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I used the rat hosts as Mage antagonists and the players were very freaked out.
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Jan 9, 2024 02:22
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MonsieurChoc posted:I used the rat hosts as Mage antagonists and the players were very freaked out. I've found getting the weirder parts of Werewolf involved in other games are really good at making the players flip out. It's great.
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Jan 9, 2024 02:46
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I used the Idigam from the Babbling Tower plot hook in The Sundered World as a particularly strange mystery in my (non-Dark Era) Mage game, the players loved it and were suitably confused/weirded out.
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Jan 9, 2024 03:26
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I'll be honest, I always and still cringe a lot at WtA, but Forsaken is pretty cool, never ran it, but I used its antagonists and shadow for great effect in other lines.
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Jan 9, 2024 04:45
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Years ago I ran an old world of darkness thing where I just swapped out the garou with the uratha. I think that's the approach I'd take now, I just don't have the desire to strip out what I want to use from 5th ed werewolf.
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Jan 9, 2024 09:32
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I'm the one weirdo who likes kinfolk and the breeding dimension but that is, and I cannot stress this enough, solely because I really like genealogies and charts. If you gave me a game that was basically just about spending five hours in an archive examining genealogies so you can spend half an hour abducting random royals with a 0.0001% chance of turning into a werewolf, then shoving them into a fomor pit to see if it provokes the change, I'd probably be happy.
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Jan 10, 2024 05:16
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Nevermind. W:tF sounds badass
Mushika fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Jan 10, 2024 |
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Jan 10, 2024 06:16
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Mushika posted:Nevermind. W:tF sounds badass I'm just going to post it anyway. I'm not going to lie, this last page of posts makes me want to dive face-first into Forsaken. But not you, Loomer, that's kinda creepy.
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Jan 10, 2024 06:33
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Loomer posted:I'm the one weirdo who likes kinfolk and the breeding dimension but that is, and I cannot stress this enough, solely because I really like genealogies and charts. If you gave me a game that was basically just about spending five hours in an archive examining genealogies so you can spend half an hour abducting random royals with a 0.0001% chance of turning into a werewolf, then shoving them into a fomor pit to see if it provokes the change, I'd probably be happy. I think you'd really like Crusader Kings.
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Jan 10, 2024 14:13
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Dienes posted:I think you'd really like Crusader Kings. I do. I also keep a genealogy while I play!
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Jan 10, 2024 15:32
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The CK3 VtM mod is apparently really good.
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Jan 10, 2024 16:35
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W:tA is like that band you loved as a teenager but as an adult you realize was kinda poo poo but there's some good songs still. I can't help that I like the big furry idiots
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Jan 10, 2024 16:50
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joylessdivision posted:W:tA is like that band you loved as a teenager but as an adult you realize was kinda poo poo but there's some good songs still. Between that and the 'packs' structure, you more or less skip the "so how come we're working together?" and the "so what do we do other than hang out and maybe protect our favorite bar?" steps. Other game lines would have that but they'd usually be optional in a way that they were not for Garou PCs. I think that is something more such game lines could look at, at least IMO.
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Jan 10, 2024 16:54
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Nessus posted:I think one strong unique thing that W:tA has which they did not actually manage to fully reproduce in the other settings is that your characters all have clear, diverse but consonant motives and goals for what to do baked into the setting. As an Ahroun you want to kick rear end. As a Philodox you want to solve problems. As a Theurge you want to do cool spirit poo poo. As a Ragabash you want to lie. Agreed, the Rite of Passage is a great way to bind (literally) a group together without meeting in a tavern of some sort. There's just a lot good left on the table that could be even better if Paradox didn't fumble it.
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Jan 10, 2024 18:24
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Fuzz posted:The CK3 VtM mod is apparently really good. Oh yeah, it really is. Lots of obscure lore there too, though they've taken quite a few liberties here and there. It is pretty easy though compared to the base game which is already pretty easy, since it is extremely rare to lose your character to anything other than assassination or from events like, I dunno, deciding to hunt an Antediluvian. Also you can blood bond your vassals and the AI uses disciplines in a pretty random manner. Had a lot of fun with it though.
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Jan 10, 2024 20:18
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Explodingdice posted:Years ago I ran an old world of darkness thing where I just swapped out the garou with the uratha. I think that's the approach I'd take now, I just don't have the desire to strip out what I want to use from 5th ed werewolf. I don't see how hard is it to that since W5 is so stripped down on release. Objectively you're adding to the book. Also you could made the collapse of the Nation plot point more interesting. Like instead of the remints of the nation split between Cult of Fenrir and the other tribes, when you could instead have tribes break up into political Blocks and make it clear to the players that most Garou want's to rebuild the nation but most Garou don't agree on what the rebuilt Garou nation would actually and are currently in a dead lock until the player party arrives. Ghost Armor 1337 fucked around with this message at 09:24 on Jan 11, 2024 |
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Jan 11, 2024 02:35
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The natural course of the thread, as usual, is to continually attempt to fix oWoD by reinventing CoD2e.Loomer posted:I'm the one weirdo who likes kinfolk and the breeding dimension but that is, and I cannot stress this enough, solely because I really like genealogies and charts. If you gave me a game that was basically just about spending five hours in an archive examining genealogies so you can spend half an hour abducting random royals with a 0.0001% chance of turning into a werewolf, then shoving them into a fomor pit to see if it provokes the change, I'd probably be happy. One of the great things about wolf-blooded in Forsaken 2e is that it's absolutely not genetic, but it's still potentially lineal anyway and plenty of people in universe likely believe it is in fact genetic (and would go to such extremes) because being around wolf-y things makes you more likely to "develop" be wolf-blooded, so of course being in a family of wolf-blooded means you're probably going to be one too!
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Jan 11, 2024 04:41
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So it's infectious and hereditary.
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Jan 11, 2024 08:24
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That's even more fun. Bring out the red ink and the giant sheet of butcher's paper, I've got bloodlines and contact tracing to do.
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Jan 11, 2024 13:14
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Thing is about all the WoD lines old and new in particular is, I think, they do a great job of establish supernatural beings as cultures. One with in-group and out-group dynamics, stereotypes, tensions and internal diversity that leads to constant friction, conflict and fascinating dynamics built into the premise. Even within the same character, as you have the inherent types vs the factions they join, with the different perspectives every type must have on being a part of that faction vs being in others. It seems pretty basic, but considering how many other RPGs have huge problems with groups as stereotyped monoliths and struggling with even the most basic kind of nuance or internal diversity, it's remarkable how one system came with all that poo poo built in. And yeah, it's basically just coming from having all kinds of different vampires, Nosferatus and Draculas and Anne Rice vampires all shoved into the same game, but putting five seconds of thought into how that actually makes it interesting. There's not just wizards and werewolves, there's different kinds of wizards and werewolves and they get along like cats in a sack. Boom, that's a pitch. On another note, given the implication seems to be werewolfism is as much a spiritual thing as anything, Avatar (the cartoon one) suddenly comes to mind, where who does and doesn't have bending is possibly outright admitted to be pretty arbitrary.
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Jan 11, 2024 15:45
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Ghost Leviathan posted:On another note, given the implication seems to be werewolfism is as much a spiritual thing as anything, Avatar (the cartoon one) suddenly comes to mind, where who does and doesn't have bending is possibly outright admitted to be pretty arbitrary. For the last 20ish years this is how I've run it, much closer to Uratha but still not quite. Lupines in my vampire, mage, wraith, etc games have basically always been of the sort where they bridge the spiritual and material worlds and their primary goal is maintaining balance and harmony to prevent humans from destroying the spirit world, sure, but also to help the spirit world come to terms with and deal with the encroaching human world and all the new spirits that come with it. So while yeah, they will get involved if a bunch of toxic waste is being dumped into an estuary and the spirit of the river and the spirits of the forest and swamp are getting sick and in turn hurting the wildlife, they're also just as likely to be helping those same forest spirits deal with and welcome the newly born spirits of concrete and money who have popped up from the small tourism town that offers wilderness hikes and whatnot. They give zero fucks about what other supernaturals do... until their actions start messing with the harmony of a given area, in which case a brute squad of Crinos are gonna show up and make some serious threats or just straight up start murdering to restore the situation. Where they argue with each other is in what the definition of Harmony is and how much of human civilization vs pure, heartless nature there needs to be in a given place. It's weird and doesn't fit either game, but I've always preferred that sorta vibe to them and they generally are just NPCs anyway. But yeah, the handful of times it's come up, I've always just assumed that who ends up a lupine is random and just based on some logic that no one understands. The tribes are all found Family and I rarely even give them names because it's not relevant to the story of the other supernaturals which the game is actually about.
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Jan 11, 2024 16:35
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That sounds like the Glass Walkers and Children of Gaia kind of intermingled tbf, and are probably a reasonably gamey solution for a story where the wolfs are occasional guest appearances/background elements.
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Jan 11, 2024 17:05
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Nessus posted:That sounds like the Glass Walkers and Children of Gaia kind of intermingled tbf, and are probably a reasonably gamey solution for a story where the wolfs are occasional guest appearances/background elements. Yeah, when you just want to have them as the Lupine Other (so to speak) and just want some woofs that might come up, might not.
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Jan 11, 2024 19:00
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I've posted before about the LA game I played in run by one of the old New Bremen STs. It spanned the post WW2-era to the 1960s counter cultural boom of the 1960s to ultimately the 1980s where we all had our "Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather 1" moments, with time skips between. I played a Malk that went from being a cowardly neonate to a (still cowardly) herald of the return of Dementation to his clan. Basically "local idiot makes everything worse" as the real players of the Jyhad slowly strip him of his own legacy for their own until all that's left is the faint spark of joy when he discovers that the pirate radio guy that kept dropping info all these years has actually been *him* so he rides off into the metaphorical sunset. Then there's the follow up game (run by the old Vampire HST of New Bremen) set in modern LA where our PCs are dealing with that fall out. I've shared the Coke Zero loresheet before that he made. Well, the first ST is coming up with another game on a different day that I might be joining as well, set in Anchorage, AK. And he has a new Loresheet of his own... *** **The Monster Man Show** The Monster Man Show is a pirate broadcast that has intruded on signal broadcasts for radio, television, and most recently on the internet. While no one is certain when the first broadcast of the Monster Man Show took place, the earliest reported instances of catching the Monster Man Show taking place intermittently after World War II, on Southern California radio between 87.9 MHz and 91.9 MHz on the FM band, and 1610 kHz and 1710 kHz on AM. In the decades since, the Monster Man Show has been found on radios and TV screens across North and South America. Monster Man's broadcasts don't have a specific day or time. Nor do they have a specific format. Content on Monster Man's program can be anything from eclectic musical offerings from all around the world, dramatic readings, nonsensical rants, as well as rustic chuck-wagon style recipes and lifestyle discussions. However, amid Monster Man's ramblings offered at random times, he has also discussed matters on his show that are outright and deliberate violations of the Masquerade. Secrets of Kindred (As well as other Supernatural Beings...) nature and existence have been relayed on his show, as the claims go. At times he's also shown an uncanny insight for the doings of Kindred culture in the region his show is originating from. Recordings of the Monster Man Show broadcasts are few and far between, and uploads to the internet are usually taken down in days or less - whether by platforms and providers, or Monster Man themselves is unknown. To most, the Monster Man Show is an urban legend, with no actual proof of its existence. However, to niche subcultures: AV enthusiasts, television historians, conspiracy theorists, and even vampires - the Monster Man Show is elusive, highly sought after, and for those with the right eyes and ears: a mainline to the secret truth of the universe. o - **Nostalgia Foodie** - As an avid listener/viewer of the Monster Man Show, you have collected many of the throwback recipes from America's 40's, 50's, and 60's that Monster Man has shared with his audience over the years. While most of the dishes are the sort that may seem unappetizing to modern appetites - such as savory gelatin molds, or Ritz Cracker crusted casseroles, there's something special to these recipes. When making one of Monster Man's dishes, on a Composure + Crafts roll (difficulty 3), not only is the dish tasty and well-prepared, but it can also be consumed by Kindred as if they possessed the Eat Food Merit (for that one dish). oo - **Metronomic Focus** - One of the most rare, and infrequent segments of the Monster Man Show is the 'Metronome Minute', which seems to be nothing more than the ticking of a metronome recording played for one minute straight. While for most listeners, the Metronome Minute serves no purpose other than a transition break, for you, the rhythmic ticking seems to prime your mind and will. Once per story, you can use a metronome (or a recording of one), to focus and order your thoughts, adding +1 die to an Intelligence Roll or an Attempt to Resist Frenzy. ooo - **The Truth Is Out There** - The Monster Man Show has been something of a holy grail for conspiracy theorists across North America for decades. Monster Man has claimed to have knowledge of alien invasions, demonic happenings, government coverups, and all of the sorts of subjects that recluses and kooks hold in high esteem - but to listen to Monster Man address these subjects on his show is to experience an incoherent rambling of non sequitirs. Except for you. Once per Story you can tune in to the Monster Man Show, and on a successful Intelligence/Wits + Occult (Difficulty 3), you're able to turn up a new lead or clue in an ongoing investigation, by using information gleaned from Monster Man to connect the dots like a piece of string. oooo - **Long Time Listener, First Time Caller** - Once per chronicle, you can successfully call in to the Monster Man Show, and speak with Monster Man himself. He'll entertain any question, and answer you as truthfully as he can - though that doesn't necessarily mean his answers will be direct or coherent. Likewise, Monster Man will mention you by name on his show, giving you a +1 die to Social Interactions when interacting with other fans of Monster Man. ooooo - **The Wienermobile** - You're one of the few people on planet Earth that has learned that the Monster Man broadcast originates from a mobile studio, housed in a classic Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. Once per chronicle, you will know where the Wienermobile will be, and you can pay a visit. The Player can choose if they visit the Wienermobile at a time it's occupied or empty, however - inside is decades of material Monster Man has collected over the years. And if studied, collated, and organized, can lead to beneficial insights revealed by the Storyteller. And should the Player visit while the Wienermobile is occupied, they can learn the true identity and nature of Monster Man himself.
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Jan 12, 2024 15:23
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I hope you’re ready for recaps from our nightly adventures in New York City. You’re getting two recaps this time, since we played just before Christmas and the day after New Year’s, so I didn’t have time to write a recap between the two sessions. As usual, our coterie consists of Augustus the Amish Banu Haqim and Thomas the Triad Tremere. These are also the last sessions with Augustus, the player had to bow out due to a busy schedule, but luckily our original third player, Benedict the GOP Ventrue, will return next time. So, the coterie is still investigating the murder and embrace a friendly Nosferatu, Cockroach. We’ve reached the part of the plot where pieces start falling into places. Having previously offed a Wight as a favor to the previous Prince, Calebros, the coterie has traveled to the former prince’s court in the sewers to report on their success. Calebros is pleased by their success and holds up his end of the bargain, introducing them to Gerard Rafin (who the coterie knew to be Cockroach’s sire), who turns out to be Uncle Smelly, a familiar and aggressively French Kindred. I will be referring to him as Uncle Smelly, I made a distinction that when meeting Kindred he respects (such as Calebros) he drops the French Nosferatu stereotype act, but with Kindred he doesn’t respect (like the players’ coterie) he is in goblin mode. Uncle Smelly confirms that he is Cockroach’s sire and as far as he is aware she is still staked in an abandoned tunnel for frenzying during her first Hunger and attacking Uncle Smelly, who will not tolerate such disrespect from his childe and staked her until she calms down and learns some manners. Likewise, he will not introduce her to the Court until he deems her ready (Cockroach has had some issues due to this). The coterie also inquire about the possibility of an unlawful embrace, but both Uncle Smelly and Calebros confirm that he had given the permission. Their facts about this permission are a bit too convenient and might have been made up on the spot, but the players have no way of knowing or proving that. Calebros has heard all he has and encourages the coterie and Uncle Smelly to leave and discuss their business privately, which they do. Uncle Smelly is quite displeased after having been summoned and considers this situation a waste of his time. The coterie wants Uncle Smelly to recognise Cockroach and introduce her to the Camarilla Court. We enter social conflict. Luckily my players are good at rolling dice, because unfortunately they are not very good at negotiations. They spout generic “Cockroach is cool and good and doesn’t afraid of anything” lines and try to appeal to the Traditions and a sire’s responsibilities. Uncle Smelly, with an increasing lack of subtlety, wants the coterie to tell him how he, Uncle Smelly, benefits from acknowledging Cockroach. For some reason, my player’s a paranoid bunch and I don’t think I’ve given them that much reason to be so, but they avoid telling Uncle Smelly that Cockroach has contacts within FBI and can get information from the agency (plus all the other skills that come with being a former investigator). I guess they think that mentioning it implies that she gathers information for the coterie which again implies that they are targeted by the Second Inquisition? Eventually they manage to convince Uncle Smelly to recognise Cockroach as his childe and the players have successfully completed the first half of their quest; find out who Cockroach’s sire is. The second part, find out who killed her and why, has some solid info and leads. From Uncle Smelly, they learn that a Tremere coterie was targeting her, back when she was alive, and systematically messing up her life and eventually murdering her. While Uncle Smelly couldn’t stop the Tremere, he embraced Cockroach to.. prevent this? As I’m writing this I realize I didn’t really have a solid answer as to why Uncle Smelly embraced her, but luckily my players didn’t question him about it. I guess messing with Tremere is always a moral good that doesn’t need explaining. They still don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle, so the coterie decides to utilize their contacts and ask the High Regent of Five Boroughs, Aisling Sturbridge, Thomas’ mawla. She doesn’t know who the Tremere coterie in question was and can’t really make sense of the notes from a previous session, describing a ritual based on Major Arcana of the Tarot, so she sends them to the library to study. Now here comes a very important learning experience for me as a GM. If you’re giving your players a puzzle, make sure they understand that it is a puzzle. Also, don’t just assume that they’re using Wikipedia etc. in the background to check up on real life information (I usually do, my players don’t). I had to explain to my players that they were facing a puzzle to figure out which variant of the Tarot was used in the ritual, based on cards mentioned in the notes. But once we were all on the same page, they managed to figure it out and afterwards told me that they enjoyed it, though I feel that in the future I need to make puzzles more obvious. They learned that the Tremere ritualists were using the Aleister Crowley variant, and were aware that this might cause some friction with Aisling Sturbridge, who has a negative history with Crowley and who couldn’t interpret this as anything but blatant disrespect. Still, she couldn’t do anything without actual names, the players only knew the pseudonyms the ritualists had used. Aisling told the coterie to find out the names and return to her so the issue could be resolved in house. There is still one more lead they hadn’t investigated. The notes had mentioned that one of the ritualists had left to join “the hotel” which the players correctly deduce meant Maupassant Room, a Tremere chantry handling the clan’s diplomatic affairs, and Mila, a Tremere working as the assistant there and who they were already familiar with. So they confronted her. She claimed ignorance, but was not a very good liar, and very soon folded under pressure. She explained that she had indeed been part of a Tremere coterie, who had performed a ritual on an innocent mortal and that each phase of the ritual was based on Major Arcana. She had left the coterie once the fall of the Pyramid severed Blood Bond to the coterie leader, since it was clear that the ritual did absolutely nothing and was purposeless. Mila was also willing to sell out her two remaining former coterie mates in exchange for the journal detailing the ritual, the only piece of evidence tying her to the act. Mila was in a desperate spot and the coterie managed to persuade a Major Boon in addition to Mila destroying the journal right here and now. Mila was not too pleased with this coercion, but had to agree and gave the names as well as the location of their haven. So now the coterie has solved the second part of the mystery, finding out who killed Cockroach and why. Before they give this information to Cockroach though, Thomas is a Clan loyalist through and through and they return Aisling Sturbridge with this information. The High Regent takes the names and informs the coterie that they will be “taking a trip to Vienna”, meaning that they will not be seen again. Thomas assumes this means they will be killed, I’ll have to remind him at some point that the elites are not in the habit of killing other elites. Aisling is also aware who the players are doing this for and asks them to find a politically suitable scapegoat, since this issue will be solved in house. Thomas is naturally fine with this and starts thinking of suitable victims. Augustus, a man of ever fading morals, is not fine with this, but Aisling is not willing to listen to the opinions of a Banu Haqim within a Tremere Chantry. So the crew returns to Cockroach to cash in the quest and Augustus immediately blurts out the names of her killers, their location and that Aisling is about to get rid of them. Cockroach is thankful and promises to hold up her end of their agreement (get even more info from the FBI Special Affairs Division) but right now she is in a hurry if she intends to confront her murderers before the High Regent’s clean up crew. We later learn that she was not successful in this, as the Tremere have access to portals across the city and Cockroach has only access to an old beat up VW minivan. Anyways, that’s it for the first session and now onto the next one! This time we returned to the task of contacting various Banu Haqim Kindred in the city. Originally this was to influence them towards Augustus’ morals and pacifism, but when the player wasn’t feeling his chosen ambition we decided to postpone it. And since this would be the last session Augustus was present, I felt it would be polite to finish running the adventure I had written specifically for him. We just changed the goal to a more generic networking, instead of pushing ideologies. Before the coterie contacts anyone the evening starts with hunting, as usual. Thomas’ player had been studying the rulebooks and had decided to expand his palette, adding skill points to hunt local criminals like a blood-scuking Batman. I was glad that a player had shown such initiative, but I was slightly concerned because I had been preparing a trap for him, based on his usual habit of buying blood bags. Lucky for me, unlucky for Thomas, he completely whiffed his hunting rolls, and I hinted that he could still try his usual method if he wanted to. Thomas took the bait, rolled to source some blood bags and whiffed again. So I gave him a devil's bargain. I informed him that the local blood supply has lowered and prices have risen, but his usual contact is willing to sell him more blood bags than usual on credit. So he would get more blood than usual, but he would be in debt to some shady undetermined people. What could go wrong? Probably a lot, but Thomas’ player thankfully understands that sensible people making sensible choices makes for a dull game and he takes the deal. Unbeknownst to the players, behind the scenes the FBI Special Affairs Division has taken control of this blood market, controlling the supply and eventually poisoning the blood they are selling. After that it was time to travel to Harlem, where they would meet an enigmatic Mr. Armstrong, who according to local legend took care of problems in the neighborhood. Or more specifically, they met with a coterie operating behind the name. These were a Nation of Islam Banu Haqim and a Black Panther Brujah. While the Banu Haqim was not willing to listen to the younger vampires coming to his neighborhood to tell him how things should be, the Brujah was more inclined to a dialogue. The players had caught on to how these meetings had gone previously and asked if there was something they could do to help them. And as usual, there was a quest available for them. A new dangerous drug, Red Mist, had been introduced to the neighborhood and the Mr. Armstrong coterie hadn’t managed to stop its spread. So they asked the players to find who was manufacturing the drug and to put an end to it. If they could do it while adhering to Augustus’ pacifist tendencies, even better. Thomas has quite a lot of points in Streetwise, so figuring out the local drug scene was easy. Red Mist was described as “You know how PCP makes you think you have superpowers? Red Mist actually gives you superpowers!” It was distributed by just one local gang, who received stock just before sunrise. These details were enough to rouse suspicion that the manufacturers were probably Kindred, or at least closely affiliated. They tracked down the manufacturers’ hideout in an apartment building and here’s what happened. The coterie knocks on the door. Dubstep blaring in the apartment is turned down, but the door doesn’t open. They knock again. They hear whispered arguments from within about who should open the door. Eventually the door is opened. “I have come to tell you about…” Augustus starts, but is cut off with “We’re not interested in Jesus, thanks” and the door is shut. They keep knocking on the door. The door stays closed, until Thomas asks loudly if the occupants would prefer dealing with them or with Sheriff Qadir. Some “oh shits” and “oh fucks” can be heard, before the door is opened again and the coterie is rushed in. Inside the apartment is a thinblood lab. Ingredients are ranging from metal shavings and Mtn Dew to stolen chemicals and two unconscious mortal blood donors. The occupants are two young thinbloods, who are openly displaying their Crescent Moon brands and exclaiming that they are registered, so the player coterie is not allowed to kill them on sight. The coterie wants the thinbloods to shut down the operation, but the thinbloods don’t have many talents or resources and need some way to pay the bills. So they try to bribe the players with vampiric Vitae in a bag. Unfortunately this “primo poo poo” raises just more questions. Thomas inspects the bag and figures out that this is Fritae, or fraudulent Vitae. It is a good fake, but still a fake. The coterie comes to the conclusion that these thinbloods are in a tough spot, have questionable morals but are unquestionably skilled. So they convince the thinbloods to come work for Mr. Armstrong. The Mr. Armstrong coterie is skeptical of the alchemists, but turns out that they knew the thinbloods’ grandparents back in the day and agree to hire them, especially after the players espoused their skills (though deciding not to mention the Fritae business, letting the thinbloods have some ace up their sleeves). Mr. Armstrong coterie thanked the players and now owe them a Boon. Finally on the list of contacts was a Lawman in Yonkers. Yonkers has been mentioned in our chronicle as a sort of grey area when it comes to Kindred governance, which is not based on municipal district lines but on city/wilderness lines. Borrowing from L.A. by Night, it’s not New York, but it’s not not New York. I had allowed the players to choose freely in which order to approach each possible contact and it is a shame they saved this one from last, since this one was the most openly hostile towards them. This Lawman was over two centuries old and his morals were dictated by the call of his clan’s blood to punish those most deserving it (ie. other Kindred). He barely tolerated the presence of Thomas from the clan of usurpers who had stolen and defiled Blood Magic. He was utterly unimpressed with Augustus apparently refusing his sacred duty as dictated by their shared heritage. Through the conversation it becomes apparent that the Lawman’s favored feeding on other Kindred, and when politely asked about it, he replied “Be mindful of your implications. If I am what you imply I am, that would make me very, very dangerous. Someone you should be careful with.” Through the conversation Thomas had also let it slip that Augustus is a diablerist, which initially scored some points with the Lawman, though he was soon disappointed that these were more chance encounters and less planned assassinations, and that Augustus hadn’t positioned himself in the Camarilla to use his talents to eliminate those most deserving of punishment. Basically, the Lawman is secretly an Ur-Shulgi cultist, though the players don’t know enough of VtM lore to know that. The meeting is ended shortly, the players didn’t even have a chance to ask if the Lawman had a quest for them (and the Lawman would have basically asked what the gently caress could some weak fledglings to do for him). And we ended the session with a brief epilogue, since this was Augustus’ last game. I revealed that I had been rolling dice for the SAD everytime Augustus was hunting, though since the players always start the night hunting these rolls looked a lot like start-of-session rolls. Earlier I had rolled for Hunting Pattern Recognition, since a Kindred feeding solely on animals in a small area has a noticeable impact on the vermin population. They had also received a vague Malkavian vision warning of this. The previous couple of sessions the SAD had moved on to surveillance devices at places Augustus frequents, which he had failed to spot. So sometime after this game session, a SWAT team working for the Special Affairs Division ambushes Augustus and despite resisting, he is eventually staked, thrown into a lead-lined coffin and shipped off to Langley for studies. Finally I’m ending this recap with a bit of behind the scenes stuff. I had originally planned to run this campaign with four players. Unfortunately one of the players dropped off after a demo game to learn the basics of the system and the setting. Benedict has been on a hiatus for a year, and while he is returning, Augustus is stepping down. So I’ve run the game with two players less than I’ve preferred for a year and seem to be doing so for the foreseeable future. Plus Thomas’ player is itching to change his character, so I would soon find myself in a situation where the player characters have nothing connecting them to the previous year’s worth of games, and we’d have to play again the phase where we get connect the characters to the world, make friends, enemies, debts and so on. After thinking over it I decided that it’s time to bring this campaign to a close. So we are about to enter VtM: Endgame and things will escalate. I informed my players of this and they were very understanding. I might start a new campaign with the same setting at a later date, since I’ve done most of the groundwork already and have many unused plot hooks. But I’ve run the game for over two years now and still have some months left, making probably the longest campaign I’ve ever run and I’m very pleased with it.
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Jan 12, 2024 19:40
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Forsaken is really cool as a setting, but the 2E Spirit mechanics (and the werewolf powers mechanics, tbh) are so clunky that it will instantly kill your interest in actually running a game. They're cool characters to have in other CoD games though, its just a huge pain in the rear end if you actually go through and try to use their mechanics.
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Jan 16, 2024 23:49
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tatankatonk posted:Forsaken is really cool as a setting, but the 2E Spirit mechanics (and the werewolf powers mechanics, tbh) are so clunky that it will instantly kill your interest in actually running a game. They're cool characters to have in other CoD games though, its just a huge pain in the rear end if you actually go through and try to use their mechanics. This is my stance on basically all of wod at this point. lots of great lore nuggets, setting ideas, and weird powers that should be put to use in a better system
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Jan 17, 2024 06:10
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I run my games over Discord, with sessions once a month with voice. In the meantime, we have a general 'downtime' channel that's text-based, where players can describe what they get up to inbetween chapters. They've recently begun having clan-themed movie nights. The first movie the Ventrue showed was Robocop, on the basis that it taught three important lessons: 1) The dangers of going too far in subverting human society to advance your own goals, 2) The importance of choosing your minions and underlings wisely, and 3) The dangers of neonates getting too cocky the moment they have their first success, especially around their Elders.
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Jan 18, 2024 12:54
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Me, planning the game: this Host is going to burst into a swarm and freak the players out! My two Obrimos players: haha we have a lighter Mage is fun as hell. It's really allowing me to go apeshit planning encounters/narrative since the players have so many ways to get out of sticky situations, and it's always a fun surprise seeing how they do.
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Jan 18, 2024 13:24
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tatankatonk posted:Forsaken is really cool as a setting, but the 2E Spirit mechanics (and the werewolf powers mechanics, tbh) are so clunky that it will instantly kill your interest in actually running a game. They're cool characters to have in other CoD games though, its just a huge pain in the rear end if you actually go through and try to use their mechanics. the only hard part is the resonent/open/urged/possessed progression. I generally just simplified that for spirit/ghost stuff
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Jan 18, 2024 15:13
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Most of the reason its hard is because its phrased so poorly and they went and built the condition on top of that.
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Jan 18, 2024 20:38
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BirdieBedtime posted:Me, planning the game: this Host is going to burst into a swarm and freak the players out! It definitely has a similar vibe to running an Exalted game, as that's also a situation in which you can just describe something ridiculous and then kick back and wait to see what your players will do. It's even fun when they're out of ideas because you can call for a mental roll of some kind and put on your thinking cap to suggest some strategies of your own if they succeed.
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Jan 18, 2024 20:48
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Rubix Squid posted:Most of the reason its hard is because its phrased so poorly and they went and built the condition on top of that. yeah I know I have a post somewhere in this thread or the last thread where I was asking for clarification.
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Jan 18, 2024 22:18
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Skios posted:I run my games over Discord, with sessions once a month with voice. In the meantime, we have a general 'downtime' channel that's text-based, where players can describe what they get up to inbetween chapters. They've recently begun having clan-themed movie nights. The first movie the Ventrue showed was Robocop, on the basis that it taught three important lessons: 1) The dangers of going too far in subverting human society to advance your own goals, 2) The importance of choosing your minions and underlings wisely, and 3) The dangers of neonates getting too cocky the moment they have their first success, especially around their Elders. [LESSON 4: CLASSIFIED]
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Jan 19, 2024 05:39
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Heh, that IS a fun one. Robocop is both empowered and (as pointed out in Mortal Kombat) enslaved, and the human mind required for him to operate effectively also requires free will to interpret and apply the laws he's made to operate under, probably much like a ghoul. And he's also American Jesus.
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Jan 19, 2024 07:44
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Here’s another recap from our game. This is a short one, since we had a returning player and spent most of the session recapping notable events and characters. From now on, our coterie consists of Thomas the Triad Tremere and Benedict the GOP Ventrue. We start in media res, before Benedict’s player has been given any information of what has been going on during the time he’s been away. Thomas has received a task from Benedict’s sire to investigate a certain apartment and retrieve his property and we begin our game with Thomas having found Benedict staked and dumped in a freezer in a basement, and after removing the stake Benedict is groggy, hungry, and has no idea what is going on. Turns out the rumors about him joining the Anarchs or traveling to Mexico were untrue. The coterie has no time to exchange pleasantries as they hear police sirens outside and need to escape. They swiftly escape the ambush and as the encircling police approach, a black van stops in front of the coterie. A certain Ken Vincent opens the door and encourages the coterie to get in, since they have an appointment. This is the first time they’ve heard of any appointment, but the player’s obliged. Thomas is familiar with Vincent, who introduces himself to Benedict and assumes that the Ventrue will negotiate on behalf of his coterie. Vincent explains that Benedict’s coterie has caused financial and emotional distress to his sire and client, the Malkavian Primogen, and that Vincent has been tasked with causing grievous harm to the players. To expedite this, he would like the coterie to list property, personnel and other assets they would not like to come to harm. Benedict’s player really enjoyed this scene of negotiation without any knowledge of his situation and the players handled it surprisingly well. They managed to lie and gave Vincent their old Haven (which they have very recently moved out of, because it was compromised) and two the Tremere who were the culprits of their previous investigation (and have recently been disappeared). Eventually their bluffing skills failed them and Vincent activated Dementation and filled the characters’ subconsciousness with an anxiety-inducing amount of excel sheets, contracts, accounting data, etc. (In comparison, when they previously experienced Vincent’s sire’s Dementation, their heads were filled with scenes of blood and violence.) After this, Ken Vincent checked the time and concluded the appointment, the van stopped and the coterie was dropped off in the middle of Central Park, a place where you are not supposed to drive. And that was it for this session!
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Jan 19, 2024 15:54
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thatbastardken posted:[LESSON 4: CLASSIFIED] No, Lesson 4 is The importance of a good backing track when you go on your righteous justified rampage of revenge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5wyC7mOSP4
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Jan 19, 2024 15:59
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Kurieg posted:No, Lesson 4 is The importance of a good backing track when you go on your righteous justified rampage of revenge. Not gonna lie, I admire the restraint of the developers of that game in saving that one for the very final mission when you're blasting through hordes of mercenaries with that ridiculously overpowered sniper-cannon.
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Jan 22, 2024 16:51
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Finally got to read The Vampire Lestat and this is so tacky, I love it. I am glad early VtM was inspired by this and I curse Justin Achilli and Swedish Dracula for reining in the gonzo of the setting I imagine a lot of people here read Anne Rice's books, but for those who haven't it literally starts with an Elder in torpor picking up rock music through Auspex and waking up with the decision to front a rock band and break the Masquerade with a multimedia marketing campaign, partly because he's done with it and partly because he figures it is the best way to get in touch with all thr vampires he met on the road.
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Jan 22, 2024 19:17
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ZearothK posted:Finally got to read The Vampire Lestat and this is so tacky, I love it. I am glad early VtM was inspired by this and I curse Justin Achilli and Swedish Dracula for reining in the gonzo of the setting It's so fun and I love the weird places that book goes. It's 100% the feeling I go for when I run Vampire.
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Jan 22, 2024 19:23
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