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Pope Guilty posted:At what point is it no longer oWoD and just The Even Newer World of Darkness? I think this is it. Not like we're going to stop using those terms, though.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 19:29 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 18:10 |
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Dave Brookshaw posted:Er... Yeah, I did look at the meetup group when I first moved here but the last post was in October, so I don't think it's a great way to find a group any more. Their facebook page looks a bit more active, maybe i'll try there. As for uni groups, I'd feel a bit weird trying to join one since i'm not a student.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 19:45 |
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At this point there's no oWoD clan or faction or whatever that hasn't been done cooler in Requiem.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 20:01 |
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Ferrinus posted:At this point there's no oWoD clan or faction or whatever that hasn't been done cooler in Requiem. Requiem's use of Clans as literary archetypes rather than cliquish stereotypes is also a lot more compelling but I do understand the appeal of using an established property. Requiem never caught fir like Masquerade, even if it is the best.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 20:06 |
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Ferrinus posted:At this point there's no oWoD clan or faction or whatever that hasn't been done cooler in Requiem. Oh come on now, that's just inflammatory nonsense. Belial's Brood:Baali::Jerod Leto Joker:Every other Joker E: The Masquerade version of clans / bloodlines dovetail with the metaplot and world better than their discrete, setting-agnostic Requiem counterparts. Masquerade clans exist within (and are largely defined by) a context and history. It's not really an issue of "these guys do X and think Y." Where the Requiem clans were designed to exist independent of any specifically defined history, the Masquerade clans don't really make sense outside of context. That nobody trusts the Tremere, and the reasons for it, are a big part of who they are. moths fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Dec 15, 2015 |
# ? Dec 15, 2015 20:07 |
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Mendrian posted:The 'Sabbat' Clans weren't even originally playable. I think there's a reason for how they're presented. The Lasombra on the other hand have a surprising amount of good content for them, so much so that I can only assume that like the Tremere there was some massive, blatant favouritism going on. I'm playing one in the aformentioned Doom Fortress game (we're not the Tal'Mahe'Ra btw, we're Camarilla Justicars - I know, I know) and whereas I originally went "they're vaguely Catholic, evil and have an OP custom discipline" the more I read the more I realise they were totally intended for play rather than just antagonists only. To be honest, the same goes for the Sabbat as a whole, they're actually incredibly compelling and playable (albeit evil) once you get out of the murderous shovelhead layer. I'm way more interested in playing a game that explores the Inquisition/Black Hand rivalry in the culture of overt violence and domination that is the Sabbat - mostly because, like Requiem, it'd be a game about rivalry due to actual politics and opinion instead of just "gently caress all non-Toreadors/Ventrue/Brujah/etc" Relatedly though, Abyss Mysticism. Who really thought that Clan Lasombra needed more toys? Jesus Christ.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 20:22 |
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The Lasombra, like the Assamites, benefited greatly from the later editions.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 20:28 |
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Meanwhile, Teremere continued their quadratic expansion into seriously questioning why anyone else existed. Something good might come out of a critical eye cast toward oWoD, but what we're getting now up to this point is looking to be "V20, but a few years later".
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 20:33 |
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I don't mind if they resurrect the OWoD but for gods sake I do hope they miss out the whole meta plot batshittery. Unless, I mean is it all going to be set circa the year 1995? When I was still 6 years old? I mean Bloodlines was a fantastic game but even it can't make up for some of the more ridiculous sub plots in a lot of the backstory of the line.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 21:17 |
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I believe metaplot has been used as a selling point. Which, well, I think this is going to be entertaining to watch, but I have no emotional attachment to the old WoD.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 21:44 |
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moths posted:Oh come on now, that's just inflammatory nonsense. This isn't really true. The Masquerade clans share a one size fits all origin story (in the city of Nod, there was an art lover! and an animal lover! and-) then all boil down to guys who think X and do Y. Requiem clans have specific, separate histories which aren't necessary for the game to run any more than Nod and Caine are to Masquerade but which are there if you want em.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 21:49 |
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You also have the fact that there is a biblical god as part of the whole equation in oWoD. I fail to see how that is as awesome as a weird mechanical god that may or may not exist/be god to everyone.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 21:59 |
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Josef bugman posted:You also have the fact that there is a biblical god as part of the whole equation in oWoD. I fail to see how that is as awesome as a weird mechanical god that may or may not exist/be god to everyone. It helps if you want to attach your game to the Gaia principle that was the zeitgeist of the era. Of course there is a universal greater force to you unrelated to man, when everyone knows we are but ants on the magnificent earth-mother. Also, said earth mother hates us and will cause the apocalypse sometime around the Millennium.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 22:39 |
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Gerund posted:Of course there is a universal greater force to you unrelated to man, when everyone knows we are but ants on the magnificent earth-mother. Also, said earth mother hates us
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 22:53 |
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Gerund posted:It helps if you want to attach your game to the Gaia principle that was the zeitgeist of the era. Of course there is a universal greater force to you unrelated to man, when everyone knows we are but ants on the magnificent earth-mother. Also, said earth mother hates us and will cause the apocalypse sometime around the Millennium. That was an actual thing back in the 90's? poo poo the bed.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 22:54 |
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The key problem with oWoD is that I could play it for the kitsch value, but if I run something I could get the same effect with a copy of Geist in one hand and Dudes of Legend in the other. I was never really into the whole cosmic war aspect. Nuwaad fits how I already ran things. Olwaad, however, is mostly just "Gooshy gooze! I remember that!"
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 23:17 |
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MonsieurChoc posted:I think the reasons the nWoD isn't as well known are more related to the very different markets. If the Better WoD (it's the new name now) had had the old one's marketing, it would be just as popular if not more. Requiem had a For Dummies mass market paperback, a bunch of launch events and other stuff. The size and composition of the RPG market had radically changed between the 90s and 00s. Comparisons are pretty useless.
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# ? Dec 15, 2015 23:27 |
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Josef bugman posted:That was an actual thing back in the 90's? poo poo the bed. It's weird to watch early X-Files episodes and see people all het up about 'eco-terrorists'. The 90s were a strange time.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 01:52 |
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Ferrinus posted:This isn't really true. The Masquerade clans share a one size fits all origin story (in the city of Nod, there was an art lover! and an animal lover! and-) then all boil down to guys who think X and do Y. Requiem clans have specific, separate histories which aren't necessary for the game to run any more than Nod and Caine are to Masquerade but which are there if you want em. Well yeah - they have a shared first page of the origin story but it doesn't start with Caine and then skip thousands of years to 1992. What the clans did between then and now is what defines their ties to the metaplot and relations to other splats. The Tremere created the Gargoyles, the Tzimice created the Blood Brothers, Kiasyd have ties to the Lasombra and Changelings, Cappadocians went on to become three? four? clans... Everything is (for better or worse) woven together with everything else. The clans have been burning and begetting each other for as long as there have been vampires, and those events make up a big part of their identities. Sure, it appeals to the nerds that memorize stardates - but it also gives a much greater sense of what's "real" in the game world because we're given actual events that actually happened. Which is something Requiem deliberately didn't do. Requiem deliberately Fog of Eternity'd so that the clan histories could be anything from accurate depictions, a long-running game of "Telephone," or just comforting lies they've told themselves. The conflicting, ambiguous nature of it is keeping with the hands-off nature of nWoD's aversion to canon. In your campaign, your Lancea Sanctum's second-hand divinity can a true and accurate thing, or it can be a sad long-running delusion. It's open-ended and gives the players a lot more say in worldbuilding. Because the world has been intentionally been outlined and not detailed, or detailed in shaky narrative. Neither approach is necessarily better, though. You can't really compare the new and old versions of clans on a 1:1 basis. One is an "current state + backstory" and the other is "current state + potential." Also on the topic of oWoD television, "Forever Knight" is fantastically 90s so get your DVDs before Paradox makes good on their promise of protecting the IP.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 02:32 |
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A checklist ParaWolf should refer to for 4th Edition WoD: Either get rid of the idea that the books are written from an in-setting POV or make it absolutely crystal clear that's what they're going for if they chose that style. Preferably the former, but I would probably enjoy certain books or parts of books being presented by particular characters or from a certain perspective if it was clearly marked. Make it clear that playing a character against a clan stereotype isn't a high crime. No one should be giving players poo poo for wanting to play Brujah artists or whatever. Eject racist poo poo. It's perfectly fine for characters in setting to view the Setites as nothing but evil ancient Egyptians, but it should be frontloaded that it's an inaccurate perspective, or at the very least there's more to them than that and so on. Use the NWoD mechanics. While I like the 20th Anniversary books, and I know what I was getting when I got them, I was still a little disappointed they didn't update the mechanics and in some cases rolled back changes made with Revised. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Dec 16, 2015 |
# ? Dec 16, 2015 07:36 |
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moths posted:Well yeah - they have a shared first page of the origin story but it doesn't start with Caine and then skip thousands of years to 1992. What the clans did between then and now is what defines their ties to the metaplot and relations to other splats. The Tremere created the Gargoyles, the Tzimice created the Blood Brothers, Kiasyd have ties to the Lasombra and Changelings, Cappadocians went on to become three? four? clans... Everything is (for better or worse) woven together with everything else. The clans have been burning and begetting each other for as long as there have been vampires, and those events make up a big part of their identities. Sure, it appeals to the nerds that memorize stardates - but it also gives a much greater sense of what's "real" in the game world because we're given actual events that actually happened. I'm pretty sure that if I cracked open a VtM corebook I wouldn't learn anything about Tzimisce creating the Blood Brothers or whatever. That kind of specific, interwoven history could only be delivered in small snippets in the corebook and then expanded over the course of the line. Requiem actually did give you snippets of specific, canonical, really-in-setting history straight away - for instance, we immediately learn that there's a bloodline of Gangrel bikers dating back to year whatever, we immediately learn that Dracula himself started a transhumanist secret society, etc. And, as with Masquerade, the more Reqiuem comes out, the more we learn about the setting's history, so for instance the Carthians book tells you about the Carthian Movement's founding and stance on the Invictus and so on. This stuff is particularly emphasized in the Requiem clanbooks and is front and center in Requiem 2E, which is a lot more plain-spoken about the contingent origins and historical events than Requiem 1E because, just as VtM Revised was in relation to VtM 1E, it had a lot more concrete material to draw on. So it's not really true that oWoD is specific where nWoD is vague and toolboxy, I'm saying. The specifics just differ.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 07:58 |
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Lightning Lord posted:A checklist ParaWolf should refer to for 4th Edition WoD: And for gently caress's sake replace the word "Metis".
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 08:07 |
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Was Requiem for Rome supposed to be like, canonical? Was it an alternate history type deal or is that sort of thing basically unimportant when it comes to VTR so the answer is just "Yes"Pope Guilty posted:And for gently caress's sake replace the word "Metis". Agreed.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 08:07 |
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Lightning Lord posted:Was Requiem for Rome supposed to be like, canonical? Was it an alternate history type deal or is that sort of thing basically unimportant when it comes to VTR so the answer is just "Yes" I think the answer is play a Rome game if you want to and otherwise don't worry about it, nerd. The strix are a thing now, though.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 08:10 |
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Ferrinus posted:I'm pretty sure that if I cracked open a VtM corebook I wouldn't learn anything about Tzimisce creating the Blood Brothers or whatever. I checked - that's in literally the first paragraph of the Blood Brothers entry. What I'm trying to say is that the oWoD clans and the nWoD clans are 1) not directly comparable and 2) fill different roles in worldbuilding. The Requiem clans are more in line with the Masquerade sects, being governing philosophies and teachings. You can remove something huge like the Circle of the Crone without collapsing Amy Jenga towers. It's totally possible I put too much stock in Requiem's Fog of Eternity, though. That was one of my favorite things in the setting that wasn't in Masquerade.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 14:29 |
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Pope Guilty posted:And for gently caress's sake replace the word "Metis". One of the things I love about this hobby is I keep finding out really obscure words are actually obscure racial slurs. And by love, I mean the opposite of that thing.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 14:58 |
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spectralent posted:One of the things I love about this hobby is I keep finding out really obscure words are actually obscure racial slurs. Oh, it's even worse than that in it's way. Métis are a recognized people in Canada (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9tis_people_%28Canada%29) but trace their descent originally from both First Nation and European roots. So WW basically took a people who have fought for their recognition and ... used their name for the misshapen "wrong" offspring of a union that "should not happen". Well now. When WW published A World Of Rage they tried to backpedal desperately and say the word is different (the werewolf metis being pronounced "Met-iss" and it's not written with the accent), but let's not kid ourselves about where the inspiration was likely taken from.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 16:23 |
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I love the idea of Metis conceptually but I agree that they need a new name.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 17:00 |
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I thought the origin was supposed to be the Iliad - Metis means "no one" in Latin, it's the name Odysseus gives to the cyclops before blinding him, though that's certainly an unfortunate coincidence.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 17:16 |
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Given the Iliad was written in Greek, not Latin, (And for that matter, so was the Odyssey, where the Cyclops story appeared) that doesn't seem all that likely, really. (In Greek, he introduced himself as Οὖτις,)
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 17:21 |
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RubberJohnny posted:I thought the origin was supposed to be the Iliad - Metis means "no one" in Latin, it's the name Odysseus gives to the cyclops before blinding him, though that's certainly an unfortunate coincidence. I'm pretty sure it comes from French, same as Garou (Loup-Garou). It's just also a racial slur.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 17:30 |
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I've always given them the benefit of the doubt on that one. This thread was the first place I'd learned that it even was a slur, it's not in any common use in America. As a slur against children of interracial parents, the word just seems inappropriate for a werewolf with two werewolf parents. If that's what they were going for, I mean. There's no "appropriate" place for racism.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 17:37 |
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Lightning Lord posted:Was Requiem for Rome supposed to be like, canonical? Was it an alternate history type deal or is that sort of thing basically unimportant when it comes to VTR so the answer is just "Yes" It's as canonical as anything in nWoD (with its toolkit approach to setting building) is-- things from RfR like the Dead Julii, the destruction of the Camarilla at the hands of the striges (and the striges themselves), or the Legion of the Dead are all referenced in other Requiem books, including 2E.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 17:52 |
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I mean, I expect it's based off the mythological Metis, which'd be where you get the "offspring that are bad" thing from, but it's incredibly unfortunate that that'd work out to also be a canadian slur. (Prior to googling it I'd always assumed it was the greek myth version and had never heard the racist bit either).
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 17:55 |
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It's not so much a racial slur in Canada (Canadian Métis use it for themselves, and not in a "We're reclaiming a lovely word" way, but like, on official forms, on the census, and a description of their cultural group) and it's sure as gently caress better than calling them "Half breed", which -is- derogatory) it's that the implications of how it's used in Werewolf make it really awkward when the racial group is right over there. One is "We're a unique culture of mixed race descent". The other is "These two people should not have had a kid."
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 18:05 |
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unseenlibrarian posted:It's not so much a racial slur in Canada (Canadian Métis use it for themselves, and not in a "We're reclaiming a lovely word" way, but like, on official forms, on the census, and a description of their cultural group) and it's sure as gently caress better than calling them "Half breed", which -is- derogatory) it's that the implications of how it's used in Werewolf make it really awkward when the racial group is right over there. This, exactly. You stated it much clearly than I managed, though.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 18:49 |
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moths posted:I checked - that's in literally the first paragraph of the Blood Brothers entry. Okay, but the Blood Brothers entry in what? In VTM20, the gigantic comprehensive end-of-line edition assembled by people who have the entirety of the line at their fingertips? If I cracked open VtM 1E, or VtM 2E, would I learn who created the Blood Brothers and why? I'm pretty sure I'd never learn the Blood Brothers even existed. You could remove the Circle of the Crone as easily as you could remove the Tzimisce. That is to say, all you'd have to do is say that everything that happened in relation to whatever you got rid of happened anyway, by accident or by someone else's doing or whatever. Like, you'd have to say that Dracula got his grounding in blood magic some other way, that the Sanctum has no historical theological rival, etc. Similarly, no Tzimisce just means Blood Brothers as a freak accident, the Sabbat ruled by one clan, no Akira monster as a Gehenna endboss...
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 18:55 |
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The Sabbat without the Tzimesce is a very different Sabbat.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 19:30 |
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Maybe I'm just being really unclear about it. Requiem's design elements are consistently much more siloed than their Masquerade counterparts. The lack of hard metaplot allows more flexibility in what you use or don't, and Fog of Eternity is a built in "...or maybe not."
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 19:47 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 18:10 |
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Thinking about the Dark Eras Kickstarter and all the voting - was there ever a behind the scenes discussion about how the voting for settings to be included in the book / companion impacted the development cycle? The next KS (I think it was Lore of the Clans) was one of the first with the achievement structure and they never tried the voting idea again that I've seen.
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# ? Dec 16, 2015 20:33 |