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Xelkelvos posted:It's too bad WoD isn't too friendly to crossovers. A Sgt. Rock and the Creature Commandos pastiche with WoD splats would be fun. The nWoD/Chronicles splats are compatible, at least on the most fundamental mechanical level. You do run into a bunch of cross-setting weirdness like "what Arcana does a mage use to affect a strix?" and "what does it take for a werewolf to become aware of the gears of the God-Machine?", but I don't think that should be enough to discourage a crossover game, especially if you're already going for a goofy 80s action hero pastiche.
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Sep 18, 2018 19:19
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I think the main problem with crossover games is the amount of subsystems a GM has to keep track of, and that's even if you simplify their respective cosmologies and supernatural societies. It is certainly better than it was trying to do that back in the oWOD days or even nWOD 1.0.
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Sep 18, 2018 19:42
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  I'm not racist, it's the immigrants who are wrong!
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Sep 18, 2018 20:09
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Kurieg posted:
Wow. The 90's were a hell of a time.
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Sep 18, 2018 20:31
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Terrorforge posted:You do run into a bunch of cross-setting weirdness like "what Arcana does a mage use to affect a strix?" Think that was answered as Death, as it controls shadows and darkness. Though you could use Forces to do light and fire to take advantage of their bans. The problem with crossover for me has always been why, OOC and in. Like, I don't want to play Promethean because I don't really like the fundamental themes. So why would I want to play a game I do like mixed with Promethean? It doesn't seem right to just cut out the themes of Promethean on my account. But I also don't want to sit there while Johnny Raisins learns what it's like to be a real person. And from an in-character perspective, just having a few different splats involved is like trying to get together your wealthy college professor who absolutely doesn't want to be seen with you on campus, the punk who sleeps all day, the slasher, and the victim of kidnapping who's still dealing with their PTSD, it's a weird mix of different personalities and interests. I mean sure you can have their lives cross but at a certain point it seems like shoehorning. Even the Beast and Mage couple broke up and only got back together because one wanted something from the other. nofather fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Sep 18, 2018 |
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Sep 18, 2018 20:53
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My favorite part of that description is the decision to put 'is a born leader' into her physical description and implicitly tie it to her "Nordic" appearance and her blonde hair and blue eyes.
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Sep 18, 2018 20:56
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When I was reading it as a teen, W:tA stuff always seemed to have this affected nonjudgmental distance about everything from ecoterrorism to Neo-Nazism that creeped me out. Edit: Is Hunter 2e out yet? Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Sep 18, 2018 |
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Sep 18, 2018 20:58
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Halloween Jack posted:Edit: Is Hunter 2e out yet? No. They've had some playtests available to the public, but it's still in development.
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Sep 18, 2018 21:16
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nofather posted:Think that was answered as Death, as it controls shadows and darkness. Though you could use Forces to do light and fire to take advantage of their bans. I kinda see your point, but that doesn't sound like an unreasonable troupe at all provided they have some kind of common interest. Sounds very much like a hunter cell. I've had some trouble getting groups like that to work to be sure, but it turns out it's not actually much harder than "they nominally trust each other so they hang out after work and do WoD stuff". And sure, if you don't like dealing with the themes of a particular game that could be a problem, but it's a pretty specific problem. Promethean is pretty extreme example, because it's got a very clear intended theme and story progression and mechanics that force you to deal with it. It's a loss less disruptive if you have something like a werewolf pack that happens to contain a single changeling, or a task force of various spookies put together to deal with the giant tower of screaming gears that just cut a vertical slice through all the local otherworlds. And from there it's not much more shoehorny than any other game to say "these guys now trust each other more than their respective power structures". e: and of course the degree of compatibility varies wildly between different sets of supernaturals. vampires are always going to have trouble fitting in with the daywalkers, for example Terrorforge fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Sep 18, 2018 |
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Sep 18, 2018 21:24
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Halloween Jack posted:When I was reading it as a teen, W:tA stuff always seemed to have this affected nonjudgmental distance about everything from ecoterrorism to Neo-Nazism that creeped me out. Apocalypse always struggled with the difference between "things we like but don't want to actually say we advocate" (murdering Enron executives), "things we don't like but are okay with players struggling against" (Garou being their own worst enemies), and "things we don't like but like to play with even though it is outside of our tastefulness budget" (Nazis, rape).
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Sep 18, 2018 21:58
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nofather posted:Think that was answered as Death, as it controls shadows and darkness. Though you could use Forces to do light and fire to take advantage of their bans. Having played in a crossover game this was a huge, huge issue - it quickly turned into Superfriends because there's no drat way to keep any sort of tone when you've got all kinds of wacky bullshit around. Doubly so because the GM tried to put every single splat and splat organization in. Also combining any splat and Mage just doesn't really work on a "is this mechanically balanced for every PC" level, which should be obvious. It's to the storyteller's credit that he recognized this but less to his credit that his answer was "nerf Mages, I can make this work" rather than the clear answer.
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Sep 18, 2018 22:01
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In the crossover games I played in, the "why" was that the GM was way into the metaphysics of the oWoD and wanted to tell a sprawling story involving alternate universes and time travel. (I believe the WoD game he played the most was Mage, and it somewhat confirmed my bias against Mage: the Ascension as part of the old WoD at all, in spite of being a great game in and of itself.)
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Sep 18, 2018 22:22
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Terrorforge posted:The nWoD/Chronicles splats are compatible, at least on the most fundamental mechanical level. You do run into a bunch of cross-setting weirdness like "what Arcana does a mage use to affect a strix?" and "what does it take for a werewolf to become aware of the gears of the God-Machine?", but I don't think that should be enough to discourage a crossover game, especially if you're already going for a goofy 80s action hero pastiche. I think two-splat crossovers are the sweet spot. Demon / Werewolf is a game about being an uneasy ally or servant to the tyrannical powers that be because the weird poo poo on the outside is even worse. Changeling / Geist is a game about resolving your traumas and reclaiming your life. Mage / Vampire is Fiasco but in Storyteller. 
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Sep 18, 2018 22:57
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also probably don't mix Promethean or Mummy with anything because oof e: to elaborate, I mean that both games have mechanical hooks that demand pretty exclusive focus Demon and Mage are pushing it though I think you could get away with it; Changeling on the other hand seems the most easily miscible with other lines (because it covers a really wide variety of tones and themes and because Changeling characters can easily be a lot of different things) Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Sep 18, 2018 |
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Sep 18, 2018 22:59
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Mage seems like it would be super easy to integrate, given their broad potential power set and tendency to stick their nose in things. The big issue would have to be power level concerns. But as you suggest, it seems the big problem with crossover games is that people default to "cross ALL the things over!" There's enough mileage in any one splat's world to, you know, build an entire game around, so trying to cram astral-spirit-angel-strix shenanigans in all at once is just going to be a mess. You'd want to either restrict the focus to exactly two splats and how their worlds interact, or device a strong central scenario that demands everyone's full attention to the exclusion of their usual problems.
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Sep 18, 2018 23:16
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:also probably don't mix Promethean or Mummy with anything because oof Prometheans can work if there's only one of them, I think. In one of the Forsaken books they had an example of a multi-pack alliance with one Promethean on it.
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Sep 18, 2018 23:29
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MonsieurChoc posted:Prometheans can work if there's only one of them, I think. In one of the Forsaken books they had an example of a multi-pack alliance with one Promethean on it. The Pack has examples of how to include all the other splats (out when it was released) into a pack, including prometheans. The Demon Storyteller's Guide has a series of similar discussions of how the other splats might fit into a demon's worldview.
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Sep 18, 2018 23:33
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Terrorforge posted:a strong central scenario that demands everyone's full attention to the exclusion of their usual problems. Isn't that what the Contagion Chronicle thing is going to be?
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Sep 18, 2018 23:42
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xanthan posted:Isn't that what the Contagion Chronicle thing is going to be? That, and an answer to the more pressing of those "how many angels can dance on the head of a 3-dot Fetish" questions. That's my understanding, at least.
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Sep 18, 2018 23:52
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Terrorforge posted:You'd want to either restrict the focus to exactly two splats and how their worlds interact, or device a strong central scenario that demands everyone's full attention to the exclusion of their usual problems. The latter is what we did when we ran a crossover game in the oWOD (later converted to nWOD). It was a big conspiracy thing that I won't get into because I was like 15 at the time, but it was kicking rad.
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Sep 19, 2018 00:38
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I mean, Sergeant Rage is basically one of the entire story Arcs for Bigby in Fables, so you could just read that?
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Sep 19, 2018 00:55
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Shockeh posted:I mean, Sergeant Rage is basically one of the entire story Arcs for Bigby in Fables, so you could just read that? I mean, with the caveat that Fables eventually boomerangs all the way to the other end of the scale from oWoD on I Have Opinions On Israel, yes.
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Sep 19, 2018 00:56
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Daeren posted:I mean, with the caveat that Fables eventually boomerangs all the way to the other end of the scale from oWoD on I Have Opinions On Israel, yes. It does, but not to the other end of that particular scale. (Without in any way wanting to go down that incredibly depressing rabbit hole, Oh God no.)
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Sep 19, 2018 01:05
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There's an early plot about a visit from Fables who are from Arabian Nights and they're basically what you're thinking they are if you know anything about where Fables goes.
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Sep 19, 2018 03:23
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Terrorforge posted:The nWoD/Chronicles splats are compatible, at least on the most fundamental mechanical level. You do run into a bunch of cross-setting weirdness like "what Arcana does a mage use to affect a strix?" and "what does it take for a werewolf to become aware of the gears of the God-Machine?", but I don't think that should be enough to discourage a crossover game, especially if you're already going for a goofy 80s action hero pastiche. The answer is what the Book of the Dead says for unbound Geists applies well, since they have sort of roughly equivalent juju: you can use either Death or Spirit, but you have to have them both at the level required to cast whatever you want to cast
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Sep 19, 2018 05:05
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Mister Olympus posted:The answer is what the Book of the Dead says for unbound Geists applies well, since they have sort of roughly equivalent juju: you can use either Death or Spirit, but you have to have them both at the level required to cast whatever you want to cast No, it isn't, and Book of the Dead's advice doesn't apply to second edition Geists, which are high-Rank ghosts not ghost-spirit hybrids as in 1e. Strix are covered by Death's purview over Shadows. Even in 1e, Strix are not ephemeral entities, they aren't made of Essence, and IDK why you think Spirit is needed. Both are just Death.
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Sep 19, 2018 06:28
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The Internet is unhelpful but can I buy Scion 2E yet? With American cash-dollars? I am unclear on the current status. I also hope they cleaned up the drat sample characters if so.
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Sep 19, 2018 06:36
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Nessus posted:The Internet is unhelpful but can I buy Scion 2E yet? With American cash-dollars? I am unclear on the current status. I also hope they cleaned up the drat sample characters if so. I believe Origins is getting indexed and Hero is in layout.
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Sep 19, 2018 07:25
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That Old Tree posted:I believe Origins is getting indexed and Hero is in layout.
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Sep 19, 2018 09:49
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Nessus posted:I hope they fixed the samples!!! It says something tho when the one flaw in a book is the samples. What the hell Scion books have you been reading where that's the only flaw? We tried to run a game with the kickstarter previews and the inconsistencies were so bad it was drat near unplayable.
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Sep 19, 2018 09:57
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I think two-splat crossovers are the sweet spot. If I ever have the time and a stable enough group I want to run a Werewolf/Mage split game on alternating weeks where the main driver of conflict/plot is responding to what the other party did in their last game. RAGE VS. MAGE: NO MATTER WHO WINS, THE SPIRITS LOSE.
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Sep 19, 2018 10:09
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Terrorforge posted:What the hell Scion books have you been reading where that's the only flaw? We tried to run a game with the kickstarter previews and the inconsistencies were so bad it was drat near unplayable. What was there, to me, potentially informally, appears to be the exact thing I have wanted: a game that is ultimately narrative but has more mechanical complexity than PBTA games. The setting material is also tremendously strong, although to a certain extent this may be the difference between Gorbachev's Russia (2E) and Pol Pot's Cambodia (1E), in terms of quality and functionality. Nessus fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Sep 19, 2018 |
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Sep 19, 2018 10:26
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Nessus posted:I'm in an ongoing if slow-moving game of Scion2 and I'll certainly own that there are problems with the kickstarter previews. However, these problems seem to have been addressed by the game's developers. My GM found them and shared them with us non-backing plebians. In other words, this appears to have been a flaw with the kickstarter preview materials rather than the game itself. I agree, but you said "book", not "game". And even then, in some places the problem with the books were so bad it was hard to get to the game. The game itself is pretty rad, tho. Some of my fellows had complaints that the Legend rules mean you can't do enough cool stuff out of the gate, but that may be a matter of misaligned expectations.
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Sep 19, 2018 11:18
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Terrorforge posted:I agree, but you said "book", not "game". And even then, in some places the problem with the books were so bad it was hard to get to the game.
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Sep 19, 2018 11:26
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Nessus posted:That's fair, I think I was phone-posting. Are the Legend rules based on experience or whiff-reading? What I've been intending to do in my game is just Fatebind people for a repop on the regular. Plus, of course, Imbuing is very cool and good. Experience. It got a little less dumb once we started to grasp the Fatebinding rules, but you still tend to be limited to 1-2 magics per session. Imbuing doesn't really help, either, because you can't drop your imbue at will and you can't override it by spending that Legend, so when you only have the one point there's not a lot of difference between spending and imbuing. I anticipated this and built a character with enough passive abilities, fun RP gimmicks and a cute custom Relic that I wasn't too bothered, but e.g. the guy with the apocalyptic fire sword was a bit miffed that he did "apocalyptic fire" once and was then left with just "sword" for the next two sessions.
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Sep 19, 2018 12:02
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So I finally committed to a redemptions play through for the project and I'm pretty sure I can't use the number of vampires Christof and co killed for it because if I do, he's more or less a one-man Gehenna scenario whenever he surfaces.
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Sep 20, 2018 07:58
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Loomer posted:So I finally committed to a redemptions play through for the project and I'm pretty sure I can't use the number of vampires Christof and co killed for it because if I do, he's more or less a one-man Gehenna scenario whenever he surfaces.
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Sep 20, 2018 09:16
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Terrorforge posted:Experience. It got a little less dumb once we started to grasp the Fatebinding rules, but you still tend to be limited to 1-2 magics per session. Imbuing doesn't really help, either, because you can't drop your imbue at will and you can't override it by spending that Legend, so when you only have the one point there's not a lot of difference between spending and imbuing.
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Sep 20, 2018 09:26
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Loomer posted:So I finally committed to a redemptions play through for the project and I'm pretty sure I can't use the number of vampires Christof and co killed for it because if I do, he's more or less a one-man Gehenna scenario whenever he surfaces. Lol me too, that guy hates him some loving vampiric vertebrae
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Sep 20, 2018 09:32
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Nessus posted:I thought you could drop imbue more-or-less at will. Unfortunately not. Apart from having it confirmed by devs in the discord, it's pretty clearly part of the design parameters of certain powers. For instance, if you could take Imbued Legend back whenever the Beasts purview Animal Aspect Boon would let you switch freely between any animal ability at any time. Nessus posted:That's certainly fair although I feel like the "low power" version also makes you think about your poo poo and how to leverage it. Like that dude with the apocalypse sword, what else did he buy, or was he just Megumin from Konosuba? He sunk all but one of his 11 points into it, which he managed to do by making it a sentient being that also doubles as a Guide. Which I guess is partly on him for essentially bringing a Demigod concept to a Hero game, but I feel like that's an easy mistake to make. You say "hey, let's play a game about being badass godspawn" you shouldn't be surprised if at least someone reaches for the apocalypse sword.
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Sep 20, 2018 09:53
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