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Kavak posted:I think because it mostly worked with the Strix, they're convinced it's needed everywhere. While Werewolf actually benefits from having the idigam fleshed out (There's plenty of other poo poo for the Uratha to fight if you don't like them), Prometheans don't need the alchemists they're trying to shoehorn in and the Huntsmen are looking way too prominent. Wonder if they've got anything planned for Geist? Geists probably actually do need it. Changelings don't need as much to answer the "what do I do with it" question because you can fill in any gaps with "fairy tale stuff goes here."
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Jun 13, 2015 05:53
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Rand Brittain posted:Geists probably actually do need it. Yeah, "The Geist that merged with you was very much not supposed to do that and now Bad Things are looking for you." is a pretty good stick to the carrot of everything else about Sin-Eaters.
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Jun 13, 2015 05:57
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Kavak posted:Yeah, "The Geist that merged with you was very much not supposed to do that and now Bad Things are looking for you." is a pretty good stick to the carrot of everything else about Sin-Eaters. Well there's always the possibility that other Sin-Eaters will want to kill you! For, uh, reasons.
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Jun 13, 2015 06:04
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Rand Brittain posted:My main concern is that having fae creatures actively and competently hunting changelings is going to cut back on the fairy tale adventure aspect—I feel like it would be a lot harder to justify building a Hollow that wasn't intensely fortified with Huntsmen about. From what I've read so far, it doesn't actually sound like the Huntsmen hunt based on what you might call physicality. They follow narrative, not pure cause and effect. Otherwise, it'd just be a case of the Huntsman looking for the appropriate signs, doing a little stalking, and bam. Instead, it sounds like they have to follow narrative weaknesses. They can't just lure you out into a dark alleyway at night by leaving you a clandestine invitation; they have to get your best friend to do it. And they can't just threaten them either, unless this best friend of yours is someone you regularly intimidate. Instead, it has to be by some trade or other dramatically appropriate betrayal. Makes the game operate more on fairy tale logic, whereby trying to wall yourself off may actually be what makes it easier to get past the gate, y'know?
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Jun 13, 2015 06:05
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Axelgear posted:From what I've read so far, it doesn't actually sound like the Huntsmen hunt based on what you might call physicality. They follow narrative, not pure cause and effect. Otherwise, it'd just be a case of the Huntsman looking for the appropriate signs, doing a little stalking, and bam. This is my reading of it, based on what we've seen so far. Not only do huntsmen have to attack following certain rules, they have to attack your strength. They can totally ambush you in a dark alley after you follow a cryptic message, but only if your court structure is based around intrigue and spycraft. I don't think the huntsmen dillute the True Fae at all, as I don't think the True Fae should be anything less than a force of nature that you will never beat, only survive. (Excepting, of course, end of chronicle victories if you're going for happily ever after). Well see what the full text says.
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Jun 13, 2015 06:37
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Ferrinus posted:Another victory for Mage. Looking forward to some unbelievably sick banisher material to be published any day now ...
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Jun 13, 2015 08:00
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WINNERSH TRIANGLE posted:Looking forward to some unbelievably sick banisher material to be published any day now ... The Banishers book is sick enough as it is.
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Jun 13, 2015 08:02
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Soonmot posted:I don't think the huntsmen dillute the True Fae at all, as I don't think the True Fae should be anything less than a force of nature that you will never beat, only survive. Same here. Honestly, one of the things that bothered me about 1e was that the True Fae had to come down and get you etc. Now sure, maybe there's one TF here and there who'd like to get their hands dirty, but from what I saw, life in Arcadia as one of the 1% is pretty good;. Why would I want to leave my harem of dragon-winged catgirls to kidnap or take back some dumb mortal when I can get some goon to do it?
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Jun 13, 2015 09:00
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Rand Brittain posted:My main concern is that having fae creatures actively and competently hunting changelings is going to cut back on the fairy tale adventure aspect—I feel like it would be a lot harder to justify building a Hollow that wasn't intensely fortified with Huntsmen about. Mmm; that was one of the things I loved about the fact Changeling only had "Weird hedge poo poo" and "Terrifying almost-literal gods"; it meant there was no "progression", or sense of escalation, necessarily. If a true fae appeared, things just started happening, ready or not. I really liked that paranoia. I also liked how not-mechanical courts were, thinking about it; it fitted with the heavy uncertainty about stuff. It was a Bad Thing if courts didn't work properly, sure, but in unspecific ways that could mean anything. When nothing's defined and you're aware there's something out there, there's a lot of room for paranoia to fill in the gaps, especially when that something is said to behave in irrational and arcane ways.
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Jun 13, 2015 12:57
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CommissarMega posted:Same here. Honestly, one of the things that bothered me about 1e was that the True Fae had to come down and get you etc. Now sure, maybe there's one TF here and there who'd like to get their hands dirty, but from what I saw, life in Arcadia as one of the 1% is pretty good;. Why would I want to leave my harem of dragon-winged catgirls to kidnap or take back some dumb mortal when I can get some goon to do it? Because the entire narrative engine that 1E ran off of was the exceedingly terrifying personal relationship between the Changeling and their Keeper. They were, very intentionally, not 1% capitalist overlord/business executive stand-ins who don't get their hands dirty. This is like the weird reverse of ruminating on why the Exarchs in Mage don't pop down from the Realms Supernal to deal with troublesome Pentacle cabals themselves. The True Fae aren't Exarchs, and making them knockoff Exarchs served by knockoff Seers with a slight aesthetic change would do both lines a disservice. spectralent posted:Mmm; that was one of the things I loved about the fact Changeling only had "Weird hedge poo poo" and "Terrifying almost-literal gods"; it meant there was no "progression", or sense of escalation, necessarily. If a true fae appeared, things just started happening, ready or not. I really liked that paranoia. I also liked how not-mechanical courts were, thinking about it; it fitted with the heavy uncertainty about stuff. It was a Bad Thing if courts didn't work properly, sure, but in unspecific ways that could mean anything. When nothing's defined and you're aware there's something out there, there's a lot of room for paranoia to fill in the gaps, especially when that something is said to behave in irrational and arcane ways. I agree with most of this, especially lack of threat escalation or progression. I'm mostly a fan of the new Court mechanics, though, and especially the Bulwark mechanic, assuming they clean up their rules text and clarify whether you're adding Mantle to just the Defense stat or to all rolls to defend against True Fae while in your freehold -- that's the sort of home turf advantage a Changeling should have: extra ways to flee from, evade, or otherwise resist the Keepers while in their own element. And frankly, I think it obviates the need for any intermediate Fae minibosses for Changelings to beat up on. As an aside, I am extremely not a fan of how lazy some of the communication of mechanics has been in 2E. 1E was hardly a paragon of rigor itself, but that's not really an excuse. Crion fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Jun 13, 2015 |
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Jun 13, 2015 15:27
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Crion posted:Because the entire narrative engine that 1E ran off of was the exceedingly terrifying personal relationship between the Changeling and their Keeper. They were, very intentionally, not 1% capitalist overlord/business executive stand-ins who don't get their hands dirty. This is like the weird reverse of ruminating on why the Exarchs in Mage don't pop down from the Realms Supernal to deal with troublesome Pentacle cabals themselves. The True Fae aren't Exarchs, and making them knockoff Exarchs served by knockoff Seers with a slight aesthetic change would do both lines a disservice. The text seen so far suggests they're not knockoff seers.
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Jun 13, 2015 15:29
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Little_wh0re posted:The text seen so far suggests they're not knockoff seers. I was responding to Commissar's post, not anything in the preview text.
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Jun 13, 2015 15:33
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Something I do think is interesting about how Huntsmen work (going off of what we've seen) is that their means of attacking you seems to be built around the idea of Approaches. So rather than your abuser kicking your door down and dragging you back, now you have a scenario where the new life you've built collapses on you and you're driven/taken back as a result.
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Jun 13, 2015 15:58
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Depending on how good the Huntsmen mechanics are, it might be possible just to buff their stats, give them a couple additional gimmicks, and cut out the middle man -- just use them as straight-up True Fae. That all depends the extent to which the book shoves Keepers into the background, of course; it might not even be necessary.
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Jun 13, 2015 16:14
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Luminous Obscurity posted:Something I do think is interesting about how Huntsmen work (going off of what we've seen) is that their means of attacking you seems to be built around the idea of Approaches. So rather than your abuser kicking your door down and dragging you back, now you have a scenario where the new life you've built collapses on you and you're driven/taken back as a result. You've come back from Arcadia and built a new story around you to protect yourself, the Huntsmen need to unravel that narrative armor and bring you back to the way you felt on the other side of the Hedge, to the story your Keeper wants to tell.
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Jun 13, 2015 16:23
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CommissarMega posted:Same here. Honestly, one of the things that bothered me about 1e was that the True Fae had to come down and get you etc. Now sure, maybe there's one TF here and there who'd like to get their hands dirty, but from what I saw, life in Arcadia as one of the 1% is pretty good;. Why would I want to leave my harem of dragon-winged catgirls to kidnap or take back some dumb mortal when I can get some goon to do it? The real answer since Equinox Road (for a given concept of "real") is that True Fae need the Changelings to exist because they feed off of the struggle to sustain their sense of self in their realm of omnipotence. A Fued of True Fae is a zero-sum game, so they interact with mortals according to their titles in order to keep them from falling into ennui. So yeah, the whole Huntsman concept is weird, if it turns out that Huntsman aren't a role/noun-form of True Fae and said True Fae titles aren't unique and worthy of sustaining. We'll have to see in the book if they deliver or not on the promise of making an improved C:tL, rather than just the GMC-format madlib.
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Jun 13, 2015 16:23
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Really the reason this is all under suspicion is because Changeling 1e was so good. The proposed game doesn't sound bad, just Changeling was a very, very high bar to clear.
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Jun 13, 2015 16:35
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Yeah, ultimately I don't feel like Lost needed a huge refocusing of its premise, just a more exciting set of mechanics, and it feels like they're making some of these changes just for the sake of doing something new.
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Jun 13, 2015 16:45
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Counterpoint: 2E Seemings are miles better than the old Courts/Stage of Grief parallel and free up Courts to be the "What now?" that they had wanted to be in 1E.
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Jun 13, 2015 16:53
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I think perhaps the role, both story and mechanically is that Huntsmen are to serve as the hand of the Keepers? If keepers can't touch members of a court due to mantles, court structure, what have you, then it's the Huntsmen that are sent in to weaken you. They are the friends that get called to harry you, to seduce your lancelot, to threaten your boss until she fires you, ultimately to strip away the narrative protections against your Keeper on your own terms. Since mantles and courts are being expanded to act as a metaphysical restraining order against keepers, to give them more importance beyond "a friend to watch your back", Huntsmen seem like a necessary means for the Keepers to work around that, their way of showing their escaped charges that they are never safe?
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Jun 13, 2015 16:53
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Luminous Obscurity posted:Counterpoint: 2E Seemings are miles better than the old Courts/Stage of Grief parallel and free up Courts to be the "What now?" that they had wanted to be in 1E. I would file that under "mechanically more exciting."
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Jun 13, 2015 16:58
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Ambi posted:I think perhaps the role, both story and mechanically is that Huntsmen are to serve as the hand of the Keepers? I agree that's the purpose they serve. I just think that purpose isn't compelling, and that it undermines the reasons I played and enjoyed 1E. The proposed actions these Huntsmen are taking and the language we're throwing around to describe them ("metaphysical restraining order," etc) also gets back to a bit of my problems with Beast -- I don't want to play a game that's constantly about low-level sociopaths inflicting real-world emotional/psychological trauma on characters, even if they are (as they should be) antagonists. I'm fine with playing a game that's an allegory for surviving abuse and trauma; I'm less interested in playing a game that's mainly roleplaying catch-all lovely Life Things, but with superpowers. Crion fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Jun 13, 2015 |
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Jun 13, 2015 17:11
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Huntsmen putting sugar in your gas tank Huntsmen slipping your cable repair guy a hundo to not actually fix your internet Huntsmen registering at all your favorite internet forums to spam your PMs inbox with pictures of plants with thorns Huntsmen replacing all your shampoo with hand soap
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Jun 13, 2015 17:15
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And holy poo poo am I not interested in a game that wants me to spend a session (perhaps multiple sessions!) trying to defeat some faerie henchman in narrative combat in order to keep my day job.
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Jun 13, 2015 17:20
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I thought about why I'm not sold on quantifying things so much. Demon is a case of cold-war style paranoia, at least the kind people thought happened. It's the type of paranoia involving absolutely never ever letting your guard down because everything's out to get you. It's the kind of paranoia associated with conspiracies and thrillers; extant, but invisible threats. "Is it really paranoia if they are out to get you?" type stuff. Changeling's a more paranoid paranoia, where you're constantly jumping at shadows and anxious that something coming, but you don't know what, or if it is, or if anything is relevant. It's more like, appropriately enough, madness, rather than a well-justified fear. Your keeper might be after you. The things happening or people you meet might be signs they're coming. But they might not. They might not care. Maybe they just stole someone else, maybe they didn't get round to it or whatever. But you're not always taking sensible precautions in Changeling; sometimes you're really worrying over nothing. But you have no idea which category anything sits in.
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Jun 13, 2015 17:29
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tatankatonk posted:Huntsmen putting sugar in your gas tank Nice, more beast concepts
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Jun 13, 2015 17:33
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tatankatonk posted:Huntsmen putting sugar in your gas tank "Shadow Changeling" taunts the Motley every chance he gets. For example, Shadow Changeling calls the Motley idiots after they fall into a tunnel late in the game.
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Jun 13, 2015 17:43
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The Huntsmen triumph, and you are no longer employed at Jamba Juice
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Jun 13, 2015 17:54
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WINNERSH TRIANGLE posted:Looking forward to some unbelievably sick banisher material to be published any day now ... It's called the Fallen World chronicle for a reason. Face it, losers, Mage is the onl*smash cut to my being forced to dodge 1000 little planet earths in a row to unlock a special implement*
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Jun 13, 2015 18:01
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I think if you've picked a court where you can be harassed by mundane means instead of symbolic acts like duels at dawn or having your boon companions turned against you or riddle contests, that's a strong case of operator error when a core part of character generation seems like it's going to be 'Pick the sort of conflicts you want to have'
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Jun 13, 2015 18:03
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Crion posted:Because the entire narrative engine that 1E ran off of was the exceedingly terrifying personal relationship between the Changeling and their Keeper. They were, very intentionally, not 1% capitalist overlord/business executive stand-ins who don't get their hands dirty. This is like the weird reverse of ruminating on why the Exarchs in Mage don't pop down from the Realms Supernal to deal with troublesome Pentacle cabals themselves. The True Fae aren't Exarchs, and making them knockoff Exarchs served by knockoff Seers with a slight aesthetic change would do both lines a disservice. Huh, good point. I'll admit that never occurred to me. Maybe then Huntsmen are like pieces of a Fae? Bits of consciousness sent to do menial work when you're too busy having tea with the Duchess of Etcetera?
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Jun 13, 2015 18:12
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The True Fae being too busy to have anything to do with you is lame. Did they not bother coming in person to capture you, either?
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Jun 13, 2015 18:14
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Ferrinus posted:The True Fae being too busy to have anything to do with you is lame. Did they not bother coming in person to capture you, either? I might be mistaken but I get the impression that they didn't in 2e. Like, I've seen a lot of references to people entering the hedge rather than necessarily being taken, so it might be a thing that rather than being kidnapped from earth, a fair number of changelings went places they weren't meant to go and trespassed on the hedge, where they were later found by the gentry.
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Jun 13, 2015 18:18
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Doc Aquatic posted:I might be mistaken but I get the impression that they didn't in 2e. Like, I've seen a lot of references to people entering the hedge rather than necessarily being taken, so it might be a thing that rather than being kidnapped from earth, a fair number of changelings went places they weren't meant to go and trespassed on the hedge, where they were later found by the gentry. Considering that the demisplat for Changelings now gets their powers for not leaving the hedge fast enough, you can now justify a game where your Keeper never existed, and your Durance was actually all you talking to yourself in your loneliness. The 2e game doesn't need True Fae to exist anymore if Huntsman replace them outside of Arcadia, and Arcadia doesn't adhere to a ruleset.
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Jun 13, 2015 18:35
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Crion posted:Because the entire narrative engine that 1E ran off of was the exceedingly terrifying personal relationship between the Changeling and their Keeper. They were, very intentionally, not 1% capitalist overlord/business executive stand-ins who don't get their hands dirty. This is like the weird reverse of ruminating on why the Exarchs in Mage don't pop down from the Realms Supernal to deal with troublesome Pentacle cabals themselves. The True Fae aren't Exarchs, and making them knockoff Exarchs served by knockoff Seers with a slight aesthetic change would do both lines a disservice. Actually, going back to this, it's also very fairy-tale for Fae to be personal rather than distant. Sorcerors and beasts in myths might have been around since the world was young and know the secrets of the universe, but they're still arsing around with some lost kid who's stealing their apples or whatever. Doc Aquatic posted:I might be mistaken but I get the impression that they didn't in 2e. Like, I've seen a lot of references to people entering the hedge rather than necessarily being taken, so it might be a thing that rather than being kidnapped from earth, a fair number of changelings went places they weren't meant to go and trespassed on the hedge, where they were later found by the gentry. To be fair, this happened in 1e, too; some Changelings got taken just, like, doing stuff, like they were wandering around an empty parking lot at night and got dragged under a truck and ended up in Arcadia, but a lot of them were also curious or unfortunate enough to poke or step through gates themselves, whereupon they're easy prey for True Fae wandering the hedge. That, and it's not uncommon for Fae to seduce someone through into the hedge as well. Really, True Fae not singularly kicking your front door down and dragging you off is fine, it's just delegating it to some middle man then picking you up at some kind of changeling slave auction or whatever sounds lame. So long as there's some point where the True Fae steps in and tricks/coerces/drags the changeling back to their house it's fine, I think. EDIT: I mean, "There's a Trod here and we don't want some bumbling sitcom dad wandering through and getting his rear end kidnapped, so we'll just scare him off before that happens" is why the Scarecrow Ministry exists.
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Jun 13, 2015 18:39
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Luminous Obscurity posted:Counterpoint: 2E Seemings are miles better than the old Courts/Stage of Grief parallel and free up Courts to be the "What now?" that they had wanted to be in 1E. In 1e, I honestly got the feeling that Courts were more like support groups or empowerment movements, and it's a role I actually honestly greatly enjoyed; they represented how a Changeling chose to view the tragedy they'd been forced into and better prepare for avoiding it in future. Victims of horrible tragedies tend to look for explanations and how they could have prevented it in future, or ways to deny its power, and that's what I saw in the Courts; the Spring Courtiers who seek to prove that the True Fae can never take their joy from them or simply seek to try and be happy even in the presence of a hurt that never leaves; the Summer Courtiers who find purpose in defending others or meaning in anger at the world's flaws; etc. The 2e Court preview is pretty awesome, but I've got this persistent feeling of something amiss about them by their lack of universality. They won't ever really fulfill the role of "What now?" because that's an intimate question answered by every aspect of a Changeling's life and being; everything they ever do or hold as valuable is an answer to that question. Courts aren't special in that equation, but the Big Four acted as lenses for that grief and tragedy that are exceptionally universal, so they helped hone and focus it in a way that I struggle seeing others filling. Instead, the diversity feels like something of a dilution of what is seemingly universal. I don't know if I can propose a better system, I love the stuff that's there, but locality over universality is something that feels like it hurts in this case rather than helps. Crion posted:I agree that's the purpose they serve. I just think that purpose isn't compelling, and that it undermines the reasons I played and enjoyed 1E. The Huntsmen aren't filling a novel role here; Loyalists and True Fae were elements of 1e as well. Changeling was a game that centred around abuse, pain, suffering, grief, loss, and tragedy. Even if all you ever do with it is play light-hearted faerie adventure, your character is created through kidnapping, torment, and escape that scars them mentally, physically, and spiritually for the rest of their days. spectralent posted:I thought about why I'm not sold on quantifying things so much. I have to agree with this, though I do so unhappily. I think giving guidelines on the sort of things a Changeling can do to reinforce their presence in the world and protect themselves is great but it also leads to a sense of control and mechanism that undermines the nature of paranoia. It might help to give the ST a hidden track to follow on this, or maybe the kinds of protections they create can manifest the warning signs spontaneously? Either way, it takes away as much as it adds.
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Jun 13, 2015 19:00
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Crion posted:I don't want to play a game that's constantly about low-level sociopaths inflicting real-world emotional/psychological trauma on characters, even if they are (as they should be) antagonists. I'm fine with playing a game that's an allegory for surviving abuse and trauma; I'm less interested in playing a game that's mainly roleplaying catch-all lovely Life Things, but with superpowers. I play RPGs to (on some level) escape all those boring mundane trials and tribulations. "Jim in accounting hosed up my payroll again" is not a story I have any interest in, regardless of whether it's because Jim is an idiot, Jim is a passive-aggressive rear end in a top hat, or Jim is being controlled by the Fae. I don't care about Jim in accounting and I want nothing to do with him in a game. I want to deal with the vampire who is using his company as a front, or the Fae who plans to abduct him, or whatever. I want stories I can't play out in the real world.
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Jun 13, 2015 19:00
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Ferrinus posted:The True Fae being too busy to have anything to do with you is lame. Did they not bother coming in person to capture you, either? If you escaped and beat the Other, you may have killed them. You won, and the Huntsmen need to destroy your support networks and self worth to get you anywhere near Faerie. So, it's not that The Lord of Smog is too busy for you, it's that he's in the loving ground while his bloody executor reads status reports into the grave's speaking tube, crying and receiving commands that none of the other servants can hear.
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Jun 13, 2015 19:19
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ErichZahn posted:If you escaped and beat the Other, you may have killed them. You won, and the Huntsmen need to destroy your support networks and self worth to get you anywhere near Faerie. Except that's true for every single PC because Huntsmen are a game-wide, marquee threat rather than a particular thing happening due to one character's circumstances...? Let me tell you the worst thing about the White Wolf fanbase, which has managed to extend all the way to this thread: people trying to excuse bad design with worse fanfiction.
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Jun 13, 2015 19:43
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Axelgear posted:
Also, there was some advice in core changeling that, every time someone goes into the hedge, you should roll some dice, click your teeth, then say nothing happens, just to reinforce the idea that the Hedge is never truly safe. Having a track, which is GM only and the PCs are unsure how to influence, just sounds like a more complex version of that. I also fully agree with your courts thing; the fact they were support groups was never a negative to me, since I always felt the fact they had supernatural benefits was almost immaterial compared with the value of having friends who have a similar experience and perspective was.
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Jun 13, 2015 20:40
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