, he can't easily get better at it like the mage can, and at higher levels even the one thing he does is done better by the Mage. So the vampire is a weaker splat than the mage. This really can't be any clearer. Thank you for clearly stating that you don't really understand Caster Supremacy.
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Jun 9, 2015 23:53
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Adept Nightingale posted:I hate to break it to you, but you're just not going to win an argument with Ferrinus. You can rest assured he can deconstruct any argument you may care to make. I've already won this elfargument to the satisfaction of myself and anyone not too stubborn to admit he's taken an untenable position re: magic power levels. I still enjoy his posting, what a tragedy for him though
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Jun 9, 2015 23:57
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Tezzor posted:I've already won this elfargument to the satisfaction of myself and anyone not too stubborn to admit he's taken an untenable position re: magic power levels. I still enjoy his posting, what a tragedy for him though It's comforting to know that no matter how wrong, ignorant, or silly a position you take in one of these threads, the worst thing about your posting will always be your insufferable certitude. An anchor of stability in an ever-changing world.
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Jun 10, 2015 00:07
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Tezzor posted:It's not even necessary to talk about rituals to explain the utility of getting up to a +5 on one of two-thirds of your attributes or 5 ranks in any skill. Even an instant spell doing either of these things with no preparation has a ton of utility. And I will continue to bring up buff stacking because the argument you made isn't "vampire powers are stronger than instant spells" it is "1E vampires were roughly balanced with 1E mages because vampire powers are stronger than instant spells." But having a singular ability that is slightly stronger than a similar singular ability isn't the whole equation. Thus the Wizard/Fighter analogy: At equal levels of optimization at mid levels, a full-attacking fighter is better at dealing hit point damage than a wizard. That is, however, all the Fighter can do, whereas the Wizard has the easy ability to make himself better, a vast selection of options, and the ability to optimize those options for any situation, and in fact can at higher levels be better at the one thing the fighter does than the fighter is. So the Fighter is a weaker class than the Wizard. The vampire with Nightmare 3 is really good at stunlocking a single person with a mind-affecting ability, but that's all he does, he can't easily get better at it (or anything/everything else) like the mage can, and at higher levels even the one thing he does is done better by the Mage. So the vampire is a weaker splat than the mage. This really can't be any clearer. The reason you're going to continue bringing up buff stacking, Tezzor, is that you neither know what you're talking about nor what we're talking about. You obviously didn't actually read any of the posts I made on this topic before you joined the conversation, so you're just stuck telling outright lies like you do in the second sentence of the quoted post. What else have you got, when every one of your examples just fails because none of them actually address anything that I said?
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Jun 10, 2015 00:07
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Remember that person I quoted early? The autistic person that felt that Beast resonated with her because she feels that her transition is sadly enough harmful to others? I'd like to hear you guys' opinion on what she has stated on the matter. It is, if nothing else, a different take on the game: quote:I tried to say that Beast: The Primordial resonates with me because sometimes I do hurt people because of my marginalized statuses, and effectively got told I was having the wrong marginalized experiences and offending other marginalized people. Then I got banned for a day. Possibly for that, possibly for other reasons. The reason is the vague and nonsensical “Dancing around Red Text” so I have literally no idea which of several things I did might have brought it on, only one of which actually seems potentially ban-worthy. (Even though I needed to share my experiences with marginalization to make my point about the game, it technically violated a ruling that you couldn’t compare the Begotten or Heroes to specific marginalized groups.) quote:Today I learned quote:You’re allowed to read it as glorifying abuse. There’s actually textual basis for that, though it wasn’t intentional. But stop telling me I’m wrong for seeing a marginalization narrative that doesn’t. paradoxGentleman fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 00:13
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Eh, I just feel bad for her and hope she finds something better to identify with.
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Jun 10, 2015 00:15
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Mors Rattus posted:Eh, I just feel bad for her and hope she finds something better to identify with. Same. It's not her fault and I hope things get better for her. The person at fault in all this is the authors.
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Jun 10, 2015 00:17
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paradoxGentleman posted:Remember that person I quoted early? The autistic person that felt that Beast resonated with her because she feels that her transition is sadly enough harmful to others? That's not going to make a lot of sense because it's not the post that got them infracted. In that post they explained that they aren't identifying with Beasts because they think marginalized people in general hurt others by merely existing, but specifically identifying it with autism because they feel like they do actually hurt people just by existing because they don't know the social rules to follow and say things that offend people, or also to depressed people who might lash out at others if they are having a downswing. So that description actually does make a lot of sense, and makes the identification with beasts a lil' less creepy than it was before. edit: Not ashamed to admit that before that post I assumed the person was an Asen_G. Mormon Star Wars fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 00:48
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Tezzor posted:I've already won this elfargument to the satisfaction of myself and anyone not too stubborn to admit he's taken an untenable position re: magic power levels. I still enjoy his posting, what a tragedy for him though Go back to Hellthread. And please stay there.
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Jun 10, 2015 01:08
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If someone wants to do something good with Beast, great! People play Cyborg Commando too. But the longer I looked at it the more I figured it was a bridge too far. (And it also made me appreciate how solid all editions of Vampire are with respect to some really dicey things.)
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Jun 10, 2015 01:34
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Requiem is seriously really good. The worst you can say about its treatment of charged subject matter is that it sometimes comes off silly or gross.
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Jun 10, 2015 01:39
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Ferrinus posted:Requiem is seriously really good. The worst you can say about its treatment of charged subject matter is that it sometimes comes off silly or gross.
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Jun 10, 2015 01:40
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Ferrinus posted:Requiem is seriously really good. The worst you can say about its treatment of charged subject matter is that it sometimes comes off silly or gross. At least you're not supposed to side with the folks running B vs. D...
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Jun 10, 2015 02:05
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paradoxGentleman posted:Remember that person I quoted early? The autistic person that felt that Beast resonated with her because she feels that her transition is sadly enough harmful to others? It's an interesting viewpoint, but I think it's flawed because of the whole "you must inflict suffering and feed on the negative emotions you cause" angle of Beast. Promethean is far better at the whole "autism is a monstrous condition that hurts other people around me" thing because autistic people aren't usually willfully malicious or sadistic people who feed off and enjoy the suffering they deliberately cause/is caused by their condition. Plus I doubt that autism, even metaphorically, creates people who want to kill all people on the spectrum other than in an incredibly general "this person is different and I don't like that" angle. Hell, even Vampire is a healthier metaphor for autism than being one of The Children with Vampires not feeling the emotions of "normal" humans and have to go through the motions to be "accepted" in Human society. While that person is free to draw whatever connections and opinions they want, expressing them in a public forum means those connections and opinions may, and will be analyzed, critiqued, and discussed. Their usage of "oh people don't agree with me I guess I'm not allowed to form and hold my own opinions then!" is a histrionic defense intended to shame people who disagree into leaving the discussion, and it comes off as extremely petulant.
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Jun 10, 2015 03:10
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Beast fails because it's a crossover splat that is actually super terrible at crossovers. It fails at it's intended purpose. Everything else is just insult added to injury.
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Jun 10, 2015 03:18
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Wales Grey posted:It's an interesting viewpoint, but I think it's flawed because of the whole "you must inflict suffering and feed on the negative emotions you cause" angle of Beast. Promethean is far better at the whole "autism is a monstrous condition that hurts other people around me" thing because autistic people aren't usually willfully malicious or sadistic people who feed off and enjoy the suffering they deliberately cause/is caused by their condition. Plus I doubt that autism, even metaphorically, creates people who want to kill all people on the spectrum other than in an incredibly general "this person is different and I don't like that" angle. Hell, even Vampire is a healthier metaphor for autism than being one of The Children with Vampires not feeling the emotions of "normal" humans and have to go through the motions to be "accepted" in Human society. Promethean works really well for this, actually; a lot of the Refinements arguably mirror ways I've heard of and seen autistic people cope and try to fit in. I know someone who practiced meditation and, interestingly enough, roleplaying for this sort of thing, while I myself (perhaps not autistic but definitely neurodivergent in some manner) learned a lot about social interaction by watching people and social interactions, and sometimes what amounted to prolonged trial and error to figure out what was "right". (Heck, while I didn't make the full connection of Promethean to this sort of thing until other people brought it up, when I read about the Refinement of Gold I thought "this sounds kind of familiar".) Beast, meanwhile... On this particular level they fail because they are the least disadvantaged when it comes to actually interacting with people. Everyone loves Beasts. If you want to make a metaphor for a group that doesn't fit in, Beasts really don't work for that. They fit in with everyone. Even the True Fae think they're awesome.
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Jun 10, 2015 03:32
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Black Hat Matt post:quote:I sent a long email to Rich, Rose, and Michelle (the editor of Beast) tonight. I'm not going to go into the contents (yet) because I need to actually have some feedback from folks, but basically it was a proposed batch of changes/fixes to the material, based in large part on the discussions happening here and elsewhere.
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Jun 10, 2015 04:45
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quote:The truth of the matter is: This game is generating discussion. It's generating controversy. It's challenging people. I think that's good...but I also think that some of the criticism that's come up is entirely valid. This part of the post has me concerned; it seems too self-congratulatory and rather flippant for what's actually being discussed.
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Jun 10, 2015 05:01
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I'm skeptical based on the omission of any mention of how loving disturbing a lot of us find the book and the line "To the people who have read the game and made their opinions clear without being hostile".
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Jun 10, 2015 05:02
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Mormon Star Wars posted:Black Hat Matt post: Well, it's not a naked turtle/double down, the three points he brings up are worth addressing and would certainly help. However, if he does that and still doesn't change the greasy, nasty subtext, it'll still be a strong game with gross fluff. If "scrutinizing their relationship with heroes" actually involves fixing that though, I'll be quite happy. As he says, it sucks to try to make something you think is cool and good, show it to everybody else, and have it utterly demolished by a tidal wave of criticism because it's actually poo poo. I'm going to have to wait to see what the proposed/actual changes are before I change my mind on Beast, though.
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Jun 10, 2015 05:02
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This is a good development.
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Jun 10, 2015 05:16
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Daeren posted:Well, it's not a naked turtle/double down, the three points he brings up are worth addressing and would certainly help. However, if he does that and still doesn't change the greasy, nasty subtext, it'll still be a strong game with gross fluff. If "scrutinizing their relationship with heroes" actually involves fixing that though, I'll be quite happy. I think that changing all three might help a lot with the subtext. Putting aside the Hero changes for a bit, which will be a headache, adding Beast societies and struggles beyond just trying to live will do a lot to add a moral compass to the game, which was lacking. "Who judges the beasts?" was a question that didn't really have an answer before (besides "no one, beasts do what they want"), so it looked like there was nothing to put the breaks on any sort of Beast behavior. Adding a society with members who have opinions on right and wrong and who will step in if you gently caress up will do a lot to give the game more 'breathing room' to fix the rest of the subtext. At least it won't feel like any behavior from a beast is laudable, anyways. edit: This is assuming they expand on non-suffering based feeding at the same time, adding more stuff like "The Beast that feeds by hunting animals" or "The collector who collects dirty needles." Pope Guilty posted:I'm skeptical based on the omission of any mention of how loving disturbing a lot of us find the book and the line "To the people who have read the game and made their opinions clear without being hostile". This is just hazarding a guess, but from his posts before this I gather that when his friends got through to him and actually convinced him that it wasn't a trolling interpretation, he was disturbed too. That's at least the impression I got from his "oh poo poo" post.* *did not literally post "oh poo poo" Mormon Star Wars fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 05:37
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Mormon Star Wars posted:This is just hazarding a guess, but from his posts before this I gather that when his friends got through to him and actually convinced him that it wasn't a trolling interpretation, he was disturbed too. That's at least the impression I got from his "oh poo poo" post.* I really hope you're right.
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Jun 10, 2015 05:43
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Matt mentioned running a Beast game and I'm intensely curious to see what his games of Beast have looked like. I don't mean that in an antagonistic fashion, I wonder what his games look like as compared to the example of play given in the text which, to put it mildly, is fairly disturbing since I have a hard time believing that Matt and his group are actually getting their elfgaming jollies abusing imaginary kids.
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Jun 10, 2015 05:44
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Mormon Star Wars posted:This is just hazarding a guess, but from his posts before this I gather that when his friends got through to him and actually convinced him that it wasn't a trolling interpretation, he was disturbed too. That's at least the impression I got from his "oh poo poo" post.* I hope that he just realized that "These guys are being really hostile about this opinion" and "These other guys share the same opinion" doesn't mean that "Those other guys are also being hostile towards my game". I want Beast to be good, as it stands now I'm just vacillating between "disappointed" and "disturbed" by what I've read.
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Jun 10, 2015 05:48
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I think it's a good answer, but I don't think they'll be able to fix the fact that the crossover game is poo poo at crossovers. I don't think there's anyw ay to save that aspect without reworking a lot of the game from the ground up, and I doubt that's gonna happen. Anyway, good on Matt. Hopefully the game will have a good fanbase.
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Jun 10, 2015 05:59
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Wales Grey posted:Their usage of "oh people don't agree with me I guess I'm not allowed to form and hold my own opinions then!" is a histrionic defense intended to shame people who disagree into leaving the discussion, and it comes off as extremely petulant. I thought that bit was because RPG.net moderators smacked them for it, not because other people were disagreeing. Granted, I didn't read the RPG.net discussion itself, so I could be misinterpreting things.
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Jun 10, 2015 06:13
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Emy posted:I thought that bit was because RPG.net moderators smacked them for it, not because other people were disagreeing. Granted, I didn't read the RPG.net discussion itself, so I could be misinterpreting things. The moderators actually gave her a day ban for how she went about things; accusing others of attacking her for disagreeing with her interpretation of the text and stuff. I don't think it was handled as well as it could have been (recognizing that she was incredibly personally invested in this and opening with the day ban is questionable, in my opinion), but, no, she was expressing the notion of being attacked even before the ban, and her post there, having seen the discussion, definitely reads as more of that except moreso because of the ban and stuff too. Also reading that again I think she might be referring to me in there; I was one of the people who mentioned that Beasts were far more similar to people who abused me in real life than they were to me and that the associated narrative of them being right and that by the logic of the text I'd be either a nameless victim or a Hero was unpleasant to me, and also in another place I said that Beasts themselves are terrible representation of marginalized people because of their widespread, near-total approval and the position of power they generally occupy, but I sure as hell didn't do any of the other things she accuses people of doing to her there.
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Jun 10, 2015 06:26
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She sounds almost desperate for a group to identify with, which is sad, but ultimately not your fault. I hope things improve for her but I think being told "no the game had problems and needed to be overhauled" by the author will snap her out of it.
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Jun 10, 2015 06:38
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Xelkelvos posted:Go back to Hellthread. I've been posting in these threads at least as long if not long before you (difficult to remember as you invoking forums tribalism at me is the first post of yours I've ever noticed) and will continue to do so. Thank you for your concern
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Jun 10, 2015 07:44
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Kurieg posted:She sounds almost desperate for a group to identify with, which is sad, but ultimately not your fault. I hope things improve for her but I think being told "no the game had problems and needed to be overhauled" by the author will snap her out of it. Would it be' in bad taste to suggest her to try out Promethean?
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Jun 10, 2015 08:29
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Mors Rattus posted:Eh, I just feel bad for her and hope she finds something better to identify with. Same. Daeren posted:Well, it's not a naked turtle/double down, the three points he brings up are worth addressing and would certainly help. However, if he does that and still doesn't change the greasy, nasty subtext, it'll still be a strong game with gross fluff. If "scrutinizing their relationship with heroes" actually involves fixing that though, I'll be quite happy. I think changing some of the fundamentals of heroes would help significantly with the overtones of it, at least. paradoxGentleman posted:Would it be' in bad taste to suggest her to try out Promethean? Promethean would be rejected with prejudice by a lot of Beast's defenders for the suggestion that the end state is to be human i.e. "normal", ignoring the fact that Beast suggests that the best outcome to being different is at best institutionalisation safely away from literally everyone else in the world and at worst genocide. Even attempts to make Beast something unnatural instead upset them, somehow.
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Jun 10, 2015 09:28
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Oh wow, I caught up on the RPGnet thread andquote:Uh. Melaine followed the Beast back to it's Lair and murdered it, because it took something that belonged to her.  Just kill this splat. Kill all of it, salt the earth. quote:And this is where we basically get into themes of xenophobia. Okay, he's a big monster. We also know he's a person because we've interacted with him as such. And especially because I don't think a young teen has much chance of actually winning against a Beast in it's Lair if it's not caught flatfooted, he's not really fighting back. "All I'm saying is... Give quote:Seriously, this is disgusting and seriously boggling my mind how people are looking to excuse a serial killer just because she has a tragic backstory. It's Draco in leather pants all over again, but worse because at least Draco didn't commit serial killing. how dare the teenage girl respond violently to someone breaking into her home turning into an actual dragon and daring to win spectralent fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 09:36
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Changeling would be anyone's best bet since, despite always knowing that you're different, probably won't stop you from trying to live your (new) life knowing there are other beings just like you around when you need them. In fact, what the heck, why are they even writing this crap off as representation of marginalized people in the first place when they already have a game that does that 999x better, even if not on purpose? Does Beast even have any LGBT writers in their staff? Like, I'm trans and I can tell you out right that I don't want this game to represent me at all. Trans people face a lot of abuse and mistreatment themselves and reading about this just flat out upsets me.
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Jun 10, 2015 09:42
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Captain Sheepy posted:Changeling would be anyone's best bet since, despite always knowing that you're different, probably won't stop you from trying to live your (new) life knowing there are other beings just like you around when you need them. Rose Bailey is trans herself, but I don't know how much she has to do with Beast. But it's a valid point that Beast doesn't seem to have any themes to call its own that aren't already present in the other nWoD lines, nor does it handle the themes it's ostensibly trying to evoke as well as the other games it's cribbing from. I also wish I could say I can't believe that there are people going to bat for a group of "protagonists" who subsist on the misery and suffering of others...not just "accidentally cause it as a byproduct of their very existence" ala Promethean but actively go out looking to abuse and terrorize others because that's how they feed...and trying at the same time to demonize those who decide that the world would be better off without abusive terror-vampires trundling around poisoning children or locking people into endless nightmare realms, but that would be a deep down dirty lie. I think there's a lot of very fine and interesting concepts to be mined from the moral ambiguities of monster hunting, which Hunter: the Vigil and the other nWoD lines do a fairly good job of exploring, but I feel safe in saying that anyone who looks at the character of Melanie and goes "that loving bitch, how dare she murder a perfectly innocent monster that just wanted to break into her house and terrorize her, and for her to then go on hunting down monsters after she winds up in a nightmare coma" is someone helpfully pointing out for the benefit of others that they probably aren't the sort of person you want at your gaming table, if for no other reason than a crippling lack of reading comprehension.
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Jun 10, 2015 09:54
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| # ? May 8, 2024 14:34 |
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ah no but you see if you think heroes are defensible then it is you who have not comprehended* the text because *(not failed to read it you read it and were just too dumb to understand this is better you cannot argue with this)
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Jun 10, 2015 10:06
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