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Honestly, even a neo-Doom game like DUSK with a roaring metal soundtrack and retrographics where you play as the World's Most Lethal Kinfolk mowing down Pentex first teams and fomori would probably be better, interspersed with loading screen cutscenes and environmental storytelling. Wait, that's not an 'even a'. That would just unironically be fantastic.
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 07:47 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 03:24 |
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DooM-but-you're-a-Garou was my initial hope for Earthblood. Fuckin' make the final level that moonbase Pentex wanted to create.
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 07:59 |
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Current game update: playing a WW2 naval intelligence analyst turned Malkavian. Spent the first part of the game set on late 40s LA as a high-Conscience coward that became convinced that the various Technocrats the cotorie encountered were aliens from Mars (NWO) and later Venus (VE). Ended up caught in the drama of the scary Malkavian Primogen that ended up infecting him with Dementation, leading to him devouring her and fleeing to the Anarchs. We've moved forward to the early 70s and at this point he's working to bring about "the inky black flood that will devour us all" and spreading Dementation throughout the clan. Current activities include running the Cecil Hotel, cowering from threats unless he can destroy their sanity, and getting in to arguments with the shards of the primogen in his head that typically end with her tsking control of his body before making him punch himself in the face. I'm trying to figure out ways to tie the Flood/spread of Dementation in to the rise of serial killers during this period. It's meant to be a horrific side effect that he hasn't realized yet and would be guilt-stricken if he noticed.
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 08:22 |
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One of the potential dragons to be heir to in scion dragon is the loch ness monster, who was originally an angry scottish lady who sought revenge against the gods for what happened to dragons and so she, among other things, devoured the scion of loki, vomited up the swords of her heir that said scion was wielding as well as the helmet he was wearing which was loki's special helmet, threw the swords in loch ness, realized "oh poo poo I shouldn't have done that" and dove into the lake while wearing loki's helmet, and then the lake which is bigger on the inside and infinitely deep and exists in its own passage of time different from reality's time and the depths put lots of pressure on her head but the helmet protected her and fused with her head while she became more and more dragon-like with each trip into the lake looking for those damned swords she threw away, until she was nessie. Okay.
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 08:36 |
I mean if you told me that poo poo was a modification of a Scottish folktale, replacing some Norse guy with a Scion of Loki and explicitly linking it to Loch Ness, I would absolutely believe you.
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 09:10 |
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Nessus posted:I mean if you told me that poo poo was a modification of a Scottish folktale, replacing some Norse guy with a Scion of Loki and explicitly linking it to Loch Ness, I would absolutely believe you. I don't know too too much about Norse or Scottish folklore minutae but the original name they give to Nessie is Derbforgaill of Inverness and that the Scion of Loki was named Aleifr and idk if either of those are linked to any particular myth. Basically she was the Heir to Fafnir and because one of the things with Scion dragons is that they had like a cloud-based memory for dragons only, they can tap into and pull from it I guess and Fafnir was, due to actions of the Aesir, basically eradicated in all but memory and was trying to name a bunch of heirs in order to hopefully get one who would let him reincarnate through them, and Derbforgaill was just so mad about what people did to Fafnir and the other dragons that instead of becoming a vessel for Fafnir, she just obliterated and eradicated a bunch of people on a bloody path of vengeance that ended with her, pre-Nessification, devouring Aleifr. Then she became a Nessie. Just kinda funny that all of the other potential dragon parents are from various mythological tales like "This is the dragon from Armenian myth that the Armenian Heracles slayed" or "This dragon is the Norse dragon who spends their life impaled to a root of the world tree and all that happens is that they spend their time muttering curses about how much they hate those damned Aesir and the only one that could hear him muttering was a squirrel and now all squirrels chitter and chatter the way they do because they're actually just parroting the angry mutterings of Nidhoggr" and then here's the fuckin Loch Ness Monster lol
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 10:20 |
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I don’t wanna wait for my life to be over…oh wait it already is!
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 14:04 |
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I think CoD is a more coherent setting and system, but the oWoD often feels a lot more fun, in a goofy sort of way. It's much more high octane, while CoD feels a bit more muted and down-to-earth. They're both good for different things, imo. I'd grab CoD first if I was doing a more serious game, no question.
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 18:22 |
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CoD isn't actually more muted and down to earth, though. In fact in many ways oWoD games are more stuffy and constrained because the in-setting power structures that constrain your choices and direct gameplay along approved channels are just staring you in the face from the get-go (and fighting those power structures is itself a paint-by-numbers affair at this point).
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 19:31 |
i make no secret of my love for CoD over WoD. I started playing Vampire back in 1994, and despite being really upset over dropping down to 5 clans in V:tR, it really is a better game and I've been able to go just as gonzo.
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 19:33 |
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I had to admit that it took a while for CoD to hit WoD levels for me, which came down to fluff which felt honestly scarce in WoD for a long while. Then we got the Requiem clanbooks and, mmmm.
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 19:50 |
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That Old Tree posted:On the other hand hooooo boy this line delivery. This has the ring to it of early projects done on the cheap where they would just pass the translator or the voice actor a big list of individual lines divorced out of context, with no notes, and they would just guess what kind of emotional nuance they were supposed to bring to it. I'm not saying they necessarily did that, but I can't wrap my head around how else you end up with this reading.
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# ? Feb 5, 2021 20:37 |
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Chalk me up as another person who, shockingly, started with NWoD and now prefers NWoD/CofD. Don't get me wrong, I'm still into oWoD and would have been way too into it if I read the books when they were coming out. That mechanical do-what-thou-will looseness that other people talked about just offends my specific game design sensibilities, so I can't get into it as a game to actually play. (Also, CofD is just as gonzo, it's just much less about how the setting overall is specifically this one specific kind of gonzo at all times no matter what.) I Am Just a Box posted:This has the ring to it of early projects done on the cheap where they would just pass the translator or the voice actor a big list of individual lines divorced out of context, with no notes, and they would just guess what kind of emotional nuance they were supposed to bring to it. At this point, I feel like Cyanide's entire pitch to publishers is "we're willing to make a game for slightly cheaper than it takes to make it decently". Honestly, it just makes me feel bad for their developers.
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 00:43 |
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If nothing else, I think being a werewolf in WtF is a lot more interesting than WtA. I love em both, though. Plus there was a pitch in one of the books that was basically "You make a deal with local vampires to watch your territory while you're away", and I gotta tell you that sounds like a fantastic game.
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 00:51 |
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Jonas Albrecht posted:Plus there was a pitch in one of the books that was basically "You make a deal with local vampires to watch your territory while you're away", and I gotta tell you that sounds like a fantastic game. Vacationing werewolf trying to explain the basics of placating spirits over the phone to a very confused and scared Neonate while their kids keep bugging them for more arcade money while the wiretappers at Valkyrie try not to laugh. A combination of changing tastes, the Beast fiasco, and a real dislike of the Tilts/Conditions/general changes in 2nd Edition drove me away from the New World of Darkness- there's too much stuff to learn if I wanted to get back in without a GM or the like pushing me. I only really like Masquerade and Wraith out of the old World of Darkness, though.
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 01:10 |
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I am pretty much game by game over which I like more. Generally I think CoD is better mechanically but both have their place. I think Requiem is one where I really love how everything is set up... But I was a 90s kid so I gotta have my Thirteen Clans. Werewolf the Forsaken is such a huge improvement in every way I would never play Apocalypse. I think both versions of Mage have some interesting bits, but I would never play either. My two favorite games are Wraith the Oblivion and Promethean, and both don't have analogs in the other system. Just enjoy each game for what it is, and don't demand it be something else.
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 01:32 |
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I have none of the old nostalgia working for me, not having even come to the tabletop hobby until years past the Time of Judgment when the nWoD was already on Changeling and Hunter. I appreciate the oWoD material (minus Dreaming and Kindred of the East) in a half-campy sort of way, but I've never had any shred of interest in trying to play the oWoD game systems (at least up through the Anniversary Editions, V5 being a very different kind of beast). Just a little too clunky, with multiple axes of action difficulty being especially hard to settle with. nWoD/CofD (minus Beast and the Contagion Chronicle), meanwhile, while it's certainly not perfect, has a lot of ideas I fell in love with (sometimes also in a half-campy sort of way), and a system that ranges from "pretty solid" to "eh, it's clunky but I can work with this." I didn't actually like Vampire – not Requiem specifically, but Vampire as a whole – until I read the Requiem clanbooks and they showed me what's fun about the game's mystique.
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 01:50 |
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While we're posting our own deeply personal opinions, I ran a bunch of aborted oWoD games in high school and early college and like one aborted nWoD game afterwards. I'm a nWoD/CoD partisan though because C:tL is everything I ever wanted conceptually and nMage makes way better magechat. In actuality my tastes and my faith in my ability to keep a campaign going have changed enough that I basically don't run anything that isn't some kind of Apocalypses World or Blades in the Dark knockoff. If someone made a narrative heavy and rules light game that was somehow also designed around life intruding and the party falling apart six to fifteen sessions in I'd probably go for one in a nWoD/CoD setting-- mostly because of how cool CtL and DtD are. edit: and to second everyone else's opinion, god drat are the nVampire clanbooks good. in general I've found the nWoD books more full of nightmare inducing plot hooks and terrifying implied setting details and the oWoD books more full of incredibly well constructed answers to any specific question about the setting the players might ask. While I appreciate the gently caress out of that (the late oVampire books like The Golden Cage loving rule) I slightly prefer the approach that gives you the info, ideas, and tools to come up with your own answers extemporaneously. Like I said, I've been pretty into the Apocalypses World school of GMing lately. Digital Osmosis fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Feb 6, 2021 |
# ? Feb 6, 2021 08:49 |
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Kurieg posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCq8nl7Jcz8&t=269s Five Nights at Fenris
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 13:14 |
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I generally prefer nWOD over oWOD. I have a lot of nostalgic fondness for Masquerade because it was the first RPG I read and ran as a teenager and it is still got some hooks in me, but oWOD rules before V5 are pure rubbish and I'd never go back to them ever again. I think the V5 rules are a marked improvement even on nWOD (though I still prefer Requiem's more powerful disciplines), but I didn't really enjoy the new metaplot, not even as a gonzo treat, so I've only ran V5 in historical settings, like the 1980's. nWOD has better rules and I prefer its approach to world building because it fits better with how I design my games. Changeling: The Lost and Promethean: The Created are definitely my two favorite splats within it and I am always excited when I get to run them (I'd be excited for playing if I weren't the eternal GM). I do feel all the games suffer from having somewhat clunky rules that can get in the way of play and it is not unusual for the purple prose to obfuscate the mechanics, something CtL 2E in particular is guilty of. [fake edit]Oh yeah, I absolutely adore Orpheus within oWOD too. I'd put Wraith: The Oblivion as one of my favs too, but I've never played or ran it, only read it, but it is definitely a fascinating game.
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 13:36 |
Soonmot posted:Listen, I played Avengers for two months straight, it can't be any worse than that. it is worse than avengers, this is very clunky and I do not feel like playing anymore than I already have.
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 22:38 |
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I haven't gotten tired of sneaking around as a wolf until I accidentally hit the enrage button yet.
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 23:15 |
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There are enough little touches that make me think the developers cared but overshot or planned badly, and that makes me feel bad that I'd never recommend this to someone even if they were into the World of Darkness.
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# ? Feb 6, 2021 23:38 |
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Jonas Albrecht posted:I haven't gotten tired of sneaking around as a wolf until I accidentally hit the enrage button yet. Post/user/av combo right here... Also I would really love some data on how many people accidentally turn to wolf or enrage in the portions of the game where you try to pass as human.
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# ? Feb 7, 2021 00:05 |
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Is this a Playstation controller or keyboard problem? I've never hit the RB button when I didn't want to.
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# ? Feb 7, 2021 00:24 |
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Kavak posted:Is this a Playstation controller or keyboard problem? I've never hit the RB button when I didn't want to. It's a "being dyslexic and trying to activate umbra vision" problem.
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# ? Feb 7, 2021 08:41 |
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I,ve been thinking about trying to run a nWoD Cyberpunk chronicle. Bleeding Edge seems a bit light on stuff though. Anything else I could use? I would probably be 1E instead of 2E because of all the 1E material I have.
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# ? Feb 7, 2021 19:26 |
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MonsieurChoc posted:I,ve been thinking about trying to run a nWoD Cyberpunk chronicle. Bleeding Edge seems a bit light on stuff though. Anything else I could use? Demon does this out of the box, and in particular the Storyteller's Guide has suggestions for running a dystopian future setting where the God-Machine's integration into human society is even more complete and oppressive.
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# ? Feb 7, 2021 20:56 |
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Yeah, an entire section of the Demon Storyteller's Guide is dedicated to running a setting where an integrated arcology is secretly run by machine angels and player characters start out as cybernetically-enhanced human agents of the state used to hunt disruptions of the order and hidden rogue angels.
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# ? Feb 7, 2021 21:09 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Demon does this out of the box, and in particular the Storyteller's Guide has suggestions for running a dystopian future setting where the God-Machine's integration into human society is even more complete and oppressive. Hmm, I'll check it.
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# ? Feb 7, 2021 21:30 |
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A lot of oWoD nostalgia comes from how much it overlaps with 90s culture. A lot of WtA fits into the context of growing up in a nutrient-rich media broth where greedy companies and scientists were evil, and literally destroying the ozone layer with hairspray was a thing. Swamp Thing with werewolves just made more sense if you were there.
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# ? Feb 7, 2021 21:57 |
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MonsieurChoc posted:I,ve been thinking about trying to run a nWoD Cyberpunk chronicle. Bleeding Edge seems a bit light on stuff though. Anything else I could use? We finished our MtAw game at the end of last year and have started Cyberpunk 2020 game rolled up in a homebrew setting. I wouldn’t want to use the storyteller system for it at all. The firefights are surprisingly fast and brutal once you figure out what your gear modifies and your base additives. Most of them have taken all of 2-3 rounds and get done in 10-15 minutes. I don’t know how they’ve adjusted for Cyberpunk Red, but storyteller doesn’t deal as well with aimed shots, variations on armor, and stun/death parts. You could run a cyberpunk-ish game with storyteller, but there would be so much work to do making chrome that I’m not sure it’s really worth it when there are better things out there you can use for tools. I have no idea how you’d simulate cyberspace, but that’s always the extra game within the game you could gloss over with NPCs anyway.
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# ? Feb 7, 2021 22:28 |
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moths posted:A lot of oWoD nostalgia comes from how much it overlaps with 90s culture. A lot of WtA fits into the context of growing up in a nutrient-rich media broth where greedy companies and scientists were evil, and literally destroying the ozone layer with hairspray was a thing. Ditto 1E and early 2E VtM, which isn't just a 'oh yeah, we were into vampires and goth poo poo in the 90s, huh' thing, but a very specific product of the first vampire wave of the 1990s, which actually ran from the late 80s to ~1993 (really kicking off the whole modern vampire revival in '87 with The Lost Boys and with a late peak in 1994 with the release of Interview with the Vampire's film adaptation (and with a whimper that same year in 3, the divisive X-files episode where Mulder fucks a blood doll). It had both OG Buffy and The Lost Boys, and the whole lot was kinda dope in a really stupid way. '92 also had a big influence with the big Dracula remake and Subspecies) rather than the second (which kicked off in full force with Buffy in '97, but was already beginning in 96 with From Dusk 'til Dawn. They're tonally distinct - the 2nd Vampire Wave had a lot more focus on asskicking and the brooding vampire antihero, though in that respect it was preceded by Forever Knight (but that, though VtM as gently caress at times, didn't have the same cultural shifting capacity as Buffy, Angel, and Blade). If Revised could knockoff Massive Attack's Angel for a themetrack and have it fit perfectly, then 1E is, well... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe5q_TdKbsk. The entire progression of VtM over editions is a perfect reflection of the three big vampire waves between 1987 - 2007. Brooding vampire superheros just made more sense if you were 14 when you first saw the sexy sax guy.
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# ? Feb 8, 2021 05:53 |
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I've only became a fan of oWoD in the last few years and I was 12 when the 90s ended but I think a lot of its success was casting such wide net. Back when Twilight hate was raging across the internet you all got all sorts of takes on what vampires " should be." Well, oWoD gives you a huge selection of vampire types. And Mages, too. Lotta folks with Strong Opinions about what magic should be going by the Brandon Sanderson thread so if you want magic to be al rituals and rules and robes, you got your Order of Hermes. If it should just be people doing stuff because they believe really hard in it, you got your Hollow Ones. And so-on and so-forth. Something for every type of nerd. This type of diversity is not in any other fiction I'm into. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Feb 8, 2021 |
# ? Feb 8, 2021 06:17 |
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Loomer posted:Ditto 1E and early 2E VtM, which isn't just a 'oh yeah, we were into vampires and goth poo poo in the 90s, huh' thing, but a very specific product of the first vampire wave of the 1990s, which actually ran from the late 80s to ~1993 [...] rather than the second [...] The entire progression of VtM over editions is a perfect reflection of the three big vampire waves between 1987 - 2007. I know late 2e/early Revised also tapped a lot into the popularity of hidden cabals and millenialism that was really taking off in the same period, as the turn of the millennium approached. It's really telling how Bloodlines just perfectly captures that part of the setting by aspiring to be Deus Ex, a game in an entirely different genre in an entirely different setting.
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# ? Feb 8, 2021 08:03 |
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Just finished Heart of the Forest because I needed another hit immediately after I beat Shadows of New York and I might actually replay it to see other paths soon. It's also nice how it could slot into Forsaken just as easily as Apocalypse. It's $12 out of $15 on GOG right now.
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# ? Feb 8, 2021 08:46 |
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LatwPIAT posted:I know late 2e/early Revised also tapped a lot into the popularity of hidden cabals and millenialism that was really taking off in the same period, as the turn of the millennium approached. It's really telling how Bloodlines just perfectly captures that part of the setting by aspiring to be Deus Ex, a game in an entirely different genre in an entirely different setting. Oh yeah, in a way that's simultaneously still compelling and very dated. But I think we can draw a line between the invocation of millenialism and the specific depiction of vampires themselves in VtM, even with it banging the Gehenna drum every five paragraphs. Sort of a divide into two thematic elements: stories about <x> featuring <y>. It's not a perfect division, obviously, but the millenialism and conspiratorialism of the game line was also utilized in all the others (except, to an extent, Changeling) while the shift towards High Vampire Action wasn't reflected by the same cultural depiction of, say, wizards or ghosts.
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# ? Feb 8, 2021 09:11 |
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Loomer posted:Oh yeah, in a way that's simultaneously still compelling and very dated. But I think we can draw a line between the invocation of millenialism and the specific depiction of vampires themselves in VtM, even with it banging the Gehenna drum every five paragraphs. Sort of a divide into two thematic elements: stories about <x> featuring <y>. It's not a perfect division, obviously, but the millenialism and conspiratorialism of the game line was also utilized in all the others (except, to an extent, Changeling) while the shift towards High Vampire Action wasn't reflected by the same cultural depiction of, say, wizards or ghosts. Oh yeah, I’m mostly just talking about the distinct 90s-ness of Vampire. The occult (in the sense of hidden) underground with the impossibly cool nightclubs, the exclusive elite protagonist-people, the disaffected nihilism, the powerful cabal of people who want to hide things from you, and the looming end of the world as we know it.
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# ? Feb 8, 2021 10:45 |
And trenchcoats!
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# ? Feb 8, 2021 13:47 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 03:24 |
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You'd think nihilism would still be a pretty popular and common thing. It's not like the world has gotten better since the 90s. The 90s were a time of optimism for a lot of folks. Cold War was over and no more threat of random nuclear annihilation.
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# ? Feb 8, 2021 13:57 |