|
remusclaw posted:So which of the 20 lines are infected? The only one I have is Vampire 20 from before the new regime took over, so I'm safe there, but I was thinking about Mage 20 as a possible pickup, was that one early enough to avoid the plague? They appear to have kept their hands off of V20. But they're trying to Steer Werewolf back to where it was in 1st Edition, where the Garou nation was heavily fractured and the tribes infought with each other like bored rage filled Vampires. Also every tribe is it's worst stereotype cranked up to 11. Rather than Revised where everyone had simmered down due to, you know, the loving Apocalypse. But M20 is being written by Brucato and has a sidebar about Magykal Hermaphrodites so.... yeah.
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 15:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 16:29 |
|
|
OK. Awakening 2nd it is.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 15:58
|
|
|
Werewolf20, Changeling20, and DarkAges20 are all good. Mage20 is bad, largely because it was written by somebody who wasn't interested in making any improvements except for blackwashing the Traditions and making a new Traditions, with blackjack, and hookers, which literally nobody ever thought the game needed. Also there's more arguments about vampires and lawnchairs, but in a way that makes it clear he didn't understand what the argument was actually about.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:00
|
|
|
remusclaw posted:OK. Note that so far that we know of only two of the W20 books have gotten meddled with, Shattered Dreams and the most recent one who's name escapes me at the moment. The previous W20 books have been fine. SO feel free to pick up the W20 books and just ignore anything that looks out of place because it probably is.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:07
|
|
|
My favorite Brucato sidebar is the one where he says that Nephandi are not and never will be playable because doing so is a risk to the mind and soul of the player doing it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:08
|
|
|
I never quite warmed to the Werewolf lines, though I have on occasion given them a look. Vampire was my cuppa, and Mage was always the one I wanted to play but never got the chance too. I have heard good things about Awakening 2nd though, and while I have always heard Ascension talked up as this grand and glorious mess of a game, I have also had occasion to hear it was also the single biggest source of drama in the fan base White Wolf ever had, until recently I suppose. On Dark Ages, I was actually somewhat surprised it got a release, as I thought all the clans and powers and whatnot from it were included in V20. I did hear some rumblings that there were rules changes in Dark Ages though, were they any good? remusclaw fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Jan 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:12
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:Note that so far that we know of only two of the W20 books have gotten meddled with, Shattered Dreams and the most recent one who's name escapes me at the moment. Changing Ways was the one that nuWW added a bunch of stuff into. Shattered Dreams got a half-page sidebar inserted, but was otherwise unchanged (as the text had already gone to backers as part of the Kickstarter)
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:13
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:They appear to have kept their hands off of V20. The last V20 book I did, Black Hand, had some pretty significant edits from them. A few sections just whole cloth cut. And a few fundamental concepts they demanded I change. For example, they wanted no ambiguous statements that suggest vampires might have souls. Even a few in-character references, they said had to be changed because they didn’t want players confused into thinking vampires had souls. They said they wanted me to make it explicitly clear that vampires get souls when they achieve Golconda. They also said only vampires with souls could become wraiths. So, the few vampire wraiths in the Black Hand had to be explicitly made to have objectively achieved Golconda before death. This might have been more realistic on the front end. But changing the book that fundamentally on the back end really hurt it. Ironically, there were a couple of sections that I had essentially copy/pasted from the old book. Or, I guess paraphrased. Martin demanded I cut them because, as he said, “This is not Vampire. This is Harry Potter. Whoever wrote this doesn’t understand Vampire, and should go back and read the old books.” I’m fairly certain that’s the only time in my life I’ve ever done a literal spit take at work.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:28
|
|
|
But... Cappadocius became a wraith. Also you've gotta tell me what those sections were. I have to know. Oh, god, I'm turning into a loving grognard.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:30
|
|
|
DigitalRaven posted:Changing Ways was the one that nuWW added a bunch of stuff into. Shattered Dreams got a half-page sidebar inserted, but was otherwise unchanged (as the text had already gone to backers as part of the Kickstarter) Sorry about that. I only picked it up last week and haven't had a chance to dig too deeply into it beyond confirming that the sidebars in question did in fact exist and recoiling away from them like a cat tasting Citrus for the first time. MachineIV posted:Ironically, there were a couple of sections that I had essentially copy/pasted from the old book. Or, I guess paraphrased. Martin demanded I cut them because, as he said, “This is not Vampire. This is Harry Potter. Whoever wrote this doesn’t understand Vampire, and should go back and read the old books.” I’m fairly certain that’s the only time in my life I’ve ever done a literal spit take at work. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:32
|
|
|
Goddamnit so did Ignatius! Ignatius definitely did not achieve loving Golconda!
Loomer fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jan 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:34
|
|
|
Loomer posted:But... Cappadocius became a wraith. Also you've gotta tell me what those sections were. I have to know. Cappadocius achieved Golconda. Objectively. It’s indisputable fact according to Martin. And god... I’ll have to look it up because it’s been a while. I wanna say there was a bit on ghoul creation and stuff that got chopped? Also most of the material on Vicissitude. A lot of Dark Thaumaturgy stuff. There was a pretty significant section about Golconda ironically. It all got cut. About half the total material on Lilith got cut.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:37
|
|
|
Since when did you need a soul to become a wraith anyway? Since when don't vampires have souls and how do they get around without them?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:37
|
|
|
Kwyndig posted:Since when did you need a soul to become a wraith anyway? Since when don't vampires have souls and how do they get around without them? Those are very good questions and ones I asked but was told to just not worry about since “they’ll address it in the metaplot.” So I just made the changes, collected my check, and told myself not to take any more contracts. I took two minor ones after that because I’m a doofus.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:39
|
|
|
MachineIV posted:Cappadocius achieved Golconda. Objectively. It’s indisputable fact according to Martin. I'm always greedy for cut material that may shed light on things for the project, really, but in this case I have got to see Martin not knowing the prior product that badly. I need that level of laugh. Kwyndig posted:Since when did you need a soul to become a wraith anyway? Since when don't vampires have souls and how do they get around without them? Pretty much forever on the needing a soul part, as you are a remnant soul - more or less, anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:39
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:My favorite Brucato sidebar is the one where he says that Nephandi are not and never will be playable because doing so is a risk to the mind and soul of the player doing it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:40
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:Brucatto really wants to be gaming's Grant Morrison, doesn't he? Considering some of the poo poo I've seen at the table, I'm not sure Grant Morrison could be gaming's Grant Morrison.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:45
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:Brucatto really wants to be gaming's Grant Morrison, doesn't he? No, Brucatto fully buys into his own hype.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:47
|
|
|
 Loomer posted:I'm always greedy for cut material that may shed light on things for the project, really, but in this case I have got to see Martin not knowing the prior product that badly. I need that level of laugh. Well, i mean, he's ignoring the last 7 years of Werewolf prior to Apocalypse as well, so... at least he's consistent about not reading product?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:47
|
|
|
People with serious opinions about canon having the last word on what goes into an anniversary product is never going to end well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:51
|
|
|
 remusclaw posted:People with serious opinions about canon having the last word on what goes into an anniversary product is never going to end well. Doubly so if those opinions are based not on the actual canon, but on the bizarre divergent universe built up by a LARP. Loomer fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Jan 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 16:51
|
|
|
In fairness, Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand did contradict almost everything else written for Vampire at the time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 17:24
|
|
|
Kavak posted:My current headcanon: The Astartes would -like- to add Battle Sisters, but the Adeptas Soriritas inducts every able-bodied girl they can get their hands on before the Spehs Mureens can get to them. You don't even need that much headcanon to get female Space Marines. In the lore, they typically take kids before they hit puberty to start the surgeries that make them Space Marines at which point sexual differences are moot. Moreover, since the alterations make them functionally sterile, who's to say that there aren't female Space Marines? If there's one thing that FFG did well with the 40k RPGs, it was to show that the Imperial Guard gave zero fucks about gender because they need fighting soldiers - it'd be stupid to limit yourself to half the population when manpower is the currency you use to win wars.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 17:40
|
|
|
MachineIV posted:Ironically, there were a couple of sections that I had essentially copy/pasted from the old book. Or, I guess paraphrased. Martin demanded I cut them because, as he said, “This is not Vampire. This is Harry Potter. Whoever wrote this doesn’t understand Vampire, and should go back and read the old books.” I’m fairly certain that’s the only time in my life I’ve ever done a literal spit take at work. This is laughably stupid and all, but it's a really lovely thing to say to an employee even if you don't like what they did and wouldn't hire them again, even sort of by proxy in the case of licensed book approvals etc. What a gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 19:16
|
|
|
RocknRollaAyatollah posted:So what is the deal with this Werewolf book? I keep seeing people talking about it and on Drivethru it's billed as a book on packs and breed perspectives. Does it actually fulfill any of that in a meaningful way or is it just Infowars and the neo-fascist werewolf Swede-Drac was talking up in the past? Despite some of the very dumb poo poo that White Wolf chose to add, I do find the book useful. The expanded details on Regeneration and Shapeshifting, a la Forsaken's Blood of the Wolf, are welcome. I just choose to ignore the Gender sidebar and a few other bits. The most interesting section, to me, is the chapter on Pack Structure. It effectively retcons the use of Alpha, Beta, and Omega that have been used since the beginning, to make up for the fact that the general public's understanding of wolf pack dynamics is largely bullshit. Now, there are Forsakenesque made up words (Zedakh, Uldakh, Taldakh) to describe those three positions, and they're much more about their respective role within the pack and have much less emphasis on a pecking order established via dominance. DigitalRaven posted:To be bluntly honest, I poured a lot of my heart and soul into WTA, then the Shattered Dreams sidebar happened, and then I got their edits to Changing Ways. At that point, I'm just going to get the book out with the changes that the property owners want, because they've demonstrated their opinion of my work so far. For what it's worth, I greatly appreciate your efforts to pull the good out of WTA. Apocalypse, by proxy of the Rage ccg, is essentially what got me into tabletop gaming, so I will always hold it dear, despite the mountain of problematic content the game has. I do my best, in the games I'm involved in, to move the game forward into the 21st Century, and it's depressing to see that White Wolf wants to keep pulling it back. Free Gratis fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 19:18
|
|
|
If vampires don't have souls, how would demons even notice the Baali? This is dumb. WW is dumb.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 19:26
|
|
|
moths posted:If vampires don't have souls, how would demons even notice the Baali? This is dumb. WW is dumb. That's pretty easy to write around. On the other hand, it shouldn't be definitive in the first place. "What is the true, fundamental nature of the vampire?" is one of those things that it's good never to give a third-person omniscient ~canon~ answer to. Hell, the reason it would be easy to write around is because the Outer Darkness or whatever the gently caress is largely undefined just like, uh, hm, the disposition of vampire souls should be.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 19:42
|
|
|
I would like to read about philosophical musings on the Vampiric Platonic ideal. e: nightwatch was a good book. These games sound similar to that type of world. Is their fiction as good?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 19:50
|
|
|
Bosushi! posted:Despite,some of the very dumb poo poo that White Wolf chose to add, I do find the book useful. That sounds interesting but not essential. I might get it for completeness' sake if it's deeply discounted one day but I don't think I'm going to get it at full price. I imagine that NuWW is not going to have the easiest time keeping talent with the way they treat people and how they're handling the editorial process from the get go. I would not be surprised if NuWW is just a project to keep the IP relevant and Paradox has no designs on making it a serious competitor in the industry.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 19:58
|
|
|
And the thing is, they're Paradox. The easiest way to make their IP relevant is to just loving release Vampire Kings, or Vampire Universalis, or Hearts of Rage, or whatever. Instead they're farming out for RPGs or text adventures with disembodied asses.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 20:15
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:e: nightwatch was a good book. These games sound similar to that type of world. Is their fiction as good? Short answer: No. Long answer: IMO, enjoyment of fiction written about a gaming IP fully derives from prior enjoyment of the IP. If you're coming into the World of Darkness with no prior knowledge then you will find the fiction to be laughable. World of Darkness, at its core, is a very very silly game/setting.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 20:35
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:And the thing is, they're Paradox. The easiest way to make their IP relevant is to just loving release Vampire Kings, or Vampire Universalis, or Hearts of Rage, or whatever. Wait, Paradox (the video game people) owns White Wolf?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 20:35
|
|
|
Schadenboner posted:Wait, Paradox (the video game people) owns White Wolf? I believe it's owned but not directly operated by Paradox. They bought the brand and IP from CCP a few years ago.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 20:42
|
|
|
I'm sure noted peddler of historical incest simulator Crusader Kings 2 will fix all of this when told about how far their child company is going.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 20:43
|
|
|
remusclaw posted:I'm sure noted peddler of historical incest simulator Crusader Kings 2 will fix all of this when told about how far their child company is going. Crusader Kings 2 is indeed amazing
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 20:44
|
|
|
remusclaw posted:I'm sure noted peddler of historical incest simulator Crusader Kings 2 will fix all of this when told about how far their child company is going. I recall that they had something brief but not-giving-a-poo poo to say after the whole lovely ZakS severed rear end simulator blew up.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 20:45
|
|
|
Schadenboner posted:Wait, Paradox (the video game people) owns White Wolf? Paradox Interactive, the Video Game Publishing Company, owns White Wolf Publishing, which at this point is just a husk holding IP rights and has not done any publishing itself. Paradox Development Studios is also a wholly owned subsidiary and make the EU/HOI/CK/Stellaris games.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 20:55
|
|
|
That Old Tree posted:I recall that they had something brief but not-giving-a-poo poo to say after the whole lovely ZakS severed rear end simulator blew up. It was, in essence: 'we have neither knowledge nor control over what goes on at White Wolf, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of our parent company, just like we are.'
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 22:09
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:I would like to read about philosophical musings on the Vampiric Platonic ideal. You are going to have a happier time if you focus on nWoD and specifically on the better fiction books, like the Vampire 1e clanbooks, the Collection of Horrors, Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss, Ancient Bloodlines/Ancient Mysteries and Secrets of the Covenants.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 22:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 16:29 |
|
|
Let me clarify something from the earlier post because I was writing in pre-third-espresso mode: Nobody told/suggested/intimated/hinted or otherwise gave me any indication that I wouldn't be paid for not implementing changes. It was something that was a pressing concern in my own head, for a bunch of reasons — guilt over the humongous delays I'd caused being a major one — but it was not anything another human being had raised. Oh, and since I know Holden's reading the thread: Stop covering for your abuser friend you worthless shitstain.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2018 23:05
|
|