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XCOM funded by vampires, there's a fun idea. Also someone totally trying to make an alien vampire just to see if they can.
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Jun 11, 2023 08:42
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A Consilium works like a combination ethics committee and small claims court - it's *not* there to act like a vampire prince, but only to consider and rule on disagreements between mages so that they don't come to blows (Awakened mages being a society made of heavily-armed glass cannons, stoppping them shanking one another is important). The Heirarch is the chair of the decision making panel, the Councillors ate the other members. It's traditional to have at least one member of each Path. Decisions can become laws by setting precedents, (ruling that, say, a particular mage's legacy is unmutual makes it illegal) so there's fine detail about how much precedent a law has, Neighbouring Consilia synching their decisions at Convocations, etc. Ultimately, though, it's built around taking the five or six theoretically most qualified mages in a region and putting them in charge of resolving disputes. It's appeal to expertise, which mages find attractive because they like it when their expertise is acknowledged. Assembly is "someone proposes something, and every interested mage in the region votes on it". Exact method of democracy varies (quorums, etc) based on bylaws set by previous votes. Offices arise as needed and have their terms and powers also voted on before someone gets elected. It's often a popularity contest, but that's democracy for you. Mages find it attractive because every mage is an egotist who wants *their* opinion considered. Neither method relies on the Order membership of the mages involved. It's just that in many places -especially the US where the Free Council and Silver Ladder typically don't like each other very much - Libertines tend to make up most of yhe regular voting membership of Assemblies. It is in no way unusual for a younger Diamond mage yo get ruled against in Consilium, turn around, and get the Assembly on their side instead.
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Jun 11, 2023 11:30
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bewilderment posted:Unless your game is specifically something on the scale of, like "you are in Houston and your job is to ghoul the director of the Johnson Space Center" I'm gonna suggest that Vampire is probably not actually going to provide you with the kind of rules support you want or need. Funny thing is though, I think it can work specifically player-facing as vampires doing the grunt work to nudge things in the right direction, IMO; being an unexpected variable specifically to counter both human red tape and division and alien infiltration and manipulation, doing black ops poo poo to subvert human authorities sometimes just to make them actually do their drat jobs, and occasional encounters with weird poo poo outside even vampire experiences. You might not be XCOM, but you might have the same mission control. (Bonus points for the mysterious dude with the awesome voice) Depends on what you're working with. If you AND your players know the system, you can probably do more ambitious concepts better, but even more locally you can have them based around a particular important area- indeed, possibly Houston or Area 51- and playing a small but important part in a larger story.
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Jun 11, 2023 12:21
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Dawgstar posted:https://twitter.com/worldofdarkness/status/1667455868189769729 Welp, my chronicle is literally set in an old European university city with the vampires' whole power structure latched on to it, so that's a day one purchase.
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Jun 11, 2023 14:04
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Dave Brookshaw posted:the US where the Free Council and Silver Ladder typically don't like each other very much - I never fully got this. It seems like the books say it all stems from right after WWII when the American Ladders and Council worked together to Operation Paperclip some Nazi mages, and then blamed each other when poo poo went bad. But... why would that make each group especially hate each other? Even if they each tried to throw the other under the bus, why is some random Thearch decades later like "yeah, gently caress the Free Council, they blamed us when our collective secret fascist rehabilitation pact went bad!" Or does like, an average Free Councilor still mad at it not even know their group was in on it? And regardless, shouldn't the other three groups be way more angry than either of the two conspirators? also why did the free council try and help fascists
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Jun 11, 2023 19:46
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Digital Osmosis posted:I never fully got this. It seems like the books say it all stems from right after WWII when the American Ladders and Council worked together to Operation Paperclip some Nazi mages, and then blamed each other when poo poo went bad. But... why would that make each group especially hate each other? Even if they each tried to throw the other under the bus, why is some random Thearch decades later like "yeah, gently caress the Free Council, they blamed us when our collective secret fascist rehabilitation pact went bad!" Or does like, an average Free Councilor still mad at it not even know their group was in on it? And regardless, shouldn't the other three groups be way more angry than either of the two conspirators? In Doylist terms, it's us taking the "Silver Ladder and Free Council hate each other! So much!" of early 1st ed books and appending "...In America". The same way Werewolf: The Forsaken did with the Pure : Forsaken ratio being reversed. The Free Council weren't trying to help fascists. They were trying to help former-Nameless mages who'd picked the Seers during the Great Refusal and regretted it to defect to the Free Council. The Silver Ladder were trying to help Diamond mages who'd supported fascists obtain new cover identities in the West. Both groups lied about what they were up to ("evacuating refugees caught on the wrong side of the war" was the common denominator,) and both saw what the other did as absolutely unforgivable.
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Jun 11, 2023 20:43
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Dave Brookshaw posted:In Doylist terms, it's us taking the "Silver Ladder and Free Council hate each other! So much!" of early 1st ed books and appending "...In America". The same way Werewolf: The Forsaken did with the Pure : Forsaken ratio being reversed. Oh, yeah, looks like I totally misunderstood this one. That makes a lot more sense-- ofc the Ladder would see people who chose to join the Seers as irredeemable and the Council would see people who sided with fascists as irredeemable. I didn't get it when I thought it was some kind of joint project gone wrong, but seeing it as two different projects that were close enough in spirit to make each side feel guilty (and then project that onto the other group) makes the whole thing a lot clearer. edit: and I was asking from a Watsonian POV. From the Doyalist take it was a good and cool change that not only upped the historical and local specificity of the groups but also rectified some weirdness that assuming they globally hated each other would bring, like how Free Council and Silver Ladder end-goals are pretty close and how the Ladder's whole thing is bringing Awakened groups together. Digital Osmosis fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Jun 11, 2023 |
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Jun 11, 2023 20:55
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Having a relatively bridge-able gap in your game's set-up seems like it provides a natural hook for people to use as a mage-society goal, at least, even if it might not be logical. It's less epochal but also, like, "wow, you guys ended that rift (that was surprisingly narrow all along), good chronicle!" -- solid hook. I know the later oWoD version of this was the Technocracy and Traditions teaming up to some extent to blow up various Nephandi who were taking advantage of, you know, World War II. Both mystical organizations and super-technology people seem equally likely to have room for former* Nazis based on their mundane parallels, and I dimly remember some book having a Technocratic Symposium in the 30s saying something good about this new "Fascism" thing and getting half the attendance bouncing, which, of course, presents certain problems as far as Unity goes.
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Jun 11, 2023 22:19
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Wait, can't you just use magic to see if the person sincerely regrets being a Seer/Nazi?
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Jun 11, 2023 23:55
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tatankatonk posted:Wait, can't you just use magic to see if the person sincerely regrets being a Seer/Nazi?
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Jun 12, 2023 00:05
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Nessus posted:I recall tribe was always at least somewhat a choice, although people did not really change back and forth very much. But a Silver Fang lost cub could easily become a Bone Gnawer, and the Black Furies yeeted their male cubs (other than Metis) at other tribes, in preference to the ancient Spartan tradition. Yeah, it's always been a "choice" but was ultimately up to the tribal totem as to whether you got in or not. It just often was not a choice either due to stuff like pure breed and ancestors. A pure breed Shadowlord could go Bone Gnawer but it's just something that didn't happen for multiple reasons. The Black Furies are the biggest example of this in the game as mentioned since the entire male line of the tribe is kicked out.
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Jun 12, 2023 04:33
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Writing out the Metis, and the breeding stuff in general, werewolves sometimes just chosen by Gaia, serious costs to not just murder poo poo in Crinos, tribes being even more a choice than before... It's far more a port of 2e Forsaken into the oWoD than it is Apocalypse at this point.
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Jun 12, 2023 16:20
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DigitalRaven posted:Writing out the Metis, and the breeding stuff in general, werewolves sometimes just chosen by Gaia, serious costs to not just murder poo poo in Crinos, tribes being even more a choice than before... I wouldn't go that far. This game's still more focused on the whole "nature is hurt and we're very angry about that" thing than Forsaken's spirit cops. It's just that Apocalypse's problems haven't changed that much in the past twenty years, and the logical first reactions to fix them are basically the same.
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Jun 12, 2023 16:35
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Does anyone else here deeply dislike Aspirations in CofD? I feel like as a player the system both expects me to pre-plan my sessions way more than I'm ever interested in and expects individual sessions that cover way more ground than most of the ones I'm in manage.
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Jun 12, 2023 16:50
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The Mage corebook does a good job of blunting some of the issues with Aspirations as first introduced in GMC/VtR2 by encouraging STs to err on the side of counting them fulfilled and explicitly assuring you that it's okay to just have a standing aspiration that you get beats for making progress on rather than having to continuously discard and replace them. That said, I'm with you; I don't really like having to call shots on what'll happen in a coming session to figure out how much XP I'm getting and having a good character moment or whatever that just doesn't happen to fit one of the three you currently have written down only serves to sour you on roleplaying that felt worthwhile at the time. I'd like to see a system in which Aspirations are assumed to be a little more static by default but also work like Intimacies from Exalted, i.e. they represent in-character social and philosophical commitments and are relevant to in-character mechanics like Willpower conservation and social influence. That'd make them a little redundant with Virtue/Vice of course, but you could make sure that Virtue and Vice describe general personality traits while Aspirations are always tied to really-existing characters and organizations or something.
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Jun 12, 2023 17:36
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I mean Forsaken's lore isn't that far off from being a mirror image of Apocalypse's anyways; it's just much more skeptical about the degree to which ancient, incomprehensibly powerful spirits actually represent "nature," with appropriate changes stemming from that re: who the protagonists are and how they're portrayed.
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Jun 12, 2023 17:38
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Yeah, W:TF seems to fall on the side of "A spirit of plastic is as natural as a spirit of a tree in that it is a reflection of belief occurring on the other side of the wall." the issue is when spirits start going rogue or going to the wrong side of that wall.
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Jun 12, 2023 18:03
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Lurks With Wolves posted:I wouldn't go that far. This game's still more focused on the whole "nature is hurt and we're very angry about that" thing than Forsaken's spirit cops. Really more 'spirit neighborhood watch.' It's just in Silent Hill.
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Jun 12, 2023 18:51
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Kurieg posted:Yeah, W:TF seems to fall on the side of "A spirit of plastic is as natural as a spirit of a tree in that it is a reflection of belief occurring on the other side of the wall." the issue is when spirits start going rogue or going to the wrong side of that wall. Right. Father Wolf and Luna aren't Gaia and the Weaver, but they are the dead/dying remnant of the old symbolic order of reality and an incredibly detached, possibly insane alien intelligence that's at least partly responsible for humanity's meteoric rise in the scheme of things, respectively.
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Jun 12, 2023 18:59
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Alright guys we're going to copy basically every innovation and improvement to be found in the nWoD version of our game but obviously, obviously, we're keeping the race stuff. Sand the edges down a bit if you have to but what else is any of this for?
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Jun 12, 2023 19:12
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Dawgstar posted:Really more 'spirit neighborhood watch.' It's just in Silent Hill.
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Jun 12, 2023 20:18
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Furry Ghostbusters.
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Jun 12, 2023 20:43
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Harmony being about actual harmony between flesh and spirit and not a morality scale is a drastic improvement too.
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Jun 12, 2023 20:55
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Ferrinus posted:Alright guys we're going to copy basically every innovation and improvement to be found in the nWoD version of our game but obviously, obviously, we're keeping the race stuff. Sand the edges down a bit if you have to but what else is any of this for? Hugely reductive. In reality any of a number of different ineluctable, metaphysical qualities belonging to specific arbitrary groups of people could be the sole determing factor of history, many of which are one or two layers of abstraction removed from race!
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Jun 12, 2023 21:01
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Kurieg posted:Harmony being about actual harmony between flesh and spirit and not a morality scale is a drastic improvement too. I like the part in Shunned by the Moon where it's like, listen: even though Pure don't make a deal with Luna they still operate under the same Harmony restrictions. Just say it's the deals they made with spirit courts. Please just run with this and move on.
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Jun 12, 2023 21:01
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Attorney at Funk posted:Hugely reductive. In reality any of a number of different ineluctable, metaphysical qualities belonging to specific arbitrary groups of people could be the sole determing factor of history, many of which are one or two layers of abstraction removed from race! Our epoch, the epoch of the bullshit stepdad, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Prep and Goth.
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Jun 12, 2023 21:03
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:I like the part in Shunned by the Moon where it's like, listen: even though Pure don't make a deal with Luna they still operate under the same Harmony restrictions. Just say it's the deals they made with spirit courts. Please just run with this and move on. i tend to read this diegetically rather than (just) as a rules convenience; the Forsaken's mythology is exactly that: mythology. Harmony is just a Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Jun 12, 2023 |
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Jun 12, 2023 21:10
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https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/chatgpt-takes-the-pulpit-ai-leads-experimental-church-service-in-germany/ The God-Machine is become manifest. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 13, 2023 01:41
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Fuzz posted:https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/chatgpt-takes-the-pulpit-ai-leads-experimental-church-service-in-germany/
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Jun 13, 2023 02:51
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Ghost Leviathan posted:XCOM funded by vampires, there's a fun idea. Do you want Deviants?!?!… Because that’s how you get Deviants!!!! (…I want Deviants) For serious, the upcoming Clade Companion previews present a bunch of new Forms and one of them is the Outsider, a Deviant who was never human but, at least partially, an alien or extra-dimensional being, if you ever want to make the plot of the movie Species with a protagonist reversal.
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Jun 13, 2023 03:16
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Fuzz posted:https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/chatgpt-takes-the-pulpit-ai-leads-experimental-church-service-in-germany/ What the gently caress is this probe even for? It's a topical loving joke on a loving comedy forum for gently caress's sake.
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Jun 13, 2023 13:32
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Fuzz posted:https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/chatgpt-takes-the-pulpit-ai-leads-experimental-church-service-in-germany/ Seriously? Ghost Leviathan posted:XCOM funded by vampires, there's a fun idea. Ever read the Laundry series? Specifically, in this case, the Rhesus Chart? The series is about the idea that 'magic is real, and it's basically high level math. And that's a problem as computers get faster, smaller, and more ubiquitous. Bob gets recruited to "The Laundry," a branch of the British civil service dedicated to suppressing this knowledge, and dealing with any issues resolving around it, after he writes a very cool screensaver that almost summons Nyarlathotep." Starts out as a parody of, well, British government jobs and Lovecraft, then devolves a bit as Stross writes 'take that' novels at pop culture, then gets back into the upcoming arrival of Dread Cthulhu, and well, it goes from there. But the Rhesus Chart is about Vampires. I'll also point out that in my beloved 90s RPG Conspiracy X, there are, in fact, alien Vampires. And the NDD can be awfully X-Com like at times.
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Jun 13, 2023 13:47
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Rhandhali posted:What the gently caress is this probe even for? It's a topical loving joke on a loving comedy forum for gently caress's sake. Yeah, this is a bit bullshit. Can we get some explanation here?
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Jun 13, 2023 13:48
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Soonmot posted:Yeah, this is a bit bullshit. Can we get some explanation here? Which in a way makes it pretty on-brand for when we talk about the inscrutable hostility of the God Machine
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Jun 13, 2023 13:57
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Oh my God. I just read the probe reason and it's because of the "let's ban even acknowledging that AI exists" drama being pushed by like 3 super mad posters in the feedback thread.
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Jun 13, 2023 14:03
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Demon the descent now banned from WoD thread
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Jun 13, 2023 14:07
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Fuzz posted:https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/chatgpt-takes-the-pulpit-ai-leads-experimental-church-service-in-germany/ lol, what an absolutely tragic modding decision
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Jun 13, 2023 14:09
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i'm all for banning "hey everyone look at my eight-fingered midjourney character portrait" but a news article about "AI" enthusiasts doing something incredibly stupid and off-putting with a topical joke for the thread is the exact opposite of how that should work
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Jun 13, 2023 14:14
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Yeah, bad shoot, even if a 6er is incredibly small change.
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Jun 13, 2023 14:17
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:i'm all for banning "hey everyone look at my eight-fingered midjourney character portrait" but a news article about "AI" enthusiasts doing something incredibly stupid and off-putting with a topical joke for the thread is the exact opposite of how that should work Yeah, I have multiple posts earlier about how I've been using chatgpt to make designing npcs easier and less time consuming. Hopefully Fuzz slept through the probe.
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Jun 13, 2023 14:38
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