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citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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deadly_pudding posted:

I'm pretty sure White Wolf's entire worldbuilding M.O. is, "Everything is terrible, and this is only fun because you, the player character, have superpowers and a flagrant disregard for mundane concerns."
At its best, White Wolf is a giant, absurd exploitation flick dripping with dark humor.

At its worse, we get Tape-Nipple up there.

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citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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Spoilers Below posted:

It is. :getin:

If I wanted to give Mage a lot of credit, the fact that each tradition book is written from a completely biased point of view is one of the major attractions and themes of the game. Consensual reality meaning that of course the group would only see things from their perspective, and would be attempting to shoehorn in "their version" of history as the real one. Unfortunately, in practice, this meant that they tended to be really hit and miss when it came to actual writing, with a lot of really naive and racist implications that just don't seem to have been fully thought out by the writers.

The Revised Son of Ether book is easily one of my favorite splat books (up there with the Revised Bone Gnawers Tribebook), and I think that part of that is the ton of work that went in to it, the book not really shying away from going "oh yeah, the Victorian Era Etherites were hilariously racist and would steal credit for stuff their non-European students would do", and a potentially throw away line concerning why Etherites tend to dress like something out of a silly pulp novel - it's their giant middle finger to the baked-in cynicism of the WoD itself.

That and it gave us things like the Russian Science-Adventurer that was powered by Soviet Super-Science and the Civic Engineer that used the layout of entire cities as her foci.

citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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AmiYumi posted:

I'm still irrationally angry at that line because one of the books (The Path of Screams) got referenced constantly by other gamelines (Vampire, Werewolf, "modern" Mage, Kindred of the East), despite being written for an unpopular spin-off and going out-of-print p. much immediately. I never saw that book until the nWoD had come out. Still don't have a physical copy. :argh:

That's the infernal/nephrandi one, right? The one with the rote that has you slowly flay someone and use the skin as scrolls?

citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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Kurieg posted:

Well of course they did. I know of at least one guy who got banned from the White Wolf forums because he operated under the belief that "Since I bought a product, the writers are now under an obligation to tailor that product to my wants and needs." And since they didn't do that they deserved to get murdered painfully, or at the very least fired.
He also saw the move to Print on Demand as a personal betrayal, as in they did it just to gently caress with him specifically.

Unfortunately that's a common feeling, at least through the online chats that I hover between occasionally. Which is a shame, since at the time it's not really as if the oWoD is adding anything to it - all the growth was happening in the nWoD. But you had people clutching to the old system like lost relics and refusing to try the new stuff on principal.

That might change a bit now that the X20 editions are coming out, since each of those do seem to be bringing new stuff to the table.

citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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I've had quite a few people over the years try to talk me in to playing Changeling the Dreaming, and each time I take a look at the drat book I just have this visceral reaction to it and want to throw it across the room. I don't, of course, since I'm reading PDFs and that would involve tossing my laptop, but the desire is still there.

It just seems so off that I can make a Fisher King concept work perfectly well in, say, Mage but any attempts to do so in CtD end up failing.

AmiYumi posted:

Of course, my favorite part of oWoD Changeling is the Redcaps (the "literally hunger+violence made flesh" splat), so I'm not really the target audience for most of what they did. Redcaps had a good kithbook, though!

Redcaps are what people tend to suggest when trying to get me to play (that and Sidhe). I just don't see the drat point - they tend to come across as bloody for blood's sake, which I suppose is the idea but god drat if it doesn't feel if even that is trying to god drat hard. They're also what people tend to offer up as "no really it's a dark loving game" and even that reeks of people trying to swivel away from the matter at hand, kind of like how you have people trying to play up the "No really Children of Gaia are amazing warriors and fight just as much as anyone else they are not just hippies!" thing in an attempt to apologize for just how terrible the tribebooks are written.

Mors Rattus posted:

Other reasons that nChangeling is the infinitely superior game: Child Satyr.

Thank god most chats get around that by going "no character younger than 18" but then you have people bitching about how it's not true to the spirit of the game.

What I'm trying to say is "gently caress CtD".

citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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I picked that book up mostly as inspiration and I cannot for the life of me figure out how on earth you would actually play a session of it.

I'd also made the same mistake mentioned earlier where I thought it might work for some homebrew akin to Fallen London. It's just... it's just not man.

citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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pkfan2004 posted:


MOURNER: You're trained to kill with knives and you're very good at it. Mourners are also bodyguards of the rich and famous and a Mourner tends to become a family attachment, keeping watch over the family members living or dead. You're basically an exemplar of purity, loyalty and duty and you must keep quiet with a stiff upper lip at all times. It's a hard, lonely life as a Mourner. Her main features are Exculpus Mastery (their trademark weapons), Familiarity: Animate and Guild Training which depends on her Concentration.
If I recall correctly, you're able to play a male Mourner but the option to do so is even more of a special snowflake than the Dhampir Vampire Hunter is.

I the -idea- of the various classes/callings, but I'd be damned if I can figure out how on earth to make an actual party work on an adventure. Unless it's something like a big-game hunter Aristocrat, his much put-upon Mourner bodyguard, and an Undertaker going off on wacky adventures in the Wastelands.

citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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You know, it's dawned on me that the Corruption aspect of UM is basically the worst part of the degeneration rules in the WoD.

Bieeardo posted:

UM feels less like a game and more like a story bible to me, from what we've seen so far.

I've got to agree, that's a pretty good way of looking at it. If they could leverage it in to something like a board/card/video game then I could see some fun directions it could go, or even something approaching a series/novelization. Some of Callings/classes work well together but there's some (Aristocrats/Mourners/Dhampirs) that just don't make much sense to mix up with any of them.

Bringing up comparison between it and the WoD, UM's setting reminds me of the worst parts of the World of Darkness' metaplot, where everything is kind of figured out. The only real way I could see doing anything with it would involve taking a sledgehammer to most of the setting to open it up a bit, or place it in some other location than London. Whether that's going on zany zeppelin adventures with the Prussian Army or going full bore SCIENCE! in the Americas would depend on how you're feeling. Or, hell, a bunch of Londoners going "gently caress this poo poo, we out yo" where the campaign is built around getting a large enough nest egg to get OUT.

pkfan, I look forward to your explanation of how the actual rules end up working together because that was yet another hurdle that I couldn't wrap my head around.

citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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pkfan2004 posted:

And that's Chapter Five all wrapped up in one single post. You know what would be cool? Being able to play as a ghoul, being a plug-ugly little monkey man with a taste for meat and a loping gorilla gait and a shotgun. The game actually encourages that ghouls be treated as (dangerous, possibly lethal) comic relief characters involved in slapstick and general monkey business. Well as luck would have it, there are stats for all of the people in this chapter. If you really, really wanted to, you could use them as a general template for what kind of stats and treatment a ghoul character would get, although there is no official rule for playing as any of these besides Dhampiri. I'm just saying, though, that having a ghoul Criminal teammate would be a good source of tension-reliever. But that's just me, I'm biased towards the little guys.
That seems to be a recurring theme with this setting - it WANTS you to play the miserable people sitting in the middle of Neo-London, but all the awesome, fun-sounding stuff involves things barely touched upon or just mentioned in passing.

I'm now picturing a Ghoul Detective solving mysteries in a little deerstalker while riding on the shoulders of a Thrope Doctor what just returned from the front lines. It is a good mental image.

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citybeatnik
Mar 1, 2013

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My favorite part of the UM update is the strategic use of Her Majesty the Queen.

Thropes -sound- cool, I just wish that there was an actual way to play one. The "ten pops and you're done" thing just seems kinda goofy - I understand the need for balance, but you'd think that there would be some botched version that's a little weaker than the Weak Serum to actually let you play as one. All needing to keep a ticking clock on you to remind you when to take your suppressant shot for the day. Instead the game continues its habit of going "oh hey here's something that's potentially fun but no you can't play it!".

And that last picture in the update is one of the more WTF ones in the book - but considering the artist (who has done stuff for both the old World of Darkness and the Exalted lines) I suppose that shouldn't be that surprising.

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