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I'd actually prefer all three options presented VII style.
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Dec 22, 2015 21:51
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MonsieurChoc posted:Why would you want to get rid of one of the best Conspiracy? Ascending Ones are loving great. I don't think they quite pull off the mix between three groups very gracefully, and we're in another swing of global Islamophobia, which could make an updated rewrite really good or really bad. Also, Elixirs are flaming garbage, as noted, but that could be fixed. Mostly it's down to which of the six conspiracies I'd axe to give VASCU space. Ascending Ones could be made quite a bit better with some polish and refocus on the stuff the later books were introducing.
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Dec 22, 2015 22:09
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Daeren posted:The only time the Abbey ever worked in games I've played is when they had their douchebag nature dialed way back to the point where they were morally dubious comic relief that still had standards. Which basically meant they weren't really the Abbey anymore.
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Dec 22, 2015 22:40
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Replace the Abbey with a compact of people who are all Face from the A-Team, except trying to smooth-talk their way past a pack of Pure.
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Dec 22, 2015 23:16
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I've read some of the revised version of Beast, and haven't touched the leak or the original KS version. Thus far, it just seems like the standard WoD stuff? It's in the same situation as Sin Eaters where you have no real goals, but it's not really any worse than that. Was it just tainted by how bad the leak was or do I need to actually read the whole thing or???
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Dec 22, 2015 23:42
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I'm honestly still kind of waiting for a rundown on just how much the final version changed; I think most of the people who would have really wanted to tear into it didn't back and thus don't have copies yet.
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Dec 22, 2015 23:58
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If you're going to take the second option to blend The Hunt Club / Ashwood Abbey to create an interesting, multifaceted and modern compact, I'd also like if you'd combined The Union with Network Zero to represent a blending of protest networks into a larger Black Lives Matter movement. Both of those compacts are really starting to show their age now, seven years after their publication date (and sixteen years after their initial genesis for The Union).
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Dec 23, 2015 00:01
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Bedlamdan posted:I've read some of the revised version of Beast, and haven't touched the leak or the original KS version. Thus far, it just seems like the standard WoD stuff? It's in the same situation as Sin Eaters where you have no real goals, but it's not really any worse than that. Was it just tainted by how bad the leak was or do I need to actually read the whole thing or??? Did you get to the part with the Hero who wears a fedora and says m'lady yet Also you're missing the Exalted game you're in right now.
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Dec 23, 2015 00:16
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Gerund posted:If you're going to take the second option to blend The Hunt Club / Ashwood Abbey to create an interesting, multifaceted and modern compact, I'd also like if you'd combined The Union with Network Zero to represent a blending of protest networks into a larger Black Lives Matter movement. Both of those compacts are really starting to show their age now, seven years after their publication date (and sixteen years after their initial genesis for The Union). I always saw nwz as the social media and the union as the activists. There can be intermingling but they are two different skill sets.
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Dec 23, 2015 00:20
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SunAndSpring posted:Did you get to the part with the Hero who wears a fedora and says m'lady yet Not yet... SunAndSpring posted:Also you're missing the Exalted game you're in right now. Sorry, I'm spending time with family over holidays and don't have easy access to anything that can run Roll20 
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Dec 23, 2015 00:24
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Bedlamdan posted:I've read some of the revised version of Beast, and haven't touched the leak or the original KS version. Thus far, it just seems like the standard WoD stuff? It's in the same situation as Sin Eaters where you have no real goals, but it's not really any worse than that. Was it just tainted by how bad the leak was or do I need to actually read the whole thing or??? It helps to read the whole thing, but it's very obvious that the "teach them wisdom" thing was tacked on at the last moment and doesn't get very much traction at any point. The gist you get is "as long as you don't kill them it counts". Which is great because they expect you to use a sledgehammer to do fine surgery. The later chapters about heroes are still terrible and the only redeemable hero apparently got turned into a failed beast, because anyone that nice just can't be a hero.
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Dec 23, 2015 01:25
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Kurieg posted:It helps to read the whole thing, but it's very obvious that the "teach them wisdom" thing was tacked on at the last moment and doesn't get very much traction at any point. The gist you get is "as long as you don't kill them it counts". Which is great because they expect you to use a sledgehammer to do fine surgery. Mass murder/torture of helpless targets (including animals) is still the second-most efficient way to feed. The most efficient manner involves abusing the poo poo out of Family Dinner's rules being ill-considered, which also has the side effect of making the "teaching them a lesson" angle nakedly hypocritical.
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Dec 23, 2015 02:10
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Daeren posted:I don't think they quite pull off the mix between three groups very gracefully, and we're in another swing of global Islamophobia, which could make an updated rewrite really good or really bad. Also, Elixirs are flaming garbage, as noted, but that could be fixed. Easy: axe the loving Vatican Ninjas.
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Dec 23, 2015 03:44
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Smoosh the devil children and the Catholic hit squad into one group, it'd still be less of a mess than the three different alchemical groups they pretend is one Conspiracy.
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Dec 23, 2015 04:00
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Kill Ashwood Abbey altogether, add VASCU.
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Dec 23, 2015 04:08
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I just don't see how it's a mess. It's a really old conspiracy that used to be one but, with time, splintered into three distinct branches. It's not hard, guys. Meanwhile the Malleus are just the Order of Leopold Redux. I like hem fine, but they could be kicked down to a supplement or whatever.
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Dec 23, 2015 04:18
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Speaking of VASCU, why isn't anyone running a VASCU game right now? They're so good and Teleinformatics barely even needs much modification for 2e.
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Dec 23, 2015 04:30
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MonsieurChoc posted:I just don't see how it's a mess. It's a really old conspiracy that used to be one but, with time, splintered into three distinct branches. It's not hard, guys. Branches implies they all basically believe the same thing, or operate in the same way. Instead you have western alchemists, religious crusaders, and street thugs. And....well I guess they all use magic potions. They have less in common with each other than The Long Night and MM. Like the only reason these groups would be join one larger entity is they, objectively, gave a poo poo that they all use magic potions more than social and theological divides. It is the only point they have in common after all. And that seems crazy. The only thing it has going for it is it's the type of crazy you can make plot hooks out of.
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Dec 23, 2015 06:11
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Boogaleeboo posted:Branches implies they all basically believe the same thing, or operate in the same way. Instead you have western alchemists, religious crusaders, and street thugs. And....well I guess they all use magic potions. They have less in common with each other than The Long Night and MM. Like the only reason these groups would be join one larger entity is they, objectively, gave a poo poo that they all use magic potions more than social and theological divides. It is the only point they have in common after all. And that seems crazy. The only thing it has going for it is it's the type of crazy you can make plot hooks out of. It's not the only thing they have in common, dude. They all come from the same root and so a lot of their esoteric beleifs are similar, if seen through a different lens. Like, all three branches do the Supernatural Diplomacy thing to some degree, for example.
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Dec 23, 2015 07:17
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That's like saying all men evolved from the same basic source, so in the grand scheme of things are our differences so big? The answer is "Yes, yes they are" and you getting a rock to the face so I can steal your poo poo. Whatever basic root they might have had, they have all moved far beyond it and in wildly different directions. I don't see why any of them would care enough about some vague mystic history enough to put up with the assholes around them.
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Dec 23, 2015 07:36
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I had to re-read your post multiple times to try and understand your point, and I'm still not sure I get it. Like, the text establishes that, depsite cosmetic differences, all three branches have similar legends about their origin, similar practices, similar methods and overall are pretty similar. It's the dressing on top of that skeleton that changes. The book is pretty explicit about it.
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Dec 23, 2015 07:44
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Saying that doesn't actually have it make sense, is the thing. It's like Beast saying a lot of poo poo about how Beasts and Heroes work that don't actually track when you think about it for a second. Putting text to paper doesn't mean you've actually proven or explained anything. They never, to my mind, meaningfully connected the dots from A to B in why those groups whose big picture cliche nature [Western alchemists, Judeo-Christian religious warriors, street thugs] are so well defined would still work together. I wasn't kidding when I said there was more in common with the Long Night and the MM, and yet most people wouldn't think twice about Protestant Evangelicals having an issue with Papists. It would make as much sense for some vague Christian Conspiracy to have Catholic and Protestant wings as it does for the Ascending Ones to have Western Magicians and Street Gangs as it's. More, because those two things actually have a lot in common in comparison to the esoteric art of transmutation and spiritual enlightenment and getting your nut by getting junkies their fix.
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Dec 23, 2015 08:21
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Bedlamdan posted:I've read some of the revised version of Beast, and haven't touched the leak or the original KS version. Thus far, it just seems like the standard WoD stuff? It's in the same situation as Sin Eaters where you have no real goals, but it's not really any worse than that. Was it just tainted by how bad the leak was or do I need to actually read the whole thing or??? The original Kickstarter version was tracked back a lot in the revisions, but in a way that rings hollow if you look at what they changed and what they left. That's not necessarily entirely fair, if the revised version is intended to be the final product, to judge it by older drafts, but well, you only get one chance to make a first impression. You can't do anything about a leak, but they felt confident enough in it for a public Kickstarter unveiling. Beyond that, there's a lot of dissonance between what the mechanics produce and what they're meant to produce, and the revisions only stay thorough up through about half of the book. You hit the later half of the book and you start seeing a lot more remnants of that immature Kickstarter presentation where Heroes are two-dimensional and Beasts come off as more petulant and entitled than anything else.
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Dec 23, 2015 08:41
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I Am Just a Box posted:The original Kickstarter version was tracked back a lot in the revisions, but in a way that rings hollow if you look at what they changed and what they left. That's not necessarily entirely fair, if the revised version is intended to be the final product, to judge it by older drafts, but well, you only get one chance to make a first impression. You can't do anything about a leak, but they felt confident enough in it for a public Kickstarter unveiling. It's also clear that most of these changes were made grudgingly, by someone who sincerely believed in the original draft and ridiculed those who found it objectionable. This is not the case of digging up some ancient draft where the author has had the insight to remove the objectionable material out of a realisation it wasn't actually good. The original public Beast draft has the appearance of being the version its author wanted to release, and the sincere self-rightenousness of Beast colours the interpretation of the revised draft in a way that might not apply as much to other works' revision histories.
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Dec 23, 2015 09:11
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Boogaleeboo posted:Saying that doesn't actually have it make sense, is the thing. It's like Beast saying a lot of poo poo about how Beasts and Heroes work that don't actually track when you think about it for a second. Putting text to paper doesn't mean you've actually proven or explained anything. They never, to my mind, meaningfully connected the dots from A to B in why those groups whose big picture cliche nature [Western alchemists, Judeo-Christian religious warriors, street thugs] are so well defined would still work together. I wasn't kidding when I said there was more in common with the Long Night and the MM, and yet most people wouldn't think twice about Protestant Evangelicals having an issue with Papists. It would make as much sense for some vague Christian Conspiracy to have Catholic and Protestant wings as it does for the Ascending Ones to have Western Magicians and Street Gangs as it's. More, because those two things actually have a lot in common in comparison to the esoteric art of transmutation and spiritual enlightenment and getting your nut by getting junkies their fix. Dude, the three branches have a poo poo-ton in common, you just refuse to see it for some weird reason. You sound like you just randomly decided not to like them and then started making up stuff without actually reading their description. You seem to see them as a huge clearly defined organization, which they're not. That's oWoD-style thinking. The Ascensing Ones are a bunch of scatterred secret societies, loosely connected through shared history and a common goal. Most members won't even meet a member of the other branch in their life: they might not even know they exist. They are by far the least organized of the Conspiracies in the core. Read Foucault's Pendulum, aside from being a great book and pretty good inspiration, it will also help you understand the kind of "atmosphere" the Ascending Ones live in.
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Dec 23, 2015 09:30
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The dude is wrong but you don't have to assign them homework to try and prove it.
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Dec 23, 2015 09:58
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MonsieurChoc posted:Dude, the three branches have a poo poo-ton in common, you just refuse to see it for some weird reason. You sound like you just randomly decided not to like them and then started making up stuff without actually reading their description. Have you not read Compacts an Conspiracies and it's attempt to talk about what actually binds them together? Beyond it just flat out opening with "These are basically just 3 separate Compacts that operate as a Conspiracy", it comes down to....."Well a lot of different cultures revere Hermes Trismegistus". Like that's it, that is their big attempt to try and tie these disparate groups into a working whole, and they don't even really attempt to sell the drug dealer side of that equation. It rings hollow to me. quote:They are by far the least organized of the Conspiracies in the core. To the point where I don't think they'd stand as a Conspiracy. A certain level of power and organization is supposed to be implicit in a Conspiracy, it's why they are a Conspiracy. Otherwise they'd just be a Compact. Or in this case 3 Compacts. quote:Read Foucault's Pendulum, aside from being a great book and pretty good inspiration, it will also help you understand the kind of "atmosphere" the Ascending Ones live in. I find it one of Umberto Eco's less entertaining offerings and I have better things to do with my time than go back to it, and it doesn't really apply to any of their themes of the Ascending Ones. It'd be like me saying someone should go read Catch-22 to get a handle on the psychology of vampires. That sure is a book and a reference to a part of the WoD, I just don't see how you put the two together. If anything it'd work better for a Mage game, probably involving the Guardians of the Veil.
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Dec 23, 2015 10:02
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Mors Rattus posted:Speaking of VASCU, why isn't anyone running a VASCU game right now? They're so good and Teleinformatics barely even needs much modification for 2e. Actually, believe it or not, I'm running a VASCU game set in 1987 Miami with some of my friends on weekends. I don't actually have any of the 2e conversions in print, so we've just been sticking with 1e rules, which has worked out pretty well for us so far. One of the most important things I've learned running it is that you've gotta make sure that while psychic crime-solving powers are cool and fun, they don't exactly hold up in court, and you need to encourage an equal amount of good ol' fashioned solid police work as well in order to get the bad guy into custody and make sure they stay there.
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Dec 23, 2015 11:08
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Tailfnz posted:Actually, believe it or not, I'm running a VASCU game set in 1987 Miami with some of my friends on weekends. I don't actually have any of the 2e conversions in print, so we've just been sticking with 1e rules, which has worked out pretty well for us so far. One of the most important things I've learned running it is that you've gotta make sure that while psychic crime-solving powers are cool and fun, they don't exactly hold up in court, and you need to encourage an equal amount of good ol' fashioned solid police work as well in order to get the bad guy into custody and make sure they stay there. That sounds cool. I did mean to imply 'here, on the forums, for me to play in' but it sounds like you have a cool game, congrats.
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Dec 23, 2015 15:51
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Cabbit posted:The dude is wrong but you don't have to assign them homework to try and prove it. Yeah, I should just give up.
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Dec 23, 2015 16:37
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Clearly, despite posting in the same thread, your ideology is very different and you should be considered distinct.
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Dec 23, 2015 16:46
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LatwPIAT posted:It's also clear that most of these changes were made grudgingly, by someone who sincerely believed in the original draft and ridiculed those who found it objectionable. This is not the case of digging up some ancient draft where the author has had the insight to remove the objectionable material out of a realisation it wasn't actually good. The original public Beast draft has the appearance of being the version its author wanted to release, and the sincere self-rightenousness of Beast colours the interpretation of the revised draft in a way that might not apply as much to other works' revision histories. In this case what they chose not to change says as much, or more, than what they did. And the fact that family dinner still exists and is by far the most efficient and safe feeding method it very much undermines the thin veil of "feed to teach, not to kill"
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Dec 23, 2015 18:10
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fwiw, 'conspiracy with three branches distinct enough that they're in danger of splitting apart and becoming less powerful unless something changes' sounds to me like a neat plot hook and not necessarily a reason to throw the entire conspiracy out but maybe i'm biased because elixirs are cool as hell and i want to see them done right
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Dec 23, 2015 18:23
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When people keep saying to replace Ashwood Abbey with VASCU, aren't they different things? I thought AA was a compact and VASCU was a conspiracy. At any rate, since it's The Slasher Chronicle I imagine VASCU will get plenty of page space.
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Dec 23, 2015 18:27
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Swagger Dagger posted:When people keep saying to replace Ashwood Abbey with VASCU, aren't they different things? I thought AA was a compact and VASCU was a conspiracy. Yeah, she literally says that in her dev post. VASCU is a higher tier.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:57
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I have a question the I only thought of because I just rolled three consecutive exceptional successes followed by a dinner break. How often do you guys give out beneficial conditions for that, and what are they usually? We're at the point where our favorite tricks have 10-15 dice to them and we've been pretty lax on that since it's tough to come up with a condition on the fly and none of us really want to break up the flow for that sort of thing; it becomes "we'll do p a condition later" followed by forgetting about it entirely. So does anyone have any suggestions for disciplines in general, and Dominate/Auspex/Dementation (the one from CB: Ventrue) in particular?
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Dec 27, 2015 02:43
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I picked up Mage: the Ascension 20 and I love it so far. What other books could I peruse for inspiration for it, not necessarily for expanded rules?
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Dec 27, 2015 02:53
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crime fighting hog posted:I picked up Mage: the Ascension 20 and I love it so far. What other books could I peruse for inspiration for it, not necessarily for expanded rules? Depending on which mode you're most interested in running it in, either 2nd edition, revised, or some mix, the entirety of those game lines will have plenty of stuff for you to read. IIRC the 20th edition book does a pretty decent job of calling out where to find more information on the things it talks about, so I'd just pick what bits of the setting you're really interested in and look for the books about that. Alternately you can just read like Eco and Calvino
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Dec 27, 2015 17:06
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Yawgmoth posted:I have a question the I only thought of because I just rolled three consecutive exceptional successes followed by a dinner break. How often do you guys give out beneficial conditions for that, and what are they usually? We're at the point where our favorite tricks have 10-15 dice to them and we've been pretty lax on that since it's tough to come up with a condition on the fly and none of us really want to break up the flow for that sort of thing; it becomes "we'll do p a condition later" followed by forgetting about it entirely. So does anyone have any suggestions for disciplines in general, and Dominate/Auspex/Dementation (the one from CB: Ventrue) in particular? I forget conditions most of the time so I've gotten pretty okay at rewarding crazy rolls. An exceptional melee attack that kills the target, I will allow the remainder of the damage to bleed over to another target within range if it makes sense. Diciplines have Exceptional examples in the book that you should use before anything else. Having 10 successes on Dominate would mean, to me, there is a good chance that you can compel the target to act beyond the power of the dicipline (like harming someone close to them). Keeping in theme means that they should have a huge reaction once it wears off. Sure, an incredibly powerful Ventrue can get someone to kill their mother but if the Vampire isn't fastidious, the enthralled should be plotting revenge.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:38
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Man, just merge Ascending Ones and Aegis Kai Doru. Malleus Maleficarum owns, hth.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:29
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