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Ironslave posted:I think that Beast is... playable. I think its mechanics work, and nothing breaks it (at least, any more than any other current ChroD line). The powers are neat and can be used to make some fun monsters for other games and fun characters in its own. Lair is cool. I think people can enjoy playing it on their own terms--either by removing the clumsy abuse framework or by being Batmen--or on the game's terms--by leaning into being a monster with the mentality of an oWoD Sabbat member. I think there is something to be said (though I don't know if I'd say it) for having a game within the ChroD that is free of the sort of Integrity Meter, mechanical-reinforcement-of-themes like Vampires have with Humanity and Touchstones or Mages have with Wisdom and how working on building it is detrimental to growing their power. One of the issues with Beast's portrayal of the cycle of abuse is that it completely breaks down wherever they're involved. When people abuse child-beasts/protobeasts/people-what-who-dream-deep(Since that varies depending on who's writing the storytellers section today) it's because they fear what they don't understand, and that's bad and wrong, so it's understandable when Beasts grow up into abuse monsters. If only this cycle of violence could end. But Beasts abuse people and that's good, It's a game exclusively about punching down while you're telling yourself you're punching up.
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Apr 9, 2019 15:59
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Warthur posted:Honestly, the main thing I actually dislike about M20 is how it goes out of its way to insist that you can't take a broad reading of what each sphere can do and be lenient like in 1st edition, that was Officially A Mistake And We Regret That. Not only does jumping through all the hoops to spellcast become a pain, but I find Ascension to be at its best when it's absolutely pants-on-head bizarre and everyone's rolling with that. Sure, you end up with PCs becoming disruptively hyperpowered very quickly, but you're the GM and you have all the NPCs in the world to mess with them with, and that GM screen artwork of the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny In the Umbra is more or less the tone I want for Ascension. I liked that M20 had sidebars with a rundown of how spheres worked in 1e (call a cab with correspondence) and offered it as an alternate playstyle even if the rest of the text stuck to the process based determinism of 2nd edition forward. What I didn't like is that the new sphere descriptions and the supplement "How Do You Do That" managed to tighten the screws on sphere requirements to entirely unplayable levels. For instance, if your paradigm involved summoning spirits to do non-spiritual effects like fireballs or teleportation (which the fiction said that nearly all Hermetics did), then you had to add Spirit to all your effects for no additional benefit. A supplement that added that much specificity to what was originally a really loose magic system should have been playtested rigorously or even at all.
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Apr 9, 2019 16:04
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Dave Brookshaw posted:proto-Awakening stuff Thanks for that, this is all fascinating stuff. It kind of explains a lot in retrospect. I half-wonder if Forsaken feeling aimless was a sort of casualty of the transition from sequel to clean slate.
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Apr 9, 2019 16:21
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Dave Brookshaw posted:So, the big one in proto-Awakening is that it had the Traditions, the Technocracy, and a group consisting of the Virtual Adepts and Sons of Ether, and that when members shed their paradigms by raising the power stat they were inducted into the next level of the Diamond, Seers, and Free Council, with the Oracles and Exarchs as the rumored next level above *that*. This, obviously, is actual oWoD canon.
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Apr 9, 2019 16:23
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Getting back to Changelingchat for a bit... the question about what would Changelings do if they didn't have to deal with the True Fae made me think about how in a weird way the start of a Changeling game is the end of Campbell's monomyth. When you've started play your character has already been shaken out of their normal life, brought into a strange new world whose rules are taught to them by a (psychotic, alien, abusive) mentor, who learned enough to master those rules, overcome foes, and returned home forever changed. It's as if Lord of the Rings opened on the Scouring of the Shire. I'm not sure entirely what to do with that, though. I guess that line of thought might point to a game about trying to use your weird new Fae magic to help and rebuild your community, all while dealing with being alienated from normal people because of your Fae magic.
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Apr 9, 2019 17:09
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Kurieg posted:One of the issues with Beast's portrayal of the cycle of abuse is that it completely breaks down wherever they're involved. It's still hilarious to me they're supposed to be super-friends with every other splat and their entire main gig would mess up the Shadow so bad that I can't imagine they wouldn't be on every Forsaken's hit list. Maybe the Pure's, too.
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Apr 9, 2019 18:18
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Octavo posted:For instance, if your paradigm involved summoning spirits to do non-spiritual effects like fireballs or teleportation (which the fiction said that nearly all Hermetics did), then you had to add Spirit to all your effects for no additional benefit. A supplement that added that much specificity to what was originally a really loose magic system should have been playtested rigorously or even at all. oMage always had a problem where some spheres were really paradigms: Spirit and Entropy are the two stand-out ones.
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Apr 9, 2019 18:27
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Kurieg posted:One of the issues with Beast's portrayal of the cycle of abuse is that it completely breaks down wherever they're involved. its text is a hosed, schizophrenic mess that Matt didn't put due diligence into collating or coordinating, and mashing together "they are delusional monsters" and "they are a heroic metaphor to self-identity" ends up producing something horrifying that credits and validates people who abuse and persecute. It's like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of awful. As a sufferer of the sort of abuse it talks about, and experiencing firsthand the type of weak justifications for it, it makes me pretty sick. I mean, I guess you could try to view it metatextually as the book itself being representative of the experience, but I don't know who or why would try to give it that sort of credit, especially since we know that level of self-awareness wasn't present on the back-end. And even if it had been, it doesn't change that it's poo poo. But because the game fails to reinforce or unify the utter horrifying mess that is its described tone and themes within the actual mechanics of its gameplay, and its resultant lack of gameplay loop, it's entirely possible for someone to pick up Beast, ignore all of that, and just play them as monsters who are probably bad (if they're leaning into how the Player's Guide has chosen to depict them) or try to be Batman. I don't think it's a game about punching down; that's what the overall text implies to you when you read it, but just looking at the systems for play what it's about is making a monster and doing whatever. The lack of mechanical reinforcement of a tone or theme--which is baseline to nearly the entirety of 2E lines--is appealing to some people. It's not my thing, but I'm not quite up to assuming the guys who enjoy playing it are up for beating or gaslighting their kids anymore than I am thinking the guys who enjoyed the Infernal Exalted were down with the things that book said they did.
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Apr 9, 2019 18:35
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Ironslave posted:I don't think it's a game about punching down; that's what the overall text implies to you when you read it, but just looking at the systems for play what it's about is making a monster and doing whatever. Well, with a completely lack of mechanics, and a lack of a core gameplay loop, all we really have to look at is what the text presents us with. Which is a bunch of oppressed minorities who oppose the wicket enfranchised whites. But in the meantime they teach "lessons" to other people and since beasts are by default more powerful than any human (and feeding off of a supernatural is considered gauche) to simply exist they need to punch down and justify it to themselves.
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Apr 9, 2019 19:05
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Ironslave posted:I think that Beast is... playable. I think its mechanics work, and nothing breaks it (at least, any more than any other current ChroD line). The powers are neat and can be used to make some fun monsters for other games and fun characters in its own. Lair is cool. I think people can enjoy playing it on their own terms--either by removing the clumsy abuse framework or by being Batmen--or on the game's terms--by leaning into being a monster with the mentality of an oWoD Sabbat member. I think there is something to be said (though I don't know if I'd say it) for having a game within the ChroD that is free of the sort of Integrity Meter, mechanical-reinforcement-of-themes like Vampires have with Humanity and Touchstones or Mages have with Wisdom and how working on building it is detrimental to growing their power. Ironslave posted:its text is a hosed, schizophrenic mess that Matt didn't put due diligence into collating or coordinating, and mashing together "they are delusional monsters" and "they are a heroic metaphor to self-identity" ends up producing something horrifying that credits and validates people who abuse and persecute. It's like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of awful. As a sufferer of the sort of abuse it talks about, and experiencing firsthand the type of weak justifications for it, it makes me pretty sick. I mean, I guess you could try to view it metatextually as the book itself being representative of the experience, but I don't know who or why would try to give it that sort of credit, especially since we know that level of self-awareness wasn't present on the back-end. And even if it had been, it doesn't change that it's poo poo. I suppose if you just want a kit to make sweet monsters and ignore the fluff to be cool superhero otherkin it works but it doesn't really seem to stand on its own if you take it at its word as to how you're supposed to play it, and honestly I probably wouldn't use a CofD line if I wanted to play Batman or whatever.
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Apr 9, 2019 19:25
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I'm also not sure what thematics there could be for Beast, given that it's core message of "try and balance the person you were and the Beast you've become while dealing with the fact that in order to exist you have to destroy people" is uh, suspiciously well covered by either Vampire game
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Apr 9, 2019 19:37
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Generally speaking if you're gonna have supernaturals in your neighborhood, forsaken werewolves are the ones to pick, right?
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Apr 9, 2019 19:37
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01011001 posted:I suppose if you just want a kit to make sweet monsters and ignore the fluff to be cool superhero otherkin it works but it doesn't really seem to stand on its own if you take it at its word as to how you're supposed to play it, and honestly I probably wouldn't use a CofD line if I wanted to play Batman or whatever. I wouldn't either. But there are people that do, their reasons for enjoying it aren't difficult to understand, and they're not horrible people for it. Kurieg posted:Well, with a completely lack of mechanics, and a lack of a core gameplay loop, all we really have to look at is what the text presents us with. Which is a bunch of oppressed minorities who oppose the wicket enfranchised whites. But in the meantime they teach "lessons" to other people and since beasts are by default more powerful than any human (and feeding off of a supernatural is considered gauche) to simply exist they need to punch down and justify it to themselves. Yeah, that's the text. It's disgusting. But what I mean is, if you look at the way, say, Mage works absent its text: Mages have an Obsession which grants them beats. They grow more magically powerful by chasing their Obsession, but also suffer a penalty to Wisdom checks while pursuing it. As they grow in power they gain more Obsessions, which is more things to chase for power and more chances for penalties. To regain Wisdom, they have to replace their Obsession with the Obsession of Become Wiser, which doesn't grant the same sorts of opportunities for growth in power, hold it for a story, then buy it with two experience. You see how mechanically this makes playing a guy who holds onto and grows his self-control harder and less-rewarding, while making being an obsessive risking their self-control appealing. Beast has you making a monster and doing whatever. This is what I mean, and this is what people who enjoy Beast tell me they enjoy about the game, that they're not shackled to a theme or tone through their mechanics (which is good, because Beast's stated themes are abhorrent and a misfire in almost every way). And I'm pretty sure they're not covering for a secret desire to skin puppies or something.
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Apr 9, 2019 19:41
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Dawgstar posted:It's still hilarious to me they're supposed to be super-friends with every other splat and their entire main gig would mess up the Shadow so bad that I can't imagine they wouldn't be on every Forsaken's hit list. Maybe the Pure's, too. They were also pretty blatantly antagonistic towards Demons, and would absolutely remind Changelings of the True Fae. That's probably the biggest unintentional joke to Beast. They're supposed to be super-friends, but everyone would hate them.
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Apr 9, 2019 19:43
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ProfessorCirno posted:They were also pretty blatantly antagonistic towards Demons, and would absolutely remind Changelings of the True Fae. The game is such a terrible mess I find it incredibly fascinating to pick apart all the ways it manages to fail at what it is trying to be. You could write a goddamn paper. And Kurieg kind of did with the FATAL and Friends entry.
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Apr 9, 2019 19:49
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ProfessorCirno posted:They were also pretty blatantly antagonistic towards Demons, and would absolutely remind Changelings of the True Fae. Demons are explicitly immune to Beasts' Poochie aura.
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Apr 9, 2019 19:50
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Demons are explicitly immune to Beasts' Poochie aura. I loved that. If anything could make the impossibly cool robot/demon superspies even cooler, it would be how they're mutually repulsed by Beasts.
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Apr 9, 2019 19:54
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I literally cannot think of a splat besides Vampires who wouldn't respond to Beasts with 'apparently my job now includes killing you, so, thanks for the extra work, rear end in a top hat.' With the exception of, like, the Seers and similar world-immiseration groups. The Seers would be fine with Beasts! The Pure might be ok with them if they prove useful for opening up the Gauntlet and flooding the world with terrible spirits.
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Apr 9, 2019 19:58
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Jonas Albrecht posted:Generally speaking if you're gonna have supernaturals in your neighborhood, forsaken werewolves are the ones to pick, right? So long as what you do helps, or at the very least does not hurt, the spiritual landscape they're trying to cultivate, yeah. Ironslave posted:Yeah, that's the text. It's disgusting. Right but absent of the Text... why are you playing Beast? There's very little the game does that other games don't do better outside of "Slowly progress into an inhuman monster that will end the world" and the game doesn't provide much if any support in means or methods to get to that point. Pretty much the only defensible reason I saw for someone wanting to play Beast was that they were a transwoman and wanted a text that told them that they deserved to exist and that it was okay to want to kill their detractors. And, like, yes, but also yikes there needs to be a better game for that than one written by a rapist.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:10
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Yeah I think where Beasts would get along most with among the other splats is their antagonist factions: Belial's Brood, the Pure, Seers of the Throne, Pandorans, privateers, Reapers, et al.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:10
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Tricky Dick Nixon posted:Yeah I think where Beasts would get along most with among the other splats is their antagonist factions: Belial's Brood, the Pure, Seers of the Throne, Pandorans, privateers, Reapers, et al. The pure might not get on well with Beasts, certain factions of the Hunters in Darkness would. The rest of the tribes would more than likely want to see Beasts burn.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:14
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Ironslave posted:I wouldn't either. But there are people that do, their reasons for enjoying it aren't difficult to understand, and they're not horrible people for it. Yeah, there's nothing inherently bad with someone trying to make something good out of Beast. I don't view it as a good reason for it to exist though if it's only usable in non-horrible ways if you ignore half of it. Tricky Dick Nixon posted:Yeah I think where Beasts would get along most with among the other splats is their antagonist factions: Belial's Brood, the Pure, Seers of the Throne, Pandorans, privateers, Reapers, et al. If I wanted to salvage anything from Beast it would be to make it into Hunter's version of the Strix/Idigam/equivalent big nasty enemies I don't remember and build them to be explicitly storyteller characters instead of something intended for player use.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:16
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Joe Slowboat posted:I literally cannot think of a splat besides Vampires who wouldn't respond to Beasts with 'apparently my job now includes killing you, so, thanks for the extra work, rear end in a top hat.' Pretty much. The metaphor I keep going back to is that a Beast fucks up the ecosystem for the rest of the supernaturals in the area. By it's very existence it's thrown off whatever balance is running in a city on a mortal level, which will have repurcussions for whatever supernaturals are living there, on top of the whole Primordial Dream poo poo and lairs. Beasts are walking targets basically and thus the perfect cross-over because everyone wants them dead.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:21
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joylessdivision posted:Pretty much. The metaphor I keep going back to is that a Beast fucks up the ecosystem for the rest of the supernaturals in the area. By it's very existence it's thrown off whatever balance is running in a city on a mortal level, which will have repurcussions for whatever supernaturals are living there, on top of the whole Primordial Dream poo poo and lairs. Character concept: Mastigos Bounty Hunter who every Prince, Hierarch, and reigning Court has on speeddial because they are experts at putting astral horrors back where they belong.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:25
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Kurieg posted:Right but absent of the Text... why are you playing Beast? Yeah, that's been my question, and what I've said are the answers that have been given me by the folks who are. That Beast has no themes or tones that are present within its mechanics is a failure in its design, but it's that very failure that makes it appealing to some people, that they can play a game where they're weird semi-myth monsters with cool dungeon master lairs and not feel railroaded down playing the game a certain way. Me, if I were starting a game with that conceit, I'd just play 1E ChroD or a WoD game. That way I don't have to read around a bunch of abuse apologia, just some questionable or bad elements most everyone knows is questionable and bad. And Matt didn't write Beast, he developed it. A number of freelance writers did the writing, and they did so under two wildly different assumptions on what the game was supposed to be and trying to reconcile those two elements together is what produced the awful product we have. It's a less-provocative and satisfying answer, but the possibility is there that his lovely proclivities influenced what he was willing to give a pass and how he chose to collate it. Given the number of people involved, though, it's more likely it was just incompetence. 01011001 posted:Yeah, there's nothing inherently bad with someone trying to make something good out of Beast. I don't view it as a good reason for it to exist though if it's only usable in non-horrible ways if you ignore half of it. I would much rather it never have been made, yes.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:25
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Digital Osmosis posted:I'm also not sure what thematics there could be for Beast, given that it's core message of "try and balance the person you were and the Beast you've become while dealing with the fact that in order to exist you have to destroy people" is uh, suspiciously well covered by either Vampire game This is why a Beasts should have been set up such that they have an incentive to summon and get defeated by heroes, rather than to trivially defeat heroes in a snarky and genre-savvy way.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:27
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Tricky Dick Nixon posted:Yeah I think where Beasts would get along most with among the other splats is their antagonist factions: Belial's Brood Various levels of actual demon-worshipping cultists would not give a poo poo about fear spirits pretensions to relevance. In 1e some branches are actually quite protective of their humans, because their original anti-Christ figure and what is the anti-Christ to come are humans and not vampires. Some randos that go around loving with people willy-nilly aren't going to be on their good side. quote:the Pure Beyond the fact they are more likely to be fine with Claimed, it's the same as Forsaken. If you gently caress up the spiritual landscape they are comfortable with they'll deal with you. Period. quote:Seers of the Throne Most supernaturals not explicitly loving with the Supernal are beneath them, so why would they bother? There's nothing they can do a Mage can't do for themselves. Not like Mages are strangers to the Astral. quote:Pandorans Rarely get the time or self-awareness to even understand what the hell anything is, let alone something like a Beast. quote:privateers There's nothing a Beast can do when a True Fae comes calling, who cares about them? Like their powers aren't particularly useful for dealing with Fae nonsense, what would they bring to the table? quote:Reapers Beasts have practically nothing to do with the dead, the only reason a Reaper is likely to care about a Beast is because one killed them. At which point, well, hope you enjoy the Underworld. The entire city block you live on is likely to get dropped into it. It's not like Reapers are evil [Well, innately]. At worst most of them are some shade of "gently caress you, got mine" and "This is the best we can do with what we have". They are just people [Or the echoes of people, or whatever you want to call a ghost], why do you think a random person would side with a Beast? There's practically no organized force in the entire CoD that would give a single gently caress about Beasts, and that's kind of hilarious.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:30
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Jonas Albrecht posted:Generally speaking if you're gonna have supernaturals in your neighborhood, forsaken werewolves are the ones to pick, right? id say the lost
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Apr 9, 2019 20:30
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Also: Beasts don't kill the gauntlet, they just make the shadow a lovely place to be. Insatiables kill the gauntlet and make both the physical and spiritual world lovely places to be, particularly if you're supernatural.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:36
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Tollymain posted:id say the lost with the implication that their presence brings the Huntsmen and attention of the Fae, I'd be less inclined to have them around
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Apr 9, 2019 20:41
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If we might deviate from Beast-chat, has there been any word from Modiphius about the WoD properties they're managing? I heard rumors that they might be revising V5, but that's it.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:46
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If you want "safest to be around, on average, over time" then the correct answer is probably mummies. 
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Apr 9, 2019 20:46
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Ironslave posted:"Just- just ignore him and hope one day he says an unacceptable slur and gets expelled from all of reality proper." I know this is magechat but It's got me giggling thinking of it existing in a vacuum as just a really doofy 'Weird Thing'. A primordial insult, 'The swear so bad that if you say it you get expelled from reality'. Where do people who say it go? It is unknown.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:59
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Octavo posted:Character concept: Mastigos Bounty Hunter who every Prince, Hierarch, and reigning Court has on speeddial because they are experts at putting astral horrors back where they belong. Agreed, this is good. They can have a laconic Uncrowned King buddy (that Nigredo attainment rules for resisting Nightmares and similar fear-powers, as I understand them). Also, the Seers would like Beasts purely because Beasts are abuse elementals who make humanity less likely to Awaken or understand the world by virtue of spreading fear, pain, and madness. A Seer of the Throne wouldn't be friends with a Beast, but they might consider one an asset.
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Apr 9, 2019 21:00
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Crasical posted:I know this is magechat but It's got me giggling thinking of it existing in a vacuum as just a really doofy 'Weird Thing'. Said a word so inappropriate they got sent to the Abyss. There are entire chapters of alternate-history swears in the Prince of a Thousand Leaves.
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Apr 9, 2019 21:03
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Octavo posted:If we might deviate from Beast-chat, has there been any word from Modiphius about the WoD properties they're managing? I heard rumors that they might be revising V5, but that's it. Nothing since the original press release, and their first books (The Fall of London and a players' guide) are set to come out this summer. There's also supposed to be re-edited versions of the Anarch and Camarilla splat books, but they still aren't selling the pdfs of those and I still don't know if the physical books they have on sale are old stock of the originals or the new books. It's a weird state of limbo and finding any more info on it is nigh-impossible.
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Apr 9, 2019 21:08
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Joe Slowboat posted:Said a word so inappropriate they got sent to the Abyss. There are entire chapters of alternate-history swears in the Prince of a Thousand Leaves. "It starts with Q, ends with -um, and has seventeen syllables. You know the one. No I'm not going to say it now, the Worm of 1000 Faces is here and he's a prude."
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Apr 9, 2019 21:08
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:If you want "safest to be around, on average, over time" then the correct answer is probably mummies. Unfortunately just being near their corpses causes Sybaris.
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Apr 9, 2019 21:25
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Rand Brittain posted:Unfortunately just being near their corpses causes Sybaris.  Wait no.
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Apr 9, 2019 21:30
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That reminds me. IIRC, Thinning the gauntlet is bad because more spirits will start reaching or coming across it to fiddle with the normal world to get their preferred form of essence (The spirits of deathmurder are gonna want deathmurder which is obviously bad, the spirits of Amusing Flatulence are going to be desperate for essence and have no conception that giving someone magical IBS is not cool), and so on and so forth. Also normal people might wander into the Shadow which is RIP them. The reverse, thickening the gauntlet, is bad because... people feel slightly bad, apparently? And the gauntlet naturally thickens in urban areas or places with a lot of human activity... am I missing something?
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Apr 9, 2019 21:30
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