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Man I'd expect a feudal system to only sort of adhere to its OWN political boundaries, let alone those of mortal society.
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May 8, 2017 10:14
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Zereth posted:Man I'd expect a feudal system to only sort of adhere to its OWN political boundaries, let alone those of mortal society.  and so on? I imagine William the Conqueror had things his way for a while.
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May 8, 2017 11:14
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Nessus posted:Would this not be a feudal society enforced from above within less than a single mortal lifetime, possibly backed by giant bursts of magic juice from You would be mistaken. Willy the Bastard's reign was marked by strong internal dissent, turmoil, and power struggles. He basically had to genocide the North of England into submission in the Harrying, fought several civil wars, and more or less had to replace the entire extant aristocracy over the course of his reign with more and more Normans as well as spending huge sums on military fortification and imposing his governmental will. He had maybe five years out of his twenty that some trouble or other wasn't brewing or actively loving up his goals. He spent most of this time in France (well, Normandy) since England was both murderous, completely different in its customs and government than what he was raised into (rather ironically, as the son of Norsemen, if he'd been raised anywhere but Normandy it probably would have been the other way around), and constantly stirring poo poo against him. To boot, most of the good governance from the era predated him and he just took it over and added a little french into the mix. EDIT: On the main point, it's more plausible here than with a real feudal state, but not by much. High King David did not create these territories - they were already established by the returning Sidhe, and the monarchs were very much doing their own thing since Dafyll was more focused on fighting the war than on who got what territory. By the time David ap Ardry ap Gwydion rocked up as King, these guys were already established and he had to struggle to get his vassal kings to recognize his rule. There's also been some 47 years since, which is enough time for claims to start getting hazy and borders to swap in a proper system of inheritance. However, Concordia doesn't have one. Half the time the dukes are elected or appointed or just sort of... Randomly handed out, as opposed to title being largely hereditary. Loomer fucked around with this message at 11:28 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 11:22
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Loomer posted:Ever wonder what the web of feudal obligations in Concordia looked like? Here's a handy, but incomplete, graph. I am aware I am basically turning into that Nickelback meme. Out of interest, Loomer, what tools are you using to make those neat spiral mind map type graphs? I end up doing graphs exactly like that for webs of feudal obligations in my home games but they never look as nice as that.
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May 8, 2017 12:15
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Gephi. It's a network graphing tool. I could stand it being a little more flexible, but that may just be me not being good at it. https://gephi.org/ I picked it up for a virtual conspiracy chart for that upcoming game, and it works great for that. It's a little tricky at first but very intuitive once you have a grip on the basic concepts.
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May 8, 2017 12:18
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You also have to consider the fact that changeling "kingdoms" aren't real governments in the sense that they don't actually manage the vast majority of what's going on in their territory, because the mortals are doing that. It's probably extremely feudal in that every changeling community is basically going to be a self-contained entity with all the local Kithain huddled around the local balefires and being bossed about by whoever controls that fire insofar as they're able to, with actual kings and queens having a seriously limited ability to control their underlings. I mean, what tools does King Meilge have to force a baron a whole state over to do what he wants aside from using Sovereign or a squad of murderers? He doesn't really control any resources the baron needs and the baron is a long way away.
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May 8, 2017 15:40
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So, like, what does the High King...do, then?
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May 8, 2017 15:46
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Mors Rattus posted:So, like, what does the High King...do, then? In C20, he's not doing anything. He basically staggered back from his disappearance, held it together long enough to say "everybody please be nice to each other," and then fell apart under the strain of whatever it was that happened to him (as I recall Meilge kidnapped him and made him watch a lot of NASCAR). The thing is, sidhe authority is all stolen and remains in place only by force. The Parliament of Dreams is basically the sidhe trying to compromise by limiting the amount of stolen authority they wield very slightly. So, the position of High King is basically the cats appointing a Director of Getting Along With Mice. The job is divided against itself, hence why C20 has abandoned any real notion that Ardry has any real power to make things better.
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May 8, 2017 15:50
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Yeah, it just feels like using the idea of feudal hierarchy falls apart because the feudal superiors have neither power nor indeed any authority save what people give them solely for their title.
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May 8, 2017 15:56
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Mors Rattus posted:Yeah, it just feels like using the idea of feudal hierarchy falls apart because the feudal superiors have neither power nor indeed any authority save what people give them solely for their title. Well, the title does come with enhanced ability to use Sovereign to command people and resistance to commoner spells, so it's not completely ceremonial. The notion does work on the local level, because controlling all the freeholds is a really good way to stay in charge as long as you're able to do it. It's the links between changeling communities in different towns that don't really make sense.
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May 8, 2017 16:01
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Mors Rattus posted:So, like, what does the High King...do, then? Diplomacy, policy making, and arbitration seems to be the extent of it. Oh, and war leading.
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May 8, 2017 16:21
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Went to check my group's shared dropbox for some information (it's a rather large group and i'm one of several STs) and found out that we have at least 2 parties worth of ferals. why?
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May 8, 2017 16:24
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Well, frankly, if your game is allowing play of Changing Breeds they are the most physically powerful things in the game, period, with the possible exception of 2e Gauru form wolves. Assuming nWoD. In oWoD, people just like the Fera.
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May 8, 2017 16:29
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Now in theory, there are actual roles for the High King that could be interesting. The big two are receiving and distributing tribute in dross, which happened a few times in various books if I recall correctly, and the other is building an army to fight the Thallain - which Our Most Benevolent Lord and Master High King David, Beloved of All, actually did in the first and second editions before getting snatched. So they dropped an actual role that's more important than ever in favour of a PTSD thing. There's also 'build new trods between the kingdoms with the dross' but that's basically 'build a bunch of roads' and that's not quite as thrilling or ~r o m a n t i c~ as the other two. In fairness, the High King of Ireland and the King of Wales weren't the most super duper important centralized leaders either, but let's face it, the actual resemblance of Changeling feudalism to those structures is nothing more than aesthetic.
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May 8, 2017 16:31
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Mors Rattus posted:Well, frankly, if your game is allowing play of Changing Breeds they are the most physically powerful things in the game, period, with the possible exception of 2e Gauru form wolves. That's probably not it since, with a couple exceptions, I don't think most of our players are power-gamers. I know a lot of them are furries though, so it's probably that. Also a lot of them are part of a werewolf pack, wherein they outnumber the actual werewolves. I'm going to continue to stay out of werewolf affairs. This is not my domain.
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May 8, 2017 16:42
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Oh yeah, if they're furries that's why. Changing Breeds was built for furries, like, pretty much explicitly. I feel bad for your werewolf admin, tho, because they are gonna be a huge headache.
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May 8, 2017 16:44
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e: wrong thread
Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 16:50 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 16:45
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Actually, this explains the messages of "All members of my werewolf party need to remake their character sheets and make sure I approve them if they want to keep playing." that have been going around lately. I just thought she was being weird and overbearing.
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May 8, 2017 16:51
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Yeah, that makes a ton of sense actually. It would be extremely easy to accidentally break the game with Changing Breeds characters. Frankly they should be using War Against The Pure's rules for other shifters instead.
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May 8, 2017 16:59
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Loomer posted:Now in theory, there are actual roles for the High King that could be interesting. The big two are receiving and distributing tribute in dross, which happened a few times in various books if I recall correctly, and the other is building an army to fight the Thallain - which Our Most Benevolent Lord and Master High King David, Beloved of All, actually did in the first and second editions before getting snatched. So they dropped an actual role that's more important than ever in favour of a PTSD thing. There's also 'build new trods between the kingdoms with the dross' but that's basically 'build a bunch of roads' and that's not quite as thrilling or ~r o m a n t i c~ as the other two. In fairness, the High King of Ireland and the King of Wales weren't the most super duper important centralized leaders either, but let's face it, the actual resemblance of Changeling feudalism to those structures is nothing more than aesthetic. C20 seems to have deliberately dropped the idea that the sidhe returning and claiming their old prerogatives by force was a net benefit to anybody but the sidhe.
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May 8, 2017 17:00
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Rand Brittain posted:C20 seems to have deliberately dropped the idea that the sidhe returning and claiming their old prerogatives by force was a net benefit to anybody but the sidhe. It's a change I appreciate, to be honest, though they haven't pushed quite far enough into 'the sidhe are terrifying monsters you guys' just yet for my taste. Getting there though, especially with them making it very clear that a whole lot of people had their souls torn out for their return.
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May 8, 2017 17:04
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Loomer posted:It's a change I appreciate, to be honest, though they haven't pushed quite far enough into 'the sidhe are terrifying monsters you guys' just yet for my taste. Getting there though, especially with them making it very clear that a whole lot of people had their souls torn out for their return. I don't think making sidhe unplayable was ever the goal, and if they had it would have been Mage Revised all over again.
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May 8, 2017 17:24
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Rand Brittain posted:I don't think making sidhe unplayable was ever the goal, and if they had it would have been Mage Revised all over again. More seriously I imagine the answer for why there's so much Sidhe nobility is "the Sidhe like nobility and have enough power to shove that on people's throats," even if in many ways it may be closer to being the queen bee of the local scene than having actual formal political power, the real enemy is still the Republicans, etc. etc.
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May 8, 2017 19:30
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Look I just want to turn the game into Bolshevik Boggan, Troll Trotsky, and Maoist Murdhuarcha vs Sidhe Sacred Kings. Is that so wrong?
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May 8, 2017 19:54
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Loomer posted:Look I just want to turn the game into Bolshevik Boggan, Troll Trotsky, and Maoist Murdhuarcha vs Sidhe Sacred Kings. Is that so wrong? That honestly sounds pretty darn possible as-is!
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May 8, 2017 20:00
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All the Changeling talk makes me wonder: how similar are the fae in it compared to the fae in Dresden Files?
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May 8, 2017 21:45
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crime fighting hog posted:All the Changeling talk makes me wonder: how similar are the fae in it compared to the fae in Dresden Files? They aren't nearly as inhuman as that. They have some similarities in that they have a Seelie and Unseelie Court, but they're much more human (since all Kithain, even technically the sidhe, live human lives) and more humane. Pretty much every fae in Dresden is perfectly capable of turning around and killing you when their weird rules demand it, but Kithain of both courts have about the same ratio of decent people to assholes as humans do in general. The main psychological difference between humans and changelings is that not being in "the zone" at all times is heavily damaging and ultimately lethal to Kithain.
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May 8, 2017 21:51
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Xinder posted:That's probably not it since, with a couple exceptions, I don't think most of our players are power-gamers. Honestly, I've run into more problems with accidental game-breaking than intentional powergaming, across various years and games. Like cranking up Celerity in an oVampire game because a speedy character sounded cool. Or getting a free monster corpse for my D&D 3.5 necromancer during a time-skip, and doing my best to create the perfect skeletal melee blender without realizing its presence would be totally fun-ruining for the fighter and the barbarian. That's what I try to be vigilant against in actual games, not theoretical exercises like Pun-pun. And while both of those games had their (numerous) mechanical flaws, neither was intentionally skewed in the same way as Changing "No, these Favors aren’t always 'balanced' in game terms, any more than a mouse and a lion are 'balanced' in real life" Breeds.
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May 8, 2017 21:53
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Terratina posted:Though I have never understood the appeal of Werewolf, both 1E and 2E. Tribal furries on steroids isn't very appealling on its own and with 2E, the whole thing seems very limiting - you are spirit border police and will be just doing things related to that during the campaign. The only people I know who love Werewolf to bits mostly enjoy the fact that werewolves are combat monsters and get to throw so many dice at things. Honestly, the spirit border patrol thing is not the only aspect of Forsaken, especially 2E, at all. The Storm Lords and Bone Shadows focus on that, but the other Tribes especially do loads of other stuff. The Iron Masters hunt money and power, because they believe they're entitled to it. The Blood Talons hunt down GUDFITES because that's what they like most of all. The Hunters in Darkness wage eternal, paranoid war against brain spiders and Rodents of Unusual Size. There's also just encountering Weird, Awful poo poo, and having no idea what to do with it. The more you characterize their enemies, the better the game gets.
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May 8, 2017 22:54
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I really like both the Pure and the Idigam as antagonists. Hosts are cool too but not quite on the same level.
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May 8, 2017 23:04
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You can also skip joining a tribe and have your pack become a support group of people caught in a mutual situation. That situation being you flipped out one night, blacked out and woke up a supernatural hammer disguised as a werewolf. Now every problem in your life is a nail, even the ones you really don't want to hit. Dealing with your anger issues and seeing the bad things stalking your fellow man that you could actually stop are great sources of drama and can drive a story just as much as 'I DEFEND THE GATE BETWEEN WORLDS!' murder-werewolfing.
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May 8, 2017 23:53
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The basic premise of Woof 2e is 'this is our patch, we're gonna make it what we want, and our main tool for doing that is murder.' I like it as a look at how a band of violent people try to make life better for a marginalized community and try to find ways to solve problems that can't really be solved violently...when their best tool is violence.
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May 8, 2017 23:54
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Mors Rattus posted:The basic premise of Woof 2e is 'this is our patch, we're gonna make it what we want, and our main tool for doing that is murder.' This is my favorite aspect
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May 9, 2017 00:29
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Mors Rattus posted:Oh yeah, if they're furries that's why. Changing Breeds was built for furries, like, pretty much explicitly. I feel bad for your werewolf admin, tho, because they are gonna be a huge headache. It's built for the kind of furry who is basically an incarnation of every internet stereotype about them. I pity the werewolf ST (though it's possible they are ALSO that kind of furry, in which case I guess everyone is happy and you just pray you never have to interact with them). Mors Rattus posted:The basic premise of Woof 2e is 'this is our patch, we're gonna make it what we want, and our main tool for doing that is murder.' To be fair, your best tool may be violence, but a lot of careful spirit diplomacy can go really far. It's not as effective as a mage can pull off by conjuring essence out of nothing, but you can still get pretty far with it. Obligatum VII fucked around with this message at 02:56 on May 9, 2017 |
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May 9, 2017 02:45
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crime fighting hog posted:All the Changeling talk makes me wonder: how similar are the fae in it compared to the fae in Dresden Files? Changeling fae are fun and all, but I can really appreciate the Dresden Files Fae a lot in terms of otherworldly crazy antagonists. Both sides are just terrible and I am definitely going to steal the idea and paint it another color for an Awakening game at some point. nWoD fae are pretty crazy like that, but there's much less structure to how they get what they want. They still make a decent challenge, but it's not as immediately fear-inducing.
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May 9, 2017 03:06
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Jhet posted:Changeling fae are fun and all, but I can really appreciate the Dresden Files Fae a lot in terms of otherworldly crazy antagonists. Both sides are just terrible and I am definitely going to steal the idea and paint it another color for an Awakening game at some point.
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May 9, 2017 03:10
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:nWoD True Fae are basically how most interactions with the kind of fae the later Dresden books get to interacting with would go, for low/no-power mortals instead of world-breaker wizards. This is one of the reasons I love my oWoD Sorcerer - locally powerful but in the grand scheme of things can get away with ignoring/not interacting with the world-breakers and all the metaplot BS, or being overlooked by the same.
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May 9, 2017 12:42
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IIRC, the real thing that gives sidhe power is that, at least in Concordia, all balefires in freeholds are stoked each year by runners from the big balefire in the High King's freehold. If you don't get your balefire recharged on Imbolc (February 2nd), well, you're hosed until next year. It's part of why so many commoners go along with that poo poo -at all-. This info, of course, was only mentioned in like one line about fae holidays and not referenced much at all elsewhere.
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May 9, 2017 13:47
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What's the write up on the Nunnehi? Is it better or worse than the original material?
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May 9, 2017 13:56
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unseenlibrarian posted:IIRC, the real thing that gives sidhe power is that, at least in Concordia, all balefires in freeholds are stoked each year by runners from the big balefire in the High King's freehold. If you don't get your balefire recharged on Imbolc (February 2nd), well, you're hosed until next year. It's part of why so many commoners go along with that poo poo -at all-. I don't think that can actually be true, since nobody was doing that for the past five hundred years and the balefires got along fine.
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May 9, 2017 13:58
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