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I laughed. And smug wizard was pretty much dead on.
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Jun 26, 2015 02:27
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Daeren posted:I wasn't so much calling your argument a Godwin argument as much as I was going for the first two emotes I could think of to summarize an argument that I've seen so often that I could repeat the highlights while comatose. Well, okay then. ... gently caress it, let's change the subject. Is there anything else we could be talking about other than Beast or Ascension?
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Jun 26, 2015 02:32
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So... I like Ascention. More than awakening, really. I used to think Awakening was just a pale imitation, but this thread has weaned me of that. What i like about Old Mage is that it's essentialy nietszche: the roleplaying game, except with more kung fu, which is cool. (note here: i am only familiar with revised edition). So.... why is it widely disliked, as it sometimes seems to be?
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Jun 26, 2015 02:32
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Magnusth posted:So... It's not the game that's disliked so much as the circular arguments it brings in it's wake. See just above. It's the eternal Flamewar.
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Jun 26, 2015 02:37
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MonsieurChoc posted:Well, okay then. Well, apparently Sothis Ascends came out in April and I haven't heard anything about that. Was it any good, if anyone in here got it? Magnusth posted:So... I'd less say I dislike it and more that I dislike that oMage discussions/arguments are the black hole around which all World of Darkness discussions (and to a lesser extent all RPG discussions) orbit, and inevitably suck any other discussion down to arguing about Traditions vs. Technocracy using the same bullet points that have been used for twenty years. M20 just gave it a shot in the arm. The game itself is full of really interesting ideas, even if I have a distaste for the fact that a huge chunk of its fluff boils down to arguing with a roommate over the color of your wallpaper while the house burns down around you (as Mors Rattus alluded to), and that I can only read the same ten page argument so many times before I want to jump off a cliff.
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Jun 26, 2015 02:38
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MonsieurChoc posted:gently caress it, let's change the subject. Is there anything else we could be talking about other than Beast or Ascension? There's always Demon, the Best Game. And for oWoD folks who liked the Stolze background chapter, the Demon Translation Guide came out yesterday. The Translation Guides haven't been great products but I do like this one better than the others thus far. It ends with a chapter of setting hooks to combine the old and new types of monster into one game, and there's a little badwrongfun itch in the back of my head being scratched by the thought of more traditional fallen angels merged with human hosts meeting Fortean fallen angels who've defected to the human race.
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Jun 26, 2015 02:46
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Well, there's always vampire the requiem, second edition. Which i felt was, in many ways, an improvement over the former edition, except where the ordo dracul is concerned. I specifically like the whole "sliding scale" of how vampiric you are, the new humanity system, and banes. Makes you feel the sliding into monstocity muuch better. Revenants and such are just seasoning that makes things feel a bit more wierd and mysterious. Ordo Dracul was perfect, though. no need to make them all explicitly anti god. Also cheapened the coils.
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Jun 26, 2015 03:04
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Daeren posted:Well, apparently Sothis Ascends came out in April and I haven't heard anything about that. Was it any good, if anyone in here got it? It's the second-least-bad of all the nMummy books. (The first and only actually good book overall is DC.) The first chapter, about the very first time any mummies ever woke up, is actually really good. The rest is sort of middlling.
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Jun 26, 2015 03:09
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Magnusth posted:Well, there's always vampire the requiem, second edition. Which i felt was, in many ways, an improvement over the former edition, except where the ordo dracul is concerned. I specifically like the whole "sliding scale" of how vampiric you are, the new humanity system, and banes. Makes you feel the sliding into monstocity muuch better. Revenants and such are just seasoning that makes things feel a bit more wierd and mysterious. Yeah, I really don't like the new Coils. The only change they really needed was a non-stupid XP-scheme, really. Also, Rites of the Dragon was great, and anything that distances the Ordo Dracul from it is bad.
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Jun 26, 2015 03:15
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Well, Coil of Blood 1 probably did need to be gotten rid of, given how it was just the best possible option for any vampire ever to take and was so easy to get.
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Jun 26, 2015 03:19
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Mors Rattus posted:Well, Coil of Blood 1 probably did need to be gotten rid of, given how it was just the best possible option for any vampire ever to take and was so easy to get. Which is exactly as it should be Ordo Dracul 4 Unlyf.
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Jun 26, 2015 03:30
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It was totally cool but it was also bad game design.
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Jun 26, 2015 03:32
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Mors Rattus posted:It was totally cool but it was also bad game design. Talking about bad game design in the WoD thread seems redundant.
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Jun 26, 2015 03:34
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The first Coil of the Beast will always be my favorite. Frenzy can ruin your life, the lives of everyone you care about, and if really ill-timed can shatter the Masquerade and bring everything down in flames. It's the biggest part of "A beast I am, less a beat I become". And, as an initiate-level power, the Ordo takes that and breaks it in half. They either completely misunderstood or deliberately changed the Ordo Dracul's guiding philosophy, and I hate it.
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Jun 26, 2015 03:46
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Mors Rattus posted:Well, Coil of Blood 1 probably did need to be gotten rid of, given how it was just the best possible option for any vampire ever to take and was so easy to get. No it didn't, that stupid. It wasn't even the best possible option. Unfortunately, instead of stepping up their game and making every Coil as exciting as Blood 1, Beast 1, Soul 1, and others were, the Strix Chronicles writers decided to make them all incredibly lame, instead. An Ordo Dracul without Blood Seeps Slowly isn't really an Ordo Dracul.
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Jun 26, 2015 03:47
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Putting power-levels aside, the original Coils were also extremely simple and easy to understand. Blood, Bane, Beast... those are cool and iconic. Now they're a giant mess, for no apparent payoff. They're weirder and more complex while being less cool.
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Jun 26, 2015 04:06
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Daeren posted:I'd less say I dislike it and more that I dislike that oMage discussions/arguments are the black hole around which all World of Darkness discussions (and to a lesser extent all RPG discussions) orbit, and inevitably suck any other discussion down to arguing about Traditions vs. Technocracy using the same bullet points that have been used for twenty years. M20 just gave it a shot in the arm. The game itself is full of really interesting ideas, even if I have a distaste for the fact that a huge chunk of its fluff boils down to arguing with a roommate over the color of your wallpaper while the house burns down around you (as Mors Rattus alluded to), and that I can only read the same ten page argument so many times before I want to jump off a cliff. Actually its Mage editions, the technocracy thing is v apparent and lovely new atheists or brights or we are the only people who keep that one up Daeren posted:Well, apparently Sothis Ascends came out in April and I haven't heard anything about that. Was it any good, if anyone in here got it? I disagree with Rand that Mummy is bad at all, it's actually really good and Sothis Ascends keeps up the quality of the line/gives you some fun historical WoD settings to check out before Dark Eras is all the way done.
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Jun 26, 2015 05:09
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Rand Brittain posted:It's the second-least-bad of all the nMummy books. (The first and only actually good book overall is DC.) The first chapter, about the very first time any mummies ever woke up, is actually really good. The rest is sort of middlling. I'll take that for a dollar. (Malcolm and I wrote the First Turn.)
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Jun 26, 2015 07:19
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Cabbit posted:Is it supposed to be bad? I thought the point at which you become a [#insert splat here] is supposed to be a moment where you take a sharp left and take control of the situation. Well yes, that is what they are going for, but since that is the only thing they have shown us up until now I am getting sick of it. I would like to See something else, something that does not sound like a AAA videogame protagonist.
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Jun 26, 2015 07:48
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Rand Brittain posted:It's the second-least-bad of all the nMummy books. (The first and only actually good book overall is DC.) The first chapter, about the very first time any mummies ever woke up, is actually really good. The rest is sort of middlling. I really enjoyed the writing (and art) in Book of the Deceived, though I haven't seen how good it is in play. Sothis Ascends wasn't really what I was expecting, though I guess that's because I hadn't thought the implications of the dates through and realised that only the most recent one would have much to do outside Egypt. Each turn is pretty interesting, with the first one most so, but they're written in a pretty metaplot-y way, telling you all the major events and not actions of a given turn. It's more a book of three campaigns than it is a book of three settings, though it does ok as the latter.
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Jun 26, 2015 08:18
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Mors Rattus posted:Well, Coil of Blood 1 probably did need to be gotten rid of, given how it was just the best possible option for any vampire ever to take and was so easy to get. Forget Blood Seeps Slowly. What about Blood of Beasts, a.k.a. Why doesn't the Ordo Dracul run everything? A power that eliminates the downside of becoming an elder and the social pressures that force elders to go into Torpor periodically so they don't become vampire-eating vampires. I like 2e's coils. Not a huge fan of the previews for the Secrets of the Covenants, but the core ones are a nice revision.
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Jun 26, 2015 08:46
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Dave Brookshaw posted:I'll take that for a dollar. (Malcolm and I wrote the First Turn.) I'm going to have to buy you another title just to get that thing properly centered, aren't I?
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Jun 26, 2015 08:57
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Axelgear posted:Forget Blood Seeps Slowly. What about Blood of Beasts, a.k.a. Why doesn't the Ordo Dracul run everything? A power that eliminates the downside of becoming an elder and the social pressures that force elders to go into Torpor periodically so they don't become vampire-eating vampires. Every Covenant has mechanisms for keeping high-BP elders awake.
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Jun 26, 2015 13:23
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I'm so terribly disappointed with Coils of the Voivode because I want my current vampire to do the whole "cult of ghouls/blood bonds" thing but outside of the first dot none of them seem to be actually worth taking. Does anyone have any good fixes for it?
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Jun 26, 2015 14:25
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Ferrinus posted:Every Covenant has mechanisms for keeping high-BP elders awake. That, and the fluff has always been clear that the draw of torpor is still there even if you feed. IIRC, it even got mechanics in one of the later books.
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Jun 26, 2015 14:41
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Ferrinus posted:Every Covenant has mechanisms for keeping high-BP elders awake. To an extent. For many of them, it still means dependency; something that makes the elder vulnerable. The Ordo Dracul just outright obviate the problem entirely and can go live in the woods, feeding on chipmunks, if they so wish.
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Jun 26, 2015 15:01
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So what? (That's also not misleading; it's the two "social" Covenants whose elder upkeep involves servants and social strutures; blood sorcery can allow you to safely consume vampire vitae whether or not the subject likes the idea.) Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Jun 26, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 15:24
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Sothis Ascends is good. The First Turn is easily the most fascinating part of the book, and I plan on running a flashback arc set there before diving into my campaign's endgame. The rest of the chapters are cool but I don't think they quite live up to how neat the First Turn was, even with the new Utterance that lets Mummies travel among the Sothic Turns. Now that the Mummy line's more or less over, I think it all turned out pretty good despite some missteps. I'm hoping there's a 2e eventually with some cleaned up rules for Affinities and Utterances, and a corebook that's a little more open with its cosmology and gameplay goals from the get go. Demon Translation Guide is actually pretty amazing, and I was not expecting to say that about a Translation Guide. The crossover chapter is the one thing I felt was missing from all the previous Translation Guides, since setting's always such an important part of WoD games. I think my favorite mini-settings are the one where the God-Machine is a magical device that summons Fallen Demons and converts them into Descent Demons, and the one where the Descent Demons attempt to colonize Fallen's Hell.
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Jun 26, 2015 15:26
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Ferrinus posted:So what? Well, if you have a game about the horror of being a vampire, having a way to avoid the most horrific part of being a vampire is sort of a big problem.
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Jun 26, 2015 15:29
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paradoxGentleman posted:Well, if you have a game about the horror of being a vampire, having a way to avoid the most horrific part of being a vampire is sort of a big problem. A hermit who lives in the woods and feeds on chipmunks has not avoided the most horrific part of being a vampire.
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Jun 26, 2015 15:30
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Flavivirus posted:I really enjoyed the writing (and art) in Book of the Deceived, though I haven't seen how good it is in play. I would have called that easily the worst book in the line, both because the writing was serious oWoD-style incomprehensible and because the Deceived are basically "exactly like Arisen except that there's some fiddly little difference in almost every category." Like, seriously, it goes on and on about the personality of the tem-akh and how having them fused with your own mind is such a hellish and unique experience, but the tem-akh can't talk. In practice it's 100% identical to being Arisen. quote:Demon Translation Guide is actually pretty amazing, and I was not expecting to say that about a Translation Guide. The crossover chapter is the one thing I felt was missing from all the previous Translation Guides, since setting's always such an important part of WoD games. I think my favorite mini-settings are the one where the God-Machine is a magical device that summons Fallen Demons and converts them into Descent Demons, and the one where the Descent Demons attempt to colonize Fallen's Hell. I'm interested to hear about this, since each Translation Guide so far has been more "who would actually want this?" than the last, and I'm curious to see what they've learned from that process.
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Jun 26, 2015 15:34
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Ferrinus posted:A hermit who lives in the woods and feeds on chipmunks has not avoided the most horrific part of being a vampire. Well he is not harming other human beings, which I'd say is the most horrific part; but even if you think that isolation from humanity is the worst part, nothing is stopping you from living in the city, pretending to have a snake, buy live mice and feed on those. Hell, buy a snake for real and cement your cover! Easy as that.
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Jun 26, 2015 15:40
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paradoxGentleman posted:Well he is not harming other human beings, which I'd say is the most horrific part; but even if you think that isolation from humanity is the worst part, nothing is stopping you from living in the city, pretending to have a snake, buy live mice and feed on those. Hell, buy a snake for real and cement your cover! Easy as that. Yes, and BP 1-2 vampire characters can do that anyway. They have not escaped the horror of being a vampire, and won't have done so even if they're religious about sleeping 25 years as soon as they've been undead for their first 100 and every subsequent 50.
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Jun 26, 2015 15:48
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Rand Brittain posted:I'm interested to hear about this, since each Translation Guide so far has been more "who would actually want this?" than the last, and I'm curious to see what they've learned from that process. Well, in my case there was a steady background noise of people saying "I love nMage's rules, but prefer cMage's background," so the Translation Guide had a target audience. I never read cDemon, though - I'm completely unfamiliar with its fandom. There's one or two posters constantly bemoaning the fact that nDemon isn't biblical demons, though. Maybe it's aimed at them?
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Jun 26, 2015 16:40
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I've been having a lot of fun putzing through nMage books. I'd love to run a game, but I'm not a fan of WoD chargen or the system. Has anyone run anything a little more FATE/PbtA/ORE using the Mage setting?
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Jun 26, 2015 16:50
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Rand Brittain posted:I'm interested to hear about this, since each Translation Guide so far has been more "who would actually want this?" than the last, and I'm curious to see what they've learned from that process. The Demon Translation Guide is exciting to me because I feel that it isn't just a bunch of math conversions and a full stop "game flip-flop" kind of deal. This is the first one that not only converts the games, but also assumes that you might be using the guide as a way to bring extra content to your game. For example, the Apocalyptic Form parts of Fallen are not only converted, they come with suggestions on how to keep the parts in line with Descent's biomechanical aesthetic, meaning I can use those in a regular Demon the Descent game if I want. There's also charts that convert Abilities/Skills, Merits, and Difficulty Numbers/Modifiers, which is a lifesaver in so many ways. I'm in the target audience for Translation Guides, because I love mixing up oWoD and nWoD setting elements when I have an opportunity to do so. For the most part, the guides have been mostly OK, but this is the first one where I've been truly satisfied and excited to use it.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:00
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Verr posted:I've been having a lot of fun putzing through nMage books. I'd love to run a game, but I'm not a fan of WoD chargen or the system. Has anyone run anything a little more FATE/PbtA/ORE using the Mage setting? Well if you just want the WOD-ish flavor, PbtA has Urban Shadows which is kind of a quasi-WOD setting (probably closer to adult Monsterhearts). Someone is in the process of hacking it to add WOD lines (mix of new and old), but personally I don't think they did a very good job translating the NWOD stuff.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:06
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Verr posted:I've been having a lot of fun putzing through nMage books. I'd love to run a game, but I'm not a fan of WoD chargen or the system. Has anyone run anything a little more FATE/PbtA/ORE using the Mage setting? At one time I tried to run nMage in FATE but it didn't go long enough to really play with the rules much. If I did it again, I would use FAE and use the Arcana as Approaches, so that you might use Time both for actual Time spellcasting as well as mundane actions which require precise timing or even those involving history and finding information about the past and future. I had a whole set of associations planned out once, like Life is also physical strength and interacting with nature, Death is also generally interacting with ghosts and the undead as well as things involving shadows and stealth, Prime is general knowledge about magic and the Supernal and interacting with other Mages, etc. And as with core approaches you might have more than one option as to which one you use in a situation. I also introduced a new stress track for Mana which would be marked off by especially potent spells (player and GM discretion). I think I was considering Paradox as consequences for that track, so you could avoid a Mana expenditure/refresh your track with increasingly severe Paradox. Other than that my feeling was that most spell effects could be described by Aspects, maybe getting a little more fiddly with the whole FATE fractal for more complicated things like magic items or empowering a ghost to fight for you. e: i cannot even imagine running Mage in ORE, but if you want to venture down that twisted road, check out the Nain supplement for REIGN to get some ideas. It has a very interesting magic system based on combining keywords that you could maybe reimagine as the Practices and Arcana, and deals a lot with conflict between magical groups like cabals or Orders/Ministries. Kellsterik fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Jun 26, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 18:16
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I guess I'm the lone voice in the wilderness that prefers the new Ordo Dracul and coils. I did like the old Ordo Dracul's fluff a lot (as well I should, I've been in an Ordo Dracul game for like 2 and a half years now) but they're a lot more dynamic now, and less likely to be just some scholars in the background quietly getting Golconda and ignoring the world. They fit 2nd ed's aesthetic more than 1E Ordo would have, which was a necessary change. 2E is about getting mad and not taking it anymore and the new Ordo are pissed. Old Coils were just hilariously the best powers ever and I literally don't see a reason why anybody wouldn't join them as soon as they found out. One candid conversation with a dragon and even Invictus elders would be jumping ship. This was even worse in the days that the Ordo Dracul was a mystery cult so you could totally be both in the Invictus and the Ordo. Being in a secret society and getting rid of like half the downsides of being a vampire? Solid. New coils are more niche but still really cool, and I thematically like that they're a little more esoteric and weird than just 'Coil of Not Giving A poo poo About Feeding' 'Coil of Not Giving A poo poo About Fire', 'Coil Of Not Giving A poo poo About Frenzy' etc. 'Coil Of Being Murder Satan', 'Coil Of gently caress The Sky Tyrant' and 'Coil Of Being Blood King' seem more like the sort of poo poo that an esoteric secret society would come up with. Scales are boss, too.
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Jun 26, 2015 18:52
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Invictus elders would not be jumping ship to the Ordo Dracul upon finding out what the Coils did because the Coils didn't actually make you more powerful. Effort spent developing the Coils is effort not spent developing the Disciplines. The old Coils were pretty expertly judged in terms of their scope and power level - they were amazingly potent and did exactly what they said on the box, but because they were pretty much all about passivity and convenience they'd only actually appeal to, you know, mystics, health nuts, and transhumanists. What does an Invictus lord care about minimizing his feeding requirements? The new Coils are just lovely spells for the most part. Transcendent sort of approaches the old Ordo Dracul but never quite gets there and it's complemented by five increasingly-marginal ways to be a D&D Barbarian and the power to control what other people do. It's bizarre that an edition of the game that took almost every other power and turned it up to 11 instead decided to dilute the Coils several times over. Well, it's not really bizarre, because the new edition's powers probably were written by some "my god, the coils! the coils! how could you not! how could you NOT!!!" superpower collection fetishist. Note that I'm speaking as a superpower collection fetishist - but you gotta look at the bigger picture, here.
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Jun 26, 2015 19:00
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