|
Complete with the different types of hoard morphing into the hungers. ParadoxGentleman: he famously didn't care if some powers were stronger or more useful than others, as he believes the subjective experience at the table would provide uses for niche powers and allow all to shine. Matt was typical of most co-authors back in the day of writing mechanics with the expectation of one offs or very short, maybe six to ten session, chronicles. I remember feeling like the outlier wondering about what pcs would be like with two years' xp, and it taught me the design lesson that a game *will* have a sweet spot of campaign length baked into it, whether it knows it or not, so the best thing to do as a designer is get on top of it. It's why I'm obsessed with gameplay loops, and why Deviant looks the way it does.
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 11:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 08:52 |
|
|
Given the actual sizes of dragons and now-called-dragons in a hell of a lot of historically produced art -- from the relief of Marduk slaying Tiamat to umpteen zillion depictions of St George slaying the beastie to the actual legendary Tarasque -- are big beasts but not that outrageously huge, and also the hilariously murderous combat nonsense that is the werewolf hybrid form whether Apocalypse or Forsaken, I'm sure "actual dragon" could have been just fine.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 11:24
|
|
|
lol before Beast became Actually Abusers Is Good it was a Fireborn knockoff Literally Just An Actual Physical Dragon in the World of Darkness could have been great, too, but I can only assume it was killed by cowards. 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Nov 4, 2020 |
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 11:25
|
|
|
taichara posted:Given the actual sizes of dragons and now-called-dragons in a hell of a lot of historically produced art -- from the relief of Marduk slaying Tiamat to umpteen zillion depictions of St George slaying the beastie to the actual legendary Tarasque -- are big beasts but not that outrageously huge, and also the hilariously murderous combat nonsense that is the werewolf hybrid form whether Apocalypse or Forsaken, I'm sure "actual dragon" could have been just fine. I like the idea of characters who are mostly human in their day-to-day lives but have kaiju forms in the Astral, where they fight over territory, against Abyssal intruders or something similar, and embody/change the nature of a place or community -- with the game evenly divided between those two phases. Basically playable genius loci by way of Godzilla and Gamera. A game about being literal physical dragons that was built from the ground up to support that would be great, but you'd either have to scale them down to the point where they're pretty redundant with Werewolves, or scale them up to the point where both the system and the lore (e.g. that the Chronicles are a place where everyone knows the supernatural exists but it's just subtle enough that you can keep your head in the sand and pretend it's not there) would be strained to the breaking point, and neither of those are really ideal starting points. Better for it to be a standalone game -- not least because the Storytelling System honestly isn't that great to begin with and its only real selling point is how good all the Chronicles-specific content for it is. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Nov 4, 2020 |
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 12:08
|
|
|
Yeah. So, I've talked about this before, probably in the WoD thread. It was not unusual for White Wolf to have multiple pitches for "whay should our next game be" in a given year, and sometimes the decision makers would see the various seeds and approve one with elements of another welded into it - Geist was famously "we should do ghosts" stuck in a blender with "we should do people possessed by angels". In the grim darkness of 2014, McFarland proposed Astral Dragons, Olivia Hill proposed punishing spirits of vengence / Furies, and I proposed a young-adult horror fic aimed "I just found out my parents are monsters" type game, about Family. None of them made it. Another game did, but was then withdrawn, Matt was told to take Dragon and expand it. Can't remember if it was an explicit instruction to fold in other pitches, but even if not those were the ideas floating around the email list. And that's how we got Beast. Deviant, by way of comparison, was a one paragraph piece of advert copy about escaped experiments hunting their persecutors, sent to me with "please turn this into a game outline" I still don't know whose idea it was. EDIT: three more random thought nuggets. 1) I always forget somehow that the whole "we provide lessons for humanity" was the hasty post-kickstarter patch, not the initial design. Maybe you shouldn't try to give your game a theme after you've written it. But then, that needs you to admit that mechanics inform the theme of a game. 2) Olivia was really enthused about her Furies pitch, to the point that I'm talking about it because she went on the forums and described it after it got passed on, and mooted it as an idea for a standalone game. I'd buy it. 3) Dragons have come back around again, but not in the nWoD (where, as Tuxedocatfish says, they don't really fit) - It's the next Scion corebook. Possibly the next OPP kickstarter. I lose track. Dave Brookshaw fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Nov 4, 2020 |
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 12:53
|
|
|
CoD has weird enough and huge enough stuff going on all the time (so to speak), in games that have been around for more than a decade, that I think it's pretty eyebrow-raising to argue "be an actual loving dragon (sometimes)" is just too much. Bringing Woof into this seems like a suggestion that, yeah, you can totally do that. Also, as always happens in these conversations, "can beast out" isn't a major point of overlap that makes a game redundant. Beast didn't fail because it played with a lot of the same basic building blocks that other games had used. There're lots of points of overlap between all the very distinct, beloved game lines that have existed for years. Execution is king.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 13:39
|
|
|
Dave Brookshaw posted:2) Olivia was really enthused about her Furies pitch, to the point that I'm talking about it because she went on the forums and described it after it got passed on, and mooted it as an idea for a standalone game. I'd buy it. What was the core idea of the Furies pitch?
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 14:19
|
|
|
I think the Furies concept got folded into Geist 2E, Olivia Hill worked on the game and there's a Krewe archetype literally named "Furies."
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 14:21
|
|
|
I remember really liking the opening fiction from the furies pitch, and also wondering to myself how the hell you get multiple of them in the same story. Would have made for a killer novel though, imo.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 14:34
|
|
|
Goa Tse-tung posted:I remember really liking the opening fiction from the furies pitch, and also wondering to myself how the hell you get multiple of them in the same story. worked for mummy. it did not work for mummy
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 14:35
|
|
|
Dave Brookshaw posted:1) I always forget somehow that the whole "we provide lessons for humanity" was the hasty post-kickstarter patch, not the initial design. Maybe you shouldn't try to give your game a theme after you've written it. But then, that needs you to admit that mechanics inform the theme of a game. This kind of explains why Beast lacks anything approaching a core gameplay loop, or even endgame, for group play. Beast Feeding as presented in the book is an intensely personal experience you work on for months before cashing in for one massive payoff. But that's not enough to actually fuel your powers. The Beast inheritances are all failure states that turn you into an NPC, except for the Apex, and there can only be One Apex, which makes it rather garbage for group play. But if you're the only Beast in a pack of Werewolves you can just use family dinner and be the Apex on the side and it won't actually conflict with anything. I mean hell, the sample adventure is basically "A beast in pursuit of Apexhood shits in your yard and threatens to ruin your lives, do you have the right to ask her to maybe stop?"
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 14:53
|
|
|
thetoughestbean posted:What was the core idea of the Furies pitch? I believe the pitch of Furies was that you were random people in the nWoD who were given directives from above (for a given value of above) to hunt down and kill certain people, akin to the Furies of Greek myth. The way I heard it the core idea was dealing with being given murder orders how you coped with it or who you passed it onto or how you didn't, because you couldn't refuse and the person chosen had to be killed.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:07
|
|
|
Omnicrom posted:I believe the pitch of Furies was that you were random people in the nWoD who were given directives from above (for a given value of above) to hunt down and kill certain people, akin to the Furies of Greek myth. The way I heard it the core idea was dealing with being given murder orders how you coped with it or who you passed it onto or how you didn't, because you couldn't refuse and the person chosen had to be killed. Sounds like it would tie in heavily with Demon
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:13
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:I think the Furies concept got folded into Geist 2E, Olivia Hill worked on the game and there's a Krewe archetype literally named "Furies." Not really, just the name in common, because what else are you going to call "group with strong ties to the Underworld and an emphasis on justice and/or revenge."
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:16
|
|
|
GimpInBlack posted:Not really, just the name in common, because what else are you going to call "group with strong ties to the Underworld and an emphasis on justice and/or revenge." And a semi-incomprehensible force tied to you that makes demands you can't afford to ignore.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:17
|
|
|
thetoughestbean posted:Sounds like it would tie in heavily with Demon Sounds like a much better take on oWoD Hunter.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:21
|
|
|
thetoughestbean posted:Sounds like it would tie in heavily with Demon
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:31
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:I still remember an awful RPGnet thread where the OP kept badgering everyone to outline a new edition of Hunter for him (this was before Vigil came out), but clearly just wanted it to be Frailty: the Roleplaying Game.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:35
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:Beast, incidentally, started out as a pitch for a game about dragons, with the whole "Incarnate soul of a great beast" thing being "How will this game justify calling itself Dragon even though obviously we can't let the players actually play full-sized dragons because that would be stupid." Everything in the initial Beast pitch flows from that -- they're dragon spirits in human bodies, gotta give them something to do (we can tie it to what dragons are), what are dragons (something something embodiment of primal fears), how can we make dragons feel important and significant enough that players feel good about playing one even if it's in a mode where you're not playing as a literal one (metaphysically significant embodiment of primal fears), etc. You know, it's not like a coherent Fireborn 2.0 wouldn't sell. Halloween Jack posted:I still remember an awful RPGnet thread where the OP kept badgering everyone to outline a new edition of Hunter for him (this was before Vigil came out), but clearly just wanted it to be Frailty: the Roleplaying Game. Oh, that guy. He'd make multiple threads and get angry when nobody bit because even when people were willing to help him, he would never explain what he wanted. Just that he hated Reckoning.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:37
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:You know, it's not like a coherent Fireborn 2.0 probably wouldn't sell. I'd buy a cleaned up version of Fireborn, no hesitation. The idea of swapping between your modern incarnation as a human and your ancient dragon self was a neat one.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:39
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:Oh, that guy. He'd make multiple threads and get angry when nobody bit because even when people were willing to help him, he would never explain what he wanted. Just that he hated Reckoning. This was a type of poster that popped up every once in a while. I also remember the guy who wanted suggestions for a game based on his favourite Saturday morning cartoon, and when people recommended stuff like Cartoon Action Hour, he threw a tantrum because Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors: The RPG didn't materialize out of thin air with a whole line of supplements. Maybe BJ Zanzibar's page tricked a lot of people into thinking that if you can imagine the premise of a game, it's probably been made.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:54
|
|
|
FMguru posted:Ah, my least-favorite genre of thread/poster on RPGnet - "Do my homework for me / Why aren't you doing my homework for me?" I'm reminded of a guy who wanted to do a complete overhaul to all the WoD Games to make them more "scientific", kept barging into other threads to try and direct people to his overhaul threads, then eventually got ip banned by the forums admins because it turned out he was the worst kind of pisswizard GM who forced his players to roleplay child rape in his baali game.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 17:54
|
|
|
Tsilkani posted:I'd buy a cleaned up version of Fireborn, no hesitation. The idea of swapping between your modern incarnation as a human and your ancient dragon self was a neat one.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 18:11
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:This was a type of poster that popped up every once in a while. I also remember the guy who wanted suggestions for a game based on his favourite Saturday morning cartoon, and when people recommended stuff like Cartoon Action Hour, he threw a tantrum because Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors: The RPG didn't materialize out of thin air with a whole line of supplements. "I never really 'got' Glorantha, can someone explain to me why they like it so much? It always seemed dumb." *people explain why they like it so much* "Those reasons are all stupid, plus I hate ducks. I guess people don't have any good reasons for liking it."
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 18:35
|
|
|
FMguru posted:That reminds me of my other least-favorite kind of RPGnet poster, the "Sell me on [X]"/"Explain [X] to me" where the poster argues with and denigrates the people responding to him for not whipping up an airtight case on the spot to convince him. tbh this is how it feels like pretty much every time I explain what I like about the FR on here
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 18:42
|
|
|
It does have far too many ducks.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 18:48
|
|
|
FMguru posted:That reminds me of my other least-favorite kind of RPGnet poster, the "Sell me on [X]"/"Explain [X] to me" where the poster argues with and denigrates the people responding to him for not whipping up an airtight case on the spot to convince him.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 19:01
|
|
|
people in that situation are hoping to be factually corrected, not swayed as to their impression e.g. "the thing you hate was in an old edition, or a misunderstanding caused by playing telephone, or here's a novel interpretation that makes it a non-issue" not "the things you hate are good, actually"
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 19:06
|
|
|
Everyone knows that nWoD dragons are properly associated with Mage, anyway, since meditating on/near their crystal bones is a proven way to unlock supernal truths.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 19:25
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Everyone knows that nWoD dragons are properly associated with Mage, anyway, since meditating on/near their crystal bones is a proven way to unlock supernal truths. Do you honestly think that would have stopped them?
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 19:41
|
|
|
if anything, more weird Phenomenal doubles of ostensibly Supernal concepts would be right in line with how every other game line interacts with Mage
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 19:43
|
|
|
I love any setting that has Dragons just kind of.. hanging out in the modern day. Content to co-exist with humanity.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 19:47
|
|
|
I'm just glad it didn't happen because I can already see the "exotic and mysterious beauty of the shen long who can carve medicine from their own bones as a talent" page. Also just the classic breakdown of "here's all these clans and they hate each other" Oh you say the Lindworms hate the wyverns? And the wyverns hate the pan lung? And the pan lung hate coatl? And everybody hates Zahhak?
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 19:55
|
|
|
nWod’s whole “secret society of magic creatures exist in the real world” conceit gets stretched pretty thin as more and more monsters get added to the setting. Just let the average joe know that monsters and magic exists and occasionally you get turned into a vampire. Like, the idea that some dumbass vampire wouldn’t expose the whole operation on Instagram Live or something is laughable to me
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 20:01
|
|
|
not really, most of them have miniscule populations. IIRC there are like ~200 prometheans in the entire world, for example only vampires, mages, and werewolves exist in any really significant numbers and of the three, vampires are incredibly incentivized to hide themselves and mages and werewolves both break peoples brains in ways that defy recognizing that they exist and then, finally and probably most importantly, the conceit isn't "no one knows about them" it's that everyone knows monsters are real (if not the nitty-gritty details and taxonomies and so on) and just kind of goes through their life whistling past the graveyard because anything else attracts attention to you e: you're far more likely to encounter some kind of uncategorized horror than you are any given splat, as well; introducing new splats doesn't make monsters more common, it just resolves some of the implicit ambiguities about what's out there Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Nov 4, 2020 |
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 20:04
|
|
|
Dave Brookshaw posted:Do you honestly think that would have stopped them? Think about it: it did.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 20:04
|
|
|
theironjef posted:I'm just glad it didn't happen because I can already see the "exotic and mysterious beauty of the shen long who can carve medicine from their own bones as a talent" page. To be fair, Zahhak is a dick and you should hate him.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 20:19
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:not really, most of them have miniscule populations. IIRC there are like ~200 prometheans in the entire world, for example Also the thing that makes werewolves work is a spirit that might just turn you into a werewolf if you find out they exist because that's how she was feeling that day.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 20:21
|
|
|
Werewolf 2e is possibly my favorite RPG splat of all time for any system.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 23:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 08:52 |
|
|
I actually think werewolves are the most boring part of their own setting. You have this cool pitiless Shadow Realm filled with 80s horror movie monsters coming into our world and warping it and causing havoc. Which seems like a great antagonist for actual humans to fight, perfect for a Hunter game. But instead of the cool variety of compacts and Conspiracies to take on the spirit world, you get... “X-Men, but everybody’s Wolverine.”
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2020 23:48
|
|
