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I've said it before but it is really funny that a real game company bought WoD just to be money marks.
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Dec 23, 2016 21:13
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Holy poo poo they ask if you've played Kult before, and if you keep up with the "Anne Riceverse" or "VampireFreaks.com". The questions as to why I never went to official events or more recent LARPs felt oddly interrogative, too. I put in 'Other - Too far, too expensive, and too many people I wouldn't let within 100 yards of my hypothetical future children.'
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Dec 23, 2016 22:29
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Is this the same survey that was emailed to select folks a while ago? Also the first page still reads like the kind of survey you'd fill out for a nerdy Match.com.
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Dec 23, 2016 22:36
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Terrorforge posted:I have questions. Questions about angels. I'm thinking about that a lot at the moment, too. Following the ephemeral beings rules, Angels actually have a very limited Essence supply when they have to go mobile. Chasing Demons around for several days without the opportunity to refuel at Infrastructure should force Angels to RTB. Getting in a brawl with Demons where they have to blow loads of Essence on Numina and pumping their stats should definitely force them to RTB. I've found nowhere in any of the Demon books anything that would indicate that Angels do not follow the ephemeral beings rules and have some sort of magic infi-essence pipeline. Imo the fact that Angels can actually only blow their load once, and can only remain in constant operation for a couple of days at a time at most is the biggest and most important edge that Demons have. It seems clear to me that the ephemeral beings rules are premised on Essence being in relatively short supply, which is why there are so many ways for an ephemeral being to poo poo out loads of Essence for short-term gain. Mainly I imagine the advantage of Angels over Spirits and Ghosts is that instead of having to have several days or weeks of downtime while they slowly leech Essence back from their Conditions, an Angel can RTB to the nearest refueling station where some local God-Machine cultists can sacrifice a couple of hobos or animals, or there's a big industrial furnace that inputs diesel or milk or something and outputs Essence - so an Angel is only out of the game for a couple of hours, tops, before it can head back out to continue the mission. The other vague workaround I've found is that I see no reason why the God-Machine wouldn't have a bunch of Rank 1 Imperatives milling around the place collecting their daily Essence allotment so that they can be used as mobile, short-term Essence batteries by donating Essence to the actual operatives. If there's no time for an Angel to return to base because it's mid-chase, then the Machine can dispatch a couple of Imperatives who zoom over to the Angel and dump out a couple of dozen Essence before returning to refuel. Or they can be waiting on standby to refuel mid-fight. I find the Demon books curiously sparse on in-depth advice for GMs who obsess about the actual logistics of God-Machine Infrastructure, but with a little thought the details they've provided can be stitched together into a coherent whole.
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Dec 23, 2016 22:49
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Anyone know what the current form Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Ed. is taking? I know it's a ways out but I'm looking forward to it!
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Dec 23, 2016 23:12
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Daeren posted:Holy poo poo they ask if you've played Kult before, and if you keep up with the "Anne Riceverse" or "VampireFreaks.com". They also asked about MUDs and MUSHes, which amused the gently caress out of me.
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Dec 23, 2016 23:19
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I like how you have to pick something for "what would make you want to go to a WoD event" but they don't have any options for "there's probably enough money in the world to pay me, but you don't have that much" or "I would rather carve henna designs into my own flesh with an x-acto knife than go to a LARP event of any kind."
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Dec 23, 2016 23:37
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Gumball Gumption posted:I've said it before but it is really funny that a real game company bought WoD just to be money marks. I sort of expected that this would be the one of the later phases of WoD. It was a sort of cargo cult game design, sold heavily on style and things like "roleplay not rollplay" and not much on how the mechanics actually affected the narrative that they were trying to make. Part of this was that this was pre-Forge but there wasn't really a pushback until nWoD 2e against the base assumptions of the original Storyteller system. Money marks run on rose-tinted nostalgia, and the oWoD and their LARPs sold this in spades. But hell, if I get another V:tM game, a V:tR game or even another H:tR/H:tV game, I won't give two shits why they bought it. Four shits if it's better than average!
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Dec 23, 2016 23:41
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gtrmp posted:Because the people who bought out White Wolf bought it first and foremost for their LARPs and not for the tabletop game that people actually bought and played. They don't give a gently caress about the LARPs people played either, judging by their apparent disinterest in MET.
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Dec 24, 2016 03:32
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Paradox corporate is seeing video games (I think, that's their bread and butter and will actually make money compared to tabletop games), while the guy who talked them into it is seeing his fanfic setting canonized.
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Dec 24, 2016 03:35
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Kavak posted:Paradox corporate is seeing video games (I think, that's their bread and butter and will actually make money compared to tabletop games), while the guy who talked them into it is seeing his fanfic setting canonized. It's also way, way bigger money compared to TT games. God, if we get another Bloodlines out of this it'll be worth every moment of Swedish Dracula cringe.
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Dec 24, 2016 03:37
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Honestly their mindset seems to be identical to every MET splinter group ever, which is, "man I love LARPing but it sure does suck because of X, Y, Z reasons, it would be so much better if I just was allowed to do blank" except now it's the default state of the game.
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Dec 24, 2016 03:37
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Mendrian posted:Honestly their mindset seems to be identical to every MET splinter group ever, which is, "man I love LARPing but it sure does suck because of X, Y, Z reasons, it would be so much better if I just was allowed to do blank" except now it's the default state of the game. The game that introduced me to LARP and the WoD back in the day was a Camarilla splinter mad about the Cam and goddamn if they weren't right about loving everything.
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Dec 24, 2016 03:40
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Yawgmoth posted:I like how you have to pick something for "what would make you want to go to a WoD event" but they don't have any options for "there's probably enough money in the world to pay me, but you don't have that much" or "I would rather carve henna designs into my own flesh with an x-acto knife than go to a LARP event of any kind." No option for 'if you can guarantee I won't be surrounded by sweaty nerds who smell of cheese', either. Or even a 'guarantee me a drama-free space of like-minded people without weird sexual poo poo, behind the scenes real life power plays, or crazy metagaming'
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Dec 24, 2016 03:47
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Loomer posted:No option for 'if you can guarantee I won't be surrounded by sweaty nerds who smell of cheese', either. Or even a 'guarantee me a drama-free space of like-minded people without weird sexual poo poo, behind the scenes real life power plays, or crazy metagaming' 
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Dec 24, 2016 03:52
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Exactly.
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Dec 24, 2016 04:02
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If paradox get obsidian to make a game and give them the same free rein they got when they made kotor 2 and actively trashed a bunch of the setting, I'm happy for Swedish Dracula to do whatever the hell he wants since it's at least entertaining to read about. I'll also accept a WoD game made by paradox in the style of crusader kings.
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Dec 24, 2016 11:04
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UrbicaMortis posted:If paradox get obsidian to make a game and give them the same free rein they got when they made kotor 2 and actively trashed a bunch of the setting, I'm happy for Swedish Dracula to do whatever the hell he wants since it's at least entertaining to read about. I feel like an Exalted game focused on Dragonblooded dynasties is a much more natural fit for a Crusader Kings clone I would be all about that game though
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Dec 24, 2016 11:53
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Doodmons posted:I've found nowhere in any of the Demon books anything that would indicate that Angels do not follow the ephemeral beings rules and have some sort of magic infi-essence pipeline. That's true. My ponderings though were mostly around the fact that "fed by Infrastructure" is a really vague phrase. The CoD rulebook even says they only have to be "in proximity" to get their daily Essence, and I figured you could credibly argue that for certain angels that might include their travel routes. Thinking in it though I guess Infrastructure refers explicitly to places directly controlled and warped by the God-Machine, so the argument doesn't really hold water unless there's a pipeline made of crystallized eyeballs running under Mr. Shivers' daily route. I do note that they get their Essence "per day" spent near their source, which opens up an entire argument about what counts as "a day". Doodmons posted:Imo the fact that Angels can actually only blow their load once, and can only remain in constant operation for a couple of days at a time at most is the biggest and most important edge that Demons have. It seems clear to me that the ephemeral beings rules are premised on Essence being in relatively short supply, which is why there are so many ways for an ephemeral being to poo poo out loads of Essence for short-term gain. Mainly I imagine the advantage of Angels over Spirits and Ghosts is that instead of having to have several days or weeks of downtime while they slowly leech Essence back from their Conditions, an Angel can RTB to the nearest refueling station where some local God-Machine cultists can sacrifice a couple of hobos or animals, or there's a big industrial furnace that inputs diesel or milk or something and outputs Essence - so an Angel is only out of the game for a couple of hours, tops, before it can head back out to continue the mission. The other vague workaround I've found is that I see no reason why the God-Machine wouldn't have a bunch of Rank 1 Imperatives milling around the place collecting their daily Essence allotment so that they can be used as mobile, short-term Essence batteries by donating Essence to the actual operatives. If there's no time for an Angel to return to base because it's mid-chase, then the Machine can dispatch a couple of Imperatives who zoom over to the Angel and dump out a couple of dozen Essence before returning to refuel. Or they can be waiting on standby to refuel mid-fight. Yeah, basically the entire reason I asked about it is that it feels weird that "relentless" hunter angels would have to just disappear for weeks, but I also really don't want them to have infinite Essence. These things are scary enough on raw stats alone, I don't want to give them an excuse to go nova every time they catch the scent of a demon. For this purpose I really like the idea of a dedicated refueling statation powered by mundane resources. It reinforces a point made by Daeren earlier; the GM might have unfathomably vast resources on the cosmic scale, but because it can't (or won't) move those resources around at will its local servants can't just throw that weight around as they please. Plus I just love what you can do with it. The phrase "human sacrifice" usually conjures images of dark robes and sharp knives, but where the GM is involved it could just as easily be a three-ton slapchop that turns maths teachers into Chunky Angel Juice. Also I imagine this means that angels on long-term missions conspire to get sacrifices or they'd find it hard to get much use out of their influences and numina. Doodmons posted:I find the Demon books curiously sparse on in-depth advice for GMs who obsess about the actual logistics of God-Machine Infrastructure, but with a little thought the details they've provided can be stitched together into a coherent whole. I'm prepared to agree with you on this in terms of Essence generation, but the information on angelic Cover is just woefully inadequate. Its clearly not the same as merely being Materialized, but also clearly different from demonic Cover without being clear exactly how its different. It doesn't help that the main repository of example angels was produced before Demon was fully realized, making it really unclear if they even are in Cover or not.
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Dec 24, 2016 12:56
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Remember that in Scandinavia, "roleplaying" means "larp" and while I play in no less than two WoD Larps and have played in more, no one I know has ever played MET. As for sweaty nerds and drama, those are problems, those are problems, but not really in the big budget blockbuster Larps WW seems to be aming at
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Dec 24, 2016 13:10
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Requiring people to pay Model Train Prices upfront plus travel considerations does definitely keep the riff-raff out.
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Dec 24, 2016 15:48
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Anyone know how much money those luxury official events rake in? I haven't larped in over a decade so a lot of this new direction is useless to me, but I can't fault them for looking at the TTRPG space and its margins and going "yeah, lets focus on something a little more profitable". Plus, they've got the lesson of DND 4th edition and Hasbro to consider. Even being successful by TTRPG standards can still look a lot like failure to more mainstream companies. For his own sake, hopefully Swedish Dracula hasn't also promised that the WW brand will become a core property in the way the 4e devs supposedly pitched dnd to Hasbro (even if with Paradox, that might be achievable, or at least less mind boggling insane of a thing to promise).
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Dec 24, 2016 17:26
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Terrorforge posted:Also I imagine this means that angels on long-term missions conspire to get sacrifices or they'd find it hard to get much use out of their influences and numina. I quite like the idea of an Angel taking a minor detour on-mission to shank up a hobo or two for some more Essence, and this habit gradually turning into an obsession which leads to it Falling. Terrorforge posted:I'm prepared to agree with you on this in terms of Essence generation, but the information on angelic Cover is just woefully inadequate. Its clearly not the same as merely being Materialized, but also clearly different from demonic Cover without being clear exactly how its different. It doesn't help that the main repository of example angels was produced before Demon was fully realized, making it really unclear if they even are in Cover or not. True that. I'm really surprised that Cover isn't a specific type of Manifestation Condition. If one were determined not to write any new rules, I'd model it as a Claiming or Possession - except what they're possessing is a made-up human manufactured on the spot and not a real boy. Angels can and do totally possess real people, though, according to the fiction. Sometimes I imagine it's easier for the God-Machine to find a useful human for an angel to possess than to make up a new one. Writing an In Cover Manifestation Condition probably shouldn't be too difficult, though. Also I find it really strange, and not very well highlighted, that anyone with the Destiny Merit counts as Infrastructure for the purposes of the Infrastructure Condition. I can only assume that this means Mages, who love having that Merit, get followed around by on-assignment Angels on a regular basis, hoovering up Essence. And that on the rare occasions where Angels and Mages go up against each other, the Angels can just use all of their Influences on the Mage and fling them around the place.
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Dec 24, 2016 17:28
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Pope Guilty posted:They don't give a gently caress about the LARPs people played either, judging by their apparent disinterest in MET. At least one person from By Night Studios is an employee, so I don't think they're disinterested at all.
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Dec 24, 2016 19:06
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Gerund posted:Requiring people to pay Model Train Prices upfront plus travel considerations does definitely keep the riff-raff out. People willing to spend money can also be twits. However, having run some more expensive MET LARP events (with catering and a better location) I have noticed that even difficult people tend to regulate their behaviour better.
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Dec 24, 2016 19:45
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Doodmons posted:I quite like the idea of an Angel taking a minor detour on-mission to shank up a hobo or two for some more Essence, and this habit gradually turning into an obsession which leads to it Falling. Same. Though by RAW it has to be cultists making the sacrifice, which I will definitely at some point be using to justify an unsubtle hunter angel starting an equally unsubtle murder cult if the PCs keep dodging it for long enough. Doodmons posted:True that. I'm really surprised that Cover isn't a specific type of Manifestation Condition. If one were determined not to write any new rules, I'd model it as a Claiming or Possession - except what they're possessing is a made-up human manufactured on the spot and not a real boy. Probably yet another quirk of Demon's awkward place in the release schedule, though I would have hoped they'd clear it up more in the ST guide. I'm not sure if possessed/claimed is quite the right template. It feels weird that they wouldn't be able to use their angelic powers at all, though it would be nice to give them some sort of limiter to give them an actual reason to "go loud". Either way I guess I have to make some decisions. I guess my version of the Cover Manifestation Condition would be something like:
Idk, does that seem good?
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Dec 24, 2016 19:58
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MalcolmSheppard posted:People willing to spend money can also be twits. However, having run some more expensive MET LARP events (with catering and a better location) I have noticed that even difficult people tend to regulate their behaviour better. While I certainly believe this, you also have the opposite problem with classism. Plain ol' American LARPs already have this problem - the guy who shows up with the best outfit will probably (emphasis on probably, every single game has at least one exception) have a better game than the guy who shows up in a dime-store trench coat just because people will take them more seriously. I'm not sure gatehousing the game is the best way to keep out the perceived mouth-breathers, especially since a non-insignificant number of would-be LARPers are actually put off more by the perceived elitism of players (particularly in Vampire) than anything else.
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Dec 24, 2016 20:24
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Mendrian posted:While I certainly believe this, you also have the opposite problem with classism. Plain ol' American LARPs already have this problem - the guy who shows up with the best outfit will probably (emphasis on probably, every single game has at least one exception) have a better game than the guy who shows up in a dime-store trench coat just because people will take them more seriously. All excellent points. I do love the hardscrabble community theatre aspect of LARP, and how accessible it is. (Though with MET rules heaviness drives people I like away.) I am also suspicious of reports about how expensive LARPs went because of sunk cost biases. I guess we need LARP reviewers who don't pay for games and aren't anybody's buddies, and whose opinions generate respect, but that's never happening.
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Dec 24, 2016 21:22
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My experience with roleplaying gamers in Northern Europe and Germany is that they seem to overall have had a slightly more persistent interest in the old World of Darkness, and a slightly lower interest in the new World of Darkness, than the anglophile, heavily American Internet communities I venture into. In light of this, I've not found Martin Ericsson's claims that they're interested in the old World of Darkness all that shocking. They have identified a market and they're targeting it, which is not particularly egregious business behavior. Certainly Paradox has made some questionable statements, but from my perspective it's more... enthusiastic, somewhat naïve questionable, than divorced-from-reality questionable.
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Dec 24, 2016 21:44
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Has the nWoD done well in the larp scene elsewhere? People have talked about the North European scene being more larp oriented, and the larps more oWoD oriented. My impression in the US was that the first part about larp dominance may not be as true, but that many of the larpers did stick to the oWoD. I was out of the scene by the time the switchup happened though, so I was only aware of trends second hand or from what I'd see online.
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Dec 24, 2016 22:46
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Desiden posted:Has the nWoD done well in the larp scene elsewhere? People have talked about the North European scene being more larp oriented, and the larps more oWoD oriented. My impression in the US was that the first part about larp dominance may not be as true, but that many of the larpers did stick to the oWoD. I was out of the scene by the time the switchup happened though, so I was only aware of trends second hand or from what I'd see online. There's been a bunch of nWoD larps in New Zealand, with varying levels of success (by NZ standards). A couple of Vampire, two Mage, at least two Werewolf, and a Hunter. Plus one mixed-splat. There's probably a few more I'm missing, but yeah. There's one or two Old World games going, but it's predominantly New. Though they're falling out of fashion a little, and the current crop don't usually have more than 20 players a piece.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:23
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Desiden posted:Has the nWoD done well in the larp scene elsewhere? People have talked about the North European scene being more larp oriented, and the larps more oWoD oriented. My impression in the US was that the first part about larp dominance may not be as true, but that many of the larpers did stick to the oWoD. I was out of the scene by the time the switchup happened though, so I was only aware of trends second hand or from what I'd see online. nWoD LARP has enjoyed a long period of success in the UK with the Isles of Darkness organisation. It used to be the Cam until some drama happened and they split off, but IoD is basically the UK national WoD LARP equivalent of the Cam. At the start of this year they had a big reset of their chronicles, partly to shake things up a bit and partly to do some spring cleaning of the bevy of 15 year old, 3000+ XP player characters lying around. They did lose a bunch of players, and while I don't really keep up with IoD since my local domain closed, I think the organisation as a whole is in a bit of a decline. Still going, though, and still not particularly cancerous, which is more than many other WoD LARP systems of that scale can say.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:24
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It is true that the admission price of 'blockbuster' larps is really steep and i've never been able to go on my own dime. I have, however, gone to College of Wizardry once (and had to cancel twice), and it is really an amazing experience. Rollespilsfabrikken, which has arranged most of the big larps (and is arranging Convention of Thorns) is actually a larp club or society, not a buisness. afaik, they only have a couple of paid employees and the admission tickets for most of their events (which are the small 'community theatre' sorta larps mentioned) just cover location, and probably food for the organizers and voulenteers. I wrote for CoT for a while, but decided not to go due to a different tone than i appreciate at my larps, and the payment was in tickets. i also wrote some for CoW, but just because i wanted to and they needed some people to write things. I appreciate that i'm horrendously biased by being surrounded by it all the time, but i do think that blockbuster larping (and just larping in general, with jucidious applications of propper workshopping and the ability to throw people out and do other things to create a welcoming and not-horrible atmosphere.) could be a valuable and awesome focus for WW to take. What i saw of CoT, though, did put a significant dampner on my enthusiasm for WW's ability to make cool and awesome larps i want to join.
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Dec 25, 2016 01:01
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As funny as all the new White Wolf stuff from Paradox looks, why not make Crusader Kings by Night and just set the game in some big city your vampire rules neighborhood by neighborhood. This is why I was excited about Paradox being involved in WoD in the first place.
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Dec 25, 2016 02:21
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Magnusth posted:I appreciate that i'm horrendously biased by being surrounded by it all the time, but i do think that blockbuster larping (and just larping in general, with jucidious applications of propper workshopping and the ability to throw people out and do other things to create a welcoming and not-horrible atmosphere.) could be a valuable and awesome focus for WW to take. What i saw of CoT, though, did put a significant dampner on my enthusiasm for WW's ability to make cool and awesome larps i want to join. Could you share more details from your personal experiences with both? I've had a nice side-seat to some drama unfolding in America's "New World Magischola" equivalent to the College of Wizardry that makes me less certain I'll try again next year, and am always curious to see what's up beneath the surface.
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Dec 25, 2016 03:41
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Lord_Hambrose posted:As funny as all the new White Wolf stuff from Paradox looks, why not make Crusader Kings by Night and just set the game in some big city your vampire rules neighborhood by neighborhood. This is why I was excited about Paradox being involved in WoD in the first place. well for one pds is already supporting up to 4 grand strategy games at once as it is(and stellaris definitely needs the support rn), i doubt they're keen to add more to their plate until they're ready to put ck2 or eu4 to bed i'd be surprised if obsidian's next game isn't wod-based though
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Dec 25, 2016 03:48
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Tricky Dick Nixon posted:Could you share more details from your personal experiences with both? I've had a nice side-seat to some drama unfolding in America's "New World Magischola" equivalent to the College of Wizardry that makes me less certain I'll try again next year, and am always curious to see what's up beneath the surface. i'm on my way to bed relatively soon, but what do you want to know?
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Dec 25, 2016 03:52
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Magnusth posted:i'm on my way to bed relatively soon, but what do you want to know? You mentioned that Convention of Thorns dampened your enthusiasm for their future projects. Why? What kind of tone turned you off? What were some of the parts you enjoyed most from writing for and working with the people involved with it? What would you say is the difference between what you have heard of/experienced between both big ones mentioned, College of Wizardry and Convention of Thorns?
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Dec 25, 2016 04:02
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Brother Entropy posted:well for one pds is already supporting up to 4 grand strategy games at once as it is(and stellaris definitely needs the support rn), i doubt they're keen to add more to their plate until they're ready to put ck2 or eu4 to bed I mean, Tyranny is pretty good, and they've got their 6 stat system polished to a nice sheen. I'm not saying I'd be surprised but it would be somewhat disappointing to see them have to gnaw the storyteller system down to fit.
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Dec 25, 2016 04:04
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Kurieg posted:I mean, Tyranny is pretty good, and they've got their 6 stat system polished to a nice sheen. I'm not saying I'd be surprised but it would be somewhat disappointing to see them have to gnaw the storyteller system down to fit. well in an ideal world they'd get to use the fluff of wod but not have to deal with making the crunch work in a crpg (actually in an ideal world they'd be using chronicles and not world but that's another conversation)
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Dec 25, 2016 04:22
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