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nWoD as it its core an all but explicitly humanist setting. Being human or becoming human is almost without exception presented as an unadulterated good - and indeed, it is the end goal of at least one splat - more, depending on how you view Demons or Changelings. I've seen complaints that it's anti-transhumanist, and...well, yes. Because it's a setting that declares 'being human...is Good' and therefore, becoming less human is bad. And I for one welcome a humanist setting, an optimistic humanism that states that while people can be terrible, humanity matters, humanity is at its core a positive. Perhaps this is escapist, given the world as it stands, but I've always had issues with transhumanism because it feels to me that rejecting humanity is kind of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
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Feb 13, 2019 18:24
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Mors Rattus posted:nWoD as it its core an all but explicitly humanist setting. Being human or becoming human is almost without exception presented as an unadulterated good - and indeed, it is the end goal of at least one splat - more, depending on how you view Demons or Changelings. I've seen complaints that it's anti-transhumanist, and...well, yes. Because it's a setting that declares 'being human...is Good' and therefore, becoming less human is bad. And I for one welcome a humanist setting, an optimistic humanism that states that while people can be terrible, humanity matters, humanity is at its core a positive. That's why I really like 2e Werewolf's Harmony. 1e harmony was "You need to be as much of a spirit as possible, abandon your humanity. The sins of the flesh will take away your apotheosis." 2e Harmony is "Being a spirit is good, Being a human is also good. Being too much of one is very bad. Balance it out."
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Feb 13, 2019 18:30
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I mean, I think it's pretty simple: Vampire has interesting things to say; Beast has nothing to say.
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Feb 13, 2019 19:12
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"What if I was a huge lovely creep, but like, only to other huge lovely creeps?" is the question huge lovely creeps ask themselves when they're too scared to face "why can't I stop being a huge lovely creep?"
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Feb 13, 2019 20:07
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I mean if you threw the player's guide together with the core, did like two solid months of rewrites, and trimmed most of the bullshit I think there's something there. It's still basically a book about playing a Fear/Nightmare Claimed, but from more of an Astral rather than Shadow perspective, but there's the spark of something interesting about that. It's just that the book seemed to go out of it's way to make the worst possible decisions at any given turn, and also....you know, don't know that what you got out of it would be worth the effort. Worst case scenario it's still nice to have something literally nobody in the setting would mind smashing.
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Feb 13, 2019 20:11
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Did v5 get any better after they dumped the nazis/edgelords or is it still a trashfire?
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Feb 13, 2019 20:36
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AnEdgelord posted:Did v5 get any better after they dumped the nazis/edgelords or is it still a trashfire? We don't know yet. Camarilla was the last produced book and it's the one that got them tossed into the trashfire.
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Feb 13, 2019 20:42
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Kurieg posted:We don't know yet. Camarilla was the last produced book and it's the one that got them tossed into the trashfire. Did they at least edit out the bad parts?
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Feb 13, 2019 20:43
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AnEdgelord posted:Did v5 get any better after they dumped the nazis/edgelords or is it still a trashfire? That basically only just happened, so not yet. They're not even going to sell the last two books at retail, that were ready to go to print. (But they will fulfill the preorders.)
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Feb 13, 2019 20:44
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That Old Tree posted:That basically only just happened, so not yet. Really? I saw V5 at Books-a-million and figured Id check in, so at least some of them made it to stores.
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Feb 13, 2019 20:47
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AnEdgelord posted:Really? I saw V5 at Books-a-million and figured Id check in, so at least some of them made it to stores. The last two books, Camarilla and Anarchs. The core book was already shipped out to some vendors.
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Feb 13, 2019 20:50
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Soonmot posted:She operates as a sort of news broker for the supernatural community, disguising her reports as conspiracy nut bullshit about greys and reptillians and knights templar. I had a Wolfblooded with much the same concept, who basically ran an elaborate Patreon/Instagram/Twitter presence that was about finding out stuff for others to go about hunting down. If you were on a high enough tier he'd even do custom webinars on the bans and banes of a spirit or whatever you were hunting. I liked that Tell that was basically being followed around by a pack of ghost-wolves, if only to explain how this guy had no apparent sense of self preservation and was having fun the whole time. But yeah, the talk about Beast up-thread makes sense. I've just got some friends in the various Discord groups that go to bat for Beast by pointing out that the other lines have some terribly problematic stuff - more out of a 'wait you must think that I'm lovely because I kinda like this lovely thing!' than anything else - and all it brings to mind is that Pratchett line from Guards Guards where the dragon says that everything it does is horrible but at least it doesn't pretend that they're moral.
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Feb 13, 2019 22:32
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Discworld contains a consistent thread of directly Beast-applicable ideas, and they can be summarized as "Monsters that own up to being awful, rather than claiming they have a right to be monsters, are infinitely more palatable." Also, like, the direct opposite of the Beast 'go on, give in, be as awful as you want' theme in every single viewpoint character. Discworld is good, Beast is a trashfire.
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Feb 13, 2019 22:54
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For giant nerds that like to read about actual play sessions, I did a big writeup of my first Awakening session set in Melbourne over on big purple. You don't need an account to read it and you can feel free to give me advice or just comment in here, I guess.
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Feb 14, 2019 02:13
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I ran my own (sadly aborted) Melbourne set Mage game, so I'm gonna follow along with great interest!
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Feb 14, 2019 02:24
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That Old Tree posted:That basically only just happened, so not yet. The Cam and Anarch books that were ordered by retailers are being sent to the retailers, per Modiphius distribution email a couple of weeks ago when distro started. At current there are no plans for a second print run, so what's printed is what's printed. They've also said the PDFs will still be sold in an email to a couple of members of the community. MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Feb 14, 2019 |
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Feb 14, 2019 05:34
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Kurieg posted:That's why I really like 2e Werewolf's Harmony. 1e harmony was "You need to be as much of a spirit as possible, abandon your humanity. The sins of the flesh will take away your apotheosis." 2e Harmony is "Being a spirit is good, Being a human is also good. Being too much of one is very bad. Balance it out." It's a combination of that and also "you're this weird half-human half-spirit thing now, own it instead of trying to be one or the other and you'll be much happier". Harmony's great (and doubly so because it doesn't end up being an XP sink).
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Feb 14, 2019 05:59
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Looks like NuWolf forgot that archive.org exists and quietly deleted the post cheerfully announcing their hiring of such a controversial figure as Zak, and the post saying they reviewed all evidence against him and decided that it wasn't factual. https://web.archive.org/web/20180219064535/https://blog.white-wolf.com/2017/02/22/breathing-the-same-shadow/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180219064531/https://blog.white-wolf.com/2017/02/17/a-howl-for-our-bloody-writer-artists/
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Feb 14, 2019 06:07
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MoonKnight posted:The Cam and Anarch books that were ordered by retailers are being sent to the retailers, per Modiphius distribution email a couple of weeks ago when distro started. I could swear they said they were removing them from sale and only fulfilling previously established obligations. Ugh.
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Feb 14, 2019 06:40
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That Old Tree posted:I could swear they said they were removing them from sale and only fulfilling previously established obligations. Ugh. I'm not sure there's a contradiction: they're fulfilling their obligations by selling the books to publishers who already bought them, and I suspect that's what the emailed PDFs are too.
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Feb 14, 2019 08:43
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LatwPIAT posted:I'm not sure there's a contradiction: they're fulfilling their obligations by selling the books to publishers who already bought them, and I suspect that's what the emailed PDFs are too.
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Feb 14, 2019 08:56
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citybeatnik posted:I mean, the Hunter Compact that's basically the Nightmare on Elm Street where the kids decided to punch Freddy in the nuts is also nice? It's not only that Beast narrative white-washes and glorifies abusers, it does that in a way a real-life abuser would do. There is a lot of victim blaming and projection, like when talking about Heroes persecuting poor Beasts out of hubris. Teaching through abuse is also how abusers (especially parents, but also partners) frequently rationalize their actions. Even the weird adoration other splats have for the Beast and the claim they are the first monsters the rest of the setting comes from is pretty much how a lot of these people see themselves - as great people who, despite what they do, deserve to be cherished and adored by right-minded people. Beast is the system that lets you play as your abusive spouse or tyrannical parent, torment some people, then torment them more for having the temerity to fight back, while telling you it's cool and good to put these losers in their place.
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Feb 14, 2019 10:21
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I'm still bitter it was Beast that got me perma-banned from RPG.net.
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Feb 14, 2019 15:37
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I still remember being just plain confused by what Beast’s were the first time I read the initial Kickstarter document. The build up for Beast was invoking Dragons and Leviathan and just really BIG poo poo. Then when I look at the text it tells me that you aren’t actually that, you just have it’s soul. Huh...well that’s boring. Beast completely failed to grab me even before the more troubling reading of the text became apparent.
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Feb 14, 2019 16:07
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One of the most interesting aspects of the whole thing was how every attempt to 'fix' it was just something else that was already in the setting. Almost as if there wasn't much room for yet another big monster splat anyway. Like even aside from 'this is abuse apologia' they don't really do anything another splat doesn't already cover somewhere in their toolkit.
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Feb 14, 2019 16:09
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Yeah, horrific readings aside anything that could be compelling about it is probably already done with better focus in another gameline.
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Feb 14, 2019 16:33
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01011001 posted:Yeah, horrific readings aside anything that could be compelling about it is probably already done with better focus in another gameline. Is there a setting that models "I was abused and learned abusive behaviors as a defense mechanism?" Because that's basically the only palatable way to portray abusers, and even then the goal should be unlearning abuse. Frankly I think it would have blown gaming on it's rear end if Beast came out hardline "every character arc is about un-becoming a beast" from the get-go, but yeah thinking it out Promethian and Deviant would be much better takes on the un-learning abuse/ becoming human angle huh.
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Feb 14, 2019 16:55
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:Is there a setting that models "I was abused and learned abusive behaviors as a defense mechanism?" Because that's basically the only palatable way to portray abusers, and even then the goal should be unlearning abuse. Frankly I think it would have blown gaming on it's rear end if Beast came out hardline "every character arc is about un-becoming a beast" from the get-go, but yeah thinking it out Promethian and Deviant would be much better takes on the un-learning abuse/ becoming human angle huh. Changeling can handle that way better as well.
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Feb 14, 2019 16:57
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Also, except for the abuse your character was expected to constantly dish out, nothing in Beast was real. The entire game was obsessed with narratives and fear and dreams and souls, such that the ultimate stakes over which you were ruining lives was whether enough people thought you were cool. Heroes had committed the ultimate sin of mistakenly thinking they were cool. Your character would wither up and die if no one was scared of them. You weren’t playing as a kraken - you were playing as a kraken’s official twitter account.
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Feb 14, 2019 17:13
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Well, that and your ability to deal agg at will with your Imagine Dragons invisible claws.
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Feb 14, 2019 17:16
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Changeling is entirely about the cycle of abuse and what you do with yourself as a survivor. Whereas with beast... Prior to the GRAND RETCON you people rebelled against you because they were able to sense your inherent otherness (which is a frankly disgusting justification, honestly) which tended to result in you being bullied as a kid. After the retcon it's no longer really has a justification other than you're different which is why you're able to survive the devouring in the first place. But being bullied as a kid is in no way vital to Beast's character arc and story. In changeling your abuse literally changes you. Your mind, body, and self are molded into a form more palatable to your abuser and even once you flee you can't change back. You can put up a mask, smile and make it seem like everything's fine, but underneath you're still broken and scarred. Confronting your abuser is often a pipe dream as there's that fear of falling back into old patterns once you see them again. In Beast the main transformative act is giving your soul to your horror. Once that's done you're a completely different entity, one that's decidedly non-human, with non-human needs. You don't need to get revenge against your abusers(if you have any), they're just acceptable targets and now you can breathe fire. It's adolescent revenge fantasy writ larger than even werewolf (How many first changes involved you eviscerating the school bully?).
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Feb 14, 2019 17:19
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The thing about Werewolf is that the damage done in the First Change is also usually presented as a pure negative, a freakout that you feel extremely bad about after because it doesn't generally matter what was happening to you at the time, you just killed someone.
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Feb 14, 2019 17:31
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Mors Rattus posted:Changeling can handle that way better as well. I need to actually check out that game, are there any in the forum starting up soon?
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Feb 14, 2019 17:35
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Ferrinus posted:You weren’t playing as a kraken - you were playing as a kraken’s official twitter account. I think this is the most succinct and accurate description of my initial response to the game.
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Feb 14, 2019 17:36
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Night10194 posted:Almost as if there wasn't much room for yet another big monster splat anyway. That's one of my mild concerns with Deviant, since I'm not sure that there's much room in there for a full splat. On the other hand it'll let you play as, like, Guyver meets Oldboy meets The Bride and I gotta support everything about that.
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Feb 14, 2019 17:40
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Mors Rattus posted:The thing about Werewolf is that the damage done in the First Change is also usually presented as a pure negative, a freakout that you feel extremely bad about after because it doesn't generally matter what was happening to you at the time, you just killed someone. Which makes that one guy from TB:CoG who first changes during a car crash and saves his dad, brothers, and only most of a bus of kids(Because it still has to be tragic) all the more ridiculous.
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Feb 14, 2019 17:41
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citybeatnik posted:That's one of my mild concerns with Deviant, since I'm not sure that there's much room in there for a full splat. Also I don't think Deviants are claiming to be a deep truth First Monster or whatever, they're just 'people have been loving around with you, now you're an unstable viral superbeing or whatevs'. There's no deep cosmology or mythology to slam into the rest of the setting like all that Dark Mother horseshit. E: The best thing on Beast is that one Hunter excerpt where the guy's like 'Okay, so they claim they're some ancient super mythology, but gee it's real curious how all their powers and deep myth all matches perfectly to pop culture versions of myth. Almost as if they're a bunch of goddamn hacks and frauds.'
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Feb 14, 2019 17:42
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Kurieg posted:Which makes that one guy from TB:CoG who first changes during a car crash and saves his dad, brothers, and only most of a bus of kids(Because it still has to be tragic) all the more ridiculous. Oh, I can't speak to oWoof First Change. I just mean in nWoof. The First Change in nWoof is almost always a moment of intense violence which the werewolf usually feels pretty terrible about.
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Feb 14, 2019 17:44
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Thankfully the themes of the first change is one of the few things that made it through the oWoof-nWoof-2eWoof transition without any real damage.
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Feb 14, 2019 17:46
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Bosushi! posted:I still remember being just plain confused by what Beast’s were the first time I read the initial Kickstarter document. The build up for Beast was invoking Dragons and Leviathan and just really BIG poo poo. Then when I look at the text it tells me that you aren’t actually that, you just have it’s soul. I was thinking of posting something about this, but it's not like that flaw couldn't be overcome by an actual good game. I didn't know I wanted to pretend to be a paranoid robotic former servant of an evil demiurge until I read Demon, and to be honest there's not much in Demon really fits with classic horror archetypes either. But yeah, in addition to being a bad game Beast doesn't seem to have a clearly compelling premise. I mean the idea of playing like, a griffin or something is kind of cool, but you can't just have a griffin running around the WoD, so I'm not sure what you're left with. Again, this is solvable - you can't just have a biomechanical Alien monster running around the WoD but Demon figured out a good relationship to it's human side, and you can't just have sparkly magic elves running around the WoD but Changeling figured out a good relationship to it's human side... I dunno. I haven't dove deep into Beast (and probably never will) but in addition to the mechanics on the human/Beast split seeming kinda weird and lovely, the thematic split never really made a ton of sense to me either. In Demon, the human side is cover - do you relish living a boring life or use and abuse people to gain cover to complete your missions? In Changeling the human side is who you once were - what has changed in your absence, how do you deal with your fae doppelganger, can you ever go home again? Hell, even Vampire has a clear thematic relationship to their human side, what with touchstones and Humanity being thematically super important to the setting. But I'm not sure what a Beast's human side is supposed to mean, other than some weird "you're supposed to balance being a Beast and being a person" thing that, instead of having a solid implementation like Harmony, involves you like binging and purging on evil. What the gently caress is that trying to say?
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Feb 14, 2019 18:08
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