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Well, I mean, maybe "doing nothing at all, thereby causing something bad to happen in people's dreams" counts as doing Beast things, but it still ultimately produces a situation where we in the audience can all see that you've done nothing wrong - specifically refrained from doing something wrong, even - and so the entire world is just being cruelly unfair to you through no real fault of your own, oh and by the way this cruel unfairness manifests in an endless parade of smirking bullies.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:18
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I'm gonna just shut up because I don't think I'm helping and I don't really have a horse in this race. Beast is Relevant To My Interests and I like pretty much everything Onyx Path has done (-Exalted 3) so I'm hype. I am sorry that other people are not hype. I guess we'll find out if it's good when they launch the Kickstarter.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:19
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Gilok posted:I'm gonna just shut up because I don't think I'm helping and I don't really have a horse in this race. Beast is Relevant To My Interests and I like pretty much everything Onyx Path has done (-Exalted 3) so I'm hype. I am sorry that other people are not hype. I guess we'll find out if it's good when they launch the Kickstarter.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:21
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Geist is really cool as long as you don't want to play it.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:23
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Mods have mercy on my soul for suggesting it, but it feels like Dexter either is or should be a major touchstone for Beast. He is (if you accept the premise of the show) fundamentally incapable of behaving as a normal, sane, moral human being - the show posits that his condition is not curable or reversible. This strikes me, then, as being worse than the vampiric condition because there are more-harm and less-harm ways of getting the blood you need to survive. If you need to kill, you're pretty across the moral divide from most players from day one. Which is to say, making Beast work hinges on making Dexter playable. I am very skeptical if that can be the case outside of a very small niche of players.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:23
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I've been yearning for a WW-style game about being dragons/other stompy monsters for, holy poo poo, almost half a decade now. But I'm not interested in playing a game about being bullied by jocks, I'm interested in playing a game where I'm a son-of-a-bitch going up against a son-of-a-bitch with a magic sword, putting terror into the hearts of ordinary people, etc.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:24
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Well, since Dexter's homicidal urges canonically arise from the inhabitation of his body by the ancient demon Moloch,
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Apr 1, 2015 00:25
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Yeah I think my interest in Beast mainly ended when it became clear you weren't primarily intended to be playing Godzillas.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:27
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The stuff we've seen about Beast indicates it's going down a common road with a lot of OPP properties: really, really neat ideas surrounded by, charitably, ideas that really need to incorporate critique from groups outside the writers' usual circles. Like, the core concept of being some random schmuck that gets got by a primordial nightmare being that wants to use you as a sock puppet to slake its monstrous appetites is pretty awesome. Plenty of inherent conflict there in just slaking that hunger without getting murdered by people who kind of have a good reason to want to murder you. Hell, the idea of your Soul yelling "gently caress it" and going out to rampage if you ignore it, thus dragging in more attention, is a good way to encourage conflict if someone decides to try to be Beast Buddha. However, the evasiveness of what, exactly, Heroes have to make them compelling foils and not thinly veiled analogues for Those Fuckers to string up as oWoD style punching bags, is not exactly something that brings a lot of confidence, especially when Heroes would apparently never exist if it weren't for Beasts doing Things(?), therefore putting the blame for any Going Too Far actions squarely on the Beasts that made them. Like, if the analogue is MRAs as alluded to earlier, then they're effectively saying MRAs and all the damage they cause would never exist if not for Feminists not just shutting up and falling in line, which...yeah.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:29
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I found the suggestion that they're forcing the focus away from Heroes because they just aren't sure what to do with them yet and don't have much written about them fairly persuasive.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:32
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Mister Olympus posted:I found the suggestion that they're forcing the focus away from Heroes because they just aren't sure what to do with them yet and don't have much written about them fairly persuasive. then say that
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Apr 1, 2015 00:33
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Also, I feel like the reason Heroes specifically are getting this amount of attention is because the mechanics and thematics behind them -- how/why they're created, when and where they attack Beasts, etc -- is the only thing we've heard so far that isn't done much better in some other WoD product.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:34
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So like, the basic dynamic should obviously be something like: as a Beast, failing to satisfy your hunger weakens and perhaps actively endangers you, either because you just physically waste away or because if your power dwindles too much you'll be ripe for getting devoured by some other Beast or other natural element of your ecosystem. If you do satisfy your Hunger, you get really strong, but will inescapably draw the ire of your human victims or the loved ones/allies of those victims. When humans are crazy or brave enough to oppose you - for any reason - you can't help but unconsciously empower them. It's a part of your nature - epic antagonism runs in your blood. Somehow, completely normal people are automatically empowered to punch through your normal defenses and survive your retaliations, so long as they're playing their part in your story. Satisfying your Hunger and growing in power doesn't necessarily make you any more vulnerable than if you were starving, but at the very least it doesn't dramatically increase your chances against your personal Bard, but definitely does increase the chances of your personal Bard being anointed and motivated to come for you.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:38
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Ferrinus posted:Well, since Dexter's homicidal urges canonically arise from the inhabitation of his body by the ancient demon Moloch, I guess I should've watched more than a season and a half.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:41
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Pope Guilty posted:I guess I should've watched more than a season and a half. You really shouldn't have. Also, the demon bullshit was only in the books as far as I remember. My parents watched Dexter because they unabashedly love schlock TV and even by the end they were bitching about how stupid it was getting.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:43
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Pope Guilty posted:I guess I should've watched more than a season and a half. To be fair, this is from one of the novels that preceded the show, and as I understand it they just dropped that completely in the immediate next book. Still, a guy can dream.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:43
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kaynorr posted:Mods have mercy on my soul for suggesting it, but it feels like Dexter either is or should be a major touchstone for Beast. He is (if you accept the premise of the show) fundamentally incapable of behaving as a normal, sane, moral human being - the show posits that his condition is not curable or reversible. This strikes me, then, as being worse than the vampiric condition because there are more-harm and less-harm ways of getting the blood you need to survive. If you need to kill, you're pretty across the moral divide from most players from day one. A lot of this Beast chat has made me think about the Heroes/Monsters in Dr. Moran's earlier stuff (e.g., e.g.), but the Monster in that setting is a... considerably less playable archetype than even a Dexter would be.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:52
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Ferrinus posted:Well, I mean, maybe "doing nothing at all, thereby causing something bad to happen in people's dreams" counts as doing Beast things, but it still ultimately produces a situation where we in the audience can all see that you've done nothing wrong - specifically refrained from doing something wrong, even - and so the entire world is just being cruelly unfair to you through no real fault of your own, oh and by the way this cruel unfairness manifests in an endless parade of smirking bullies. Or you know, it's just a "stick" mechanic that really doesn't need to be there. It's clear why Heroes arise when you don't feed: there needs to be a consequence for the lower side of Satiety (I actually really don't like the punishments to Satiety I'm hearing but that's something for another day) and to answer the question "so why should I be doing Beast things?" The thing is, no one should have to ask that question in the first place, and if someone does, the answer should always be "because then there would be no game and also you can't do sweet Beast things". Heroes are treated as a punishment for the Beast when they should be a dangerous reward. Beasts are nothing without their Heroes, and vice versa. I think you even said that in an earlier post and it's totally true. That seems to be the real problem to me, not the kind of echo chambery fear about how this could all be a return to the bad old days of White Wolf where we'll be raked over the coals of Satyros Brucato's Lisa Frank Hellpit if the game ever sees the light of day. I really don't think that Beasts are intended to seem like innocent victims harassed by psychos, but it's an unfortunate implication of a mechanic that doesn't seem to trust players or gaming groups. If anything, Heroes should come off as risk takers who accept the challenge, not people who want the nightmares to stop. Maybe I'm just being too optimistic or dense or maybe I'm just not in a humorous mood, but I feel like folks are too busy boxing shadows when there's a deeper underlying problem to Heroes.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:55
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I disagree with you there. There definitely needs to be an in-character "stick" mechanic to get you to act your archetype, and it's the presence of mechanics like that that make WoD games as strong as they are. For instance, Vampire has extremely, extremely punishing "stick" mechanics that come into play if you fail to drink blood, go out in broad daylight, etc. It doesn't just trust you to do that stuff because, hey, if you're playing a vampire shouldn't you want to? It very clearly spells out why vampires, even the nicest vampires in the world, bite people and suck their blood out. So, a Beast should definitely suffer in a concrete, game-mechanical way for not satisfying its hunger. But that suffering should feel like, you know... not satisfying your hunger. It should weaken or craze you or something. Heroes arising and attacking your lair should be the result of great success and flourishing, not incompetence or willful abstinence.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:59
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Ferrinus posted:I disagree with you there. There definitely needs to be an in-character "stick" mechanic to get you to act your archetype, and it's the presence of mechanics like that that make WoD games as strong as they are. For instance, Vampire has extremely, extremely punishing "stick" mechanics that come into play if you fail to drink blood, go out in broad daylight, etc. It doesn't just trust you to do that stuff because, hey, if you're playing a vampire shouldn't you want to? It very clearly spells out why vampires, even the nicest vampires in the world, bite people and suck their blood out. I'll admit that I'm always wary of "stick" mechanics in general but when you put it that way, I see your point. I guess I really just want some better "stick" mechanics then. quote:So, a Beast should definitely suffer in a concrete, game-mechanical way for not satisfying its hunger. But that suffering should feel like, you know... not satisfying your hunger. It should weaken or craze you or something. Heroes arising and attacking your lair should be the result of great success and flourishing, not incompetence or willful abstinence. I agree. This actually ties into how I think that turning Mortal as a result of getting full (at least I think I remember reading that) is a bad idea. I don't have a problem with it being a drawback among many, Beasts clearly enjoy being Beasts more than the average WoD denizen. It's just that I can't help but feel like unless there is more to it, I'm finding myself saying, "that's it?" Heroes would be a much better solution for getting full, I think.
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Apr 1, 2015 01:41
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Ferrinus posted:I disagree with you there. There definitely needs to be an in-character "stick" mechanic to get you to act your archetype, and it's the presence of mechanics like that that make WoD games as strong as they are. For instance, Vampire has extremely, extremely punishing "stick" mechanics that come into play if you fail to drink blood, go out in broad daylight, etc. It doesn't just trust you to do that stuff because, hey, if you're playing a vampire shouldn't you want to? It very clearly spells out why vampires, even the nicest vampires in the world, bite people and suck their blood out. Satiety is supposed to be a reversed Harmony mechanic so you get benefits from being at the top or bottom rather than penalized. In both cases though, you draw attention, either willingly or unwillingly depending on whether you're feeding or not. What the benefits are haven't been concretely explained other than Feeding keeps you more in control while starving makes your Beast wilder with less control.
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Apr 1, 2015 02:18
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Crion posted:Yeah I think my interest in Beast mainly ended when it became clear you weren't primarily intended to be playing Godzillas. 
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Apr 1, 2015 02:23
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Crion posted:Yeah I think my interest in Beast mainly ended when it became clear you weren't primarily intended to be playing Godzillas. You can do that with Demon.
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Apr 1, 2015 02:30
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Xelkelvos posted:Satiety is supposed to be a reversed Harmony mechanic so you get benefits from being at the top or bottom rather than penalized. In both cases though, you draw attention, either willingly or unwillingly depending on whether you're feeding or not. What the benefits are haven't been concretely explained other than Feeding keeps you more in control while starving makes your Beast wilder with less control. That, and satiety is supposed to fluctuate during play, even more so than harmony. Effectronica posted:I've been yearning for a WW-style game about being dragons/other stompy monsters for, holy poo poo, almost half a decade now. But I'm not interested in playing a game about being bullied by jocks, I'm interested in playing a game where I'm a son-of-a-bitch going up against a son-of-a-bitch with a magic sword, putting terror into the hearts of ordinary people, etc. But I think that's what this is? There was a bit mentioned in one of the dev posts I copied over that Heroes always know the Beast's weakness, that it almost seems as if Heroes *create* the weakness. If you spawn a hero, it's gonna have some sort of magic sword, even if it's only magic against you. Rose mentioned that the hero could be more of a Clarice Starling, there's your actual paragon of virtue instead of facing off against the Punisher. We have no information aside from the constant "joke" response of "gently caress those guys" and, at least for me, Heroes are the least interesting aspect of this game. I'm more interested in what Beasts do. Are they trying to become human like the prometheans? Policing the spirit world like werewolves? Unraveling the the mysteries of the unknown like a mage? Does being a nightmare monster trapped in human form serve some higher purpose?
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Apr 1, 2015 04:46
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Effectronica posted:I've been yearning for a WW-style game about being dragons/other stompy monsters for, holy poo poo, almost half a decade now. But I'm not interested in playing a game about being bullied by jocks, I'm interested in playing a game where I'm a son-of-a-bitch going up against a son-of-a-bitch with a magic sword, putting terror into the hearts of ordinary people, etc. I made a changeling that was this, it worked out fine. Wizened soldier, mad bastard with a knife who had Arcadian PTSD. I believe I shanked a bugbear to death at one point. Edit: well, the son of a bitch part I guess. Mostly it reminded me of that game and I couldn't stop myself from typing the phrase "shanked a bugbear". Cabbit fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 05:25
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I interpreted the initial line of posts about Heroes as dismissing their intentions or whether or not they really are The Good Guys as being irrelevant. It's very interesting that they're motivated by dreams rather than material conditions or whatever. I think you can wring a fine fancy fascist out of something like that.
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Apr 1, 2015 06:37
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Frankly it seems to me that a Hero should be something your Beast character deliberately cultivates after a certain stage of development in order to further its own story. Whether they kill you or you kill them just determines whether you become that much more fearsome or are "replaced" by your own mother or spawn or the possessed-and-mutated hero who killed you, etc.
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Apr 1, 2015 06:54
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Count time again. Ten months have passed this time because I have a life and my methodology has become stronger but also more time consuming. The usual caveats apply. 2001 was a huge year for Vampire growth, with 20+ game books for the line. At the end of 2001, there are: 10189 vampire entries without VTES; 10965 with. Respectively there were 8467 and 9038 in 2000. Another year with over nearly 2000 new entries. Umbra and Spirits: 4499 from 4119. 4836 werewolf entries, from 4344. 4436 mage entries. There were 3719 in 2000. 1875 Changeling entries, up a total of 45. 1492 General entries. Up from 1305. 799 Hunters, up from 527. The highest hunternet number is 377 so far. This year, the timeline (which I've only really been doing since ~98 on, and will need to revisit) covers 9500 words with 491 citations. Actually citing events was something I didn't bother with for the first lot. Here's a chart, for maximum nerdery.  VTES entries there are inaccurate from 1996 (they were removed from the count) to 2000. There was not a total pause between 95 and 98 in printing, that's a data set issue. 1995 is flagged because I did not document how many entries there were at the end of that year's publications but instead only did one at ~75% completion of the year. Vampire figures exclude VTES for 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001 but include them for the other years. The final version of the project will have accurate figures, this one is just a neat little illustration. EDIT: Also nothing was written down for end-year figures from 1991 - 1994, and 1994 skipped spirits and Fae, both of which were covered but not reported, so those 0s are inaccurate. Loomer fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 07:39
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Ferrinus posted:Frankly it seems to me that a Hero should be something your Beast character deliberately cultivates after a certain stage of development in order to further its own story. Whether they kill you or you kill them just determines whether you become that much more fearsome or are "replaced" by your own mother or spawn or the possessed-and-mutated hero who killed you, etc. That actually sounds loving awesome.
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Apr 1, 2015 09:33
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Ferrinus posted:Frankly it seems to me that a Hero should be something your Beast character deliberately cultivates after a certain stage of development in order to further its own story. Whether they kill you or you kill them just determines whether you become that much more fearsome or are "replaced" by your own mother or spawn or the possessed-and-mutated hero who killed you, etc. This seems like a really good sweet spot, somewhere between Promethean and Changeling while differentiated from them both. The concept that there is essentially an autonomous horror story loose in your social network which can co-opt anyone to play a needed part is a very good one, and something that has popped up in movies recently and I think is very adaptable to a roleplaying game.
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Apr 1, 2015 17:23
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Beast would probably work better as a stand alone comedy game, where the "heroes" are acknowledged buffoons like the lady who hated Elvira, that family who didn't like Edward Scissorhands, or the villains in the Adams Family movies.
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Apr 1, 2015 17:39
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moths posted:Beast would probably work better as a stand alone comedy game, where the "heroes" are acknowledged buffoons like the lady who hated Elvira, that family who didn't like Edward Scissorhands, or the villains in the Adams Family movies. Comedy Sitcom Mixed Supernatural party in WoD Mage - know it all who always seems to have a new scheme in the works to get ahead Vampire - Smooth talking flirt Werewolf - Endearing tough guy Promethian - Character everyone seems to hate and that messes everything up, but actually personally happy Changeling - Quirky character with bizarre habits Mummy - Crochety old character/mentor Sin-Eater - Character that everyone seems to forget/leave out Demon - Recurring character that seems to have a hundred different sidejobs Hunter - Straightman character/voice of reason Beast - ???
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Apr 1, 2015 18:46
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I see beast shining as a Dr Krieger, Grandpa Munster, or Uncle Fester. Their anti social creepy atrocities are played for laughs, rather than given weight their framework can't support.
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Apr 1, 2015 19:04
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The dream of the 90's is alive in Katanas and Trenchcoats.
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Apr 1, 2015 19:45
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I wrote for this. It is wonderful. Just look at that character sheet.
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Apr 1, 2015 19:58
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moths posted:I see beast shining as a Dr Krieger, Grandpa Munster, or Uncle Fester. Their anti social creepy atrocities are played for laughs, rather than given weight their framework can't support. But that's what the Changeling is. Got it! Beast is the best friend character. Always willing to lend a hand in a given character's antics
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Apr 1, 2015 20:14
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GimpInBlack posted:I wrote for this. It is wonderful. Just look at that character sheet. I tried, but it was like looking directly into the sun. I made it as far as the entry for "Coat length".
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Apr 1, 2015 21:42
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Boogaleeboo posted:I tried, but it was like looking directly into the sun. I made it as far as the entry for "Coat length". Power through. Breathe in the glory. #YouOnlyLiveForever
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Apr 1, 2015 21:54
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http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3504652&perpage=40&pagenumber=339#pti35 we need to run a game of just these characters
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Apr 1, 2015 22:10
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Daeren posted:You really shouldn't have. Also, the demon bullshit was only in the books as far as I remember. The demon stuff was never really confirmed, it was just sort of vaguely implied then quickly forgotten about and never mentioned again. And yeah, don't watch Dexter. Maybe season 1 & 2, but definitely nothing after that.
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Apr 1, 2015 22:16
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