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Ferrinus posted:You can’t, though. Setting aside the fact that your one weird trick for defeating the curse of Caine involves learning four or five dot powers in obscure sorcerous disciplines When half a dozen to a dozen disparate groups know a thing, it is no longer obscure. As the inevitable march of time went on it seems every group got a form of blood magic, and every fifth group a form of necromancy, and shockingly most of the necromancy groups have ties to the Caps. And none of those listed Disciplines are required, those are just the ones in easy to have books that require the least hoop jumping and do it in the most direct manner to convey the point without getting into the actual esoteric stuff [Things like the Obeah combo are one of those just to show what they are like. Like one day someone found a way to shunt the sun onto their curse, nbd]. Pretending that it's hard to learn Thaum if you want to and then introducing Anarch Thaumaturgy isn't something you get to do. You officially sailed that ship into the sunset. quote:There’s also, obviously, the materialist/game-theoretical reason this isn’t appealing and doesn’t work: if you spend all your energy learning how to subsist off cows and control your temper, you’ll just be at the mercy of someone who’s instead learned to control minds or punch through concrete. Admittedly, your low iron footprint will make you a great subject and unlikely to raise anyone’s ire. Which is the least relevant, because the thought was about vampires as beings that exist, not about players at a table. The unending horror of their existence, that is in fact really not so bad if they work at it and weren't secretive jackasses. All the work they put into policing activities that would never happen. All the fears they have of tells they'd never give. And also irrelevant because, again, in a game with powers rated on dots like this, you buy your way up to a power. You don't get to complain about it being a bunch of 3-4-5 dot powers and then pretend you don't have 13 disparate powers to work with, nor the fact you have access to the vast majority of all Thaumatological and Necromantic Rituals. If you are this guy your focus is on humanely existing without problems for the rest of eternity. You can also loving obliterate anyone that messes with you in ways that might not be able to comprehend exist. Because this is Vampire, and the closest it has to Disciplines that are pure puppies and cuddles will still have powers that put someone to sleep for a century or eat souls.
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Oct 12, 2019 04:51
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Mulva posted:When half a dozen to a dozen disparate groups know a thing, it is no longer obscure. As the inevitable march of time went on it seems every group got a form of blood magic, and every fifth group a form of necromancy, and shockingly most of the necromancy groups have ties to the Caps. And none of those listed Disciplines are required, those are just the ones in easy to have books that require the least hoop jumping and do it in the most direct manner to convey the point without getting into the actual esoteric stuff [Things like the Obeah combo are one of those just to show what they are like. Like one day someone found a way to shunt the sun onto their curse, nbd]. Pretending that it's hard to learn Thaum if you want to and then introducing Anarch Thaumaturgy isn't something you get to do. You officially sailed that ship into the sunset. It actually is, though. It actually is hard to get access to blood magic, and harder still to get access to multiple different forms of blood magic practiced by factions that are usually enemies of each other, and harder still to learn any of it at all, let alone to learn multiple forms of it to four or five dots. Most vampires simply can't do that; it's not a matter of them not trying hard enough or not having their priorities in order. Again, a player having the authority to declare that their character does something is different from all characters all technically being able to do something within the story of the game world. This is like the haha everyone in the WoD is a supernatural creature except for one guy who doesn't realize he's earth's last mortal human meme. Yes, that is a cute joke. No, the monsters don't actually outnumber the humans and, no, a preponderance of splatbooks to appeal to setting-curious players isn't actually a referendum on prevalence or ease of something in the story. No, the fact of a game-mechanical framework existing to allow some PCs to do something doesn't mean that, actually, all Cs can do that thing, any more than every Commoner 1 can simply do some quests about town and become a Commoner 1/Sorcerer 1 at will.
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Oct 12, 2019 05:36
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Ok, this could be fun: Why can't they, absent outside interference? You can't say it's explicitly hard to learn with all the people that know those various things, and all the stupid people doing stupid poo poo with them [There are plenty of rituals that are just "Someone was loving around and did this thing". Fangbook is not the development of an occult system that is hard for randos to grasp.]. You can't say it's a time issue, we are dealing with immortals. Literally the vast majority of vampire society is the way it is because these folks are going insane with nothing to keep them engaged. Oh no, you gave bored immortals something to focus on, how ever will they deal with a challenge that requires them to focus on something not their horrific existence!? You can't say it's the dot count, plenty of NPCs have more dots than this requires after a century or so, sprinkled with 4s and 5s. It's about as developed as they expect folks to be over time in the setting. So "You can't do this, it doesn't make sense in the setting".....why? Beyond the obvious elephant in the room of "Vampires are monsters and actively destroy the weak and humane seeming". Which is, again, what the point was. Being a vampire would be piss easy if they stopped ridding each others rear end and just dealt with being a vampire. e: Which has always been the default message of vampire to me. Being a vampire really sucks because you have to hang around with all these vampires. Mulva fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 06:07
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You actually can say it's hard to learn with all the people that know those various things. If a minority of vampires are magicians, and a minority of those magicians are necromancers, and a minority of those necromancers practice a particular path that at mastery allows you to spoof like 20% of being alive, and of the practitioners of that path a minority actually are masters who can do that... that's not because every other vampire in the world is simply stupid or slothful. Not every regular human has the talent for every regular human skill, and you actually and genuinely can just look up books describing how to perform most skills at a competent level. Even if you can teach just about anyone the basics of gymnastics or calculus or painting, you can't teach just about everyone to become a virtuoso world-class master of those things, because while players get to arbitrarily declare that their player characters just happen to have the knack for whatever skill they're buying up such that they can will themselves to become Olympic fencers in a matter of weeks, actual people do not work like that as much as they wish they did. This is completely setting aside the fact that your master plan requires simultaneous use of adept or master-level powers across multiple, sometimes-warring rare subsects or bloodlines that pop up in the game's umpteenth supplement - even if there was a vampire Wikipedia that simply listed the steps required to learn every last Discipline, the idea that every vampire can learn every Discipline to as high as level as they like and simply haven't because they're lazy and ignorant is, itself, lazy and ignorant. This is the same kind of thinking that leads people to conclude that every last person in the world could found a lucrative startup and then retire at 35 if they were simply smart about their finances. The actual truth is that no, they can't. The world isn't the way it is because for some mysterious reason each individual human has failed to bootstrap themselves into their best self.
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Oct 12, 2019 06:28
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Mulva posted:Why can't they, absent outside interference? You can't say it's explicitly hard to learn with all the people that know those various things, and all the stupid people doing stupid poo poo with them [There are plenty of rituals that are just "Someone was loving around and did this thing". Fangbook is not the development of an occult system that is hard for randos to grasp.]. Many people know quantum physics at doctorate level. Many people are national-level athletes. This does not mean that a doctorate in quantum physics or national-level athletic skills are easy to attain, let alone both at the same time. This is before taking into account that the various rituals are generally possessed by secretive groups (thaumaturgy in general may be ridiculously prolific, this does not mean any given ritual is) who don't like outsiders and don't like sharing their secrets, scattered around the globe while vampires are generally bound to their territory. Mulva posted:You can't say it's a time issue, we are dealing with immortals. Literally the vast majority of vampire society is the way it is because these folks are going insane with nothing to keep them engaged. Oh no, you gave bored immortals something to focus on, how ever will they deal with a challenge that requires them to focus on something not their horrific existence!? Vampires are immortal in the sense that they don't die from old age, but this is not the same as most vampires leading long lives. And the vampires who do lead long lives tend to be power-hungry assholes and only rarely even try to escape their horrific existence.
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Oct 12, 2019 06:32
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Ferrinus posted:that's not because every other vampire in the world is simply stupid or slothful. It's because the main magic clan actively murders folk that try to learn magic. Same to some degree for the main necromancy clan. quote:This is completely setting aside the fact that your master plan requires simultaneous use of adept or master-level powers across multiple, sometimes-warring rare subsects or bloodlines that pop up in the game's umpteenth supplement To be done. To just combat those flaws is a bunch of one and two dot poo poo. Like two dots, you never hunger frenzy again. That issue is solved. You will only freak out and murder someone feeding because you decided to. The path to be done with the flaws of being a vampire exists in their setting. Has for centuries. quote:This is the same kind of thinking that leads people to conclude that every last person in the world could found a lucrative startup and then retire at 35 if they were simply smart about their finances. The actual truth is that no, they can't. The world isn't the way it is because for some mysterious reason each individual human has failed to bootstrap themselves into their best self. No, it's saying people die of diabetic related issues because companies are predatory and grossly inflate the price of insulin.
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Oct 12, 2019 06:42
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Yeah how would any given vampire even learn these things exist in the first place? Also depending on who you ask you literally cannot learn some paths without instruction so who's teaching you?
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Oct 12, 2019 06:43
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Mulva posted:It's because the main magic clan actively murders folk that try to learn magic. Same to some degree for the main necromancy clan. Yes, they do. But does this actually mean that anyone can learn magic if they could simply be given the chance? That doesn't follow. If I have ten enemies, and on average one of them will actually be gifted enough to pick up sorcery and not destroy themselves with it, I still won't share it with any of those ten. quote:To be done. To just combat those flaws is a bunch of one and two dot poo poo. Like two dots, you never hunger frenzy again. That issue is solved. You will only freak out and murder someone feeding because you decided to. The path to be done with the flaws of being a vampire exists in their setting. Has for centuries. Will you, though? Will you never hunger frenzy again? Or will you, perhaps, gain a small bonus on a particular hunger frenzy check at the cost of ending up with even less blood in your system and therefore at greater risk of hunger frenzy later? Are you just lying about what these powers do now? quote:No, it's saying people die of diabetic related issues because companies are predatory and grossly inflate the price of insulin. That metaphor doesn't really track because what you were suggesting before is that A) actually in the contemporary world all this knowledge is just floating around out there and there's no reason you shouldn't be able to learn it, even if some of it is like the proprietary discipline of an obscure African bloodline and B) all these vampires should be engaging in decades if not centuries long regimens of study and exercise to learn and use all these powers.
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Oct 12, 2019 06:48
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Ferrinus posted:But does this actually mean that anyone can learn magic if they could simply be given the chance? Anarch Thaum is literally "Some Tremere/Assamites/Whatever join up with the Anarchs and literally everyone starts learning stupid magic tricks". So yes, that actually appears to be the case. quote:Will you, though? Will you never hunger frenzy again? Or will you, perhaps, gain a small bonus on a particular hunger frenzy check at the cost of ending up with even less blood in your system and therefore at greater risk of hunger frenzy later? Are you just lying about what these powers do now? One dot ritual, requires the tooth of a predator [Which isn't consumed or anything, wear it as a necklace], lasts for an hour, takes a turn to cast. You don't hunger frenzy, period, while it's active. You start to get a little hangry, pop it and go out to hunt. When it's go time you won't flip out and drain someone dry. Unless that's who you are. quote:That metaphor doesn't really track because what you were suggesting before is that A) actually in the contemporary world all this knowledge is just floating around out there and there's no reason you shouldn't be able to learn it, even if some of it is like the proprietary discipline of an obscure African bloodline and B) all these vampires should be engaging in decades if not centuries long regimens of study and exercise to learn and use all these powers. One dot is decades of study? Total mastery is the work of years and decades and perhaps centuries, depending on how slow you learn, but getting a handle on things is the same amount of dots any given starting character has. If that was a thing vampire society cared about, it is in no way hard. Mortis is the same as Auspex, it's the defining power of an original Clan. *Now* it's rare, but for thousands of years it was as common as anything else. And common to a clan known for it's studious nature and study of the condition of undeath [Which has quite a few survivors in the modern day, something that would be fairly common knowledge because people love dunking on the Giovanni and vampire society has an explicit position for dunking on people]. e: Really most of this is based on clans who write everything down and are openly known for studying poo poo, and had systems in place for disseminating that knowledge to everyone else in their clan. Considering the number of other clans whose stick is "Spying on everyone" holy poo poo should this not be state secrets. Mulva fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 07:03
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Mulva posted:Anarch Thaum is literally "Some Tremere join up with the Anarchs and literally everyone starts learning stupid magic tricks". So yes, that actually appears to be the case. Literally everyone, Mulva? Or, is it, in fact, those anarchs who both can find a specific teacher, and want to learn, and are actually able to learn and understand? It's just not true that the existence of powers that any PC can theoretically buy translates into universal and unlimited aptitude on the part of every single extant vampire. Hell, even lots of extant vampires. quote:One dot ritual, requires the tooth of a predator [Which isn't consumed or anything, wear it as a necklace], lasts for an hour, takes a turn to cast. You don't hunger frenzy, period, while it's active. You start to get a little hangry, pop it and go out to hunt. When it's go time you won't flip out and drain someone dry. Unless that's who you are. So actually, you never hunger frenzy provided you cast a magic spell every hour on the hour, and provided that roll doesn't fail (you don't necessarily know whether it succeeded), and provided you don't suffer some kind of mishap that causes you to lose or break the tooth. Assuming this goes well, you still actually need to drink the usual amount of blood and are subject to the other frenzies and all the other problems of vampirism. quote:One dot is decades of study? Total mastery is the work of years and decades and perhaps centuries, depending on how slow you learn, but getting a handle on things is the same amount of dots any given starting character has. If that was a thing vampire society cared about, it is in no way hard. Mortis is the same as Auspex, it's the defining power of an original Clan. *Now* it's rare, but for thousands of years it was as common as anything else. And common to a clan known for it's studious nature and study of the condition of undeath [Which has quite a few survivors in the modern day, something that would be fairly common knowledge because people love dunking on the Giovanni and vampire society has an explicit position for dunking on people]. Ah, now we're haggling over how long one dot takes to get, so I guess we can stop pretending that learning four or five out of multiple powers is feasible. The problem is that one dot may well represent decades or even an unattainable pipe dream for people who don't have the knack, and, separately, the dissembling you're doing here in no way suggests that practical knowledge on how to actually perform Mortis or Necromancy should be at all common or easy to obtain. Yes, Mortis is extremely rare, because almost all the vampires that used to throw it around are dead. And Necromancy's a rare and proprietary form of sorcery practiced by a specific set of lineages. So... no, they're not at all trivial to learn. A dot of Mortis is not equivalent to a dot of Potence here.
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Oct 12, 2019 07:21
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That's a lot of words to justify doing a munchkin thing. It's like that time when I played with a group that insisted that learning obscure rituals like "From Marduk's Throat" was easy even for neonates of any clan.
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Oct 12, 2019 07:32
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Ferrinus posted:Literally everyone, Mulva? Or, is it, in fact, those anarchs who both can find a specific teacher, and want to learn, and are actually able to learn and understand? They call themselves the Digital Draculas and openly say "Hey we'll teach you Technomancy and rituals!". And then they do, to anyone that wants it. Literally everyone that wants to, yes. It's not stomped down on because some Anarchs targeted Elders in the crash and said "We will destroy the entire financial system if you push us", but they openly and freely shop that stuff out. quote:So actually, you never hunger frenzy provided you cast a magic spell every hour on the hour, and provided that roll doesn't fail (you don't necessarily know whether it succeeded) Are you hungry? It failed. No? It worked. And it's "Every hour you at risk". How many of those are there? Not like it's hard to store blood, knowing this ritual presupposes something: You can use ritual magic. Store some blood you moron, what's the point of knowing blood magic if you don't use it? quote:and provided you don't suffer some kind of mishap that causes you to lose or break the tooth Wear a few if you worried. Have one in a pocket. It's not like it's a hardship. "What if someone strips you naked and throws you in a pit with babies and pokes you with a stick until you eat them huh? What then?". I don't know, what if they don't? quote:Ah, now we're haggling over how long one dot takes to get, so I guess we can stop pretending that learning four or five out of multiple powers is feasible. Why, because you're losing the argument? Being done is the end of a road, but it's not like the start of the road is without benefits. I won't pretend that any giving neonate could know all this after a five year crash course. That's silly. Anyone could build towards it though, and knowing it is there is it's own comfort. quote:The problem is that one dot may well represent decades or even an unattainable pipe dream for people who don't have the knack You've yet to establish it is a knack, or to what degree it is. You just say it and move on like that's an argument, whereas the setting seems to think it takes root all over the world all the time with the slightest opportunity. quote:Yes, Mortis is extremely rare, because almost all the vampires that used to throw it around are dead. Now. A thousand years ago not so much. And even now there are still the Harbingers, and the Samedi. And unrelateds like the Nagaraja [Who if not with the Tal'Mahe'Ra are known for being mercenary]. And the fact that maybe not everyone called "Giovanni" is quite so Giovanni as they might like. e: Angry Lobster posted:That's a lot of words to justify doing a munchkin thing. It's like that time when I played with a group that insisted that learning obscure rituals like "From Marduk's Throat" was easy even for neonates of any clan. It's the Ordu Dracul mindset in the oWoD setting. What's weird about it? You are a horrific occult abomination, are you telling me nobody ever went "Can I do something about this?". They all just went "Guess I have to slam my dick in the door of all these horrific biblical curses til the end of time or go full tilt into Golconda, there is absolutely zero middle ground". Mulva fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 07:37
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Pertinent to the discussion, Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy gives the time to learn a ritual on p.86: from 1 week for a Level 1 ritual to 1 year for a Level 5 ritual.Mulva posted:One dot ritual, requires the tooth of a predator [Which isn't consumed or anything, wear it as a necklace], lasts for an hour, takes a turn to cast. You don't hunger frenzy, period, while it's active. You start to get a little hangry, pop it and go out to hunt. When it's go time you won't flip out and drain someone dry. Unless that's who you are. Blood Rush is a Sabbat ritual. Sabbat Thaumaturgy is somewhat uncommon, and GttS (Rev) notes that "Rituals are hard to learn, and they take time to study, in addition to demanding a certain level of basic Thaumaturgical understanding." Further, while the book notes it's possible for someone from outside the Sabbat to learn Sabbat rituals, it's very rare.
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Oct 12, 2019 08:29
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I thought you had to do like advanced exsanguinitory poo poo to crack open Thaumaturgy outside of the Tremere, who just baked that into becoming a dracula presumably.
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Oct 12, 2019 08:35
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LatwPIAT posted:Pertinent to the discussion, Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy gives the time to learn a ritual on p.86: from 1 week for a Level 1 ritual to 1 year for a Level 5 ritual. And of course this is another issue. Edition differences. In V20 it's just a ritual, in the core book, no mention of the Sabbat. And the learning ritual rules is it's a weekly roll looking for level * 5 successes. Makes learning level 1 rituals potentially harder, but level 5 much much easier. Even in V20 Domino of Life in V20 is one aspect of life, in DA20 it's all of them. Still level 1 [The DA20 version is probably way too powerful for level 1]. Mechanics is it's own weird hassle to integrate into the conversation. Nessus posted:I thought you had to do like advanced exsanguinitory poo poo to crack open Thaumaturgy outside of the Tremere, who just baked that into becoming a dracula presumably. Ha ha, nope. If you do super duper favors for the Tremere they'll teach you, if you give them some of your blood to use against you and sign a magical contract to never use magic against them. Conversely if they end up in the Anarchs or the Sabbat they might start teaching people because they have nothing else to offer and people hate the Tremere by nature. It's just a Discipline, the end. There's really just "Blood magic". What's the difference between Assimite and Koldunic and Setite and Tremere sorcery? Not a lot. The others tend to have a more theological focus, but by and large it's the same poo poo.
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Oct 12, 2019 09:10
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Ventrue are a real spanner in the works ratio-wise. We can't really look at them without knowing their feeding restrictions but almost all of them will come out to less than 1:100,000 in all but the largest cities and with the most generous restrictions. For instance, one Ventrue NPC can feed only on gang members - and while the oWoD has a higher crime rate, this is still unlikely to hit over 100,000 people in his city of residence. Another is from his own mortal descendants - and he was only embraced a couple of generations ago, so even at an optimistic rate of reproduction (ten children who each had ten children who each had ten children, all of whom have managed to stay alive) it's 1:1000. The side effect of this, of course, is that in some respects it is possible to effectively ignore the city's ventrue in terms of the ordinary ratio, as their 'share' of the 100,000 is essentially defunct due to the necessity of their maintaining large and carefully managed herds. A prince who has the information - which no ventrue worth their salt will hand over - could even arrange to declare all such personages the property of their ventrue subjects and maintain a much higher population of mostly-Ventrue subjects than could ever be attained elsewhere, especially where the Ventrue in question feed on populations already subject to heightened illness and mortality rates that mask their activities (opiate addicts, the desperately impoverished) either as their restriction or as a particularly callous 'risk management' strategy that systematically leverages the tools of oppression and domination to ensure that whatever groups in the city are subject to concentrated predation are discredited and disenfranchised.
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Oct 12, 2019 10:16
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Isn't Bardo the province of a bloodline that's been extinct for like a thousand years?
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Oct 12, 2019 11:21
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Pope Guilty posted:Isn't Bardo the province of a bloodline that's been extinct for like a thousand years? Thought to be extinct, yes, but insignificant details like that one has never stopped some players to try some bs.
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Oct 12, 2019 11:46
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It's not a bloodline, they can't embrace people. It's more of a religion. The timeline of their supposed wiping out is actually....fairly recent in Second Edition. They don't truly die out until Mummy, where Osiris calls them all back and gives them one final test. Those that passed were made human again. Bardo is actually a lot like Obeah. It's not 'innate', it's something Osiris went east to learn from mystics. Lot of that going on in early vampire.
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Oct 12, 2019 12:15
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I think you'll find that the Children were wiped out several times and were never particularly numerous to begin with.
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Oct 12, 2019 12:36
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Holy poo poo is Vampire Magechat a drag. Like, sure buddy everyone is allowed to do whatever dumb bullshit in their own games. No problems there. If you want to really do something similar but far easier just play Requiem 1st edition and join the Ordo Dracul and get into a Hungarian marriage with someone. A lot less annoying too. PS: Unless your pc is a member of clan Tremere, you will be at the top of the hit list, have fun.
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Oct 12, 2019 12:41
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Holy poo poo is Vampire Magechat a drag. Like, sure buddy everyone is allowed to do whatever dumb bullshit in their own games. No problems there. Hey dude with a half dozen posts, what would *you* like to talk about?
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Oct 12, 2019 12:59
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Mulva posted:Hey dude with a half dozen posts, what would *you* like to talk about? Mage chat, obviously.
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Oct 12, 2019 13:03
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Angry Lobster posted:Mage chat, obviously. One advantage to Magechat is that at least I can't understand the how and why the ideas are bad sometimes.
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Oct 12, 2019 13:05
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I don't know, you seemed to have repeated the "They'll just kill you if you try this" bit like it hadn't already brought up, so I don't know that you understood *this* conversation either. On the plus side, you have 20% more posts in the thread! Dip your toe, get weird with it. What do you really, really want to talk about?
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Oct 12, 2019 13:08
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Mulva posted:I don't know, you seemed to have repeated the "They'll just kill you if you try this" bit like it hadn't already brought up, so I don't know that you understood *this* conversation either. On the plus side, you have 20% more posts in the thread! Dip your toe, get weird with it. What do you really, really want to talk about? Holy smokes you are unpleasant. More on topic, why would you be interested in playing a character that avoids one of the main core elements of the premise? Preying on the innocent because you are forced to in order to live in the central conceit of being a vampire. If you want to tell a story about trying to do something positive with your life Promethean is right there.
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Oct 12, 2019 13:12
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Holy smokes you are unpleasant. Finding a way to deal with vampirism that's not the usual stance of "give in to your monstruous nature" or "chase golconda" it's a fine premise for a character to explore. Doing it by gaming the system mechanichs using several obscure rituals, disciplines and other bullshit in whatever splatbooks White Wolf vomited it's kinda bad, cheesy and inconsistent with what the game is all about. On the other hand, at least he's not doing it for the usual reasons like making things explode harder or just to throw more dice.
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Oct 12, 2019 13:29
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Preying on the innocent because you are forced to in order to live in the central conceit of being a vampire. To some people. To others it's loving people over in highly detailed Social Darwinist hell pits. To others the conceit is playing super heroes with trench coats and katanas. It's a lot of people to a lot of things. I don't judge anyone. Except the people who go to LARPs to be assholes, they just tend to be real real creepy. As I said, I've always found that that the central conceit of vampire is that none of it had to be the way it is. Either version really, but especially the Masquerade version. The Jyhad is a tool designed to keep those in power in power, those outside oppressed, and everyone at each other's throats. And maybe that's a metaphor for our world with characters writ large [Surprise it's a metaphor] and maybe it's part of the biblical curse that turns Caine's children against each other like he turned on his brother, but regardless. Nothing *had* to be the way it is. Angry Lobster posted:Doing it by gaming the system mechanichs using several obscure rituals, disciplines and other bullshit in whatever splatbooks White Wolf vomited it's kinda bad, cheesy and inconsistent with what the game is all about. On the other hand, at least he's not doing it for the usual reasons like making things explode harder or just to throw more dice. We've had this discussion before, but the time between First and Second Edition Vampire was insanely quick. Under two years. You know who had time to show up in that time frame before second? The Children of Osiris. They predate Werewolf. They predate a lot of things. They became more and more rare as time went on [To the point where they are an incredibly niche group filled with vampires that can't embrace that has been being slaughtered for thousands and thousands of years, who also aren't secret because they need to recruit but somehow managed to last til near the End Times], but that's a function of wanting to make Vampire darker and more gritty. Stop pretending stuff like "Literally the signature ability of one of the core Clans" or "Something like one third of all clans regularly practice" is Visceratika. Also it's entirely what Vampire is about, it's just that for a lot of clans that goal of transformation is to eat God or become a giant flesh castle or some other crazy poo poo. Say you want to tear down the barriers between life and death, ok sure, say you want to eat popcorn on the reg and it's suddenly destroying the very nature of Vampire. Mulva fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 13:31
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Helical Nightmares posted:Werewolf the Apocalypse is getting a video game. Is the protagonist still going to be an extremely white Fianna? (I kid, of course he will be.) Oooh! Even better if he finds out he's actually the Last White Howler!
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Oct 12, 2019 13:36
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Loomer posted:That's some jank-rear end CGI. Releasing Werewolf exclusively to 3DO and Atari Jaguar was a period-appropriate decision driven by nostalgia.
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Oct 12, 2019 13:39
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Pope Guilty posted:Isn't Bardo the province of a bloodline that's been extinct for like a thousand years? Caitiff can spontaneously develop new disciplines, so there's nothing stopping a Caitiff from developing a "Hide My Vampiric Flaws" discipline that mimics the effects of these other rituals etc.
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Oct 12, 2019 14:55
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Mulva posted:Hey dude with a half dozen posts, what would *you* like to talk about? This is a new thread, so maybe post counting isn't that great a metric. Also, you and ferrinus have been yelling the same poo poo at each other for a bit now. Why don't you both drop it?
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Oct 12, 2019 14:59
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Mulva posted:They call themselves the Digital Draculas and openly say "Hey we'll teach you Technomancy and rituals!". And then they do, to anyone that wants it. Everyone that wants to, and can find the people who teach it, and can find the time - but then you’re still being willfully misleading, firstly because there’s plenty of flavor about the anarch sorcery mentors having their own rivalries and secrets and quirks and secondly because having a willing teacher isn’t the same as ability to learn. “Anyone at all can do magic if they only knew how” is not actually a well-supported claim, unless you mistake the rules for PC advancement for the rules of physics. quote:Are you hungry? It failed. No? It worked. And it's "Every hour you at risk". How many of those are there? Not like it's hard to store blood, knowing this ritual presupposes something: You can use ritual magic. Store some blood you moron, what's the point of knowing blood magic if you don't use it? Ah, I love the thing where putative system masters have an encyclopedic knowledge of only the rules convenient for them. When you fail a roll to cast a ritual it goes wrong in unpredictable ways, such as, and this is iirc the first example, appearing to have worked until it backfires or shuts down at just the wrong moment down the line. So, no, you are not free of hunger frenzy by casting Blood Rush. You have a lower than average chance of frenzying but are, every hour, literally rolling the dice on something as bad or worse happening to you - ESPECIALLY if you’re some kind of Int 2 Occult 1 dilettante who’s just learned it as part of a mandatory vocational program implementer by a new Baron who’s got some very progressive ideas. Now, there’s an implicit criticism you’re making here that I agree with - for someone with a high dicepool, Blood Rush is too good. It should have an actual drawback, like consuming a blood point to generate the effect or actually causing frenzy if used on consecutive hours since your Beast realizes it isn’t actually filling its belly or something. I blame it coming from a later supplement for being so out of the box convenient. But, rules as written, does it blow this whole hunger frenzy thing out of the water and point to a trivial way to revolutionize all of vampiric existence? No, that’s stupid hyperbole. quote:Why, because you're losing the argument? Being done is the end of a road, but it's not like the start of the road is without benefits. I won't pretend that any giving neonate could know all this after a five year crash course. That's silly. Anyone could build towards it though, and knowing it is there is it's own comfort. quote:You've yet to establish it is a knack, or to what degree it is. You just say it and move on like that's an argument, whereas the setting seems to think it takes root all over the world all the time with the slightest opportunity. Again, this is wrong. Anyone could daydream about building towards it. But, even if for some ridiculous reason the world’s last Child of Osiris knocked on their door desperate to pass on their mystic secrets, time and will aren’t actually the only things separating every last person from world-class mastery of every single skill. Your average person has no hope of mastering the violin, let alone of mastering an esoteric magical practice. quote:Now. A thousand years ago not so much. And even now there are still the Harbingers, and the Samedi. And unrelateds like the Nagaraja [Who if not with the Tal'Mahe'Ra are known for being mercenary]. And the fact that maybe not everyone called "Giovanni" is quite so Giovanni as they might like. What I’m hearing is that all these magical disciplines are, in fact, rare and esoteric. Absolutely mind-boggling that “b-b-but the ancients used these mysterious powers all the time!” is supposed to convince anyone that they’re freely available in the modern day. Guys I figured out the perfect plan! Step one, discover the actual physical site of Atlantis, quote:It's the Ordu Dracul mindset in the oWoD setting. What's weird about it? You are a horrific occult abomination, are you telling me nobody ever went "Can I do something about this?". They all just went "Guess I have to slam my dick in the door of all these horrific biblical curses til the end of time or go full tilt into Golconda, there is absolutely zero middle ground". Ah, suddenly you’ve moderated your stance. Are you telling me that NOBODY ever tried to mitigate their curse with magic, Ferrinus? That NOBODY can EVER do this??? Well, yes, given that your plan in full is to become a dual-classed Salubri/Tremere Antitrib with a level dip into the Cappadocian prestige path, but if we ignore that for a minute and just talk about learning a spot of thaumaturgy, “nobody”, “somebody”, and “everybody” are different words with different meanings. Obviously SOME mystically-inclined vampires devote their lives to personal transfiguration and ascetism. But can everyone? Can everyone even if, somehow, all the spellbooks required could simply be checked out of the local library? No. The Ordo Dracul is a great example here because it’s not ACTUALLY true that everyone can learn the Coils. Every PC can, for the same reason that every PC might secretly be the next Einstein or Bolt or Da Vinci. But can every vampire? No, many simply destroy themselves trying (hence (some of) the rigorous gatekeeping and secrecy), because this poo poo is actually incredibly hard.
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Oct 12, 2019 15:23
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You timing is impeccable.
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Oct 12, 2019 15:29
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Soonmot posted:This is a new thread, so maybe post counting isn't that great a metric. Also, you and ferrinus have been yelling the same poo poo at each other for a bit now. Why don't you both drop it? You mean you don't want pages upon pages of arguments about Dracula Houdinis and how not at all dumb an idea they are?
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Oct 12, 2019 15:35
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Holy smokes you are unpleasant.
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Oct 12, 2019 15:35
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Love 2 drop things after being asked to
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Oct 12, 2019 15:42
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joylessdivision posted:You mean you don't want pages upon pages of arguments about Dracula Houdinis and how not at all dumb an idea they are? Actually, that's cool and good, but we're running into the magechat issue here where it's just the same people yelling the same things at each other over and over.
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Oct 12, 2019 15:46
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I was poking around for information on the Lower Depths and just skimmed nWoD: Inferno since that's all there really is beyond at most a paragraph-long blurb in a couple Mage books. Is this, uh, as sorta-crappy as it looks? It seems like it's literally just "yes, wicked demons of wickedness, 666 Satan is a gently caress." Which sure I'm glad anyone who wanted that specifically got their book, but it seems hard to stretch that out to 100+ pages without getting pretty thin. It also seems to have hardly anything to do with what the Lower Depths are suggested to be.
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Oct 13, 2019 01:30
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| # ? May 31, 2024 11:07 |
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joylessdivision posted:You mean you don't want pages upon pages of arguments about Dracula Houdinis and how not at all dumb an idea they are?
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Oct 13, 2019 01:53
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