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Ironslave posted:Is there a particular reason Geist is leading? I don't follow it much. I know the Golden Age of Piracy has been a speculated element for Mage for a while now, so that's not a surprise, I'm just wondering what it is that's caused a line that I've not seen or heard discussed much (and I don't think even has a 2E update?) to be leading so heavily. Is it really just ghost pirates? ghost pirates rule and at least on my end Geist is an incredibly great concept that really defined WoD well and needs more love.
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Jul 14, 2017 04:24
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Mendrian posted:That is, and remains, unsubstantiated rumor. In fact I haven't heard it from anyone other than Holden and his immediate circle of cautious fans. I know several freelancers, e.g., no one else has had this mysterious non-payment problem.
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Jul 14, 2017 05:46
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Zereth posted:Don't forget that Holden and crew have been lying about the production of Exalted since the kickstarter, when they claimed the core rules were almost complete. Which was pretty quickly revealed to be not true, at all. Yeah, their Infernals preview helped sell me, seemed like they had an idea of where they were going. I didn't follow the drama, just saw it as another Peter Molyneux type thing, big promises, haphazard work and little follow through. I get being gunshy about new writers/developers but there has to be some medium. People are also complaining that the existing writers and developers are doing too much, which is slowing down the products they want to get. Unless Onyx Path suddenly gets backed by Hasbro and can pay everyone a nice full time salary they only option is to get new writers, and they're going to take time to become great writers (or just quit). nofather fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jul 14, 2017 |
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Jul 14, 2017 06:15
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Zereth posted:Don't forget that Holden and crew have been lying about the production of Exalted since the kickstarter, when they claimed the core rules were almost complete. Which was pretty quickly revealed to be not true, at all. I remember them outright saying on their own forums that they deliberately missold the possible release date by actual years because they believed it would be given to someone else if they didn't. It still took even more years for them to be sacked.
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Jul 14, 2017 06:37
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I'm not backing this time, but it's because I recently returned to the land of tabletop miniatures so my Nerdstuff Budget is otherwise allocated.
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Jul 14, 2017 06:44
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whoops
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Jul 14, 2017 07:18
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Mendrian posted:That is, and remains, unsubstantiated rumor. In fact I haven't heard it from anyone other than Holden and his immediate circle of cautious fans. I know several freelancers, e.g., no one else has had this mysterious non-payment problem. Yeah, but even unsubstantiated rumor can seriously harm a company's reputation and therefore bottom line. In most cases I don't think something this isolated would be a real issue, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of overlap between people who pledge to OPP kickstarters and people who are tapped into RPG business drama.
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Jul 14, 2017 12:06
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sexpig by night posted:ghost pirates rule and at least on my end Geist is an incredibly great concept that really defined WoD well and needs more love. From what i've seen first hand Geist is honestly a pretty good game that's hamstrung by the fact that most of it's antagonists and things to do are located in other books. Which is a shame, since what content we got was pretty neat. More content would be great to help fix that though. I mean, take the example of Abmortals. Beings that obtain immortality by preying on other beings, sometimes the dead. It's a great concept to contrast Geists with. Or vampires! Which are listed as being something that constantly piss off Geists due to their victims wanting closure or revenge and bothering them about it. And yet they're both in a whole different book that you have to have to get detailed rules on. It's the same problem that Hunter runs into. A lot of really detailed rules are listed in other books and you kind of have to wing it otherwise. Except it's easy to imagine a bunch of plucky humans going after (insert mythological monster here) and design whole new antagonists accordingly. Some people have a harder time trying to figure out what a bunch of newly resurrected ghosty uber goths are going to go after now that they have super powers. Funnily enough, the solution I saw someone try to engineer was re-enacting The Crow with a group of players instead of one mopey ghost man. Ironslave posted:I remember them outright saying on their own forums that they deliberately missold the possible release date by actual years because they believed it would be given to someone else if they didn't. It still took even more years for them to be sacked. How were they not fired right then and there for that? If I tried to fudge the expected completion date on a project to a company I worked for i'd be sacked on the spot for dicking them over. Especially if it could end in a potential PR disaster that could hurt the company. At the very least i'd get called in to talk to my boss to give a very lengthy and detailed explanation as to what the gently caress I was up too and how I planned to fix the mess I had gotten everyone into. Archonex fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Jul 14, 2017 |
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Jul 14, 2017 12:07
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Archonex posted:How were they not fired right then and there for that? If I tried to fudge the expected completion date on a project to a company I worked for i'd be sacked on the spot for dicking them over. Especially if it could end in a potential PR disaster that could hurt the company. It was an astounding moment, for sure. I remember several people asking that very question at the time. Of course, given that this was Exalted, you also had your share of apologists, and at the time the only real negative things that could be said about them that weren't based around personal preferences were that their Infernals concept required you to have a grasp of system mastery to use to its fullest potential (but was still a creative and unique use of the systems), that Exalted products were subject to delays (a problem that had not originated with them), and that Hatewheel had some questionable recommended reading for Exalted inspiration.
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Jul 14, 2017 13:23
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Terrorforge posted:Yeah, but even unsubstantiated rumor can seriously harm a company's reputation and therefore bottom line. In most cases I don't think something this isolated would be a real issue, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of overlap between people who pledge to OPP kickstarters and people who are tapped into RPG business drama. You could be right, I don't know, but I feel like I never hear this particular talking point outside of a handful of posters here and over on RPG.net. I think if anything is hurting the OPP brand it's probably uncertainty over NuWhiteWolf, in both directions.
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Jul 14, 2017 13:57
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Mendrian posted:I think if anything is hurting the OPP brand it's probably uncertainty over NuWhiteWolf, in both directions. Yes. Providing things are normal for Onyx Path it seems like they'll be better off when WW takes Classic stuff off their hands, more time for Chronicles stuff and WW can focus on Classic on their own. But I'm not sure if there's any caveats in the agreement, like a specific way Chronicles books must be written. A paranoid part of me worries about there being some bizarre rules or limitations passed down to OP.
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Jul 14, 2017 14:21
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Chronicles books need to go through White Wolf approvals. As, I believe, do Exalted books. But not Scion, so that's nice.
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Jul 14, 2017 14:22
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Here's a recap of our second session of Hunter from a couple weeks ago. Everyone had a good time, including myself. There are some blatant thefts from recent videogames I used to pad out details on the fly, including Deus Ex and more. I stole the name for the Holy Engineers for my crazy cult group, who aren't vampires (or are they?) It’s the first time your Hunter Cell has gathered together as a group since the events of St. Patrick’s Day, when you discovered the recently missing Hunters, known as The Mechanix, were dead in a safehouse in the woods. The truth has surfaced: they were murdered by one of their own, a monster who wore the face of a friend. In months since, more questions than answers have come to light. The deaths of the Mechanix was deemed a unfortunate gas leak by authorities. The monster who steals faces has been spotted occasionally in town, another corpse of a fellow hunter or a relative of one found dead, missing its fingerprints and skin over its skull. It’s Friday, June 23, at 7:27 a.m. Professional wrestler The Stampede is on his way for a charity event in character on the subway when he spots a suspicious character walking through the car – a scruffy looking guy with what appeared to be something hidden beneath his coat despite the oppressive heat in the train. Following but soon spotted, Stampede watches in horror as the man, who has a barcode tattooed on his forehead, ignites a bomb vest with glowing blue vials of liquid similar to the oil you witnessed in the safehouse that the monster left behind after being wounded. “Mother said I have to do this," the man says as the light seeps into his body and he erupts. The train derails, electronics fry and people disintegrate. Heavily banged up but mobile, Stampede wakes up in the staging area to screams and several bodies surrounding him. The other hunters, tipped off by the media, converge along with the FBI, Homeland Security, local law enforcement and a shitload of reporters to the underground tunnel of the subway where the explosion occurred. (Picture the subway explosion in Die Hard 3, but with magic goo instead of non-magic goo) Twelve are confirmed dead, three dozen injured, millions of dollars in damage. Hunters Finn (the meth head grease monkey), Lindsey (IT nerd working for Endron) and Derek (hipster douchebag) find an old maintenance tunnel to bypass the cops and reach the blast site, convinced by their gut instincts this isn’t a “normal” terrorist attack. They investigate the train after Stampede joins them, limping along the tracks. Inside, they find evidence of AEther vials where the man set off the bomb, his silhouette an imprint of ash against the conductor door with what looks like etchings of angel wings around his now dust form. Stampede, reaching under the seat, finds the man’s skull, but no other bones. The barcode wasn’t a tattoo – it was engraved down to the marrow. A hole in the brain pan of the skull appears to have been drilled in, a quick-n-dirty lobotomy that surely wasn’t painless. The hunters exit the train and are spotted by police. Derek, the least athletic of the group, risks willpower to run away and dramatically fails and is apprehended and then beaten by cops for “loving with the crime scene” while the others escape. Derek takes the short time before being handcuffed to toss his stash into the darkness. "That was really good poo poo, too." A bit of a local celebrity bartender who is the life of every party, Derek is quickly recognized by local media as he is paraded out of tunnel by police to a squad car and shoved into the back. His phone instantly explodes with updates and reports he is the suspect in the bombing, tagged in a thousand Facebook posts, tweets and Instagram pictures. Not wasting time, Derek watches the cops go back to corralling reporters before picking his handcuffs with a bobbypin from his nasty white boy dreads, then kicks the back window of the cop car out (sustaining lethal damage in the process and the leg wrack condition) and escapes, catching a brief glimpse with his Eye for the Strange of the facestealing monster in the crowd, watching him. He rejoins the other hunters and they escape to a nearby warehouse, nearly coming to blows in an argument about what to do next. Lindsey is livid at Derek’s carelessness, while Finn loses himself in a bottle and Stampede is overwhelmed by his resurfacing memory of the incident as his concussion begins to clear and walks to a nearby bar to seek answers. Lindsey is contacted by the anonymous phone number that’s left him tips before (I hesitate to do this but sometimes I feel like I need to prod things along after the arguing and the group split up, simply because I don't want to focus on one character at a time for too long and leave people looking at their phones at the table). The stranger, who Lindsey has learned through recent inquiries is named Janus, asks Lindsey, a faded Catholic, when was the last time he gave confession and perhaps the priest at St. Gerald’s could be of some use at the moment. Lindsey, fed up with the others, heads out. Derek passes out on the couch, Finn draping him in a blanket before passing out in his own car while Stampede talks to the bartender at the Greasy Wheel nearby. The bartender tells Stampede he’s been seeing more weirdos of late, guys and girls, old and young, with barcode tattoos digging through the trash, looking for computer parts or broken electronics, always whispering about “Mother” this and “Ascension” that. At this point, all had succeeded except for Stampede on various integrity checks. I was handing out conditions and beats like candy, it was awesome. Lindsey meets with Father Kilpatrick of St. Gerald’s, who identifies himself as a “mutual friend” through their mysterious benefactor. Father Kilpatrick is a member of the Malleus Maleficarum, the ongoing secretive branch of the modern-day Catholic Inquisition. After some discussion, Lindsey swallows his pride and reaches out to the other hunters in his cell to join him because Kilpatrick seems to have answers on who is responsible for the bombing of the subway train and how its connected to the face stealing monster. Kilpatrick isn't thrilled about the idea of using an outside group of hunters to help with the cause, but perhaps Lindsey could be swayed to join them eventually, he says. Stampede goes to the restroom and changes into a fresh set of wrestling gear and mask, then heads to the others. They join Lindsey and the priest at the church, who explains a local cult called the Holy Engineers is suspected of the bombing. Usually they keep to themselves but recently their new leader, Allison Stanek, has radicalized them. Stanek is an ex-bomb specialist from the Chechnya military who was dishonorably discharged for her mental disorders brought on by PTSD. Enraged and abandoned by the only cause she ever held dear, she found the Holy Engineers, who believe a Machine God sends them messages through various electronic media on how to join it in Heaven, or make peace on earth, or any number of delirious dreams. The fluid used in the bombing was æther, the group tells Kilpatrick, a mythical substance certain entities connected to the "Machine God" use as fuel for their dark powers. The priest agrees. He said the face stealing monster is likely connected to the cult, and its weakness is- A tear gas canister shatters through a stained glass window and lands at their feet, filling the room with noxious fumes. The doors kick in and three goons with gas masks and barcodes tattooed on any part of exposed skin run into the room, guns blazing and trying to reach the priest. Lindsey gets shot several times and crumples into a pew, bleeding heavily from the leg. Dash goes to help stop the bleeding with a belt and shirt while Finn and Derek provide cover to the priest to get him back to his office and lock it. The gun battle ensues with both sides taking heavy damage until a couple lucky rolls kills two of the goons and critically wounds the third. We decided that was a good part to chill for the night. I told them to start thinking of tactics and gave a rundown of the basic ones from the core book. Not sure how to go from here, I'm thinking they'll get proactive and plan a siege of the Holy Engineers stronghold. Or maybe they'll be more diplomatic? Who am I kidding, fuckloads of cooky people are gonna die.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:15
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Mors Rattus posted:Chronicles books need to go through White Wolf approvals. As, I believe, do Exalted books. Scion and Trinity aren't White Wolf books, so we do what we like in them. But Chronicles books do go to WWE for approval, at several stages of production. They don't tend to give many notes back on them (other than, occasionally, outright enthusiasm for the book, which is nice) especially compared to World of Darkness books.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:47
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Dave Brookshaw posted:But Chronicles books do go to WWE for approval,
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Jul 14, 2017 17:28
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I've seen it referred to as WWE a couple times, is it White Wolf Entertainment now? McMahon would probably sue if it got big.
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Jul 14, 2017 17:29
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After the Gangrel suit? Yeah, he'd do that if he noticed. E: That said, he won't notice. Vince barely pays attention to actually popular things in pop culture. He has people for that. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Jul 14, 2017 |
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Jul 14, 2017 17:32
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It is indeed White Wolf Entertainment.
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Jul 14, 2017 17:33
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nofather posted:I've seen it referred to as WWE a couple times, is it White Wolf Entertainment now? "Oh mah god king, that man's got a family." "No he doesn't, JR, his family has been dead for centuries. All that's left is the hunger." Just like the deep all consuming hunger we have for Jack Links Beef Jerky."
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Jul 14, 2017 17:48
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Kurieg posted:"Oh mah god king, that man's got a family." I would not be surprised at all if a lawsuit involved Martin being invited to the settle things in the ring dressed in his LARP gear.
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Jul 14, 2017 17:58
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nofather posted:I would not be surprised at all if a lawsuit involved Martin being invited to the settle things in the ring dressed in his LARP gear.
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Jul 14, 2017 18:04
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The Unlife Aquatic posted:I think Swedracula's antics are hitting their bottom line tbh. Speaking purely personally, this is it for me. I've played WW games for 22 years now. I've run them for 20. I created a LARP in the 90s which is still running every other week. I'm HST for another LARP right now. I have several shelves of White Wolf games I've bought over the years, and more on PDF. And with everything in the last year or so, I'm just done. Beast was a shambles. It's accidentally a game about how gay or transgender folks are monsters who destroy everything around them. Swedracula is desperately moving back to the 90s, and doing a great job reminding me how far our culture has come in the last 20 years. The new edition he's working on intends to have the "struggle with islam" be a vampiric plot. In response to MES banning rape as a plot element, their spokesman Shane deFreest poo poo talked them in the keynote, saying stuff along the lines of "if you don't want rape in your games maybe white wolf is not for you". White Wolf hired Zak S, who outs trans folks, to write a game including a transwoman who lures straight men into sexual encounters, rapes or kills them, and named that transwoman after one of his trans critics. They published a draft with random encounter tables for gay nightclubs and nightclub tragedies on the anniversary of the Pulse massacre. They published a draft with the immigrants as thieves and isis agents posing as syrian refugees. They apologized for those things by saying people who were offended just weren't mature enough to get it. I haven't been buying anything from White Wolf for a year or so, I'm planning on stepping down from running the game I run, and I'm just - losing interest. Some of this was always there in the old material, but it's getting emphasized again, and it's really removing any desire to buy or support or run or play. Maybe I'll find that desire again some time in the future, but you know, I'm American. I have to deal with regressive conservative edgelords ruining everything around them and making fun of "PC Culture" and "Social Justice" more than I want to in my day to day life. I can spend my free time playing things that aren't lovely.
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Jul 14, 2017 18:36
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It should be noted again that Onyx Path has no control over what Swedracula does, or indeed any association with him and his antics beyond licensing Chronicles. Beast is all on OP, though.
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Jul 14, 2017 18:38
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Mors Rattus posted:It should be noted again that Onyx Path has no control over what Swedracula does, or indeed any association with him and his antics beyond licensing Chronicles. Yeah. And every time I try to argue that to myself, I just - I dunno. Beast is on OP, the rest is not their fault, it's just that everything White Wolf is doing is really killing off my desire to keep spending time and money on anything that even remotely reminds me of them.
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Jul 14, 2017 18:44
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So this seems obvious but I couldn't find it in the CoD rulebook, so just in case: it costs an instant action for an ephemeral entity to activate a numen in combat, unless otherwise noted, correct?
Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Jul 14, 2017 |
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Jul 14, 2017 19:39
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:So this seems obvious but I couldn't find it in the CoD rulebook, so just in case: it costs an instant action for an ephemeral entity to activate a numen in combat, unless otherwise noticed, correct? Yes
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Jul 14, 2017 19:48
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Yessod posted:Speaking purely personally, this is it for me. Can I quote part of this from this post? I won't use your username or anything, this is just organized well, and I'd like to use it as part of explaining why I, too, am frustrated with Swedracula and the attitude he's stirring up.
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Jul 14, 2017 19:51
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Thank you!
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Jul 14, 2017 19:53
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Yessod posted:Speaking purely personally, this is it for me. I just want to commend you for putting it all together so succinctly. I already knew about almost all of that but seeing it all listed off really brings it home. gently caress white wolf
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Jul 14, 2017 20:03
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MC Smoke Sensei posted:Can I quote part of this from this post? I won't use your username or anything, this is just organized well, and I'd like to use it as part of explaining why I, too, am frustrated with Swedracula and the attitude he's stirring up. Fine by me.
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Jul 14, 2017 20:08
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Yessod posted:Speaking purely personally, this is it for me. Yeah, exactly all this. This stuff is just so bad and honestly it's depressing because the industry in general is worse.
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Jul 14, 2017 20:09
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Kurieg posted:"Oh mah god king, that man's got a family." 
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Jul 14, 2017 20:40
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Scion preview drop: The Orisha The Orisha are done in Yoruba style and replace the Loa, though the Scion Companion will discuss the Loa Mantles that the Orishas sometimes use. quote:If you miss the traditional Loa, don’t worry — their Mantles, divine identities, will be explored in the Scion Hero Companion as a mini-pantheon. We may even slip a few more gods in there, who knows? Also, Eshu Elegbara/Papa Legba gets to make some of his own comments through this, I guess?
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Jul 15, 2017 02:59
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I understand being put off by Beast and Dark Eras' extremely slow delivery, but I don't understand blaming OPP for nuWolf's poo poo. Withholding money from them is just going to kill the one interesting side of the World of Darkness- our best chance is to keep Onyx Path alive and hope Swedracula fails miserably.
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Jul 15, 2017 22:03
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most people don't make that fine a distinction
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Jul 15, 2017 22:09
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Kavak posted:I understand being put off by Beast and Dark Eras' extremely slow delivery, but I don't understand blaming OPP for nuWolf's poo poo. Withholding money from them is just going to kill the one interesting side of the World of Darkness- our best chance is to keep Onyx Path alive and hope Swedracula fails miserably. They license the setting, so presumably every time you but a CoD book nuWW gets some money. I'm still going to buy OP be products but I can understand not wanting to.
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Jul 15, 2017 22:24
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There's also probably a lot of people asking themselves "what stops nuWW from expanding these decisions I hate to Onyx Path licensed products" and correctly concluding that the answer is "absolutely nothing, if they feel like it."
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Jul 15, 2017 22:36
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Had a good start to my Hunter game today. I overestimated the danger a lone werewolf poses to a pair of gun-toting ladies. I should have maybe gone with my original idea and had them fight two werewolves but I was afraid of killing a player in the first combat encounter of the game. Three bullets before it even gets to move. Dead. Things will get harder on them from here on out.
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Jul 15, 2017 22:58
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My vampire group has taken my lead and is making puns about everything at basically every opportunity. This pleases me.
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Jul 15, 2017 23:05
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Xinder posted:Had a good start to my Hunter game today. I overestimated the danger a lone werewolf poses to a pair of gun-toting ladies. I should have maybe gone with my original idea and had them fight two werewolves but I was afraid of killing a player in the first combat encounter of the game. Three bullets before it even gets to move. Dead. Sounds like it's a great way to get the PCs overconfident in their abilities. And as they say, overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
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Jul 15, 2017 23:10
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