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xanthan posted:So what would people here suggest for a game to be a group's first introduction to the nWoD/CoD games? Also how do people suggest trying to come up with a plot? As Soonmot said, mortals or vampires are the most "accessible" though there's still a lot of particulars to absorb if you play Vampire. Which one is best depends a lot on whether having power is a big hook for your players. If they're cool being the littlest fish, I'd suggest starting with mortals. Then again, there is a greater variety of potential hooks in Vampire.
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Dec 4, 2018 01:39
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promethean  more seriously a mortals game that turns hunter could be good for dipping the toes. just establish w the group beforehand that theyre all making characters who dont do the smartish thing and go home and pretend they didnt see anything
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Dec 4, 2018 01:43
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Question because I don't know if the answer has changed in 2e: Human population centres thicken the Gauntlet. Why? A large amount of spirits are created by, or are influenced by, human emotions (which is why coyotes can be trickster-spirits instead of just scavenger dog spirits). Cities are likely to have a vibrant spirit landscape thanks to the sheer diversity of things in them. "Because cities are more 'defined" seems like an oMage as opposed to a satisfying answer in the CofD. Likewise, "cities deaden the spirit and soul" seems like more of an oWoD concept.
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Dec 4, 2018 04:05
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As I alluded to earlier, there's something spiritually / cosmologically weird about humans in the nWoD. There's no such thing as a Human or Humanity Spirit, for one. They have a peculiar relationship to Pyros, and to the Abyss. Mess with their soul and you get a Vampire. Presumably, the mechanics of Essence and emotion or meaning aren't what make the Gauntlet thicken around cities -- it's some deeper antipathy between humans and the spirit world.
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Dec 4, 2018 04:21
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bewilderment posted:Question because I don't know if the answer has changed in 2e: They do have more vibrant spiritual landscapes. Because of the amount of humans you tend to have a lot more conceptual spirits, who are most likely to be the usual kind of troublemakers (since concepts have short lifespans, in terms of Essence flow, so they're more likely to start trying to reach across or eat things they shouldn't). Werewolves theorize that it is this constant activity that thickens the Gauntlet, from Werewolf core p72, 'In general, Ithaeur counsel newly Changed werewolves that the Gauntlet is thickened by human activity. While great shifts in human emotion lead to new Essence or new spirits, those shifts also prevent the Hisil and human world from meeting. It’s in quiet, still places where resonance settles undisturbed that the Gauntlet begins to thin.' There was something similar in the Neolithic period, before the rise of the Gauntlet proper. There, in the wilds, one could walk from the physical world to the Border Marches and onto the Shadow, except in places later the Gauntlet would be thick. Dark Eras, p57 'Areas of cultivated human land do not have Depth. Around such areas, the Border Marches blister and peel away from the world of Flesh entirely. No way exists for a spirit or human to cross the Border Marches into the other world; a scab-like barrier between the two worlds slowly scars itself into place, an ancestor of the future Gauntlet.'
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Dec 4, 2018 04:39
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bewilderment posted:Human population centres thicken the Gauntlet.
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Dec 4, 2018 04:51
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Joe Slowboat posted:Zizek is a Free Council Scelestus Zizek is a deep cover Seer mole who's been shockingly successful at infiltration the Council 
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Dec 4, 2018 05:26
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Digital Osmosis posted:Zizek is a deep cover Seer mole who's been shockingly successful at infiltration the Council This is probably more accurate except I think he does believe he's doing the good work. If his real motivation is not thinking he's actually good for the revolution, but ensuring his own financial success, then you're right.
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Dec 4, 2018 06:15
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Joe Slowboat posted:This is probably more accurate except I think he does believe he's doing the good work. I mean, I wouldn’t put it past a seer to actively reshape his own mind and beliefs to be better able to do what must be done.
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Dec 4, 2018 07:43
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Zizek is secretly a survivor of the oWoD.
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Dec 4, 2018 07:43
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Mors Rattus posted:I mean, I wouldn’t put it past a seer to actively reshape his own mind and beliefs to be better able to do what must be done. See, I think the fundamental self-interest that drives many, though not all, Seers would make this less likely. A Seer always has their eyes on personal promotion, unless they really deeply believe that dying for the Exarchs will grant them access to the Supernal. As such, I imagine most Seers would use Mind magic to make themselves more efficient at being Seers, not sleeper agents - because a sleeper agent doesn't benefit from any of the Seers' resources until they come back to the Ministry, and is more than usually likely to die painfully. Most Seers, but not all, I can't imagine taking that deal long-term, and those who do would be driven by a real hubris - certain that when they get back they'll be rewarded in full. It's what makes Guardians terrifying to Seers, IMO: Their ideological core is self-sacrifice in a weird, dangerous way, that makes them capable of incredibly self-destructive acts for their Order. Guardians are willing to die for their cause. As Craig Williamson, real-life Seer of the Throne, makes clear, Seers would rather "make the other man die for his." (Fun fact: Craig Williamson almost disappeared my dad when he was in the ANC, and my dad testified against Williamson during the TRC. I'm having a barbecue when that fascist fucker kicks it). This is all based on personal preference; I assume most Seers evince the kind of enmeshed self-interest and ideological dedication that produces both cowardice and ambition for the cause. They can and should vary, of course.
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Dec 4, 2018 08:43
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Joe Slowboat posted:This is all based on personal preference; I assume most Seers evince the kind of enmeshed self-interest and ideological dedication that produces both cowardice and ambition for the cause. They can and should vary, of course. If the various good-guy mage groups started getting on a roll and were successfully challenging the Exarchs, would the Seers change sides?
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Dec 4, 2018 08:57
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Can I just say how nice it is to see 200-odd new posts in the WoD thread and it's not about some horrifyingly hosed up thing nuWW did? Because it's kind of refreshing.
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Dec 4, 2018 09:18
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Nessus posted:If the various good-guy mage groups started getting on a roll and were successfully challenging the Exarchs, would the Seers change sides? Probably not all of them, but there WAS the Free Council equivalent of Operation Paperclip after WWII, in which a large number of Seers defected to the Free Council. This is why the Ladder and the Council have been on such bad terms since the mid-20th Century, since the Ladder sees it as the Free Council betraying their trust as the 'patron' Order that insisted on the Pentacle Alliance, while the Free Council sees the Ladder as insisting on an un-pragmatic purity. Though after 60-odd years I imagine the original tension is no longer relevant at all compared to long-ossified oppositions and both sides focusing on the qualities in the other they find frustrating. In any case: The Seers' penchant for self-interest and complacency is probably their greatest weakness, as I see it. They think they're on the winning side (to be fair, the Exarchs certainly haven't been losing...) and so focus as much on inter-ministry power jockeying as fighting the Ascension War, and then the minute the Pentacle gets anything like an upper hand they're going to fall apart rather than pull together. When the Pentacle can actually hang together and focus on their ideals, they have a solidarity and vision the Seers can't match, and that the average Seer can't really comprehend. A solidarity and vision that, in many situations, is totally debased and undermined by other concerns, but, it can exist. A major part of the game I'm running is about hunting down the worst offenders in the Consilium in a Pentacle-dominant city - who are Tremere infiltrators because making the metaphor of abusers and self-interested assholes literal as Vampire Wizards was part of the appeal - and murdering and exposing them. This has indirectly caused the local Seers/Pentacle antagonism to heat up, and the players have been gamely splitting their efforts between fixing the local Pentacle with knives and dealing with the local Seers, also with knives. And Pentacle solidarity! e: Also the Seers have never actually really had to deal with being on the losing side, as an organization, in the cosmic sense. The Pentacle has, in a sense, 2000 years of fighting a resistance from an occupied reality, and they are extremely used to asymmetrical warfare from that side. The Seers aren't; Seers on the losing side seem more likely to move away from the local region they're losing in, while filing complaints to their superiors to do something about it... except for Prelates who get direct omens saying 'go do your loving job.' Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Dec 4, 2018 |
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Dec 4, 2018 09:29
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GimpInBlack posted:Can I just say how nice it is to see 200-odd new posts in the WoD thread and it's not about some horrifyingly hosed up thing nuWW did? Because it's kind of refreshing. Magechat and nuWW are honestly equally painful to read.
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Dec 4, 2018 09:53
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Dave Brookshaw posted:An Oracle is a theoretical being responsible for the one of the Supernal Watchtowers. The Watchtowers are the symbols of the five mage Paths, that include new mages into themselves to Awaken them, and pretty much define magic. There's some evidence (the nature of which is pretty esoteric even for MageChat standards - just take my word for it ooc and the word of mages who've spent lifetimes teasing this poo poo out ic) that they are in some way like Ochemata - they seem to be autonomous, maybe even sapient, extensions of something else. I love this, my heartbreaker of "what if Mages but with new Watchtowers" could be canon by simply saying different Oracles exist(ed). Instead of the narrative/preceptive paths you could have complimentary paths: Time & Space "Adepts" Matter & Life "Chorus" Mind & Forces "Akashics" Death & Fate "Euthanatos" Spirit & Prime "Dreamspeakers" 
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Dec 4, 2018 11:15
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Shame on everyone who doesn't run a Frosty the Snowman themed Promethean adventure this holiday season.
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Dec 4, 2018 13:15
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The tiny little community of Monarch, Virginia has between 1:665 and 1:51 Changeling:Human ratio. Exact pop figures for the community are unknown but it's likely even lower than I'm using, which is the 'free' county population (not accounted for by towns and CDPs in it) divided by the number of other unincorporated communities.
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Dec 4, 2018 13:33
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Joe Slowboat posted:Operation Magerclip I thought the Free Council were the one most likely to just up and kill off Seers when compared to the Ladder - why would they be cool with allowing something like that happen?
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Dec 4, 2018 13:36
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citybeatnik posted:I thought the Free Council were the one most likely to just up and kill off Seers when compared to the Ladder - why would they be cool with allowing something like that happen?
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Dec 4, 2018 14:11
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citybeatnik posted:I thought the Free Council were the one most likely to just up and kill off Seers when compared to the Ladder - why would they be cool with allowing something like that happen? The situation in the book (Mage Noir) is not quite as described. The US Silver Ladder and Free Council caucuses ran Operation Oracle, both claiming that they were getting innocent European mages out of the collapse of their countries. In actuality, the Ladder were using it to give nazi Diamond mages new Shadow names and Consilia where their indiscretion in choosing the losing side could be glossed over. The Free Council, on the other hand, were the only explicitly Allies- or Neutral only Order all the way through the war while the Diamond was split, and were using it to allow former-Nameless Seers who regretted not signing up to the Great Refusal to come in from the cold. (Wheb the Free Council say the Refusal was unanimous? They have always been exaggerating). They were, of course, often spies. Both Orders consider the other Order's actions an unforgivable betrayal of the project's goals, and it tainted Diamond-Libertine relations in the US for a generation. The rest of the world doesn't care; European Ladder and Libertines are still so closely aligned they're on the verge of merging.
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Dec 4, 2018 14:13
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Nessus posted:They might have wanted to encourage the phenomenon. The defecting Seers might have been relatively young in their service to the Exarchs, and who therefore may not have known much better and didn't have too high of a body count yet. The Free Council might have been insufficiently dedicated to the cause. The special circumstance was mostly timing - 46 years after the Great Refusal means it was aroubd the end of the active careers of most of the Free Council's original leadership personalities. In later years, there aren't enough Founders left for them to be a concerted vote-influencer, and the Seers running Pylons in Ministries like Pantechnicon are the apprentices or apprentices of the apprentices of those who took up Hegemony's offer, and don't have anything culturally in common with the Council any more.
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Dec 4, 2018 14:21
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Dave Brookshaw posted:The situation in the book (Mage Noir) is not quite as described. (And in both cases, both Orders are correct that it both Seers and Nazis should not have been accepted.)
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Dec 4, 2018 14:45
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Mors Rattus posted:(And in both cases, both Orders are correct that it both Seers and Nazis should not have been accepted.) The Diamond have even less of a leg to stand on when it comes to not allowing Nazis than the real-wotld American people did. The Mysterium had several factions try to exploit the war to cause the end of the world, and it only gets more batshit crazy from there.
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Dec 4, 2018 15:08
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bewilderment posted:Question because I don't know if the answer has changed in 2e: My own answer is that the kind of essence humans generate creates turbulance as it flows to the Hisil which deepens the divide which in turn makes it much more difficult for werewolves and spirits to successfully make the transfer across. Goa Tse-tung posted:I love this, my heartbreaker of "what if Mages but with new Watchtowers" could be canon by simply saying different Oracles exist(ed). Instead of the narrative/preceptive paths you could have complimentary paths: So which ones are the gross arcana and which are the subtle, if such a distinction remains? Or if there isn't, which on the pentagram are verticies and which are lines?
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Dec 4, 2018 15:24
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Goa Tse-tung posted:Time & Space "Adepts" This fits better in my opinion but otherwise, this is an interesting take. It also better divides into a new Gross/Subtle. Gross - Space, Matter, Forces, Death, Life. Subtle - Spirit, Fate, Mind, Prime, Time. Yngwie Mangosteen fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Dec 4, 2018 |
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Dec 4, 2018 18:18
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Joe Slowboat posted:This is probably more accurate except I think he does believe he's doing the good work. Yeah, I meant it more in the Mors Rattus posted:I mean, I wouldn’t put it past a seer to actively reshape his own mind and beliefs to be better able to do what must be done. sense, or the "played the part so long he doesn't know what side he's on anymore" sense. I also really back-conversion of oMage traditions and nMage watchtowers, but that might be partially because I don't love nMage watchtowers. I dig the idea of different supernal realms of magic, and in character if you're butthurt you awoke to a watchtower that's terrible with a sphere you're interested in studying you can always soul-craft yourself into a legacy that'll patch that hole, but something about them still bothers me. I think it's the coupling of spheres. It doesn't bother me that mages whose souls were called by this particular realm are good at say prime, but it does bother me that those kinds of mages are also always going to be good at forces. It links the spheres in a schematic way, but I'm not sure what the thematic purpose of that schema is.
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Dec 4, 2018 18:34
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My version would be: Time & Space "Adepts" Matter & Forces "Hermetics" maybe, or "Craftmasons" Mind & Life "Akashics" - focused on perfection of mind and body Death & Fate "Euthanatos" Spirit & Prime "Dreamspeakers"
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Dec 4, 2018 18:35
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I've always assumed there is a decent amount of defection between the Pentacle and the Seers, at least for mages that awakened fairly recently. After all, if you happen to awaken in a Seer-controlled city and they rock up to explain magic, you're probably going to join them until it becomes obvious they are the bad guys. Though tbh, I would think more new pentacle mages would flip to the seers than vice-versa.
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Dec 4, 2018 19:28
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If y'all were vampires and charged with destroying a Cathedral of Flesh how would you do it? As is I'm expecting them to try facing it on foot, so I've got three big squishy amalgamations of vital organs they can destroy, but that feels kind of too "shoot the glowing spots" simplistic. Same with letting them just incinerate it with a ritual, the players have a fairly wide variety of means at their disposal and I want to encourage them to get creative. Maybe they march an army of ents inside and just try staking everything before setting it all on fire, or they could hijack the haunted tank and do Tank Antics inside. Anything spectacular come from y'alls'es tables?
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Dec 4, 2018 19:34
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UrbicaMortis posted:I've always assumed there is a decent amount of defection between the Pentacle and the Seers, at least for mages that awakened fairly recently. After all, if you happen to awaken in a Seer-controlled city and they rock up to explain magic, you're probably going to join them until it becomes obvious they are the bad guys. I don't know, Seers are terrible people to be around and that's a reason enough to change sides when it becomes obvious the other side is better.
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Dec 4, 2018 19:37
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:If y'all were vampires and charged with destroying a Cathedral of Flesh how would you do it? As is I'm expecting them to try facing it on foot, so I've got three big squishy amalgamations of vital organs they can destroy, but that feels kind of too "shoot the glowing spots" simplistic. Same with letting them just incinerate it with a ritual, the players have a fairly wide variety of means at their disposal and I want to encourage them to get creative. Maybe they march an army of ents inside and just try staking everything before setting it all on fire, or they could hijack the haunted tank and do Tank Antics inside. Force it into the sunlight and/or fire seem like the best options given its size.
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Dec 4, 2018 19:44
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:If y'all were vampires and charged with destroying a Cathedral of Flesh how would you do it? Or if we want to go hands-off and it's close to the surface but underground, maybe see about getting some sewer line in town listed for immediate repair that conveniently happens to be right where the CoF is. City crew tears up the road, digs down until the sun handles the problem for us.
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Dec 4, 2018 20:03
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Historically these things were dealt with by loving murdering everyone inside while screaming "FAIR ANEZKA!" and I'm pretty sure that means it will always work.
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Dec 4, 2018 20:05
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:If y'all were vampires and charged with destroying a Cathedral of Flesh how would you do it? As is I'm expecting them to try facing it on foot, so I've got three big squishy amalgamations of vital organs they can destroy, but that feels kind of too "shoot the glowing spots" simplistic. Same with letting them just incinerate it with a ritual, the players have a fairly wide variety of means at their disposal and I want to encourage them to get creative. Maybe they march an army of ents inside and just try staking everything before setting it all on fire, or they could hijack the haunted tank and do Tank Antics inside. Just bite a random wall and drink that soul down. Get pretty swole in the process, I would expect.
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Dec 4, 2018 20:06
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Just bite a random wall and drink that soul down. Get pretty swole in the process, I would expect. Ask Lugoj Blood-Breaker how well that poo poo works. As a rule of thumb, diablerizing something much older and stronger than you and that has Vicissitude, rarely ends well.
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Dec 4, 2018 20:09
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Kurieg posted:Historically these things were dealt with by loving murdering everyone inside while screaming "FAIR ANEZKA!" and I'm pretty sure that means it will always work. Yeah, that's legit
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Dec 4, 2018 20:12
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Gantolandon posted:I don't know, Seers are terrible people to be around and that's a reason enough to change sides when it becomes obvious the other side is better. Maybe I'm a pessimist but I just feel like more people would sell out than would switch to the losing side for their ideals.
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Dec 4, 2018 20:22
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UrbicaMortis posted:Maybe I'm a pessimist but I just feel like more people would sell out than would switch to the losing side for their ideals. I honestly don't know how it would work out overall, but it is worth thinking of academia, which has a pretty elaborate relationship between ideological dedication and selling out.
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Dec 4, 2018 20:25
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:If y'all were vampires and charged with destroying a Cathedral of Flesh how would you do it? As is I'm expecting them to try facing it on foot, so I've got three big squishy amalgamations of vital organs they can destroy, but that feels kind of too "shoot the glowing spots" simplistic. Same with letting them just incinerate it with a ritual, the players have a fairly wide variety of means at their disposal and I want to encourage them to get creative. Maybe they march an army of ents inside and just try staking everything before setting it all on fire, or they could hijack the haunted tank and do Tank Antics inside. Is a Cathedral of Flesh still technically alive, or is it all undead flesh? If it’s the former, I propose a large amount of hydrofluoric acid, delivered via a combination of plastic aerosolizers and high speed fans.
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Dec 4, 2018 20:25
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