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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:In a stretch you could even say it's a failure of game design expressed as a failure of layout design. Like if it were still "Rage grants you the Rage condition" but at the start of the entry it reproduced what that condition does, how it's resolved, any modifiers or conditions, etc. that might be fine! This. Print the haunt conditions alongside the Haunts and then have a second reference index in the back, don't mandate flipping back and forth to use your splat's baseline powers.
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Nov 17, 2021 19:06
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Omnicrom posted:This. Print the haunt conditions alongside the Haunts and then have a second reference index in the back, don't mandate flipping back and forth to use your splat's baseline powers. Reminds me of when I was running WtF and both the Sacred Hunt and all the different Hunter's Aspects should have really had their associated Conditions printed alongside them. I don't think a single person used their Hunter's Aspect because it was such a pain to flip back and forth to see which vaguely named Condition was caused by which Aspect.
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Nov 17, 2021 19:19
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question because I made a joke in the bloodlines2 thread and just jolted back to me something that I wondered back when reading a little bit: would a vampire with true faith be recognized as such by the second inquisition? like, the mckinsey-equivalent arm of the Vatican would tell the troops on the ground that this vampire is actually a for real no-joke fully legit chosen of Saint Michael the Archangel and no fire can harm them? that would be an interesting game to run, I suppose
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Nov 18, 2021 05:01
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Given how a lot of the SI is decentralized from the Catholic side of things and how the SI loving loves ignoring evidence in favor of their own biases they'd probably just go "weird vampire magic shoot em!"
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Nov 18, 2021 05:10
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dead gay comedy forums posted:question because I made a joke in the bloodlines2 thread and just jolted back to me something that I wondered back when reading a little bit: would a vampire with true faith be recognized as such by the second inquisition? like, the mckinsey-equivalent arm of the Vatican would tell the troops on the ground that this vampire is actually a for real no-joke fully legit chosen of Saint Michael the Archangel and no fire can harm them? As I understand the current take on it, the Second Inquisition is very much the vampire take on what is going on. They see hunters getting organized and effective and think the Church's secret wing has stepped up their game and is pulling strings everywhere, but the reality is some number of factors has led multiple, otherwise unrelated groups to focus on rooting out vampiric influence. They don't share a mission statement. There's no central command organizing all these attacks. Which is to say the Vatican's hunters could say "this vampire has received a reprieve by the grace of God" and some extrajudicial government black ops squad will go "who gives a poo poo, if it matches the target profile you light 'em up." Though yeah, the Society of Leopold working from within the Catholic Church is full of a bunch of hardliners who are likely to see a vampire who walks in sunlight and is not repulsed by holy wards and sooner think "extra powerful vampire, extra need to kill it" than "God forgave this one."
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Nov 18, 2021 05:59
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Dawgstar posted:Most telling is how the Traditions are sort of called out as screw ups with a huge dose of eurocentrism which, sure, fair but then Phil the Thrill pushes forward nine NEW splats - the Disparate Alliance - as the ones that really have it all figured out this time, man. Are they better than the Traditions from a concept perspective? I don't think so, even on top of being the group that gets the Hollow Ones. I don't get a lot of Mage books outside the core and Ether/VE stuff, but the "The Hollow Ones felt mistreated by the Traditions, blew them off and joined up with these new, diverse people who have it all right" seemed to come out of nowhere. Is that the case, something made up in a fit of pique for the M20 book, or was there actual build up for it in previous books? And how exactly are the Hollow Ones a faction anyway, when their defining characteristic is "We don't know what we want, are all alone and like it that way"? That reminds me of the example of magic use, the Hollow One bisexual poly street kid using magic to get a guy on the street to buy her lunch, a wondrous task surely beyond any conventional skill.
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Nov 18, 2021 06:48
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Wheeljack posted:I don't get a lot of Mage books outside the core and Ether/VE stuff, but the "The Hollow Ones felt mistreated by the Traditions, blew them off and joined up with these new, diverse people who have it all right" seemed to come out of nowhere. Is that the case, something made up in a fit of pique for the M20 book, or was there actual build up for it in previous books? And how exactly are the Hollow Ones a faction anyway, when their defining characteristic is "We don't know what we want, are all alone and like it that way"? It is, in fact, completely out of nowhere; it is unsatisfying for all the reasons you mention; and yes, the Hollow Ones have always been complete jokes, with the possible exception of Penny Dreadful. (The Hollow Ones are jokes because they don't get that they're a joke; they could work if they did.)
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Nov 18, 2021 06:52
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I Am Just a Box posted:As I understand the current take on it, the Second Inquisition is very much the vampire take on what is going on. They see hunters getting organized and effective and think the Church's secret wing has stepped up their game and is pulling strings everywhere, but the reality is some number of factors has led multiple, otherwise unrelated groups to focus on rooting out vampiric influence. They don't share a mission statement. There's no central command organizing all these attacks. 
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Nov 18, 2021 07:33
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I Am Just a Box posted:As I understand the current take on it, the Second Inquisition is very much the vampire take on what is going on. They see hunters getting organized and effective and think the Church's secret wing has stepped up their game and is pulling strings everywhere, but the reality is some number of factors has led multiple, otherwise unrelated groups to focus on rooting out vampiric influence. They don't share a mission statement. There's no central command organizing all these attacks. aaahhhh, I see. I got the impression that it was more of a centralized front, but works much better that way. My initial read was that the discovery caused by that intelligence snafu caused a whole load of governments (was it just the USA?) to come to the Holy See. From that, the Church got enough political power back to actually coordinate an organized offensive, thus the second inquisition. I like your take way more, though.
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Nov 18, 2021 15:28
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Rand Brittain posted:
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Nov 18, 2021 15:39
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"Goth Lipstick Magic" is baaaad, but the Ecstatics' "drug spacebending sex assault magic" deal they had was, uh. In a very 90s fashion, there was some strong projections going on there. WAIT, scratch that, I just realized that the Ecstatics were/are what Nick Land was trying to do with the rave scene in England, holy poo poo lmao
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Nov 18, 2021 15:56
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Warthur posted:What exactly was the original design thinking behind the Hollow Ones? Do we know? The way it comes across in the 1E core is "we know lots of goths like our games so here is the faction where we shamelessly pander to them by implying that they are already powerful magicians simply by doing poo poo they already do". Seems like it would have made more sense if they were just the most organized Orphan group, and have it so that pop culture in the WoD is dominated by goth stuff so that's what influences a lot of their Paradigm's aesthetic, rather than trying to make "goth postmodern bookclub" a nascent Tradition equivalent. dead gay comedy forums posted:"Goth Lipstick Magic" is baaaad, but the Ecstatics' "drug spacebending sex assault magic" deal they had was, uh. Ecstatics always seemed like it'd be fun to actually be one but not really to play one, compared to any other sort of wizard. Too much focus on subjectivity, like someone else telling you about that weird dream they had. YaketySass fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Nov 18, 2021 |
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Nov 18, 2021 16:33
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Warthur posted:What exactly was the original design thinking behind the Hollow Ones? Do we know? The way it comes across in the 1E core is "we know lots of goths like our games so here is the faction where we shamelessly pander to them by implying that they are already powerful magicians simply by doing poo poo they already do". they needed the unaligned splat. So you had Caitiff, whatever the tribeless werewolves (ghost wolves? I know that's forsaken), and Hollow Ones.
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Nov 18, 2021 17:31
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I need some ST Help. How do you stop people from playing anti-social/paranoid as gently caress vampires. I've done absolutely nothing to make them paranoid, but I'm playing with three characters. Two have been playing for awhile and one is brand new. The new person is willing to go along with story hooks and has a stated ambition of having the most glorious rock collection ever. Easy enough, people have fancy watches and rings to steal which can lead to shenanigans. The other two seem to be content sitting in their havens. Their characters lack any sort of ambition, I've outright asked them, "Hey what do your characters want to accomplish" and they've said basically "to be left alone". Like at one point do I say gently caress it your anti-socialness has pissed off a head vampire and he firebombs your havens?
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Nov 18, 2021 17:51
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That sucks, before I game with people I'm not irl friends with, I specifically ask for a buy in to avoid this. Characters should be dynamic, those two just made some d-tier npcs
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Nov 18, 2021 17:54
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Defenestrategy posted:I need some ST Help. How do you stop people from playing anti-social/paranoid as gently caress vampires. I've done absolutely nothing to make them paranoid, but I'm playing with three characters. Two have been playing for awhile and one is brand new. The new person is willing to go along with story hooks and has a stated ambition of having the most glorious rock collection ever. Easy enough, people have fancy watches and rings to steal which can lead to shenanigans. You talk to them out of the game about what sort of game they want to play, and what sort of arc they want to see for their characters, and you either accommodate them, or stop inviting them. Or, lean into the paranoia; maybe that's what they're looking for in the game. They wake up, and surprise, their haven is rearranged. They go out hunting, and that tall thin dude in the trenchcoat seems to be everywhere, and just keeps staring at them. And why are all the local Nosferatu suddenly avoiding them?
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Nov 18, 2021 18:10
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Another option could be, give everyone the opportunity to make a ghoul, or a wannabe hanger-on renfield/familiar-type, or whatever. Basically a red-shirt that they can control outside their haven and go engage with plot things, and then see if that makes them more willing to engage. At the very least it's a test for if their lack of willingness to engage is paranoia, lack of ambition, or a genuine lack of interest/ideas.
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Nov 18, 2021 18:31
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Wheeljack posted:I don't get a lot of Mage books outside the core and Ether/VE stuff, but the "The Hollow Ones felt mistreated by the Traditions, blew them off and joined up with these new, diverse people who have it all right" seemed to come out of nowhere. Is that the case, something made up in a fit of pique for the M20 book, or was there actual build up for it in previous books? And how exactly are the Hollow Ones a faction anyway, when their defining characteristic is "We don't know what we want, are all alone and like it that way"? In a book I don't recall off the top of my head, the destruction of Horizon - the Traditions' big meeting place in the Umbra for those who don't know, or don't care, which I fully understand - was alleged to happen thanks to the Hollow One's representative to the Tradition doing something traitorous so the Technocracy(?) could come blow it up. Why? Mad about not being full members I think. You're not wrong about them not really being an organized group, though. There are in theory one or two people (the "founder" and maybe the aforementioned Penny) every clique respects but that doesn't mean they actually will care if told what to do.
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Nov 18, 2021 18:49
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At least the character ides for our upcoming Mage game seems to be working well together. Game is gonna be set in Detroit so I'm gonna be mnaking an Etherite Garage Owner, another one is gonna do something witchy with urban decay, another one is doing a Cult of Ecstasy Graffiti Artist who works part time in my garage on paint jobs.
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Nov 18, 2021 19:25
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Soonmot posted:they needed the unaligned splat. So you had Caitiff, whatever the tribeless werewolves (ghost wolves? I know that's forsaken), and Hollow Ones. The thing is, though, all the Mage splats were arranged by their magical paradigm as much as by organisational ties (indeed, you could in theory be a mad scientist on their own who is as much a Society of Ether type as anyone who's actually a card-carrying member of the Society, at least in the sense of which splat you used to represent that character game mechanically), so a specific magical paradigm of "we're kind of unaligned" makes no sense because your paradigm isn't about what club you are a member of, it's about the fundamental lens through which you see the world. So the Hollow Ones aren't just an unaligned grab-bag, they're meant to represent a specific worldview at the same time, which is kind of absurd and contradictory. By definition, the unaligned faction shouldn't have any one single paradigm associated with it, but on a game mechanical level it has to because that's what justifies the splat's specific mechanics to begin with.
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Nov 19, 2021 01:21
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I've said it before, but the way to make Hollow Ones work is to lean right into the name and have them not be goths, particularly, but the tradition of full on 90s chaos mages, just with a focus on using specific subcultures as a source of inspiration and cover. It even fits with their history as a tradition older than anyone else realizes - the other mages see these weird people come and go and don't make the connection that the hotrod mages of the 1950s are the exact same people as the goth mages of the 90s.
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Nov 19, 2021 02:49
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YaketySass posted:
The only "good" Ecstatics are whichever Dissidents able to go "the enemy of my enemy is still a loving idiot but at least they have the general right idea oh and ceterum autem censeo Codice Ananda esse delendam". When the god drat Acharne have a better grasp of "safe, sane, and consenual" than the main Tradition you have a problem. Makes me miss my PC whose goal was to become the platonic totem of rear end in a top hat Rich Guy just to then gleefully fling himself down a volcano and erase the concept from reality.
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Nov 19, 2021 04:06
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Lame Ecstatic cult: We have sex and do drugs and poo poo Cool Ecstatic cult: We practice a discipline of carefully considered mindful pleasure and pain to transcend our minds Correct ecstatic cult: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIHzubi2kgg
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Nov 19, 2021 04:22
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citybeatnik posted:Makes me miss my PC whose goal was to become the platonic totem of rear end in a top hat Rich Guy just to then gleefully fling himself down a volcano and erase the concept from reality This is hands down the best mage pc narrative goal I've ever seen period and you rule for it
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Nov 19, 2021 05:20
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Defenestrategy posted:I need some ST Help. How do you stop people from playing anti-social/paranoid as gently caress vampires. I've done absolutely nothing to make them paranoid, but I'm playing with three characters. Two have been playing for awhile and one is brand new. The new person is willing to go along with story hooks and has a stated ambition of having the most glorious rock collection ever. Easy enough, people have fancy watches and rings to steal which can lead to shenanigans. The suggestions to talk out of game are spot on because I've played with more than a few people like this and they just tend to dig in their heels if they feel like you're trying to force them into the story. I remember one specific incident (I think I've brought this guy up before) but literally all he did at night was be a street preacher. That's it. Never engaged with the story. Storyteller has his haven invaded one day by a couple of mortal hunters, Street Preacher manages to dispatch them. The next night he has no curiosity at all about how they found him or any of that. Just moves his haven real quick and keeps street preaching.
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Nov 19, 2021 05:57
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dead gay comedy forums posted:This is hands down the best mage pc narrative goal I've ever seen period and you rule for it My objection would be that by the time you were the living embodiment of rear end in a top hat Rich Guy, you'd *be* rear end in a top hat Rich Guy.
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Nov 19, 2021 16:39
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TheKingslayer posted:The suggestions to talk out of game are spot on because I've played with more than a few people like this and they just tend to dig in their heels if they feel like you're trying to force them into the story. Yeah, there's a lot of people who don't really get the idea of interactive storytelling and just treat it as a game they try to win by the least effort, and experience or influence from toxic GMs doesn't help.
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Nov 19, 2021 16:52
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TheCenturion posted:My objection would be that by the time you were the living embodiment of rear end in a top hat Rich Guy, you'd *be* rear end in a top hat Rich Guy. That's the part that makes it amazing. The hubris to think that you're awesome enough to withstand being the embodiment of what you hate and then also to still sacrifice yourself while being the embodiment of rear end in a top hat Rich Guy is amazing. It's clearly flawed, but the mage doesn't care about being flawed like that. You're obsessed and it's what you're going to try to do and damned be the consequences.
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Nov 19, 2021 17:14
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Jhet posted:That's the part that makes it amazing. The hubris to think that you're awesome enough to withstand being the embodiment of what you hate and then also to still sacrifice yourself while being the embodiment of rear end in a top hat Rich Guy is amazing. It's clearly flawed, but the mage doesn't care about being flawed like that. You're obsessed and it's what you're going to try to do and damned be the consequences. "Now, I knew I'd have to do things I don't want to do. I went into this knowing that I'm sacrificing every moral, every ethical conviction, I have. I accepted that I'm sacrificing so many more things beyond my life. And you know what? I knew that once I actually became the living avatar of rear end in a top hat Rich Guy, I was going to refuse to throw myself in that volcano. I'm going to fight tooth and nail to enjoy my wealth and power. So then I got to thinking, 'what would an rear end in a top hat Rich Guy do?' So I set up a blind trust, and paid a group of people to knock me out, physically carry me to that volcano, and toss me in. They all knew what they signed up for, what they're sacrificing, too, but their families would be well taken care of. Because what's the point of being an rear end in a top hat Rich Guy if you're not willing to pay off some schlubs to kill somebody that's pissing you off? And man, future me already really REALLY pissed me off." "Wow. So, when do you figure that will happen?" "Oh, it happened two years ago." "But you're not dead." "No, because rear end in a top hat Rich Guy me paid some other schlubs even more money to knock off the first group. That's the problem with knowing your own plans."  "Top drawer, Wadsworth!"  "To industry!"
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Nov 19, 2021 17:24
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Haha if you thought a trustfund fratboy who alternated between shoveling everything possible up his nose, picking random fights, and trying to hump everything thought it all the way through like that. That requires work and effort and is unfit for someone walking the path of rear end in a top hat Rich Guy. His solution was to just be the biggest dick possible to fellow young magi like himself, secure in the knowledge that one of those idiots would hold enough of a grudge to hunt him down once they walked the path of power themselves.
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Nov 19, 2021 22:12
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All I can think of is the frat brothers from Scream Queens.
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Nov 20, 2021 02:16
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Was looking through oWoD lore to settle an argument and took a moment to have a sensible chuckle at Lambach Ruthven, the Most Owned Tzimisce
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Nov 20, 2021 03:49
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:Was looking through oWoD lore to settle an argument and took a moment to have a sensible chuckle at Lambach Ruthven, the Most Owned Tzimisce Oh, Lambach. Even when in NY By Night where he is explicitly called in as a heavy hitter and wrecks fools he still gets made out to be a dork who vanishes on the Sabbat's defensive efforts (admittedly he apparently had a run-in with the Eldest who keeps an eye on him).
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Nov 20, 2021 06:15
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:Was looking through oWoD lore to settle an argument and took a moment to have a sensible chuckle at Lambach Ruthven, the Most Owned Tzimisce the sorriest low-gen vampire to ever live?
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Nov 20, 2021 07:44
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He’s basically Gill from the Simpsons
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Nov 20, 2021 08:27
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Elder Hardluck?
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Nov 20, 2021 08:56
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We got Ruthven and we obviously have contended with Big Daddy Vladdy, but were there ever oWoD versions of Carmilla or Varney the Vampyre? Orlok inspired an entire drat clan so he's covered.
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Nov 20, 2021 10:49
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Loomer posted:All I can think of is the frat brothers from Scream Queens. They were a big inspiration for my Acharne, yeah. That and him being someone who realized the toxic masculinity of Fight Club and went "yeah this is bullshit but other people think it's not and I can use that belief". Old Mage has quite a few Traditions that kind of opened themselves up to playing characters that didn't necessarily *believe* in what they were doing but saw it as checkboxes to be marked off. "... why are you cutting off your fingers?" "*thunk* Because Ravanna cut off his head to make Shiva give him a boon." "... and what boon do you want?" "An extra three inches below the belt. *thunk*" "Couldn't you just do that yourself?" "*thunk* Yeah but this way I get to make a god have to do it for me. *thunk* Pass me the asprin, please."
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Nov 20, 2021 17:54
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Nessus posted:We got Ruthven and we obviously have contended with Big Daddy Vladdy, but were there ever oWoD versions of Carmilla or Varney the Vampyre? Orlok inspired an entire drat clan so he's covered. Never official versions, AFAIK. Carmilla could work as a Malkavian, considering she would use dreams and visions to communicate to her lover, Laura, and she reflects defiance of Victorian society’s heteronormativity. Sir Francis Varney has unnatural strength and hypnosis, and has roots in English nobility and was apparently cursed with vampirism as punishment for betraying a royalist to Oliver Cromwell. Seems like he could work as either Brujah or Ventrue.
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Nov 21, 2021 00:14
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What are the white wolf equivalents of count von count, count chocula, bunnicula, and dio brando
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Nov 21, 2021 01:03
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