|
Daeren posted:Hapsburg incest thunderdome
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2018 21:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 05:51 |
|
|
taichara posted:So basically they lifted a chunk of the plot of Metal Gear Solid 4, and this lieutenant is Liquid Ocelot except he's doing it deliberately? And it's an actual reincarnation-possession-something-thingy. Ye hell. Hey, the possession in Metal Gear Solid was totally real, too... until Ocelot got tired of it, cut off Liquid’s hand, grafted a robot hand faked to look like Liquid’s hand in its place, and then continued to pretend to be possessed by Liquid’s now-effectively-exorcised ghost in order to confuse everyone. (Including, I think, self-hypnosis to convince himself he was still really possessed so he couldn’t get caught in the lie.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2018 21:50
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:Hey, the possession in Metal Gear Solid was totally real, too... until Ocelot got tired of it, cut off Liquid’s hand, grafted a robot hand faked to look like Liquid’s hand in its place, and then continued to pretend to be possessed by Liquid’s now-effectively-exorcised ghost in order to confuse everyone. Hey! He did more than pretend! He gave himself hypnosis so that he actually believed he was still possessed by Liquid's ghost to obscure the fact that he wasn't possessed to the Patriots. god i love metal gear e: wow beaten by a fast edit
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2018 21:51
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:Hey, the possession in Metal Gear Solid was totally real, too... until Ocelot got tired of it, cut off Liquid’s hand, grafted a robot hand faked to look like Liquid’s hand in its place, and then continued to pretend to be possessed by Liquid’s now-effectively-exorcised ghost in order to confuse everyone.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2018 22:02
|
|
|
I'm slowly making my way through Lost 2e, finally, and I just started skipping around after the Courts because lol the loving layout of CoD. So, anyway, I read 2e pledges and they really don't seem that bad to me. Like, I think they could be a little punchier and would definitely benefit from extra word count just giving advice on how to use the system. For instance, I think in addition to the possible material [Merit] rewards, bargains seem like the way you extract Glamour out of pledges, but the book doesn't tell you that. But I wouldn't just tear the system out and replace it if I got a game going. Mostly it seems like a solid enough system that just didn't get the word count to really shine.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 00:20
|
|
|
I'm hoping that it gets expanded in Oak, Ash and Thorn, because the core definitely suffered from running low on wordcount and also from losing its dev in the middle of the project.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 00:30
|
|
|
Daeren posted:Chronicle concept for a pack of werewolves desperately trying to elbow their kinfolk into the Hapsburg incest thunderdome to covertly turn the most ridiculously breeding-obsessed royal line of Europe for centuries into an infinite werewolf factory.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 00:39
|
|
|
In case you missed it, 25 Years of Vampire: the Masquerade interviewed Justin Achilli.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 00:41
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:the garou were real title-chasers, huh Silver Fangs and Shadow Lords, definitely. The real reason this potential kinfolk database has bloated so much is because the European aristocracy seem to all want to claim descent from Rurik at some point or other, and since kinfolk heritage doesn't care about whether it's a son or daughter the usual discounting of daughters as part of the lineage doesn't apply. If the family lines are even close to accurate the current ruling families of Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the displaced Russian grand duke are all descendants, for instance - so that's over 1200 years of people fuckin' to follow from a single man's initial datapoint. I wasn't kidding about the cumulative odds, either - one of the current sons of the Luxembourg branch has only a 0.000000001% chance (without subsequent reinforcement of the Blood) of having inherited kinfolk status from Vladimir the Great and Rurik. Of course, just like my vampire lists, there's almost definitely a few kinfolk genealogists sitting about in overcrowded offices at third rate universities spending most of their waking hours tracing exactly this but for thousands of known kinfolk lines, both forward and back. I did that with Leif Eriksson, for instance (who was either get, get kin, or corax kin) - I traced up through the documented paternal line (maternal wasn't available) assuming only kinfolk status and no breeding true, and moved it to his possible cousins in the Shetlands with a 0.78% cumulative chance of unreinforced kinfolk status and a 0.000000000001% unreinforced cumulative chance of Garou status from KK pairings. Probability still confuses the poo poo out of me if I'm honest but I'm pretty sure my numbers are right (e.g. if you have a 50% chance of heads/tails on a flip, your odds of it twice in a row are only 25%, then 12.5%, etc) because I get it but the part where the individual chance is unaffected fucks with my head tremendously. That Luxembourg son's odds are still independently 50/50 if his line lasted, for instance, despite all those decimal points and it weirds me out.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 03:50
|
|
|
It's not just royalty, it's most of the western world. Most of Europe is descended from Charlemagne. It's how I justify spontaneous Wolf-Bloods in Forsaken- EVERYONE is Wolf-Blooded, it's just a matter of degree.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 04:11
|
|
|
Yup. Royal lines are just easier to directly trace. EDIT: This little side project can gently caress right off. Maybe I'll grab a genealogy database and write a formula to do it automatically for the major kin lines but otherwise I'm having to manually add like, 200 potential kinfolk for every named historical figure even with the sub-1% cutoff.. Loomer fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Nov 28, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 04:59
|
|
|
Double post for something a little more straight forward - I've compiled the historic figures list. It's still missing a few who need to be tagged appropriately, but at the moment it's 400 names strong. Highlights: Hitler, Napoleon, and Marshall Ney are all wraiths. Aleister Crowley is both a vampire and an actual mage. Israel Regardie died during a magic-fight between Hitler and Crowley's respective golems. Beowulf is both a Vampire and a Get, and Erik the Red and Leif are his ghouls, get companions, and kinfolk at the same time. RAsputin is everything. Captain Cook was a void engineer. John Dee is a vampire and a hermeticist as well, but Edward Kelly was a dreamspeaker. Empress Theodora may have been a Cappadocian-Shadow Lord abomination. Grendel is definitely a vampire. Hippocrates is a mage who became a wraith, as is Hypatia. Jack Parsons gets a promotion to full mage status. Jimi Hendrix is an ecstatic cultist shaman. Jesus is a vampire and sorceror. Joan of Arc is also a vampire-mage. Marie Lauveau is Eshu and Bata'a. Morgan Le Fay is both a fairy and a mage, as is Merlin. Shagarat al-Durr was a Bone Gnawer kinfolk who became a Nosferatu.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 06:29
|
|
|
Jesus is heavily implied to have been a thrall to Lucifer. Of course this is *by* Lucifer, there we are.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 06:31
|
|
|
Jesus had his fingers in a lot of pies. He may also have been CoG Kinfolk, but the passage is unclear.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 06:32
|
|
|
I'm irrationally angry that they made John Dee a vampire. He's the most specifically Mage-appropriate historical figure in English history, and has absolutely no vampire-relevant traits whatsoever that I'm aware of.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 06:38
|
|
|
To be fair to them, at the time they hadn't launched Mage, and they did make him a Tremere.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 06:50
|
|
|
Don't forget James Stirling, immortal mage king of Perth.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 07:06
|
|
|
Loomer posted:Captain Cook was a void engineer. Wait, didn't the Void Engineers not even exist until the 19th century after one of the reformations that led to the modern Technocracy?
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 08:25
|
|
|
That Old Tree posted:Wait, didn't the Void Engineers not even exist until the 19th century after one of the reformations that led to the modern Technocracy? Yup. He's actually the earlier precursor, a Void Seeker, but I thought I'd simplify and go VE.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 08:38
|
|
|
Well, it looks like almost two weeks after releasing the style guide, Storytellers Vault finally has art and templates available for CoD games.Loomer posted:Yup. He's actually the earlier precursor, a Void Seeker, but I thought I'd simplify and go VE. Understandable!
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 09:02
|
|
|
When is Changeling 2E available for purpose? I can't find it anywhere, but that may because I live in barbarian europe.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 09:16
|
|
|
Okay so all the Storyteller Vault templates for Chronicles of Darkness are full of "fonts" that are actually literally empty, 0KB files, presumably Adobe TypeKit or some other linking pointer file. Also, among the fonts that were actually included is "ufonts.com_dead-history.ttf"  Oh, and CoD Art Packs are all named the same thing ("Chronicles of Darkness Art Pack #1" "#2" etc.) so you have to go to each individual product page to figure out what's in it. Did you know #23 contains Awakening 1E art? Because the website won't tell you that unless you go to that specific product's page. Also Art Packs #19 and #20 contain exactly the same files. Tias posted:When is Changeling 2E available for purpose? I can't find it anywhere, but that may because I live in barbarian europe. They'll "lock in" addresses for Kickstarter backers in mid-December, so I imagine within the next couple months. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Nov 28, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 09:33
|
|
|
Some concrete data points this time. Charts coming later. The most lethal years for the Garou and Fera were 1993, 1997, and 1995. 1993 alone accounts for 16% of all known fera deaths, largely thanks to the 1993 Garou Nation-Chicago Principate War. The most fecund specific years are 1960 and 1976, but few Garou birthdates are known. Moving it to decades, the 1960s account for around 22% of active Garou in the final nights, the 70s 20%, the 40s 19% and the 50s 14%. From there it's a rapid dwindling down. I'm sure it's an absolute shock to everyone that most Garou are flower children or boomers. 24% of the Fera and Garou are known to belong to a sept or analogue, while only 9% have a known concrete pack. Representation wise, modern fera and garou (and kin) only, America sits at 34% of active Garou with reasonably inferrable locations. Russia is next at 21%, then Canada (10%), Australia (9%) and the Amazon region (~6%). America's pop ratio as a whole was 1:180,000, Russia 1:142,000, Canada 1:65,000, Australia 1:46,000 and Amazonia was at 1:1,000. Specific cities, Moscow at 1:74,000; Vancouver BC 1:10,500; Chicago at its peak during the Garou Nation-Chicago Principate war 1:15,000; Nimbin 1:87 (however Nimbin is really just a village in a larger community centred around Lismore, so that area's population pushes it up to 1:10,000 - still pretty high!); Seattle 1:18,000; NYC 1:56,000; Niagara region 1:11,500; the Red Lake region 1:1000 (Minnesota as a whole ~1:87,000). A few more refinements and the forgotten Kuei Jin list (only a thousand entries left in it, though it has a reread as part of its process to establish causes of death as part of the Wraith cause of death goal creep) and I'll be ready to give the comprehensive ratios encompassing all populations. Loomer fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Nov 28, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 10:55
|
|
|
Is the Changeling book any easier to navigate than the preview document was? I had more trouble making a character there than with my first dnd guy. Just an absolute nightmare of jumping back and forth and not knowing what one needs and where to find it and how it works.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 18:34
|
|
|
Some day I'm going to write a guide to nWoD character creation but the super short version is to do it in reverse. Start with the supernatural powers you want and work backwards to skills, attributes, and character concept.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 18:39
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Some day I'm going to write a guide to nWoD character creation but the super short version is to do it in reverse. Start with the supernatural powers you want and work backwards to skills, attributes, and character concept. You would think in the 20 odd years theses games have been a thing they would have figured out how to layout the book in a way that makes sense for character creation but nope!
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 18:50
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Some day I'm going to write a guide to nWoD character creation but the super short version is to do it in reverse. Start with the supernatural powers you want and work backwards to skills, attributes, and character concept.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 19:05
|
|
|
Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:For me, who usually works out-in (powers + concept, then all the other guts), I find myself wanting nothing more than a Nobilis-style descriptor system instead. Just let me have Formerly Comfortably Employed Accountant at 2, New To This Vampire Thing at 3, and Still Goes Bowling On Thursdays at 4 and I can put those next to my Disciplines as needed, rather than deciding if Academics 2 / Politics 1 or Academics 1 / Politics 2 makes more sense, for all 0 times it will ever come up.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 19:28
|
|
|
Note that I'm not saying that an ideal system would necessarily put mechanical powers before flavor, I'm just saying that this method means you spend a lot less time trying to find something your character is good at by process of elimination, and that generally speaking, nWoD power sets are a pretty decent source of inspiration for who your character is as a person/monster. Like if you start with the concept of "mechanical fallen angel" you could go almost anywhere with that and it's a little overwhelming. On the other hand if you start with Demon powers and work backwards it suggests some really great stuff. Like picking out powers really helps you sort basic questions like "do you want to be more James Bond or more George Smiley" (which is an important question but not one the Demon core really prompts you to think about -- although the Demon ST's Guide does), but some of the powers also suggest some really out-there poo poo like "I'm a semantic terrorist who uses language as a weapon." Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Nov 28, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 19:33
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:I also work out-in as you do, but I can't imagine a system I'd want to play in less than that. Mostly because I find it to be an intolerable chore to come up with descriptors like that and then try to argue them to be applicable to any given defined game mechanic/situation. If you truly don't know where that extra dot should go in Ac/Pol and you don't think it'll matter, just flip a coin. One skill dot out of 21 isn't going to change your concept. Also if I can play descriptor based systems either run with or alongside people who this thread regards as some of its most contentious posters, while successfully gentlemens agreeing our way through the way, they are not all bad.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 21:16
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Like picking out powers really helps you sort basic questions but some of the powers also suggest some really out-there poo poo like "I'm a semantic terrorist who uses language as a weapon." So my obnoxious coworker who ruins every debate about anything.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 21:19
|
|
|
joylessdivision posted:So my obnoxious coworker who ruins every debate about anything. yeah but now he can make reality bend to accomodate his bullshit, and if you misspeak he can make it come true demons are scary Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:see that's the thing, if the current level of granularity isn't relevant to concepts, then that level of granularity fails as a model. Not that I'm saying descriptor systems are flawless, but "5 ranks when you really just want Good / Better / Best" seems unnecessary. The thing with nWoD granularity is that it starts with the dice math (which is actually pretty solid) and works backwards from there. You combine a pool of 2-10 dice (+3 from willpower) and you get a pretty solid curve where at the bottom end you have about a 50% chance of succeeding at all and at the top end you will nearly always succeed (~97% without willpower, ~99% with) but you only get exceptional successes about 25% of the time, or closer to 40% if you burn willpower. This 2-13 dice pool system (barring shenanigans) is pretty sensibly bounded and the 1-5 dot system is what actually does the bounding. The problem is that, while the math is pretty elegant, it's also pretty opaque. Increasing your die pool provides diminishing returns for pass/fail checks; this is good for balance, good for making fresh characters still feel powerful and significant, it makes leveling up rewarding but not the only way to have any narrative power... but it's not at all clear how much of an improvement you're buying for one dot unless you bust out a graphing calculator. It's further obfuscated by the fact that for some skills/effects number of successes doesn't matter at all, for some only failure / success / exceptional success matters, and then for combat every success counts, which means that one dot in each of those contexts is not equally valuable. Plus some skills are probably more likely to be invoked in opposed rolls (where a bigger pool is more important) and others are probably mostly going to be one-sided. Now, personally, I'm happy to do the math. I get a certain perverse joy out of it. But it's not good for accessibility or mechanical buy-in at all. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Nov 28, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 21:24
|
|
|
Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:see that's the thing, if the current level of granularity isn't relevant to concepts, then that level of granularity fails as a model. Not that I'm saying descriptor systems are flawless, but "5 ranks when you really just want Good / Better / Best" seems unnecessary. I never said that said system is objectively bad, either. I said I find them to be an intolerable chore (for a variety of reasons). But I also find that if you have to "gentleman's agreement" your way through a system to make it function then that system probably sucks.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 21:58
|
|
|
Has anybody subscribing to the Chicago By Night Kickstarter taken a look at the writeup for Francois Mamuwalde, the vampire drag queen? Is it just me or is it a little... in questionable taste? I'm not really an expert on drag culture but it seems a little super-questionable and I would appreciate hearing from somebody who actually knows about drag stuff. EDIT: I wasn't expecting Google to work, but it looks like it was, at least, written by someone with some involvement in drag, so. Rand Brittain fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Nov 28, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 22:49
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Has anybody subscribing to the Chicago By Night Kickstarter taken a look at the writeup for Francois Mamuwalde, the vampire drag queen? Is it just me or is it a little... in questionable taste? I'm not really an expert on drag culture but it seems a little super-questionable and I would appreciate hearing from somebody who actually knows about drag stuff. My knowledge of the drag scene isn't particularly in depth, but I've seen the write up and the character seems mostly fine to me? Like, the writeup needs an editing pass and maybe some tone management, but other than that, I don't necessarily see the problem with the write up, especially since it comes from someone with involvement in the scene.
|
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 23:28
|
|
|
Loomer posted:Highlights: I admit my decades-old memory of WoD cosmology is fading, but I thought that Werewolves and Vampires both had shared Avatars (fragments of Gaia and Caine respectively) that were incompatible* with Mage-style magic? I never paid enough attention to Changeling to comment on Morgan Le Fay, but I would have expected that situation to be similar. *Sam Haight being the exception, but God knows he had enough extra special bonuses that he was sui generis.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 23:28
|
|
|
Meinberg posted:My knowledge of the drag scene isn't particularly in depth, but I've seen the write up and the character seems mostly fine to me? Like, the writeup needs an editing pass and maybe some tone management, but other than that, I don't necessarily see the problem with the write up, especially since it comes from someone with involvement in the scene. Yea I'm no expert or whatever but as someone with a bit more than a casual knowledge of it it seems fine aside from a bit of a tone disconnect, but nothing anything offensive about drag/lgbt culture/etc in it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2018 23:35
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Some day I'm going to write a guide to nWoD character creation but the super short version is to do it in reverse. Start with the supernatural powers you want and work backwards to skills, attributes, and character concept. Can I take this to mean no, the book has not in fact gotten any easier to use?
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2018 00:02
|
|
|
Nehru the Damaja posted:Can I take this to mean no, the book has not in fact gotten any easier to use? It's largely the same as any other nWoD book. They all have the same problems, apart from some of them having slightly more novel and confusing structures for the splat-specific powers. I don't think Changeling is especially bad on that front, but I should also say that I only briefly glanced at Oneiromancy, so it might be a pitfall.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2018 00:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 05:51 |
|
|
ulmont posted:I admit my decades-old memory of WoD cosmology is fading, but I thought that Werewolves and Vampires both had shared Avatars (fragments of Gaia and Caine respectively) that were incompatible* with Mage-style magic? As far as Mage itself is concerned, Werewolves can't do magic because they're not human and have no human souls, ergo no avatar. Vampires are so inundated with static magic in order to get their unchanging immortality that it irreparably damages their avatar, maybe enough to completely destroy it, maybe just enough that vampire disciplines are basically the sad leftovers of the real magic they could've had. Of course, as far as the Mage core book is concerned, an elder vampire is also just a jumped-up leech with some minor hypnotic powers and werewolves are just really territorial and hairy rednecks and basically don't matter to anyone. Just assume that the answer basically varies depending on whatever individual book you read it in.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2018 02:51
|
|
