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Unfortunately while no longer offensive, Beast still isn't compelling in the least.
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Jun 17, 2015 20:08
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The thing I dislike about the Changeling material I've been seeing is mostly that it seems to be tying the game much more closely to the themes of abuse, coping, and recovery, to the point that they become really hard to ignore, whereas in the first edition they were closer to being a subtextual thing that informed the line's treatment of stuff. It feels like this Changeling is going to be a lot harder to use for general urban fantasy adventure.
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Jun 17, 2015 20:08
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Rand Brittain posted:The thing I dislike about the Changeling material I've been seeing is mostly that it seems to be tying the game much more closely to the themes of abuse, coping, and recovery, to the point that they become really hard to ignore, whereas in the first edition they were closer to being a subtextual thing that informed the line's treatment of stuff. Yeah. That always irks me because it comes up constantly in online discussions about Changeling, especially in this thread. It's an interesting background element that grounds the magical setting in something human and relatable, but the game isn't literally about abuse, it has space to tell many other types of story. You can see some of this comparing the Seeming descriptions in 1e to the ones that have been posted so far. The original core book introduces the Seemings as different fairy tale or folklore kind of stories for the example characters and spends most of its text coming at them from that magical angle or what happened in their Durance, almost nothing about who they were before being taken and how this is a continuation of that. This might just be a function of how they're inverting the relationship between Seeming and Kith though, if they're choosing to introduce the more magical elements mostly through the Kith section.
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Jun 17, 2015 20:28
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It seems to me like they're turning a lot of the subtext into actual text. Like W:TA used to have the occasional kid who went through their first change and killed a few bullies, and the obvious puberty analogues were here. But they never went "Most Werewolves were abused and othered for being different, here's an example of play where a werewolf hunts down those who have wronged them and rips their legs off for the glory of gaia."
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Jun 17, 2015 20:45
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Ferrinus posted:Did all the other Seemings tie themselves to the way you were captured in the first place the way Ogre seems to? It seems like the writers really don't want the Gentry to ever reach the mundane world, so they can only kidnap people in the Hedge. The Seeming backgrounds, then, would explain why you were in the Hedge in the first place, which would also have to do with how you escaped. I think the Hedge is going to be much more easily reached, like you need to feel some powerful emotion to open a door to it. It's more Alice in Wonderland, Where the Wild Things Are, or Labyrinth than classic abduction and changeling fairy tales. To me, it's a bad change. One of the major struggles of the 1e setting was preventing other people from being taken, but if somebody can throw a temper tantrum and find their way into the Hedge, then there's no way to save anyone, not even a false hope. I suppose the Scarecrow Ministry might get more play in 2e, but it still takes away a large dramatic hook with little to show for it. It makes the whole thing more personal, when part of the fun of the 1e setting was the focus on community and drawing together against impossible threats.
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Jun 17, 2015 20:57
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When the Beast Seeming was published I actually mentioned the gung-ho attitude exhibited by these Changelings, and David Hill answered me:quote:You really want us to think that playing these guys is awesome, uh. quote:Seemings are about taking control. They’re when you break the cycle. That shouldn’t be about trauma. This is one place in the book that can’t be about trauma. It’s about agency.
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Jun 17, 2015 21:14
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Kurieg posted:It seems to me like they're turning a lot of the subtext into actual text.
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Jun 17, 2015 21:19
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Luminous Obscurity posted:See I think the Clarity mechanics are probably the best thing about these changes. Everything else I'm kind of neutral on, but I feel like the idea of tying Seemings to coping mechanisms (beyond the textbook Stages of Grief thing) is an effective one. This here: Yawgmoth posted:That's how I see it too, and for me at least, it sucks. I liked the subtlety of 1e because it meant you could have abuse/trauma/etc. be a major thread, or it could be a less important thing (and have it be minor for a number of reasons!) or even not a thing at all. It really feels like they're stripping off a ton of previously viable story space in order to shove you into playing the "right way". In 1e, the purpose of the game wasn't to dwell and require mechanical support for how you suffered. You could play an entire game without ever doing anything but try to Be Your True Self and avoid getting killed by the obvious. The game they are writing is divergent from the 1e game where the Blackbird Bishop entitlement has a bigger purpose in life than waiting for a few game sessions for the changeling to Seeming Blessing their way out of their crazy. All because living in your trauma because you are never better than what was done to you is a "better game" than rewarding self definition and promises to live life with a purpose in the face of trauma.
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Jun 17, 2015 22:02
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I'll agree that the lack of subtlety could be a turn off, but I don't agree with:Gerund posted:All because living in your trauma because you are never better than what was done to you is a "better game" than rewarding self definition and promises to live life with a purpose in the face of trauma. Granted I'm only speaking from my personal experiences, but it's not so much about living in trauma as it is living with trauma. It's still about overcoming, only there's not a point where it goes away completely. Those mechanics pretty clearly set each other up. So you feed into your anxieties for some temporary relief but risk reality slamming down on you and sending you into a spiral. The better way to climb back up the Clarity ladder would be to do it the hard way and work for it through personal growth, but no matter what you'll always have that quick, easy option there to tempt you into risking any other gains you may have made. Again, I'm just speaking for me, but that idea hits pretty close to home (in a cool way). Also important to note is that the Seeming represents what you've done. The idea that when the chips were down you did X and now you have to deal with that, is something I find interesting. Especially considering the metaphor shift they're doing.
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Jun 18, 2015 01:31
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paradoxGentleman posted:When the Beast Seeming was published I actually mentioned the gung-ho attitude exhibited by these Changelings, and David Hill answered me: I like this, but at the same time I'm in the "kind of worried about mechanics being marred to the theme" camp. I was planning on Changeling being the first 2E game I run for my group (because try as I might they won't get on the Mage train) and I worry this might end up being a little heavy for them.
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Jun 18, 2015 02:28
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So, quick rules question for Dissolve (3pt Flaw). Is it "If you go past Incap you're dead in ten seconds and there's nothing for it." or "If you go past Incap you need to get patched up in ten seconds or you're irrevocably dead."?
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Jun 18, 2015 03:39
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Huh, the Beast kickstarter is less than $3000 away from an expansion to Hunter's Mortal Remains book. The conspiracy that invades Beast lairs and co-opts them is reasonably cool, but I'm more interested in the compact that hunts down Heroes because of the collateral damage they do. Nice to know hunters look at the whole situation and go 'gently caress both of these guys'.
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Jun 18, 2015 15:34
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Also there's been another teaser for Sardonyx: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mxa3JGoAq-FDw4MLlWO-1Ci8ezvvVXMhSOFl3cTwR6M/edit This one dives right into the combat/procedural/intrigue resolution systems. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but it seems to have a fusion of Fate and Marvel Heroic for combat, gumshoe for investigation, and... well, I don't have an analogue for the social system but it's all about forming bonds of love, camaraderie, fear, etc with other characters and using those bonds to get what you want.
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Jun 18, 2015 16:06
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I've just bought myself the Awakening core book- is it just me, or are Acanthus mages surprisingly awesome? My only experience with Mage thus far has been bumming a read of my friend's books once in a while, and the impression of the Acanthus I got was that they're all lolrandum hippies. Then I read about them, and daaamn, their Fate magic is surprisingly potent, and I kind of want to play one now. I also thought Obrimos would be cool, what with lightning and stuff, but now that I'm familiar with Paradox rules, they seem the weakest of all mages since most of their spells (or at least, what I can see from a cursory skim) are vulgar. Or maybe it's just that I'm not much of a planner, and I can't set up the Rube Goldbergian maze I'd need to be an effective Obrimos- I'd rather much have the Acanthus's rerolls, +dice and stuff to use when I need to.
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Jun 18, 2015 16:47
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CommissarMega posted:I've just bought myself the Awakening core book- is it just me, or are Acanthus mages surprisingly awesome? My only experience with Mage thus far has been bumming a read of my friend's books once in a while, and the impression of the Acanthus I got was that they're all lolrandum hippies. Then I read about them, and daaamn, their Fate magic is surprisingly potent, and I kind of want to play one now. I also thought Obrimos would be cool, what with lightning and stuff, but now that I'm familiar with Paradox rules, they seem the weakest of all mages since most of their spells (or at least, what I can see from a cursory skim) are vulgar. Or maybe it's just that I'm not much of a planner, and I can't set up the Rube Goldbergian maze I'd need to be an effective Obrimos- I'd rather much have the Acanthus's rerolls, +dice and stuff to use when I need to. Where most mages have to think about how to use their specific type of magic to get around problems, Acanthus are pretty much number 1 at 'chuck a bucket of dice at your problem.' Paradox isn't really that big of a deal since it's so easily mitigated.
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Jun 18, 2015 16:50
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CommissarMega posted:I've just bought myself the Awakening core book- is it just me, or are Acanthus mages surprisingly awesome? My only experience with Mage thus far has been bumming a read of my friend's books once in a while, and the impression of the Acanthus I got was that they're all lolrandum hippies. Then I read about them, and daaamn, their Fate magic is surprisingly potent, and I kind of want to play one now. I also thought Obrimos would be cool, what with lightning and stuff, but now that I'm familiar with Paradox rules, they seem the weakest of all mages since most of their spells (or at least, what I can see from a cursory skim) are vulgar. Or maybe it's just that I'm not much of a planner, and I can't set up the Rube Goldbergian maze I'd need to be an effective Obrimos- I'd rather much have the Acanthus's rerolls, +dice and stuff to use when I need to. The main weakness of the Acanthus path, in my experience, is that Fate doesn't have a ton of flavour to it - it's mostly Dice Tricks: the Arcanum. Time has all kinds of cool things for you to do but Fate is mostly buffing yourself and your friends and debuffing the enemy. I say main weakness, but really it's only weakness because otherwise they are indeed pretty awesome. Obrimos do get hit hard by paradox which can really hobble their ability to be cool, but it was always fun to see what my Obrimos player got up to when her character ended up in the Astral Realms, a Demesne, or somewhere else without paradox. e: Then again I removed the ability to soak paradox as bashing, and my Obrimos player never went into the mana shenanigans they could have done to make paradox a non-issue.
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Jun 18, 2015 16:54
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Acanthus are also the one path that's getting a major reworking in the second edition, so that they'll be seers and schemers instead of fortune's favorite fools.
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Jun 18, 2015 17:13
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CommissarMega posted:I've just bought myself the Awakening core book- is it just me, or are Acanthus mages surprisingly awesome? My only experience with Mage thus far has been bumming a read of my friend's books once in a while, and the impression of the Acanthus I got was that they're all lolrandum hippies. Then I read about them, and daaamn, their Fate magic is surprisingly potent, and I kind of want to play one now. I also thought Obrimos would be cool, what with lightning and stuff, but now that I'm familiar with Paradox rules, they seem the weakest of all mages since most of their spells (or at least, what I can see from a cursory skim) are vulgar. Or maybe it's just that I'm not much of a planner, and I can't set up the Rube Goldbergian maze I'd need to be an effective Obrimos- I'd rather much have the Acanthus's rerolls, +dice and stuff to use when I need to. If you only think of the Obrimos as the guys who summon lightning and fireballs instead of the guys who manipulate heat, light, sound, motion, electricity, circuits, radiation, gravity, etc, then yeah you'll have a hard time coming up with covert rotes for them. Otherwise they're probably the most flat-out handy when it comes to subtly manipulating modern technology.
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Jun 18, 2015 17:22
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Even if you're stuck in the middle ages or something there's a million little things you can do with force, friction, heat, etc. that don't constitute obvious effects which trigger Disbelief (Dissonance, now) in onlookers. You can make someone trip and fall with Forces as easily as you could with Fate.
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Jun 18, 2015 17:46
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Flavivirus posted:Also there's been another teaser for Sardonyx: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mxa3JGoAq-FDw4MLlWO-1Ci8ezvvVXMhSOFl3cTwR6M/edit This is stuff I designed. I think it's going to be a hard sell in some quarters, but we shall see.
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Jun 18, 2015 17:55
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I'm really liking what I'm reading so far. If you had infinite space I'd expect a little more discussion of what it's actually supposed to look like when a PC takes 8 damage while an NPC takes 50 from the same orbital death laser (presumably, the PC's just lucky enough to be standing behind something sturdy or ends up rolling the right way and only gets clipped, rather than reflecting the laser off his smarmy grin), but this stuff is cool. I still wish Skills did something different from what Attributes did, though...!
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Jun 18, 2015 18:03
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My favourite improvised Fate spell is one whose name I cannot remember any longer, but the idea behind it is that it uses Pratchett's Law to make for flashy displays; by pushing the odds of the act towards a million-to-one, you make it easier to do. The mechanics had it that any difficulty you personally added beyond the mere task itself became bonus dice instead of penalties, up to the spell's Potency. So, for example, shooting a tiny target in the middle of a rainstorm is exceptionally difficult. By trying to do it by pointing the gun backwards over your shoulder and using a hand mirror to line up your shot, however, it becomes outright near-impossible and therefore almost certain to succeed.
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Jun 18, 2015 18:08
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Thinking about it, I really liked that the nWoD was more low-powered than the old one. So the huge power creep from Geist-onward is really disappointing to me. Another reason I have problems with 2e.
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Jun 18, 2015 18:12
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Ferrinus posted:I'm really liking what I'm reading so far. If you had infinite space I'd expect a little more discussion of what it's actually supposed to look like when a PC takes 8 damage while an NPC takes 50 from the same orbital death laser (presumably, the PC's just lucky enough to be standing behind something sturdy or ends up rolling the right way and only gets clipped, rather than reflecting the laser off his smarmy grin), but this stuff is cool. Yes. There's going to need to be some explanation for how Scaling works in the story above and beyond the systems document. When the Hulk punches Daredevil, we charitably assume Daredevil doesn't take it directly on the chin so that there is a chance for some sort of meaningful interaction. Skills do have a bunch of additional properties above and beyond adding dice, but this isn't my department so I can't say much more beyond what's been shown.
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Jun 18, 2015 18:12
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MalcolmSheppard posted:This is stuff I designed. I think it's going to be a hard sell in some quarters, but we shall see. Bravo on this one, Malcolm. I was waiting to form too concrete an opinion on the Sardonyx previews until we saw more, and this preview is the first one that really shows it coming together and how the preceding pieces fit. I like almost everything in this bit, the scale factors, the focus mechanic, the inclusion of cooperative social actions. My misgivings about Sardonyx as previewed thus far overall are pretty small and nitpicky; it's perhaps more in-depth mechanically than I anticipated, but I understand there's a large sector of the audience that digs that, and it's not so onerous as to put me off it. So, good job Mal, good job Neall, good job Ian, good job Dave (I think Dave contributed, or at least helped playtest?), and good job anybody I'm missing who made their mark on the stuff we've seen so far. I like it.
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Jun 18, 2015 18:23
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I'm definitely in danger of hunkering down to do a WoD->Sardonyx conversion if this keeps up. The changing targrt numberd scheme could be the perfect game-mechanical signal of whether someone's acting with subtle versus overt levels of supernatural power.
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Jun 18, 2015 18:53
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Sardonyx looks boss as gently caress so far.
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Jun 18, 2015 19:13
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googling Sardonyx gets me nothing but iphone games. What is this system and setting all about??
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Jun 18, 2015 19:16
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Twibbit posted:googling Sardonyx gets me nothing but iphone games. What is this system and setting all about?? It's the codename for their new ruleset they're planning on using for stuff like Scion.
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Jun 18, 2015 19:17
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Twibbit posted:googling Sardonyx gets me nothing but iphone games. What is this system and setting all about?? It's the preliminary name for the new system backbone that's going to be used for both Scion and the Trinity Continuum games, so respectively modern mythic and sci-fi action thrillers (although Trinity spans various genres in different eras). You can find the blog teasers listed here or here, where some of the core system rules have been shared.
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Jun 18, 2015 19:28
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So hype for Trinity, SO HYPE! I really wanna try to run the Darkness Revealed campaign when the Open Playtests star.
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Jun 18, 2015 19:49
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Does this mean they're doing a rewrite of Aberrant? Because there was a great concept that definitely needed the gallons of old White Wolf hosed off of it.
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Jun 18, 2015 19:54
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MonsieurChoc posted:Thinking about it, I really liked that the nWoD was more low-powered than the old one. So the huge power creep from Geist-onward is really disappointing to me. Another reason I have problems with 2e. More reason to play mortals and Hunter, then. Personally, I don't mind the power creep but, then, I mostly run and play Mage or Changeling. Mages benefit from being more powerful, because it raises questions of Hubris to be all the louder, but they benefit even more from other splats being more powerful; it makes it scarier to go mucking in the territories of other supernaturals. Changeling is the same in the case of other supernaturals being scary, but I also always felt that Changeling suffered from having coin-operated magic, rather than feeling like the powers were a part of the character. Also, I love the "Creatures of Myth and Legend" angle, rather than the slightly grittier and more realistic angle, so there's that. I've been trying more and more to use the power growth for contrasting purposes; drawing comparisons to mortals to help them realize that they are scary bastards.
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Jun 18, 2015 19:57
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Night10194 posted:Does this mean they're doing a rewrite of Aberrant? Because there was a great concept that definitely needed the gallons of old White Wolf hosed off of it. Aberrant was my favorite superhero RPG, so I was so excited to hear they were reworking it.
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Jun 18, 2015 20:06
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Soonmot posted:Aberrant was my favorite superhero RPG, so I was so excited to hear they were reworking it. I have both played and run Aberrant, albeit it was the terrible d20 conversion (though from what I hear, mechanics-wise the Storyteller version really wasn't any less clunky) and it was awesome. We completely dropped a lot of the dumb metaplot crap like Divis 'I am the main character despite being an unlikeable douche' Mal and I got to be an ex-SWAT guy with shapeshifting powers. He regenerated because his body was constantly trying to return to an 'ideal' form, he had stuff like Megas and Boost from the way his form shifted to try to adapt to whatever he was doing, and he kept trying to follow due process despite having the power of a minor god. The game I ran revolved around a terrible drug developed by the Teragen that would force a person to overdraw and dump, overdraw and dump to aberrate them horribly so they had no choice but to acknowledge they were inhuman, with the heroes being a doctor with hyperintelligence and physical augments, a neighborhood watchman with the ability to eat lightning and electricity, and an FBI technomancer. It was fun as hell. I really hope they can fix the mechanics and more importantly, get rid of Divis. I doubt they will since he leads into the weird posthuman psyker thing that comes after, but that guy was basically distilled WW NPC. As were almost all the canon NPCs in Aberrant, really. I can't think of any we bothered keeping around besides the Fireman.
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Jun 18, 2015 20:16
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I keep trying to remember what Abberant was like but the only thing that comes to mind is TOY SALES
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Jun 18, 2015 20:47
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I Am Just a Box posted:Bravo on this one, Malcolm. I was waiting to form too concrete an opinion on the Sardonyx previews until we saw more, and this preview is the first one that really shows it coming together and how the preceding pieces fit. I like almost everything in this bit, the scale factors, the focus mechanic, the inclusion of cooperative social actions. My misgivings about Sardonyx as previewed thus far overall are pretty small and nitpicky; it's perhaps more in-depth mechanically than I anticipated, but I understand there's a large sector of the audience that digs that, and it's not so onerous as to put me off it. The stuff about Fields in combat? My idea. Someone on Big Purple said (as an example of why they didn't like it, natch) that it reminded them of the New York fight in Avengers. Good; that's exactly what I was thinking of. We'll get into more of the things I designed later on. Much of what I contributed prior to stepping back to concentrate on Mage has already been superceded, but in general, I did the early work for how power stats, the equivalent for Merits/Backgrounds/Whathaveyou, and how Legend will work in Scion.
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Jun 18, 2015 20:49
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Night10194 posted:Does this mean they're doing a rewrite of Aberrant? Because there was a great concept that definitely needed the gallons of old White Wolf hosed off of it. Yes, indeed. I believe Ian's gameplan is to take the original Trinity of games in their traditional reverse order: Trinity Corebook, the Aeon, then Aberrant, then Adventure, and then to Infinity, Beyond, and if he has his way Dino Riders.
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Jun 18, 2015 20:51
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Swagger Dagger posted:I keep trying to remember what Abberant was like but the only thing that comes to mind is TOY SALES Aberrant had a great basic concept (An attempt to write a world with superhumans where the status quo is not enforced, where supposedly most of them don't put on costumes and instead focus on getting rich via being celebrities, etc, and the question of what value a human has when their supposed replacements are scampering around being demigods) ruined by, as I said, having the embodiment of a lot of the classic flaws of Old White Wolf. Very little actual moral nuance, tons of talk about toy sales or whatever, humans being completely helpless in almost all ways and eagerly rolling over to worship the Novas, and a huge host of hyper-massive NPCs who basically act out the plot while the PCs are spear carriers for them.
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Jun 18, 2015 20:55
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So like Progenitor, but not as good.
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Jun 18, 2015 21:02
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