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I always considered Palladium's Nightbane an attempt to rip off the WoD.
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Mar 1, 2017 03:10
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You know what would be neat? A Hunter rip off based on those old choose your own adventure cds called Terror Trax.
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Mar 1, 2017 03:16
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It's kind of surprising how well World of Darkness cornered their particular mark that there weren't more knockoffs. I mean, there was Everlasting, Deleria, Witchcraft... I can't think of many others off the top of my head. In Nomine, Witchcraft, Nephilim. Fading Suns copped a lot of the style and some of the staffers. In other news, Zak Smith wants us to be grateful that he invented making games while having an art degree.
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Mar 1, 2017 03:26
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In Nomine and Nephilim... are harder to say because they're imports. Certainly, their English localisations were definitely informed by White Wolf. But In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas actually predates Vampire. I think you could definitely throw in a number of GURPS books that followed the World of Darkness trend - Voodoo, Goblins, Blood Types...
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Mar 1, 2017 04:10
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Alien Rope Burn posted:In Nomine and Nephilim... are harder to say because they're imports. Certainly, their English localisations were definitely informed by White Wolf. But In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas actually predates Vampire. I couldn't tell you about Nephilim really, but IN isn't a localization so much as an entirely different game with the same premise, and SJG In Nomine is very derivative of WOD. Plus there's the part where SJG just straight up published licensed WOD books for GURPS.
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Mar 1, 2017 04:30
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It's kind of surprising how well World of Darkness cornered their particular mark that there weren't more knockoffs. I mean, there was Everlasting, Deleria, Witchcraft... I can't think of many others off the top of my head. Enh. VtM was itself preceded by Nightlife, and there's a contemporary horror/urban fantasy genre that provides plenty of material. WW games were popular enough that after them, whatever comes next will be in some way a response by necessity, but Deliria was solidly drawing from urban fantasy roots with its extremely loose setting. Witchcraft is a bit different in that it certainly responded to WoD ideas, but I think Carella was really more interested in it in a, "Well, I'll do it *my* way," sense. The Everlasting, though . . . Sometimes you get responses to a thing that are creatively fruitful. Unknown Armies deserves its accolades, but probably wouldn't exist without WW games (or Over the Edge, which is a pretty drat important game too). Sometimes you get uninspired half-lifts like Urban Shadows. But in both cases, there's a bigger field of material in pop culture than other RPGs, and going to them is legitimate. It just might be challenging. I think three games about vampires have ever gained traction, and two of them are WW games called Vampire. The third is Night's Black Agents, and it had to demonstrate some singular loving genius *and* go back to literary sources hard to take its place. Making an all-new game about vampires to sell is a hard task, and I'm intrigued by what David Hill has been working on. Anyway, in relation to wherever the current White Wolf is at: I have no idea whether the company cares. They stated an interest in shifting their interest to Europe, and while Onyx Path is probably their most reliable revenue stream in a phase where they're probably burning through cash, it might not be especially important to the scale of business they want. Zak is a terrible person, but I think what struck me was that the samples I've seen of the actual game just aren't very good. Zak has always been an uneven writer with a tendency to justify his weaknesses. I remember an article of his where he complained about the backgrounds given some dead NPCs in a book as being a wordy waste of time, when it was transparently obvious that he just wasn't capable of doing that kind of work. Similarly, the samples I've seen haven't been great, though there might be some good parts I haven't seen. Reviews haven't been kind to it based on interactive fiction standards. And this is what concerns me about WW's direction. The old WW, and OPP, have certainly had ups and downs in terms of quality, but there are also people with the company who are excellent. Certainly, in the new WW's place I would have swiped Rose Bailey and Travis Stout, who have electronic and tabletop experience and are excellent writers. Bill Bridges is a genius at structuring games to be playable and evocative. For marquee value, why contact some rear end in a top hat when Chuck Wendig is out there? And someone should basically pay Howard Ingham to write all day, and Geoff Grabowski to release whatever game he feels like, because they're both that good. There are others, but they're already busy, or I don't know them well enough to comment, or this post is getting long enough already. While there's an argument to be made for fresh voices, when you elect not to take advantage of a tremendous talent pool, it begs the question of what you really want. I don't know. I came in during the old WW's last years, and whatever vision people have of the company is much bigger. I didn't watch the movie trailer because seeing a mix of former bosses, coworkers and the odd Some Guy would have made me cringe regardless of its merits. Maybe there's a clue to the vision there. I work for another company now and don't really have a horse in this race. But instead of a vibe, I think the current WW should really be aiming to grab some practical insights about how to develop games and settings. Much of what they tried to do was already effectively lab-tested by the old company. There's a reason the old company walked back from one unified setting 20 years ago, for example, and why the games were vague about the definitions of certain underpinnings. You need flexibility and an appeal to subjectivity to provide creative breathing room. Plus, there's an opportunity to look at failures, like the decline of MET, which used to be enormous, and things like Gypsies. Sooner or later the new company *will* learn those lessons, but I can't help but think that they might learn them more painfully than they needed to. Certainly, they're learning one now. MalcolmSheppard fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 07:54
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unzealous posted:Ettin did a once over of it a few years ago, not even in fatal and friends, just in the chat thread. It was painfully bland and every section started with a quote that was either insipid or just straight dumb. That might have been Evil Mastermind, I haven't read much of it.
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Mar 1, 2017 08:34
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MalcolmSheppard posted:Sometimes you get responses to a thing that are creatively fruitful. Unknown Armies deserves its accolades, but probably wouldn't exist without WW games (or Over the Edge, which is a pretty drat important game too). Sometimes you get uninspired half-lifts like Urban Shadows. But in both cases, there's a bigger field of material in pop culture than other RPGs, and going to them is legitimate. It just might be challenging. I think three games about vampires have ever gained traction, and two of them are WW games called Vampire. The third is Night's Black Agents, and it had to demonstrate some singular loving genius *and* go back to literary sources hard to take its place. Making an all-new game about vampires to sell is a hard task, and I'm intrigued by what David Hill has been working on. Yeah, Unknown Armies is a pretty obvious reaction to White Wolf, taking a humanistic approach as a counterpoint to the World of Darkness' supernatural conspiracies. Over the Edge is like a different branch off of World of Darkness, if Ars Magica is the root. Oberndorf posted:I always considered Palladium's Nightbane an attempt to rip off the WoD. There are points where it's super not-subtle, like the Tribes of the Moon. But, of course, it's mainly derivative of the movie Nightbreed. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 08:49
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MalcolmSheppard posted:I don't know. I came in during the old WW's last years, and whatever vision people have of the company is much bigger. I didn't watch the movie trailer because seeing a mix of former bosses, coworkers and the odd Some Guy would have made be cringe regardless of its merits. Maybe there's a clue to the vision there. I work for another company now and don't really have a horse in this race. But instead of a vibe, I think the current WW should really be aiming to grab some practical insights about how to develop games and settings. Much of what they tried to do was already effectively lab-tested by the old company. There's a reason the old company walked back from one unified setting 20 years ago, for example, and why the games were vague about the definitions of certain underpinnings. You need flexibility and an appeal to subjectivity to provide creative breathing room. Plus, there's an opportunity to look at failures, like the decline of MET, which used to be enormous, and things like Gypsies. Sooner or later the new company *will* learn those lessons, but I can't help but think that they might learn them more painfully than they needed to. Certainly, they're learning one now. As someone who studied professionally the implementation of app-enabled record keeping and planning integration across decentralized, autonomous subunits (presumably integral to the new era of cyber LARP), there is no doubt in my mind that Swedracula's strategy is doomed, if it even gets that far. That stuff causes serious problems for actual businesses. You treat it like a bunch of buzzwords and you'll get humbled.
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Mar 1, 2017 09:25
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, Unknown Armies is a pretty obvious reaction to White Wolf, taking a humanistic approach as a counterpoint to the World of Darkness' supernatural conspiracies. Over the Edge is like a different branch off of World of Darkness, if Ars Magica is the root. I always figured Unknown Armies was more a reaction to Call of Cthulhu than anything else; a good chunk of "You did it" comes from "What if the universe is only uncaringly cruel because we make it that way", and Tynes, at least, had more background there than with White Wolf stuff.
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Mar 1, 2017 09:40
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Kavak posted:https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/its-a-secret.968/ There is never going to be a Bloodlines 2, which is good, because it wasn't a good game. Even beyond the bugs it just doesn't have a third act and almost literally does not have an ending. Things just sort of stop, and credits.
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Mar 1, 2017 10:46
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Mulva posted:There is never going to be a Bloodlines 2, which is good, because it wasn't a good game. Even beyond the bugs it just doesn't have a third act and almost literally does not have an ending. Things just sort of stop, and credits. I mean, yeah, all of those things are true, and yet Bloodlines remains one of the most revered cult action-RPGs of the 00's. Not just because it's Vampires either - the closest thing that there has been to Bloodlines since has probably been Fallout: New Vegas which is, admittedly, a much better game. There probably will not be a Bloodlines 2 though, because even in the off chance that Swedracula managed to put the right people together and make the right pitch, I have to imagine it would be somehow even edgier than the original Bloodlines and would probably be called "Dark Blood" or something.
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Mar 1, 2017 10:51
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Basic Chunnel posted:It does seem like LARP is what Swedracula's preoccupation is. The grand vision involved a lot of social media integration and IT-enabling and all the other terms that MBAs use to summon project funding from the aether. I've looked into this sort of thing and seen similar attempts for other LARPs - it always seems to go in a very hilarious and doomed cycle:
Admittedly, it seems like having a large company backing and a ton of lifers will contribute to this actually getting some traction and avoiding the standard pitfalls, but given the current track record, I'm not optimistic. Also, I just read in an interview that they want to revisit Charnel Houses of Europe, which sets off all the warning bells after the recent poo poo they've done.
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Mar 1, 2017 11:08
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Hedningen posted:Admittedly, it seems like having a large company backing and a ton of lifers will contribute to this actually getting some traction and avoiding the standard pitfalls, but given the current track record, I'm not optimistic. Lifers?
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Mar 1, 2017 11:11
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Magnusth posted:Lifers? People who are pretty much in the whole larp scene for life, typically unable to frame social interaction outside of it and spending all their time poring over minutia and writing things "in character".
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Mar 1, 2017 11:18
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Basic Chunnel posted:It does seem like LARP is what Swedracula's preoccupation is. The grand vision involved a lot of social media integration and IT-enabling and all the other terms that MBAs use to summon project funding from the aether. Didn't they say something like "Netflix show in three years," too? That always struck me as really funny, like they would just rock up to Netflic Inc offices with a powerpoint presentation and then execs push the 'make show' button. If they want a show in three years they really need to be working on that show now.
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Mar 1, 2017 11:58
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Cease to Hope posted:In Nomine, Witchcraft, Nephilim. Fading Suns copped a lot of the style and some of the staffers. Wow, that's some incredible spin on Zak's part. Has there been any news on nChangeling 2E? I have the 1E core and Autumn Nightmares, would it be worth it to try and pick up any other books in that line or should I just wait for the new one?
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Mar 1, 2017 12:33
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That's an impossible question to answer right now because David Hill was in charge of it.
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Mar 1, 2017 12:43
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Agent Rush posted:Wow, that's some incredible spin on Zak's part. I'd pick up Winter Masques and Rites of Spring, they're both excellent books.
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Mar 1, 2017 13:48
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Basic Chunnel posted:It does seem like LARP is what Swedracula's preoccupation is. The grand vision involved a lot of social media integration and IT-enabling and all the other terms that MBAs use to summon project funding from the aether. Exactly this. Idea guys are nice and all, but they're a dime a dozen. Without people who actually have the technical skill to create what is being dreamed about and fawned over, those ideas remain dime a dozen. I know I sound like one of those weird west-coast technocrats, but also, learning to program isn't that hard, nor is learning to create systems and game theory and modelling poo poo and all the rest. But you actually have to do it, and it isn't nearly as fun as making up characters and writing stories.
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Mar 1, 2017 14:10
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unseenlibrarian posted:I...well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXpxnxAL62A
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Mar 1, 2017 14:23
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRNhDwqgq8
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Mar 1, 2017 14:32
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Their documentary isn't quite https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GPGQoR6f6w but then nostalgia is one hell of a drug Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 15:21
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Toph Bei Fong posted:Exactly this. The real problem is that once you pick up enough skills to do it properly you realise just how much you could be paid doing anything that isn't tradgames. Some of us do it, but for me it's a second job that's halfway to being a hobby.
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Mar 1, 2017 15:40
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Mulva posted:There is never going to be a Bloodlines 2, which is good, because it wasn't a good game. Even beyond the bugs it just doesn't have a third act and almost literally does not have an ending. Things just sort of stop, and credits. I liked it.  I think it does have a third act; after the assault on Hallowbrook Hotel, there's suddenly a lot of turning points as Ming Xiao play their hands and allegiances shift, which begins the third act, with mounting tensions as you fight a Werewolf, LaCroix turns on you, and you start kicking rear end and taking names by pretty much single-handedly annihilating the Camarilla and Kuei-Jin presence in LA. Bloodlines doesn't rigidly follow a three-act structure (nor a five-act structure), but I'd put everything after Hallowbrook Hotel as being in the so-called third act. I'd say that the biggest weakness of Bloodlines is not third act (which has a lot of the high points of the story, like the werewolf fight, Ming Xiao/LaCroix Must Die!, and the twist endings), but the second act, which contains some pretty meandering and tedious levels, like the Tzimisce sewers and Hallowbrook Hotel. - moreso than Ming Xiao/LaCroix Must Die!, which have emotional stakes, better design, and no maze. Bloodlines also has a pretty short denouement, but games tend to not do denoument well, so I guess I'm pretty used to that.
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Mar 1, 2017 15:41
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Toph Bei Fong posted:Idea guys are nice and all, but they're a dime a dozen. Without people who actually have the technical skill to create what is being dreamed about and fawned over, those ideas remain dime a dozen. I wasn't around during the early 90s heyday, but wasn't that sort of the relationship between MR*H and the Wiecks? Mark was the ideas guy but a lot of the technical work fell to the Wiecks. And the thing is that's fairly okay for a LARP, you can play fast and loose with the rules and let everything boil down to throwing chops if you want, but for an actual tabletop game you need something more concrete.
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Mar 1, 2017 16:29
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MalcolmSheppard posted:There are others, but they're already busy, or I don't know them well enough to comment, or this post is getting long enough already. While there's an argument to be made for fresh voices, when you elect not to take advantage of a tremendous talent pool, it begs the question of what you really want. The real question is who they're going to get at all; I presume Ericsson isn't going to try and develop it completely in-house, given how small White Wolf is. And none of them have done RPG writing that I'm aware of - they've written for LARPs / ARGs / video games but I don't think any of them have actually done tabletop RPG design. unseenlibrarian posted:I always figured Unknown Armies was more a reaction to Call of Cthulhu than anything else; a good chunk of "You did it" comes from "What if the universe is only uncaringly cruel because we make it that way", and Tynes, at least, had more background there than with White Wolf stuff. Well, it was both, according to Stolze.
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Mar 1, 2017 17:06
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Mulva posted:There is never going to be a Bloodlines 2, which is good, because it wasn't a good game. Even beyond the bugs it just doesn't have a third act and almost literally does not have an ending. Things just sort of stop, and credits. How does it feel, to be so wrong
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Mar 1, 2017 18:31
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Frankly, I hope there isn't a Bloodlines 2. Do you really want Bloodlines 2: Licking That rear end in a top hat Edition?
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Mar 1, 2017 19:09
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hopefully any dev large enough to tackle a bloodlines 2 would care enough about their reputation to not hire that hack
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Mar 1, 2017 19:11
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Personally I was hoping for Crusader Kings But With Vampires, but with 1st or 3rd person encounters where you can fight, investigate, sneak past guys, etc. Kind of like Vampire: Total War but replace the RTS parts with ARPG parts and the strategy parts with the Paradox grand strategy formula. With a much smaller scale, though, like instead of conquering nations you accumulate influence in various places like police, media, government, crime, and so forth. Wait is this basically GTA: San Andreas by Night because that would be fine too. Cool Dad fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 19:24
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Basic Chunnel posted:It does seem like LARP is what Swedracula's preoccupation is. The grand vision involved a lot of social media integration and IT-enabling and all the other terms that MBAs use to summon project funding from the aether. I wouldn't confuse his personal interest in LARP with the core plan for the company, which is to vault the IP into a big, centrally managed media license. I know nothing about how to sell a TV show but the last crack at doing that with centralized transmedia management was Heroes, which was bad, and now Star Wars, which is loving Star Wars and anyway, I'm sure Pablo Hidalgo exists to justify what the movies do, not tell directors what they can't do. But I think the documentary trailer reveals the very challenge of getting a tentpole up: Anything you like about the WoD can be lifted and tweaked into an original IP, as happened with Blade, Underworld, etc. That means the IP's value isn't its distinctiveness but recognition and loyalty. You want that, maybe you should talk to the people who kept that loyalty.
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Mar 1, 2017 19:40
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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:Personally I was hoping for Crusader Kings But With Vampires, but with 1st or 3rd person encounters where you can fight, investigate, sneak past guys, etc. Kind of like Vampire: Total War but replace the RTS parts with ARPG parts and the strategy parts with the Paradox grand strategy formula. With a much smaller scale, though, like instead of conquering nations you accumulate influence in various places like police, media, government, crime, and so forth. so you want like four different AAA games with vastly incompatible scopes all bolted together good luck with that!
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Mar 1, 2017 19:40
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Hey as long as I'm making up hypothetical bullshit games I may as well go hard. 
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Mar 1, 2017 19:49
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I'm gearing up to run a Mage game, but my biggest concern is that even if I make an interesting setting filled with potential Mysteries and a Consilium that's dramatic and politicky, I still won't be able to run a game that's any fun. Does anyone have any suggestions for any Actual Plays or similar I can read for inspiration/to help figure out what I can do to make my Mage game tick along? (I'm a couple of posts into reading Dave B's DC AP, and will read The Man Comes Around once I'm done with that, too) Edit: drat, that new thread title cptn_dr fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 20:00
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cptn_dr posted:I'm gearing up to run a Mage game, but my biggest concern is that even if I make an interesting setting filled with potential Mysteries and a Consilium that's dramatic and politicky, I still won't be able to run a game that's any fun. Does anyone have any suggestions for any Actual Plays or similar I can read for inspiration/to help figure out what I can do to make my Mage game tick along? (I'm a couple of posts into reading Dave B's DC AP, and will read The Man Comes Around once I'm done with that, too)
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Mar 1, 2017 20:07
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Space Rangers style text adventures in a territory control game with overlapping spheres of influence. That's all they loving needed to do.
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Mar 1, 2017 20:21
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Vampire question. Vigor and Resilience add directly to strength and stamina as a passive effect, but Celerity doesn't add to dex. How unbalanced would it be to allow Celerity to just straight up increase dex as a passive, is it not being able to a balance against celerity having more active effects to choose from?
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Mar 1, 2017 20:44
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cptn_dr posted:I'm gearing up to run a Mage game, but my biggest concern is that even if I make an interesting setting filled with potential Mysteries and a Consilium that's dramatic and politicky, I still won't be able to run a game that's any fun. Does anyone have any suggestions for any Actual Plays or similar I can read for inspiration/to help figure out what I can do to make my Mage game tick along? (I'm a couple of posts into reading Dave B's DC AP, and will read The Man Comes Around once I'm done with that, too) What are the PCs' Aspirations and Obsessions, and how did you pitch the game to them? Aspirations and Obsessions are basically just a formalized way of asking your players what they want to do, so for each short-term Aspiration, you should think of available ways to achieve it, for long-term Aspirations, a hint of how it could be achieved with effort, and for each Obsession, a way the local weirdness can plug into it. Not all of these have to be immediately dropped in front of the players; but you should think of how they could become available; and everything will be absolutely wrecked by contact with the players, so prep wide rather than deep except when the campaign's developed NPCs and mysteries that you know they're interested in in practice.
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Mar 1, 2017 20:50
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cptn_dr posted:I'm gearing up to run a Mage game, but my biggest concern is that even if I make an interesting setting filled with potential Mysteries and a Consilium that's dramatic and politicky, I still won't be able to run a game that's any fun. Does anyone have any suggestions for any Actual Plays or similar I can read for inspiration/to help figure out what I can do to make my Mage game tick along? (I'm a couple of posts into reading Dave B's DC AP, and will read The Man Comes Around once I'm done with that, too) I do what Yawgmoth does, but I also give my players a handful of things that happen in the world each week to gauge what they're interested in and then spin it up into a story that connects to the metaplot (most of the time it does). To me it feels like throwing darts at a board of ideas, but it doesn't feel that way when the players and character start chasing things down and getting into trouble.
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Mar 1, 2017 20:51
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