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I believe it's in Jyhad Diary, which I still haven't got round to reading. BNS took the stance that Strauss emerged as Prince, too. I really should read BJD, but keeping up with V20, W20, etc is a low priority item on my list compared to finishing at least the 'classic' run, at which point I can do the rest or not as I like as a supplement. It's also the best way to go forwards with it since the x20 games are sometimes severely divergent in canon, to the point where there might as well be two (or more) alternate timelines around issues like Baba Yaga being killed, Stygia falling, etc. By my mark we're more or less up to 3 distinct timelines now, between BNS's MET bullshit, Swedracula's MET bullshit, and OPP's revisionist bullshit.
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Sep 21, 2018 05:21
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I picked up BJD during the sale, it's a pretty neat book. Christof from Redemption shows up in the Carthage story. That one was a fun read though its been years since I played Redemption.
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Sep 21, 2018 05:43
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It could be worse, by which I mean that it could be the W:tAMET bullshit where the writers don't seem clear on how animism works or to understand that what they're describing is a world already well into the Apocalypse.
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Sep 21, 2018 10:47
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Pope Guilty posted:It could be worse, by which I mean that it could be the W:tAMET bullshit where the writers don't seem clear on how animism works or to understand that what they're describing is a world already well into the Apocalypse. Yeah. I did a few posts a while back explaining just how badly hosed the BNS version of Werewolf's world is. The short answer is completely.
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Sep 21, 2018 10:57
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Loomer posted:Yeah. I did a few posts a while back explaining just how badly hosed the BNS version of Werewolf's world is. The short answer is completely. I scrolled through ~10 pages of your post ctrl-f'ing "werewolf" but didn't find anything, if it's not too much of a burden would you mind linking? I'm curious why that is. Old Werewolf was very solidly You're Witnessing The End Of History and I'm curious how they managed to get more pessimistic than that. edit- So y'all answered my questions about jiangxi-style "hopping Chinese vampires" as they're covered by Kindred of the East, but has any splatbook (new or old) covered the taoist martial arts that folks used to control them? I'm explicitly looking for something like the Mr. Vampire saga, where priests use red paint brushes, broken bottles, fire, and spell tags to combat the supernatural. They've got a mix of ritual and improvising that I find really compelling from a conflict perspective, and it's something I'd like to try capturing in a tabletop game. Basically, highly trained mortals able to turn the objects in their environments into weapons against the supernatural. All that aside, I'd love more information into the taoist philosophy underpinning those movies. I understand it's probably a highly distorted representation of actual faith practices, but I'm curious why yellow robes and the color red are anathema to jiangxi. Also, what the hell is it with Hong Kong cinema and just, utterly unreasonable amounts of animal violence? Every one of these movies features someone disemboweling a snake and eating its heart. Mors Rattus posted:They get the new power to bite Kinfolk and turn them into sterile Garou. Everything flows from there. What? loving, what? That's. . . What?? (also, is your name a reference to The World Ends With You?) PHIZ KALIFA fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 13:02
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:I scrolled through ~10 pages of your post ctrl-f'ing "werewolf" but didn't find anything, if it's not too much of a burden would you mind linking? I'm curious why that is. Old Werewolf was very solidly You're Witnessing The End Of History and I'm curious how they managed to get more pessimistic than that. They get the new power to bite Kinfolk and turn them into sterile Garou. Everything flows from there.
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Sep 21, 2018 13:05
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:I scrolled through ~10 pages of your post ctrl-f'ing "werewolf" but didn't find anything, if it's not too much of a burden would you mind linking? I'm curious why that is. Old Werewolf was very solidly You're Witnessing The End Of History and I'm curious how they managed to get more pessimistic than that. Sure thing. The short summary is basically that they've inadvertantly created a setting which is doomed to die of starvation, because the total loss of caerns and thickening of the Gauntlet mean that spirits can no longer do their jobs - but also, and far worse, because Gaia's celestine goes to slee and if that happens it is very, very bad, because when you remove the spirit associated with a thing, it withers and dies. At the same time there are lots more banes roaming about so we also get an increase in violent behaviour, disease, etc even without the earth itself fading into either death or the long sleep. In the mix, the Garou are steadily eating their own reproductive base alive to produce new, sterile garou, depriving the world of warriors on anything longer than a twenty to thirty year timespan. In addition, 95% of all Caerns were destroyed, and caerns help control and regulate regions spiritual activity and energies so that's another issue. They're also where Garou societies are based, and they fell in a giant war, so the odds of their garou just moving out to one of the surviving 13 caerns is pretty low, which means there's probably something on the range of 50 - 75% of the Garou nation killed. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=466541344 for the apocalypse proper https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=466568215 for why the Garou nation should, frankly, no longer exist
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Sep 21, 2018 13:19
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Hah! Holy poo poo, mainlining LARP plot is The Worst Possible Idea, and that's some purestrain oWoD "We don't actually understand the fallout of our metaplot" gold. But at least climate change is cured? edit- By Punching, naturally. I don't understand why they'd rip out so much of the Deep Weird Spirit-realm stuff, since it seems like that's the most interesting part of the setting. It really feels like they just made Furry Vampires Vs. Hunters, which, I don't think the Hunters LARP community is even a tenth as large as Vampire? PHIZ KALIFA fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 13:49
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I mention in one of my posts in there that converting kinfolk into garou isn't a totally terrible idea, and I think it's quite illustrative of the problem with the BNS approach - there's good ideas, but they don't know what to do with them, and they decide that they need to move those to the forefront of the setting by hook or by crook. So we wind up with things like virtually all the caerns being destroyed to make other caerns more important (which, for a global LARP as opposed to a tabletop game, is actually a terrible idea - it means that your local group is fundamentally less important than the one in NYC and can never, ever have as shiny a thing) and play a more dynamic role, the Bite becoming the new source of garou rather than a tool of desperation/a way to give honoured (or dying/sterile/etc) kinfolk a shot at joining the fight on equal terms, the spirit world fading away but also there being more banes so that people have things to kill without tricky ethical questions, a Garou Supreme Court spawning out of nowhere, etc.
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Sep 21, 2018 14:19
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I just don't quite grasp what all that rearranging of metaplot does to compel action in new games. Like, it's obviously not "rebuild the spiritual world in the wake of calcification" if Everything Is Dying. It's not "make new garou while protecting kinfolk" if kinfolk ARE the garou. Is it just. . . Kill banes & the Impergium? That's the least interesting parts of the setting.
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Sep 21, 2018 14:48
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:I just don't quite grasp what all that rearranging of metaplot does to compel action in new games. Like, it's obviously not "rebuild the spiritual world in the wake of calcification" if Everything Is Dying. It's not "make new garou while protecting kinfolk" if kinfolk ARE the garou. Remember: turning kinfolk into garou via the bite makes them sterile. So it's not so much that the kinfolk are the garou, it's that pretty soon there aren't going to BE kinfolk anymore.
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Sep 21, 2018 14:54
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Terrorforge posted:It's the evening of September 21st. Tobias Sjögren is standing in the pouring rain, cradling a final handful of office knick-knacks. He knows he should shouldn't turn back, but can't help but steal one last look at the company that abandoned him. Gonna get real weird, won't nevah be the same... Ah ah child way ya shake them dice Let me write a book about some edgy vice... Hey babe let's wreck the World o' D Let's take a poo poo on the whole IP... Oh yeah, oh yeah ah, ah, ah ah Oh yeah, oh yeah ah, ah, ah ah Oh yeah, oh yeah ah, ah, ah ah Oh yeah, oh yeah ah, ah, ah ah...
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Sep 21, 2018 15:00
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ritorix posted:I picked up BJD during the sale, it's a pretty neat book. Christof from Redemption shows up in the Carthage story. That one was a fun read though its been years since I played Redemption.
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Sep 21, 2018 15:03
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Rechecking a few books for the Garou and timeline stuff (and by 'a few' I mean pretty much all of 'em before 1996 or so, which is when I shifted to a much more methodical, detailed, and consistent model of notation, and also where we enter White Wolf's middle period) and I have to vent a little at how loving dumb early white wolf is. Sabbat supported Hitler, because... Evil? Call me crazy, but sponsoring a hyper-aggressive, war-obsessed paranoiac's plot to build a totalitarian surveillance state with lots and lots of weapons almost perfectly geared to exterminating vampires and a state police very good at rooting out undesirables is almost exactly the thing I wouldn't do if I wanted to create a neo-medieval dark age where I can reign supreme over the mortals. Unless, I suppose, the Sabbat's secret master plan was to have Germany win, then have World War 3 utterly destroy civilization, but somehow I don't think that's what the idea was in these early books.
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Sep 21, 2018 15:15
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Warthur posted:How is BJD if you're the sort of gamer who has little to no investment in actually keeping up with metaplot and just wants to run your own stories in your own city? Is there stuff that can be usefully strip-mined (and if so, how much) or is it too married to canon? There's lots of ideas; each section presents beckett interacting with something interesting from the metaplot. There are ideas to mine but next to no mechanics. So I'd you can make things like Laibon theory of why the Antediluvians are assholes or Hazimel getting his eye back inspire you to local stuff then go for it.
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Sep 21, 2018 15:15
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So annoyed that Hunter the Reckoning and Demon the fallen were not part of the drivethru sale. Oh well, picked up a few of the V20 books I skipped.
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Sep 21, 2018 15:21
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Lord_Hambrose posted:So annoyed that Hunter the Reckoning and Demon the fallen were not part of the drivethru sale. Oh well, picked up a few of the V20 books I skipped. I know, I was eager to grab a couple of PDFs for stuff I only have worn to poo poo second hand copies of. Indexing and ease of searching is so useful for what I do. Most of Wraith and Changeling weren't either.
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Sep 21, 2018 15:27
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Although I didn't care for the V20 corebook, the supplement previews I've seen all looked pretty good. But I don't know what's worth picking up; I haven't played WoD in like a couple years now.
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Sep 21, 2018 15:30
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Loomer posted:Rechecking a few books for the Garou and timeline stuff (and by 'a few' I mean pretty much all of 'em before 1996 or so, which is when I shifted to a much more methodical, detailed, and consistent model of notation, and also where we enter White Wolf's middle period) and I have to vent a little at how loving dumb early white wolf is. Sabbat supported Hitler, because... Evil? As much as WW would like to have claimed that there were no 'good guy' and 'bad guy' vampires, early Sabbat are totally bad guy vampires. Orcs with fangs. And the first Player's Guide just makes them kind of weird.
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Sep 21, 2018 16:08
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I'm gonna F&F a few key Sabbat books, but yeah per the 1e and 2e corebooks they're just psycho goons.
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Sep 21, 2018 16:15
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Kurieg posted:Remember: turning kinfolk into garou via the bite makes them sterile. So it's not so much that the kinfolk are the garou, it's that pretty soon there aren't going to BE kinfolk anymore. I get that, it seems like they just shifted the whole "population crisis" metaplot from garou proper to a different population. Cutting off the spiritual side of werewolves just, what's the appeal for that at all? How does it make the game more compelling, aside from just trapping them in the physical realm, and isn't that Mage's whole deal?
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Sep 21, 2018 16:39
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:I get that, it seems like they just shifted the whole "population crisis" metaplot from garou proper to a different population. Cutting off the spiritual side of werewolves just, what's the appeal for that at all? How does it make the game more compelling, aside from just trapping them in the physical realm, and isn't that Mage's whole deal? It doesn't. It does, however, make the LARP easier to run. Which was probably the idea.
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Sep 21, 2018 16:45
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Crasical posted:Or Blush of Life and then see how much bacon you can scarf down in 'one scene'. Bacon grease burning is actually part of The Lie and the solution is to overthrow the Exarchs, our cosmic oppressors. Join the Silver Ladder. Also Chronicles of Darkness is on sale
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Sep 21, 2018 17:17
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Publishing the BNS werewolf setting as a five-minutes-from-the-end Apocalypse setting would have been fine. Making it the default setting is asinine.
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Sep 21, 2018 17:30
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:edit- So y'all answered my questions about jiangxi-style "hopping Chinese vampires" as they're covered by Kindred of the East, but has any splatbook (new or old) covered the taoist martial arts that folks used to control them? I'm explicitly looking for something like the Mr. Vampire saga, where priests use red paint brushes, broken bottles, fire, and spell tags to combat the supernatural. They've got a mix of ritual and improvising that I find really compelling from a conflict perspective, and it's something I'd like to try capturing in a tabletop game. my friend you are looking for Demon Hunter X and their coverage of the Shih. spoiler alert: they loving rule
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Sep 21, 2018 18:03
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Rereading Slasher makes me want to run a VASCU campaign, but on the other hand, ACAB. I guess I could lean really hard into the "admitted on a technicality and only technically part of the Bureau" thing. "Official Government Spookadoodle Hunters" is a popular concept for a campaign because it tidies up a lot of boring complications in horror investigation games. (Namely "why do you keep doing this and how do you make a living.") I like the idea of a private monster-hunting organization, but something like Chill's SAVE just feels a little too cozy for what's supposed to be a bleak world in desperate times.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:05
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Halloween Jack posted:Rereading Slasher makes me want to run a VASCU campaign, but on the other hand, ACAB. I guess I could lean really hard into the "admitted on a technicality and only technically part of the Bureau" thing. Hunter has tons of different examples of monster hunting organizations, from soccer mom neighbourhood watch and creepypasta enthusiasts all the way up to ancient warrior-mystics with magic drugs and paramilitary government task force with ghost-killing assault rifles. e: also WoD generally doesn't shy away from the government structures being hosed up and oppressive, nor does it assume the PCs are good guys. Even the ostensible "good guy" organizations like the aforementioned hunter orgs tend to be at best morally grey, and often they're just as bad as the monsters they're fighting. Trying to do good despite being part of an ultimately immoral system is wholly on brand Terrorforge fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 19:25
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Sure, but almost none of those are an actual job, let alone one that grants power of arrest. It seems awkward doing a campaign based around investigating serial murder without the PCs being law enforcement. (Maybe I'm being too delicate, but I probably wouldn't run a game based around Cheiron either! Ashwood Abbey is fine, though. They're like 1/10th as evil as COINTELPRO.)
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Sep 21, 2018 19:53
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You’re already allowing vampires to exist, good FBI agents are just one more part of the urban fantasy.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:54
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It sounds like you're envisioning a far more specific concept than "spookadoodle hunter," but regardless you could turn pretty much any org into a job with some approximation of law enforcement privilege via a mysterious benefactor. And fwiw the semi-official answer to "Why don't hunters just quit?" is that once you've seen how hosed the world is, you can't unsee it. Remember that this is a World of Darkness, and people in your periphery get eaten by gribblies on the reg. That's easy to ignore when you're pretending it's just the way things are, less so when you know what's happening and that you can do something about it. The fact that this is an untenable lifestyle that almost inevitably turns you into a paranoid wreck who can't hold down a job is kind of the point.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:12
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With the upcoming CoD sale, is there anything super good for Forsaken I should be looking at?
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Sep 21, 2018 20:57
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Dawgstar posted:With the upcoming CoD sale, is there anything super good for Forsaken I should be looking at? I really like a lot of them, and the 2nd edition is especially strong. The Pure is an interesting read, and Predators which is about Spirits.
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Sep 21, 2018 21:31
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Dawgstar posted:With the upcoming CoD sale, is there anything super good for Forsaken I should be looking at? The sale has started FYI.
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Sep 21, 2018 21:32
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Dawgstar posted:With the upcoming CoD sale, is there anything super good for Forsaken I should be looking at? Predators has I think 40+ spirits (which are easily ported over to 2e), assorted hosts, claimed/ridden and some random monsters in the back. Tribes and Secrets of the Moon are good but more for setting building. Territories is really useful for building an area for a pack, including several premade areas (substantially longer and more focused than the Hunting Grounds in 2e, which are great but more larger scale). Obviously for 2e, the core book and the Pack.
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Sep 21, 2018 22:02
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Haul - All Requiem Clanbooks, The Pure, and in the How Did I Not Have It Before, Damnation City. (Predators was not on sale, alas.)
Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 22:07
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Dawgstar posted:Haul - All Requiem Clanbooks, The Pure, and in the How Did I Not Have It Before, Damnation City. (Predators was not on sale, alas.) You have come to a world called BvD! *whipcrack*
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Sep 21, 2018 22:33
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Pope Guilty posted:You have come to a world called BvD! *whipcrack* Coming soon to a theater near you. 
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Sep 22, 2018 00:16
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The 'Shiv' merit is actually pretty dopey? It's based off weapon damage, not size, so a small shield can be concealed, but not a crowbar. A staff (Size 4 object) can be concealed, but not a machete.
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Sep 22, 2018 08:35
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Crasical posted:The 'Shiv' merit is actually pretty dopey? I always read that as "you have a shiv: a small, concealable weapon that deals 0/1L", not "you may conceal a weapon with no more than 0/1L damage". I think that's the intent, but the wording is kind of ambiguous.
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Sep 22, 2018 09:02
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Halloween Jack posted:Sure, but almost none of those are an actual job, let alone one that grants power of arrest. It seems awkward doing a campaign based around investigating serial murder without the PCs being law enforcement. More seriously as Mors said, just assume VASCU is Dale Cooper's FBI, not the Actual Real Life FBI. I'm looking forward to the Sabbat books because I've always found the Sabbat more compelling than the Camarilla, even if I suppose the Sabbat lends itself less to the billionaire fantasy vampire husband archetype.
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Sep 22, 2018 09:29
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