|
Ironslave posted:I find myself wondering under what circumstances people wouldn't want to use group beats. I imagine they may need help. It's just plain simpler to say "everyone gets 1xp at the end of a session, 2 if a lot of poo poo goes down" and be done with the whole issue.
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 14:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 00:10 |
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:It's just plain simpler to say "everyone gets 1xp at the end of a session, 2 if a lot of poo poo goes down" and be done with the whole issue. Your complaints about individual XP are well founded and exactly why I love group beats. I do like the variation of what type of beats my mage group gets though, and it works for us. Just giving XP at the end of the night could work too, but we had one night where they got 14 arcane beats and 8 regular and it would have probably not been so good (and fun) if we were just doing lump XP. Definitely a system that needs to find a nice place right in the middle ground where you then completely ignore it and just start tossing beats into the pile on a regular basis and whenever the characters are accomplishing anything at all.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 17:22
|
|
|
Ironslave posted:I find myself wondering under what circumstances people wouldn't want to use group beats. I imagine they may need help. I was initially opposed to it since I didn't feel like it would be engaging to either sit back and get a bunch of pity beats or earn a ton and just have them absorbed into the communal pool. Also we were playing Demon so it felt thematically inappropriate and also my character was pretty bullshit from the start because Demon and I wasn't worried about falling behind But then we gave it a spin for our Werewolf game and it turns out it doesn't actually feel very different at all.while avoiding both balance and bookkeeping issues. So yeah, use group beats.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 17:32
|
|
|
So I thought of the phrase "Mageachusetts vs Rageachusetts" and now I want to run a head-to-head Mage vs Werewolf game, based in Massachusetts. I'd definitely use CoD 2e rules since I think it's more designed with this kind of cross-chronicle use in mind. I haven't read the GMC book yet, so this is all still very theoretical, but I think it would at least be a decent idea for a podcast. Have any of you ever cross-pollinated Forsaken and Awakening before? Forsakening? If I'm reading this right, mages and wolves are both in competition for areas of heavy Spirit/Supernal energy, right? Wolves want to banish spirits, while mages can use them for spells or enchantments? In that case, I'd probably run two games in the same map, and let them share the same pool of story leads. Someone mentioned that Pentex just got a book, I bet they would make for a good antagonist. It would be fun to have them working side-by-side to take out smaller targets before collaborating on a larger assault. The wolves take out a secret formori guard post, next game the mages are able to waltz into the building and pilfer it for clues and Forbidden Technology.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 18:39
|
|
|
Aren't Pentex and Fomori oWoD things? I don't think Forsaken or Awakening have either of those, and while you could certainly have an evil corporation or corrupted spirits/fey the "Murder-Furry Captain Planet" aspect doesn't really jive with Forsaken's theme especially well.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 18:45
|
|
|
The book I was thinking of is W20, not Forsaken, my mistake. I think it'd be possible to worldbuild an all-consuming corporation that threatens both mages and wolves, maybe a piece of Infrastructure gone haywire, to represent the God-Machine trying to dominate an area.
PHIZ KALIFA fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Apr 4, 2018 |
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 18:53
|
|
|
Jhet posted:Your complaints about individual XP are well founded and exactly why I love group beats. I do like the variation of what type of beats my mage group gets though, and it works for us. Just giving XP at the end of the night could work too, but we had one night where they got 14 arcane beats and 8 regular and it would have probably not been so good (and fun) if we were just doing lump XP. Definitely a system that needs to find a nice place right in the middle ground where you then completely ignore it and just start tossing beats into the pile on a regular basis and whenever the characters are accomplishing anything at all. I love the arcane beats from mage so much that I incorperated them into both my vampire game (Blood beats: using powers, retaining humanity, being monsterous) and now werewolf (pack beats: working together either as a whole or partial pack. )
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 18:57
|
|
|
PHIZ KALIFA posted:So I thought of the phrase "Mageachusetts vs Rageachusetts" and now I want to run a head-to-head Mage vs Werewolf game, based in Massachusetts. I'd definitely use CoD 2e rules since I think it's more designed with this kind of cross-chronicle use in mind. I haven't read the GMC book yet, so this is all still very theoretical, but I think it would at least be a decent idea for a podcast. I once used a Werewolf pack that ran an underground werewolf fight club-slash-pro wrestling thing in a Mage game. The Mages joined the fight club and helped the werewolves rig a fight for territory against a Pure champion.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 19:06
|
|
|
I use an advancement system similar to the one in Scion. At certain milestones (usually after the end of a story or an otherwise natural resting point) I tell everyone to add one to their power stat and additional points to allocate to their various stats depending on the game. I find it's a good middle ground between a leveling system and point buy.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 19:45
|
|
|
My last game didn't last long enough for me to experiment with it, but next time I run Demon I'm probably going to make it so that regular experience is gained by either group beats or even just milestones, but cover beats are tracked individually.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2018 20:24
|
|
|
Finally finished my Mage campaign (a month ago, but today I finally got my lazy rear end to post about it. It went through pretty well, all things considered. The main plot revolved around a Nephandi cabal kidnapping people (one of them was a PC's unawakened friend) and feeding them to a bane while an archmaster-level Marauder is stealing the city landmarks. For backstory: The bane in question was born from the horrors of WW1 trench warfare, somehow found itself in WW2 Warsaw, and was subsequently trapped in an Umbral 'sack' under the city. You see, after the War ended, the Soviet Technocrats being as well versed in handling spirits as you'd expect form Soviet Technocrats, walled off the most 'afflicted' parts of the Umbra. Battlefield? A massacre site? A city in ruins? No problem! They just put a fence around the place - banes, magic parasites, wraiths, spectres, what have you - stuck some wards on it, and completely separated it form the rest of the spirit(and material) world, thus solving the problem FOR EVER. In my version of WoD there's dozens of such spots around Eastern Europe - they're completely foolproof, and not at all a bunch of shoddily-built, ticking Pandora's timebombs, filled with hungry ghosts and spirits of the dead that've gone mad decades ago, why would you think that? Fast forward to twenty years ago - a little orphan girl happens upon a chink in the impenetrable pinnacle of Soviet Umbral engineering and befriends a ghost. The girl is a dormant Nephandus and the spirit is a slumbering, elemental manifestation of wartime horrors. They become friends, and when the girl awakens, she can finally see the thing in its full 'glory': a ten-story Shai-hulud made of rusty, bloodied razorwire. One look at the critter (affectionately dubbed Concertina, after the type of barbed wire) is enough for Camille (the girl - Kamila in Polish) to find her purpose: she'll feed the the thing human souls, learn to control it, and finally: merge it to her Avatar. There's no point in recapping the whole story so here's some highlights and random thoughts: *One of the PC's was a XIXth century aristocrat, thrown to present day by a Paradox blast. Her future shock made up the bulk of the game's humor for the first three sessions. In the end, she found herself in a happy relationship with a socially awkward lottery worker (another PC) who learned human interaction from an old savoir-vivre manual and was therefore the only True Gentleman in the Party. *One of the male PCs tried to flirt with Camille (before they knew what she is) and was happy to go to her place and have some fun. 'Fun' has a VERY different meaning in Nephandi. He survived and Camille, unaccustomed to people getting away from her with all their organs still inside, developed a particular hate-on for the character. The rest of the group referred to them as boyfriend/girlfriend ever since. *Just before the final confrontation a PC got whittled down to a point of uselessness. So we replaced him with a Werewolf whoose ancestor disgraced himself by failing to stop Concertina's creation and surviving (as opposed to his packmates who heroically failed and died - we actually played that part of the story as a single-shot when two of the players couldn't make it). He died pushing Concertina back into her cage and as he jumped right into its maw, I allowed each player to cast a single spell. They all decided to buff the crazy hobowolf with Prime armour and 3-dot effencts of Time, Entropy, and Correspondence. *Camille died anticlimatically, shot through a portal with Entropy bullets. * The Marauder (who was supposed to play a greater role but ultimately served as distraction/filler) had an extra-dimensional house, filled with wounderous artifacts. The players forgot about it completely after his death. *My biggest fear - the overrepresentation of Time Mages (three Time Wizards out of five PCs) - proved a non-issue since my players somehow never thought of trying to predicting their enemies' movements (they did use postcognition quite a lot and in creative ways, however) and were too scared of Paradox to do any serious time-bendy stuff. *Giving Nephandi actual personalities is HARD. Making those personalities actually 'visible' in the game is even harder. *Handling real-life, historical issues was something that nearly brought me to abandoning the campaign. I tried to keep everything in good taste but I'm still not sure how I feel about myself after having used things like the Warsaw Uprising as a plot point in a game of pretend wizards.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2018 21:01
|
|
|
RedSnapper posted:*Handling real-life, historical issues was something that nearly brought me to abandoning the campaign. I tried to keep everything in good taste but I'm still not sure how I feel about myself after having used things like the Warsaw Uprising as a plot point in a game of pretend wizards.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2018 22:46
|
|
|
Nessus posted:There's actually a well-regarded White Wolf sourcebook which touches on the Warsaw uprising among other parts of the Holocaust. It doesn't sound like you were doing anything worse than a Captain America comic book not written by Nick Spencer. If you're talking about Charnel houses of Europe then yeah, I've read it and it's good (although IIRC they completely ommit the Warsaw Uprising, which is a bit jarring since the WU was kind of a Big Deal that should've left a mark on the afterlife). And as I said - I tried to be as respectful to historical events as you can be while using them in a game. And I just noticed that in those bullet points from the previous post I forgot to add the most important one - I actually got to use the phrase "ten stories of high-pressure, demonic razor wire" in a sentence.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2018 17:34
|
|
|
RedSnapper posted:If you're talking about Charnel houses of Europe then yeah, I've read it and it's good (although IIRC they completely ommit the Warsaw Uprising, which is a bit jarring since the WU was kind of a Big Deal that should've left a mark on the afterlife). And as I said - I tried to be as respectful to historical events as you can be while using them in a game. One of the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto is started up, iirc.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2018 18:09
|
|
|
So far when I've been running Changeling 2e, I've just been giving 1exp each per Chapter with an extra at the end of a Story. It seems to be going well, but how does it compare to some of you actively using the group Beats system as intended? I don't wanna short change them, especially since they're good players playing flawed characters who wouldn't be bad in the Beats system, it's just not my style
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2018 20:55
|
|
|
Jade Mage posted:So far when I've been running Changeling 2e, I've just been giving 1exp each per Chapter with an extra at the end of a Story. It seems to be going well, but how does it compare to some of you actively using the group Beats system as intended? I don't wanna short change them, especially since they're good players playing flawed characters who wouldn't be bad in the Beats system, it's just not my style Are you players happy with the rate of advancement? Are you? Then it's fine. Beats per chapter wildly varies with which splat you're running, how long your sessions are, how good your GM is at handing out conditions, how good players are at exploiting the various options for generating beats and resolving conditions, and a million other things. It's a lot of overhead that doesn't really do anything useful -- it creates a few on-point / in-character incentives, but it also creates a lot of them that are totally disconnected from the narrative and lead to bizarre behavior -- and in the end basically accomplishes... exactly what you're doing anyways. The one exception I would make is a couple of splats have XP that can only be spent on one thing and can only be gained in one specific way, and those little subsystems are sometimes worth saving. (I posted about this a little earlier, basically I wouldn't ditch Cover Beats for Demons.) Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Apr 6, 2018 |
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2018 21:11
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Are you players happy with the rate of advancement? Are you? Then it's fine. Yeah when I ran Demon, I interacted with the system and I think I ran another game where I tried it, but I couldn't get a handle on it when I was running my games so I decided to go with a more linear progression. Interestingly though, my PCs are opting to go for skills, which means my game of Changeling in Generic Small Town NY is staying pretty low-key which fits the tone I was going for. Though I will still send Huntsmen and other fun things after them to keep them on their toes
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2018 21:30
|
|
|
RedSnapper posted:If you're talking about Charnel houses of Europe then yeah, I've read it and it's good (although IIRC they completely ommit the Warsaw Uprising, which is a bit jarring since the WU was kind of a Big Deal that should've left a mark on the afterlife). And as I said - I tried to be as respectful to historical events as you can be while using them in a game.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2018 22:03
|
|
|
I bribe players with XP for bringing snacks, writing character fiction, fanart, bringing in new players, helping out other players with rides, and bringing in sweet mix CDs to play softly in the background while we play Magic Goths at each other. For me, it works because all the players are Tremere and Thaumaturgy is an XP sinkhole. My players are all differentiated well, so no one outshines anyone else. How quickly do you want your folk adding dots to their sheets? Do they roll 10 dice often? How much room do they have to grow, and how much plot do you have left before the climax hits? edit- Wraith also addressed the Holocaust with the Dark Kingdom of Wire.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2018 22:13
|
|
|
There is the Warsaw Uprising lead by the Polish Home Army and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which was a revolt by the Jews concentrated in the ghetto and I am really curious whether the issue here is that RedSnapper was using the former rather than the latter while Charnel House only talks about the latter or whether they missed the chapter.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 00:08
|
|
|
Jade Mage posted:So far when I've been running Changeling 2e, I've just been giving 1exp each per Chapter with an extra at the end of a Story. It seems to be going well, but how does it compare to some of you actively using the group Beats system as intended? I don't wanna short change them, especially since they're good players playing flawed characters who wouldn't be bad in the Beats system, it's just not my style In the Changeling 2E game I'm running where I've been using group beats it's ended up being roughly 1XP/2 chapters. Granted, half of my players aren't really leaning on their aspirations or conditions...if they were it'd be closer to 2XP/3 chapters or higher. So 1XP/chapter isn't shortchanging much on that front unless they're the kind to burn really, really hot on things that generate beats like conditions. As has been mentioned, though, if you're comfortable with it, whatever goes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 00:13
|
|
|
In Mage: the Awakening 2e, can any spell be delivered as an Aimed spell to avoid the extra Reach to target something at Sensory range, or is it only things like chucking wind blades and lightning bolts? In my last game, my Thyrsus wanted to cast Bruise Flesh as a bolt of magic. I said yes to move the game along, but I’m not sure if that’s actually supposed to be the case.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 02:26
|
|
|
if you can't literally throw an owie at someone, why even be a wizard
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 02:32
|
|
|
I think mechanically you can throw any spell whatsoever. Including Knowing and Veiling and so on. What exactly you're visibly throwing will, uh, vary. EDIT: I think all the thrown spells in my game so far have been attacks, but at least one was Aggravated Life Unraveling that the player fluffed as 'transmute flesh to living plants' so, uh, I sort of internally imagine it's a green lightning bolt but really it should be something way stranger. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Apr 7, 2018 |
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 03:59
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:One of the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto is started up, iirc. Yeah, he's super-badass. Charnel House was the only F&F I finished.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 04:02
|
|
|
01011001 posted:In the Changeling 2E game I'm running where I've been using group beats it's ended up being roughly 1XP/2 chapters. Granted, half of my players aren't really leaning on their aspirations or conditions...if they were it'd be closer to 2XP/3 chapters or higher. So 1XP/chapter isn't shortchanging much on that front unless they're the kind to burn really, really hot on things that generate beats like conditions. I award beats after every scene, but they can only be spent after a chapter. When our first chapter ended, my players had pooled together 44 beats. With four players that worked out to 2XP each with 4 beats carried over to the next chapter. Now, to be fair, I'm doing this as play by post over on facebook, so those two XP came after two months of play.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 05:04
|
|
|
MonsieurChoc posted:Yeah, he's super-badass.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 05:15
|
|
|
MonsieurChoc posted:Yeah, he's super-badass. Link? (and/or which F&F thread it was in/rough idea of when?)
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 05:34
|
|
|
EimiYoshikawa posted:Link? (and/or which F&F thread it was in/rough idea of when?)
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 05:43
|
|
|
Nessus posted:http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/monsieurchoc/charnel-houses-of-europe-the-shoah/ Here you go. God I make a lot of typos.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 06:19
|
|
|
PHIZ KALIFA posted:I bribe players with XP for bringing snacks, writing character fiction, fanart, bringing in new players, helping out other players with rides, and bringing in sweet mix CDs to play softly in the background while we play Magic Goths at each other. For me, it works because all the players are Tremere and Thaumaturgy is an XP sinkhole. My players are all differentiated well, so no one outshines anyone else. You seem cool and good but are you time-traveling from 1998? Like I reward players for bringing snacks by saying, "O hey Adam I see you made those wonderful ham and cheese croissants , those are always a hit" instead of in-game power upgrades. And then we have a beer. Maybe a hug???? Like we're all pretending to be wizards or whatever together and if I have to use in-game currency to get them involved then why the gently caress am I making chili and having you folks over. This just seems like geek social fallacies.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 07:26
|
|
|
Reflections85 posted:There is the Warsaw Uprising lead by the Polish Home Army and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which was a revolt by the Jews concentrated in the ghetto and I am really curious whether the issue here is that RedSnapper was using the former rather than the latter while Charnel House only talks about the latter or whether they missed the chapter. The former. I don't own Charnel Houses but from what I remember The Ghetto Uprising does get a mention (pretty obviously) in the Ghetto Chapter but there's no mention of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Maybe I'm biased - and I probably am, since the WU is a deeply ingrained and painful memory in Polish national identity (even if the Pole in question is a godless commie like myself) - but the deaths of some 150 000 civillians and the complete ruination of a city should leave a mark on the spirit world and definitely deserves at least a passing mention. Aaand now I feel like I need to post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx3aGiurRbQ I passingly enterteined the idea of making my Nephandi badguys explicit reincarnations of Nazi war criminals. I abandoned that idea as soon as I realized that'd mean giving 'screen' time to folks like Oskar Dirlewanger. (Warning - the link contains honest descriptions of the exploits of Oskar Dirlewanger. You might need a drink)
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 18:32
|
|
|
Nessus posted:http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/monsieurchoc/charnel-houses-of-europe-the-shoah/ Here you go. Thank you!
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 19:19
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:You seem cool and good but are you time-traveling from 1998? I, too, enjoy being judgemental of the way people I don't know have fun socializing and playing games.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 20:21
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:You seem cool and good but are you time-traveling from 1998? I would certainly not publish it as GMing advice nowadays of course.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 20:30
|
|
|
Actually, if you think of it, we're all just running free to play games. Maybe I should introduce loot boxes to my players and start making money off this
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 22:49
|
|
|
Soonmot posted:Actually, if you think of it, we're all just running free to play games. Maybe I should introduce loot boxes to my players and start making money off this If you spend $120 to preorder the Gold Edition of Saturday night's game, you get +5 Merit dots. Or you can get the same benefit for $10 six months later.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 22:53
|
|
|
Soonmot posted:Actually, if you think of it, we're all just running free to play games. Maybe I should introduce loot boxes to my players and start making money off this A whole lot of people would dig this unironically if the gacha rolls had individual fancy dice in them sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2018 23:19
|
|
|
That Old Tree posted:If you spend $120 to preorder the Gold Edition of Saturday night's game, you get +5 Merit dots. Or you can get the same benefit for $10 six months later. Nah man the real money is in cosmetic items.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2018 00:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 00:10 |
|
|
Mendrian posted:Nah man the real money is in cosmetic items. Well, you can spend those Merit does on Imbued Item or on Striking Looks. That's called "player choice"!
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2018 00:18
|
|