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Can't remember if I've asked before - in Mage 2e, what's needed to share a practice of Knowing/Unveiling with... someone else? Last session my Acanthus player wanted to share a postcognition scene with another mage, and I just kind of deer-in-the-headlights went "huh... I don't know if you can do that". Calling it 'multiple targets' seemed weird. In the end to keep things moving I just ruled it as requiring another Reach.
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May 22, 2019 01:37
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I ruled it as multiple targets in my game, since postcognition in general displaces the target's senses. Other Knowing practice spells are more ambiguous- soul marks has a clear 'target' that is analyzed, so how do you share it? Just some more reach seems reasonable.
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May 22, 2019 01:42
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It just requires increasing the Scale of the spell to include more people. You can either take negatives -2 per person on the Scale chart or use Advanced Scale to include a handful of people for 1 Reach. Same as any other spell to include multiple people.
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May 22, 2019 01:57
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Jhet posted:It just requires increasing the Scale of the spell to include more people. You can either take negatives -2 per person on the Scale chart or use Advanced Scale to include a handful of people for 1 Reach. Same as any other spell to include multiple people. I just figured that normally scale wasn't 'double ended', but I suppose that way it makes sense too. Reading the surface thoughts of a crowd is relatively simple; having your whole cabal read the surface thoughts of a crowd means you apply the scale... twice, I guess?
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May 22, 2019 02:04
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bewilderment posted:I just figured that normally scale wasn't 'double ended', but I suppose that way it makes sense too. Reading the surface thoughts of a crowd is relatively simple; having your whole cabal read the surface thoughts of a crowd means you apply the scale... twice, I guess? You just have to think of the subject of the sentence. Is the spell being applied to a person or to an area of affect. If it's being applied to individuals, you count the total number of subjects and work on that side of the Scale chart, if you're going by Area of Effect, you just apply it to every subject in that area. So if your mage wants to include 3 subjects in a Postcognition, that's -4 dice or 1 reach for <=5 on the advanced scale part. Same would go for Soul Marks or any other spell in any other Practice. Soul marks was referenced, so you want to include 1 soul and 3 total mages. That's 4 subjects, or -4 dice or 1 reach for advanced scale (still encumbered by Potency though for # of information). The chart seems pretty uncaring about what part of the imago you're in, but cares that there are more people being affected. I could be wrong, but I've not run across anything to the contrary. So for surface thoughts, if you're in the area of effect, you should be covered. You will run into the question of Range though, so area of effect may come in more handy depending on circumstance. Area of Effect without Advanced Ranged is just centered on the casting mage or something they're touching (or aiming at). I care little for aiming mechanics in situations where there's nothing resisting it and just let them put it where they want it to be, so ymmv. **I did find a strange inconsistency, where the Unveiling practice references "ability to hear radio waves (Forces)", which is covered directly under Tune In, a Knowing spell. But then I decided it didn't matter, because it honestly could be covered by either Practice and just depends on the imago the mage is using to hear them. Doesn't help for people who want super static/specific and not artful spells, but there it is.
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May 22, 2019 04:09
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bewilderment posted:I just figured that normally scale wasn't 'double ended', but I suppose that way it makes sense too. Reading the surface thoughts of a crowd is relatively simple; having your whole cabal read the surface thoughts of a crowd means you apply the scale... twice, I guess? The key is always looking for the word "subject." That's what scale affects. So an unveiling spell like Pierce Deception (Prime 1) allows a subject to see through illusions and falsehoods. Increase the scale and more subjects have their senses thus enhanced. The problem is that some unknowing and unveiling spells like mental scan changes the subject from the senses to the thing being sensed. My understanding is that scale cannot be expanded at both ends or to anything that the spell doesn't call a subject. If I had to guess, the discrepancy is caused by some spells being tagged as unveiling (spells that alter your senses) when they should be knowing (spells that give you knowledge about a target). If that's true, which I'm not certain about, then it means that the question becomes how to give someone else the benefits of a knowing spell. I can't think of too many scenarios in which I'd want to give someone a knowing spell, but I can think of a lot of scenarios where I'd want to open the whole party's senses with a scaled up unveiling spell.
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May 22, 2019 04:11
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Mors Rattus posted:The funny thing to me is 'the government is aware vampires exist at a certain level' is the default of nWoD and, like...it turns out that the black ops military jackboots guys don't give a poo poo about most vampires because they're not threats to national security, and the feds are mostly going after the ones who are serial killers, because the way they notice that vampires show up in an area is the same way they notice serial killers exist - a bunch of photogenic middle class people end up dead by the same MO. By rules as written it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to create a human character who has never encountered something supernatural in the CoD corebook.
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May 22, 2019 04:56
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I love that in the CofD there's a branch of the IRS that handles vampires trying to claim that they're dead as a tax dodge. Like, give me more of that, give me the branch of the FBI populated entirely by Uratha. Inject it directly into my veins.
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May 22, 2019 05:09
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V5 feeling the need to shove fifteen years of plot into a corebook was the dumbest thing about it. Drastic system changes should really be reserved for something skin too the NWoD's "Mirrors", but really it's the sheer amount of plot on top of how the plot itself is asinine and designed to basically invalidate the setting.
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May 22, 2019 05:23
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Pope Guilty posted:V5 feeling the need to shove fifteen years of plot into a corebook was the dumbest thing about it. Drastic system changes should really be reserved for something skin too the NWoD's "Mirrors", but really it's the sheer amount of plot on top of how the plot itself is asinine and designed to basically invalidate the setting. If I had to write V5 - and I'm glad that I don't - I would have started writing from the perspective of a new vampire and interpreted all of vampire history through that lens. The specific events of the last two decades don't need to be relevant. Just tell me how things are now. Don't justify how it got to be that way. Don't write from the perspective of a character with all the interlude included. Of course that would mean ignoring or even retconning major plot points and since vampire plot is read more like a comic book than a gaming suppliment...
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May 22, 2019 06:14
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While we're talking V5 metaplot silliness, what's the deal with the middle east? I seem to recall something like "all the elders went there" but uh, what? why? how?
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May 22, 2019 06:42
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Digital Osmosis posted:While we're talking V5 metaplot silliness, what's the deal with the middle east? I seem to recall something like "all the elders went there" but uh, what? why? how? Why: IDK, they didn't want Elder PCs or NPCs hanging around much How: I assume they took planes or something. The question of how they're fighting the
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May 22, 2019 06:58
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why do you think theyve been pumping all the oil out of the ground? who do you think now walks those underground seams
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May 22, 2019 07:05
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So, my FLGS has asked me (as someone with a long history with oWoD) if I'd run 5th Edition in the store, initially as a one-shot. As a functionally lazy human, and I'm not inclined to keep all these pesky players and just curate the good ones - Are there any decent one-shots for 5th, or am I cooking my own?
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May 22, 2019 09:54
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Shockeh posted:So, my FLGS has asked me (as someone with a long history with oWoD) if I'd run 5th Edition in the store, initially as a one-shot. the free quickstart requires minimal work to run, it's got handy tables for most of the situations your players will run into, and all you have to do is count the dice, it's pretty good at introducing the core mechanics of V5, and it's got a really dumb flashback and twist, that way you can see who's willing to accept some of the stupid bullshit inherent to the game
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May 22, 2019 12:35
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Nessus posted:What: Vague intimations that they all went there to fight in the Also the Sabbat. Like almost all of it. Just up and left.
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May 22, 2019 13:21
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Kurieg posted:I love that in the CofD there's a branch of the IRS that handles vampires trying to claim that they're dead as a tax dodge. yea, we need more 'yea no poo poo the government knows vampires and poo poo exist, they just don't care as long as they're not trying to install Vamp President or whatever' and less...just all of V5's metaplot. Like, having this kinda unspoken connection that while Joe the Cop likely doesn't know poo poo about why their 'wolf attack' victim seems to have been mauled by a REALLY big wolf, the head of the Department of the Interior has a personal task force to be sure the werewolves aren't eating too many protected animals when they have their wolf hunt parties or whatever is fun to play around with at times. It's sure as poo poo more fun than these dumb 'there's a vampire war happening in Saudi Arabia...no you can't see it'.
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May 22, 2019 13:22
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Just started reading the Book of Oblivion that just went out to Wraith20 backers. Really like it so far, it is always nice to have lots of little interesting extra things for a roleplaying setting. Between this and rereading the Promethean book currently I am so ready to play games that will never actually happen.
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May 22, 2019 13:25
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Dawgstar posted:Also the Sabbat. Like almost all of it. Just up and left. I always liked the Sabbat better when it was just packs of transient murder-rednecks humping around the country in RV's and slaughtering the occasional roadhouse full of bikers. Adding details and the pseudo-Catholic hierarchy just made it less cool. But then again I've always liked my WoD at the same level of development that it was when I was 14 and pimply and thought that The Crow was terribly romantic.
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May 22, 2019 15:08
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Diff'rent strokes to rule the world. The Guide to the Sabbat in Revised did wonders for them for my money so just 'nah there gone lol' didn't do much for me on top of like everything else.
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May 22, 2019 17:52
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sexpig by night posted:yea, we need more 'yea no poo poo the government knows vampires and poo poo exist, they just don't care as long as they're not trying to install Vamp President or whatever' and less...just all of V5's metaplot. Hunter the Vigil lets you play as the psychic department of the FBI, who use their powers to hunt down serial killers. They mostly treat the vampires they run into as serial assailants/killers and attempt to prosecute them for it.
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May 22, 2019 18:31
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So for 2E of Changeling: The Lost the previous released supplement books like Winter Masques are not compatible right?
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May 22, 2019 19:00
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Dr. VooDoo posted:So for 2E of Changeling: The Lost the previous released supplement books like Winter Masques are not compatible right? Mechanically, no. Lorewise, mixed.
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May 22, 2019 19:08
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jakodee posted:Hunter the Vigil lets you play as the psychic department of the FBI, who use their powers to hunt down serial killers. They mostly treat the vampires they run into as serial assailants/killers and attempt to prosecute them for it. The Hunters Hunted alll the way back in 1992 also had several US government groups (FBI, NSA, and the CDC) in behind the Masquerade. https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hunters_Hunted Project Twilight from 1995 went more-indepth on the relevant US government groups: https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Project_Twilight
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May 22, 2019 19:26
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Nessus posted:What: Vague intimations that they all went there to fight in the Swedracula wants VtM to be one particular thing and is willing to entirely upend the setting to make it so.
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May 22, 2019 20:54
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Nessus posted:What: Vague intimations that they all went there to fight in the I'm still not sure I get the what. What war? Why are the Antediluvians doing in the middle east in the first place? Are the Antediluvians like a unified front now? What about the incoming elders, is there like a Cam / Sab truce going on? And why is it all so mysterious in 2019? We've been getting tweets about the block-by-block status of every major engagement in the Syrian civil war for half a decade now. I suppose I see it's metaplot purpose, and if I didn't suspect it just promoted fan favorite characters instead of clearing the plate for PCs I'd applaud the move, but the whole thing seems like something out of Mummy and not Vampire.
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May 22, 2019 20:55
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Does V5 incorporate the social media/app stuff being done by Anarchs with Technomancy from V20, or is that ignored as being insufficiently about questionably consensual sex for Swedracula?
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May 22, 2019 21:02
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Digital Osmosis posted:I'm still not sure I get the what. What war? Why are the Antediluvians doing in the middle east in the first place? Are the Antediluvians like a unified front now? What about the incoming elders, is there like a Cam / Sab truce going on? And why is it all so mysterious in 2019? We've been getting tweets about the block-by-block status of every major engagement in the Syrian civil war for half a decade now. I think the Sabbat is basically gone, I am unsure about the Camarilla but there may be a skeleton crew or just vampires being like "Welp, I'm declaring myself Prince, let's basically do like we did before, any objections want to address my left fist, Potence 4, or my right fist, I own the cops?" As for why everything is hidden I assume they are using Obfuscate
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May 22, 2019 21:08
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What's funny is the elders can apparently ignore the Gehenna Call or whatever you want to call it. Lots of the big names are still hanging out in Chicago, up to and including Helena who is a fourth Gen Toreador. (Not a direct childe, I think she ate somebody.)
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May 22, 2019 23:07
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Dawgstar posted:What's funny is the elders can apparently ignore the Gehenna Call or whatever you want to call it. Lots of the big names are still hanging out in Chicago, up to and including Helena who is a fourth Gen Toreador. (Not a direct childe, I think she ate somebody.) Yeah, she ate her sire relatively soon after being embraced. She'd been 4th gen for most of her unlife.
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May 23, 2019 00:34
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I was surprised by the whole thing because Ericsson seems like the type who would love the Sabbat, but I guess he's getting some of that by having the Lasombra in the Camarilla. Also he seems like -way- more of a LARPer than a tabletop gamer, and I imagine in LARPs its probably easier to have everyone oppressed by the deus ex machina hand of the second inquisition and stuff rather than actual undead baddies who probably occasionally have a good point. nofather fucked around with this message at 01:39 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 01:30
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Digital Osmosis posted:I'm still not sure I get the what. What war? Why are the Antediluvians doing in the middle east in the first place? Are the Antediluvians like a unified front now? What about the incoming elders, is there like a Cam / Sab truce going on? And why is it all so mysterious in 2019? We've been getting tweets about the block-by-block status of every major engagement in the Syrian civil war for half a decade now. It's not 100% spelled out why they're being summoned (because that is not a current focus aspect of the game, but will likely be covered when/if a Sabbat book is released, since the Gehenna War is their big plot focus), but assumably... those ancient places were where some of them were when they went to sleep eons ago. Or it may not even be Antediluvians. It's laid out in a 'this is a plot that's going on, and will be expanded upon', not laid out in 'and then X, then Y, then Z' minutiae. Elders are being Beckoned, like Summoning on steroids (and it's something that was talked about as part and parcel of how things in the Jyhad work at times, elders answering mysterious summons or being mindwhammied from a great distance), leaving outright or setting their affairs in order and going; it's specifically mentioned that Elders of 800+ years and 7th Gen are lower are the most effected in the Cam book. And some elders have been able to stay, particularly by gorging themselves on Kindred blood (Helena ate a bunch of Ashirra and felt the call stop after she drank them all dry, for example) and a few other methods. It's ostensibly to the Middle East, but it's really just ancient places in the world, and even sometimes modern places that grew up around ancient places. Things aren't happening 'on the ground' in places like Jerusalem or Damascus very often, it's happening in wilder, older places away from cities in general, from what has been said/teased (particularly in part of the CbN Lasombra writeup) and so there's no 'blow by blow' tweeting happening from, y'know, a tomb in the middle of the mountains in northern Turkey. The specifics haven't been divulged yet. The Sabbat got wind of this and, deciding that it was the rise of the Antes and the start of Gehenna, followed the various Kindred going (so the Sabbat are finally getting to, y'know, do what they were formed to do) on a Gehenna Crusade. The 'war' is the Sabbat doing their thing, which sometimes spills over into other areas (a European city is mentioned in the core book as a Gehenna War location, for example). Ostensibly, the conflict is 'various elders are being called to be food/defend/something mysterious to Methuselahs and/or Antediluvians, and Sabbat are doing their diablerie thang while trying to get to do their goal'.
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May 23, 2019 05:04
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ulmont posted:The Hunters Hunted alll the way back in 1992 also had several US government groups (FBI, NSA, and the CDC) in behind the Masquerade. The Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit doesn't actually uphold or really have some special insight into the SECRET VEIL separating monsters from normies. They are an openly operating division of the FBI who get by by just... being vague about what exactly their "special techniques" are (they can see the future, distant places, your thoughts, etc.). They certainly know more about the supernatural than your average cop, but their primary interest is in making sure people (including supernatural people) get prosecuted for violating federal US law.
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May 23, 2019 05:12
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Thanks MoonKnight, that was a very clear write up of what is and isn't known. It all still sounds a bit silly to me, but I guess I prefer my ancient unknowable horrors lurking just behind the facade of modernity and it honestly doesn't sound like all that many specifics have come out so I suppose I might end up loving it. At the very least the Sabbat going "FINALLY!" is a pretty hilarious and cool move, although I'm not sure I love that they've used it to reduce Sabbat influence outside of the middle east.
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May 23, 2019 05:15
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jakodee posted:The Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit doesn't actually uphold or really have some special insight into the SECRET VEIL separating monsters from normies. They are an openly operating division of the FBI who get by by just... being vague about what exactly their "special techniques" are (they can see the future, distant places, your thoughts, etc.). They certainly know more about the supernatural than your average cop, but their primary interest is in making sure people (including supernatural people) get prosecuted for violating federal US law. I believe VASCU is the division Francis York Morgan Call Me York That's What Everyone Calls Me works for.
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May 23, 2019 05:19
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Zereth posted:I believe VASCU is the division Francis York Morgan Call Me York That's What Everyone Calls Me works for. That'd.....work. I pity any supernatural creature targeted by that big ball of crazy.
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May 23, 2019 07:25
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VASCU probably also employs Special Agent Milton Dammers, since he was absolutely working a supernatural serial killer case even if he had the wrong suspect.
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May 23, 2019 14:16
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VASCU gets into some pretty interesting moral territory since they attempt to arrest, try and imprison the criminals they capture. That all seems pretty good except most of the trials are secret, since you can't just tell a judge the accused is a vampire, and some of the imprisonment methods are pretty horrifying, because a regular cell won't hold most supernatural creatures. At a certain point, it almost feels like a more circuitous route to the same destination task force Valkyrie gets to by just kicking in the door and emptying a clip of incendiary ammo. Though tbf, a lot of the crime VASCU deals with is human or human-adjacent, where I think they make more sense.
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May 23, 2019 15:34
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UrbicaMortis posted:VASCU gets into some pretty interesting moral territory since they attempt to arrest, try and imprison the criminals they capture. That all seems pretty good except most of the trials are secret, since you can't just tell a judge the accused is a vampire, and some of the imprisonment methods are pretty horrifying, because a regular cell won't hold most supernatural creatures. I mean, they do still use normal judges, just ones that know that vampires are a thing. (Which explicitly includes the entire supreme court, which is kind of funny.) VASCU and TF:V are not exactly agencies that like each other, though, is part of it. VASCU actually does care about due process and kind of prides themselves on that, even if their methods for it are not always...great. It's part of why I really like them. I also really like that, as near as I can tell, their opinion on supernatural that aren't in fact serial killers is 'I guess a werewolf is a citizen? please don't kill people or I'll have to try and arrest you.'
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May 23, 2019 15:37
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jakodee posted:The Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit doesn't actually uphold or really have some special insight into the SECRET VEIL separating monsters from normies. They are an openly operating division of the FBI who get by by just... being vague about what exactly their "special techniques" are (they can see the future, distant places, your thoughts, etc.). They certainly know more about the supernatural than your average cop, but their primary interest is in making sure people (including supernatural people) get prosecuted for violating federal US law. In the original Hunters Hunted, which is consistent with Project Twilight, this is what the FBI SAD knows: What They Know posted:Vampires, or Kindred as they call themselves, divide themselves into clans, all of which are members of a greater organization called the Camarilla. Just as in America, there are anarchistic individuals outside this society attempting to destroy it. The Camarilla’s main purpose Seems to be hiding the existence of Vampires from the human public. This is called Operation Masquerade, and was developed in reaction to the Grand Inquisition of the Middle Ages. The known clans are as follows: the Ventrue: leaders of the Camarilla. Each city has a Prince ruling it, usually a member of this clan. The Brujah: the opposing political party, the far left to the Ventrue’s right. Generally rebellious and dangerous in thought. Nosferatu: all of this clan are loathsome in appearance, but they run the information network of the Kindred. This is the clan whose records needs to be confiscated, but as yet, no agent has been able to discover the location of such records. The Tremere: these Vampires believe themselves to be occultists, and they study much of that lore. Not much is known yet of them. There are perhaps more clans, but they have not yet been discovered. This is the Vampire (and, for Project Twilight, Werewolf, although the FBI SAD knows less about Garou)-specific view, which is somewhat different from the Hunter-specific view of VASCU.
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May 23, 2019 17:39
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