|
Loomer posted:Not a bad ratio, eh? It's nice and solid; enough to make the presence of Native Mages significant, but small enough that they couldn't prevent smallpox from being a major historical force; the sweet spot for Mages. Incidentally, a Mage game I play in had a kind of note on that, involving dealing with the centuries-old aftermath of a curse placed by a Dreamspeaker shaman after his people suffered horribly from attacks and disease initiated by a European warlock. It wasn't actually a central plot feature, but just... A feature of the landscape. It was a lingering echo and a reminder that the events of the past still have effects today. Joe Slowboat posted:I love that in Awakening the Exarch of Prime, the Father, is pretty much still this concept but written well. He has a definite gender unlike the rest of them, represents religious oppression and is literally the closest thing to a standard God the Father one can meet in the Aether. He's also explicitly the Exarch that rules over misogyny in the same way as Unity rules over xenophobia and racism, as well as being in charge of blind faith, tradition overriding good sense, and censorship of true spirituality. He is absolutely the Exarch of religious patriarchy. It feels like patriarchal behaviour, as well as racist behaviour, doesn't really belong to one Exarch, but the Father is very much about the idea of exclusionary supremacy; that not only is X group better than Y group and thus deserves more, but Y group's inferiority actually makes them deserve less. That is, not only is it right that group X gets more than group Y, but it would actually be immoral for group X to share its bounty with group Y because group Y doesn't deserve it. To put it another way, Unity allows for tribalism; the separation of people by groups and their placement into boundaries. The Father distinctly sets some above others; Mages above Sleepers, the faithful above the nonbeliever, men above women, etc. The Unity wants people looking askew at other groups and saying "This is Us, They are Them" and always the two shall war. The Father wants "We are above They, forever and ever, amen."
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 20:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 11:39 |
|
|
Beasts explicitly do not have an Integrity-type track of any kind.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 20:17
|
|
|
Cantorsdust posted:Like, I guess what do Beasts do? Vampires drink blood on the day to day and scheme for power long term. Mages study/investigate on the day to day and learn more magic for the long term. Werewolves defend their territory on the day to day and seek balance for the long term. What are Beasts doing on a day to day, regular play session basis, and what is their supposed character arc? Play out a normal every day sit-com-y life interspersed with occasionally going out and inflicting the worst horrors of your id upon someone who happens to catch your ire under the Auspices of teaching them Occasionally one of the Beasts who isn't as enlightened as you will show up and make everyone's day worse and it's your responsibility to make them see the error of their ways or eat them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 20:26
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Beasts explicitly do not have an Integrity-type track of any kind. That's such a staggering bad idea I don't even know what to make of it. The Integrity track is built into so many parts of the larger system, what on Earth?
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 20:53
|
|
|
The spot where an Integrity track goes is filled by Hunger, so it's kind of the inverse of an "ethic" stat.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 20:57
|
|
|
Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:The spot where an Integrity track goes is filled by Hunger, so it's kind of the inverse of an "ethic" stat. So it's not quite that bad. Still pretty bad though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 21:13
|
|
|
Axelgear posted:It's nice and solid; enough to make the presence of Native Mages significant, but small enough that they couldn't prevent smallpox from being a major historical force; the sweet spot for Mages. I do this with my setting myself. It's not necessarily a curse, but I try to remind the European descendants that there were First Nations that were imposed upon and make sure there's something in the setting about it. It's one more way that I like to remind the mages that they aren't alone, and they aren't the only ones in the world to have or have had immeasurable power. I find that I need pressures on them from everywhere to always be making decisions about how, when, where, and mostly importantly why to use their magic. Mages have to answer, "Why?" The rest is easy to find with magic. The "Why?" is the part that keeps it a mystery. People will disagree with me, but that's the central problem in how I read Mage. It's not the monsters you fight, or the puzzles you solve, or the magic you cast and create. It's Why? Why do bad things keep happening? Why do the 'bad' people keep doing what they're doing? Why do I exist? Why don't I exist? If you're not having a crisis of being, you're distracted by the world, not the horror of existence. So what happens when you think you can know everything, but really you know nothing? The first problem that I gave my new mages is what looked like a simple ghost haunting. They didn't search for the Why?, so that's coming back to cause them trouble. It'll be fun trouble, and they had fun learning their arcana and killing the ghost, but now they're having fun discovering the Why?.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 21:15
|
|
|
Cantorsdust posted:Do they have a Morality slider akin to Humanity for the Vampire, Wisdom for the Mage, etc? That could at least point to whatever you're supposed to manage as a player. I guess they fight Insatiables now. It looks like Beasts are superheroes, grimdark 90s superheroes, but still superpowered figures who fight villains nobody else can. It doesn't seem like a good fit for the nWoD, but I suppose they at least have a purpose other than eating.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 21:42
|
|
|
It's a very fine balance; trying to maintain a sensation that Mages are adrift in a big, dark world that they can scarcely hope to comprehend, while also wanting them to feel like that world is crowded. A bit like living out in the woods and, as you walk, periodically coming across monuments or other wanderers in the area. It's something that's deserving of impressing into the minds of the players: That the Awakened live their lives surrounded by people who know nothing about the Secret Truth of Existence. It's a very isolating sensation and can easily give way to madness as you feel as how separate and desperate you are. If an ST doesn't let a PC get away with not thinking about Sleepers, they will think about Sleepers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 21:47
|
|
|
So I finally read M:tAw 2nd ed corebook. And as someone who was a big fan of M:tAs back in the day but was kind of turned off by the 1st ed M:tAw core book. The 2nd ed core book is definitely a LOT better than the 1st ed.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 23:59
|
|
|
The only real problems that I have with the Mage 2e core book is the lack of legacies and the lack of sample antagonists. Given the page count breakdown that happened earlier in this thread its a miracle they fit in as much as they did so i'm exceedingly willing to forgive that (though it does make the game I'm about to start running here soon a bit interesting).
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 00:31
|
|
|
2E would benefit from something like the Order books where they have an appendix of statted-out sample characters. I like building NPCs for my game but it's a bit time consuming. I get that there's no such thing as a "typical" mage, but it would be good to have a few customizable stock characters that PCs might meet. Related: it might be boring or the sort of thing I could come up with myself, but I would love to see a list of example Obsessions. I don't need a hugely complex crossover scenario (looking at you, Other Forums), just "here are some evocative things a Moros or Libertine might be working on." Kellsterik fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Jan 14, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 00:36
|
|
|
Kellsterik posted:2E would benefit from something like the Order books where they have an appendix of statted-out sample characters. I like building NPCs for my game but it's a bit time consuming. I get that there's no such thing as a "typical" mage, but it would be good to have a few customizable stock characters that PCs might meet. It's not having guidelines like that which has led to my Mastigos having "troll the local Seer leader repeatedly" as one of his Obsessions.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 00:46
|
|
|
Kellsterik posted:2E would benefit from something like the Order books where they have an appendix of statted-out sample characters. I like building NPCs for my game but it's a bit time consuming. I get that there's no such thing as a "typical" mage, but it would be good to have a few customizable stock characters that PCs might meet. That's supposedly coming in the future (the order book, not the NPCs), but it's not on the calendar and I imagine it won't be on the calendar until after Signs of Sorcery comes out this quarter sometime. I don't know that we really need a bunch of sample characters in anything but a quick-start book like recently came out for Requiem. I make slim NPCs for the most part. Handful of skills they're good at, arcana, and p/f/r attributes in the off chance they need to roll for something. Once they get more heavily involved or are being used as a Mentor they get a full sheet. I don't count XP on them though and just throw dots at a sheet. With LHP being 2e compatible, I don't see Awakening getting an Antagonist book anytime soon, and I wouldn't bet on a setting like Boston being released for a long time yet.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 00:48
|
|
|
Jhet posted:I wouldn't bet on a setting like Boston being released for a long time yet. Didn't DaveB directly talk about there being a New York book in the works? I might be horribly misunderstanding him but I thought I remembered him saying something like that either here, /wodg/, rpgnet, or the onyxpath forums.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 00:52
|
|
|
LordAbaddon posted:Didn't DaveB directly talk about there being a New York book in the works? I might be horribly misunderstanding him but I thought I remembered him saying something like that either here, /wodg/, rpgnet, or the onyxpath forums. I don't recall. I just go by what's listed on the OP release schedule and Monday meeting updates. That would be cool if it was coming, but I'd expect it to be a ways off still.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 00:58
|
|
|
This is probably me having a brain fart but I don't remember nWoD doing New York. Did they ever? As a New Yorker I'd actually be pretty stoked to read that. (And now that I think about it I should check out the oWoD ones for a laugh)
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 00:58
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:This is probably me having a brain fart but I don't remember nWoD doing New York. Did they ever? As a New Yorker I'd actually be pretty stoked to read that. New York City got the city setting appendix chapter in Geist. I don't recall much of it being particularly notable, but I'm not a city native, so maybe that changes the perspective on it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 01:00
|
|
|
Jhet posted:I do this with my setting myself. It's not necessarily a curse, but I try to remind the European descendants that there were First Nations that were imposed upon and make sure there's something in the setting about it. It's one more way that I like to remind the mages that they aren't alone, and they aren't the only ones in the world to have or have had immeasurable power. I find that I need pressures on them from everywhere to always be making decisions about how, when, where, and mostly importantly why to use their magic. I think, in a nation colonised by Europeans, you'd be doing Mage players (and players of other lines that have to interact with the past - and the consequences thereof - a lot, like Werewolves or Geists) a huge disservice by not putting in pieces of and consequences from the colonial-era past. I certainly try to weave a lot of Maori folklore and mythology into my Mage game, as well as stark reminders of old atrocities from the colonial period, and of the damage done both to Maori culture and Maori people by European settlement. With the odd enormous impressive Mage-built monument in the Shadow at an old Maori sacred site or monster from Maori mythology on hand as well. Much of the idea is that New Zealand was only settled by Europeans comparatively recently, and while the Maori are still here and have a fairly strong magical tradition (with their own Nameless Order), a lot of their traditions and lore were destroyed in colonial times; so a lot of the Mysteries of the country have been forgotten about and not touched/looked after/checked in on for more than a century, and this is a huge problem for modern mages.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 01:00
|
|
|
I Am Just a Box posted:New York City got the city setting appendix chapter in Geist. I don't recall much of it being particularly notable, but I'm not a city native, so maybe that changes the perspective on it. Ah that'd explain why I forgot it. Geist just slips out of my head immediately since it was kind of meh. Hopefully NYC gets a Mage supplement. I'd love to see something about like Abyssal artifacts in the Cloisters or how the layout of Alphabet City is a secret plot by the Seers to lead to the rise of Williamsburg or whatever. Also, now that I think about it : say what you will about Beast, but at least Geist isn't the worst nWoD game anymore.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 01:33
|
|
|
At least Geist was about enjoying yourself and being a good shaman person, even if was mechanically bad. Beast is broken AND is so offensively bad at its attempted theme of "Beasts are poor and maligned outsiders hated for being different" that it makes you cheer for the faction that is supposed to represent the Nazis/MRAs/et cetera because it makes the Beasts look so awful. I don't get how the same company that made Promethean and Changeling and Mage, which dealt with similar themes in way better ways, shat this out.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 01:55
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:I love that in Awakening the Exarch of Prime, the Father, is pretty much still this concept but written well. He has a definite gender unlike the rest of them, represents religious oppression and is literally the closest thing to a standard God the Father one can meet in the Aether. He's also explicitly the Exarch that rules over misogyny in the same way as Unity rules over xenophobia and racism, as well as being in charge of blind faith, tradition overriding good sense, and censorship of true spirituality. He is absolutely the Exarch of religious patriarchy. Where do the Exarchs get write ups
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 02:06
|
|
|
SunAndSpring posted:At least Geist was about enjoying yourself and being a good shaman person, even if was mechanically bad. Beast is broken AND is so offensively bad at its attempted theme of "Beasts are poor and maligned outsiders hated for being different" that it makes you cheer for the faction that is supposed to represent the Nazis/MRAs/et cetera because it makes the Beasts look so awful. I still don't know what geists do. I love ghosts and that book was such a let down.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 02:56
|
|
|
BENGHAZI 2 posted:Where do the Exarchs get write ups Seers of the Throne book. Xiahou Dun posted:This is probably me having a brain fart but I don't remember nWoD doing New York. Did they ever? As a New Yorker I'd actually be pretty stoked to read that. There's a New York 1970s setting for Werewolf in Dark Eras, called Bowry Dogs. I took one look at it, thought "Hey, this'd be fun for Mage!", and that's basically been my feelings about 90% of Dark Eras. Kellsterik posted:2E would benefit from something like the Order books where they have an appendix of statted-out sample characters. I like building NPCs for my game but it's a bit time consuming. I get that there's no such thing as a "typical" mage, but it would be good to have a few customizable stock characters that PCs might meet. To be honest, you don't really need to change anything; the NPCs in the books are about the same stat-wise as they'd be in either case. As for example Obsessions, I always found it hard to judge how broad they are, myself. At the moment, my Thyrsus has two Obsessions; "Find out how deep the Awakened conspiracies are in Seattle" and "Figure out where all the Thyrsus are", since they're one of four Thyrsus in an area with dozens of Awakened, maybe even as many as a hundred. My latest thing has been reading Sanctum and Sigil and thinking "Wow, I really wish this had been the first thing about cabals", because it is super-duper important to realize that cabals aren't really just "Hey, smush the new Awakened together and hope they'll be besties", but are actually conspiracies of mutual interest aimed at a central purpose, with their own little legal codes. I feel like the first real Mage game I ran could've been saved by having the players (and the PCs, through them) sit down and decide what kind of stuff they want to get up to, what things they want to not have happen or have PCs do, and then use that as my guide for the game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 03:00
|
|
|
Cinnamon Bear posted:I still don't know what geists do. I love ghosts and that book was such a let down.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 03:01
|
|
|
Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Sin-eaters solve spooky mysteries and substitute syncretic belief systems for coherent lore or themes. Geists themselves whisper lovely murder urges with 0 mechanical support. Weeee Elaborating slightly - Sin-Eaters see ghosts everywhere and if a whiny ghost notices that you can see it, it'll whine you and bug you into helping it, so that's what they do if they don't wanna be ghost-superheroes in some other way.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 05:46
|
|
|
Geists hunt down ancient evil vampires hiding in Egypt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV_CwCTOOMI
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 07:07
|
|
|
Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Sin-eaters solve spooky mysteries and substitute syncretic belief systems for coherent lore or themes. Geists themselves whisper lovely murder urges with 0 mechanical support. Weeee Yeah, I always thought that the big let=down for Geist was that there wasn't really much to do. No quest driving you towards or away from something like Promethean or Mage, no hunger to feed like Vampire, nothing coming after you that you always have to stay a step ahead of (and maybe, one day, strike back at) like Demon or Changeling. You can sort out ghost biz if you want to, but it's not like you're even really obliged to like Werewolf and the Shadow. Even most of the Hunter compacts and conspiracies have a motive built into them, or at least a raison d'etre. Beast appears to gently caress up its motivation enormously, but at least it kind of has one, in that you sort of have to feed your hunger like in Vampire (but without ever acknowledging the moral quandary inherent in feeding on people's fear, instead just patting yourself on the back for being great and special and misunderstood even as you tear people's psyches apart). Geist doesn't push you towards anything, and I think that's its greatest weakness. It's conceptually cool, but I feel like I'd have to retool it immensely before I ever considered playing it. At least it stands above Beast in that regard, since there is enough good stuff and cool ideas there to make me actually want to do the work of "fixing" it, rather than just never touching it. It was nice to get the Underworld elaborated on, though. Also, "Null Snyper" is the stupidest name I've seen from a WoD product in a long time (full disclosure; I have rarely if ever looked into oWoD very much), and thanks to the thread title, I have to look at it every time I open up my bookmarked threads. It's gonna get stuck in my brain now. Thanks, mods!
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 07:28
|
|
|
It's dumb even by oWoD standards for anything that isn't a Virtual Adept, and even dumb for all but their cringier examples. At least they named their signature character for the VAs (and guy who actually brings about the Unity, thus ending the entire cosmos as we know it by collapsing the spheres back into the godhead, to either remain united or recrystallize in a new and better configuration under the guidance of himself and the three souls he hand-picked for the task) 'Dante' and not like, xXxL337M4G3xXx.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 07:52
|
|
|
The Sin of Onan posted:Also, "Null Snyper" is the stupidest name I've seen from a WoD product in a long time (full disclosure; I have rarely if ever looked into oWoD very much), and thanks to the thread title, I have to look at it every time I open up my bookmarked threads. It's gonna get stuck in my brain now. Thanks, mods! Null Snyper and Samuel Haight are my OTP
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 07:57
|
|
|
Null Snyper was my favorite Metal Gear Solid boss.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 08:20
|
|
|
Oh hey theres a big mummy bundle for $30 on DTRPG, was Mummy any good? I think I actually checked out of WoD around the time of Geist and don't know anything about it, demon, or 2e for the most part.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 10:52
|
|
|
Jhet posted:I don't recall. I just go by what's listed on the OP release schedule and Monday meeting updates. That would be cool if it was coming, but I'd expect it to be a ways off still. New York's Mage 2e setting was too big for the corebook, and will be in Tome of the Pentacle (the book after next).
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 11:16
|
|
|
Cinnamon Bear posted:Oh hey theres a big mummy bundle for $30 on DTRPG, was Mummy any good? I think I actually checked out of WoD around the time of Geist and don't know anything about it, demon, or 2e for the most part.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 15:24
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:I haven't read much of nMummy but from what I hear it's pretty disjointed and it has the problem of bringing back difficulty fuckery, i.e. the number you need to roll for a success changes instead of being a flat 8. Demon, however, is one of the best XoD books ever written.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 15:46
|
|
|
bewilderment posted:Elaborating slightly - Sin-Eaters see ghosts everywhere and if a whiny ghost notices that you can see it, it'll whine you and bug you into helping it, so that's what they do if they don't wanna be ghost-superheroes in some other way. Clarification: Ghosts automatically know you can see them and will inevitably loving hound you to the ends of the earth to fix their problems and lay them to rest. Geist has its fair share of mechanical problems and it sucks that there's no weight to the Sin-Eater/Geist relationship but I really don't get it when people go "What do Geists do all day? I guess they're just superheroes" because the answer to that question is spend 24 hours a day dealing with the fact that the horde of ghosts which surrounds you constantly won't leave you the gently caress alone. The Sin of Onan posted:Yeah, I always thought that the big let=down for Geist was that there wasn't really much to do. No quest driving you towards or away from something like Promethean or Mage, no hunger to feed like Vampire, nothing coming after you that you always have to stay a step ahead of (and maybe, one day, strike back at) like Demon or Changeling. You can sort out ghost biz if you want to, but it's not like you're even really obliged to like Werewolf and the Shadow. Even most of the Hunter compacts and conspiracies have a motive built into them, or at least a raison d'etre Yeah I don't get this - in Werewolf you can run off into the wilderness and avoid doing your job if you really want to (it'll be a big ol' ding on your Harmony and you have the unstoppable urge to hunt but still) and you're not constantly surrounded by Spirits 24/7 because the vast majority of them are stuck in the Shadow. Geists are loving surrounded by ghosts, there's no getting away from them and they all know exactly what you are. YMMV as to whether "ghost of the week as we try and lay yet another loving goober to rest" is a good gameplay focus for a WoD gameline, but that's what the focus is. Doodmons fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Jan 14, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 15:54
|
|
|
Doodmons posted:spend 24 hours a day dealing with the fact that the horde of ghosts which surrounds you constantly won't leave you the gently caress alone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZxIAN6don4
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 16:09
|
|
|
Cinnamon Bear posted:Oh hey theres a big mummy bundle for $30 on DTRPG, was Mummy any good? I think I actually checked out of WoD around the time of Geist and don't know anything about it, demon, or 2e for the most part. As with all things, YMMV, but I felt Mummy was one of those "Best Games You'll Never Play" type deals. You are a terrible undying god, who rises from the grave to do... Something. Usually, some chump crept into your crypt or did something dickish to your cult, and now you have to haul your dried-up old corpse out of its sarcophagus to teach them a lesson. Thing is, there isn't much character conflict to those arcs. You start out with Memory 3; only the most basic memories of a past life and very little connection to humanity. You're impelled by gods from a time when "Cut off someone's hand for stealing a loaf of bread" was considered a sign of mercy because you didn't nail it to the tree-of-hands afterwards, and they want you to go out and deliver "justice" by murdering the people who took your shiny gold trinket or weren't nice to the people who make sure your crumbling tomb doesn't crumble too fast. The game wants you to have character conflicts about what kind of a monster you are but deliberately starts you out in a place where you don't remember much connection to humanity and doesn't give you much reason to want to restore that connection. You can always rely on the old canard of "Why are you playing this if you don't want that sort of story?", but that feels kind of weak. So the end result is pretty weak. Or so I gleaned from reading through a friend's copy. Mummy has some really fun aesthetics, but I've personally never found much motivation to want to play it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 16:54
|
|
|
The other thing Sin-eaters do is go hunting abmortals- any sort of immortal that maintains its immortality by killing and loving with the ghost ecosystem in the process. (Vampires are apparently not included in this for some reason, probably because they're already dead) but, like, blood bathers and bodyhoppers from the Immortals blue book are probably close to the top of the list.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 17:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 11:39 |
|
|
Imagining sin-eaters as constantly plagued by ghosts also helps with accepting that one of their stereotypical behaviors is 'partying down'. If I was surrounded by creepy dead people whining all the time I'd start trying to figure out which combination of exotic drugs would help me ignore that for a goddamn minute too. But yeah Geist doesn't have as much mechanical support for its themes as Werewolf (the wolf must hunt) or Demon (you are being observed). Honestly the Beast Hunger mechanic might be an okay model to tweak, rules about balancing the eldritch monster piggybacking on your soul between ignored and fully indulged seems like what people are missing in Geist.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2017 17:57
|
|