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FrostyPox posted:
The Splintered City: Seattle supplement, which I remember liking pretty well, has a passage on the Apocalypse Vault, a heavily guarded warehouse of spatial containment relics. The God-Machine uses it to store failed timelines: a biological weapon outbreak here, a cataclysmic earthquake there. It immediately goes on to discuss how the obvious thing to do with this plot hook is to run a heist story and then use the end of the world as a trump card at the bargaining table.
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May 30, 2016 06:09
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that sounds cool and good. You mean like spy movie heists/sabatoge? Cuz if so, hell yeah!
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FrostyPox posted:Well, that's what I meant. I was listening to the podcast but for some reason wrote Morality instead of Integrity. Either way their "I'm a good person" stat is low which is ridiculous, and I just got to the "All the other supernaturals like them and think they're soooo cool omg" part and it's like... what the gently caress, seriously, this is bad. Like.... just make them loving evil and own it, gently caress argh Don't worry, the book seems to be operating under the auspices that Integrity is a morality stat as well. Because low integrity Heroes universally turn into egotistical assholes who don't care about anyone except themselves and any amount of murder is acceptable in pursuit of their own glory.
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May 30, 2016 07:47
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Wait, is it Integrity instead of Humanity/Morality now? I haven't actually played New New World of Darkness (Chronicles of Darkness?), my interest in WoD has been rekindled by playing V:tM for the past three weeks and reading about various game lines on the White Wolf Wiki. What's the difference (I ask as I open up google to figure it out myself anyway).
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May 30, 2016 08:12
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The problem with "Humanity" as a morality stat is that it assigns a single moral compass to the entirety of mankind. Meaning anyone who has to live with the possibility of killing someone in their daily lives (Police officers, Military Personelle, etc) were inherently worse people. Integrity is a sense of how well put together your self image is, and rather than having a universal set of sins for everyone, each person has their own breaking points that you come up with with your storyteller, or are defined by your supernatural template. You could be a mass murdering psychopath and be very self assured of who you are (Hi there Dexter) or you could be a moral person but only really because you give into the peer pressure of those around you. It takes time, energy, and work to rebuild your integrity and incorporate these new facets of yourself into a healthy self image but it's possible.
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May 30, 2016 08:18
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Kurieg posted:The problem with "Humanity" as a morality stat is that it assigns a single moral compass to the entirety of mankind. Meaning anyone who has to live with the possibility of killing someone in their daily lives (Police officers, Military Personelle, etc) were inherently worse people. Oh, interesting. That's probably better than the old system. I'm reading that Vampires still use Humanity, is that still the same as it was?
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May 30, 2016 08:22
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FrostyPox posted:Oh, interesting. That's probably better than the old system. I'm reading that Vampires still use Humanity, is that still the same as it was? Sort of, but it is not effected by doing bad things any more so much as being heavily forced to realize you are not a person anymore. Outliving your own language if that somehow comes up does humanity damage. Having a person you knew as a mortal who was younger than you die of age, etch. Of course killing people while in a frenzy does that too
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May 30, 2016 08:55
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FrostyPox posted:Oh, interesting. That's probably better than the old system. I'm reading that Vampires still use Humanity, is that still the same as it was? It's similar, but not the dame.. doing vampire-y things does humanity damage, essentially. That includes ripping someone's face off, of course, but it also includes outliving friends and family and spending time on vampire politics, etc. if you're especially high humanity, even using disciplines or feeling the sun can cause humanity damage because they reconfirm your vampiricness.
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May 30, 2016 08:59
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If you're looking to run a one-shot or short form campaign, then Mummy is actually well suited to it - you can just throw out the metaplot and most of the major themes of the game and run Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Pillar Men. The inbuilt plot hook of Mummy: Bad Dudes stole your Relic, you want it back, works really well to get people into a short game and Mummy powers at high Sekhem are hilarious. High Sekhem Mummies basically play like super-vampires, you can buff all your stats up as high as you want for the remainder of the scene and just let rip on people. I've never played an 'actual' Mummy game but can confirm that playing flexing ancient gods of fitness is A Good Time.
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May 30, 2016 13:52
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Demon has a particularly interesting version of the "morality" stat, being entirely extrinsic to the character. A demon's Cover doesn't represent any kind of internal ego cohesion or fading humanity, but simply how well they're able to fake it as a human. It's not even metaphorical; Cover is a real, mystical construct that exists in the game world to be attacked, repaired and even traded. Thus a demon disguised as a mild-mannered high school teacher who beats one of her students to death with a length of rebar loses Cover not because coming face to face with being capable of (and willing to) commit such atrocities is a disturbing revelation that shakes her to her very core, but because that's just not the sort of a thing a mild-mannered high school teacher does; it would be almost equally damning for her to quit her dead-end job, divorce her abusive husband and re-dedicate her life to saving starving children. By the way, is posting inspirational material appropriate for this thread? Because this is clearly a Messenger angel (or Demon) at work: (e: In case you're sensitive about eye trauma, be aware that there's a really brief depiction of that in this one) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElvLZMsYXlo Terrorforge fucked around with this message at 15:35 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 15:33
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FrostyPox posted:Oh, interesting. That's probably better than the old system. Another thing I probably should have mentioned yesterday is, Beasts Feed by subjecting people to Integrity breaking points. If it's a lesson, it's by forcing them to acquiesce to what the Beast says is true and take that into their lives. If it's through a regular old feeding then it's because the Beast is just being a generally hosed up supernatural monster, which honestly I think most people would prefer. At least then the Beast isn't making value judgements and shaping the world around him to better suit his own worldview.
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May 30, 2016 16:35
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Speaking of Breaking Points and morality stats, do supernatural creatures still experience them? Mages have always seemed the most psychologically human of the splats to me, but does the trauma of Awakening leave them numb to things like accidentally burning down orphanages as long as magic wasn't involved?
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May 30, 2016 17:39
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Yes but they have their own breaking points which may or may not involve murder. Werewolf in particular has a morality scale that is balanced in the middle, with the world of flesh and humans at ten, and the spirit world at zero. You have breakpoints in both directions and sometimes have to willingly invoke one to keep yourself in check.
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May 30, 2016 17:47
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blastron posted:Speaking of Breaking Points and morality stats, do supernatural creatures still experience them? Mages have always seemed the most psychologically human of the splats to me, but does the trauma of Awakening leave them numb to things like accidentally burning down orphanages as long as magic wasn't involved? Mages' Integrity-equivalent largely depends on how well-thought-through or rash an action was, and how many unintended consequences it had. The orphanage incident would qualify. It's the only game so far where an impassioned killing in self defense is "worse" than premeditated murder. Mages be hosed up in the head.
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May 30, 2016 17:52
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Kurieg posted:Another thing I probably should have mentioned yesterday is, Beasts Feed by subjecting people to Integrity breaking points. If it's a lesson, it's by forcing them to acquiesce to what the Beast says is true and take that into their lives. If it's through a regular old feeding then it's because the Beast is just being a generally hosed up supernatural monster, which honestly I think most people would prefer. At least then the Beast isn't making value judgements and shaping the world around him to better suit his own worldview. Yeah, really if Beast had just been "You're an awful piece of poo poo, but you don't care. Heroes are good guys, but again, you don't care. Other supernaturals may or may not like you", it would've been just fine. Very niche, perhaps, because a lot of people don't like to play as bad guys, but it would've been much better than what we apparently got. As it is, it's literally "Beast: The Mary Sue" in that everything you do is right because the author says it is and even Changelings and Prometheans, who should probably hate beasts' guts, apparently love them.
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May 30, 2016 17:53
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Kurieg posted:Yes but they have their own breaking points which may or may not involve murder. Werewolf in particular has a morality scale that is balanced in the middle, with the world of flesh and humans at ten, and the spirit world at zero. You have breakpoints in both directions and sometimes have to willingly invoke one to keep yourself in check. I really enjoy the Harmony system in Werewolf. I just really like playing that splat, in general. e: of note, the Harmony system gives mechanical benefits/penalties for things like crossing into the flesh/spirit realms, what triggers the werewolf rage, shifting into the various forms, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. Kibner fucked around with this message at 18:05 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 18:03
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My biggest stumbling block with nwerewolf is the fact they're werewolves. If they were just half-spirit things in general I'd probably like it a lot more.
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May 30, 2016 18:21
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I just realized I'm a little unclear on what Integrity actually does for a mortal. I presume that you lose the character if you hit 0 Integrity (though afaik it doesn't actually say so anywhere in the CofD book) but other than that it seems kind of irrelevant. There isn't even any practical difference between failing and succeeding at a breaking point roll except in the case of a dramatic failure. It'd be fine if your dots really mattered like they do in e.g. Demon where Cover has lots of useful applications, but I just don't see how it makes any difference to you if your mortal has 6 or 7 Integrity. I guess high-Integrity characters get bonuses to abjuring spirits and stuff, but that's pretty niche. Is there any other mechanical reason to want to keep your Integrity high?
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May 30, 2016 18:23
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Most of the more severe Conditions in CoD are only resolved when Integrity is gained (or on some occasions, lost). And since, iirc, losing Integrity causes you to roll for new Conditions / low-Integrity Condition rolls are much riskier / gaining Integrity gets harder as you lose it, it turns into an oblique mechanical system accounting for the cumulative psychological damage of living in the World of Darkness. By the time you hit 1 you're not just morally bankrupt but probably exhibiting a cavalcade of mechanically relevant pyschoses
Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 18:48 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 18:44
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Integrity for mortals is more like mental health levels than anything else. It doesn't really 'do' anything for them - having lower Integrity is just worse in the sense that it means you're more likely to pick up nasty conditions.
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May 30, 2016 18:49
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Basic Chunnel posted:Most of the more severe Conditions in CoD are only resolved when Integrity is gained (or on some occasions, lost). And since, iirc, losing Integrity causes you to roll for new Conditions / low-Integrity Condition rolls are much riskier / gaining Integrity gets harder as you lose it, it turns into an oblique mechanical system accounting for the cumulative psychological damage of living in the World of Darkness. By the time you hit 1 you're not just morally bankrupt but probably exhibiting a cavalcade of mechanically relevant pyschoses See that's the thing. Succeeding at a roll means taking Guilty, Shaken or Spooked. Failing at a roll also means taking Guilty, Shaken or Spooked. Dramatic failure means taking those severe Conditions you mention; Broken, Fugue or Madness. All of this is irrespective of your current Integrity - that just make you more or less likely to lose it in the first place (i.e. modifiers to the breaking point roll itself). There's no rolling for Conditions in CofD the way there was rolling for derangement in nWoD 1.0
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May 30, 2016 18:57
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I would probably just homerule a cumulative penalty to breaking point rolls that's reset when integrity is gained, but who wants to keep track of that sort of thing?
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May 30, 2016 19:07
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Mendrian posted:Integrity for mortals is more like mental health levels than anything else. It doesn't really 'do' anything for them - having lower Integrity is just worse in the sense that it means you're more likely to pick up nasty conditions. Yeah, I like Morality a lot more than Integrity. Like, I'd be fine renaming Morality to Integrity, but when you take away the fact that certain levels of the stat inure you or leave you vulnerable to certain experiences the stat as a whole ceases to mean much.
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May 30, 2016 22:45
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I agree with Ferrinus. The Integrity stat seems to be there only because a World of Darkness game has to have a 1-10 "morality" stat. Outside of a few supernatural powers, the stat itself really doesn't do anything. In the mortal WoD games that I have run, I have made the following changes: 1. Removed the Integrity stat entirely, and with it the sliding modifier to Breaking Point rolls. 2. A success on a Breaking Point roll does not give a Condition; instead, the player gets a Beat (to match the Beat that the player would get for resolving a Condition gained from failing the roll). This makes the roll actually mean something. 3. Guilty, Shaken, and Spooked all give a -1 penalty on further Breaking Point rolls, and these penalties stack if you end up failing multiple BP rolls without resolving the Conditions. I didn't actually end up calling for many BP rolls in play, but I found that the 5 Breaking Point example questions did quite a bit to help players flesh out their characters. My personal favorite answer was from a player who created a serial killer turned monster hunter character and answered the question of, "What is the worst thing you have ever done?" with "Let a witness escape, which resulted in me getting caught and sent to prison."
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May 31, 2016 01:01
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So I guess Demon was released just before CoD, so do I need to buy the CoD or nWoD core book to run it? Or is it fully self contained?
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May 31, 2016 02:48
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FrostyPox posted:So I guess Demon was released just before CoD, so do I need to buy the CoD or nWoD core book to run it? Or is it fully self contained? From a few pages ago: I Am Just a Box posted:There's also a good reason you might be unclear on this, because Demon is the one exception. Demon uses the second edition rules but was made before Vampire 2e set the format for the 2e corebooks, and has an appendix with the second edition core rules in a patch format to supplement the first edition core. So to run Demon, you need either the first edition World of Darkness Rulebook or any one other second edition corebook, including the Chronicles of Darkness Rulebook or any second edition monster core. So: yes, you do need either a corebook, or you need Vampire/Werewolf/Mage.
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May 31, 2016 02:52
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Oh, derp.  Thanks!
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May 31, 2016 02:54
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I'll note that while the CofD splats have all the core rules you need to play, they don't have all the rules. Vampire doesn't have the rules for chases or ephemeral beings, for instance.
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May 31, 2016 03:04
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Terrorforge posted:I'll note that while the CofD splats have all the core rules you need to play, they don't have all the rules. Vampire doesn't have the rules for chases or ephemeral beings, for instance. People who have all the books - what do you feel like is 'cut' or skimped on in order to fit things in? I would've assumed Vampire, as the 'closest to standard' of the existing games, probably has more skill rules than the others? Mage probably has as much as possible crammed in. Question: what's the 'relationship' between the Temenos and the Shadow? They don't seem to be directly link, but they have some concept overlap - both of them seem like they're shaped by people's thoughts and emotions (the Temenos moreso, of course) and because of the nature of thought, you can have both the Goetic being of Stray Dogs and also the Spirit of Stray Dogs. I got to thinking about this when I thought about a possible villain for my upcoming game trying to drag concepts from the Temenos into reality, or at least to replicate them. Millions of people everywhere have the concept of 'the generic space marine', an amalgamation of Doomguy, Master Chief, W40K - what happens when someone tries to have them fight their enemies for them and have things go very wrong?
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May 31, 2016 04:07
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bewilderment posted:People who have all the books - what do you feel like is 'cut' or skimped on in order to fit things in? Shadow exists whether you like it or not. It's 'natural' in the same way that animals or plants are, and it exists even if mankind does not. Shadow is affected by things like emotion or thought but only tangentially, in the way that all concepts can feed it. The relationship between the Shadow and Material is usually secondary. An event in the real world gives birth to low-rank spirits or provides essence of a particular tenor that allows one court to thrive over another. Those spirits are not direct reflections of anyone's desires or wants - they can be shaped by them, but their default state is wild, uncontrolled, and other. The Temenos is literally man-made. It cannot exist without mankind and it cannot produce ideas outside of the scope of human experience. Ideas that live in the Temenos tend to conform exactly to one cultural expectation or another, as opposed to being independent in the same way the spirits are. On the other hand, that also makes the Temenos easier to work with - if someone existed in somebody's mind somewhere, you can go find it. Not so much with Shadow. I imagine if you could find a leak that lead from the Shadow to the Temenos that would be potentially disastrous for the collective unconscious.
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May 31, 2016 04:23
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There's a lot of conceptual overlap. The main difference IMO is that the Shadow is a living ecosystem whose inhabitants feed on human emotions and behaviors and ideas, but also feed on other stuff like plant and animal life and weather and natural disasters, and the stronger spirits have their own identities and natures that go beyond "reflection of a dog" and warp into something unique and alien. On the other hand, the Temenos is specifically a mirror of human thought and imagination. You can have things in the Temenos that don't specifically map to actual physical things in the real world, but exist in people's imaginations and culture and media. As I understand it, Astral beings don't have a ton of independent agency to grow and change on their own, they pretty much reflect what people think about them and act accordingly.
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May 31, 2016 04:23
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INH5 posted:I agree with Ferrinus. The Integrity stat seems to be there only because a World of Darkness game has to have a 1-10 "morality" stat. Outside of a few supernatural powers, the stat itself really doesn't do anything. In the mortal WoD games that I have run, I have made the following changes:
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May 31, 2016 04:23
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I additionally thought about the whole shadow/temenos thing because an owl is a symbol of wisdom in the Temenos, and it's also probably possessed of wisdom in the Shadow, but in the Anima Mundi an owl is just a deadly predator. Also I don't have either book yet but I've received reports, so I'm asking: Is it true that Mage 2e puts its opening fiction in the correct place (after the Table of Contents) but Dark Eras puts it in the wrong place (before it)? How does this keep happening? The ToC needs to be the third page! Title page, copyright information/credits on the next page, and then you have the ToC!
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May 31, 2016 04:28
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That's the thing. An owl spirit is not necessarily possessed of great wisdom; only one that has specifically been shaped by certain cultural thoughts about wisdom. An owl spirit shaped by the predation of a particularly large and successful parliament far from centers of civilization will be very, very different. You don't need to go as far as the Anima Mundi to find weird poo poo. EDIT: It's late and I feel like elaborating. Things in the Astral exist for their own sake; they exist because the concept they represent exists, and they function as an avatar through which a character can interact with those concepts. The Anima Mundi is kind of a special case where you move beyond human-digestible concepts, but it's still about the basic building blocks of ideas. Shadow doesn't work that way. Spirits may functionally represent concepts, but they do not, in point of fact, represent anything. A spirit that's just been born is just a little bit of spiritual power and a survival instinct; where it was born and what it first consumes will color it in little ways. Concepts like nature, or machine, or emotion, but that's it - it's just a thing with a color. As it consumes other spirits and moves up the food chain, its nature changes depending on its diet and environment. Spirits are complex - they're dynamic animals whose form and function aren't always predictable. They combine resonance and concept in various ways and vie for survival with other spirits. The net result is that spirits don't exist for their own sake; they exist because, like animals, they've found a niche and learned how to survive in it. A spirit that's lived in a city for hundreds of years won't suddenly morph into an owl because a cult of Athena pops up, even if it's closely associated with that cult. It might change and take on aspects of that goddess, or it might not. Spirits are very strange and one of the reasons mages travel through the Astral to deal with conceptual creatures is because they're far more useful for educational purposes than spirits are. Then again, if you want to find out the nasty supernatural secrets in a city, spirits are some of the best things to talk to. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 05:00 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 31, 2016 04:48
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Mendrian posted:That's the thing. An owl spirit is not necessarily possessed of great wisdom; only one that has specifically been shaped by certain cultural thoughts about wisdom. An owl spirit shaped by the predation of a particularly large and successful parliament far from centers of civilization will be very, very different. Spirits can be affected very heavily by human influences, to the point where making blanket assumptions about even specific sub-species of spirit tends to be a bad idea unless you've got an idea of the context they're hanging around in. For example, a spirit of murder that tags along with a doctor might be following him because it figures his quiet trade in medically assisted suicide is close enough, or because the doctor is, in fact, a serial killer, or because the doctor's an ER surgeon that sees so many victims of attempted murder that the murder spirit can make do by waiting for one to show up and trying to finish the job.
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May 31, 2016 04:53
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Spirits are emergent properties of real-world situations (which may or may not include people's thoughts), whereas temenos goetia are direct representations of what people think.
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May 31, 2016 04:56
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I picked up Dark Eras on a whim today and basically skipped to the part I wanted to read the most: Prometheans in the 1930s Dustbowl. Was not disappointed, I love the Hollows and the Dust Devils.
Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 21:49 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 31, 2016 18:26
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Dumb crossover idea: What happens if a Mage who's significantly invested in their Shadow name tries to sell off their old sympathetic name and associated mortal life to a Demon?
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Jun 1, 2016 01:24
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That's probably a kind of lichdom. You'd use a bunch of standing spells to forge and sustain a purely magical identity for yourself (Making Fate and Making Prime...? I could see it getting really involved and also demanding Mind and Time and such) such that when your human self is yanked out from under it, the goofily-named magic user remains. The problem is that if the magic ensuring your Awakened self has a distinct purpose and destiny is dispelled, so are you.
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Jun 1, 2016 01:34
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Ferrinus posted:That's probably a kind of lichdom. You'd use a bunch of standing spells to forge and sustain a purely magical identity for yourself (Making Fate and Making Prime...? I could see it getting really involved and also demanding Mind and Time and such) such that when your human self is yanked out from under it, the goofily-named magic user remains. The problem is that if the magic ensuring your Awakened self has a distinct purpose and destiny is dispelled, so are you. I'm not sure exactly how much of that you need, given the wording of the Shadow Name merit. Presumably you'd start reflexively trying to 'fill in' the missing self with your Shadow Name identity, so John Doe's Grazbar identity starts becoming their natural personality. e: Although it would definitely inflict one of those Soul Shocked or similar conditions where you temporarily lose access to Virtue/Vice because if your soul was a muffin, you've done the equivalent of ripping off the top and keeping it while giving the bottom to an otherworldly entity. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 01:39
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Here's a relevant question: how much of your life can you actually trade away to a demon before you've effectively made a soul pact? Because afaik there's nothing mechanical stopping any old mortal for bartering away their relationship to everyone they've ever known, every experience they've ever had, every significant object they've ever owned etc. etc. If a mortal can trade away, say, their entire childhood, I don't see any barriers to a Mage doing effectively the same with their life up until their Awakening.
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Jun 1, 2016 01:48
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