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Rand Brittain posted:I kind of got the impression it was "oh, the Contagion can be anything you want!". It is declining literacy rates.
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Nov 9, 2019 02:59
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Lord_Hambrose posted:It is declining literacy rates. The Contagion is you and me.
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Nov 9, 2019 03:08
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Rand Brittain posted:I kind of got the impression it was "oh, the Contagion can be anything you want!". As far as I can tell, it's: "God-Machine infrastructure glitching out or misfiring in a way that causes miscellaneous supernatural problems connected thematically only by the fact that they are Problems and they have some kind of Contagious Component." In practice this is basically anything that has some kind of little-C contagious component, because the writing appears not to really understand what God-Machine infrastructure is, and frequently just throws out the word "infrastructure" without any clear material embodiment or referent, as if the laws of physics themselves count as infrastructure, and Contagion outbreaks therefore just kind of spontaneously happen wherever out of nothing. Also note that some sample Contagion outbreaks have central foci that are not little-C contagious, like the appearance of a mummy from another dimension who is written up with Mummy: the Curse traits despite being nothing like a Mummy: the Curse mummy. The mummy has powers that can inflict little-C contagious conditions, but the mummy itself is a much more prominent manifestation of the outbreak. I Am Just a Box fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Nov 9, 2019 |
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Nov 9, 2019 03:10
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Now that I've flipped through the PDF of Book of the Fallen at my friend's place, I gotta say it's not as stupid and poorly handled as I expected (though I've mostly only skimmed it), but it retains the fundamental problem anyone could have expected after reading that sidebar in the M20 core and then hearing that they're making this book anyway. Especially after the dreck of the Companion book. Brucato has a lot to say about, well everything all the time as usual, but he makes a largely inoffensive go at introducing the book with a caution about the mundanity and ubiquity of real evil, and how that should inform the book's and reader's perspective on just what the Nephandi are. But then we get to stuff like the Thuggee, which sure whatever historical stuff is fun to imagine going underground and surviving as secret mystical woo into the modern day, but you take this (likely) racist British invention and turn it into a real evil cult. The book even discusses a supposed real-world history of the cult without mentioning that it, uh, was maybe just a gross colonialist fantasy. And of course, despite the name of the pre-intro introduction ("Evil Is Not A Toy") you've got lists of cool agg-damage swords that crackle with black lightning and, uuuuuugggh, 30 pages of Merits and Flaws. To a certain degree, I get it. It's not just a Brucato thing or a White Wolf thing or a 90's thing to write everything in symmetry with the PCs, including stuff you swear up and down you don't want them to have. But the thing is, you don't have to do it that way, and frankly someone putting this much effort into wringing his hands should drat well have figured that out. And in a book absolutely dripping with admonishments it's hard not roll your eyes like a centrifuge when you get a giant sidebar about real human trafficking along with a bunch of outright boring character write-ups, and then shortly thereafter you get a stat block for Cujo But Summoned From Hell and a Zalgo reference. Brucato desperately wants to create something important and real, and he is just loving not on the right game line to be doing that, and he may just not be the writer for it anyway. In summary: "I can't stop you from playing Nephandi if you really want to, but I'm not putting a Fallen character sheet in the back of this book. Evil is not a toy. BTW here is a big evil toybox full of evil toys."
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Nov 9, 2019 11:38
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joylessdivision posted:Hey Loomer, would you by chance have that BoN/RotDM corresponding lines thing actually written down somewhere because I finally got my copies last night and I'd love to give it a try. Just PM me if you do, I would super appreciate it. There’s nothing really useful written down, I’m afraid, at least not that I can send out without copyright issues. The best advice I can give you is to set it up in a 5-column table, with the first 4 for the source texts and the last for commentary. that, and to view it as a meditative exercise with the appropriate music, substances, and time to transcribe the lines, which will take longer than you might think. You may also find it interesting to look up the names and places to find their Greek or Hebrew equivalents for gematria, or even try English Gematria, especially in the case of RotDM which was written by a chaos magician. The tricky part in RotDM is deciding where to line break and verse break in the segments presented as one long text block. I personally went with chunks that could be relatively self contained, but there’s no right or wrong answer.
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Nov 9, 2019 16:17
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Loomer posted:There’s nothing really useful written down, I’m afraid, at least not that I can send out without copyright issues. The best advice I can give you is to set it up in a 5-column table, with the first 4 for the source texts and the last for commentary. that, and to view it as a meditative exercise with the appropriate music, substances, and time to transcribe the lines, which will take longer than you might think. You may also find it interesting to look up the names and places to find their Greek or Hebrew equivalents for gematria, or even try English Gematria, especially in the case of RotDM which was written by a chaos magician. Nice, I will probably give this a try at some point when I'm very stoned and reading weird biblical vampire stuff seems like a good idea.
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Nov 9, 2019 16:29
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Rand Brittain posted:Unfortunately, the new Mummy manuscript is a mess. You could have said this before I pledged 
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Nov 9, 2019 19:35
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Tias posted:You could have said this before I pledged You can un-pledge after reading the backer manuscript, can’t you? If it’s that technically garbled?
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Nov 9, 2019 19:41
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Joe Slowboat posted:You can un-pledge after reading the backer manuscript, can’t you? If it’s that technically garbled? You can change your pledge at any time until the campaign ends on December 5th, including withdrawing altogether. That's what I ended up doing when the Contagion Chronicle turned out to be a big disappointment for me. The latest Onyx Path Kickstarters release the backer manuscript in episodic chunks, a chapter or two a week, and if you drop below a $5 pledge you lose access to the manuscript updates. Kind of a turn towards less consumer trust from the days of the Demon Kickstarter, when they simply posted a link to the full manuscript on the Kickstarter page for anyone to view on day one. I Am Just a Box fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Nov 9, 2019 |
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Nov 9, 2019 20:03
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Releasing the manuscripts in chunks seems to be a better way of spreading the word, because people are more likely to dig into it that way than if you just give them a giant unformatted book and hope they get to it that month.
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Nov 9, 2019 20:07
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Honestly I like the impression of Contagion I have, which is kind of a Wyrm-Weaver thing in that the GM created the concept of "contagion" and it's since expanded beyond something it can control. Memes are Contagion. Kilroy is a ghost which was infected after death and now it compels people to graffiti itself over the whole world. Pity it's unrelated to the actual book.
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Nov 9, 2019 20:09
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So it's pretty clear where Nosferatu and Toreador come from but what were the inspirations for the other Clans?
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Nov 10, 2019 05:13
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NikkolasKing posted:So it's pretty clear where Nosferatu and Toreador come from but what were the inspirations for the other Clans? Ventrue are also probably kind of Anne Rice, but may be OG content. Gangrel seem to have been working back from the bat/wolf end of the Dracula power set. Tremere may be original but have some connection with Ars Magica. I suspect Malkavians are also rooted in Anne Rice, but may also be a way to hearken back to all the weird OCD details in vampire myth.
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Nov 10, 2019 05:23
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NikkolasKing posted:So it's pretty clear where Nosferatu and Toreador come from but what were the inspirations for the other Clans? Tzimisce are an odd fusion of Dracula and Brian Lumley's Necroscope series.
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Nov 10, 2019 08:12
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Nessus posted:Gangrel seem to have been working back from the bat/wolf end of the Dracula power set. Plus all of the shapeshifting weirder vampire stories. Nessus posted:Tremere may be original but have some connection with Ars Magica. I believe Tremere are original; they have the best origin story, being "magic's dying out and we can't sustain immortality anymore; what now?" And yeah, directly connected to Ars Magica, House Tremere being dicks there as well.
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Nov 10, 2019 15:57
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ulmont posted:Plus all of the shapeshifting weirder vampire stories. A very different kind of dicks, tho, which is why no one was super surprised that 4e Ars was like 'gently caress this vampire bullshit.'
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Nov 10, 2019 17:05
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The Tremere also remind me of Lestat's sire, Magnus, an alchemist who turned himself into a vampire after kidnapping and draining a vampire. https://vampirechronicles.fandom.com/wiki/Magnus
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Nov 10, 2019 18:08
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Octavo posted:The Tremere also remind me of Lestat's sire, Magnus, an alchemist who turned himself into a vampire after kidnapping and draining a vampire. Interesting. That's how Draclua became a vampire in the WoD.
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Nov 10, 2019 18:20
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The Gangrel are also pretty Anne Rice influenced. Gabrielle, Lestat's mom who he turned into a vampire, liked to wander the wilds and would just earthmeld when the sun came up.
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Nov 10, 2019 19:52
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Malkavians seem to be a combination of Renfield from Dracula, the weirder vampire oddities like the compulsion to count spilled grain, the game's focus on conspiracies and fantastical hidden worlds, and the general motif of mental illness in both Victorian literature and 90s pop culture. Plus if you already have the Nosferatu concept it's really easy to jump from there to a clan that is mentally "deformed". I also suspect they were intended to be the easiest clan to use if you wanted to include archetypes the game didn't already account for. Want a gimmick from an obscure source, or have a character concept that integrates poorly with the other clans' stereotypes? Just say that's your character's particular Derangement. The Nosferatu though don't have much in common with their namesake outside of their general appearance. They seem more like an adaptation of mole people-style stories.
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Nov 10, 2019 21:42
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YaketySass posted:
I suspect they're also an attempt to integrate the idea of vampires as monsters, outwardly monstrous monsters, (as opposed to the sexy immortality curse that comes at a cost to your empathy vampires,) with the Vampire game line. There's a fair amount of frightful undead beast in vampire lore that sometimes gets overshadowed by the romantic gothic vampire.
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Nov 10, 2019 23:21
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Are there any vampires who hunt "their own kind" and/or really hate other vampires? There are multiple vampire sects in both oWoD and nWoD who consider vampires to be cursed and inherently evil. Seems like a small step from that to "we should all be destroyed." I dunno, a self-hating Kindred seems like the most natural thing in the world to me. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Nov 11, 2019 |
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Nov 11, 2019 01:00
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NikkolasKing posted:Are there any vampire s who hunt "their own kind" and/or really hate other vampires? Assamites, they consider all vampires a blight upon the world and believe their only chance to redemption is by hunting and killing them all.
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Nov 11, 2019 01:09
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In some books Absimiliard, the Nosferatu Antediluvian, also wants to exterminate his clan because he believes that will make Caine more likely to forgive him and undo his curse.
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Nov 11, 2019 01:12
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NikkolasKing posted:Are there any vampires who hunt "their own kind" and/or really hate other vampires? In the wise words of Lestat: "Ah, Louis - after all these years... STILL WHINING..."
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Nov 11, 2019 01:15
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And your average vampire is way too self-centered to think 'we all must be destroyed.' Even the Assamites' Warrior bloodline was made to judge other vampires instead of eradicating them, although that got a bit out of hand on multiple levels.
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Nov 11, 2019 01:25
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NikkolasKing posted:Are there any vampires who hunt "their own kind" and/or really hate other vampires? There's the "choose your own canon" covenant of VII in nWoD. VII is composed of vampires who hunt vampires. Next to nothing is known about them and both 1e and 2e made them a multiple choice covenant. I think my favourite version of them is the one that appears in Secrets of the Covenant as a conspiracy to suppress dangerous scriptures in the Testament of Longinus - a plot thread born of an IRL typo.
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Nov 11, 2019 01:28
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Hilariously, one interpretation of the True Black Hand is that. That vampires are a cancer on humanity, and that raising up the 3rd Generation will decimate the vampire population and leave humanity better off. Because it's basically a sect of like nine other sects working together, what happens after that point is up for grabs. Their general M.O. is to keep vampires from getting too much control or running too wild.
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Nov 11, 2019 01:44
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NikkolasKing posted:Are there any vampires who hunt "their own kind" and/or really hate other vampires? Elder vampires in Requiem eventually reach a point where feeding on other vampires is the only way they can survive, although that's a different reason for hunting their own kind than you're describing.
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Nov 11, 2019 03:06
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Do I need to read/digest the Chronicles of Darkness book to get started with the CoD Vampire/Werewolf books, or are they their own separate entities now? I remember reading back when nWoD was announced, the WoD book was a core rulebook and everything else was an expansion...
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Nov 11, 2019 03:08
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Yoshimo posted:Do I need to read/digest the Chronicles of Darkness book to get started with the CoD Vampire/Werewolf books, or are they their own separate entities now? I remember reading back when nWoD was announced, the WoD book was a core rulebook and everything else was an expansion... Other than Demon, which is a 2e game ruleswise but was released during that 'transition period', each 2e mainline is standalone. You can still get the corebook if you want for more detailed information on 'mundane' stuff - for example, you're not going to get a lot of information on vehicles in Mage. Some stuff like psychic powers is also now in the 2e core.
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Nov 11, 2019 03:15
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NikkolasKing posted:Are there any vampires who hunt "their own kind" and/or really hate other vampires? There's a Nosferatu bloodline in Requiem called the Noctuku who are vampiric cannibals. They have a unique discipline concerned with blood control.
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Nov 11, 2019 03:26
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Octavo posted:a plot thread born of an IRL typo. I desperately need more context for this one.
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Nov 11, 2019 14:14
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Hattie Masters posted:I desperately need more context for this one. I had no idea an IRL typo was the reason behind the plot arc but here’s the IC context. Several years ago White Wolf published The Testament of Longinus, which is the sacred text of the Lancea et Sanctum, and it’s structured into a Book:Chapter:Verse format like the Bible. One of the chapters in the last book skips straight from Verse 7 to 11, which I must assume is the typo in question. In the more recent book, Secret of the Covenants, they riff on it, suggesting there’s some kind of conspiracy that is actively suppressing verses 8, 9, and 10.
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Nov 11, 2019 15:05
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Sorry to ask another dumb question but I can't find a straight answer online for this either - are the 1st and 2nd edition stuff for the nWoD/CoD stuff compatible with each other?
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Nov 11, 2019 21:15
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Yoshimo posted:Sorry to ask another dumb question but I can't find a straight answer online for this either - are the 1st and 2nd edition stuff for the nWoD/CoD stuff compatible with each other? No. Converting between the two is possible, but the shift to Integrity changes a lot of underlying assumptions, as does the change to how weapon damage works in combat.
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Nov 11, 2019 21:19
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Hey all. Looking for help making a relatively robust character - for flavour I'm selecting a Malk (not fish) with prophetic dream merit but looking for suggestions on others, as well as point allocations / freebie allocations to enable robustness. I have a head-goal of the character having quite a bit of dexterity and stealth but other than that, I'd happily take suggestions. Any merits that are really useful to increase longevity barring poor choices (I'm looking at things like 'Lucky') Appreciated. We're using v20 WoD if that helps.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:14
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Mors Rattus posted:No. Converting between the two is possible, but the shift to Integrity changes a lot of underlying assumptions, as does the change to how weapon damage works in combat. Christ, my head hurts now. So all the pregen stuff for original WtA can't be used with 2e? I can't seem to find info about anything else release for WtA 2e other than the core rulebook, I guess my question is "is there any point in playing 2e?" We don't have the time to make up our own stuff, hence the need for pregen scenarios.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:18
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Yoshimo posted:Christ, my head hurts now. So all the pregen stuff for original WtA can't be used with 2e? I can't seem to find info about anything else release for WtA 2e other than the core rulebook, I guess my question is "is there any point in playing 2e?" We don't have the time to make up our own stuff, hence the need for pregen scenarios. There's been The Pack, on packs, and a Night Horrors book full of enemies you can use. For the most part, actual scenarios are fine to use but you're going to have to rework the stats to fit at times. Spirits have changed fairly little between editions, so it's mostly tracking the shifts in how werewolf forms work and the Sacred Hunt. Werewolf is probably one of the easier ones to convert. e: with the caveat that Harmony works hugely differently, so any rules depending on Harmony are going to be a lot of work.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:21
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Iymarra posted:Hey all. Looking for help making a relatively robust character - for flavour I'm selecting a Malk (not fish) with prophetic dream merit but looking for suggestions on others, as well as point allocations / freebie allocations to enable robustness. Dementation 3 could be useful for additional propheseering, but it also might not be useful at all. Obfuscate 2 lets you run while invisible, which is never not useful. Celerity to run faster. To answer your actual question, Prestegious Sire is socially useful, also Spirit Mentor, Allies, Ettiquette and Common Sense also socially useful.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:23
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