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Ferrinus posted:Move fast and stake things Let's just say I'm a STAKEholder who isn't happy with the current management.
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# ? Aug 4, 2023 19:03 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 14:41 |
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TheCenturion posted:Let's just say I'm a STAKEholder who isn't happy with the current management. Why isn't anyone getting Imbued nowadays? Well, for starters, angel investors are a lot leerier in this economy. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Aug 4, 2023 |
# ? Aug 4, 2023 19:40 |
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Ferrinus posted:Why isn't anyone getting Imbued nowadays? Well, for starters, angel investors are a lot leerier in this economy. Supernatural powers? In THIS economy? Buddy, best I can do for you is a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, a notebook, and a decent cell phone with a good camera and three month's prepaid data.
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# ? Aug 4, 2023 19:46 |
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Ferrinus posted:The weird obsession with big organizations is where H5's neoliberal ideology comes through the strongest and most heavily distorts the game. We may never know why new White Wolf decided that the most important real-world metaphor for hunting vampires was Silicon Valley startup culture, but that's what we got. It correctly identifies the monsters that really walk among us, such as taxi services, the idea of going outside to pick up a sandwich, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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# ? Aug 4, 2023 19:50 |
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Since picking up my first V:tM book in the 90s it is only in this moment that I am experiencing true personal horror.
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# ? Aug 4, 2023 19:51 |
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Attorney at Funk posted:It correctly identifies the monsters that really walk among us, such as taxi services, the idea of going outside to pick up a sandwich, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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# ? Aug 4, 2023 20:34 |
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Ferrinus posted:The weird obsession with big organizations is where H5's neoliberal ideology comes through the strongest and most heavily distorts the game. We may never know why new White Wolf decided that the most important real-world metaphor for hunting vampires was Silicon Valley startup culture, but that's what we got. I heard good things about jucerio since since you can't really mess up a juice maker and SBF seems like his good with money since he's able to buy an whole stadium But sarcasm out of way how would you map the recent ongoing collapse of the crypto market and the growing negative public perception towards start ups in general a hypothetical H5.5 if you were writing it? Ghost Armor 1337 fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Aug 5, 2023 |
# ? Aug 5, 2023 00:13 |
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(Fills in 3 squares on his harano track)
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 00:16 |
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Ghost Armor 1337 posted:Hmm I wonder how most start ups are doing right now? If I was seriously tasked with writing a Hunter game it'd pretty much be a retread of Vigil, but if I specifically had to follow and build on H5 you'd basically get something in the spirit of the tweet I posted upthread. I wrote more about it in this thread a while ago, but I think the basic ideological assumption H5 makes - that if you have "Drive" you're definitely going to strike out on your own, and only stupid boring fuddy-duddies would ever want to avail themselves of the resources of a large organization - is incoherent at best and reactionary at worst, so by taking it seriously you won't be able to help satirizing it.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 00:24 |
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It really comes down to whether you'd want to keep the old factions or not. You could use the profusion of gritty street-level hunters as a paradigm shift that sweeps away moribund orgs but now having overtaken the ecosystem now go about consolidating with one another. You could also be like, "this is the oWoD, your randian vitality will revert to its historical function as the catspaw of some ancient conspiracy".
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 00:46 |
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Kurieg posted:HUNTR That's just Olivia Hill's game iHunt.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 02:21 |
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Ferrinus posted:snip Personally I would have a large faction of hunters realize that looking over your shoulder 24/7 for monsters that may or may not exists while bumming in a ratty apartment sucks, it's better to have the resources and man power an org can provide than "personal integrity". An example of that would be becoming an Zwei associate in my weird Project moon/World of darkness fusion thing I'm working on, sure an hunter don't need to become a Zwei associate to clean they section back streets of vampires but the heavy discount that comes with being a associate means the Zwei patrol subscription is much more affordable then protection payment for the local spine ripper syndicate and the payment for Zwei requests are triple compared the what you earn form normal missions... Ghost Armor 1337 fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Aug 5, 2023 |
# ? Aug 5, 2023 03:32 |
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I found out that there exists in Woof 5E a level 5 ritual for Black Spiral Dancers to use who don't want to dance the Black Spiral anymore and break their bond to Bat* and a few thoughts occur. One is why does it exist. Two is do other BSDs really let somebody use it. And three is so Dancers can maybe be redeemed but the Fenrir can't? Okay, sure. *Changing from Whippoorwill to Bat because Bat = Evil I guess is a coward's choice.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 04:54 |
I mean the idea of having a way for Black Spiral Dancers to repent of the Wyrm is great, but that's a chronicle defining thing. Also, Bat is associated with one of humanity's greatest culture heroes alongside Spider, Wolverine, and Super.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 05:00 |
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It's not a redemption and it's not a ritual. It's a five dot loresheet ability usable once per story which basically represents the extreme end of cult deprogramming. It "breaks Bat's hold" but doesn't really go deep into what that means or what the aftermath looks like, leaving that up to the Storyteller. Notably it doesn't say anything about removing any taint of the Wyrm, though there's really no way to tell what's corrupted/tainted any more.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 05:13 |
PantsOptional posted:It's not a redemption and it's not a ritual. It's a five dot loresheet ability usable once per story which basically represents the extreme end of cult deprogramming. It "breaks Bat's hold" but doesn't really go deep into what that means or what the aftermath looks like, leaving that up to the Storyteller. Notably it doesn't say anything about removing any taint of the Wyrm, though there's really no way to tell what's corrupted/tainted any more.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 05:25 |
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Dawgstar posted:I found out that there exists in Woof 5E a level 5 ritual for Black Spiral Dancers to use who don't want to dance the Black Spiral anymore and break their bond to Bat* and a few thoughts occur. One is why does it exist. Two is do other BSDs really let somebody use it. And three is so Dancers can maybe be redeemed but the Fenrir can't? Okay, sure. Alright we need an evil-sounding animal here uhhhh how about Wolf. No wait, gently caress, what else is there
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 05:31 |
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Nessus posted:This probably sounds dumb but is the Wyrm still in the game Yes it is. I finished mostly reading the book today (I skimmed attributes and skills) and it's very 1e vibes. You got Pentex, the Triat is there and all hosed up, Fomori, Banes. It's all there, and like I said it has a very 1e vibe with a lot of the racism and gross poo poo cleaned out. It's also fairly open in how it talks about the legends of the Garou and the times before, so you can pull as much or as little previous metaplot in as you want. They specifically referenced a Dancer hive from a book I just reviewed, so it's pretty clear they were going for a clean slate with a door open to the previous editions if that's your thing. I enjoyed it, and I definitely need to go over the rules a bit more because I want to run this at some point.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 05:58 |
The Angel Unisystem RPG had a really cool system for building the players' hunter organisation, by putting points into attributes like Clout, Quarters, and Gear. There is no fixed point limit, but the PCs' own rank is inversely proportional to the power of their organisation. You can be the owners of Angel Investigation, foot soldiers in Wolfram & Hart, or middle management in some up-and-coming national hunter group.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 10:16 |
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PantsOptional posted:It's not a redemption and it's not a ritual. It's a five dot loresheet ability usable once per story which basically represents the extreme end of cult deprogramming. It "breaks Bat's hold" but doesn't really go deep into what that means or what the aftermath looks like, leaving that up to the Storyteller. Notably it doesn't say anything about removing any taint of the Wyrm, though there's really no way to tell what's corrupted/tainted any more. Which doesn't really change the question of "why on earth do BSDs have a playable lore sheet when the Get of Fenris are universally unplayable by writer fiat?"
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 14:20 |
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Kurieg posted:Which doesn't really change the question of "why on earth do BSDs have a playable lore sheet when the Get of Fenris are universally unplayable by writer fiat?" I've seen speculation they weren't even going to have the Dancers as enemies at all so this is like two or more versions crashing in on itself.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 14:27 |
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Kurieg posted:Which doesn't really change the question of "why on earth do BSDs have a playable lore sheet when the Get of Fenris are universally unplayable by writer fiat?" It’s not a sheet about being a BSD. It’s a sheet about knowing a little too much for your own good about them. The Cult of Fenris also has a loresheet that indicates that you were one of the Get that left rather than join the Cult. Weirdly there isn’t one for the Stargazers, which feels like an oversight. Their reasoning behind walking away from the Nation is probably the most interesting to me - like the BSDs, they believe the war is unwinnable for Gaian forces but the Stargazers want to focus on rebuilding in the aftermath of the Apocalypse. PantsOptional fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Aug 5, 2023 |
# ? Aug 5, 2023 15:14 |
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PantsOptional posted:Weirdly there isn’t one for the Stargazers, which feels like an oversight. Their reasoning behind walking away from the Nation is probably the most interesting to me - like the BSDs, they believe the war is unwinnable for Gaian forces but the Stargazers want to focus on rebuilding in the aftermath of the Apocalypse. So the Stargazers are still extant?
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 17:04 |
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Dawgstar posted:So the Stargazers are still extant? Yes, they're an NPC faction that usually seems to slot into either being an ally of convenience or an accidental/incidental antagonist. Chimera doesn't seem to be their Patron Spirit any more and no one knows what if anything has taken its place, which probably doesn't help their reputation. They only have one sample NPC stat block but it doesn't indicate any existence of Kailindo.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 17:19 |
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Dawgstar posted:
It's not mentioned but like a lot of things in the book, there's the implication that if that's what you want as the ST, nobody is going to stop you. Hell, Lunatics are still in there, they're just not called that anymore.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 18:03 |
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SimonChris posted:The Angel Unisystem RPG had a really cool system for building the players' hunter organisation, by putting points into attributes like Clout, Quarters, and Gear. There is no fixed point limit, but the PCs' own rank is inversely proportional to the power of their organisation. You can be the owners of Angel Investigation, foot soldiers in Wolfram & Hart, or middle management in some up-and-coming national hunter group. A huge part of Conspiracy X was building your cell's assets and resources. Your character background would give you 'pulling strings' points in various categories, and everybody in the cell pools their poo poo. You're in the army? You can probably get guns. You're in NSA? You can probably get codebreaking tools. You're from CDC? You can get contamination suits, maybe even a level three or four biolab if you have enough pull.
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# ? Aug 5, 2023 22:08 |
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For WoD/CofD games, Deviant has a similar system with its Conspiracy-building mechanics. It’s focus in the core is on Conspiracy-as-Antagonist, but the Devoted Companion provides mechanics for building a Conspiracy that the PCs are technically allied with.
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# ? Aug 6, 2023 00:50 |
Having now made a bunch of characters for Deviant, while I love the game, tying variation power to scar level is nice thematically, but poo poo for play. There needs to be more scars and deviations that increase the magnitude, while making it so that taking a level 5 scar doesn't straight up cripple your character. Many of them are more limiting than a vampire's sunlight allergy or werewolf's silver bane. I think maybe taking more inspiration from Aberrant while limiting the upper levels of the powers to what Deviant currently has would have made a more enjoyable game, but I do love the feel of this. I know others have actual play experience, I'd love to hear what you made or your players made and how scars were handled. My current character is a thief who set up to steal a new industrial chemical, was shot by outside security and fell into a vat of chemicals, now her blood is all hosed up, giving her incredible healing powers, enhanced dexterity, and a pressurized blast of blood when struck (deadly ichor with knockdown). Unfortunatly, she has almost complete amnesia from the time before her accident, which me and my ST are going to have fun with working in her past criminal connections, and the need to be eating constantly so that her blood ( THE JUICE) doesn't consume her body.
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# ? Aug 6, 2023 01:32 |
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Soonmot posted:Having now made a bunch of characters for Deviant, while I love the game, tying variation power to scar level is nice thematically, but poo poo for play. There needs to be more scars and deviations that increase the magnitude, while making it so that taking a level 5 scar doesn't straight up cripple your character. Many of them are more limiting than a vampire's sunlight allergy or werewolf's silver bane. I think maybe taking more inspiration from Aberrant while limiting the upper levels of the powers to what Deviant currently has would have made a more enjoyable game, but I do love the feel of this. Hi! Been a Deviant GM for a few months now. As crippling as the Scars are in the game, I prefer that to an Aberrant-style model. Without high-Mag Scars giving serious mechanical effects, you remove a lot of what separates Deviant from being just another street-level superhero game. A lot of the interesting gameplay is built around how Deviants cope with these terrible effects, and they provide a plausible justification as to why so many Deviants go renegade after being altered by their Conspiracy (even if voluntary).
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# ? Aug 6, 2023 01:50 |
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Soonmot posted:Having now made a bunch of characters for Deviant, while I love the game, tying variation power to scar level is nice thematically, but poo poo for play. There needs to be more scars and deviations that increase the magnitude, while making it so that taking a level 5 scar doesn't straight up cripple your character. Many of them are more limiting than a vampire's sunlight allergy or werewolf's silver bane. I think maybe taking more inspiration from Aberrant while limiting the upper levels of the powers to what Deviant currently has would have made a more enjoyable game, but I do love the feel of this. Honestly picking "Transmissible" as an optional thing has done more to define how the character engages with the world around him, between one fateful combat turning into a multi-session oh-gently caress-oh-poo poo-hunt-this-down-oh-it's-just-worse-now outbreak, and it taking uhhh 94 sessions (I checked!) to learn that it doesn't transmit to other Deviants and major-template-havers. But I'm really glad I modeled that with something other than the Scar system, because I don't even know how you'd do it without making it crippling.
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# ? Aug 6, 2023 04:13 |
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Nessus posted:This probably sounds dumb but is the Wyrm still in the game Others have given you the basic confirmation, but the Wyrm (and the Triat in general) is presented very differently in W5. The book goes out of its way to tell you that the Wyrm isn't evil, only ascendant and out of balance. It's not acting with any real purpose, just a blind idiot god a la Azathoth.
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# ? Aug 8, 2023 01:45 |
Free Gratis posted:Others have given you the basic confirmation, but the Wyrm (and the Triat in general) is presented very differently in W5. Logically there would still be 'wyrm aligned' spirits floating around that were not fucko bonkers. Like mushrooms.
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# ? Aug 8, 2023 02:00 |
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Nessus posted:Logically there would still be 'wyrm aligned' spirits floating around that were not fucko bonkers. Like mushrooms. This was sort of hinted at that there were, or that it was possible to free them from corruption,* but that it was super rare. *There was a small camp of Shadow Lords who guilty over their ancestors being conquistador assholes who killed all the Camazotz werebats were working hard on trying to redeem Bat as a spirit they either managed to partially cleanse the spirit or found an untainted portion and were working on that.
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# ? Aug 8, 2023 07:17 |
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Yeah, the Wyrm proper in OG Werewolf was never portrayed as a sentient actor, none of the three were except in the broadest mythological sense. It didn't pop in like a Captain Planet villain and wring its hands together while trying to get the local forest chopped down for a strip mall. But it as a primary component of the universe had been twisted from entropy to corruption, which trickled down to everything that was serving it. And those servants were sentient actors, so they were the ones all-in on the evil boat and the ones that the PCs would encounter. Mentions were made now and then about uncorrupted followers of the original destruction Wyrm still being out there doing their thing, but since they weren't the ones causing trouble, there wasn't much reason for PCs to run into them.
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# ? Aug 9, 2023 04:43 |
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I mean, I definitely got the impression from reading Apocalypse that the Wyrm was a sentient actor, just not one that showed up in person very much (or, in practice, ever).
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# ? Aug 9, 2023 04:49 |
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The Original Uncorrupted Wyrm was definitely spoken of, sure. However, The Wyrm the Antagonist had many faces that gave it character and a sense of proactivity. The Triatic Wyrm (Eater of Souls, Beast of War, Defiler), The Urge Wyrms, The Maeljin Incarna, etc.
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# ? Aug 9, 2023 04:59 |
Rand Brittain posted:I mean, I definitely got the impression from reading Apocalypse that the Wyrm was a sentient actor, just not one that showed up in person very much (or, in practice, ever).
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# ? Aug 9, 2023 05:00 |
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A bit like an Azazoth and Nyarlathotep thing maybe. On another note; I feel like coming up with Gentry should be fun but it's oddly tricky. I think it's a matter of figuring out a theme and vibe that manages the right mix of strange and scary without getting TOO ridiculous. I might also just be fussy.
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# ? Aug 9, 2023 05:21 |
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Ghost Leviathan posted:On another note; I feel like coming up with Gentry should be fun but it's oddly tricky. I think it's a matter of figuring out a theme and vibe that manages the right mix of strange and scary without getting TOO ridiculous. I might also just be fussy. The line between "just enough" and "too much" is also in a different spot at the table than it is when you're sitting around thinking of stuff. By and large players are gonna go along with whatever you put down unless you've lost their interest for some other reason* Plus different Gentry are going to present as horrific at different rates so one isn't necessarily a failure as a character if they don't hit out of the gate. Some might be immediately terrifying, some of them only get under your skin over time, some of them seem almost benign until you look back on the experience and see it for what it was all along. *or, I guess, if you've got a lot of "so THAT just happened" player-characters but tonally that's always just gonna be a different game if so
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# ? Aug 9, 2023 05:50 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 14:41 |
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The impression i got is that the actual triat, as pure embodiments of concepts are not sentient, but in the roiling mixture of Entropy and Stasis everything that's ushered in from that point at least has some kind of 'mind' and motive drive. The Triatic Wyrm all seem to have some kind of Goal in mind and the Maeljin incarnae are definitely fully realized individuals. Meanwhile most of the Wyld entities are barely comprehensible because Wyld has more or less maintained it's purity. And gaian spirits are imminently understandable since they're composed out of a balance of the 3 forces.
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# ? Aug 9, 2023 06:32 |