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Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
Paradox effects that weaken or ruin the spell you're casting suck rear end, both because they make paradox really unfun as a game mechanic (especially Bedlam. can you believe that was the most basic paradox available in 1e? yeesh) and because it doesn't fit the theme of paradox loving up the world in general rather than you in particular. Paradox effects should always be elaborations on and additions to a spell or environmental consequences around a spell. A spell manifesting but flatly not doing what you want should be one of the possible results of failing to cast it correctly/completely in the first place.

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Digital Osmosis
Nov 10, 2002

Smile, Citizen! Happiness is Mandatory.

Top Hats Monthly posted:

It has always seemed to me that at best Vampires are deeply deeply conflicted, and that's putting it at absolute best. Metapod's argument seems to draw the line that no vampire can harbor any good at all, which really isn't true but he is raising a point that I feel is valid that at absolute best vampires are predatory shitheads.

Except he's not, he's arguing something like "at an absolute best, vampires are unpeople" and he's not doing it to raise a point, he's doing it to be an rear end in a top hat. And, tbh, I thought he was doing a bit better before this derail - for example his posts on various VtM podcasts I don't give the slightest gently caress about seem to be completely unobjectionable. But trolls gonna troll and no one's gonna argue metapod isn't annoyingly good at finding the smallest justification possible to be a horrendous shithead.

Ferrinus posted:

Well the thing is that, as usual, he is wrong. "At best" vampires aren't predatory. "On average" and even "by default" they certainly are, but that's owed to circumstances, not to nature.

While salient and correct, this is coming dangerously close to responding instead of counter-trolling. I expect better from you, sensei.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
Trolling just means expressing sincere beliefs that people don’t want to hear.

Digital Osmosis
Nov 10, 2002

Smile, Citizen! Happiness is Mandatory.

Ferrinus posted:

Trolling just means expressing sincere beliefs that people don’t want to hear.

Yes, but in a way that drives people who don't hold those beliefs loving insane instead of in a way that continues further discussion with them. Like, don't get me wrong, it was definitely some gnosis++ poo poo when I realized that you meant (and I mostly agreed with) everything you were saying, I just think the knives could have come out a bit harder considering the transparent bad faith that the discussion started with. Although I suppose there's something to be said for forceful and provocative expression that furthers discussion regardless of the context, and trolling itself is operating in something like "ironically bad faith" so the line is a bit blurry...


Whatever, not wanting to get too meta here. I'll instead turn back to blood magic: yup, I re-read VtR 2E's humanity break points and they did an admirable job of removing the "morality meter" elements and making it just "how detached from the human condition / how used to the vampiric condition are you?" That actually removes a ton of my bitching about it's use in limiting blood sorcery. There's perhaps small quibble I might still have with "less human means less rational" but it's pretty minor compared to how I remembered it going, and the Gothic Conception of Madness is pretty baked into the setting and somewhat inoffensive if everyone considers it a genre convention.

Everyone
Sep 6, 2019

by sebmojo

Jhet posted:

Yes, but animals cannot awaken

Neither will most humans. Does that means it's okay to eat the ones that don't get magic sooperpowerz?

"Humans are a horror on the planet. They abuse us, pen us in, steal the milk from our children and slaughter us for meat" - any cow.

The thing about vampires is that for them, humans are "the cows." Of course most of their meals survive (and kind of enjoy) the experience of being "eaten."

So, for those folks holding forth on how vampires should "ethically source" their meals, how much of what you consume here in the modern early 21st century do you ethically source? Are you totally vegan? Are you absolutely certain that everything you own (including the components of the stuff you own) weren't made in some overseas sweatshop? Figure for most here, the answer is no. Most aren't even going to try to do that. I know I'm not. I'll make a desultory effort now and then, but it's certainly not a consistent lifestyle choice. Even if they can't think as sentient beings, animals can still feel pain and fear. Even knowing that, I'm still going to eat the occasional bacon cheeseburger. And so are you.

The reason vampires make us uncomfortable is that they're still kind of us, except that we're the bacon cheeseburgers.

Froghammer
Sep 8, 2012

Khajit has wares
if you have coin
Existing as a vampire is trying to ethically consume under capitalism

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
Vampires, especially in the nWoD, can essentially be understood as victims of a kind of supernatural wound or disease; the appropriate response to vampirism is one based on pathology, not difference.

That said, the Masquerade is incompatible with any notion of humanity as a moral community, and any vampire who supports it as an ideology should be regarded as somewhere on a spectrum between anti-vaxxers and fascists.

Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Feb 19, 2020

GimpInBlack
Sep 27, 2012

That's right, kids, take lots of drugs, leave the universe behind, and pilot Enlightenment Voltron out into the cosmos to meet Alien Jesus.

Ferrinus posted:

Paradox effects that weaken or ruin the spell you're casting suck rear end, both because they make paradox really unfun as a game mechanic (especially Bedlam. can you believe that was the most basic paradox available in 1e? yeesh) and because it doesn't fit the theme of paradox loving up the world in general rather than you in particular. Paradox effects should always be elaborations on and additions to a spell or environmental consequences around a spell. A spell manifesting but flatly not doing what you want should be one of the possible results of failing to cast it correctly/completely in the first place.

This 100%. In the Mage game I'm about to start running, I'm planning to basically ignore the "change spell factors" results for actual Paradoxes and instead adapt them for a "success with cost" mechanic for failed spellcasting rolls.


Joe Slowboat posted:

My players have been really careful with Paradox, but I figured out this was in large part because they found the paradox effects like 'spell hits wrong target' incredibly frustrating, pretty quickly. So I talked to them and got a much crueler but less frustrating system: When they got Paradox, I could just mark it down by character and store it up until it could pay for a more interesting Abyssal manifestation.

This is a great idea and I'm stealing it. Banked Paradox reaches last for your Wisdom-based Paradox duration, or you can scour them out like Paradox Conditions.


Mors Rattus posted:

How do I turn the moon into a Manichaean engine to collect and purify goodness so that all may eventually transcend the cage of flesh, which darkness seals them in by the lures of lies, procreation and hate?

All right, what the hell, let's do this. The mechanics are a bit of a kludge since Imperial Mysteries hasn't been updated to 2e, but here's my best guess:

If we define "goodness" as Goetia of positive thoughts, morality, and virtue, then collecting them would be a Mind 6 (practice of Dynamism) spell to pluck them out of the Astral whenever they manifest. Turning the moon into an engine that purifies and refines them would require some combination of Mind 7 (the Practice of Dominions) and Mind 3 (practice of Perfecting). From there it kind of depends on what you want to do with the perfected goodness. Transmute it directly into new Supernal symbols to bolster the power of semiotic righteousness? That's probably Mind 4, Prime 7 or 8.

Presumably the Quintessence for this spell would be "convince the world to give up procreation and the consumption of all meat," which itself would be best accomplished with its own Mind 6 spell--one of the examples for Mind 6 in Imperial Mysteries is "create a viral belief system that influences anyone who interacts with a subject of the spell."

Repeat basically the same process but with Forces to store the light of the sun as well.

Now, the chief difficulty you're going to run into with this Imperial working is that plucking someone's Goetia out removes that aspect of their personality, so while you're collecting and purifying all souls' goodness in your moon engine, life on earth is going to get... interesting. As in, "makes The Purge look like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" interesting. So maybe instead you want to immediately beam those reforged Goetia back into the Oneiroi of every human on earth, or maybe you could just inject them straight into the Temenos and let them trickle up into individual Oneiroi as the collectove unconscious of humanity skews more toward "be excellent to each other."

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Btw, y’all really should read up on Manichaeanism, it’s fuckin’ wild.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Froghammer posted:

Existing as a vampire is trying to ethically consume under capitalism

Existing as a vampire who only eats billionaires is the only form of ethical consumption under capitalism.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell

thespaceinvader posted:

Existing as a vampire who only eats billionaires is the only form of ethical consumption under capitalism.

Ventrue: Surprisingly the most ethical clan

Froghammer
Sep 8, 2012

Khajit has wares
if you have coin

thespaceinvader posted:

Existing as a vampire who only eats billionaires is the only form of ethical consumption under capitalism.
More than anything, the ethical vampire question reminds me of this Innuendo Studios essay, where Ian Danskin argues that the cultural pushback against people attempting to live by ethical standards (vegetarian / veganism, only buying fair trade, refusing to purchase products based on unethical business practices of the company that makes them, etc) comes, in part, from the fact that their mere existence raises ethical questions about day-to-day living that certain segments of the public are more comfortable not asking themselves, complete with fear of judgement. One of the most common responses is to poke at their worldview until a hypocrisy or inconsistency is found, so that person and their percieved ethical questions about your life can be dismissed entirely. "You're a vegetarian? Well, you still wear leather, so who cares what you think, I'm gonna go eat this hamburger".

I think it's really easy and tempting to fall into the same trap when roleplaying as vampires, because since the assumption is that all of the other players are also vampires, their objections to wildly unethical behavior can be very easily dismissed. "What, you don't think it's 'ethical' to keep a bunch of ghouled children chained up in my basement so I can use them as blood dolls? You're a literal bloodthirsty monster. If you were really concerned with ethics, you'd sun yourself to death tomorrow morning. Quit being a hypocrite".

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013

Everyone posted:

Neither will most humans. Does that means it's okay to eat the ones that don't get magic sooperpowerz?

The reason vampires make us uncomfortable is that they're still kind of us, except that we're the bacon cheeseburgers.

I was definitely on Mage chat, but this logic carries for what I was saying in that somewhat tongue in cheek example, yes. Although, when you’re a mage, you’re probably less worried about being a snack for a vampire and more worried about your soul getting lost somewhere along the way. Or maybe you’re not scared of either. Hubris is a coward’s word after all.

Archonex
May 2, 2012

MY OPINION IS SEERS OF THE THRONE PROPAGANDA IGNORE MY GNOSIS-IMPAIRED RAMBLINGS

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Vampires, especially in the nWoD, can essentially be understood as victims of a kind of supernatural wound or disease; the appropriate response to vampirism is one based on pathology, not difference.

That said, the Masquerade is incompatible with any notion of humanity as a moral community, and any vampire who supports it as an ideology should be regarded as somewhere on a spectrum between anti-vaxxers and fascists.

This is pretty much 100% accurate. With the qualifier that the Masquerade is probably 100% necessary to survive in earlier centuries. The way it's depicted compared to the setting means it is ironically just as much as a hold over from earlier, less civilized times as much as the Invictus's "claim to be nobility but also really be gangsters" schtick. As it is it's just fueling the worst excesses of the vampires depicted in the books. Which in turn leads to more hunters with entirely justifiable reasons behind why they want to kill vampires. Which in turn leads to more violence. Which in turn leads to more monsters as poo poo goes awry for the younger ones that are used as cannon fodder to protect the older ones. Etc, etc.

Like, imagine if the Masquerade came down during the era of the inquisition. This is actually a plot point that's brought up. It doesn't matter how good you are. Authoritarian power systems love them some genocide and oppressive behavior that they can scapegoat why things are so terrible for the people with. And that's just a notable one that's mentioned in the canon of both the OWoD and NWoD.

This is also true today to a certain extent. Imagine if, during the reign of Trump vampires revealed themselves to the world. It doesn't matter if they're ethical, decent people or monsters. Nor would it matter if there's some True Blood type situation going on. The Republicans and Fox News would fear monger so hard we'd have them in concentration/outright death camps before your head could spin. Anything to get elected and keep shoveling money to your corporate paymasters friends in the private sector is the motto of that group.

Timing is everything. Which is why that "What if Carthians were the Camarilla?" segment in one book is so neat. Granted, it's clear they're making the wrong choices in how they do it. But it's definitely a nice warm up for whenever that Shattered Masquerade book comes out.


Edit: Also, I almost forgot but even in the base line NWoD there's ways to get literally infinite blood if you have the occult knowledge. Literally any vampire that knows how to access the Underworld can get as much as they want. And the difference between the way they do it (Literally all it requires is to tip your head upwards, hold your mouth open, and wait for a few hours to get all the blood dripping down from on high. Basically, act like a chicken that cannot drown.) and simply putting a bucket out to collect the stuff is just whether or not you have a bucket on hand.

Likewise, there's plenty of ways to straight up create blood. I think one poster even mentioned a player in his Mage game was buddying up to a lot of vampires by saying "Yeah, I can heal myself and have infinite blood as a result. Here you go." with the caveat that he was doing it in a pants on head stupid way so he was going to get eaten eventually.

It's like saying that something isn't possible when the reality is that the knowledge or technology doesn't exist for it yet. Except it does. And there's even alternate versions of the setting that have straight up alternative things vampires can feed on (They can literally go Vegan by eating a special type of plant, for instance.) in place of blood.

Archonex fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Feb 19, 2020

PHIZ KALIFA
Dec 21, 2011

#mood

Archonex posted:

This is also true today to a certain extent. Imagine if, during the reign of Trump vampires revealed themselves to the world. It doesn't matter if they're ethical, decent people or monsters. Nor would it matter if there's some True Blood type situation going on. The Republicans and Fox News would fear monger so hard we'd have them in concentration/outright death camps before your head could spin. Anything to get elected and keep shoveling money to your corporate paymasters friends in the private sector is the motto of that group.

you make a lot of interesting points, but i think if this were the case it would extremely quickly become "and then trump was the vampires" assuming, somehow, they weren't already the vampires.

Also, it's one thing to breach the masquerade, but there are degrees to which the masquerade can breach. "vampires are real" is different from "vampires are real, they've got mind control powers, can go invisible, and make you their blood slaves." if vamps are organized enough to hide themselves wholecloth from humans, i think they could just as easily agree to hide the full extent of their powers from their mortals.
You could even gently caress around and create whole other alternate misdirection-based masquerades. "vampires are real but they exist to protect people from the sins accumulating in their blood," "vampires are real and they're superheroes protecting people from ~the strix~," "vampires are just the next evolution of humanity," "vampires exist to keep the Children Of The Lesser Dark sleeping" and so forth. Depending on the context of how the masquerade is breached, you can even try presenting it as a good thing.

There's always a percentage of the population who rushes to defend the most abhorrent take possible, it's totally believable to imagine that mortals in the existing power structure would immedately cozy up to the deathless super-monsters.

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters

Archonex posted:

It's like saying that something isn't possible when the reality is that the knowledge or technology doesn't exist for it yet. Except it does. And there's even alternate versions of the setting that have straight up alternative things vampires can feed on (They can literally go Vegan by eating a special type of plant, for instance.) in place of blood.

Wait really? That's hilarious. Just this super hipster vampire, scarf around the neck and a man bun (no real hate on them, but it's really the stereotypical look). Small glasses, V neck. Fangs.

"Oh, you're still eating rats? No, see, I don't eat anything that actually has blood in it, how revolting."

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

Archonex posted:

This is also true today to a certain extent. Imagine if, during the reign of Trump vampires revealed themselves to the world. It doesn't matter if they're ethical, decent people or monsters. Nor would it matter if there's some True Blood type situation going on. The Republicans and Fox News would fear monger so hard we'd have them in concentration/outright death camps before your head could spin. Anything to get elected and keep shoveling money to your corporate paymasters friends in the private sector is the motto of that group.

I think this is true whatever, whereever. These are literally beings of the night who have covertly fed on humanity for centuries. Of course people would panic if they found out vampires could exist, and, fundamentally, they'd be right to. This isn't an imagined global conspiricy caused by a minority, like anti-Semites say Jews indulge in. It's literally a global conspiracy perpertrated by a species that eats humans and can control their minds. Their existence is pretty much inimical to human life. It doesn't take an authoritarian government to start a crusade to destroy them, every democracy would, because the argument that they should be tolerated is pretty much impossible to make to the general public

Archonex
May 2, 2012

MY OPINION IS SEERS OF THE THRONE PROPAGANDA IGNORE MY GNOSIS-IMPAIRED RAMBLINGS

Morpheus posted:

Wait really? That's hilarious. Just this super hipster vampire, scarf around the neck and a man bun (no real hate on them, but it's really the stereotypical look). Small glasses, V neck. Fangs.

"Oh, you're still eating rats? No, see, I don't eat anything that actually has blood in it, how revolting."

Yeah, I forget what the book name is but google the words NWoD Woundgate and it's in that book. That's the name of an alternate reality/alternate take on the setting where the supernatural is already out to the public in a really unique way.

The way I remember it being described is that something happened so that the whole Exarch situation no longer exists (and quite possibly never happened). Instead there's some weird Lovecraftian angels loving around in a wound in reality and what might have been the Hsil/the spirit world changed so that it was colonized by mankind and all the other supernaturals. The people in the default living world don't seem to know about the supernatural. But the people that live on the other side of the barrier are just "Eh. Whatever. I've seen weirder." to the sort of stuff that exists in vanilla NWoD.

I think it even gets mentioned that the US government considers both sides of the world that corresponds to their territory as theirs. So despite the Masquerade effectively not existing any more you could get up to all sorts of neat situations with Hunters too like where federals agents gotta go track down the vampire serial killer since he's some "purist" that won't loving stop eating people to death. Or this ghoul/dhampir family won't stop murdering people to feed their blood to the vampire food substitute because they think it makes it taste better so we had better deploy the army to go gently caress them up. It's the sort of setting where you could do an intro to the setting like: "Investigative reporter discovers hole in reality. Realizes there are entire civilizations out there. Then whoops it turns out it's just occult America/insert nation here. Cue adventure." as an intro.

In fact, I think it was designed so that you could even add it onto an existing default WoD game if you wanted too. With the caveat that if you don't do it in a certain way it'll make groups like vampires and their society look pretty hilariously dumb or even more corrupt in how insular they are.

A good chunk of the setting on the supernatural end is fairly pastoral from what I recall. So you can get up to some real Twin Peaks, Alan Wake, and Deadly Premonition type stuff if you play it as the player's starting as unaware of it's existence. It's also "Wild West" enough in how things are largely unregulated and there's plenty of unique Shatter based civilizations in many areas so that if you want you could have a lot of interesting takes on the people that oppose the way things are set up over there both on the supernatural and hunter end of things.

It's been years so i'm almost certainly misremembering some parts of it. But it was legit awesome and I was kind of disappointed when the idea never got revisited in more detail.


Edit: Hah. Found the opening to it.

Part of the intro text to Woundgate posted:

Did you know that dhampirs farm suicide trees? It’s a traditional profession. They tend small orchards: a few acres where the half-dead collect thick blood in clay vessels. Properly prepared, it will slake a vampire’s thirst, though it’s not as satisfying as the real thing. Dhampirs earn a modest fee in denarii from the suicide orchards. Their taxes help keep the Occult Republic of America alive, but earn them few friends; nobody likes a vampire’s lackey.

Did you know that a hundred thousand people live in Quivira-Cibola? It clutches the Mississippi on both sides, but doesn’t appear on any map you’ve seen. You could drive the road to the city ten thousand times and never see the quarter-mile Invictorium (shard of lost Atlantis, say the Awakened) lurching over the river, or hear the shouts of goblin traders and their wares: hedge-fruit, memory flies, and Afghan hashish. On the other side, drug laws are lax; beyond the Wound, governments have too much else on their plates to worry about simple vice.

Did you know that dragons stalk the wilds of Lake Huron, brought down by Bloodthorn portals? That you can hold the world’s blood in the palm of your hand? These are all elements of Woundgate: a modern fantasy setting for the Storytelling System.

Woundgate is designed so that you can integrate it into an existing chronicle and customize it beyond its modern fantasy base. Here, the World of Darkness isn’t just a system of secret societies in our world. It includes hidden lands and cultures that may be invisible to ordinary eyes, but are populous, vivid, and brazenly open, once you step behind a shield of mysteries.

Archonex fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Feb 19, 2020

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


What I'm hearing is that Epstein was killed for breaking the masquerade.

Rubix Squid
Apr 17, 2014
Nonsense. Epstein was killed because he's working with The Gentry.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
In the ChroD, Epstein was still marked for death for being a pedo who knew too many mundane state secrets, but he was killed BY a Messenger Angel, whose sloppy execution of the job created the "Epstein didn't kill himself!" meme and contributed to an Occult Matrix. :v:

Rubix Squid
Apr 17, 2014
Okay taking that now to stick in HackFuture.

joylessdivision
Jun 15, 2013



Tulip posted:

What I'm hearing is that Epstein was killed for breaking the masquerade.

Shhhhhh.....Swedracula might hear you! Or worse MRH.

DantetheK9
Feb 2, 2020

Just...so fucking tired.



joylessdivision posted:

Shhhhhh.....Swedracula might hear you! Or worse MRH.

Shhhhh....Swedracula is gone now. He can't hurt anyone but his own LARP any more

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

DantetheK9 posted:

Shhhhh....Swedracula is gone now. He can't hurt anyone but his own LARP any more

Vampire is still stained with his bloody poo poo-smear, we have to wait till Werewolf comes out to see if that's similarly tainted by heroic Fascism.

Angry Lobster
May 16, 2011

Served with honor
and some clarified butter.

Kurieg posted:

Vampire is still stained with his bloody poo poo-smear, we have to wait till Werewolf comes out to see if that's similarly tainted by heroic Fascism.

*Laughs in Fenris*

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



Kurieg posted:

Vampire is still stained with his bloody poo poo-smear, we have to wait till Werewolf comes out to see if that's similarly tainted by heroic Fascism.

How red can a flag be?

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Lord_Hambrose posted:

How red can a flag be?

Pretty red.

The issue is if it also has a white circle and a swastika on it.

DantetheK9
Feb 2, 2020

Just...so fucking tired.



Kurieg posted:

Vampire is still stained with his bloody poo poo-smear, we have to wait till Werewolf comes out to see if that's similarly tainted by heroic Fascism.

Not gonna lie, that's my private terror. Werewolf is my jam and I dread the idea of someone trying to do a "Back to basics" thing.

And by that, I do mean doubling down on the 1st Edition versions of the Furies, Fenrir, Uktena and Wendigo. Revised and W20 did a lot of work trying to unfuck them. (Best case scenario, the poo poo that White Wolf forced on OPP in Changing Ways before Swedcraula was booted out is quietly never mentioned again)

Angry Lobster
May 16, 2011

Served with honor
and some clarified butter.

DantetheK9 posted:

Not gonna lie, that's my private terror. Werewolf is my jam and I dread the idea of someone trying to do a "Back to basics" thing.

And by that, I do mean doubling down on the 1st Edition versions of the Furies, Fenrir, Uktena and Wendigo. Revised and W20 did a lot of work trying to unfuck them. (Best case scenario, the poo poo that White Wolf forced on OPP in Changing Ways before Swedcraula was booted out is quietly never mentioned again)

DantetheK9
Feb 2, 2020

Just...so fucking tired.




There's a reason the Revised Tribebook dedicated a decent amount of space to "Yeah, some of us supported Nazis. We killed them. Show that kind of weakness and we'll loving kill you too."

Angry Lobster
May 16, 2011

Served with honor
and some clarified butter.

DantetheK9 posted:

There's a reason the Revised Tribebook dedicated a decent amount of space to "Yeah, some of us supported Nazis. We killed them. Show that kind of weakness and we'll loving kill you too."



Never forget corporal Runt, he was only a metis, but still a true American Get Hero :911:

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

DantetheK9 posted:

There's a reason the Revised Tribebook dedicated a decent amount of space to "Yeah, some of us supported Nazis. We killed them. Show that kind of weakness and we'll loving kill you too."

They also devoted a lot of book space to "We spent thousands of years devoted to physical strength over everything else, which has left us lacking in other areas. So long as you can throw a punch without breaking your hand you can do whatever you want. Want to be a hacker? Sure, just be the best damned hacker the world has ever seen."

DantetheK9
Feb 2, 2020

Just...so fucking tired.



Kurieg posted:

They also devoted a lot of book space to "We spent thousands of years devoted to physical strength over everything else, which has left us lacking in other areas. So long as you can throw a punch without breaking your hand you can do whatever you want. Want to be a hacker? Sure, just be the best damned hacker the world has ever seen."

And oddly, it works for them. Revised Get of Fenris are functionally Furry Klingons and it's weirdly endearing

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Froghammer posted:

Existing as a vampire is trying to ethically consume under capitalism

I actually don’t agree with this - I think as a vampire, especially a small-time “lumpenproletarian” vampire, you’re inserting yourself into the circuit of socially reproductive labor, not grazing off the direct proceeds of productive/exploited labor which generates surplus value. It’s not quite the same problem as being unable to so much as get a cup of coffee without in effect supping on the life-force of third world sweatshop workers. It’s more like being a deadbeat friend crashing uninvited on the couch at the low end or being a landlord or mafia boss at the high end.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
I'm still waiting to see if anybody else has read the Vigil 2e previews and can comment on my impression that the Cheiron Group has been shifted a large number of notches towards Paranoia-style comedy.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
To build on that a bit, I think one of the unsung genius moves by Requiem’s developers was the simple terminology change from “blood” to “vitae”. The fact that it’s not your precious bodily fluids but your literal life-force that’s at stake really opens the door much wider for a materialist analysis of how vampires work and what they represent. Feeding’s not just (though it can be) an animal attack or a sexual assault; it really gets you thinking more directly about the ways in which are drained of, and work to rebuild, and are drained of again the physical and psychic energies we used to live and work.

PHIZ KALIFA
Dec 21, 2011

#mood
honestly my favorite early thing about requiem are the whole "you're literally just blood animating a corpse" and the whole predatory reaction thing, even if it just made games a shitshow. wasn't there also thing about absorbing the memories of people you feed on, so eventually your own memory of your past is just a compilation of your victim's Greatest Hits? the idea that you're ancient but fallible really plays with this idea of vampire authority being bluster, fronting, and presentation dressed up over a base hunger.
You are what you eat!

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

PHIZ KALIFA posted:

honestly my favorite early thing about requiem are the whole "you're literally just blood animating a corpse" and the whole predatory reaction thing, even if it just made games a shitshow. wasn't there also thing about absorbing the memories of people you feed on, so eventually your own memory of your past is just a compilation of your victim's Greatest Hits? the idea that you're ancient but fallible really plays with this idea of vampire authority being bluster, fronting, and presentation dressed up over a base hunger.
You are what you eat!

Nah, the memory fuckery was that every time a vampire went into Torpor their memories and dreams would start to merge together. The Fog of Ages was kind of removed from 2e quietly, but in 1e it was basically the idea that no vampire that has ever been in torpor can really trust their memories any more, because their desires and daydreams and memories all flowed together in a big ol' soup.

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Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
I still love the idea of an ancient methusela waking up from the sleep of ages speaking entirely in memes garnered from their blood sleep.

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