|
Doodmons posted:Alternatively, maybe the God-Machine needs to do some spring-cleaning in the local Temenos of the city so the Infrastructure is to open up a big, real-world portal into the Astral Realms. This is so far beyond the pale of what the Mages know that they won't even know wtf. The God-Machine's plan is to send a fleet of physical angels bodily through the portal into the Astral Realms to make all the alterations it wants to in the area. Foreshadow this by having the local Consilium be really loving confused that they keep running into obviously physical beings in the Astral (there's an angelic Numina which can open up portals to any realm. The Astral Realms and the Abyss are explicitly called out as possible destinations) which seem to be trying to make changes to the local Temenos, but not very effectively. As an extra bonus, it'd be super easy to add in additional groups to the mess who want to make one key change to the infrastructure as it is being built so the gate points somewhere else when it is opened. God Machine flips switch, giant portal opens to the Abyss. Woops.
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 18:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 16:44 |
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:This is great, and I'm surprised it would show up in Masquerade - I always got the sense that high-level vampires in M got things done with magic more than mundane resources, while Requiem was more inclined towards entrenched power through owning a city. That assumption was more or less true in 1e/2e VtM, where vampires controlled entire institutions through Disciplines and the blood bond, but in Revised there was a conscious push away from Kindred being such absolute puppetmasters towards a more VtR-like means of exercising subtler influence through proxies and catspaws. One of the better VtM sourcebooks from that period is The Gilded Cage, which is all about mortal-society background traits and what they actually mean in practice, so that the context of a character having sway among the police or the media is more immediately tangible for both the player and the Storyteller than having to figure out on the spot just exactly what you can do with two dots of Influence.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 19:56
|
|
|
I always think Abyssal intrusions are a good way to introduce the God-Machine into a Mage chronicle. Abyssal intrusions are something Mages know lots about and definitely want to deal with, but likewise the God-Machine is almost certainly highly invested in ensuring that the laws of physics don't come crashing down in its backyard and in not having gibbering tentacle monsters wandering around. The cabal shows up to an Abyssal incursion to deal with it, Adamantine Arrow hit squad in tow, to find teams of weirdly cybernetic humans being led by biomechanical horrors which curiously don't ping Mage Sight fighting the intruders and performing some sort of ritual to close the Verge. The Angels disappear into the woodwork and the God-Machine cultists either deny everything and flee or try to eliminate the witnesses. If this keeps escalating, it probably ends up with a Messenger being deployed to tell the local Consilium that everything's fine and they should just leave it, Mr Anderson. And yeah, if a bunch of local Scelesti hijack the portal and open it direct to the Abyss the God-Machine is going to be pissed. Not just because it was planning on using the Infrastructure itself but because it's now got Silent Hill to clean up. Odds are it's not going to understand the fine distinction between "Awakened willworkers who have interfered with my plans" and "Awakened willworkers who are innocent bystanders" so the local Mages can look forward to Agents popping out of the woodwork to ice them persistently for the next few years.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 19:58
|
|
|
Thanks for all the ideas guys I'm starting to get a working outline for the plot together. The idea of turning the Gateway to the West into a literal gateway seems too poetic to pass up. I'm still hashing out how the Seers fit into the God-Machines plans as I want them to be a little more directly involved than just cheer leading the GM from the sidelines and running interference (the idea of the Exarchs and the GM being formal allies seems interesting to me) but I've got a good portion of the chronicle taking shape now.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 23:28
|
|
|
LordAbaddon posted:Thanks for all the ideas guys I'm starting to get a working outline for the plot together. The idea of turning the Gateway to the West into a literal gateway seems too poetic to pass up. I'm still hashing out how the Seers fit into the God-Machines plans as I want them to be a little more directly involved than just cheer leading the GM from the sidelines and running interference (the idea of the Exarchs and the GM being formal allies seems interesting to me) but I've got a good portion of the chronicle taking shape now. The Seers are helping the GM with the understanding that the Gateway can be tuned to any possible realm with enough time, power, and a suitable sacrifice. After the GM has accomplished its objective in altering the local Temenos, the Seers are hoping to establish communication and/or even a physical gateway to the Supernal Realms through the Gateway. Now, whether the GM plans on turning over the Gateway once it has accomplished its objectives is unclear. That depends on the power relation between the GM and the Seers. Could be the GM will never relinquish the Gateway, and the Seers are useful pawns in its construction. Could be the Seers were instrumental in actually creating the Gateway and have the leverage/access to the project necessary to ensure their access. Could be the GM knows or has an idea of what the Seers want to use the Gateway for--maybe the GM thinks making a portal to the Exarchs would be too disruptive and plans on double crossing the Seers once the Gateway is created, leaving the PCs as the third party in a 3-way conflict.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 23:39
|
|
|
Mulva posted:Exact opposite. The Abyss has no power over the Lower Depths. The Abyss is, quite literally, the Anti-Reality. It is totally destructive to the nature of the world as is.....but that's it. That's all it's relevance and it's power. That's why the Supernal can still pass through the Abyss and there is still magic in the world. The Supernal is also not reality, and the Abyss only has the power to unmake and pervert reality. As beings *from* reality, that sucks for us. The Lower Depths....also do not have that problem to deal with. They and the Abyss are both antagonistic to the world in some sense, but the Abyss is genocidal and the Lower Depths are predatory. The Abyss would destroy reality, and that isn't something any of the Lower Depths particularly want. They all feed on something. Life, sin, magic, whatever. They get that something from us. A force that would wipe all of us out is their enemy, and as the Lower Depths themselves are not as bound to reality they aren't as risk in fighting anti-reality forces. So it's like the difference between "Darkness" and "Chaos" in Glorantha? Neat!
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 09:04
|
|
|
I got a copy of Werewolf: the Forsaken 1e for Christmas, and I've been half-reading, half-skimming it. It's very wordy. The first thing that struck me was that the protagonist Werewolves are not all that appealing as player characters. I could play a Werewolf bound by these strange and arbitrary traditions and tribal structures who tries to maintain a balance of spirits... or I could play a Ghost Wolf and try to maintain the balance of spirits without being tied to a bunch of dolts who think that pack structures with a leader selected by combat is a good idea. "The Wolf Must Hunt" it says over and over again, but there seems to be no particular reason for why the Wolf, in fact, Must Hunt. The game seems to want me to accept the premise that tribal structures of rural-themed hipsters who Must Hunt is just what you play in this game, and it's a bit of a hard sell to me. Vampire in many ways is built from the ground up to make being a vampire difficult, and vampire society and conflict arises from trying to deal with those difficulties. This doesn't seem to be an element in Werewolf. The Wolf Must Hunt, but failure to Hunt doesn't seem to have any consequences that make Hunting tempting. It's Hunt or Be Hunted, but the enforcement of this seems vacuous. Interesting game, but it seems intrinsically flawed and with a weak theme.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 15:54
|
|
|
Addressing that was one of the main selling points of W:tF 2e to me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 16:04
|
|
|
Yeah, 2e is far superior. Also, without pack support, if you frenzy, you're hosed. Everyone around you is also dead.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 21:54
|
|
|
Got a few Christmas bucks left over. What are the best non-core nWoD books other than Horror Recognition Guide? I'm not running or playing anything at the moment, but I love the lore.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 06:55
|
|
|
Strontosaurus posted:Got a few Christmas bucks left over. What are the best non-core nWoD books other than Horror Recognition Guide? I'm not running or playing anything at the moment, but I love the lore. Damnation City.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 07:00
|
|
|
Most of the Mummy books have good writing, although they're not strongly tied to the other games. Book of the Deceived is a quality read.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 07:10
|
|
|
Kellsterik posted:Most of the Mummy books have good writing, although they're not strongly tied to the other games. Book of the Deceived is a quality read. This is, like, the opposite of the case. Book of the Deceived is impressively meaningless. (It also spends the whole first page telling you how dark it is going to be, which, in fact, it is not.) EDIT: (It's true that a lot of Mummy stuff has good writing, though. It has a lot of strong stuff and the game's flaws lie in a totally different direction.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 08:04
|
|
|
Slasher is extremely good, and VASCU may be the best Hunter group.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 08:32
|
|
|
perhaps it is i who has been deceived...*fades into dust + memory*
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 10:11
|
|
|
Drifting momentarily back to the discussion of the Abyss, I always liked to picture it through my admittedly limited understanding of Kabbalah; that the Abyss is not "real" in a meaningful sense any more than humanity's division from the Supernal is. The world, such as it is, emanates from the Supernal which is not itself a place; filtering down from its purest and selfless form to the individual soul and the material world. The Abyss has no Supernal possibility, and is instead what is created when souls react in a flawed manner; encompassing ignorance instead of capital-T Truth. It's why even the Awakened, who have seen the Supernal so clearly, can still let the Abyss into the world by loving up a spell: They try and command a symbol to reshape reality but do so in a way they don't quite understand/intuit, and their ignorance manifests in distortion of the spell. The further they Reach beyond their limit, the more distortion they allow in and the more awfulness spreads. It's a fun view to my mind because it somewhat counterintuitively makes Mages feel more responsible for the awful state of affairs and Sleepers less; the former are fully cognizant of how much they do not know and, thus, fully responsible for their overreaching. The latter are like children, reacting purely on instinct to something they have no capacity to understand; their reflexive denial of the Supernal weak compared to a Mage's own forceful will, but still allowing misapprehension to infect the world. On a different note, I'm recently trying to get into VtR a little, see what the fuss is about, and the more I read, the more... Off the Covenants feel. The ideas behind them are fun and interesting, no doubt; vampire philosophy is really fun. It just feels strange to imagine great networks of unrelated vampires forming when they're ostensibly such isolationists. With vampires having such limited communication networks until recently, being so few in number, and a sizable number of the eldest and most potent ending up either in Torpor or as munchies for their youngsters, it feels hard to imagine any conspiracy maintaining consistency and coherence for long. The conclusion I've come to is that Covenants aren't something vampires themselves would recognize, but more commonalities in philosophy, method, and technique, passed from sire to childe over the endless nights, which tend to form into local cults that, with time, may integrate neonates from other families who "defect" for one reason or another, who may, in turn, pass on the ideals to childer of their own. Is this assessment flawed in any way? Am I missing something?
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 17:10
|
|
|
The covenants as I understand them are only big networks if you really want them to be. Otherwise they're basically just vampire clubhouse templates that most would naturally fall into and develop over time. In essence: You are now a vampire; a formerly dead human who now must feed on blood to continue existing with powers that defy reality. Do you:
If vampires were real, each covenant would probably have a hangout thread on SA. That's basically what they are in relation to other people. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 17:20
|
|
|
Pinned Threads in the Kindred subform of Paranormal and Supernatural: INVICTUS: 'Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam' Carthian Movement: ^NO U^ Circle of the Crone: MENSES = BAN Ordo Dracul Thread: JOJOKE = BAN (The Lancea et Sanctum thread got gassed after Belial's Brood shitposted it into the ground) EDIT: I just realized that this universe would have multiple threads of nothing but magechat 
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 17:50
|
|
|
Axelgear posted:On a different note, I'm recently trying to get into VtR a little, see what the fuss is about, and the more I read, the more... Off the Covenants feel. The ideas behind them are fun and interesting, no doubt; vampire philosophy is really fun. It just feels strange to imagine great networks of unrelated vampires forming when they're ostensibly such isolationists. With vampires having such limited communication networks until recently, being so few in number, and a sizable number of the eldest and most potent ending up either in Torpor or as munchies for their youngsters, it feels hard to imagine any conspiracy maintaining consistency and coherence for long. i always assumed myself that a lot of the covenants would work in the old days like it would work with lieges of a feudal domain, aka in word and philosophies answering to a higher power on the ladder but having minimal contact besides pages and messengers due to how split off those domains usually were. of course, i haven't dipped too deep in the books so i don't know if covenants having central region leaders is ever a thing that's hinted at or not.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 18:18
|
|
|
Kavak posted:EDIT: I just realized that this universe would have multiple threads of nothing but magechat Shitposting in a magechat thread is my yantra.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 18:37
|
|
|
Axelgear posted:On a different note, I'm recently trying to get into VtR a little, see what the fuss is about, and the more I read, the more... Off the Covenants feel. The ideas behind them are fun and interesting, no doubt; vampire philosophy is really fun. It just feels strange to imagine great networks of unrelated vampires forming when they're ostensibly such isolationists. With vampires having such limited communication networks until recently, being so few in number, and a sizable number of the eldest and most potent ending up either in Torpor or as munchies for their youngsters, it feels hard to imagine any conspiracy maintaining consistency and coherence for long. The Ordo Dracul started as a bunch of mad scientist corresponding with their learned colleagues about their research. On a grand scale it's no more organized than a mailing list.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 18:39
|
|
|
Kavak posted:EDIT: I just realized that this universe would have multiple threads of nothing but magechat
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 19:21
|
|
|
Kellsterik posted:perhaps it is i who has been deceived...*fades into dust + memory* Well, I actually wouldn't mind discussing it, since a number of people seem to think the book is great. I just found stuff like: quote:The great philosopher lord of the Shan’iatu is perhaps the most desperate and confusing of the shattered masters. Offended by the mystical, religious, and the vague, the Thousand Eyes in One seeks the raw meaning of all realities and does so with the intent of individuating the soul to the point where it becomes that very meaning. In this, he fails to see the mark of his own hand and calls Truth what are actually the trapped shards of the void that he has suffocated with definition, matrices of logic, and metaphysical exposition. He is ruthless with method, as all things divided can be further divided; an infinite regress which lays the blueprint for the deepest and most vicious of inner and outer insurrections. It is not enough that the Deceived who share his spirit go mad from unending deconstruction, but that they perpetuate his method and teachings, infecting all thought with his compulsions so that obedience to the mandates of others become unutterable offenses against the highest self. to be largely meaningless blather.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 19:29
|
|
|
Axelgear posted:
I don't think your assessment is flawed really but I think it's worth noting that the Covenants were created as a result of those pressures rather than in spite of them. The Invictus helps maintain order and is not coincidentally a survival tool for elders. The Ordo exist to fight vampiric nature. And so on.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 20:10
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Well, I actually wouldn't mind discussing it, since a number of people seem to think the book is great. I just found stuff like:
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 20:32
|
|
|
I've been rewatching The Americans lately and I'm actually wondering how much it influenced Demon: The Descent, because it came out a little over a year before DtD's release and if you tweak a few things it's a hell of a lot like what the ideal "Soft/Rough" game would look like. All the games I play tend to be Loud (admittedly, it's more fun in the moment to play James Bond than Philip Jennings), but it seems like the line is meant to be much more attuned to the human drama aspects and themes that The Americans grapples with. If you like the particular angsts of DtD, btw, you should watch that show. Especially if you like stage plays, because it is all about dialogue and subtext. Plus the nitty-gritty of espionage fieldwork. It's the kind of show you have to pay attention to. Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Dec 31, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 20:35
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:I don't think your assessment is flawed really but I think it's worth noting that the Covenants were created as a result of those pressures rather than in spite of them. The Invictus helps maintain order and is not coincidentally a survival tool for elders. The Ordo exist to fight vampiric nature. And so on. Also at least two of the covenants were created out of wholesale power grabs and lies. It helps to know that, since it explains why the whole isolationist-except-not-really thing exists in the modern day games. It's heavily suggested in several books that the Invictus and Lancaea et Sanctum backstabbed the Camarilla and deliberately sabotaged it from within so they could pursue the whole king for life feudal/isolationist mind-set that they benefit off of in modern days. During the time of the Camarilla that wasn't at all the way things were done. They had a senate, representation for the people, governance over large swathes of land, and the whole Roman Republic style of government. The Invictus just kind of filled the role that the Camarilla was filling after all was said and done. It came with the job and gave them an excuse to muscle in on other divergent groups while claiming the higher ground when it came to being the "responsible" ones. Edit: Ditto for the Lancaea et Sanctum being two-faced liars about their history and justifications about being morally in the right. They almost certainly stole Theban Sorcery (The thing they use as proof that god chose them to be a menace to humanity. In reality, they have no real proof of that. Even the Testament they profess as holy truth is being edited to realign itself to modern times come Secrets of the Covenants.) from the extinct ancient Egyptian covenants after doing their damnedest to butcher most of them out of existence and erase any hint they ever existed. Ironically all this means that the Carthians and Circle are right about the Invictus and Lance being two-faced parasites that stole everything that made them become notable groups. Archonex fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Dec 31, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 21:07
|
|
|
Is it me or were the Brood and VII more of a thing early on? I feel like they rarely come up anymore in the newer books.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 21:11
|
|
|
Pope Guilty posted:Is it me or were the Brood and VII more of a thing early on? I feel like they rarely come up anymore in the newer books. I remember reading on either the OP forums or the RPGnet forums that a detailed examination of them got left out due to a lack of space left in the main VTR 2e book. Development for more VTR books has been so slow that i'm not surprised they never got back around to doing something with them. Archonex fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Dec 31, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 21:12
|
|
|
No but seriously Damnation City is really good (B v D aside).Pope Guilty posted:Is it me or were the Brood and VII more of a thing early on? I feel like they rarely come up anymore in the newer books. Yes, the Strix have kind of taken over their place, much like the Sabbat stole the Anarch's thunder in V:tM.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 21:42
|
|
|
FutureFriend posted:i always assumed myself that a lot of the covenants would work in the old days like it would work with lieges of a feudal domain, aka in word and philosophies answering to a higher power on the ladder but having minimal contact besides pages and messengers due to how split off those domains usually were. of course, i haven't dipped too deep in the books so i don't know if covenants having central region leaders is ever a thing that's hinted at or not. They're more like professed and famous ideologies that always have common threads. For example: Someone that claims to be a member of the Invictus is basically saying that they prioritize FYGM elitism and old world power structures in their day to day conduct as far as politics and decorum goes. Someone that professes to be a Carthian probably doesn't care for old world elitism and wants to change things. Stuff like that. The interesting thing is how the display of these beliefs changes from locale to locale. Sure, the default assumption for an Invictus controlled city is the image of an Invictus prince on his throne. But then you get stuff like the Invictus prince who operates like a modern day gang leader as opposed to the whole "boardroom and politics" thing. Likewise, it's not impossible to see a Carthian city leader who has become an Invictus style tyrant-prince for one reason or another. This also extends into how the covenant operates as a whole too. Though getting into that is a bit much for a single post. MonsieurChoc posted:No but seriously Damnation City is really good (B v D aside). Damnation City really is a must buy. It's useful even for 2e VTR. Even if you aren't interested in VTR or how to design interesting cities for vampires it goes into some neat stuff about the setting and mechanics that make it pretty invaluable. Archonex fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Dec 31, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 22:02
|
|
|
Pope Guilty posted:Is it me or were the Brood and VII more of a thing early on? I feel like they rarely come up anymore in the newer books. VII still got a full splash in the 2e corebook and, I thought, a good enough portion of the "mysterious antagonist" hinting. The Brood not so much. As for the plausibility of covenants, I tend to expect that the bonds within a covenant between domains are weak. The ideas and some of their foundational infrastructure, like relevant blood sorcery knowledge, are shared and they spread, but past that, I don't think the Invictus in one domain is especially connected or concerned with the affairs of the Invictus in another, and there are good odds they don't even resemble or much respect one another. I'm not as up on Damnation City's utility as a lot of folks, but it has a good section on various different types of Princes (or other rulers who don't use that title) and how their differences impact the domains they rule, and it makes a good contrast between, say, the Invictus leader who got his chops in gang life and rules through power, boldness and loyalty, and the Invictus leader who came out of the world of socialites and rules through money, networking and betrayals. If anything, those two leaders aren't really different branches of a single Invictus starting point, so much as they come from two entirely different cultures, and both found infrastructural support and some basic useful rhetoric out of the idea of "the covenant that values order, hierarchy, and pragmatism."
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 22:11
|
|
|
2e vampire, the only book I'm acquainted with, honestly gave me the impression that the Carthians and the Circle exist as opposing philosophies to the Invictus and Lancea, but are kind of doomed in execution. A Carthian uprising that manages to topple the Invictus power struggle disintigrates as the competing, arguing factions previously united by a common enemy start pushing against each other, even if they don't absorb enough of the invictus power structure to turn them into Invictus 2.0 after a short amount of time. The Circle creates anarchic 'rule of power' areas where only strength is respected, and diablerie and ghouling and violence run rampant, and then implodes because of how unsustainable that is as a model of vampire government. Give either enough time, and they collapse and the Invictus and Lance wander back in.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 23:40
|
|
|
LatwPIAT posted:I got a copy of Werewolf: the Forsaken 1e for Christmas, and I've been half-reading, half-skimming it. It's very wordy. Werewolf 1E was good. Its chief weakness was Harmony, which ended up measuring how far away you were from a fairly arbitrary and specific spirit warrior character than how out of whack your metaphysics were. Otherwise, I'm not seeing how your complaints don't apply equally well to 2E, which also doesn't give failure to hunt any consequences on the level of a vampire's failure to feed or avoid sunlight. You're still either buying into or rejecting archaic and somewhat arbitrary tribal structure and the onus is still on you to decide to accept and fulfill these weird responsibilities rather than ignore or shirk them. Well, I guess there are two Harmony sins that explicitly mention the Siskur-Dah, but come on. They'll just periodically slide you up and down the scale anyway. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Dec 31, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 23:50
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Werewolf 1E was good. Its chief weakness was Harmony, which ended up measuring how far away you were from a fairly arbitrary and specific spirit warrior character than how out of whack your metaphysics were. Otherwise, I'm not seeing how your complaints don't apply equally well to 2E, which also doesn't give failure to hunt any consequences on the level of a vampire's failure to feed or avoid sunlight. You're still either buying into or rejecting archaic and somewhat arbitrary tribal structure and the onus is still on you to decide to accept and fulfill these weird responsibilities rather than ignore or shirk them. Werewolves having two power stats, one of which gives you finicky rebates on actual supernatural abilities, is better in 2E than 1E now that Gifts are less inconsistent and crummy My general reaction to 2E CoD is that a lot of the refinements or re-evaluations of existing material are good, and there's a lot of QoL stuff that's invaluable. But a lot of the bolder design decisions (most of which revolve around how they want combat to look at the design level) leave me cold.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 23:57
|
|
|
I think quality of life improvements are kind of a wash because of how many new subsystems and edge cases you get dumped in your lap from day one. Werewolf is probably the absolute worst for this - the special rules for each form, and then for your senses, and then the gradations between rages, and then the added tidbits about your teeth or whatever, are freaking nuts.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 23:59
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:I think quality of life improvements are kind of a wash because of how many new subsystems and edge cases you get dumped in your lap from day one. Werewolf is probably the absolute worst for this - the special rules for each form, and then for your senses, and then the gradations between rages, and then the added tidbits about your teeth or whatever, are freaking nuts. Oh no, I seem to have forgotten that Gauru regenerate fully every turn.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 00:06
|
|
|
Kavak posted:Pinned Threads in the Kindred subform of Paranormal and Supernatural: The Ordo Dracul MEGATHREAD - No, even Hungarian Civil Partnerships are haraam [NO SLAVES ALLOWED ITT] Edit: Just so this post has some actual content, here are the hunter angels I have just statted up for the high-XP Demon: The Descent game I'm running at the moment. Feedback on my statting appreciated, I'm normally an improvise rather than stat up in advance kind of ST. That just literally doesn't fly for Demon, unfortunately. That game is complicated. quote:The Pigeon Fancier The general game plan is that the Pigeon Fancier is using cryptid pigeons which can sense Aether to sweep London for Demons, homing in on where the pigeons pick up activity and then using Distress Beacon to summon the other two. Transmitter has a small team of Receivers (which are basically stigmatics who get a couple of powers to stronk up their firearms) guarding key locations and a couple as a fast-response unit, and is making more as fast as it can get Essence. If the Receivers or pigeons alert the angels and they get there in time to confront the Demons, the Pigeon Fancier and Transmitter stay in Twilight using their Numina and Influences to buff up the swarms of attacking pigeons and the hit squad of Receivers, simultaneously hitting the Demons with all their nasty debuffs and crowd control. Alphastrike materializes and then goes apeshit with its Blasts and combat dice pools. Between them, the team are extremely good at tracking, pursuit and actively preventing the Demons from escaping. Odds are they can't actually beat the Ring in combat, but they sure can make life difficult and probably force them to retreat. Doodmons fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 02:28
|
|
|
Crasical posted:2e vampire, the only book I'm acquainted with, honestly gave me the impression that the Carthians and the Circle exist as opposing philosophies to the Invictus and Lancea, but are kind of doomed in execution. A Carthian uprising that manages to topple the Invictus power struggle disintigrates as the competing, arguing factions previously united by a common enemy start pushing against each other, even if they don't absorb enough of the invictus power structure to turn them into Invictus 2.0 after a short amount of time. The Circle creates anarchic 'rule of power' areas where only strength is respected, and diablerie and ghouling and violence run rampant, and then implodes because of how unsustainable that is as a model of vampire government. Give either enough time, and they collapse and the Invictus and Lance wander back in. The Carthians aren't really doomed by default. Mostly it's the ones that are all "Change for the sake of change! gently caress the system!" that end up devolving into nightmarish power struggles and slaughterfests that end up with half the population dead or fleeing the town. It's a recurring thing that violence in Kindred society tends to lead to even more violence and brutality. See the whole Burning Dawn group as an example. There's a bunch of success stories on that front too, evidently. Though they usually have some caveat. The latest book actually has one in the form of the New York movement, which actively steals talent and ideas from other Carthians to ensure they remain on the bleeding edge. Said theft usually ends up dicking over the Carthian movement in that area. Archonex fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 05:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 16:44 |
|
|
We have some folks who's run more light-hearted Demon: The Descent campaigns, yeah? Has anyone run it as an outright comedy, and if so, can you share some insight on what worked or didn't?
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 05:13
|
|
