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citybeatnik posted:Can we all just take a moment to appreciate the fact that there's a bunch of blue collar workers out there hunting supernatural critters armed with nothing more than grit, NIMBY, and repurposed tools from their construction jobs? The Union and Network Zero are my favorite Compacts, by far.
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Aug 11, 2016 17:09
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This is a good time to mention that flamethrower weed control is coming back into vogue in some places in America. In the nWoD, maybe that's the Union making it happen, maybe not, but either way: they now have flamethrowers that work at very high BTUs. Vampires should be very afraid.
Loomer fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Aug 11, 2016 |
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Aug 11, 2016 17:25
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citybeatnik posted:Can we all just take a moment to appreciate the fact that there's a bunch of blue collar workers out there hunting supernatural critters armed with nothing more than grit, NIMBY, and repurposed tools from their construction jobs? This is basically what most people wanted Hunter: the Reckoning to be, normal people taking the fight to all the supernatural bullshit in the oWoD, but the powers that be decided that what everyone really wanted was Frailty: the Game.
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Aug 11, 2016 18:39
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There were already proto-vigil books and Frailty is a great flick.
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Aug 11, 2016 19:14
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Hey now, if HtR was Frailty: the Game you're still getting something a lot closer to "normal folks hunting weird poo poo" than "hucking agg pennies through people's skulls."
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Aug 11, 2016 20:24
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Reckoning would make an extremely tight Telltale game.
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Aug 11, 2016 21:22
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Pope Guilty posted:Reckoning would make an extremely tight Telltale game. Personally I would love to see them do like a game series for each of the WoD Games, Telltale has shown to be able to do them; though I would personally get Promethean day 1.
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Aug 11, 2016 21:27
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Loomer posted:This is a good time to mention that flamethrower weed control is coming back into vogue in some places in America. In the nWoD, maybe that's the Union making it happen, maybe not, but either way: they now have flamethrowers that work at very high BTUs. Vampires should be very afraid. In case this sounds insane to non-Americans (or even Americans outside the southeast-ish parts), the reason for this is stuff like kudzu. Kudzu is an all-consuming leviathan of an invasive species, to the point where handing people flamethrowers and telling them to go hog wild is actually one of the more reasonable reactions to how bad it's gotten. It's also gotten popular as an alternative to trying to carpet-bomb stuff with herbicides, because spraying weeds with 400,000 BTU death rays involves considerably less collateral damage than your average herbicidal operation. Seriously.
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Aug 11, 2016 21:33
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citybeatnik posted:Can we all just take a moment to appreciate the fact that there's a bunch of blue collar workers out there hunting supernatural critters armed with nothing more than grit, NIMBY, and repurposed tools from their construction jobs? That's one of the charming things I liked about nWoD Hunter is that at the low end entry level stuff, you're only marginally above than a regular WoD mortal and you have to hunt these weird super powered things with nothing more than your gut instinct and a shotgun. You're not destined, you're not ordained from on high or special and you got to make it work or else vampires are going to kill and eat little Timmy. My games never got big into the compact/conspiracy level of the game, if we added endowments we chose to wing it and bring in individual powers in kind of an X-Com enemy research style rather than having luciferge style satan powers by virtue of being a member of the luciferge or what have you. The game always felt more scrappy and personal when the characters didn't have the backing of multinational organizations anyway.
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Aug 11, 2016 21:34
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I didn't mind the conspiracies seeing as they were typically massively dysfunctional, callous, sinister, or clearly guided by extremely powerful malevolent supernaturals, or some combination of those options. You even have an entire conspiracy dedicated to redshirts (Null Mysteriis). You could get your X-Files or Aliens on without feeling like you actually had advantages.
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Aug 11, 2016 21:41
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Basic Chunnel posted:I didn't mind the conspiracies seeing as they were typically massively dysfunctional, callous, sinister, or clearly guided by extremely powerful malevolent supernaturals, or some combination of those options. You even have an entire conspiracy dedicated to redshirts (Null Mysteriis). You could get your X-Files or Aliens on without feeling like you actually had advantages. Except VASCU. VASCU is the best conspiracy, because it feels a lot lower tier. They're FBI agents who are arresting the vampire for murder. They don't care that he's a vampire, but battery and murder are still illegal, rear end in a top hat.
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Aug 11, 2016 22:35
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Kaza42 posted:Except VASCU. VASCU is the best conspiracy, because it feels a lot lower tier. They're FBI agents who are arresting the vampire for murder. They don't care that he's a vampire, but battery and murder are still illegal, rear end in a top hat. VASCU is amazing and I love them so much. I would play them forever. VASCU's only real secret they have from their agents, too, is not that they awaken psychic powers - they create them and they just need suitable subjects. Beyond that...well, what you see is what you get.
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Aug 11, 2016 22:41
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I mean their boss probably isn't entirely or slightly human, but that only makes him a more effective administrator. Magic police best police.
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Aug 11, 2016 23:30
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Daeren posted:In case this sounds insane to non-Americans (or even Americans outside the southeast-ish parts), the reason for this is stuff like kudzu. Kudzu is an all-consuming leviathan of an invasive species, to the point where handing people flamethrowers and telling them to go hog wild is actually one of the more reasonable reactions to how bad it's gotten. It's also gotten popular as an alternative to trying to carpet-bomb stuff with herbicides, because spraying weeds with 400,000 BTU death rays involves considerably less collateral damage than your average herbicidal operation. Seriously. And here's a game hook idea for everyone: Imagine if something managed to make it intelligent.
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Aug 11, 2016 23:42
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Fairly sure there were rules for sentient pestilence / cryptoflora in Demon
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Aug 11, 2016 23:47
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Is it VASCU who have their own internal paperwork code for "PROJECT VALKYRIE hosed everything up again"?
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Aug 11, 2016 23:59
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Pope Guilty posted:Is it VASCU who have their own internal paperwork code for "PROJECT VALKYRIE hosed everything up again"? Yep. VASCU also tends to think of VALYKRIE agents as idiot cowboys who have no idea how to make a case.
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Aug 12, 2016 00:44
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Mors Rattus posted:Yep. VASCU also tends to think of VALYKRIE agents as idiot cowboys who have no idea how to make a case. And they are absolutely correct in this thought. VASCU are the real heroes of the World of Darkness
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Aug 12, 2016 02:00
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Deviant is going to let me make the TMNT campaign I've always wanted. Shredder as a mid-boss and Krang in the Technodrome at the end. gently caress yes.
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Aug 12, 2016 02:13
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Is there any suggestions for running CofD as a play by post here?
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Aug 12, 2016 02:29
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Be prepared for it to die slowly - but that's PbP in general, with a modest few exceptions (there was some homebrew post-apoc game that ran for 7 years or something crazy like that, it just recently ended). Having run both PbP and teleconference games I would highly, highly recommend the latter. There are a hundred different spots in any campaign that can be worked through live but would cause a fatal slowdown for PbP. And it's a shame, since PbP is more conducive to WoD's predilection for atmospheric prose. But people usually want to play games more than they want to chip into collaborative novels.
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Aug 12, 2016 03:18
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Play on Roll20 once a week, use PBP for the rest.
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Aug 12, 2016 03:42
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So Deviant sounds like it might be good, and a necessary palate cleanser after a much worse 'new' line. But when I was reading the description, I kept thinking about one phrase that sums up what I know my players are going to do with it: "Snikt, bub."
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Aug 12, 2016 14:49
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Kavak posted:Play on Roll20 once a week, use PBP for the rest. This is what we do. It can be a bit tricky in terms of figuring out where is best to stop with the weekly game to make it lead in smoothly to the PbP, but our group finds it works pretty well. We find it particularly handy for mitigating how slow combat can sometimes get playing online. Rounds are pretty easily to adapt to PbP (though you may need to tweak initiative), and we typically set it up with something like "you have X days from this post to post your actions and initial dierolls for those actions for the round". Helps either get a couple rounds into the fight before the weekly game, or lets us old grogs not stay up past midnight on a dragging combat, and just resolve it over the week.
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Aug 12, 2016 16:36
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Senior Scarybagels posted:Is there any suggestions for running CofD as a play by post here? Be prepared for a slower pace and keep in contact with your players. Sit in an IRC and bullshit with them. Contrary to the recent opinions (relatively speaking), PBP can work fine if everyone is cognizant of and cool with the more methodical pace. PBP games can die, but it's not automatic despite what some people may say. It's just a matter of having people not be flakes-- plenty of PBPs I played in back in the day completed, all you need are players with a decent attention span. Having people hang out in an IRC channel and shoot the poo poo/discuss things helps, rather than trying to have an OOC thread like I've seen some people try recently. This is the part where I go "drat kids!" and talk about all the cool PBPs I played in back in like.. 2004? 2005? Back when Traditional Games was actually Traditional Games, and not a subforum of this place. And we walked uphill, two ways, through a bunch of lovely Radium code to post! Edit: Hah, Constellation's Victoria by Night Ratkin game was 2004. loving Christ, I'm old. Cabbit fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Aug 12, 2016 |
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Aug 12, 2016 20:54
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Cabbit posted:Be prepared for a slower pace and keep in contact with your players. Sit in an IRC and bullshit with them. Contrary to the recent opinions (relatively speaking), PBP can work fine if everyone is cognizant of and cool with the more methodical pace. Good to see dissent because I don't kjnow if I would have time to run a game over skype; I will try pure PBP and if it doesn't work we will go from there. (I am running Promethean 2e if anyone is interested)
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Aug 12, 2016 21:07
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I'd agree with Cabbit though I've found the GM is just as able to flake as anyone. (This is down to me, though - I get flakier the longer I'm unemployed because I don't operate well without a schedule. My point is, be sure you are diligent with yourself, as well.)
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Aug 12, 2016 21:10
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Senior Scarybagels posted:Is there any suggestions for running CofD as a play by post here? What ever you post, I will app. I work retail which means late hours and weekends do live play keeps failing for me.
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Aug 12, 2016 23:00
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As far I've seen from successful games is giving people deadlines when they're not responsive in days and replacing people as necessary. Most games I see die as soon as a single person holds things up and the GM doesn't say a thing and just lets the game die. Or the GM holds things up, same result. Basically everybody has to be willing to post even for the periods they don't feel like it and that's the key. Posting is sometimes going to be an obligation and not a joy, but but without it the game won't work. It just doesn't.
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Aug 12, 2016 23:19
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Paradox wants to know how you feel about replayability in Bloodlines and other similar games.
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Aug 13, 2016 02:09
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Pope Guilty posted:Paradox wants to know how you feel about replayability in Bloodlines and other similar games. Neat, kind of an interesting thing to focus on. I focused my comment sections on how Malkavian and Nosferatu runs provided such a different experience that it was worth going through again. Plenty of games have branching plots, but I'm hard-pressed to think of any that make those sorts of changes based on the character. Low intelligence in Fallout, I guess?
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Aug 13, 2016 03:26
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Androc posted:Neat, kind of an interesting thing to focus on. Arcanum does this too, Temple of Elemental Evil has some different aspects according to the alignment of your parry (mostly the origin sequence before the game proper, from memory)
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Aug 13, 2016 04:04
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I made a similar post years ago, but my group finally asked me to run this game because everybody in my gaming group (and everyone else on Earth) loved Stranger Things and it's in the same wheel-house with some of the same inspirations. Basically, I'll be running NWoD for the first time next week. I already have the basic structure and the NPCs and GM stuff for the first act lined up, but I'm worried about crunch in two ways. We're using the 1.0 version of the WoD core rules and the players are starting as mortals (so just basic character creation right now, we're not even using splats), but they'll be acquiring a supernatural template after a plot event. My two broad questions are: 1) Are there any pitfalls I should be wary of and ready to nip in the bud with the WoD system in general? I've already decided I'm going to be loving with the experience system, because the way the core rules make it work ridiculously favors minmaxing and I told my players to focus on making their characters accurate rather than trying to game the system and I'd ensure the system didn't gently caress them when they're spending experience. Is there anything else to be aware of as I do final prep and look over their sheets? Problematic/overpowered merits or useless ones to steer my players away from? Systems in the book to be wary of or discard in advance? Other house rules the thread/forum recommends? Are there any splatbooks which really add to and improve the game and any I should avoid using? 2) This is a more distant problem, because they won't be acquiring their supernatural templates until the end of the first-act of a three-act structure, but I'm basically constructing my own template that works sort of like Personas or Stands from Jojo's. The characters begin to take on the traits and abilities of mythical heroes, gods, and monsters as a symbol of the mythical/epic/literary versions of themselves to combat a horrible nihilistic darkness. Does anyone have recommendations for constructing a system like that? Geist seems to form the best baseline with a concept like "Synergy", but obviously the fluff associated with powers in Geist has a death/undeath/spiritual focus to it and I'm not sure of what mechanical problems that game has or how easily I could modify and add new powers. I also took a look at Scion, which has a similar fluff concept, but the mechanics seem pretty eh and the powers at low levels of play (which they'll be at for most of the game) seem rather mundane and uninteresting. Basically does anybody have open-ended recommendations about how to approach the design of this, noting that its implementation into my game will probably be months away so I have time to workshop and homebrew? Final note: is it worth switching to the 2.0 edition before we start the game? Baku fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Aug 13, 2016 |
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Aug 13, 2016 04:24
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2.0 is definitely worth looking at, imo. It has rules for chases, social combat, investigation, and I like the aspiration system for getting players to define and act on their goals. Conditions/tilts can be fiddly to track, but they also give mechanical weight to normally narrative-based status effects (like owing someone a favor). In general, it has a wider support for various activities players often partake in during a CoD game and also encourages players to make more interesting decisions with their characters' actions.
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Aug 13, 2016 05:35
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The simplest way to fix the wonky experience system is to play 2.0.
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Aug 13, 2016 07:24
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I always wonder why the bit about the Croatan more or less causing the destruction of the Mound Builder civilization has no presence in any of the fan compiled timelines except mine. It's referred to in several books in fairly unambiguous terms. Maybe the lack of an exact date given in the material is to blame, but for that we have this magic machine called 'google' or 'an encyclopedia' to provide the rough dates of the decline and collapse of their civilization.
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Aug 13, 2016 09:49
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Mors Rattus posted:Yep. VASCU also tends to think of VALYKRIE agents as idiot cowboys who have no idea how to make a case. To be fair, VALKYRIE agents tend to think of themselves as idiot cowboys. They're just idiot cowboys with big honking guns. Loomer posted:I always wonder why the bit about the Croatan more or less causing the destruction of the Mound Builder civilization has no presence in any of the fan compiled timelines except mine. It's referred to in several books in fairly unambiguous terms. Maybe the lack of an exact date given in the material is to blame, but for that we have this magic machine called 'google' or 'an encyclopedia' to provide the rough dates of the decline and collapse of their civilization. Because I'm too god drat lazy to actually do the reading myself - how exactly, if at all, did WW try to square the circle with regards to "magical native american noble savage living free" and "holy gently caress look at the massive earthworks and irrigation systems that everyone from the Inca empire on up had"? I know that the Cult of Ecstasy book and a few others tap-danced around how Mayan blood sacrifices were totally okay but Aztec style stuff was 1) barrabi, 2) of the Wyrm, 3) Earthbound worship, or 4) "holy gently caress we're just a bunch of werebats how the gently caress do we keep the human population within manageable levels oh wait I have a brilliant idea... wait why are all of these Spanish looking werewolves frenzying at us?"
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Aug 13, 2016 10:01
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Well, this was White Wolf, so you can probably guess. It was THE WYRM. Though in fairness, this is late-period cWoD White Wolf so it's a bit more reasonable and just blames 'the wyrm' because the wyrm always turns up wherever lots of people are. There's the usual problems with that approach (e.g. that it's basically a primitivist romantic view of the world that ignores the downsides of low population and broad spread while emphasizing the good aspects), but it's at least consistent in it. Every time the locals in North America built up to a level of sophistication, the Wyrm would sidle on in to their sorcerers and medicine men and corrupt them, leading the Three Brothers to perform massive culls, shatter human civilizations, and force them back to a primitivist lifestyle that can be accurately described as post-apocalyptic - small farming and hunting in the ruins of their once great civilizations. Of course, it doesn't actually square with the idea of the 'noble savage' as it's a brutally and rigorously enforced mini-impergium that crops up every few centuries rather than being the 'natural state' of mankind. If anything, it paints a fairly strong picture of the Pure Tribes being every bit as vicious, bloodthirsty, and intolerant as the European ones even before Contact. As this is late-period cWoD content, that's quite probably deliberate.
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Aug 13, 2016 10:18
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If it's actually described as such then that actually sits a little better with me. Yeah, it's racist/ignorant as gently caress (Tenochtitlan had aqueducts and civil engineering that left the god drat Europeans stunned even as they laid waste to the people) but at least it's -consistently- so. And I guess South America was handled more by the Fera than the Garou. It does make me feel even more conflicted about the Wendigo though.
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Aug 13, 2016 10:27
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^^The Weaver did it.FrozenGoldfishGod posted:So Deviant sounds like it might be good, and a necessary palate cleanser after a much worse 'new' line. That's great though. A strong character concept, a bunch of easy hooks, and you can throw an Angel at them in the form of a Sentinel. I mean Lethal/Aggravated claws are totally the kind of thing that a terrorist cell would implant in someone. Shame the heroic Xavier died rescuing them from Hydra's brainwashing, but at least they were able to join Magneto's resistance.
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Aug 13, 2016 10:44
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