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As someone who has played in more than one Technocracy campaign, them being bad and wrong is absolutely the point. A key feature is that individual Technocrats absolutely are providing services that materially help lots of people in the world of darkness. It is when you keep expanding good things to the point where they become evil. And that isn't even when you realize all the bad things are a monolithic nightmare that is impossible to change. Being well intentioned but helpless to stop doing atrocities you believe are kinda justified is absolutely a form of horror. At the same time having a split between good and bad technocrats really misses the point. Being cut off from Control to let there be more straight up heroic Technocrats was one of the worst takes. The Technocracy is just the Wyrm, with a nice suit.
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Apr 26, 2020 13:05
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I dunno, I liked the Wyrm because it reminded me a bit of 40K Chaos. The Technocracy is the Imperium.
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Apr 26, 2020 14:34
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NikkolasKing posted:I dunno, I liked the Wyrm because it reminded me a bit of 40K Chaos. Because the setting needed to get even more hosed. Edit: Now i'm picturing some mad wizard scientist in his space station trying to call an exterminatus on Dallas because Pentex opened up a new corporate headquarters there.
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Apr 27, 2020 08:51
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Archonex posted:Because the setting needed to get even more hosed. I think the Technocracy is mostly incoherent if you aren't coming at it from this particular vision which is not actually super universal, and if you don't, it kind of vaguely wobbles over to "Federal Agencies? Like in Men in Black or something? Well... science is good..." Plus you get all the metaphysical issues from Ascension in general where the game rules tell you your character's a bamboozled clown.
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Apr 27, 2020 09:52
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NikkolasKing posted:What I find interesting is that both people here and elsewhere agree that oMage is totally 90s and even "outdated" in a political sense. One of the problems with M: tAs is that it takes the Zeitgeist of the 90s and, instead of treating it as something mutable, calcifies it into something eternal and unchanging. The Hollow Ones are a good example: a goth Tradition may have looked like a good idea in the 90s, but this subculture is pretty much dead 30 years later. And M20 still treats them like they were the hot poo poo. Same thing with the "End of History" premise. It's obvious in the retrospect that it was a temporary lull and that something is going to fill the void after the Cold War. But the writers have already made their world-spanning giant conspiracy of neoliberal mages and gave them a backstory that starts in Renaissance. There is not much that can be done about it. That's why the organization which were steamrolling their opposition for 600 years suddenly realizes they had lost to a bunch of wizard satanists and gets retconned into something less sinister. The Seers are better antagonists, because they are fragmented and conflicted – so a sudden paradigm shift is less jarring. And there is also the issue of M:tAs not aging well in the same sense that Duke Nukem 3D didn't age well: poo poo that used to fly in the 90s doesn't now. Stuff like every shaman in the world belonging to the Dreamspeakers, a Tradition of mostly Asian martial artists, or a Craft of Arabian Nights stereotypes are now cringeworthy – and not easy to change, because the Traditions are calcified and given elaborate backstories in the previous editions. It's also much harder to cheer for faith healers, quacks and shamans now, when antivaxxers became a problem. Really, M:tAs wrote itself into a corner and it doesn't help that the guy who got tasked with writing the newest edition seems to be still living in the 90s.
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Apr 27, 2020 10:11
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Gantolandon posted:And there is also the issue of M:tAs not aging well in the same sense that Duke Nukem 3D didn't age well: poo poo that used to fly in the 90s doesn't now. The exact same thing applies to all the main World of Darkness games, they were a product of their time.
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Apr 27, 2020 10:17
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Several bonus emergent problems: The game actually goes against this "consensus and paradigm" thing in a couple of key ways, one of which is that Correspondence is presented as a literal, and true, description of how spatial relationships work. You also get the peculiarities of things like "the void engineers find a Dreamspeaker squatting and chilling next to a fire on the surface of Ganymede," which is a very cool image, but begs the question: Doesn't that suggest that the Void Engineers are actually completely wrong about everything?  void engineer paradigm destroyed by a lagomorph Another was the general weirdness that the Spheres were structured in a way which pretty much endorsed the Hermetic structure of understanding reality despite a plurality of the game's actual magical societies all having broadly compatible "technological" paradigms. Wack! Angry Lobster posted:The exact same thing applies to all the main World of Darkness games, they were a product of their time.
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Apr 27, 2020 10:32
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Vampire seems to still be going strong but what of the other lines/settings? How popular are they? I understand that "why you gotta be political, bro?" is a stupid attitude to take for a series so clearly intended to have political commentary. But for average players, does the 90s-ness of the various series really impact them?
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Apr 27, 2020 11:31
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Nessus posted:I think the degree varies. Vampire almost created a new epoch of vampire fiction. Wraith stands on its own although the Jungian concepts in it may come and go. Werewolf is at least a novel beast. Yeah, outside of MTA, I'd say werewolf is probably the most vulnerable to looking dated, because of the particular neopagan and noble savage tropes that were within it. Even those aren't as hard baked into the central premise as much as some of MTA's less favorable aspects. It also helps in the "big 5" lines that the 20th anniversary editions usually devoted some time to either rewriting or updating things that hadn't aged as well. The exception being MTA, which seems full of Brucato doubling down on bad decisions and whining that people didn't get the "genius" of many of the bad rules from the time.
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Apr 27, 2020 13:18
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Huh, there was apparently some drama on Twitch or some other thing about what to include in your games. I dunno what game it was, I don't think it was White Wolf. Maybe ti was D&D. All I recall is that it was a TTRPG and a lot of folks were arguing about what the person in charge should have included. I bring this up because a few folks I watch were talking about it a week or two ago and it instantly came to mind as I was rereading Book of the Wyrm 20th Anniversary Edition. quote:KNOW THE LIMITS I don't actually play these games, I'm just a lore fan. But this was a cool thing for them to include. Also this was published all the way back in 2014 so they kinda preempted that entire argument and drama.
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Apr 27, 2020 15:31
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Ferrinus posted:If the game is to represent the combination of expertise and ideology as magic, This, right here, is the whole problem though -- because it elides the distinction between expertise and ideology. Awakening is better than Ascension because Ascension's solution is ultimately "eh, it's all ideology" while Awakening's solution is "it's all expertise, except for the literal diegetic ideology, which is in fact ideology." (e: The problem with Awakening is that some of the stuff it pegs as expertise is actually ideology -- see any of our past arguments about "Wisdom" -- but at least it's trying instead of throwing up its hands and giving up.) Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Apr 27, 2020 |
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Apr 27, 2020 21:18
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NikkolasKing posted:I don't actually play these games, I'm just a lore fan. But this was a cool thing for them to include. Also this was published all the way back in 2014 so they kinda preempted that entire argument and drama. You fit right in don't be shy to post
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Apr 27, 2020 21:47
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:This, right here, is the whole problem though -- because it elides the distinction between expertise and ideology. Too true. To quoted famous trad games poster "Ferrinus" from like five pages ago tops, Ascension is about ideology, but Awakening is about theory, and that's why Awakening is the superior game. What's funny is that every individual aspect of Ascension's epic gonzo '90s antisemitism could be easily included in Awakening as a story element, even as specifically specifically as a Seer plot, but the reason the Seers would be doing it would specifically be to divide, demoralize, and confuse people and not because they actually feel the need to use fluoride to dilute your masculine essence or whatever.
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Apr 27, 2020 22:21
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Ferrinus posted:Too true. To quoted famous trad games poster "Ferrinus" from like five pages ago tops, Ascension is about ideology, but Awakening is about theory, and that's why Awakening is the superior game. This does suggest a hilarious Seers use for the cryptid reptiliods, which are one of my favorite Chronicles bestiary entries. They're adorable human-mimicking scavengers and cowards, with no giant conspiracy whatsoever, but Seers intentionally increasing their population purely as a baffling smokescreen does make my smile as a concept.
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Apr 27, 2020 22:24
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I wanna play in a Mage game one of these days. That would be fun.
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Apr 27, 2020 23:32
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Demon's Storyteller Guide is a pretty solid book -- more for the campaign advice than for the new mechanical options, though. Virtually all of the Demon supplements have absolutely wild power creep going on. The Unlife Aquatic posted:The Players Guide also has a lot of stuff on how demons think, feel, and behave, goes into detail on Agencies - and a great section on infrastructure. I've run Demon a fair amount over the years, so if you have any questions feel free to ask. Belated thanks for the replies. (And sorry for not responding earlier; was away from the forums again for a couple of weeks.) Sounds like I've got a lot of reading to do. I'd had a pretty firm idea in mind for the first story of the chronicle, but as I've been reading the Demon materials I've realized there's one element of the story that may not work. I guess I'll know more once I finish reading all the books, but I figure I may as well ask now so I can start thinking of alternatives as necessary... Basically, one significant NPC was going to apparently be a demon whose Cover was a movie star. But now as I get more familiar with the setting I'm getting the feeling that a demon having such a high-profile Cover may be... kind of unworkable. He was going to keep his powers and nature low-key, rarely use any Embeds or Exploits, never take his full demon form, and basically be very careful about never attracting the God-Machine's attention, but even so, I'm increasingly unsure whether it makes sense for a demon to have a famous Cover at all. For those more familiar with the setting, is this something that's at all plausible, or should I start thinking about alternatives for that element of the story? (I guess the story could work if he's a stigmatic instead of a demon, but that does remove some possible complications I kind of liked.)
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Apr 28, 2020 01:00
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A famous actor as a Cover would be fantastic for a bunch of reasons: - You have a reason to draw attention to yourself in public spaces, without it actually being about You - You have a reason to fly all over the place doing secretive poo poo - You have potential access to lots of resources (and big-R Resources) - If you want to make pacts with people, being a famous celebrity is unfortunately one of the most plausible lower-case-c covers for "if you give me this thing or do this thing for me, I will make your dreams come true" - All the fun complications that come from having to do a bunch of stupid poo poo to uphold your Cover, like sitting in on table reads and being late to an op because you had to do like 40 takes of one shot Plus, you can explain away a ton of stupid and weird behavior as being Method for a role (whether or not the movie exists)
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Apr 28, 2020 01:09
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:
This was my immediate thought on hearing the concept
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Apr 28, 2020 02:06
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Jerik posted:For those more familiar with the setting, is this something that's at all plausible, or should I start thinking about alternatives for that element of the story? (I guess the story could work if he's a stigmatic instead of a demon, but that does remove some possible complications I kind of liked.) Demons aren't perfectly rational emotionless machines, they just have voluntary control of whether they visibly express emotion. Maybe it's his original cover and he likes being that person. Maybe there's something or someone who he only has access to through that cover and the risk is worth it. (In addition to all the potential ameliorating factors everyone else mentioned.)
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Apr 28, 2020 02:13
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Ah, good. Sounds like I can keep that element of the story after all without it coming across as absurd; that's good to know. Thanks all for the advice. Now to get back to reading the Demon books...
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Apr 28, 2020 02:36
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Jerik posted:Ah, good. Sounds like I can keep that element of the story after all without it coming across as absurd; that's good to know. Thanks all for the advice. also he could be compromised and and the God-Machine is allowing him to operate in plain sight as bait and even if this isn't true you could make it look like it might be
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Apr 28, 2020 03:57
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And anyway if it was his original cover and he's good with operational security (and, as an NPC, you can just say he is) there'd really never be a reason for the G-M to look into him. Most actors aren't secretly demons!
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Apr 28, 2020 07:07
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So I really like crossover stuff. Which villain groups from across the various lines are natural allies or enemies? The Wyrm for example has people who serve it among mages and vampires and maybe other lines I'm not familiar with. I'm less certain about natural enemies, though.
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Apr 28, 2020 13:43
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NikkolasKing posted:So I really like crossover stuff. Which villain groups from across the various lines are natural allies or enemies? Technically no vampire faction outright serves the Wyrm, although there are a couple who sit on Pentex's board of directors. Black Spiral Dancers sometimes find common cause with the Sabbat, but usually only if they're both having trouble with Gaian werewolves. They've just got different stuff to do most times. The same with the changelings' Shadow Court (actually the Black Court, which is the part that was taken over by the Thallain which are as close to the fae's version of Black Spirals as it gets). Specters only serve Oblivion itself, although you can make deals with the more self-aware ones. Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Apr 28, 2020 |
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Apr 28, 2020 14:06
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Dawgstar posted:Technically no vampire faction outright serves the Wyrm, although there are a couple who sit on Pentex's board of directors. Black Spiral Dancers sometimes find common cause with the Sabbat, but usually only if they're both having trouble with Gaian werewolves. They've just got different stuff to do most times. The same with the changelings' Shadow Court (actually the Black Court, which is the part that was taken over by the Thallain which are as close to the fae's version of Black Spirals as it gets). Specters only serve Oblivion itself, although you can make deals with the more self-aware ones. The whole Black Court/House Balor, hanging out with Black Spirals was always ridiculous to me because by the old rules, Changelings in no way could stand with them. It wasn't just, we work with them sometimes, it was, "We go to their moots and hang out with them at Hives." It was a big dissonance in rules and fluff, mainly that Changeling's rules were unfinished garbage.
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Apr 28, 2020 14:22
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Metapod posted:What? This loving dipshit deserved it let me tell you what what he did and a little background to set the scene. This player wanted to make a character representing of him so I let him make a paraplegic Chinese malk as he is a paraplegic with an interest in Chinese history. I really thought he could handle it he is veteran player he understands better than anyone the limits of a wheelchair and yet this guy would use obfuscate to move into the middle of the battlefield to yell a one liner in Chinese before doing his sneak attack. Now what youre probably thinking is this is going to end with some sick battle that ends in bad dice luck. You are very wrong he first makes an enemy out of the Chicago malk primogen by attacking him at the primogens own party then a session passes the group does the task that needed to be done but he had to use a lot of blood to do it. It was like 1 am plenty of moon left and he decides to go to his haven okay that's fine i give this guy two good chances to feed on the way home but decides against it. Again that's fine maybe he wants to feed on a specific person nope he went straight to bed at hunger 5 wakes up fails his rouse goes straight to torpor in a house he specifically told me that no one in the coterie would know about with a powerful enemy on his rear end. I can't believe you'd punish your players in such a way for making repeated, grave mistakes
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Apr 28, 2020 16:05
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Metapod posted:Please tell me what the proper action is when a pc goes into torpor in an unknown location because he didn't feed with plenty of night left after you give him two great chances on the way home and the session all this after he attacked the malk primogen because he wanted to start a coup Lol every time you punish players you're forcibly arresting their role play. Tbqh whenever you cause damage to a PC you make all the players sad and unable to play comfortably Maybe you should consider letting your players do whatever they want whenever they want with no fear of danger. You're call, storyteller
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Apr 28, 2020 16:10
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NikkolasKing posted:So I really like crossover stuff. Which villain groups from across the various lines are natural allies or enemies? Does it matter if it's World or Chronicles? World has the Nephandi, mages who serve various dark masters as means of a spiritual path of abasement. The list of possible dark powers calls out Werewolf's lords of Malfeas and Wraith's Neverborn. Apophis in the Mummy books is just another face for the Wyrm. In Chronicles, Mage's Seers of the Throne and Demon's God-Machine have very congruent goals in terms of their effects on the Fallen World, and the Exarchs and angels sometimes mass their servants to aid one another for reasons the Seers are not privileged to know. Werewolf's Lords of the Wounds have been suggested to be the same as the demons of the Inferno, though the 2e overhaul in Shunned by the Moon may have undone this? Dawgstar posted:Oh, yes, I completely forgot that both Changeling and Werewolf have something called Fomorians (lower case for Werewolf) but while both groups are aware of both kinds if you decide they exist in your setting, there's also a strong "that's really not what we're talking about" vibe. The Wyrm-warped mutants were called fomori, not fomorians. I Am Just a Box fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Apr 28, 2020 |
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Apr 28, 2020 16:40
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:The whole Black Court/House Balor, hanging out with Black Spirals was always ridiculous to me because by the old rules, Changelings in no way could stand with them. It wasn't just, we work with them sometimes, it was, "We go to their moots and hang out with them at Hives." It was a big dissonance in rules and fluff, mainly that Changeling's rules were unfinished garbage. Oh, yes, I completely forgot that both Changeling and Werewolf have something called Fomorians (lower case for Werewolf) but while both groups are aware of both kinds if you decide they exist in your setting, there's also a strong "that's really not what we're talking about" vibe. Unless you're a Fianna, then it's whatever. One are shock troops of varying sapience made by Wyrm mutagens and the others are ancient fae god-king monsters. The 'evil' splats hanging out like some kind of WW Legion of Doom was pretty endemic of going hard on crossovers in the games' second editions. The <Splat> Lore skill was everywhere and you'd get things like at least one vampire I can think of in the New Orleans book who knew more about the Wyrm than some Theurges. Also just Garou in general because they love having Gangrel hang out with them, don't you know.
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Apr 28, 2020 16:53
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I Am Just a Box posted:Does it matter if it's World or Chronicles? Nah, WoD or CoD are both fine. I'm more interested in WoD I admit but I enjoy learning about everything. I was thinking of getting Book of the Fallen as it apparently touches on Nephandi who are devoted to the Wyrm. Also I just love evil stuff so.... Dawgstar posted:Oh, yes, I completely forgot that both Changeling and Werewolf have something called Fomorians (lower case for Werewolf) but while both groups are aware of both kinds if you decide they exist in your setting, there's also a strong "that's really not what we're talking about" vibe. Unless you're a Fianna, then it's whatever. One are shock troops of varying sapience made by Wyrm mutagens and the others are ancient fae god-king monsters. It's something I've never given much thought to, how different each edition is. I have several 20th Anniversary versions of the various books and lines and thought "eh, it's the newest so what else do I need." But I was starting to read Mage 20 and it begins by talking about how Mage 1e, 2e and Revised are all very different in how they present the world. You're the second person in as many days who's told me about how 2nd Edition was all about crossovers between the various lines. I obviously need to read more 2e books.
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Apr 28, 2020 17:32
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NikkolasKing posted:Nah, WoD or CoD are both fine. I'm more interested in WoD I admit but I enjoy learning about everything. Go back to the OP and read the entry on Samuel Haight in the oWoD post, that'll cure you of that curiosity!
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Apr 28, 2020 17:37
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NikkolasKing posted:I was thinking of getting Book of the Fallen as it apparently touches on Nephandi who are devoted to the Wyrm. Also I just love evil stuff so.... Book of the Fallen M20 is not particularly interested in crossover. It's much more interested in thematic whiplash, as Satyros Phil Brucato beats you over the head with the banality of evil and tries to make Nephandi stories tie into real issues of abuse and neglect while also still filling half the book with +1 swords of black lightning and shock troops riding saddled oozes of pure evil. It's a very different authorial voice from Book of the Wyrm W20, which threaded that needle much more deftly. I don't remember whether it's any good, but for Nephandi with a sidelong eye towards slotting into other big bads, I think what you want is Infernalism: Path of Screams.
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Apr 28, 2020 17:50
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One of the better stories in Horror Recognition Guide, a nWoD sorta-Hunter book, is about a meeting between the Seers (nMage enemies) and some Strix (nVampire enemies.) It rules. The Seers often work with the God-Machine because they both, for radically different reasons, have a vested interest in preserving the status quo. Both will occasionally work with PC-factions to stop existential threats. Depending on how you read it and how you want to run it, there is a group of nMage archmasters who are down with, and possibly even trying to further empower, the nChangeling True Fae.
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Apr 28, 2020 18:56
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Digital Osmosis posted:Depending on how you read it and how you want to run it, there is a group of nMage archmasters who are down with, and possibly even trying to further empower, the nChangeling True Fae. who are you thinking of in particular
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Apr 28, 2020 19:50
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Soonmot posted:Go back to the OP and read the entry on Samuel Haight in the oWoD post, that'll cure you of that curiosity! How dare you besmirch the good name of Samuel Haight Ultimate Badass
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Apr 28, 2020 20:42
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joylessdivision posted:How dare you besmirch the good name of Samuel Haight Ultimate Badass But that is just it! any attempt you make will just feel like pale shadow in comparison, and just not worth the effort!
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Apr 28, 2020 20:51
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joylessdivision posted:How dare you besmirch the good name of Samuel Haight Ultimate Badass More like Badasshtray, amirite
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Apr 28, 2020 21:50
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Dawgstar posted:More like Badasshtray, amirite Savage
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Apr 28, 2020 22:01
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It would be kind of fun to do a FATAL & Friends on The Saga of Samuel Height, Skinwalker but I remember he has very little to do with some of those books. There is probably some fun to be had at chronicling what was the germ of a good idea to 'he is a werewolf mage ghoul who wants to take over the world' to his end as a low-level Heirarch's desk tchotchke .
Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Apr 28, 2020 |
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Apr 28, 2020 23:41
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Dawgstar posted:It would be kind of fun to do a FATAL & Friends on The Saga of Samuel Height, Skinwalker but I remember he has very little to do with some of those books. There is probably some fun to be had at chronicling what was the germ of a good idea to 'he is a werewolf mage ghoul who wants to take over the world' to his end as a low-level Heirarch's desk tchotchke . It's the other crap that goes bananas.
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Apr 29, 2020 01:37
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