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cptn_dr posted:I've got basically no exposure to Masquerade outside of Bloodlines and this thread, but I've been reading V20 and some of Revised, and I really dig that semi-apocalyptic vibe. Are there any novels that are good, or at least enjoyable-pulp bad? I've got a hankering for reading about a world where the apocalypse is on the horizon and things are winding down/ ramping up, where there's not much you can do except rage against the futility of it all. Dark Ages clan novels, Victorian Age Trilogy, and Clan Novel Setite but not the rest are all genuinely decent reads. If you want enjoyable pulp, try and hunt down the early Harper Collins paperbacks like Wyrm Wolf, Blood on the Sun, etc. They're loving terrible but fun, if my memory isn't lying to me after six years.
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Nov 10, 2018 08:54
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cptn_dr posted:I've got basically no exposure to Masquerade outside of Bloodlines and this thread, but I've been reading V20 and some of Revised, and I really dig that semi-apocalyptic vibe. Are there any novels that are good, or at least enjoyable-pulp bad? I've got a hankering for reading about a world where the apocalypse is on the horizon and things are winding down/ ramping up, where there's not much you can do except rage against the futility of it all. I can second Loomer's recommendation of The Dark Ages Vampire clan novels. IIRC, the inciting incident is the fall of Constantinople, which makes for a suitably apocalyptic setting. I also enjoyed the Werewolf Apocalypse novel, but you need to have read the other main Werewolf novels to really appreciate it. Those are fine as well, but ironically they don't really have an apocalyptic tone to them at all.
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Nov 10, 2018 17:04
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The Tzimisce Clan Novel remains the worst book I've ever read in my life.
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Nov 10, 2018 17:13
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ZearothK posted:The Tzimisce Clan Novel remains the worst book I've ever read in my life. It was pretty ghastly.
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Nov 10, 2018 18:22
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ZearothK posted:The Tzimisce Clan Novel remains the worst book I've ever read in my life. Any funny details or was it just badly written in a boring way?
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Nov 10, 2018 20:11
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ZearothK posted:The Tzimisce Clan Novel remains the worst book I've ever read in my life. Well, now I HAVE to read it Because I'm a weirdo and whenever I hear something is truly awful, I must experience it myself. I also own a DVD copy of Uwe Boll's House of the Dead
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Nov 10, 2018 21:13
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FrostyPox posted:Well, now I HAVE to read it that's nothing, i own a DVD copy of Guns of El Chupacabra 2, a sequel made entirely from cut material for Guns of El Chupacabra
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Nov 10, 2018 21:28
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UrbicaMortis posted:Any funny details or was it just badly written in a boring way? FrostyPox posted:Well, now I HAVE to read it It wasn't over the top memorable bad, it was just a bland, poorly written book. I can't even remember details from it, though to be fair it was 15 years ago.
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Nov 10, 2018 21:40
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ZearothK posted:It wasn't over the top memorable bad, it was just a bland, poorly written book. I can't even remember details from it, though to be fair it was 15 years ago. The only thing I distinctly remember is that one of the Tzimisce has Victoria Ash captured and spends a great deal of time fleshcraft-torturing her. You're right, it's not even riffably bad.
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Nov 10, 2018 21:54
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Is that the book that reveals that Vykos trolls chatrooms and tries to cyber? Or was that the Undead Hearts or whatever book?
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Nov 10, 2018 22:11
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Dawgstar posted:The only thing I distinctly remember is that one of the Tzimisce has Victoria Ash captured and spends a great deal of time fleshcraft-torturing her. You're right, it's not even riffably bad. Was it that book or the subsequent one when she uses her awesome social-fu to beat him. By dressing in a leopard print bodysuit, which somehow distracts him a ton while she shoots him with a machinegun. *That* part at least was memorable. In that I could totally see the PC's player whining about how that strategy would totally work because the character has app 7, or whatever.
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Nov 11, 2018 00:27
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Desiden posted:Was it that book or the subsequent one when she uses her awesome social-fu to beat him. By dressing in a leopard print bodysuit, which somehow distracts him a ton while she shoots him with a machinegun. Something like that. Ash starts playing him, gets him to restore her looks and then does whatever to get away, which might have involved a bodysuit.
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Nov 11, 2018 01:38
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Loomer posted:Clan Novel Setite btw I got this on your suggestion, and this is not a good book it is certainly a very good rescource to run Hesha or similar as an NPC, but the writing is weak and the ending is just an insult
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Nov 11, 2018 11:07
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Weird. I've always enjoyed it. EDIT: But then, I did choose to start and repeatedly continue my project, so serious brain damage is not out of the question.
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Nov 11, 2018 11:38
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Loomer posted:Weird. I've always enjoyed it. All of Kathleen Ryan's stuff I've liked. One always wonders how much of a mandate from up above was going on in the Clan Novels, though. (Certainly "make them all good" was not one of them.)
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Nov 11, 2018 14:49
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The Victorian trilogy is actually pretty good, huh? Do they have any Kiasyd characters in them? Asking uh, for a friend Okay, broader question: Why are there still metaplots? I guess I understand why V5 had metaplot tie-ins, if you wanted a metaplotless Vampire you'd use Requiem and they were hoping to lure back people nostalgic for the way things were in the 1990s. But my understanding of the RPG industry is that it's simply way, way too small to support the kind of thing a lot of games had in the '90s, with a continuing storyline that you'd buy multiple sourcebooks to follow. Is it because the LARP side of things has a metaplot and the designers want to sync them up? I know nothing about LARPing, WoD in any flavor or otherwise. It doesn't seem to me that a lot of the other current hot pen and paper RPGs have a metaplot - I don't think D&D/Pathfinder has one, I know the Apocalypse World games don't, uh I dunno what else is selling - so what's the purpose of having one, given how the game market is in 2018?
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Nov 11, 2018 19:12
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Speaking of metaplot, according to the new Chicago book the Lasombra have left the Sabbat and want to join the Camarilla. So they leave the sect where they run things to join the sect that's reeling from every direction so they can, I dunno, to quote V20 'be Ventrue with a different hat on?'
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Nov 11, 2018 19:17
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Digital Osmosis posted:- so what's the purpose of having one, given how the game market is in 2018? Because Martin Ericsson really, really wishes it was still the 90's.
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Nov 11, 2018 19:20
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Dawgstar posted:Speaking of metaplot, according to the new Chicago book the Lasombra have left the Sabbat and want to join the Camarilla. So they leave the sect where they run things to join the sect that's reeling from every direction so they can, I dunno, to quote V20 'be Ventrue with a different hat on?' I'm sure it's gonna be set up as some big power play where they try to take advantage of the Camarilla's weak state, but it's a real dumb plan with no real payoff compared to what they're giving up to do it. You know, Lasombra poo poo.
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Nov 11, 2018 19:26
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Digital Osmosis posted:Is it because the LARP side of things has a metaplot and the designers want to sync them up? I know nothing about LARPing, WoD in any flavor or otherwise. It doesn't seem to me that a lot of the other current hot pen and paper RPGs have a metaplot - I don't think D&D/Pathfinder has one, I know the Apocalypse World games don't, uh I dunno what else is selling - so what's the purpose of having one, given how the game market is in 2018? As that old tree says, part of the purpose is blissfully ignoring the fact that the game market is in 2018. White Wolf Entertainment's V5 acquisition was accompanied by announcing plans that were ambitious to the point of hilarity (I think there was supposed to be a Vampire: the Masquerade Netflix series out by the end of this year?), so the 90s book treadmill is hardly the only unrealistic goal they've set for themselves. Part of it is Martin Ericsson is probably indeed designing V5 with the European LARP scene as a major priority, if not an overriding one. He certainly talked about wanting to reflect LARP events in the books somehow.
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Nov 11, 2018 19:34
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Digital Osmosis posted:Okay, broader question: Why are there still metaplots? I guess I understand why V5 had metaplot tie-ins, if you wanted a metaplotless Vampire you'd use Requiem and they were hoping to lure back people nostalgic for the way things were in the 1990s. But my understanding of the RPG industry is that it's simply way, way too small to support the kind of thing a lot of games had in the '90s, with a continuing storyline that you'd buy multiple sourcebooks to follow. Yeah, DnD 5e was the 'best selling rpg EVER!'. but the retention rate is low and most still stick with DnD and don't move on. The industry is doing better than it was, say ten years ago, and after the implosion from d20 craze. The industry is growing again and finding new audiences in high school/college aged kids who have the time for the hobby. The industry is actually trying tie itself to new trends, fads, crazes, and marketing techniques instead of sticking to old dead horse stuff: Including PoC and women more in art and setting, Streaming services like Twitch, online tools, and toned down art. Admittedly on the last three they might totally understand or have come to late. Cheesecake is back, honestly. Especially if you're aiming for the anime fan crowd with games like Exalted or the like. More to the point they don't fully understand Twitch at all, and might ruin the experience of watching a stream if they make rpgs more 'interactive' like Hasbro and co are planning. Things have been looking genuinely good for RPGs and Tradition Games, for the first time in a long time. So it's natural that WW and Swedish Dracula want to 'revive' an older, but highly popular property that had mainstream attention and is somewhat on the fringes now for a new audience, and then update it to a more modern sensibility while expanding on it heavily to exploit or build on it's base for a larger stab at a market that emerging now and try use what helped make it profitable and exciting back in the 90's. But times have changed and it's still mostly whales who buy all the new Magic Decks and devote themselves to the 40k armies. No one wants to buy 5k books to solve the Rasputin mystery, especailly when it's A.) easy to pirate and more importantly B.) you have word if it's even worth your time right where you buy it, with a 5-1 star review system and talk from your fellow gamers on 4chan, Reddit, and the folks right here will tell if if it's worth 25 bucks for a PDF or 50 for a hardback, and that's always been the biggest crucifix for this type of blood sucking publishing technique. Likewise the setting itself has aged, or at least the way people want to play it. I honestly think Werewolf the Apocalypse has reemerged into relevance if you go full blood and gore Captain Planet with it and jettison some of the more angsty and problematic poo poo. Conspiracy theories are on the forefront now, and while that makes these games prescient (Can you stop Vampire Pizza gate. Can you find the piss tape that Technocracy hid?) that also means you have to handle the content differently.
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Nov 11, 2018 20:18
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Dnd 5e has also basically eliminated the supplement treadmill as well. Outside of the core there are only three other source books and a setting guide for the Sword Coast with another setting guide for Ravnica releasing on the 20th. Thats only five books theyve done since 2014, the rest of their output is in the campaigns they release once a year (sometimes as one book sometimes as two). That is dramatically less than what they did even with 4e.
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Nov 11, 2018 20:27
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AnEdgelord posted:Dnd 5e has also basically eliminated the supplement treadmill as well. Outside of the core there are only three other source books and a setting guide for the Sword Coast with another setting guide for Ravnica releasing on the 20th. "Even with 4e" there was a book release every month and sometimes two for the first three years of its lifespan and regular releases for the last two. There were some seventy released sourcebooks.
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Nov 11, 2018 20:37
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The show they do on Geek and Sundry is pretty good but the angle for diversity in that is weirdly dissonant with the far right poo poo they won't purge. At some point the owners will have to decide why they're spending money to reach young and diverse gamers with one hand and paying chuds with the other. (Also re the show, God I wish they didn't have a Malk guest for two episodes.)
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Nov 11, 2018 20:46
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AnEdgelord posted:Dnd 5e has also basically eliminated the supplement treadmill as well. Outside of the core there are only three other source books and a setting guide for the Sword Coast with another setting guide for Ravnica releasing on the 20th. Yeah. The limited edition release model for Changeling and Promethean is the future. Maybe a couple more books, but the days of buying dozens of books for one game line that is going to cross over to another are long done. At least for now
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Nov 11, 2018 20:46
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MollyMetroid posted:"Even with 4e" there was a book release every month and sometimes two for the first three years of its lifespan and regular releases for the last two. There were some seventy released sourcebooks. Sorry I phrased that poorly. My point though is that nuWW is trying to resurrect a business practice that even the leeches as Hasbro have abandoned.
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Nov 11, 2018 20:52
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Nehru the Damaja posted:The show they do on Geek and Sundry is pretty good but the angle for diversity in that is weirdly dissonant with the far right poo poo they won't purge. At some point the owners will have to decide why they're spending money to reach young and diverse gamers with one hand and paying chuds with the other. It's the same problem as all entertainment media*: the ideal audience for every game, movie, or book is everyone, no matter how awful they are, as long as they buy stuff. It's bad for design, for craft, and for community, but good for selling things. * under capitalism, at any rate 
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Nov 11, 2018 20:53
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Nehru the Damaja posted:The show they do on Geek and Sundry is pretty good but the angle for diversity in that is weirdly dissonant with the far right poo poo they won't purge. At some point the owners will have to decide why they're spending money to reach young and diverse gamers with one hand and paying chuds with the other. Wait, G&S has a vampire show, or are you talking about Critical Role with the 5e talk?
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Nov 11, 2018 20:55
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Incidentally as someone who's been familiar with basic lore via video games and nerd osmosis but never played, has anyone in your life made an interesting /compelling Malkavian who isn't just self-harm or self-parody?
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Nov 11, 2018 20:57
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sexpig by night posted:Wait, G&S has a vampire show, or are you talking about Critical Role with the 5e talk? LA By Night. The storyteller is Jason Carl from WW. It's only like eight or nine episodes in the first season but I'm enjoying it. I like that it's way less of a big production than CR
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Nov 11, 2018 20:58
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similarly, people here in TG often complain about the schizophrenic design aspects of D&D and Shadowrun and so on, and how they try to cater to a wide array of conflicting or even contradictory playstyles and themes, about how bizarre it is to have fighters who seem to be designed to be played by someone who wants minimal engagement with the mechanics or straight-up can't understand them, how they seem to try to be a simulation of reality rather than focusing on a particular mode of a gameplay and yet those games are wildly successful and the biggest names in TRPGs some of this is a question of getting there first, momentum, and name recognition to be sure, but some of it is that the very same thing that makes these bad games for veterans of the genre who understand what they want is the same thing that gives them the widest possible audience: they are all things to all people
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Nov 11, 2018 20:59
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:It's the same problem as all entertainment media*: the ideal audience for every game, movie, or book is everyone, That's America. Japan caters to niches, but it's niches are being propelled into the mainstream now because they aren't cookie cutter. Likewise this is also a larger problem then you think, forget the Alt Right. How many games shove in DnD poo poo to appeal to people who are never going to play the game? Tuxedo Catfish posted:some of this is a question of getting there first, momentum, and name recognition to be sure, but some of it is that the very same thing that makes these bad games for veterans of the genre who understand what they want is the same thing that gives them the widest possible audience: they are all things to all people Say what you want, but Requiem and co are doing very well, especially as they abandoned way worse game design and moved on. It really is a case of Brand Name, because does 5e, despite it's sales, have so many players dropping out of the hobby? Like the actual success for DnD (and not Shadowrun, which dominates a particular niche in the market with it's genre) is because of name recognition and now because Twitch got really huge at a particular time and DnD got hobbled in with it, along with better publishing decisions. Like, it's why Manga is kicking Comic books rear end right now, handily. NutritiousSnack fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Nov 11, 2018 |
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Nov 11, 2018 20:59
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NutritiousSnack posted:Likewise this is also a larger problem then you think, forget the Alt Right. How many games shove in DnD poo poo to appeal to people who are never going to play the game? believe me I think it plenty
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Nov 11, 2018 21:01
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 So what part of this are we going to turn into the new thread title? Cause there's a Lot.
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Nov 11, 2018 21:03
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NutritiousSnack posted:Yeah. The limited edition release model for Changeling and Promethean is the future. Maybe a couple more books, but the days of buying dozens of books for one game line that is going to cross over to another are long done. At least for now I know this is what they're doing, but is it what they're trying to do? I'm pretty sure Onyx Path is literally publishing books as fast as they can. I'm pretty sure they'd try making more books if they were capable of doing so as an organization.
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Nov 11, 2018 21:13
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Incidentally as someone who's been familiar with basic lore via video games and nerd osmosis but never played, has anyone in your life made an interesting /compelling Malkavian who isn't just self-harm or self-parody? No. Honestly, and I know this is an unpopular position, but I don't even like the Malkavians in Bloodlines. Any good potential in that clan concept is so buried in poor portrayals that there's nothing worth salvaging. Even Requiem's best take on madness in the blood isn't in the tepid Malkovian bloodline or even the later Malkavia disease, but in Clan Ventrue itself, as the flip-side of that clan's defining drive for control, rather than as a singular focus. And even that is hard to work with much mechanically, because derangements were a bad system idea. 2e Requiem can support custom Persistent Conditions to represent Ventrue eccentricities and maladjustment alright, but doesn't have much in the way of good published examples to save you from having to do the work yourself.
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Nov 11, 2018 21:15
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I Am Just a Box posted:No. Honestly, and I know this is an unpopular position, but I don't even like the Malkavians in Bloodlines. Any good potential in that clan concept is so buried in poor portrayals that there's nothing worth salvaging. Or the Mekhet's obsession with finding patterns everywhere.
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Nov 11, 2018 21:30
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Rand Brittain posted:I know this is what they're doing, but is it what they're trying to do? I'm pretty sure Onyx Path is literally publishing books as fast as they can. I know, hence 'the future'. Outside of the Exalted chuttlefuck, this is the release rate companies should be doing. Maybe a bit more, but 2 or 3 books a year should be the most.
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Nov 11, 2018 21:32
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NutritiousSnack posted:I know, hence 'the future'. Outside of the Exalted chuttlefuck, this is the release rate companies should be doing. Maybe a bit more, but 2 or 3 books a year should be the most. Should be because it's what people will buy, or should be because it's what they can produce?
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Nov 11, 2018 21:34
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MonsieurChoc posted:Or the Mekhet's obsession with finding patterns everywhere. I don't know how that one didn't occur to me because you're absolutely right. Although my favorite thing about Mekhet pareidolia is the ambiguous question raised over whether there's something more to it by the page Frances includes from Vincent Moon's dumb New Age Mayan prognosticating book. The Mekhet clanbook is the one book that turned me around from Vampire not being my thing to totally digging Requiem.
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Nov 11, 2018 21:40
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