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Anarchs work better, if you're hybridizing, as a powerful subsect of Carthian rather than replacing the Carthians as a whole or vice versa. Totalitarian Carthian experiments can sit side by side with total anarchist Carthian communes, but not so much in the Anarch Movement.
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Aug 3, 2016 11:22
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The Invictus is also a lot more competent than the Camarilla.
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Aug 3, 2016 11:58
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MonsieurChoc posted:The Invictus is also a lot more competent than the Camarilla. To be fair, it's hard to imagine how the Camarilla can be competent when the only person sitting on the Inner Council that's not a double agent or pretender to the throne is Cock Robin.
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Aug 3, 2016 13:15
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citybeatnik posted:To be fair, it's hard to imagine how the Camarilla can be competent when the only person sitting on the Inner Council that's not a double agent or pretender to the throne is Cock Robin. I'll have you know Cock Robin (and Casino Reeds) were the key elements of my Nosferatu animalism deck. He owns. 
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Aug 3, 2016 14:45
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The Invictus is also much more honest: it is nakedly about power, and the feudalism takes backseat to power. The Invictus are just as happy with a gang lord Prince who uses street titles instead of feudal ones.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:25
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Mors Rattus posted:The Invictus is also much more honest: it is nakedly about power, and the feudalism takes backseat to power. The Invictus are just as happy with a gang lord Prince who uses street titles instead of feudal ones. Yeah I think wholesale saying that Invictus=Camarilla is selling the covenant a little short though it's a useful shorthand. The Invictus support the Masquerade, trade in human currency (since, remember, Mortals Are Power), and believe that power (and age) has to be respected. That's pretty much all they stand for. Any rigid hierarchy works for them. The neofeudal stuff in the Invictus book owns but it's really just one way to look at it. The Invictus find and exploit niches for power. That's the whole reason they have titles and guilds and poo poo. One of the reasons that the covenants don't always map nicely to the sects is that the covenants vary enough internally to have compatible but competing philosophies about the core tenants. If I had to convert the whole thing from one system to the other it certainly makes the most sense but it loses something in the translation. In the same way that trying to translate the Camarilla to the Invictus loses poo poo on the other end too; stuff about the upper tiers of the hierarchy, the 'for the greater good' attitude toward mortals, and so on.
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Aug 3, 2016 21:21
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It's Aliiiiive
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Aug 3, 2016 22:33
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Promethean trip report: help, i am drowning in proper nouns, i can see neither the bottom nor the top
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Aug 4, 2016 02:16
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Mors Rattus posted:Promethean trip report: help, i am drowning in proper nouns, i can see neither the bottom nor the top
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Aug 4, 2016 02:19
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:If you excise the Alchemists do you at least get it back to neck level or shallower? No. Alchemists are honestly fairly cromulent. Overall: the fluff in this book is on par for Promethean. It ranges from meh to excellent, weighting towards the latter for the most part. The Wasteland and Disquiet mechanics are amazing and I love them. The rest of the mechanics are a hot mess. E: And when I say the rest I mean essentially all of them. They are unnecessarily complicated for no good reason (particularly the rules pertaining to your powers, your Pilgirmage and Athanors), the proper nouns are underfoot wherever you turn and they make the mechanics insane to deal with even beyond the unneeded complexity.
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Aug 4, 2016 02:24
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In fact, I will illustrate. Okay, so. Your powers are determined by what Refinement you are on. Prometheans never spend XP on powers and do not buy new powers. Each Refinement grants access to two Transmutations. For each Transmutation, you begin with a single Alembic. This Alembic provides you a set of one persistent, free power, and three Distillations. You spend 1, 2 or 3 Pyros to get access to that level of Distillation (and all those beneath it) for one scene, and once you have spent the Pyros you can use those Distillations freely. Every Transmutation has four Alembics. You get access to new Alembics by mastering the three Roles of your Refinement, so you can eventually have all four. Every Refinement has three Roles which alter your Pilgrimage (which is your 'Integrity' stat, breaking points are based on loving up your Pilgrimage or doing something against the Role you are currently on), changing the Breaking Points and what kind of things count as Milestones for you to master the Role. You may spend Vitriol to Calcify an Alembic. Once you do this, you have that Alembic forever, no matter what Refinement you swap to in the future. (And you are supposed to hop around Refinements, there's no point in staying once you master all three of one's Roles.) Alternatively, you can spend less Vitriol to create a Refinement Furnace Athanor, a physical object that you carry around that grants you access to the Transmutations of a Refinement you have fully mastered, getting a refund of any Vitriol spent Calcifying that Refinement's Alembics. Note: you can only create an Athanor when you fully complete all Roles of a Refinement. This is all explained over the course of three different chapters and is never collected in a single place.
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Aug 4, 2016 02:42
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Does it at least seem more manageable to actually play in a group or does it have the same issues that made 1E the best game you can't play? Maybe some sort of monster can be made or of the 2 editions so that we can actually finally play Promethean.
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Aug 4, 2016 02:48
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Mors Rattus posted:In fact, I will illustrate. However related to the general word salading, there's also this phrase in the middle of one write-up: quote:Charging a Benefice Distillation without flaring disfigurements imposes the Greedy Brand Condition
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Aug 4, 2016 02:49
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Nope! Roles are explained in the Pilgrimage stuff on page 179-182, and what lets you create Athanors and what they can do is 188-189. Roles are explained in more detail throughout the first chapter and, at that time, come off instead as character example archetypes like every other 2e game has. The Vitriol costs, meanwhile, are on page 105.
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Aug 4, 2016 02:52
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Jesus Christ. At least the stat-boost (now stat-using-roll-improvement) Bestowments are cool now instead of being largely theoretical and meant only for games where you get infinite XP.
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Aug 4, 2016 02:53
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jim truds posted:Does it at least seem more manageable to actually play in a group or does it have the same issues that made 1E the best game you can't play? Maybe some sort of monster can be made or of the 2 editions so that we can actually finally play Promethean. The difficulty of play now comes from the subject matter and just, you know, navigating the Gordian knot of all the rules that aren't Wasteland or Disquiet. Wasteland and Disquiet are now both eminently playable.
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Aug 4, 2016 03:12
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Jeez. What the hell happened? When I looked at Demon or Vampire 2e I thought it was great how simple and playable they made things compared to past WoD stuff. Now they made this; while I can see some things in there (that description above; I do not have the book) I like, it's such a convoluted mess overall. And they didn't put the Zeky in, unless they changed their plans. That's just unforgivable. Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Aug 4, 2016 |
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Aug 4, 2016 12:21
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Mors Rattus posted:No. Alchemists are honestly fairly cromulent. Well, the XP rules are already completely borked for 2E and they haven't shown any hint that they'll change them so that's already a rule that needs to be reworked.
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Aug 4, 2016 12:33
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Roland Jones posted:Jeez. What the hell happened? When I looked at Demon or Vampire 2e I thought it was great how simple and playable they made things compared to past WoD stuff. Now they made this; while I can see some things in there (that description above; I do not have the book) I like it's such a convoluted mess overall. Vampire, Werewolf and Mage 2e fixed a whole lot of stuff that was (varying degrees of) broken. They also "fixed" some stuff that wasn't broken at all, like Vampire and Werewolf's pointless monster Anchors, but for the most part, they were guided changes. Promethean 2e has bunches of changes and details that feel added for the sake of changes and details, and suffers for it. What game purpose is served by funneling Prometheans through artificial Roles? They're not demons playing parts, they're fumbling through a naive experience of life. Azothic memory* is a good addition to 2e; the fluff about the Principle has solid, creative ideas to work with; the Disquiet and Wasteland rules are significantly more playable. That material feels guided. But Roles cast a big, obtrusive shadow on the game. *The Divine Fire has a sort of interconnected emergent awareness, and that awareness manifests dimly in Prometheans. It's basically a convenient explanation for the baseline knowledge Prometheans would logically need to get from stumbling, awkward tabula rasa to naive and ignorant but conversant characters: simple language skills, the instinctive basics of what being a Promethean means. You can see an idea like this here and there in first edition material, but it's nice to have spotlighted, and is used to add some innovative theories as to what the Principle is or where it comes from, without, of course, confirming any clearly.
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Aug 4, 2016 13:17
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The Anchor System is something I actually enjoy for 2e and sets the monstrously nonhuman splats apart from the more clear-minded sorts. Vampires and Werewolves are not clear-minded individuals. Werewolves are expressly so unhinged that they go out of their way to balance their own mental state of being repeatedly. Anyone paying attention to one long enough would be able to pick up the weird Bans and crazy poo poo they do to push Harmony towards the center. Mind you, this is tied to how their Harmony actually works, and their innate sense of needing to get to that center or falling so far out of whack that the destruction of what they deeply care about on the other end of the spectrum might be the only thing to bring them back. The Anchors also act as archetypes for characters to act out. A human being in the ChroD doesn't act out a part in their own mind(usually) because they know who they are and are doing what comes naturally to them. Vampires and Werewolves are acting out roles whether its for the Dance Macabre or while they're on the Hunt. Two splats that are also capable of going from pleasant to MURDERFUCKKILL pretty fast so they have to act out a part to seem normal. The Unchained and Ephemeral Entities are the purest beings in the setting. They use Vices and Virtues because each and every one of them knows what they are and what they want to a degree. They are purely defined by their Anchors in some repect. I would say Mage is similar to mortals in the sense that they're just people that have tapped into the Supernal Truth so still know who they are but it comes packaged with responsibility. But I hate Mage so it can go sit and spin on it. But that's my two cents on the matter.
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Aug 4, 2016 15:26
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Oh also for "annoying jumparound layout stuff" I'm going to submit "Transmutations for Refinements are only listed in the long-form (4p spread) Refinement write-ups, not in character creation or the Transmutations section or in a handy table in the back." That having been said, the power structure's at least kinda interesting, what with getting 3-4 thematic things to start and getting to pick which ones you hang onto when you switch Refinements. Which, on the other hand, is my biggest problem with them: Having power access go away when you aren't in the Refinement for them, unless you calcify them with Vitriol (TERMS TERMS TERMS). Leaves a sour taste with me for some reason.
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Aug 4, 2016 15:38
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I am really liking promethean and I am excited for my group to be playing it when we are done with our Vampire chronicle.
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Aug 4, 2016 15:39
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jim truds posted:Does it at least seem more manageable to actually play in a group or does it have the same issues that made 1E the best game you can't play? Maybe some sort of monster can be made or of the 2 editions so that we can actually finally play Promethean. Funnily enough, I had no familiarity with Promethean before I read up on Demon so I thought the Qyashhaliim were actually some sort of weird aberrant God Machine creation that no one really knew anything about. Tactical ignorance of other game lines is alive and well in 2E book writing.
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Aug 4, 2016 15:57
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Sorry to interrupt the Promethean talk but just wanted to say thanks for the read report about the Gary Indiana book. Personally I find that sort of small-scale stuff really fun and a lot more interesting than the grand fate of the world plots.
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Aug 4, 2016 19:29
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UrbicaMortis posted:Sorry to interrupt the Promethean talk but just wanted to say thanks for the read report about the Gary Indiana book. Personally I find that sort of small-scale stuff really fun and a lot more interesting than the grand fate of the world plots. Yeah, the book states at the start that this is all about local poo poo going on. I'm not sure whether or not it'd be worth full price but as part of the bundle it worked well enough.
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Aug 4, 2016 20:09
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Mors Rattus posted:Refinement Prometheans Transmutations Alembic Distillations Pyros Roles Pilgrimage Breaking Points Milestones Vitriol Calcify Refinement Furnace Athanor  this is almost HârnMaster levels of poo poo to remember. And then there's this:Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Charging a Benefice Distillation without flaring disfigurements imposes the Greedy Brand Condition
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Aug 4, 2016 23:44
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Side note, confirming no Zeky officially, which I don't especially mind. Extempore are in, and they are 'gently caress it, create your own Lineage' with pretty rough guidelines, including one example that has an insanely broken power: it removes one success from all rolls against the Promethean, and if that makes a roll fail, they can spend Pyros (I think? Might be WP) to turn the roll into a dramatic failure.
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Aug 5, 2016 00:19
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I hate the Phosphorum for so many reasons and it makes me sad because I like the rest of the Refinements and I like the Lineages more than before (although Tammuz's refocusing in 2e is kinda weird). They're literally glowing edgelords. That's the Phosphorum. Why are they.
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Aug 5, 2016 00:32
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:I hate the Phosphorum for so many reasons and it makes me sad because I like the rest of the Refinements and I like the Lineages more than before (although Tammuz's refocusing in 2e is kinda weird). I kept having flashbacks to Entropomancers from Unknown Armies while reading them, and not in a way that made Phosphorum look good. I'm still working through the book. So far, I think I actually like the power structure, though I'm still digesting it, and it's certainly overcomplicated in presentation. The fluff so far is pretty great aside from Phosphorum, and someone needed to bludgeon some chaff out of the Lexicon.
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Aug 5, 2016 00:49
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Fun fact: The Frankenstein entry lacks a stereotype quote on the Extempore.
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Aug 5, 2016 01:19
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Mors Rattus posted:Fun fact: The Frankenstein entry lacks a stereotype quote on the Extempore. It's on the following page. The Galatea splash. On top of the super dark background.
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Aug 5, 2016 01:27
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Mors Rattus posted:Side note, confirming no Zeky officially, which I don't especially mind. Extempore are in, and they are 'gently caress it, create your own Lineage' with pretty rough guidelines, including one example that has an insanely broken power: it removes one success from all rolls against the Promethean, and if that makes a roll fail, they can spend Pyros (I think? Might be WP) to turn the roll into a dramatic failure. There's another side effect. I'm not sure if it's meant to balance it out or what. Prometheans can resurrect themselves. If they die, once, they can journey to a river of death and return. But only as long as a majority of their heart survives. The sample Extempore doesn't have a heart, so loses this.
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Aug 5, 2016 02:32
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Apparently Geist 2nd was announced at Gencon, hopefully to be less of a mess. (Even if it's a mess I have a dumb soft spot for.)
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Aug 5, 2016 17:15
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Also, Deviant's official title is Deviant: the Renegades.
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Aug 5, 2016 17:22
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unseenlibrarian posted:Apparently Geist 2nd was announced at Gencon, hopefully to be less of a mess. (Even if it's a mess I have a dumb soft spot for.) MAybe they'll Jojo/Persona it up. Luminous Obscurity posted:Also, Deviant's official title is Deviant: the Renegades. 
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Aug 5, 2016 17:46
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I hope this mean that Deviant's official haven/sanctum/hollow equivalent is "Van", where you spend points to trick out your ride and travel from town to town in it.
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Aug 5, 2016 17:50
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unseenlibrarian posted:Apparently Geist 2nd was announced at Gencon, hopefully to be less of a mess. (Even if it's a mess I have a dumb soft spot for.) YESSSSS!!! This was the one I was waiting for, so much potential. Did they say who was in charge of it.
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Aug 5, 2016 18:07
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They're apparently looking into making new KOTE books too.
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Aug 5, 2016 18:14
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Kurieg posted:They're apparently looking into making new KOTE books too. I suppose that every good must be balanced be equivalent bad.
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Aug 5, 2016 18:15
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Rich acknowledged that it's problematic and they've consciously worked to excise KOTE references from the new stuff they've been publishing. If it were to come out it would probably be extensively reworked.
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Aug 5, 2016 18:18
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