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Xelkelvos posted:I need to look into that because I love me some Holistic Detective work. It's very much not like previous adaptations - quite a bit darker in tone and more comic book-like, a bit like Utopia. Still it's pretty great so far. I should really rewatch the BBC Steven Mangan version some time - that was a perfect adaptation of the book characters IMO.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:29
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Jhet posted:The first series is still airing on the BBC and BBCAmerica. I'm expecting it'll be up on Netflix not too long after that unless there's some deal with the BBC for streaming for however long. It just appeared din the last few days on Canadian Netflix
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Dec 12, 2016 16:39
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It's exclusive to BBC America in the US, everyone else get it on netflix.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:47
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In other news, I really love Secrets of the Covenants' Ordo Dracul section. The framing device is an interview conducted by one of my favorite recurring NPCs, Frances Black, with an Ordo biologist named Dr. Mire who explains the convergent vampire evolution theory that I have personally subscribed to since the old 1e Clanbooks. There's just one catch: Frances Black is a Hollow Mekhet and as a result she cannot appear on recorded media of any form, or in mirrors. No reflection, no appearance in photographs, no phone usage because her voice cannot be heard. So it's an interview in which the ready can't be sure what Frances is actually saying except by the responses of her interview subject. (Who is an insane, vicious creature that cares nothing for human life, but he's quite urbane about it.) The Lancea section also includes an Ordo research document by a guy who was convinced that the ability to use Theban Sorcery was tied to activity (or lack thereof) in the parietal lobe and who vivisected (dissected?) a Lancea vampire in order to test it. The paper is covered in notes by his apparent Ordo superior to the tune of 'your methodology is awful, your conclusions are spurious and you are an idiot. SEE ME AFTER CLASS.'
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Dec 12, 2016 17:10
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Flavivirus posted:It's very much not like previous adaptations - quite a bit darker in tone and more comic book-like, a bit like Utopia. Still it's pretty great so far. I should really rewatch the BBC Steven Mangan version some time - that was a perfect adaptation of the book characters IMO. See, I was expecting something like the 2008(?) adaptation which was almost dead on the book characters. Something darker doesn't really feel like it's in the spirit of Dirk Gently much less anything based on stuff from Douglas Adams.
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Dec 12, 2016 21:36
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Xelkelvos posted:See, I was expecting something like the 2008(?) adaptation which was almost dead on the book characters. Something darker doesn't really feel like it's in the spirit of Dirk Gently much less anything based on stuff from Douglas Adams. Well remember; Douglas Adams did go through a really bad part of his life and his last book for Hitchhiker's Guide for the Galaxy ended with him wiping out existence
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Dec 12, 2016 21:47
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Xelkelvos posted:See, I was expecting something like the 2008(?) adaptation which was almost dead on the book characters. Something darker doesn't really feel like it's in the spirit of Dirk Gently much less anything based on stuff from Douglas Adams. That's certainly true - it clicked for me a lot better once I started thinking of it a parallel story to Utopia. There's even some very interesting commonalities between some of the characters. Pretty much the only thing it has in common with Dirk Gently the book is the idea of solving crimes by doing whatever seems good at the time and it somehow working out.
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Dec 12, 2016 21:50
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Mors Rattus posted:The Lancea section also includes an Ordo research document by a guy who was convinced that the ability to use Theban Sorcery was tied to activity (or lack thereof) in the parietal lobe and who vivisected (dissected?) a Lancea vampire in order to test it. The paper is covered in notes by his apparent Ordo superior to the tune of 'your methodology is awful, your conclusions are spurious and you are an idiot. SEE ME AFTER CLASS.' The Circle member who responds to a ranting diatribe about how he's simultaneously a worthless leader that's being puppeteered by women and somehow also a domineering rear end in a top hat is pretty great too. It's definitely worth picking up. The in character perspective stuff is definitely where the CofD shines the most. The whole book is done in character except for a very short appendix at the end that lists out new merits. It's freaking long too. Edit: I just got to the part with the Invictus agent bitching that one of his informants writes his reports like he was a detective in a bad noir novel. It's so passive aggressive. 
Archonex fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Dec 13, 2016 |
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Dec 13, 2016 23:07
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Mors Rattus posted:In other news, I really love Secrets of the Covenants' Ordo Dracul section. The framing device is an interview conducted by one of my favorite recurring NPCs, Frances Black, with an Ordo biologist named Dr. Mire who explains the convergent vampire evolution theory that I have personally subscribed to since the old 1e Clanbooks. You just sold me a copy.
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Dec 14, 2016 02:40
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Daeren posted:Demon: the Descent is a game of techgnostic espionage where you can play as the fallen infiltrators of a world-spanning godlike machine in a spy thriller in the vein of John le Carre - or you can do what my gang of idiots and I are doing and use a tiny, contained gravitational singularity to roll over and crush a gang of paramilitary thugs while humming Katamari music in-character. I'm running 40xp Demon and, yeah, the tone varies wildly between outright paranoia and total insanity. So far the single biggest problem the party have come across is pigeons - it's getting to the point where they're seriously considering doing some shenanigans to get a pigeon cull started in London. Their problem is that the God-Machine has deliberately seeded London with enough Aether-sensing-and-consuming cryptid pigeons to get decent coverage over the whole city, so every time they spend Aether I make a roll based on location to see if nearby pigeons start cooing and pecking at them, leading angels right to them. More consternation and paranoia has been caused by pigeons than anything else. On the other hand, the solution of one of the players to being rumbled by angels at Greenwich Observatory was to manifest a single demonic form feature, teleport 8 miles straight up, look down for where Cornwall was and then teleport to Cornwall - all reflexively, all inside the same turn. Demons are really loving hard to pin down when they want to be. Between that, the fact that we white-roomed a combat between an Incept using Blast-focused angel I statted up for a joke with a Blast weapon rating in the low 20s and one of our party, and the Demon wins out, the fact that total information supremacy isn't even difficult to achieve with like 3 or 4 Embeds, it's sort of difficult to reasonably challenge a party of high-level Demons without epic level hustling or openly cheating. This is not an easy game to run. To OPP's credit, in a game with this much bullshit available for 2xp a pop there are surprisingly few totally degenerate wombo combos. One or two Embeds and Exploits badly need sanity clauses and there are couple of powers that would be totally fine if it wasn't for the total absence of restrictions on them (teleport, for example. Line of sight, no range limits whatsoever, reflexive. I guess they can just go to the moon?) but otherwise Demon is a very solid game and I would highly recommend it. Also Interlocks are the loving best. Some examples: The Doc Brown Trick: A combination of Turn Blade and In My Pocket. When someone within LOS of the Demon (including themself) is successfully attacked, the Demon may reflexively make body armour appear underneath their clothes before the attack is resolved. It's real armour and now they're wearing it until they take it off. He's With Me: A combination of Alibi and Authorized. When the Demon activates the Interlock, a fake simulacra of a human being appears in the scene out of the line of sight of anyone. The simulacra is designed to fit in as a person of authority based on the circumstances the Demon finds themself in. They might be a policeman, a security guard, concert staff members, house servants or air hostesses for example. They are wearing the right uniforms, look like an amalgamation of what that sort of person is supposed to look like, have the right IDs and appear temporarily on all the right databases. They show up and will vouch for the Demon, and do any non-violent reasonable action within their power to ensure that the Demon is given full access to where they want to go - escorting them personally past security checkpoints, for example. They count as a Retainer with a dot level equal to successes and last for the scene. Memory Punch: A combination of Knockout Punch and Download Knowledge. The Demon can literally punch memories out of people, downloading them into his head. At his option, the demon may simply make a copy and leave the target with his memories intact or he can steal them outright. Look Closely, You Might Miss It: A combination of Diversion and Interference. The demon names something or someone that is being actively searched for by one or more individuals in the scene. If the Interlock roll succeeds, they cannot find it by any means for the remainder of the scene. They will look right over it, ignore signs of passage, disregard witness statements and be badly misled by any technological or supernatural investigative methods they may use. Alternate Ingress: A combination of Special Someone and Check Backdrop. The demon names a type or category of person ("policemen", "people with more than 2 dots in Firearms", "vampires") with the same restrictions as Special Someone. Anyone meeting that description is unable to enter the scene by whatever method they were intending to use. If their entry into the scene did not require a roll (they were just walking in, for example) that method fails and they need to try some other way which does require a roll. If their method of entry already required a roll (breaking into the building with Larceny, or talking their way into the club with Persuasion, for example) that roll automatically fails and they must try a different method using a different skill. Unless they pass a roll using a new skill, any attempts to enter the scene automatically fail. If use of this Interlock would prevent more people than twice the demon's Primum, it provokes a Compromise roll. Supernatural methods of ingress (teleportation, for example) are affected by this Interlock the same as mundane methods. I've had to come up with 12 Interlocks pretty much from the off. I have four players who are all playing veteran 40xp demons who started with 3/4ths of their Cipher complete. They have now all completed their Cipher 3 sessions in.
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Dec 14, 2016 03:38
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I'm fond of the I think it's an Exploit that lets you just suddenly have never been there when things are going bad. I think it'd work particularly well if the entire party had it.
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Dec 14, 2016 05:37
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Exploit shmexploit, that's just a Sidereal charm.
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Dec 14, 2016 08:48
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I was thinking a pretty high-level Time/Fate spell.
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Dec 14, 2016 10:21
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Doodmons posted:To OPP's credit, in a game with this much bullshit available for 2xp a pop there are surprisingly few totally degenerate wombo combos. One or two Embeds and Exploits badly need sanity clauses and there are couple of powers that would be totally fine if it wasn't for the total absence of restrictions on them (teleport, for example. Line of sight, no range limits whatsoever, reflexive. I guess they can just go to the moon?) but otherwise Demon is a very solid game and I would highly recommend it. Daeren and I both came up, separately, with combining the teleport and scrying demon parts. Our characters can basically watch anyone they've met and then pop in on them whenever.
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Dec 14, 2016 14:43
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Obligatum VII posted:Daeren and I both came up, separately, with combining the teleport and scrying demon parts. Our characters can basically watch anyone they've met and then pop in on them whenever. jesus I need to tell my players about this one.
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Dec 14, 2016 18:20
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Zereth posted:I'm fond of the I think it's an Exploit that lets you just suddenly have never been there when things are going bad. I think it'd work particularly well if the entire party had it. Yeah, 4 Minutes Ago is awesome. I'm saving it up so that when the party are on the way to meet another demon, they get a phone call on the way saying "Hi there, you're about to head over to meet me and I'd like you to go somewhere else instead. You're being followed by angels who attacked the moment you got here and they're gnarly enough that I had to go back in time 4 minutes to get out of there. Anyway, Ciao."
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Dec 14, 2016 18:25
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My one main desire for new demon was if they had some of old demon's powers. "Well yeah I'm good with dogs, I made them Now hang on a second, flip some switches here, there, now fido can bark fire."
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Dec 14, 2016 18:39
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Obligatum VII posted:Daeren and I both came up, separately, with combining the teleport and scrying demon parts. Our characters can basically watch anyone they've met and then pop in on them whenever. Rubix Squid's interlocks she came up for the two of us are pretty great, too. You've got your aikido redirection of Just Bruised, I've got the ability to reflexively evaluate something's worth in an objective financial sense and a "how much is this worth to [person in particular]" sense. Handy for a thief, really handy to realize you're talking to a cultist body-snatcher replacement for your contact because their face is worth several thousand dollars more than it should.
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Dec 14, 2016 19:09
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Kurieg posted:My one main desire for new demon was if they had some of old demon's powers. I had an oWoD Demon game that never got off the ground where one player was a demon who was so goddamn furious that the dinosaurs he had worked so hard on were just scrapped by loving upper management in favour of these pink non-feathered monkey things. Another player was the living embodiment of Eco-terrorism, and a third was The King of Sex (both political and pleasurable). I can't remember the other two, I think one was a maker of things and oh wait I remember. Player 4 was Nega-St Patrick, whose goal was to return the snakes to Ireland after some fucker with a staff had ruined Irish grass snakes for everyone. We were to be playing in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and I was looking forward to using the angry ghost of Ian Paisley Sr as an encounter, given how left wing the entire party was, and because they had plans to gently caress with Stormont (our parliament building) somehow.
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Dec 14, 2016 19:34
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Kurieg posted:My one main desire for new demon was if they had some of old demon's powers. gently caress that. We made dogs. They can make wolves, dogs are one of our great achievements.
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Dec 14, 2016 19:56
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Honestly, that He's With Me interlock sounds potentially overpowered even if interlocks are supposed to scale with closeness to the cipher revelation. Conjuring a creative and active entity is a step beyond tricking the universe. Here are some interlocks we've come up with for our game: quote:Imago (keys: Muse + Don't I Know You?) quote:Interlock 1: Remand (keys: Authorize + Unperson) There was some controversy within the group about using an exploit template for an interlock instead of an embed, but I was feeling saucy.
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Dec 14, 2016 21:05
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Which of the second edition nWoD games are worth getting? Is Werewolf any good?
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Dec 14, 2016 21:40
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Which of the second edition nWoD games are worth getting? Is Werewolf any good? Werewolf's ANY good but none of the good comes within a country mile of Gauru regeneration rules which are clownshoes on head silly. Mage is chill, still. Promethean is pretty great even if its 2e power structure is so term-heavy for being content-light.
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Dec 14, 2016 21:45
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Which of the second edition nWoD games are worth getting? Is Werewolf any good? The above Demon is very worth it as is Mage, probably, but largely it depends on the game that you want to play to really determine a priority list.
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Dec 14, 2016 21:48
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Which of the second edition nWoD games are worth getting? Is Werewolf any good? Mage is fun. Even if I might be losing my Gnosis 2 Mastigos to me being an idiot and not realizing that summoning up a Rank 4 goetia to go "Dormammu, I've come to bargain" at is a terrible idea.
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Dec 14, 2016 21:48
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citybeatnik posted:Mage is fun. Yeah you hosed up hard, my dude. I'd start whipping up another sheet in advance unless your ST is the sort that rarely removes all agency or kills the PCs when screwing with them is far more fun (i.e. is me).
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Dec 14, 2016 21:54
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Daeren posted:Yeah you hosed up hard, my dude. I'd start whipping up another sheet in advance unless your ST is the sort that rarely removes all agency or kills the PCs when screwing with them is far more fun (i.e. is me). I'm hoping that Exceptional Luck combined with him telling the demon-god king of charity "yo here have all my earthly possessions have fun making the world a better place byyyyyyyyyyyyye" works in my favor. Literally my first mage character. Still a learning experience.
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Dec 14, 2016 21:56
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citybeatnik posted:I'm hoping that Exceptional Luck combined with him telling the demon-god king of charity "yo here have all my earthly possessions have fun making the world a better place byyyyyyyyyyyyye" works in my favor. I don't know, from this you appear to have gotten the general idea of playing Mage remarkably quickly.
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Dec 14, 2016 21:58
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Daeren posted:I don't know, from this you appear to have gotten the general idea of playing Mage remarkably quickly. There's some other stuff involving an Abyssal wound of Greed (thus why my Silver Ladder guy though "well gently caress it we're doing it live" with the charity goetia) and a Seer NPC that's the head of the local church and is trying to convert my guy but yeah. I'm mostly going with Charmed, buffing Composure/Resolve to max, and praying at this point.
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Dec 14, 2016 22:03
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If we're sharing interlocks I'm still kinda proud of this one from a game that died before it could come up. Think of a King of Hell sort of character. Fall Guy (Don't I Know You + Shift Consequences): Transfer social/demonic conditions between willing participants. Willing in this case meaning the same criteria as pacts, so gun to their head counts. Botch a compromise roll and now you've Starscream on your rear end out for blood? Pass it along to one of your cultists and you get off free and clear. All it costs is the life of one of your followers. On another note, I know demons can trade pacts, but what about whole covers? If you sneak into some infrastructure and jack an angels cover, but you don't really want or need a new cover at the moment, can you hand it off to someone else?
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Dec 14, 2016 22:11
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Vampire's not bad leaving aside Nightmare entirely which fuuuuuuuuuck 2e Nightmare's gnome illusion magicks.
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Dec 14, 2016 22:16
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Which of the second edition nWoD games are worth getting? Is Werewolf any good? In descending order: Demon: the Descent: Seriously in the running for best nWoD gameline of either edition, hands down. Covers the gamut from cool thriller panic to hilarious over-the-top antics to deep, moving character development. Well structured setting presentation for being gameable and engaging, powers have a big fun popping feeling without the rules going too wonky. Unfortunately, it's also the only second edition core that doesn't contain complete system rules, so you need to combine it with the mortals corebook (either edition works, there's an appendix that covers the changeover to 2e rules) or any of the other 2e corebooks, which do have complete system rules. Mage: the Awakening: Most thoroughly well thought out revision of a preexisting gameline, incorporating the best of first edition material that was either poorly presented in the corebook or fleshed out in supplements, organized mindfully to put the relevant emphases of the game and what's evocative about it up front, with a strong mechanical balance between the courage to make radical changes when called for and the wisdom not to change or add too much detail where it didn't serve a purpose. It's also a very dense book, both in terms of setting conceits and mechanical depth, so it might not be as accessible to a quick skim or a fast pick-up-and-play mindset. Vampire: the Requiem: Mostly doesn't fix what wasn't broken, incorporating later 1e Requiem's tone of uncertainty and deep shadows, becoming a Requiem corebook that has confidence in its identity distinct from Masquerade. Prose ranges from snappy and relatable to an embarrasing blend of florid, purple vulgarity (most of the latter is up front in the first chapter or two, and then it tapers off for the most part). A handful of elements feel changed more for the sake of change or otherwise fall flat, but the majority of the edition update is purpose-guided and effective. Werewolf: the Forsaken: Works hard, and to a pretty good result, to make Forsaken less thematically diffuse, and tie it together to a strong but versatile central concept: werewolf as pack predator. Edition changes range from very needed, effective changes (Gauru no longer a paper tiger, shapeshifting forms made less redundant, Renown feels less tacked on) to some amount of fiddliness. Wolf-Blooded overhauled from the conceptually weakest "lesser template" to one of the strongest, and their role in a Forsaken story is given more agency and versatility. Still suffers from some overuse of the First Tongue vocabulary. Promethean: the Created: I'm still digesting my feelings on this one. The prose is mostly solid and the thematic wonder and melodrama of 1e Promethean is intact and on display. Some needed changes are very effective: Disquiet and the Wasteland now feel less overbearing and dominant over the shape of the story without feeling neutered or meaningless. Others are radical in scope without, necessarily, a clear purpose behind them: Transmutations now come in one of several packages of related powers which you effectively equip when you adopt a Refinement and unequip when you leave it, and the Pilgrimage is subdivided now not only into milestones but also into passing through Roles the character must step into progressively within each Refinement. Beast: the Primordial: I guess the illustrations are nice? Hiro Protagonist posted:I have no idea what this is saying. I only ask because Werewolf is on sale on DTRPG and I wanted to know if I should get the core of if Werewolf is not worth the price of entry. I just ask because I don't hear werewolf or Promethean get mentioned nearly as much as Vampire or Mage. I already have demon. If you're interested in werewolves who are pack hunters with the border between totemic spirit and material flesh as their hunting grounds, go for it. Werewolf has a few flaws but it's certainly not a waste of your money.
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Dec 14, 2016 22:20
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Is there no 2E Changeling yet? e: I guess not; I was optimistic given there are teasers and dev posts going back to mid-2015.
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Dec 14, 2016 22:23
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Really, though, only Beast is best stayed away from. All the other 2e core books are at varying levels of good, great, or fantastic.
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Dec 14, 2016 22:32
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Is there no 2E Changeling yet? It's still in development as of Monday.
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Dec 14, 2016 22:43
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Kibner posted:Really, though, only Beast is best stayed away from. All the other 2e core books are at varying levels of good, great, or fantastic. I forgot that Beast was a game. Avoid Beast.
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Dec 14, 2016 22:49
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I have no idea what this is saying. I only ask because Werewolf is on sale on DTRPG and I wanted to know if I should get the core of if Werewolf is not worth the price of entry. I just ask because I don't hear werewolf or Promethean get mentioned nearly as much as Vampire or Mage. I already have demon. In a word. Yes. Werewolf is worth it. If you want more in depth we did a podcast review of it last year, Starting at 47:45 just turn it off once we start talking about Beast.
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Dec 14, 2016 22:50
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I Am Just a Box posted:Mage: the Awakening: Most thoroughly well thought out revision of a preexisting game line, incorporating the best of first edition material that was either poorly presented in the corebook or fleshed out in supplements, organized mindfully to put the relevant emphases of the game and what's evocative about it up front, with a strong mechanical balance between the courage to make radical changes when called for and the wisdom not to change or add too much detail where it didn't serve a purpose. It's also a very dense book, both in terms of setting conceits and mechanical depth, so it might not be as accessible to a quick skim or a fast pick-up-and-play mindset. We'll find out tonight. I'm starting a Mage 2E with people who probably haven't even seen a rule book for a WoD/CofD game line in depth if ever. The additional prep work I'm doing just for making the rules accessible is quite daunting, but hopefully we'll have some idea of characters going into our first session starting after the holidays. It feels a bit old school where you'd be making photocopies of a few pages of the players handbook to pass out to new people for making characters and then playing with only one book as you pass it around the table.
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Dec 14, 2016 23:01
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citybeatnik posted:Mage is fun. You, sir, win the prize for best Mage player anecdote this year, and you are doing it exactly right. Do tell us if you survive!
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Dec 14, 2016 23:46
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Which of the second edition nWoD games are worth getting? Is Werewolf any good? Vampire is solid pretty much across the board. Werewolf is broadly excellent but with one or two rough spots (the lashing out mechanics, for example). I'm in a Viking Werewolf game at the moment and it's loving sweet. Demon might be the most consistently mechanically good White Wolf game since Vampire. It's complicated, and it's very difficult to GM well, but it is good. Promethean I haven't played. Beast is a burning garbage fire for a large variety of reasons. I'm going to go against the grain and say that Mage is also pretty much a garbage fire. I was initially positive on Mage - I love the way Reach works and they've fixed some of the bad things about 1e - but honestly the more I play it the more I just sink into despair about how hosed so much of the magic is. The running joke amongst my gaming group at the moment is that there are only 9 Arcana because Time is totally unplayable - and Acanthus still don't give a poo poo because why would you need anything but Fate? citybeatnik posted:Mage is fun. Nah man you're fine, just mind crush the motherfucker. Mages can dunk on pretty much anything these days.
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Dec 15, 2016 00:23
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