The World of Darkness Megathread pt.IV: Mo' Mummy Mo' Problems

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Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Halloween Jack posted:

Promethean, Mage, Hunter, and their baby-killing retainer with Vigor and Celerity and Fighting Style: Boxing.

What the christ!? You ask? Good question! Welcome to the...

What?

Step into the World of Darkness; a reflection of our own modern world...and yet...subtly darker. Shadows deeper, nights longer, the howls and whispers from alleys and streets more forlorn. A game of Modern Horrors.

How it works
The new WoD rules are much more streamlined than the previous system. The Failure rules have changed and the "10-again" rule has been added, in that a "10" indicates a re-roll and the "10" still counts as a success. If another "10" is rolled, this step is repeated until anything but a "10" is rolled. Exceptional Successes are indicated by having five or more successes on the action, and can be regulated by the Storyteller. Dramatic Failures are now only possible on "chance" die rolls; when a dice pool is reduced by penalties to zero or less, a single chance die is rolled. If a 10 is rolled, it is a success (and as before, rerolled), if the result is less than 10 but not 1, then it is a simple failure. On a chance die, if the roll is a 1, then it is a Dramatic Failure, which is usually worse than a normal failure of the action, and is regulated by the Storyteller (although examples of Dramatic Failures in certain situations are occasionally given).

The game also features a much simplified combat system. In the old system each attack made during a combat scene could easily involve 4 separate rolls ( :suicide:

) and in many cases required more due to supernatural abilities possessed by the characters. Combat scenes involving large numbers of combatants could take a very long time to resolve. The new system requires only one roll which is adjusted by the defensive abilities of the person being attacked and represents both the success and failure of the attack and the damage inflicted because of it, (indicated by number of successes).

Why it's awesome

World of Darkness is split up into several gamelines, they take a modular, toolbox approach to gaming.
You can include some, or all of the splats into one giant clusterfuck of awesome. Or just use the core rules and gameline of your choice. It boils down to basically:

World of Darkness Core:
you can play just normal people dealing with and fighting hosed up monsters. The core book is required for all the other gamelines because it explains 90% of the mechanics every character needs. But they also have a huge number of other books to go with it like

Armory, and Armory reloaded, Dogs of War, Precinct 13, etc.- stat blocks and alternate mechanic ideas for pretty much any kind of weapon, vehicle, or other you might use to kick some rear end. As well as books about how different professions like the military or police might handle the WoD.

Antagonists, second sight, etc. - I won't list them all, but they basically expand on ideas that you can use in your games, they can be pretty hit or miss, but just post a question and you'll get everyone telling you their favorites. Demons, ghosts, monsters that don;t fit the other games, weird poo poo you read in a folklore or mythology book; it all goes here. If it doesn't exist it's easy as pie to stat it up for your own games.

:siren:

The Gamelines :siren:

Vampire: The Requiem � you are a vampire, go forth and be emo, stab your friends in the back (or front) and drink blood.

Werewolf: The Forsaken � you can turn into a wolfy killing machine, but you must find a balance between your humanity and animal sides. While at the same time being border patrol for the spirit world to keep them out of ours.

Mage: The Awakening � You're a wizard 'arry! Seriously though, you are an heir to the magic of atlantis, you can reshape reality to your will, but reality hates you and will try to kill you for it. Join the Seers.

Promethean: The Created You are a Golem, or a Frankenstein. Reality hates you more than it hates Mages, but you just soldier on and try to become a real boy.

Hunter: The Vigil saddle up and kill you some monsters, try not to become when while you're staring into the abyss. You're basically a normal dude.

Changeling: The Lost You used to be Human until a Fae snatched you and took you to arcadia to be a slave, you escaped back to the world, but you're different, the world is different, and you're terrified daddy is gonna show up and take you back.

Geist: The Sin-Eaters You died, and made a deal with a ghosty to come back, but you have to do what the ghosty says. You're basically The Crow.

Mummy: The Curse See pg. XX :v:

Wondering which books are worth it to pick up? Wondering which books are safe to skip? Well you're in luck! Here's the opinions of some random rear end in a top hat!

Etherwind posted:

Running Mage? You'll want to read...

In order of importance:

Required
Mage: the Awakening
Tome of the Mysteries
Sanctum and Sigil

Recommended
Astral Realms
Summoners
Seers of the Throne
The Adamantine Arrow / The Free Council / The Guardians of the Veil / The Mysterium / The Silver Ladder

Potentially Worthwhile
Secrets of the Ruined Temple
Tome of the Watchtowers
Keys to the Supernal Tarot
Magical Traditions
Legacies: the Sublime / Legacies: the Ancient / Grimoire of Grimoires
Banishers

Finally, if you want to rewrite the game, maybe the Mage Chronicler's Guide.

Edit: To explain the recommended list, the Astral Realms and Summoners book vastly expand the playground for Mages, the Seers of the Throne actually gives form to the poorly sketched write-up in the other books to the point that they become interesting antagonists, and the order books expand on what's written in the core book in a big way without revolutionising them in the same way that the Seers of the Throne book does.

The worthwhile books are all useful, in their own way, but your mileage may vary.

It's also worth reading Appendix I in Werewolf: the Forsaken, since it explains the Shadow Realm really well.

Etherwind posted:

Ages ago I said I'd do a "must read" list for each of the game lines. Truth is, I totally forgot about it. Let's go some way toward fixing that, and start with Changeling:

quote:
Running Changeling? You'll want to read...

In order of importance:

Required
Changeling: the Lost

Recommended
Winter Masques / Rites of Spring
Dancers in the Dusk / Swords at Dawn / Equinox Road
Lords of Summer
Goblin Markets

Potentially Worthwhile
Night Horrors: Grim Fears
Autumn Nightmares

I can't stress enough that the entire game line is really loving good, so you won't go wrong reading everything on the recommended reading list. The reason "Lords of Summer" and "Goblin Markets" are bottom of that list is because their contents aren't really revolutionary, but they're still solid. Both books on the "Potentially Worthwhile" list are supplements full of antagonists, so your mileage may vary.

Then Promethean:

quote:
Running Promethean? Of course not, nobody runs Promethean; it's the best game you'll never play. Still, you'll want to read...

In order of importance:

Required
Promethean: the Created

Recommended
Strange Alchemies
Magnum Opus (Special note: has legitimately excellent fiction throughout)
Pandora's Book

Potentially Worthwhile
Saturnine Night

Promethean is fantastic, but suffers from the fact that it's very difficult to tell compelling stories with more than one player character. It's fundamentally a game about personal journeys, and even the fiction in the books reflects this.

And Hunter:

quote:

Running Hunter? You'll want to read...

In order of importance:

Required
Hunter: the Vigil

Recommended
Night Stalkers
Witch Finders
Slasher
The Horror Recognition Guide (Special note: book of pure fiction, but it brilliantly sets the tone)

Potentially Worthwhile
Compacts and Conspiracies
Spirit Slayers
Any other World of Darkness game line.

Hunter is probably the easiest game to run, and each of the supplements basically serves as a toolbox for creating games based around certain types of monster. The two books on the "Potentially Worthwhile" list are still good, with the former expanding the compacts and conspiracies in the core line and the latter dealing with spirits and werewolves, but neither of them is particularly inspired, and some of the ideas in compacts and conspiracies are pretty underwhelming.

If Error 404 ends up putting these in the opening posts, please point out that they're just my opinion, and not the consensus of the thread. I wouldn't like people to read these and think they're anything other than the thoughts of some random rear end in a top hat.

Volume posted:

Couldn't help but notice that the OP is lacking a "Must Read" list for Werewolf so I thought I'd try my hands at making one. Yes this is the whole werewolf line but seeing how they ended the line, I might as well list them.

Not really in order of importance beyond the Required/Recommended/Potentially Worthwhile:

Required

Werewolf: The Forsaken - Obvious reason

The Rage - The first chapter does a great job of explaining how the different tribes think, operate, and judge renown. Each tribe section also has little blurbs of each auspice and how they fill their role in the tribe along, The next chapter has a list of gifts, fetishes, and merits that are rather neat. The third chapter is a look at werewolves in different parts of the world. Not that needed but still kind of cool

Lore of the Forsaken - Takes a much more in depth look at the spiritual side of Werewolf. How they deal with spirits, how they interact with their totems and tribe totems. What Luna means to different werewolves.

Recommended
The Pure - If you can find it and are planning on a Pure heavy game, this book will be your bible. Fully expands the three Pure tribes into living, breathing, motivated characters along with brand new gifts, fetishes, and rites to wreck your players poo poo up.

Predators - This book is really more of a bestiary than anything else. Spirits, Ridden, Hosts, and some rather unique monsters. The reason I include it is because when I first started playing werewolf, spirits confused the ever lasting gently caress out of me. Book of Spirits just made that even worse. This book however cleared everything right the gently caress up.

Tribes of the Moon - A more in depth look at the tribes, customs, and histories. Sadly a lot of the information is redundant if you've already read The Rage but it should help you better grasp your favorite tribe.

Potentially Worthwhile

Signs of the Moon - A mostly fluff book that takes a closer look at the Auspices. The main selling point is new player options like Aspects. However since Lore of the Forsaken, The Rage,and Tribes of the Moon all cover the Auspices in some form or another, this book also feels rather redundant.

Blood of the Wolf - A very neat book that takes a close look at a werewolves biology. Ever wonder where food a werewolf has eaten goes when he shifts? No of course not but this book tells you. This book also goes into the problems wolves will encounter living in the city, dealing with humanity, and struggles of day to day life. New rules for Wolf-blooded as well

Territories - Player options for territories along with rules as to how to represent them sheet and story wise.

War Against the Pure - Tactics, battle plans, and story hooks for fighting the pure. Also has rules for engaging in huge wars against the Pure.

Lodges: The Faithful/Lodges: The Splintered- Simple player options for Lodges

Blasphemies - Like the Lodge books but more for antagonists. Takes a closer look at Bale Hounds and their powers.

Night Horrors: Wolfsbane - Nothing to really say here. Just a list of antagonists and story plots to torment your players with.

And now some words about how World of Darkness owns:

Werewolf

�Liberal L33T� posted:

Here's my Werewolf-Fight Club spergathon, since someone requested it

quote:
Anyway, one movie that occurs to me as being good for representing Werewolf without explicitly being about werewolves is Fight Club. It centers around a man who has a certain primal savagery beating within him that makes him incapable of living a docile life of consumerism. There's something deeply, fundamentally unsatisfying about modern capitalist existence to Jack, and it tears him apart until he learns that what he's been missing is raw physical and emotional struggle. When he gets into a fight, it's the first time he's ever really felt alive; he bounces back quickly from injury, encouraging him to push his own limits further and further as he founds an underground society, a pack of savage brawlers that society does not, cannot understand. He's guided by an anthropomorphic embodiment of all his frustration and post-modern existential claustrophobia, a being that is genius in its own way yet utterly alien in its motivations, seemingly made of pure untamed emotion. Jack sees himself as being dragged along for the ride most of the way and only belatedly realizes that he's become a monster; he finally banishes his insane guide by making peace with his own savage nature but refusing to let it control him.
Really, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

It's the only movie not explicitly about werewolves that I can compare to W:tF, but I think it's a good one.

edit: Oh yeah, and don't forget that the way that others are initiated into the savage warrior society is by having a symbolic injury inflicted on them by the leader, suddenly revealing their true nature in a rush of pain and unrestrained emotion, transforming the new recruit forever... yeah, I'll stop now.

Mage:

�CharlieFoxtrot� posted:

Most representations of magic anywhere you see -- other games, books, movies -- are very, very narrow. And they have to be, because if you take things to their logical conclusions, you'd be experiencing stories about utterly frightening and incomprehensible alien entities. You can create energy from oblivion? Of course you're going to use it to sling fireballs and nothing else. Gravity is just a slider setting that you can bend to your will, and you're going to use it to play a loving sport? You and the others around you can step outside of time, render distance meaningless, and end life with the speaking of a single word, and somehow your psychology and society is organized no differently than the mundane world? Bullshit.

Mage lets you go beyond that. It has many interlocking themes, but one is the hope and potential for limitless growth. We all start life as babies, mewling and crying, barely sensate and driven by unformed instincts. Some of those babies grow into scientists who are on the bleeding edge of discerning the building blocks of the universe, into artists who can channel raw passion and longing and emotion into artefacts that make the souls of the masses ache and leap and laugh, into leaders who galvanize the multitudes into action in service of a higher and intangible ideal.

To Mages they are all still babies.

For a Mage, each new discovery is paradigm shift upon paradigm shift, changing the way she views the world utterly and irrevocably. And each step along that path of power draws her away from not only other Sleepers, but other Mages as well. (As an aside, I think that's one of the key advantages Awakening has over Ascension, in that progression leads to isolation and differentiation. Whereas in Ascension as you grow in power you learn that everything agglomerates together. So you're murdering and rending reality... over cosmetics?)

The House of Ariadne knows that the city, that glorious jumble of stone and electricity and flesh, has its own soul -- and it's singing to us. The Blank Badges know that identity is a function of others' perceptions, and seize control of it in service of a permanent revolution beyond mundane ken. The Imagineers have perceived that we are all made of thoughts, and try to isolate that to the point of transcendence.

But the world that would be the Mages' playground is governed by unknowable and insidious entities that shackle souls with an omnipresent Lie, and they are bound by a system that pushes back as they probe the frontiers of the mind and reality. They are constantly reminded that power and knowledge comes with limits and costs. And they perceive that they are trapped in a system that threatens to plunge everything they know into Abyss after Abyss.

For example, there exists a book, incomplete. It exists in snippets and fragments, in intrusive thoughts that appear ex nihilo in random people. If they were ever to be collected and completed, they would be an Abyssal entity that exists as an entire universe, erasing all of history and rewriting it into a demonic, tormented hellscape.

Confronted with this friction and with this forbidden knowledge, some Mages go mad. Some forsake all semblance of human morality. Some search for a way out. And some choose to fight.

Honestly, sometimes I think that Awakening leans so heavily on Atlantis because leading off with Gravity's Rainbow isn't the best way to move product.

tl;dr: Doctor Manhattan is an Archmage

Etherwind posted:

No. If your adventure can be broken like that, you aren't running a proper game of Mage. Consequentially, you can't just take an adventure for something like Vampire or Werewolf, increase the difficulty and then make it a Mage adventure.

Mage requires you to actually ask "What are the themes and ideas the party will be tackling?" and then set up a series of actors and influences that will be playing them out, with the right flexibility to respond to player improvisation. If it's a high powered game and your players are going for it, you should be prepared for them to venture into the Anima Mundi beyond the Collective Unconsciousness of mankind and wrestle with the concept of Electricty in order to convince it to cause a cost-length blackout, even if you just expected them to cut the power to an apartment block using a pair of pliers.

Promethean:

�Mikan� posted:

Problem with Promethean is that to play it well, get a lot out of the setting and have an enjoyable game you need The Perfect RPG Group.
You need players who are confident and comfortable exploring potentially offensive concepts without being creepy assholes. You need players who enjoy philosophy and psychology and religion without being pretentious. Players who can do the whole childlike wonder thing without coming off as cheesy and pathetic. People who can get immersed in a depressing world without getting too caught up in it, who don't let it affect them outside of the game.
And the Storyteller needs to be twice as good.

A lot of that is true for all the nWoD games but I think it applies most to Promethean. It's a well written line with awesome potential but it seems like it demands a lot more from the group than other games.
Promethean owns, is what I'm saiyan

Changeling:

Etherwind posted:

Changeling is a game about surviving abuse. When you strip away all the magic and myth and get to the root of the game's metaphor, you essentially play as people who have been broken by abuse and are trying to pick up the pieces and carry on. Some people find this idea a bit strange for escapist gaming, but it's got a lot of potential: in Changeling, more than I think any other game line, who your character is and how they see themselves matters on a very fundamental level, and the primary source of drama is their life and their problems rather than an external force.

The fact that their life now includes all the weirdness and wonder of Grimm's Fairy Tales only adds to the fun. Changelings were ordinary people, at least until they attracted the attention of one of the Gentry: also known as the Fair Folk, the True Fae, the Lords and Ladies of Arcadia. Having been snatched away by the True Fae, they were subjected to terrific traumas in a land of dreams - mostly nightmares - that defied any logic or reason, and in order to survive they gave up part of themselves to its Wyrd. In doing this they changed, becoming more like the madness of the Fairies, more like the creatures that stole them away and kept them captive. Most Changelings never escape, but some do, and fewer still manage to make it all the way back to the world they left behind, there to discover that an imposter - some magical Fetch - has been living their life for them. Worse, some Changelings arrive to find that time in the real world has not matched Arcadia, and they are either far too old or far too young for the lives they lost.

Understandably, Changelings are a bit mad. The trauma is world-shattering in the purest sense, and represents a clear break with the life they had before. A core theme of Changeling is that the abused can never return to the way things were, and the game's ideas enforce this, forcing the characters to confront their abuse in one way or another. Paranoia is another major theme of Changeling, with the perpetual threat of the Lords and Ladies looming large over the escapees, along with the suspicion that many of their fellow Changelings are still in league with their captors, granted freedom for the express purpose of capturing and returning escaped slaves. To combat this paranoia - and these real dangers - Changelings in a local area band together in loose-knit support groups called Freeholds, partly to defend against the Gentry and more actively to help keep each other sane. These have political factions and dramas that are as much spun from fairytale stories as they are from personal antagonism and ego, very much like the old Irish legends of heroes and their foibles. In any given Freehold, there are usually four factions:

The Spring Court, the Court of Desire, allied with the season of birth; a bunch of hedonists that try to party to forget the pain, and also to deny the effects that their trauma has had on them.

The Summer Court, the Court of Wrath, allied with the season of warmth; a group of very angry men and women who want to fight and hurt and kill the things that hurt them, and defend others from their predations.

The Autumn Court, the Court of Fear, allied with the season of death; mystics and magicians who recognise that, for all their time in Arcadia hurt them, there is wonder to be found in the magic of Fae, and power in their secrets.

The Winter Court, the Court of Sorrow, allied with the season of cold; fearful and afraid, they seek to hide from the terrible things that stole them away, and to mourn the loss of the life they once led.

These factions are more than political groups or ideologies, but represent actual pacts with the very concept of the seasons, from which their adherents derive mystical power, foremost among which is occlusion that helps hide them from the Gentry. In maintaining this pact, the Changelings agree that the rulership of their Freehold must follow the progression of the seasons, with each Seasonal Court reigning over the Freehold as their associated season waxes and wanes (other, foreign lands have similar traditions and contracts, such as with the cardinal directions).

This, in a nutshell, describes the weird, schizophrenic life of Changelings. Part human, they band together in support groups and try to pick up the pieces of their life and carry on; partly fae, they must adhere to strange rituals and contracts that empower them and defend them from the supernatural. Their society reflects this, and openly shows the discord, confusion and contradiction that goes to the heart of every Changeling.

Life isn't fair, for Changelings, but it is magical. Maddeningly, terrifyingly magical.

Hunter:

Maddman posted:

Gonna make an effort at explaining why Hunter owns so much.

The World of Darkness is a scary, violent place. Vampires lurk in the cities, werewolves roam the countryside, and stranger things lurk in dark corners of the world. Humanity remains ignorant of these threats and willfully so. The truth that we are an irrelevancy at best and cattle at worst to beings far more powerful that we dare to imagine is just too depressing and terrifying for most people to deal with. The vampires don't really need their Masquerade that they're so worried about, most of humanity hides in the darkness, hoping no monster takes notice of them.

You are a candle in that darkness. You aren't willing to be food or victim any more, and load up your trunk with shotguns and talismans you aren't sure even work. You look through newspapers for stories of strange murders or unusual sightings, track down the beasts preying on the innocent, and give them a face full of double-ought buckshot. Maybe its just you and a couple of friends, doing what you can. Maybe you have a network - you're in The Union and the boys from the rail yard figured out where a vampire is hiding out and you're going to go take care of it. Or you're part of Network Zero, and plan to film a guy who can transform into a snake and upload it to YouTube.

Other Hunters are in larger organizations. Task Force Valkyrie are the military monster hunters, using big guns and black op tactics to take out the supernatural. Or you work for The Cheiron Group, a pharmaceutical corporation that pays top dollar for certain body parts or fluids from these creatures. Or you're one of the Lucifuge, a human descended from Satan himself, who has chosen to turn his demonic power against the creatures of the night.

There is a downside. You know that Nietzsche quote about staring into the Abyss? Yeah, that's you. After hunting awhile, you'll find yourself having to consider whether to burn an old lady's house down because she looked at you funny. You'll have gallons of blood on your hands, and you can tell yourself that they weren't human, but the truth is they were a little bit human, or were once human. Many of them will certainly beg for mercy like a human would.

The other downside is that you live in the real world. You have to eat, and unless you're in one of the large scale organizations, hunting doesn't pay the bills. You also don't get powers to heal you, so a fight that goes bad could mean the hospital. What you do isn't exactly legal either. The cops aren't going to care that the guy you shot in the face was possessed by a demon, and the FBI isn't going to believe your story that you needed those explosives to take out a vampire nest. A hunter's career will likely end in some monster's stomach, in prison, or in an insane asylum.

But you do these things, because unlike the majority of humanity you aren't willing to lie there and take it. You're going to take back the night for humanity, one shotgun blast at a time.

Hunter is awesome.

Demon the Fallen:

Baby Broomer posted:

A friend and I have been trying to work out, by the corebook, why a demon would be motivated to do anything besides just pretending to be Saul, manager of the Subway on 12th st. We're both stupid method actors when it comes to RPGs ("I need my character's emotions to matter!" - either one of us when playing) so we were trying to find ones besides It's A Game So Just loving Play It. This is what we've thought of so far.

Fear The Machine - As a spy game at heart DtD wants you to be paranoid of when Big G's gonna come knockin' at your door. While I don't think the God-Machine itself should ever be presented as the BBEG, the angels it creates can. So the players always have to watch where they step and how loudly they get the job done since the GM, which can be anywhere, creates the biggest source of woe and worry for the Unchained. The fear of what angels will do to you when they find you is the reason why demons want to get rid of them and the infrastructure that lets them exist.

An Experience Totally Alien - John Byrne once said "Robots can't feel love!!!" and then used his manchild rage to ruin, at the time, one of Marvel's most popular characters. Onyx Path have made a game that can be added to the list of things that make Byrne look like a doofus. Whether it's a killbot learning how to create art or that stupid story about the angel Falling because of the couple grinding on each other in a club, demons are supposed to enjoy their newfound freedom to experience all that life can offer. How does a brain originally designed for cold logic react when the blinders are taken off? The World of Darkness is scary, sure, but it's also Earth, just seen through a spooky filter. What happens after blind obedience is gone and you hug a friend? Get drunk for the first time? Feel bored? Demons have the ability to go and find out.

Hellfire, Darkfire! - Hell, the philosophy that every demon sets for themselves, is obviously important. The book won't stop talking about it. So if Hell is a goal every Rebel wants to some degree or other then the quest for Hell is more than enough to get a demon out the door. Your personal paradise won't been found listening to Stan Getz forever, you have to earn it.

Alone each of these are okay as character motivation for doing things and being in danger. But, to me, they all shine because they're supposed to bounce off each other. Fear what the angels will do, because they will take away your chance to be free. See how the new way you live your life colors how you feel about Hell. Three of the Hells in the core agree that angels won't be there, so might as well clean the place up now. And all of these can be spun around each other any which way as to why your character does what he/she does.

If haven't read Flowers of Hell yet so I don't know if it touches on any of these ideas, but just looking at corebook DtD this is what I've found. Heirs to Hell reinforces being human as enough of a reason since an angel has to Fall to be able to create new life.

Thoughts? My friend agrees with all these points but doesn't quite feel they add up to a satisfying reason for how storygaming scumbags can have fun with Demon, but I think they're just as good as how, say, VtR 2E or CtL presents themselves.

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# ¿ Sep 1, 2012 18:23

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 18:22

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Appendix XX: Errata

YithianHistorian posted:

I'm pretty sure this thread moves faster than all of the white wolf forums combined, actually.

GETTING STARTED

The easiest way to begin is to download the free Demos.
Vampire Demo

Werewolf Demo

Mage demos
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Changeling Demo

Promethean Demo

Geist Demo

Hunter Demos
The Hunt
One Year Later

Grim posted:

So I don't know when the Onyx Path site updated their Schedule but I am super pumped about it:

November 2012 - MTAs � Convention Book: New World Order: As promised, this book is one of those in the Convention Book series that wasn�t finished when cWoD ended, and which has been clamored for ever since. 84 pages. PDF/PoD.

(plus the other three in March/June/July 2013)

May 2013 - MTAw/MTAs � Mage Translation Guide: Provides the ability to translate characters from Mage: The Ascension to Mage: The Awakening and vice versa. 50 pages. PDF/PoD.

July 2013 - DTF/DT? � Demon Translation Guide: Provides the ability to translate characters from Demon: The Fallen to Demon: The ??? and vice versa. 50 pages. PDF/PoD.

August 2013 - DT? � Demon: The ???: A new game line, answering many fan requests; a new look at those creatures of fire and darkness: fallen angels, nightmares from the nether realms, servants of the God Machine or something else entirely? Includes codified rule sets of those rules developed over the last few years including: Shards, SASs, Tiers as well as a rich background for players to immerse themselves in. 320 pages. PDF/PoD Hardcover/ Deluxe Kickstarter

quote:

CHARACTER SHEETS ARE GOOD HERE ARE SOME CHARACTER SHEETS AND STUFF:

http://sheetgen.dalines.net/wiki/WikiStart
This one is my favorite for online play. You can set up an account and save all the sheets you make, and edit them when you need to. easy to link to, and pretty good looking.

Mr.Gone's character sheets.
Bad site design with Good custom WoD character sheets in easy to print pdf format, also home to varying levels of homebrew.

infinite personae
This looks like a general sheet, I've never used it but somebody said it was cool.

quote:

Etherwind rose from his tomb to say:
XP-Based Character Generation for World of Darkness

The XP values here are derived from the equivalent value of the highest XP allotment of dots at character generation. Unused XP from each category is saved and may later be spent in conjunction with XP earned during the game to increase the relevant category (or may be totalled and spent freely, at Storyteller discretion). Unlike in standard character creation, the cost of the fifth dot is not increased.

Begin with one dot in each Attribute (this is in addition to the XP listed below):

70 XP for primary Attributes.
(�� 45 + �� 25)
55 XP for secondary Attributes.
(�� 45 + �� 10)
45 XP for tertiary Attributes.
(�� 45)

Note: Mummies buy Attributes at discount, and so instead gain 56 XP for primary Attributes (�� 36 + �� 20), 44 XP for secondary Attributes (�� 36 + �� 8) and 36 XP for tertiary Attributes (�� 36).

Begin with no dots in any Skills:

78 XP for primary Skills.
(�� 30 + �� 30 + �� 18)
48 XP for secondary Skills.
(�� 30 + �� 18)
30 XP for tertiary Skills.
(�� 30)

9 XP for 3 Skill Specialities.
(Flat cost of 3*3)

Begin with one dot in an appropriate Supernatural Ability (this is in addition to the XP listed below):

42 XP for Merits and increasing Supernatural Ability (Wyrd, Psyche, Gnosis, Azoth, Blood Potency or Primal Urge).
(Supernatural Ability �� 40 + Merit � 2)

Note: Mummies cannot increase Sekhem using Merit dots, but they can spend them to increase Pillars, which works out at an even exchange of XP under optimum conditions (Merit �� 12 = fourth dot of Other Pillar 12).

If the Storyteller wishes, they may reduce the XP Mummies gain from this stage to 32 XP (Merit �� 20 + Merit �� 12) and permit it to be spent on Pillars.

Templates and XP

Changeling
3 XP for a Skill Speciality in Athletics, Brawl or Stealth.
(Flat cost of 3)
2 XP for one dot in the Mantle appropriate to the character's Court.
(Mantle � 2)
48 XP on Contracts, at least 8 XP of which must be spent on Affinity Contracts.
(Affinity �� 12 + Non-Affinity �� 36)

Geist
36 XP on any Manifestations.
(Manifestation �� 36)
20 XP on two Keys, one of which must correspond to the Keys available to your Threshold.
(Flat cost of 10*2)

Mage
25 XP to increase Favoured Resistance Attribute.
(Attribute ��)
72 XP divided among three or four Arcana, two of which must be Ruling Arcana, with no single Arcanum higher than three dots.
(Ruling � 6 + Ruling �� 18 + Inferior �� 48)
12 XP for Rotes, none of which may be higher than their associated Arcanum.
(Flat cost of 2*6)

Mummy
20 XP for Favoured Attribute of Decree.
(Attribute �� 20)
Either:

44 XP for Pillars (only one of which may be zero dots).
(Defining Pillar �� 20 + Other Pillar �� 18 + Other Pillar � 3 + Other Pillar � 3)

Or

39 XP for Pillars (each of which must have at least one dot) and 15 XP for a bonus Utterance.
(Defining Pillar �� 12 + Other Pillar �� 18 + Other Pillar � 3 + Other Pillar � 3 + Other Pillar � 3 & Utterance 15)

In either case, no Other Pillar may be higher than the Defining Pillar.
15 XP for Soul Affinity; gain 2 XP if selection made by Storyteller.
(Affinity Favoured by decree, guild, or Judge 15)
15 XP for Guild Affinity; gain 2 XP if selection made by Storyteller.
(Affinity Favoured by decree, guild, or Judge 15)
17 XP for Affinity; gain 2 XP if selection made by Storyteller.
(Other Affinity 17)
15 XP for Utterance.
(Flat cost of 15)
20 XP to spend freely.

Promethean
22 XP on Transmutations, at least 5 XP of which must be spent on Affinity Transmutations.
(Affinity Transmutation � 5 + Non-Affinity Transmutation �� 17)

Vampire
25 XP to increase Favoured Attribute.
(Attribute ��)
30 XP, at least 10 XP of which must be spent on Clan Disciplines.
(Clan Discipline �� 30)

Werewolf
36 XP divided among Renown, with at least one dot in each of your Primary Renown types.
(Primary Renown �� 36, such as when Auspice and Tribe share Primary Renown)
51 XP divided among Gifts, with at least one gift from a list associated with Auspice, one gift from a list associated with Tribe, and no gift worth more dots than highest Primary Renown.
(Auspice �� 15 + Tribe �� 15 + Other �� 21)

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Feb 27, 2013

# ¿ Sep 1, 2012 18:24

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

I've heard it gets really creepy, and/or stupid. C/D? :frogsiren:

Daeren posted:

Rule number one, kids: you have to learn to laugh at the horrible stuff, because there's so much that pretending it doesn't exist isn't gonna work.

Aw gently caress it here's the highlights reel:

Inferno, page 137 posted:

Mother May I: It is a sickening thing, the succubus,
a demon driven by Lust, yes, but often for a
very damning purpose: to have a child. By stealing the
semen of sleeping men, the succubus could impregnate
herself with a child born of true sin. Here, the Possessed
with this Vestment gains +3 Social rolls when
dealing with children. They find the character very...
parental. A dark irony, indeed.

quote:

orchiectomy; do a crime

Strontosaurus posted:

It's not that awful, guys. Stop being so dramatic. Just a little BvD.

Daeren posted:

The TV Guide now has a Blessed rating and my demonic familiar is utterly terrified of Mr. Agent.

Error 404 posted:

Mage:The Universe Is hosed And So Are You. That poo poo You Imagined On Acid?
It's Real, And It's Going To Kill You, Everything You've Ever Known,
Everything You'll Never Know, And Then The Universe is Going To Kill Itself While
You're Screaming Inside Of It II: Electric Boogaloo

quote:

The World of Darkness Megathread pt.IV: nHunters don't have time for no sissy self reflection on the grim gothic horror of your delicate skin condition, sunshine. Death to Morality scores, up with The Code.

quote:
The World of Darkness Megathread pt.IV: White Wolf seriously is like one long on-again off-again telling of The Aristocrats.

Daeren posted:

Here's a fun diversion

Count up the number of references to sex or sexuality in Changing Breeds. This includes depictions or implications of genetalia in the art

Actually don't because you'll go gibberingly insane

A_Raving_Loon posted:

All the kine down in N'Orleans like Christmas a lot,
but the Nos, who lived deep under N'Orleans, did not.
The Nos hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
And in long torpid nights, he'd forgotten the reason.
It could be perhaps that his soul felt no glee
Or perhaps side effects of old Diablaries
But I think the root cause of this terrible sin,
May have been that his blood was two ages too thin.

But, whatever the reason, his blood or his soul,
He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating N.O.
Staring up from the sewers with cold lifeless eyes,
As the kine swarmed about, as would so many flies.
For he knew every human who scrambled above
Still harboured some semblance of brotherly love.

Error 404 posted:

I'm The Nemean irl.

Etherwind posted:

Isn't XX one of the Appendices?

liesmith posted:

grown fat on the blood of a thousand dogs the unbaby strikes without mercy

MonsterUnderYourBed posted:

The World of Mage MegaMage pt. Mage: A dark mage indeed.

�Clanbook Gangrel � posted:

Undead Menses (��)
Effect: A woman�s menstruation has in some primal societies
or traditions been tied to the lunar cycles, to the tides, to magic
as a sacrifice of blood. It represents a woman at the height of her
power: she is fertile and capable of the creation of life, symbolized
by the seemingly supernatural ability to bleed without being weakened
or dying. It�s also a grave taboo in many cultures, particularly
those that are male-dominated. The blood is seen as threatening.
It is indicated as shameful, arguably because men seek to repress
(or simply not admit to) a woman�s power. It is blood that an
infant does not feed upon; it is blood that leaves the body and
does not create life. For some, that is frightening.

Some Savages still bleed like this regardless of (or more appropriately,
in spite of) their unliving state. The blood that flows
is black, thick, a musky elixir. It does not come once a month as
it does with humans, but instead flows whenever the vampire
wills it: by expending a point of Vitae, she may expunge this
undead menses from her body.

The blood expelled in such a way has a few different functions: if
used in the blood magic of Cr�ac, it grants the Savage a +1 bonus
to the roll to empower the ritual. If fed to a mortal being, it acts as a
mild hallucinogen (-1 to all relevant dice pools) in addition to providing
the other effects intrinsic to Vitae. Finally, the blood itself acts
as a potent marker for other Savages or those with Auspex. Marking
an area with the blood gives off a heady aroma long after the blood
dries or is washed away (for a number of weeks equal to the marking
vampire�s Resolve score). If a Gangrel vampire or a vampire possessing
any dots in Auspex comes across that mark during this time, the
vampire�s player may roll Wits + Survival to sense the mark and its
nature. Some Gangrel use their undead menses to write messages
in this way (symbols or short words) to their brethren.

Drawback: The vampire can only access this undead menses
once per day for �free.� Gaining the blood (i.e. more than a single
point of Vitae expelled) more than once per day is possible, but
the vampire feels her insides twist up and cinch, as if something
has been damaged. And it has; she takes one point of aggravated
damage per point of Vitae menses expelled beyond the first.

Daeren posted:

So one of my friends I talk about my games to commissioned someone to draw the ghouled corgi mutt with celerity in one of them, because she loved the concept so much.

Just wanted to share that.

Vermain posted:

world of darkness is about having cool powers and hulking out while trying to not go insane basically

Nicolae Carpathia posted:

and then going insane anyway

Nicolae Carpathia posted:

if it doesn't involve taking shotguns and a forces master and heading into a hipster bar owned by vampires to save a friend who's tied up in the sub-sub-sub-basement who got himself into this mess and may or may not be there involuntarily then who gives a poo poo what the nemean would do.

let's do this

Attorney at Funk posted:

sorry my necromancer is actually Your Cool Grandpa (it says so on my sheet)

Sega See D posted:

Have you ever hosed a man who can fly?

Benagain posted:

Obrimos Merit: Played by Error 404

You're a self-righteous prick with a penchant for solving all problems with fire and lasers. Your confidence in your own abilities and the rightness of your cause gives you a +1 to any roll made as a result of one of your snap judgements about good and evil.

The personification of posted:

My group currently plays a oWoD mixed group(I dont know how it works but my ST is awesome and makes it happen).

We all work at the Maltese Detective agency, resolving various paranormal investigations.

I play as Bann, an unseelie pooka changeling that spends as much time terrorizing the party with pranks as he does using them to help his goals along and tossing them a bone every once in awhile.

He's five foot even, has a pot belley, horribly crooked, yellow teeth and wears a very dirty Victorian dress suit. More or less the Mad Hatter from Alice.

Despite doing horrible things to the party such as
1) Beating the Khan PC in a bamboo sword duel by super charging my strike with a Gimmix spell, shattering the Khans ribs in doing so.
2) Throwing on of the Mage PCs through a third story window to see how/if a magic artifact worked(it did).
3) Won a foot race up ten flight of stairs against a life mage PC by using Chicanery to alter his perception so that the stair case seemed to go on forever
4) Made two PCs who hated each other in character to gently caress the poo poo out of each other by erasing their memories.
5) Made the Spirit Mage stay up for three days straight, missing out on work and utterly exhausting himself so we could find a node that I could build a freehold in

The list goes on. The greatest prank I ever pulled was when one of the Mages wantef to retire his character and make another. As a goodbye my character made a pie for him.

To start I barged into the PCs office, hoped on his desk , looked him in the eye and said "I'm going to miss our time together".

I then promptly dropped my pants and took a huge steaming poo poo in said desk. I combined fae magic to make it invisible and erase the memory immediately( for those not in the know, the memory loss is only temporary). The office is huge and has its own kitchen so I scooped the invisible turd into a pot and made the pie.

I then invited everyone in the agency up to share in the moment, though as soon as people arrived they started gagging on the rank smell of baked poo poo( the mage PC could only, smell see and taste blueberries due to more of my magic).

I presented the still warm pie to the PC and everyone watched in horror as he gobbled up his feces(Haunted Heart urge hunger----pie). There were even pictures. The memory spell wore off after day, at which point the scream unleashed from him could be heard through out the building.

I love my Pooka

tl/dr : I play a OwoD changeling prankster and hate my friends so I made one of them eat a poo poo pie.

quote:

New Merit:
Dog Fucker (�)
Effect: You may now take the Skill Specialty: loving the dog.
Drawbacks: You are now a Dogfucker.

Gravy Train Robber posted:
A frightening new addition to Ashwood Abbey

The Dogfuckers are a compact of the Ashwood Abbey Conspiracy devoted to hunting down Uratha. They have a real "hard on" () for the forsaken...a dark irony indeed.

New Profession:
Dog Fucker
Effect: You may now take the Skill Specialty: loving the dog.
Drawback: You are now a Dogfucker.

� Poodle Puffer
�� Shar-pei Stuffer
�� Dachshund Diddler
�� Rottweiler Rutter
�� Mastiff Molestor

New Endowment:

The Bad Touch
In their experiences with hunting the Uratha, many Dogfuckers have run afoul of the Uratha's spiritual attacks and totem guardians. The Bad Touch is a set of rituals developed to ward off all spiritual influences and numina in an area with a single touch or whispered word.

oh god.

Nicolae Carpathia posted:
why, why are you people doing this?

Because B vs D jokes are getting stale?

Daeren posted:

I am literally vomiting blood that is turning into bees made of blood and hate

Ferrinus posted:

[supernatural creatures] think they [possess trait], but no one is more [trait] than Mages. With this power, all Mages can

Doug Lombardi posted:

Witches get Bitches.

Reene posted:

this classic right here

quote:

MalcolmSheppard, an actual WW writer posted:
Hah! You know, the extended-roll combat system in Mirrors was partly inspired by watching 10 episodes of Grappler Baki in a row. That show is so decompressed that Baki uses maybe 1-2 moves per episode. I think there was a three ep. run entirely devoted to him applying a single standing triangle choke.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Etherwind posted:

If that was the reaction (I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and assume not), they'd be missing the point entirely.

Slight derail ahead, but this is relevant to the tone of the World of Darkness books, so I figure it's worth going into.

I've mentioned before on here that I'm part of a gaming society in the UK. Without going into a long explanation of what this means, we're a primarily student/post-graduate club focused on gaming, and we're affiliated to a certain University via our Student Union. The Student Union maintains its own building on campus - complete with bars and cafeteria and pool tables - and so we have access to its facilities for the purposes of booking space. Twice weekly we take up the largest space to meet and play games of various sorts (whether RPGS, board games or card games).

The membership of this society has grown over the time I've been a member, from thirty or so when I first joined to an average attendance somewhere around 120 or so gamers on a good night. We have a much larger attendance each week than the LAN and Console Gaming society has once per month, though attendance fluctuates throughout the year and can go as low as fifty or so during the summer when the University is in recess.

I'm proud to say that I've played a somewhat significant part in expanding the society, and as hard as some people might find it to believe, one of the major ways I've managed it over the past few years is by pushing against the unspoken but prevalent bullshit that festers in a lot of established gaming groups. Primarily, I'm talking about misogynistic attitudes and assumptions that make traditional, male-dominated gaming venues hostile to women.

It's not just about poo poo like outright sexual harassment (which happens way more frequently than people realise: for an extreme example, there have been multiple allegations of rape brought to the society's committee this year... more on this later). It's also sexual attitudes, and the way gaming is approached. Sexual politics matter in gaming as it is a social activity, and if that sounds ridiculous, let me run through an example of why.

(Needless to say, what follows is just my experience, so regard me as just another rear end in a top hat with an opinion.)

When a guy hears the phrase "sexmurder", he usually has a very different implicit reaction to it than a woman. Forget about all the secondary processing that happens when you think about it for a moment and then contextualise the meaning: the actual term has an immediate emotional impact based on the connotations of those words in context. For men, it's generally either neutral or (without putting value judgements on the person) positive, since sex and murder can be construed as high-testosterone, action-movie-esque subjects in our culture. Even together they aren't inherently alarming to men.

Without wishing to overly generalise, I'd suggest that most women will have a different reaction to those words in concert, one of initial alarm or even, possibly, fear. The reason for this is that we can say, just by looking at crime reports, when men are involved in scenarios comprising both sex and murder, they are usually the aggressors: women are usually the victims. To draw on an old adage, the most a [straight] man has to fear from a sexual encounter is rejection and derision, while the most a [straight] women has to fear is rape and violence.

It's much easier to be cavalier about sexual violence when you're male, as you're coming at it from the perspective that is implied to have most of the power in that type of scenario.

Now, no, I'm not suggesting that women in general are going to hear that sort of language and run for the hills. The reactions from most I've seen exposed to it in person have been a pause, followed by either incredulous laughter or a subdued shake of the head. What becomes a problem is when lots of these incidents build up, especially if it's exasperated by other people going "Oh, it's not a big deal: what's the problem? Can't you deal with it?" The sort of atmosphere fostered by those sorts of sentiment can and does put them off. It's wearying. It's bullshit they have to filter out when they're just wanting to play a game.

This is the low-level, pernicious poo poo that you have to watch for. For the record, I've not always been aware about it or taken it seriously, especially when I was new to the society.

This stuff is problematic because, when it goes uncontested, it allows more serious poo poo to be disregarded. To give an example, in previous years we had a female member who was harassed by a male member every time they met, harassed in that he'd be extremely friendly to her and expect a hug, and if he didn't receive a positive response he'd publicly guilt-trip her and make things socially awkward, to the point that she usually just complied to avoid a fuss. This stopped when another female member complained and pointed out what was actually happening: she gave him a public dressing down, called him out for being a creep. If she hadn't both a) wanted to stay and participate in the society and b) been unwilling to permit that kind of poo poo, it would likely have gone unnoticed, since nobody paid particular attention to the relationship between said creepy dude and the long-suffering woman.

Why didn't the harassed woman say anything? Because she felt that she'd be seen as a bitch, stuck-up, or a prude for complaining. The rhetoric circulating in the society had normalised that sort of imposition. And yeah, the relatively trivial poo poo like sexualised violence had contributed to that normalisation.

(A few of you might be thinking "Well, she should have spoken up, it's her own fault." Others might think "Hey, I know women who are cool with all that banter, therefore it's fine." The key to both lies in selection bias: the only women who're going to hang around are the women who're either willing to put up with it or who have no problem with it... for whatever reasons.)

These sort of low-level problems do not happen as much today (I cannot say for sure that they've stopped entirely). Our membership has increased dramatically, and become a much better community to game in, after a push back against the sort of atmosphere I've outlined above. We've more than quadrupled our active membership, and key to this has been the fact that an increasing percentage of our members have been women, who increasingly feel like the society is a comfortable place to be.

This year, our new membership sign-ups were dominated by women for the first time. Before signing on existing members, our intake took 60 women to 50 men. While maybe only twenty or so of those total new sign-ups have started attending regularly, about a third of those have been women. To make the difference clear, we started with around thirty members, of which maybe three were women; active membership is now roughly a quarter to a third female, out of 120 or so, depending on time of year.

So, coming toward the end of this ramble: I mentioned earlier that multiple accusations of rape have been brought to the society this year, and you're probably wondering how what I've said can possibly square with that.

To clarify, the accusations have been that certain male members of the society have, outside the society, sexually assaulted some of the female members. The female members have brought the matter to the attention of the society's committee because they feel the society is not a safe space while the alleged rapists remain (this has been matched by them taking the matter to the police). They've petitioned the society to remove the members in question, and so the accused have been suspended pending the outcome of criminal proceedings.

Here's the really eye-opening part. It turns out that the reason they brought this to the committee is that they felt comfortable knowing that their allegations would be treated seriously. This is a direct product of both the increase in female membership and also the change it atmosphere regarding how gender politics are regarded. This led to other female members, who have been part of the society for longer, privately confiding that they've known similar incidents happening in the past and not being reported or dealt with, precisely because of anticipation of a hostile reception.

This leaves me in the (admittedly subjective) position of seeing a chain between creepy/misogynistic content in game materials > normalisation of those attitudes in player discourse > normalisation of the underlying attitudes in player culture > marginalisation of female membership > low-level harassment going unreported > sex crimes going unreported.

No, I'm not laying this all at the feet of poo poo like "sexmurder"... but in aggregate, it's an issue. Given that it really doesn't take much effort to cut that creepy poo poo out, I find it really hard to take that in stride, especially since every terrible thing I have to explain or rationalise away is another opportunity for a good, nice, friendly person to go "This poo poo is terrible, I'm out."

So yeah, it's not about my personal sensibilities. I personally don't find the term bothersome, and the reason I dislike it is because I've seen the wider implications, one terrible "joke" at a time.

Golly mister! This sounds like the greatest game of all time...

Homebrew

The Wondersaurus posted:

We're just one thread that prefers to bullshit back and forth instead of compile our rules fixes/explanations/hacks/whatever into an easily referenced document and do the actually hard and thankless work of fixing nWoD.

WoD is fun and all, but I'm always blabbering on about how the toolboxy, DIY stuff makes the ST system into the new GURPs (In a good way).
With a little work you can run ANYTHING in this system.

So this section is for links to cool homebrew settings/games/campaign stuff. So what sort of homebrewing (aside from mechanics adjustments and rules hacks) have all of you folks been doing?

Even on the forums, Mugrim has run at least one really loving awesome homebrew in ST. (thread in archive)

Ferrinus and VoxPVoxD have done an almost complete rewrite of Mage from base principles. It fuckin owns and anyone who likes Mage needs to loving read this ASAP.
CLICK THIS, MOTHERFUCKER.

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Apr 6, 2014

# ¿ Sep 1, 2012 18:24

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Kavak posted:

I thought you'd have more quotes from Malcolm in there.

Malcolm's a cool dude, I don't want us to be a total dick to him, so I just grabbed one I thought was really funny.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2012 18:39

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Volume posted:

Ah another thread, another 200 pages of mage talk.

Well Mummy is coming out soon, so maybe we can talk about that for a couple of pages?

# ¿ Sep 1, 2012 19:15

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

InfiniteJesters posted:

I paid little attention to WOD before I noticed this thread.

After reading the first two posts in this thread I want to play the poo poo out of Hunter. I also want to remove my eyes. I'm not sure which order to do this in.

This right here, best compliment I think I could have expected.
Also, remove one eye, and then play hunter forever.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2012 19:29

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

crime fighting hog posted:

Hooray new thread!

I'm currently reading the VTR book and rolling up a Mekhet who was a corrupt prohibition agent in life and a enforcer in death. Would the Mekhet clanbook be worth reading? I assume there is one. Or the Invictus book?

Yes, the Mekhet clanbook is pretty good. I've never read the Invictus book though.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2012 20:28

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Ferrinus posted:

Fightin' Words

I pretty much completely agree with you on this, and it's how I always approached combat.( X+Y+/-Z =) is how literally every other action in the game is expressed, and I'm with you that combat should be no different.

The slight difference we have is that, while combat (and other actions) boil down to who cares more. I also believe that people who aren't strong have just as much to offer in a fight, and I prefer someway of representing that mechanically (along with ways for the fightymans to help with like...research, it's a team effort thing)

That's why I personally prefer to use my houserule/merit that allows non-strength optimized characters to use one of their other non-resistance attributes instead of strength in brawl and weaponry rolls. (I call it Fighting Style, natch)

It preserves the (X+Y+/-Z=) format, and to use your terminology, allows more characters to care about a fight, while reducing the burden on the party's fightyman, your brute is still gonna be king poo poo if that's his thing, but it's nice to be able to have back-up.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 19:27

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Baby Babbeh posted:

http://sheetgen.dalines.net/wiki/WikiStart

Is the one I always use.

This is the one I've always used.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 23:50

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

crime fighting hog posted:

E: And thanks for the links, guys. Those should go in the OP!

Good idea, I will do this.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2012 01:01

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Liesmith posted:

If I ever get a chance to play Mummy, o or n, my character description is just gonna read "I put the pussy in a sarcophagus."

Character Quote: "And yo bodywraps look like a dishrag."

# ¿ Sep 3, 2012 17:18

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Etherwind posted:

As for how you fix that problem, you formally codify equipment bonuses and circumstantial bonuses with descriptive phrases that telegraph to players what sort of dice to expect. You get away from the idea that "A bigger gun automatically has a higher equipment bonus" and abstract bonuses as being qualitative, and introduce something like:
pre:
Bonus	Descriptor
+1	Crude
+2	Average
+3	Good
+4	Excellent
+5	Exceptional
Then strongly encourage Storytellers to put these descriptors into play and on items. Don't just say "You have a stethoscope," say "You've got an Average stethoscope." Every item has an associated descriptor that is introduced as part of its description, so you don't have a disconnect.

A similar solution can work for circumstance bonuses and penalties, introduced descriptively like "As he races through the rain away from you, you're blinded by the floodlights, making it Strained to see where he went" or something similar. A bit of work can polish that up, but it's the formal codification of how bonuses and penalties are applied that hopefully circumvents negotiation.

Codify it, make it explicit, and it'll work. Leave it to Mother-May-I, and people will avoid it.

y'know, this is almost exactly another houserule I've always used as a way to avoid the +5 greataxe/sniper rifle. I've just been hesitant to ever bring it up for fear that it'd sound too D20.

pre:

Bonus	Descriptor
-5     Broken or barely usable
-4     Bent
-3     Strained
-2     Weak
-1     Flimsy/Rusty
+1	Basic/Crude
+2	Average
+3	Good
+4	Excellent
+5	Exceptional

YMMV and the descriptor I use tends to vary by situation or what action is being taken, but there you go.

fakeedit:and I always thought the basic "numerology"(lol) of the ST system was fairly clear (3's and 5's), but I can see how it's not explicit at times.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2012 04:27

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Xir posted:

Um...

drat it I need to find a Hunter game.

Right now I'm trying to bodge something that resembles the Mage magic system into D&D 4e. It ticks my "try something futile and ill advised" checkbox. Does anyone have any suggestions or any attempts they've tried so I can see where the succeeded or failed? My usual group isn't going to play WoD due to the usual perception of White Wolf players. Despite this, I want to sneak the Mage: the Awakening casting system into 4e so they can experience it without the preconceptions that M:tA would bring with it. Maybe I can bootstrap them into playing it.

If I were trying this, but wanted to not break 4E in half, there's a few things I'd do:

1. Make the arcana based off the knowledge:arcana skill (all classes who don't start with it can pick it up) basically this is Gnosis. You can't have arcana higher than that.

2. Divide up the keywords between arcana, some will be in multiple arcana, and you'll probably want to make up a few.

3. Divide up rotes/effects to fit into 4E's scheme. Eg- 1-2 dots would be at-will, 3-4 are Encounters, and 5+ would be daily.

Edit: 4. Make each arcana into basically a skill, make each "rank" in that skill cost maybe a little more than other skill ranks.

I would stress the free-form and creative nature of spells, within the loose(er than DnD, stricter than WoD) framework. I'd have them choose either potency or duration, and have those factor into the DC.

But this is just,like...my opinion man.

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Sep 4, 2012

# ¿ Sep 4, 2012 20:31

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

pseudosavior posted:

While the rest of it was awesome, this line right here made me love it. God that was an awesome thread, and now I want to go look those videos up again.

Do you have a link?

# ¿ Sep 5, 2012 06:20

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Nicolae Carpathia posted:

Are you thinking of the Ultimate Hustler joke with Galacticus?

I think so, unfortunately I don't have a link to it, either.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2012 21:43

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Dammit Who? posted:

Why you think Franklin Richards get stuffed in another dimension? Whole drat 616 universe afraid of havin ta pay child support.

This really is the best thing.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2012 22:52

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

or post the "death as ultimate hustla" in the underworld vs a Moros.

Ze Pollack posted:

Young astral travelers are warned against trying to enter inner space from a place of great devastation- Meggido, Katyn, Hiroshima, Detroit- with half-truths or outright lies, claiming that the voyage is less easy there. Not so. The thousand paths of the dreamspace will find their way unto the Anima Mundi with greater ease in places sanctified by the arcanum of Death, but at a cost- all roads in such places ultimately lead to the Ebon Palace, where dwells the Aeon of Death, Greater of the Twin Lords of Stygia. To the Free Council he is the Entropic Principle, to the Christians Azrael, to the Babylonians Ereshkigal. His skin is of the purest ebony, his staff a shining bone-white, and his glasses darker than the very pits of the Abyss he guards. Those few Moroi who have dared to brave his presence speak of it in whispers if at all, willing to confirm only that to face the Ultimate Necromancer is to face mortality in its purest, most vicious form.

I? I dared, once, to pass the gates of that dread palace. I remember gazing upon my fathers, laid to rest in a line stretching back to the very dawn of men. I remember the stones of that place, writ with the names of all those who had passed beyond them before. My comrades faltered before the guardians of silver and onyx, but I refused to fail before my Master. We stole our way to the very throne room of the Ultimate Necromancer, and there I stopped, transfixed by the Aeon's mighty throne. My master strode forward, and commanded the Aeon to speak.

For a moment that felt like a thousand years, there was silence, and then a voice like the mocking of the tomb itself.

"poo poo, look at this slow-rear end motherfucker. Veils of the Temenos parting like they was yo momma's legs, still takes him a week to get here. That your student back there, or you been digging up history's biggest catamites? Either way, that rear end seen more traffic than the Road of Lost Souls."

I summoned up what defenses I could muster, desperately trying to ward off the power I could feel swelling behind his words. I might as well have tried to stop the tide. My master reddened with anger, hurling a bolt of entropic force from his very soul at the Ultimate Necromancer, who, laughing, batted it aside with a flick of a skeletal wrist.

"Still shootin' off in under a minute." To this day I know not what happened then, for as the dread Aeon unleashed his fury on my Master my senses failed me. The only words that remained with me were "And yo nimbus look like a dishrag." Those, and one other.

I was trapped in a coma for ten years, apprentice. Ten years the Mysterium cared for me, protecting my comatose body from those who would steal it and tear the secrets I have just revealed to you from my mind.

And in all that time, the only thought in my mind, the only word on my lips, the entirety of my being?

"drat."

or the Mastigos one.

starbu.cx posted:

I was sitting in Philosophy class and the ultimate hustler popped out of a collection of Camus' fiction and said "bitch the only stranger you know is when you be sittin on yo hand before jerkin off at night" and i tried to keep my composure, but then he appeared out of the aether and said "you breath so bad bitches be callin you the plauge" and i was like drat.

after philosophy i went to my next class psychology, glad to have escaped the ultimate hustler. but as soon as i sat down he amassed in the collective unconscious and said "freud be sayin e'eyone wants to gently caress they mother, but most of em just gently caress yours instead" and i blacked out but he popped into my dream as an archetype and said "you so repulsive to girls even yo anima want nothin to do wit you" and i was like goddamn

Daeren posted:

My Awakening? Be glad you have asked me, apprentice, and not another, for daring to ask another to reveal the most personal moments of his life is gravely rude. However, in order to teach you how widely varied they can be, I will tell you my story.

It came to me in a day like any other. I sat in a Waffle House late one night partaking in their endless supply of artery-clogging foods when a chill crept up my spine. As my dumpy middle-aged waitress approached me, her face shifted, to the face of a man. In his eyes I could see the experience of uncounted ages, and I knew what I saw was real. He opened his mouth to speak.

"drat, bitch, you so white that you make Weird Al look like Al Sharpton."

Recoiling from his burn, I fell over prone and spilled out of my booth. As I looked up, one by one the other patrons of the Waffle House shifted to share the same face, the face of a man who has crushed a thousand and one men stronger than I. Their gaze alone was too much to bear, and I fled as they began to hurl put-downs like thunderbolts from heaven.

Running into the night, I saw a man on the street walking his dogs. One dog turned to me, and cocked its head. Suddenly it began speaking, and I knew the man was there too.

"poo poo son, your mom's so dumb she make Chex Mix by choppin' up her welfare payments and tossin' them in a bowl."

I screamed in pain as the awful truth of his words seared into my brain, and continued my mad exodus. The wind carried his mocking laughter, windows reflected his grinning face, the cold of the night air holding the power of his ice burns. My mind was unable to cope, and I fell to the ground weeping at the horror of it all, at how pitiful I truly was.

Then I realized I was not weeping on pavement, but on the colossal chest of the man, his head looming up before me like a great tower, his eyes beaming like twin suns. His mouth opened, and cosmic truths roared forth and washed over me.

"Yo mamma so fat she make the Abyss look like Karen Carpenter."

As my body exploded into a shower of bone and gore, and my soul was lifted up and subjected to burns unspeakable, the essence of my mind, body, and soul was distilled into one word, the word that was seared into the Tower of the Iron Gauntlet as a testament to my Awakening:

"drat."

Liesmith posted:

redirect all sympathetic connections to your mom

Etherwind posted:
Nobody can have a sympathetic connection to your mom.

_{_{She counts as a public place.}}

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Sep 5, 2012

# ¿ Sep 5, 2012 23:07

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Liesmith posted:

hunters would effortlessly pass through that fence. This is because hunters have wirecutters.

I think almost everyone this thread is gonna say the nWoD stuff is superior mechanically to the oWoD stuff, and probably a majority would agree about the fluff as well. oMage in particular is stupid as hell in its premise, the whole consensus reality thing is the dumbest poo poo ever, and the war between technocrats and hermitic mages and whoever else doesn't make sense because it's entirely superficial anyway.

As an aside, don't mix lines, generally speaking. They aren't designed to play nice with one another.

I'm pretty much all-in for nWoD mechanically, but I admit that as dumb as it is, oMage's fluff is fun sometimes, and in that case I'd run new system with old fluff if that's more appealing.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2012 19:57

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Dave Brookshaw posted:

And for those that do, we're busily writing the fullest nWoD schedule since... I dunno. 2008? Including near-new editions of the core and Requiem?

I'm waiting for two books I worked on to come out over the next few weeks. Both are nWoD. One's even a new gameline, for chrissakes.

It's just that the cWoD fans get their fun too.

While I very much prefer nWoD, I'd be lying if I said I never had any fun ever back in the old days so I'll be definitely checking out some of the New/Old stuff. But I have to say calling it "Classic WoD" Just seems...I dunno...dumb.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2012 20:56

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Reene posted:

My players will be going to the Underworld in a few sessions to dig up and enslave the soul of an Archmage. I have a pretty good idea for what I want to happen to them there but I need some ideas for funny, horrifying, and/or useful poo poo I can have the waters of each Underworld river they'll be crossing do, because I just know one of them is going to go "hey can I bottle/drink that?" and I want to ~~punish them for their curiosity~~ reward them for their situational awareness in an amusing manner.

So far my only okay idea is liquid that makes you completely forget any name or nickname or alias you have ever had, and only that, for some period of time. Someone could remind you your name is Bob and you go "oh poo poo, okay" but ten seconds later they're screaming "BOB JESUS THE ZOMBIE IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU" and you have no idea who the gently caress Bob is.

So are you thinking of having some do a good thing, a good thing with a drawback, or gently caress YOU PLAYERS?

Because going by mythology, you already basically have the river Lethe, so:

The river Styx could maybe buff all your physical stats by 2 for a day, but cause a couple aggro boxes, or reduce your Willpower.

Maybe one river doesn't massively gently caress you up, but now you can see and hear and talk to ghosts as per Death 1, but you can't ever touch anything in twilight.

Likewise, maybe there's a river that does something similar with Time?

# ¿ Sep 14, 2012 04:28

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Daeren posted:

Blood Sorcery is out for nVampire. Anybody read through it yet? I might get it just because it sounds like another Danse Macabre style retooling book, and Danse Macabre was loving amazing.

Oooooh, I want this so much!

# ¿ Sep 15, 2012 00:42

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

MalcolmSheppard posted:

Hey folks,

Past Mage developer, WW contributor to many more games and Star Trek Online designer Jesse Heinig suffered a drug-resistant Strep infection that nearly took his leg. We've been fundraising to help him out with some of his expenses. Is it all right if I put a link here?

As a mod, Winson Paine is the goto guy for permission for that. but My opinion is that it's a good idea, provide a link and I'll put it in the OP.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2012 19:02

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Dave Brookshaw posted:

My first Requiem chronicle has been broken up and used in... Several books the setting and two npcs are in Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners, the Chronicle structure's in Danse Macabre.

It ended with the players dividing into two mutually-antagonistic groups, and one side using a liberal amount of White Phosphorous on the other.

I consider it a win.

It's you. You wrote B vs D. :stonk:

# ¿ Sep 17, 2012 19:30

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Attorney at Funk posted:

Much like the Pentacle, IMO.

Join the Seers.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2012 17:34

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

JohnnyCanuck posted:

...Hopefully, I won't kill the thread again.

There's an adventure in this just waiting to break out: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/133318

I'm trying to decide whether it's a Mage or Hunter adventure, though. (Werewolf is also a possibility, but 'wolves don't often do a whole lot of research, in my experience.) The bigger issue is, of course, how I want to run with it.

The bird itself is obviously a spirit. But what kind? A juvenile Thunderbird? The actual Spirit of America? (The bald eagle, of course, was only our limited understanding of the essence of America itself.) What might happen if you captured and controlled it? Could Changelings make a pact with it?

If I don't play up the spirit angle, then there's a conspiracy of some sort to hide the existence of the bird from the world at large. Why? And who's behind it? Perhaps the bird doesn't exist at all, but Audobon's painting is some kind of clue pointing at a greater mystery altogether.

Thoughts?

The answer to all of these is Yes.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2012 17:38

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Tiny Deer posted:

essentially Mean Girls on steroids

Somebody needs to run this. Right loving now.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2012 23:08

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Yawgmoth posted:

I don't like the pseudo-religion bullshit leftover from WtA, none of the auspices strike me as actually interesting, renown is easily one of the worst mechanics in nWoD, and gifts are overly situational at best unless they're 5 dots. Needing to buy a loving ritual to not be naked after taking a different form is so loving stupid that trying to put it into words is causing Paradox, and using Harmony as a dice pool is especially terrible because it seems like it's trying to get dropped to <4 almost as quickly as Wisdom.

Plus everyone I know that likes it is one of those wiccan-because-it-pisses-mom-off trustafarian fuckheads who posts their results from every single "what's your spirit animal" quizzes on facebook.

so why don't you tell us how you really feel.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2012 18:46

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Der Waffle Mous posted:

"Yo I can carry around a 75mm howitzer like a shotgun" just doesn't carry the same oomph when the other guy can turn you into a bowl of petunias.

"Not again."
- A werewolf player upon encountering Mages

# ¿ Oct 2, 2012 19:50

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Yawgmoth posted:

Oh, yeah in that case you'd both end up as each other's regnant and thrall. This never ends poorly, ever.

Ever.

Isn't there something in the fluff about how some vamps who are all OMG SO IN WUV! will create a two way vinculum like that? I would swear I've read something like that.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2012 03:08

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

JDCorley posted:

Thanks, this is really helping, keep the suggestions coming. Also you said "Mystery Play" which makes me think I should do something really ridiculously outre with The Play's The Thing.

To be honest, you could do worse than to read Ritorix's game and see how he did it. It's a really good game.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2012 03:17

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Loomer posted:

I just realized I never got to introduce the Sleestaks in my WoD game. Bugger. They're mentioned about... three or four times by Clutch (just as the reptoid-men in the swamp in Sleestak Lightning, as devil-analogue in Never be Moved (they'll make a meal of your sins), and so forth.)

The answer is probably going to make me feel dumb, but what's a Sleestak?

# ¿ Oct 7, 2012 05:33

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Etherwind posted:

A good rule of thumb would be to make the potency of non-scaling spells equal to the number of dots in the primary arcanum of the spell used to cast it. This can end up with some spells being slightly harder to dispel than normal, but it's not a big deal.

You have Prime 4? Your Prime mage armour and mage sight have a potency of 4. You're out of combat? You can activate them without rolling.

This is pretty much what I roll with, it has the elegance of being simple as gently caress, but also favors the players/NPCs who've put points into being good at Arcana X.

note: I, and my group, generally enjoy running higher powered games (lol magic superheroes, etc.) and so I tend to also use this when rating shielding spells. I changed it so that players can choose to add (Arcana) dots to either Defense or Armor on a success.

Speaking of, I know that RAW certain arcana shields are for defense, and others are armor, but the nature of the game leads me to favor allowing both from every arcana depending on how a player describes their shield, so I allow one or the other regardless.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2012 20:33

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Ferrinus posted:

They're actually all for Armor, although some describe themselves as making you dodgy rather than tough. Technically, if you want to increase your Defense your only recourse is using Mind to buff your Wits and Life to buff your Dexterity.

What I did was list which Mage Armor spells are "fortified" and which are "elusive"; the former could block environmental damage and grappling damage, while the latter made you more difficult to even get a hold of or make a mark on as well as to actually harm.

Nowadays I want Mage Armor to be way more low-key than it is in the Mage core, or even nonexistent. It's cooler to have to expend on-the-spot effort to deflect an incoming bullet than to just walk around, all day, with massive damage resistance.

I completely agree with you here, and so that's where I put the successes. Basically I houserule that leaving Mage armor up all day gives you exactly 1 free shot. Somebody snipes, or sucker punches you and you're covered for that one attack.

BUT, anything after that first shot means you have to reroll your shield (or decide not to) and then it's an "active" spell where your successes count for how many rounds you have it active. So Basically the "spend mana= lasts all day" is just for walking around out of combat. Basically it's an airbag rather than a suit of platmail.

As always YMMV, but my group likes it this way.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2012 23:00

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Yeah, and like I said before, I run pretty highpowered games with deadly as gently caress combat. One hit kills aren't an everyday occurrence, but they aren't rare either.

So I came up with this as a way to both play up the "mages are still basically normal people" with the "mages work wonders and miracles and own vs everything forever"

So adding 5 dots to armor or defense isn't super overpowered and my players still get hurt, they just don't instakill.

Tldr: this is necessary when one Obrimos pulling a satellite down on another Obrimos' head isn't even the most insane thing your group has done this session and oh god we're only 20 mins in.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2012 23:41

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

blindidiotgod posted:

On Hunter: I've ordered the books and am waiting for them to be delivered - Horror Recognition Guide turned up first and it's a great read.

In spite of how unwieldy it would make the Hunter core, they should have just used the HRG as the intro fiction (yes the whole HRG) and then had the rules come after. That whole book is Hunter as gently caress.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2012 03:46

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Daeren posted:

homebrewing an alternative to Gifts where you make pacts with specific spirits to get the ability to switch on and off persistent bonuses and powers, but that was a nightmare to balance/homebrew and led to a dead end for us. It was a pretty rad alternate concept though, since your spirit half partially fused with the pacted spirit depending on how powerful it was, so if your Harmony was out of whack and you didn't have a strong Primal Urge, pacting with a spirit out of your league could turn you into a weremagath.

I'm not super into nWolf, so take with a grain of salt, but wouldn't it have just been an easier fix to replace gifts with Numina?

I like the idea of making pacts with spirits, and how that can gently caress you up. but what about kludging something like changeling pacts together with the effects of numina (as listed in the core, book of spirits, and so on)?

# ¿ Oct 10, 2012 01:31

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

To this day, my favorite WoD symbol is the Virtual Adepts'
I know it makes me a gigantic nerd, but it's my computer/phone/google/all sorts of stuff background or avatar, and has been since highschool.

edit: This one

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Oct 11, 2012

# ¿ Oct 11, 2012 21:03

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

MalcolmSheppard posted:

Hey Loomer, on the subject of obscure V:TM books

http://www.amazon.ca/Vampire-Diary-Embrace-Robert-Weinberg/dp/1565048008

If that's the story I think it is, it may also be in a big short story collection I have with 1 story per gameline.

it's all in like, handwritten style with little drawings similar to the HoL books, right?

# ¿ Oct 12, 2012 19:59

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

gtrmp posted:

This was also reprinted in one of the WoD omnibus anthologies; either The Essential World of Darkness or The Quintessential World of Darkness, I forget which. iirc the actual formatting is unchanged, aside from it obviously not being a faux diary with a key and all that.

Yes, this is the story collection I mentioned earlier! I forgot the name.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2012 01:58

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 18:22

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Froghammer posted:

Clearly this means you are incapable of enjoying the concept of cowboys.

I mean, I'm American, so ninjas just bore me to tears.

I'm a ninja, therefore I greatly dislike Kung Fu and Shaolin monks. :crossarms:

# ¿ Oct 20, 2012 19:13

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The World of Darkness Megathread pt.IV: Mo' Mummy Mo' Problems

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