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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:It's Mage except you want to cast the spell "not have to worry about grandma becoming a single eternally scream-blinking eye of the vast worm at the heart of the thousandth winding underspire" instead of shooting for tiny godhood. Wow, I'm suddenly really regretting not backing this one.
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Apr 18, 2019 15:32
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It's perfectly fine for the game's premise to be "okay, you as the players are the heroic few who give a poo poo for one reason or another" without that being particularly true of the splat at large in the fiction. If I recall correctly, that's even spelled out in the book.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:55
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Yeah, on some level it's perfectly okay for the game to turn to the players and stare them in the eyes and be like "okay, we expect your characters to care about doing poo poo" as, like, the basic buy-in of the game.
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Apr 18, 2019 17:00
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Mors Rattus posted:Yeah, on some level it's perfectly okay for the game to turn to the players and stare them in the eyes and be like "okay, we expect your characters to care about doing poo poo" as, like, the basic buy-in of the game.
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Apr 18, 2019 17:10
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Also, re: revolution and revolutionary violence, here's what Geist has to say about the Catabasis endgame:"Geist 2E, pg. 268 posted:Descending into the Underworld in the fullness of its power, the krewe faces an embodiment of the Underworld itself, crystalized out of its archetype and Doctrines. This embodiment is a direct challenge to the krewe’s ethos, a refutation of its entire philosophy of death. This is the closest anyone comes to meeting the Chthonic Gods — and to reshape the Underworld, they must be conquered. Whether that means casting them from their thrones and tearing bloody hearts from their chests, besting them in a dizzying riddle game, or tricking them into their own eternal prisons. It still does the thing where change is accomplished through mystical confrontation with a particular and largely symbolic antagonist (honestly it's more like Mage than I thought, I'd forgotten that Catabasis involved literally facing the Cthonic Gods), but it balances that with the insistence that only a movement and not one individual "great man" (or party of adventurers) is enough to accomplish this, while still being structured such that, you know, a tabletop gaming group can feel like it's their accomplishment. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Apr 18, 2019 |
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Apr 18, 2019 17:41
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Mors Rattus posted:Yeah, on some level it's perfectly okay for the game to turn to the players and stare them in the eyes and be like "okay, we expect your characters to care about doing poo poo" as, like, the basic buy-in of the game. Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Yeah, it's like how D&D rules don't operate under the assumption that adventurers just buy a tavern after their first dungeon and call it a day. The thing about D&D - and why I mostly disagree with this sentiment - is that all the rewards for the players - the power fantasy, the theatre of the mind, etc. - are mechanically reinforcing their engagement with the game's intended style of play. You get all the fun experience of the game by slaying monsters; that's how you get XP that lets you wield greater agency, and that's how you get gold, which also lets you wield greater agency. If players could get as much XP and gold - and thus as much power and opportunity for expression - running a tavern, you'd get a lot more players asking "So, do we just serve ale and cider or do we have a broader selection?". The game's mechanics exist to reward you with greater agency and opportunity by engaging with its core systems, and thus its intende style of play. You can subvert that, but it definitely does reward you for following the plotted course, and those rewards in turn help define the setting itself. D&D worlds are built around combat and violence and an absence of moral quandaries in your mass slaughter of intelligent beings because they were "born evil". I agree that, on some level, players have to just buy in to what the game is about, but I don't think the game should leave them hanging on that. I very much believe that the reward for greater engagement should be greater agency. Not every game will benefit from this - some stories just don't work when the players have more agency instead of less - but I think that it's true for the majority of the time.
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Apr 18, 2019 19:55
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Axelgear posted:The thing about D&D - and why I mostly disagree with this sentiment - is that all the rewards for the players - the power fantasy, the theatre of the mind, etc. - are mechanically reinforcing their engagement with the game's intended style of play. You get all the fun experience of the game by slaying monsters; that's how you get XP that lets you wield greater agency, and that's how you get gold, which also lets you wield greater agency. If players could get as much XP and gold - and thus as much power and opportunity for expression - running a tavern, you'd get a lot more players asking "So, do we just serve ale and cider or do we have a broader selection?". Exactly that. Geist is a game about half-dead people who can talk with ghosts, but it tries to pretend it's about revolutionaries who plan to oust undead gods. Except the actual revolution part is mostly summed up on one page where Catabasis is described. You raise Esotery, defeat predefined challenges, hit Esotery 10, defeat the end boss and that's it - you changed the afterlife. The onus of creating an appropriate chronicle is completely on the Storyteller with very little support from the rules.The book spends much more pages to tell you how to curse people with your ghost powers, and how your Order of the Grim Skull can defeat the Reaper's Crew who took over your Avernian Gate. It's similar how Vampire: the Masquerade really wanted you to play a brooding noble beast who laments their lost humanity, but the most common character concept was actually a blood-drinking superhero.
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Apr 18, 2019 21:04
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Octavo posted:Wow, I'm suddenly really regretting not backing this one.
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Apr 18, 2019 21:10
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Is Geist 2e Bleach and, if yes, how Bleach is Geist
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Apr 18, 2019 21:19
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Foglet posted:Is Geist 2e Bleach and, if yes, how Bleach is Geist the main antagonist faction are ghosts who sell out to the underworld and get creepy masks that let them turn into giant, ghost-eating monsters you play half-dead people who grow stronger by getting more in tune with the ghost-monster that lives in their soul your main goal is to overthrow the systemically oppressive order of the afterlife apparently nobody on the Geist team was familiar with Bleach, and the aesthetic is more "Beetlejuice meets The Frighteners" but most Bleach villains, and especially the Hollows, would fit right in Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Apr 18, 2019 |
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Apr 18, 2019 21:25
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Gantolandon posted:Exactly that. Geist is a game about half-dead people who can talk with ghosts, but it tries to pretend it's about revolutionaries who plan to oust undead gods. Except the actual revolution part is mostly summed up on one page where Catabasis is described. You raise Esotery, defeat predefined challenges, hit Esotery 10, defeat the end boss and that's it - you changed the afterlife. The onus of creating an appropriate chronicle is completely on the Storyteller with very little support from the rules.The book spends much more pages to tell you how to curse people with your ghost powers, and how your Order of the Grim Skull can defeat the Reaper's Crew who took over your Avernian Gate. It's similar how Vampire: the Masquerade really wanted you to play a brooding noble beast who laments their lost humanity, but the most common character concept was actually a blood-drinking superhero. I haven't looked at more than a few small bits of what friends have shown me, so I can't comment too much, but I am very interested to see what the incentivization structure for Geist looks like. Nessus posted:necro-posadist revolutionary vanguard This almost broke me, thank you.
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Apr 18, 2019 22:29
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The What We Do In the Shadows Series is amazing so far. Not quite as good as the film but it has me in stitches. Today's episode had the best list of vampire names I have ever heard, including highlights like 'Evil Steve' 'S, because her name is Sarah' and 'Freakfest Tony'.
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Apr 19, 2019 00:36
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Can I watch that online somewhere? We stopped being able to afford cable a while ago.
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Apr 19, 2019 00:51
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Crasical posted:Can I watch that online somewhere? We stopped being able to afford cable a while ago. Amazon Prime has it for purchase, per episode or season.
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Apr 19, 2019 07:28
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Because of the sale going on, I'm thinking of getting a physical copy of Mage 20 for my friend for his birthday, and all my DTRPG physical purchases have been adequate at worst, but I'm still really dubious about how much life there might be in a 700-page bludgeon. Anyone gotten any of the various really gigantic PoD books that can chime in about their quality?
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Apr 19, 2019 08:46
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That Old Tree posted:Because of the sale going on, I'm thinking of getting a physical copy of Mage 20 for my friend for his birthday, and all my DTRPG physical purchases have been adequate at worst, but I'm still really dubious about how much life there might be in a 700-page bludgeon. Anyone gotten any of the various really gigantic PoD books that can chime in about their quality?
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Apr 19, 2019 09:44
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Nessus posted:They got me V20 as two books. They later recompiled it into one large tome. I picked up Mage the Awakening 2E as a POD tome. It's definitely shorter than M20 (thank goodness), but the spine and endpapers still peeled away from the cover after a while. DTRPG was very good about replacing it after I sent them photos, though. Customer service has always been really good there for me.
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Apr 19, 2019 16:21
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Nessus posted:necro-posadist revolutionary vanguard Nuking the Earth will cause a massive influx of new souls to the Underworld that we will then use as the proletariat core of our revolution! It can't go wrong! Also aliens and/or dolphins will help us.
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Apr 19, 2019 18:50
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i bet there are whale mages not shifters, just whales that can do supernal magic
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Apr 19, 2019 19:54
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1994 Toyota Celica posted:i bet there are whale mages whale mages, who use the process of buying ludicrous amounts of virtual cosmetics in f2p games to power their magic ... wait, this isn't the Unknown Armies thread
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Apr 19, 2019 20:37
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Werewolves investigating a whale spirit that thrives off of mobile game purchases
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Apr 19, 2019 20:48
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Octavo posted:They later recompiled it into one large tome. It was worth the price of the premium printing for me. They look like normal books and even the spine came in good shape. I'm hoping the Geist book comes in similar state, but I don't remember what they're sending from the kickstarter. I haven't had time to get through the pdf yet, but so far it looks like I'll be able to run some good games with it. Sure, there will be complaints, but it looks much more solid than the 1e in terms of balance.
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Apr 19, 2019 20:59
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Cantorsdust posted:Nuking the Earth will cause a massive influx of new souls to the Underworld that we will then use as the proletariat core of our revolution! It can't go wrong! Also aliens and/or dolphins will help us.
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Apr 19, 2019 21:03
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Jhet posted:It was worth the price of the premium printing for me. They look like normal books and even the spine came in good shape. I'm hoping the Geist book comes in similar state, but I don't remember what they're sending from the kickstarter. Kickstarter editions of OPP books are traditional offset printing, so they'll be just like any other normal retail book. PoD books from DTRPG, which you tend to get coupons for from the Kickstarters, come in premium and standard which is just a difference in ink coverage so standard's a little more washed out. Which for certain color schemes can make little difference in aesthetic quality but a big difference in price. My main concern is just that, while my many experiences with DTRPG books have been great, they're certainly not quite as sturdy as traditional print and I'm afraid 700 pages will push the quality down below "adequate" and I'd rather not spend $75ish on a birthday gift that falls apart after a couple months.
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Apr 19, 2019 21:25
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if a corvid can be a promethean surely a cetacean can be a mage
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Apr 19, 2019 21:25
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Nessus posted:Frankly if you do not believe in the inevitable intervention of the mystery robot aliens to assist us, you have failed Ferrinus Thought and must be sent to the Distant Town. Posadism is just Trotskyism and as such I disclaim it.
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Apr 19, 2019 21:35
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Gantolandon posted:It's similar how Vampire: the Masquerade really wanted you to play a brooding noble beast who laments their lost humanity, but the most common character concept was actually a blood-drinking superhero. The game devs used to refer to the latter style of play as Trench-coats & Katana's if I remember correctly Sixfools fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Apr 19, 2019 |
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Apr 19, 2019 23:14
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Normal Establishment: When you're here, you're food™
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Apr 19, 2019 23:37
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Sixfools posted:The game devs used to refer to the latter style of play as Trench-coats & Katana's if I remember correctly
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Apr 19, 2019 23:38
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Wasn't there some rift over the fandom and Justin Achilli or his take on Vampire? Even now the fans seem divided between superheroes with fangs, and horror, each side sort of looking down on the other (and other games when they broach into those territories).
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Apr 19, 2019 23:57
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What people don't realize is that a stark focus on personal horror and the material realities of day-to-day life as one of the damned makes tackling werewolves through concrete walls even cooler.
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Apr 20, 2019 00:01
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I remember a dude I otherwise thought well of who hated Justin Achilli because he wouldn't condemn taking ecstacy, which was pretty funny.
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Apr 20, 2019 00:05
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nofather posted:Wasn't there some rift over the fandom and Justin Achilli or his take on Vampire? Even now the fans seem divided between superheroes with fangs, and horror, each side sort of looking down on the other (and other games when they broach into those territories). They were lucky the game has such a strong core concept or it would have totally just fallen into the mud and disappeared next to TORG.
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Apr 20, 2019 00:17
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While I'm not playing in the game myself one at the local store is dealing with that rift in the player group. A few want to play moody Ventrue with all the political influence and are starting to disrupt the whole thing because the other characters are for something less serious and the ST is leaning into the majority.
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Apr 20, 2019 00:31
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nofather posted:Wasn't there some rift over the fandom and Justin Achilli or his take on Vampire? Even now the fans seem divided between superheroes with fangs, and horror, each side sort of looking down on the other (and other games when they broach into those territories). I don't think Achilli ever particularly cared about how you played Vampire, but he certainly also only cared about developing the aspects of the setting that interested him which was the vampire as addiction metaphor.
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Apr 20, 2019 01:26
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Nessus posted:Have White Wolf devs always disdained their audience? I can understand being frustrated if (for instance) goofy joke #4 gets blown up and fans demand MORE OF JOKE #4, FOREVER. But it seems like there is a long tradition of "No, no, this is a very serious toolkit for storytelling based on literary materials X and Y and, alright, we're not prudes: Middlebrow movie/television show Z and A--" And the players grab that, and run off to play some wacko poo poo. Back in the day, the obsession among White Wolf devs was wrestlemania. In the early nWoD, we got references to Brit kid’s shows galore. In my last days as a Dev, I had to confirm to another dev that yes, it did look like a writer was trying to use the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who in a book. The WoDs have never been 100% serious, and real White Wolf / Onyx Path we’re and are not the wrist-stapled-to-forehead pretension monkeys they’re imagined as.
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Apr 20, 2019 01:43
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Ferrinus posted:What people don't realize is that a stark focus on personal horror and the material realities of day-to-day life as one of the damned makes tackling werewolves through concrete walls even cooler. This is an unironically great post that could apply to multiple WoD/CofD games.
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Apr 20, 2019 01:52
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Yeah looking back it seems like no one really put a big bar up with a 'None Of This Allowed' regarding gameplay (except maybe werewolf sex? that seemed a prohibition that got upgraded across game lines). Like if someone was being super serious they could could allow some hard blocks for things, but we have mentions of grays (the aliens) and not-Tom Cruises, how to play the game in superhero, cyberpunk, or 80s retro style and even some of the darkest of settings have some fun in them even if they have a 'This can be serious stuff' heads up (like dealing with stuff in certain games).
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Apr 20, 2019 04:36
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Yeah it seems like it's not the devs that hate the players so much as the players themselves. Which, I mean, I can't blame them, what kind of sicko wants to play a monster?
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Apr 20, 2019 05:38
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:Yeah it seems like it's not the devs that hate the players so much as the players themselves. Which, I mean, I can't blame them, what kind of sicko wants to play a monster?
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Apr 20, 2019 05:41
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