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So, as someone who might be interested in making a few Division Six guys to follow around my Mage players (Whom would probably get a kick out of, considering we also play Delta Green), is there any way I could find a few generic Hunters without having to read the books and potentially sup-optimally build them myself?
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Jan 26, 2017 04:29
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Archonex posted:Yeah, I just figured i'd explain the concept behind Exalted since he asked. So, is Beast the Primordial any good? What's good ol' Phil Brucato up to?
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Jan 26, 2017 04:38
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Exalted is good and cool. Anyways, how was Werewolf 2e? I heard it was a good improvement on 1e.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:40
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Bedlamdan posted:So, is Beast the Primordial any good? What's good ol' Phil Brucato up to? They've both really turned themselves around, surprisingly. Also Clinton is President, Brexit failed, and The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring are being released together this Saturday.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:43
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Mage 20 is good.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:43
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Kavak posted:They've both really turned themselves around, surprisingly. Truly, we live in the best time line.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:45
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:Mage 20 is good. quote:I feel like that this morning, and I’m not quite sure why. It’s not the dancing. I’m used to that. Or the hike – that’s my favorite thing in the world, except maybe dancing. It’s not the sex, though gods know it was passionate enough. 
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Jan 26, 2017 04:49
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OK, Mage 20 is good if you just play it and ignore the Brucato stuff. I kinda like where they went with the metaplot.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:50
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:OK, Mage 20 is good if you just play it and ignore the Brucato stuff. I kinda like where they went with the metaplot. Backwards?
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Jan 26, 2017 04:52
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Mage in general seems like a steady evolution from Ars Magica towards a game that actual human beings could play, getting quite close by Mage: The Awakening 2E. I don't really get the appeal of rolling that back to one of the earlier incarnations and starting over, but whatever floats peoples' boats, I guess.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:53
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What fresh loving unwashed loving hellscape
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Jan 26, 2017 04:53
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Mulva posted:Backwards? Yes! Tuxedo Catfish posted:Mage in general seems like a steady evolution from Ars Magica towards a game that actual human beings could play, getting quite close by Mage: The Awakening 2E. I don't really get the appeal of rolling that back to one of the earlier incarnations and starting over, but whatever floats peoples' boats, I guess. Ars Magica is great too
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Jan 26, 2017 04:54
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My Mage GM showed me the Ars Magica rules and I couldn't stop laughing except when I was staring in horror. I think it was second edition, too, so it could have been even nuttier.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:54
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:My Mage GM showed me the Ars Magica rules and I couldn't stop laughing except when I was staring in horror. I can't speak to older editions but 5th is good and perfectly playable.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:56
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:I can't speak to older editions but 5th is good and perfectly playable. So long as you have an excel formula doing the character creation for you, sure.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:57
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But no, seriously, I was banned for a while and the whole site was paywalls, did Fallen Heroes fix Beast?
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Jan 26, 2017 05:04
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Sorry to interrupt the Exalted talk; but Bundle of Holding has a Hunter Bundle
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Jan 26, 2017 05:05
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Bedlamdan posted:But no, seriously, I was banned for a while and the whole site was paywalls, did Fallen Heroes fix Beast? One of the issues people had was that Heroes are mechanically non-threatening to Beasts. Beyond any of the thematic issues at play, they simply aren't antagonist material. Fallen Heroes introduces an entirely new antagonist type that is sort of like even less human Beasts that feed off normal Beasts and are even more monstrous in their behavior.....and they are completely mechanically non-threatening to Beasts. No, Fallen Heroes did not fix anything.
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Jan 26, 2017 05:09
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Bedlamdan posted:But no, seriously, I was banned for a while and the whole site was paywalls, did Fallen Heroes fix Beast? No. Nothing will ever fix Beast.
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Jan 26, 2017 05:10
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Bedlamdan posted:But no, seriously, I was banned for a while and the whole site was paywalls, did Fallen Heroes fix Beast? It's worse.
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Jan 26, 2017 05:10
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Ars Magica is the best textbook on medieval occultism, society, and economics (as interfered with by wizards) and alternate wizard-history disguised as a borderline unplayable RPG ever.
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Jan 26, 2017 05:11
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:It's worse. I am excited to hear more, or at least get links.
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Jan 26, 2017 05:12
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Bedlamdan posted:I am excited to hear more, or at least get links. I HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOW YOU One thing I haven't gotten to in the review yet but is probably something that will come up in this thread, is that there's a member of the new antagonist splat that shits eggs out of his dick that cause people who eat the eggs to also poo poo eggs out of their dick/vagina until they go insane and mutilate their groins to death. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 05:21
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Kurieg posted:I HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOW YOU You mean that isn't normal and I should see a doctor?
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Jan 26, 2017 05:29
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Kurieg posted:I HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOW YOU Who the gently caress read Montreal by Night, scratched their chin in thought, and went "the problem is that we did not go far enough"?
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Jan 26, 2017 05:31
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citybeatnik posted:Who the gently caress read Montreal by Night, scratched their chin in thought, and went "the problem is that we did not go far enough"? Well, probably anyone and everyone in charge of publishing Chronicles of Darkness books, if I'm being honest. ProfessorCirno posted:Optionally you just play Godbound. It honestly has one of the same issues everyone was talking about with Exalted 2E: cheap "always succeed" effects that reduce combat to careful resource management. Bedlamdan fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 06:08
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Loomer posted:Ars Magica is the best textbook on medieval occultism, society, and economics (as interfered with by wizards) and alternate wizard-history disguised as a borderline unplayable RPG ever. It's perfectly playable. It's just borderline impossible to do chargen without excel spreadsheets and a guide.
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Jan 26, 2017 06:23
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SunAndSpring posted:Exalted is good and cool. Yes. Some people have a problem with the garou form healing all non-agg damage at the start of each round, but in actual play, you don't bust that out unless something really hosed up is going down. I used it to save a wolfblooded packmate from getting attacked by a dragur. Popped Garou, used the irraka slasher movie ability to teleport next to the vampire and smashed a molotov at our feet. I soaked the fire and the crazy amount of lethal damage it inflicted on it's counterattack and finished it off the next round. WTF 2E: Setting yourself on fire is a valid strategy
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Jan 26, 2017 08:43
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Kurieg posted:I HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOW YOU The thing that aggravates me most about this book--and it's probably pretty telling how inured I've become on how terrible Beast is overall that it's this thing that pisses me off--is that it talks about how Heroes are also influenced by the Primordial Dream, and how Hunters are as likely to hunt them as Beasts, and... nothing actually reflects that. It makes no sense. It tries to say that Heroes are also victims of the Dream, but they're also assholes, but it's not their fault, but they're completely awful, except they're not, but you should hate them. It's trying very hard to have its cake and eat it too, and that's the dumb thing. It says a lot that the Heroes have so far been more sympathetic than the guys the splat is named after. That Beast tries to have objective morality to it, that it tries to have some flimsy pretense of ethicality to what Beasts do, is ultimately the thing that fucks it. Also attempts by the maker to actually equate their monsters and strawmen with real-life antagonists and marginalized groups (almost never a good idea). If they dropped these pretenses, it'd... well, it wouldn't be amazing, but it'd be loving tolerable. If I had my druthers, I'd rip the fairy tale element out altogether. It doesn't mesh with the monsters of myth element without rewriting the themes of those myths, which why even bother at that point? Make Heroes playable, less as something wholly separate from Beasts, but as an archetype of its own with its own according powers--reflect those ties to the Primordial Dream, and give reasons that Hunters would view them differently. Tie the game to an eternal narrative conflict between Heroes and Beasts, where their Morality-track is tied to how well they fit into those narrative themes; the more a Hero or Beast tries to defy them, the crazier they become and become in need of adopting certain ticks or certain actions to maintain their sanity, certain signatures. Or just steal Exalted's 2E's Acts of Villainy system or something like it. Have the very presence of a Hero or Beast in a region eventually call the other(s) into being or to the location, making them a reflection of a cycle of violence stretching back into prehistory. The whole conceit of the game being trying to fight against or shape the Dream's eternal narrative of monster and hero, with the players deciding the degree to which they give into it, the degree to which they rationalize it, or the degree to which they try to defy it--in the case of this last one, developing even more strange ticks and signatures tied to the theme of their legends. Maybe in an area they'd be fighting against their instincts with a truce, recognizing that they may not be awful and that the removal of one will simply call another; maybe have them succumb to the demands of their narrative, to face and likely kill each other; maybe have them try to fight against their urges (likely a default assumption) to work together for the sake of the common good such as tracking down and dealing with more unhinged examples of their kind (the Gastons and Grendels), growing more eccentric as the Dream continues to press demands on them to slaughter each other. Maybe all three at different points in a Chronicle. Probably not any better than any of the other ideas suggested on how to make Beast workable, and probably less-coherent given I did it at 3AM, and probably at the end of the day another example of how the only way to try and fix Beast is to turn it into something other than Beast. Ironslave fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 10:16
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Beast is a worthy successor to oChangeling, the game where psychologists/psychiatrist/etc. trying to help people with mental issues are evil.
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Jan 26, 2017 10:54
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MonsieurChoc posted:Beast is a worthy successor to oChangeling, the game where psychologists/psychiatrist/etc. trying to help people with mental issues are evil. So it was written by a Scientologist and/or Batman?
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Jan 26, 2017 11:36
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Unless people want it here so they don't have to go to OPP's forum, I've got the first batch of demographics up for Mage. There's quite a lot of them, which is why I'm linking there rather than posting here off the bat. http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/...raphics-of-mage EDIT: San Fran ratio update! Mages have 1:47,000 for the bay area as a whole and 1:5,400 if we use just San Francisco. Add the other supernaturals and the Bay Area ratio becomes 1:13,000. If they all met in the city one day, just because, San Francisco would temporarily have a ratio of 1:1500. Other cities with a high mage:mortal ration: -Richmond, VA at 1:19,500. -Prince Albert, Sasketchawan, at 1:3200. -Hong Kong, at 1:28,500. -Charleston, South Carolina at either 1:4800 or 1:33,250 for the greater metropolitan area. -Tryon, North Carolina at a terrifying 1:130. All Verbena. There are more verbena in that particular backwater than there are Asians or Native Americans. -Seattle, at 1:18,200. -Las Vegas, NV, is at 1:19,000. That book, ironically, gave us the mage figure of 1:150,000, while even at the greater municipal area the ratio is only 1:81,000. Of course, those ratios are averages, etc. Loomer fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 14:24
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I do think it's a step backwards to make villain splats that only work as npcs because you need to use dm fiat for half of their mechanics.
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Jan 26, 2017 16:07
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Kurieg posted:I do think it's a step backwards to make villain splats that only work as npcs because you need to use dm fiat for half of their mechanics. The best part is whoever decided Heroes were NPC-only never told the guy who wrote the Hero chapter; it refers to PC-only mechanics such as fulfilling Aspirations. (Specifically, of course, to note that Heroes are incapable of gaining XP and instead regain Willpower from doing so.)
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Jan 26, 2017 16:10
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Heroes too, but I was talking about Insatiables, mainly in the fact that they have a power that costs Lair dots, go through Satiety like a Chevy Nova with a leaky Gas Tank, but don't actually have a Hunger meaning half the feeding mechanics are useless to them. Offscreen Insatiables are monstrously prolific serial killers who can take over your life and steal your most intimate secrets, onscreen Insatiables are slightly less mechanically competent Beasts.
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Jan 26, 2017 16:39
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To be fair, I'm pretty sure Aspirations aren't really a PC-Only mechanic. I'm not sure they do anything for NPCs but IIRC the social maneuvering rules imply that they have them.
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Jan 26, 2017 16:44
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Beats and XP are definitely PC-only mechanics, though, and they get specially noted for Heroes not getting them but gaining Willpower whenever they would instead. Would not be wholly surprised if Insatiables do, too.
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Jan 26, 2017 17:32
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Eh, the more I see people try to fix Beast (I have done it too) the more I realize that saving Beast is a waste of time because you just end up bringing it closer to another game line that does Beast, but better. Do I want a game about feeding on fear and using fear to guide people away from danger or to teach lessons? Autumn Court Changeling game, Lancea Sanctum Vampire. Do I want to run a story about unfairly maligned monsters persecuted by humanity? Promethean, Werewolf. A game about strange, dark history and ancient secrets? Mage, Mummy. A Hero game about the dangers of staring into the abyss? Hunter with extra ethical dilemmas. Beast, but better, already exists. Why spend a bunch of time on it when retrofitting whatever aspects appeal to you onto better games is much easier, you know?
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Jan 26, 2017 18:19
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MonsieurChoc posted:Beast is a worthy successor to oChangeling, the game where psychologists/psychiatrist/etc. trying to help people with mental issues are evil. Also the way it's written appeals to lots of furries and otherkin. Just like how OWoD Changeling did.
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Jan 26, 2017 18:20
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Well, on a superficial note, "World of Darkness, but gently caress YOU I'M A DRAGON" is something I'd like in theory. Then again, I think there's a Changeling kith for that, too... 
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Jan 26, 2017 18:21
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