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Octavo posted:Got mine today too, and I'm digging the powers and their drawbacks/scars. Art's really good too. Deviant's chargen is a bit heavy for CofD, but once you've got a character set up it's not too complicated. But what I love about it is that, in addition to how customizable the Variations and Scars and basically everything flavorful about the game is, by providing authorship over what form your Scars take and tying them directly to being the source of your Variations, it's a game that makes you just as excited and invested in your character's weaknesses as in their strengths and powers. You can make a character whose ways in which they're withered and limited are just as interesting and rewarding as the ways in which they're abnormally empowered. I really think Deviant: the Renegades feels like a better spiritual successor to Hunter: the Vigil First Edition than Hunter: the Vigil Second Edition has shaped out to be. The 2e Hunter book has lost 1e's free and open setting where just about anything could be out there in the weird thick fog, but Deviant has inherited that spirit greatly.
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Sep 8, 2021 02:55
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I really like Deviant's chargen and conspiracy-focused everything in terms of both the touchstone system and the antagonist org building, but I feel like if they did a 1.5e, just a second pass on things with license to brutally hack away at unnecessary bits, I would probably be pretty vicious to the Scars section itself. Like, you've got your Persistent Scars, right, the always-on stuff. By default they're only valid for always-on Variations. But then you can take Persistent Drawback as a Controlled Scar, which means either while the variation is active, the entangled Persistent Scar is active (the most obvious example for this being a Monstrous Transformation with Persistent Drawback: Conspicuous Appearance, to have a monster form to turn into), or that it's always active, if Persistent Drawback is Continual (which gives you a 1 point reduction in the scar itself). But then you've also got the Deviation (scar-modifier), Indelible Mark, which is the same thing as Persistent Drawback, but for Involuntary Scars instead. Which can also be Continual for an always-always on Scar attached to an existing Involuntary Scar (and given that that's a +1, and the magnitude of the Persistent Scar = the rating of the Indelible Mark for the magnitude buy-off, the most you could ever get is an Involuntary Scar at rating 1 with a Continual Indelible Mark at 3, and given that 1-rating Scars are just beat-farms with no mechanical weight, what are we really doing here. That whole section and sub-system really just needs an "acknowledge you're doing a point-buy system and rebuild it as such" pass on it, instead of this ticky-tacky "okay it's This Proper Name Category of Scar but only for This Proper Name Category of Variation; however you can take THAT Proper Name Category of Scar, or THAT OTHER Proper Name Category of Scar Modifier With Its Own Name, to use it anyway" over-written crap that means you need to stare yourself cross-eyed before you just suddenly *get* it and realize what they were going for in the first place (and should've written towards). Cool stuff though for sure. Other than that.
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Sep 8, 2021 03:11
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Nessus posted:I think some of this is that there's nothing broken in Wraith to chew over AND ALSO wraiths don't have the same power fantasy of the mages. Yeah when a wraith manages to deal with whatever bullshit led to it being a wraith it can safely gently caress off to the Far Shores. Mages never stop making their bullshit everyone else's problem.
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Sep 8, 2021 05:25
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I think Wraith is probably the best work any version of White Wolf ever produced. It's thematically coherent, it did something innovative with game mechanics with the shadowguiding thing (which when it works works), mechanically it's basically solid (at least for a storyteller system offering), and barring the misfires of its geopolitics and early attempts to deal with Asia, it even handled quite a lot of sensitive material with some real skill and tact. And it even kept a sense of dark but weirdly respectful humour in the mix.
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Sep 8, 2021 06:22
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The Deviant system for doing Conspiracy stuff looks ripe for use in other WoD/CoD lines. I understand that there's comparable systems for cults in Geist and Mummy, but with Deviant they seem to have tried to make sure that the system can cover everything from sinister corporations to unethical science projects to dubious cults, and I feel like it would be little trouble to use it to model the activities of Pentex, the Technocracy, or the True Black Hand (to pick some WoD examples). Deviant is also a great little dark-toned superheroes game. You could 100% do X-Men in it where the Conspiracies are not necessarily responsible for the production of mutants so much as their persecution, for instance. Or just start with everyone at high-Loyalty low-Conviction and enjoying the benefits of Guardians and then throw in some supervillains (Devoted in Nemesis mode) to give the heroes One Bad Day... Or you can run a game where everyone's psychics and make it Scanners: the Scanning.
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Sep 8, 2021 14:35
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Warthur posted:Or you can run a game where everyone's psychics and make it Scanners: the Scanning. Someone sitting at the table just yelling REVOK and shaking until their heads explode.
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Sep 8, 2021 14:52
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Warthur posted:The Deviant system for doing Conspiracy stuff looks ripe for use in other WoD/CoD lines. I understand that there's comparable systems for cults in Geist and Mummy, but with Deviant they seem to have tried to make sure that the system can cover everything from sinister corporations to unethical science projects to dubious cults, and I feel like it would be little trouble to use it to model the activities of Pentex, the Technocracy, or the True Black Hand (to pick some WoD examples).
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Sep 8, 2021 14:52
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Could probably make "Jumper, but good" too
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Sep 8, 2021 15:00
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Loomer posted:I think Wraith is probably the best work any version of White Wolf ever produced. It's thematically coherent, it did something innovative with game mechanics with the shadowguiding thing (which when it works works), mechanically it's basically solid (at least for a storyteller system offering), and barring the misfires of its geopolitics and early attempts to deal with Asia, it even handled quite a lot of sensitive material with some real skill and tact. And it even kept a sense of dark but weirdly respectful humour in the mix. i'll still go to bat for Geist 2E for being so strong thematically even if the mechanics are a mess. if i wanted good mechanics i wouldn't play a *oD game anyways
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Sep 8, 2021 15:44
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Warthur posted:Deviant is also a great little dark-toned superheroes game. You could 100% do X-Men in it where the Conspiracies are not necessarily responsible for the production of mutants so much as their persecution, for instance. Or just start with everyone at high-Loyalty low-Conviction and enjoying the benefits of Guardians and then throw in some supervillains (Devoted in Nemesis mode) to give the heroes One Bad Day... I know this isn't the most original idea, but I kind of want to use my favorite comic book arc "Dark Reign" as the inspiration for a Deviant game. Dark Reign: Norman Osborn (a Self-Made Devoted) takes over SHIELD and turns it into HAMMER (Conspiracy). The main characters used to be part of SHIELD, but are now renegades. Devoted Dark Avengers vs Renegade Secret Avengers.
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Sep 8, 2021 18:30
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I'm gonna ask a really stupid question but I've never really been able to figure it out looking at the last couple OPP kickstarters of interest to me. It looks like they don't do offset/actual print runs of the supplements or books they kickstart outside of the extraordinarily expensive collector's edition, right? So if you're just looking to get say a copy of CtL 2e or something buying the POD off DTRPG is as good-quality as it gets? (I've noticed a local retailer up here in Canada had print copies of CtL 2e for sale recently, which is why it comes to mind.)
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Sep 8, 2021 18:42
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Octavo posted:I know this isn't the most original idea, but I kind of want to use my favorite comic book arc "Dark Reign" as the inspiration for a Deviant game.
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Sep 8, 2021 18:54
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Arivia posted:I'm gonna ask a really stupid question but I've never really been able to figure it out looking at the last couple OPP kickstarters of interest to me. It looks like they don't do offset/actual print runs of the supplements or books they kickstart outside of the extraordinarily expensive collector's edition, right? So if you're just looking to get say a copy of CtL 2e or something buying the POD off DTRPG is as good-quality as it gets? (I've noticed a local retailer up here in Canada had print copies of CtL 2e for sale recently, which is why it comes to mind.)
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Sep 8, 2021 19:17
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Warthur posted:For Chronicles of Darkness ones they tend to do an offset print of the core book which is not a super-fancy deluxe whizzity-whizz leatherbound sample-of-the-writer's-DNA-encased-in-diamond-embedded-in-the-spine special version - I have got offset print versions of Demon: the Descent and Changeling: the Lost, for instance. But compared to the POD versions of, say, VtR 2E or MtAw or Deviant I have, I wouldn't say the offset quality is so much better than the POD quality that I'd consider it worth fussing about (though the caveat here is that I spring for premium-quality print). The thread-sewn binding is the real advantage to the offset print copies. DTRPG is good about replacing books with broken bindings, which I've had to do with bigger books like Mage the Awakening 2e. I think the POD books may have also switched to thicker paper, so they take up more room on the shelf than the offset copies. I dearly wish I could get an offset print version of Mage 2e and VTR 2e. I've considered getting a custom rebinding done at a bookbinder outside Toronto, but it's super expensive.
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Sep 8, 2021 20:32
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I don't know what's in stock over there, but a fair amount of tradprint non-super deluxe CoD cores are sold through Indie Press Revolution.
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Sep 8, 2021 20:40
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That Old Tree posted:I don't know what's in stock over there, but a fair amount of tradprint non-super deluxe CoD cores are sold through Indie Press Revolution. Only the games that got a kickstarter have tradprint cores.
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Sep 8, 2021 21:27
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For me, the first thing that came to mind reading the Deviant set up was "The Secret World of Alex Mack" Wonder if there is a merit for having your parents be employed by the conspiracy.
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Sep 8, 2021 21:54
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There's one for having your conspiracy be unwilling to physically harm you, which'd probably work well for that.
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Sep 8, 2021 22:51
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Twibbit posted:For me, the first thing that came to mind reading the Deviant set up was "The Secret World of Alex Mack" The WoD thread making me remember a Nick show from the 90's I haven't thought of in 20 odd years.
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Sep 8, 2021 22:56
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Young me was a super fan of the show when it aired. I guess it got stuck in my brain from that.
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Sep 8, 2021 23:20
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Worth mentioning that DTRPG recently jacked the prices of their POD books way up; the bigger books like Beckett’s or the cores are now well over $100.
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Sep 9, 2021 15:10
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AmiYumi posted:Worth mentioning that DTRPG recently jacked the prices of their POD books way up; the bigger books like Beckett’s or the cores are now well over $100. Note that while these are pretty nuts prices, prices for printing anything in general have risen astronomically over the last two years.
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Sep 9, 2021 17:35
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joylessdivision posted:The WoD thread making me remember a Nick show from the 90's I haven't thought of in 20 odd years. Twibbit posted:Young me was a super fan of the show when it aired. I guess it got stuck in my brain from that. I'm still reading through Deviant, but what I think is really neat about it is that you can easily play it as "Weekday Afternoons on 90s/early 00s Sci-Fi Channel Simulator." In some cases, you'll have to darken things up but it's such a versatile game that you can take almost any old short-run Science Fiction/Fantasy broadcast TV protagonist and throw them in a campaign. Alex Mack? Yes! The Misfits of Science? Oh yeah. That Invisible Man reboot in the early 00s? Sure, and he can fight the Blumhouse version too, why not? The Manimal? You do you, buddy! I really wish I had more time to game. A chronicle where the meta-premise is "protagonists of dark reboots of goofy high concept TV shows team up in a big crossover" is really grabbing me right now.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:16
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AmiYumi posted:Worth mentioning that DTRPG recently jacked the prices of their POD books way up; the bigger books like Beckett’s or the cores are now well over $100. That makes sense, yep - I've ordered a couple PoD things from DTRPG, but nothing that large. Sounds like I should keep an eye on IPR! Thank you for the info, everyone.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:18
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Free Cog posted:I really wish I had more time to game. A chronicle where the meta-premise is "protagonists of dark reboots of goofy high concept TV shows team up in a big crossover" is really grabbing me right now.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:23
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Pakxos posted:Someone stat up Rob Schneider's 'The Animal'.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:54
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Mimir posted:Note that while these are pretty nuts prices, prices for printing anything in general have risen astronomically over the last two years. Yeah, the reason for the change was that LightningSource retired their premium printer for lack of business, and DTRPG had to choose between their new semi-premium and ultra-premium options, and decided that a significant raise in prices was better than whatever drop in quality the cheaper option involved.
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Sep 9, 2021 21:07
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So what exactly has been happening in VTM 5th Edition? I have the core book and Anarch but like, has there been any real advancement in the metaplot since then? They came out a while ago. I just learned V5 Sabbat is coming out next month which I'm excited for. I wanna know if I'm gonna be totally confused about what it details. I dunno if it has anything on plot stuff but I really need to get Cult of the Blood GOds since it is specifically about my main interest in lore.
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Sep 14, 2021 14:25
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NikkolasKing posted:So what exactly has been happening in VTM 5th Edition? I have the core book and Anarch but like, has there been any real advancement in the metaplot since then? They came out a while ago. There was the big shakeup in Chicago by Night's new edition that had big chunks of the Lasombra join.
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Sep 14, 2021 14:38
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Dawgstar posted:There was the big shakeup in Chicago by Night's new edition that had big chunks of the Lasombra join. The big metaplot updates have been in Fall of London (apparently a bad book) and Chicago by Night. I haven't had a chance to finish Blood Gods so I'm not sure how much plot got added there, other than the Hecatta being a thing now. Ravnos, Tzmisce and Salubri were added in the holiday update thing from December which I think Renegade has said they're adding into the new core book along with other errata updates. At a guess I'd say Sabbat and 2nd Inquisition books will add more to the meta.
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Sep 14, 2021 14:59
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Are the Lasombra going to be folded into the revised core as well, or will that end up being an increasingly silly-looking sore point?
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Sep 14, 2021 15:11
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So a Bloodlines mod I'm playing has me trying to read more about the Baali and boy does their lore seem to be a mess. But in any event, while reading online stuff about them and trying to figure out which books give the most details, I saw Chaos Factor come up a lot. I was thinking "where have I read that before?" And I remembered it was in a thread I made on r/WhiteWolfRPG where CF was listed as one of the more despised books in the fandom. What's wrong with it?
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Sep 15, 2021 04:52
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NikkolasKing posted:So a Bloodlines mod I'm playing has me trying to read more about the Baali and boy does their lore seem to be a mess. Samuel Haight. It's his big adventure and your the background characters because Samuel Haight is more important. Haighters gonna Haight.
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Sep 15, 2021 05:03
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It's basically a D&D adventure where you're slowly trawling through Haight's trap filled murder house before he can achieve his EVIL PLANZ but he achieves them regardless of what the players do.
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Sep 15, 2021 06:05
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joylessdivision posted:The big metaplot updates have been in Fall of London (apparently a bad book) and Chicago by Night. I haven't had a chance to finish Blood Gods so I'm not sure how much plot got added there, other than the Hecatta being a thing now. Fall of London on my read through mostly sucked because it appeared to be made before anyone knew what V5 would like like so the rules and stats are an absolute mess. The story is pretty neat but as an actual chronicle it's trash.
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Sep 15, 2021 08:04
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NikkolasKing posted:But in any event, while reading online stuff about them and trying to figure out which books give the most details, Clanbook Baali is your best bet for lore and secrets like: Saulot continues to be the worst, Earthbound Demons from Demon: the Fallen were being kept in check by the Baali and the reason there are so many of them around and awake in the modern day setting is because the Baali are mostly wiped out, and also the Baali signature Discipline is mostly useless until you hit ten dots in it and turn yourself into an actual unbound Demon.
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Sep 15, 2021 10:06
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TheKingslayer posted:Fall of London on my read through mostly sucked because it appeared to be made before anyone knew what V5 would like like so the rules and stats are an absolute mess. The story is pretty neat but as an actual chronicle it's trash. Also, bizarrely, it seems designed around the pregens in the back of the book. That's just... weird design in this day and age.
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Sep 15, 2021 14:20
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Just picked up the Mummy 2ed book because OPP emailed me to remind me that it existed. Quick question: wtf is Duat within a larger CofD context? I understand that the gamelines aren't intended to be ran together, but I at least describe unified lore for my Mages who like to dimension hop. Is Duat the Underworld? Or are the Judges the Cthonic Gods that the Giest book was talking about who actually run the afterlife cosmology, meaning Duat is the spooky after-afterlife that Sin-Eaters go to during Catharsis? Or is it just entirely incongruent with the Geist Underworld? (Sorry if any of my questions are Just Wrong, my brain is a bit scattered)
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Sep 16, 2021 05:37
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Dawgstar posted:Also, bizarrely, it seems designed around the pregens in the back of the book. That's just... weird design in this day and age. Ahh it's been a while since I read it and had forgotten about that. I'm not sure why anyone would have thought it was a good idea. Unless they're just conceding that they couldn't figure out how to write around certain powers making encounters trivial.
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Sep 16, 2021 05:40
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Spector29 posted:Just picked up the Mummy 2ed book because OPP emailed me to remind me that it existed. Quick question: wtf is Duat within a larger CofD context? I understand that the gamelines aren't intended to be ran together, but I at least describe unified lore for my Mages who like to dimension hop. it's probably a Lower Depth, a type of kind of parasitic sub-reality missing one or more of the properties embodied by the Arcana e: https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Lower_Depths
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Sep 16, 2021 05:48
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