|
Gerund posted:I have become less critical of Beast's fiction and otherwise iffy presentation to this point. Part of that is that it is very easy to denigrate games with a pithy example of gameplay- Vampire: the pedophile ring game, Werewolf: the southern revanchism game, Changeling: the abuse survivor game, Promethean: the homeless autistic game. Beast being described as the teenaged otherkin outcast game is not yet a great retort to the game-as-played. Mage: the wicked sick game of grown-up responsibility.
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 17:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 06:12 |
|
|
What is Beast again i wasn't following nwod news.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 17:28
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:You sure can read a lot into things from a single snippet of fiction from a sales pitch. It's more about their decision to lead with what we've seen than what they've lead with, if that makes sense.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 19:13
|
|
I can't believe there's no one willing to play a game where you ruthlessly slaughter normies with octopus arms and fangs for having entry-tier tastes in anime. TheLovablePlutonis posted:What is Beast again i wasn't following nwod news. It's the game about playing the beast/medusa/the creature from the black lagoon.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 19:51
|
|
|
Peeps have nightmares every night, accept them, realize they were always the godawful thing from their dreams, just wrapped in a person-shell. They then do monster poo poo while totes malotes being the good guys 'cause gently caress you ahab, this is my story.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 21:45
|
|
|
ErichZahn posted:Peeps ... totes malotes... 'cause Speaking of godawful things wrapped in person-shells....!!!!!
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 22:13
|
|
|
So, uh, looking at this PDF...I don't think I really like Beast at the moment. The fluff has not been handled very well, particularly around Heroes, and the Atavisms are insanely powerful. Like 'have 3/2 armor at all times, forever, as long as you have Satiety less than 10' powerful. Nightmares aren't much weaker, but take a lot more hoop-jumping to invoke and can't stack on each other.
Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Apr 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 23:10
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Rose Bailey is heavily involved. Matt McFarland is running Beast; he and Rose were the developers on Demon. Writers on Demon were Dave Brookshaw, N. Conte, Susann Hessen, David A. Hill Jr, Alec Humphrey, Danielle Lauzon, Michelle Lyons-McFarland, Matt McFarland, Mark Stone, Travis Stout, Stew Wilson and Eric Zawadzki. Could not tell you how many of them are on Beast, but Rose and Matt have a history of quality product. I wrote the Lair rules for Beast, and the Mummy, Mage, and Promethean crossover sections.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 23:22
|
|
|
Good work on the Lair stuff, then. It's pretty cool! I think some of the Lair Traits are strictly worse than others of the same type, but that's the worst I can say about them. Atavisms and the general fluff is the real problem. (Also You Are Meat.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 23:26
|
|
|
A while ago I mentioned reading the book Night Circus and saying it was Mage as gently caress. While I wasn't a huge fan of the ending, as it seemed the author was in a rush to hit a bittersweet ending just to shorten the length of the book, overall it still applies. A good example of the fact that most mages are giant dicks, and that becoming an Archmage doesn't make you any less of a dick. "Yeah I secretly love all my proteges almost as if they were my children and I want them to be happy, but entering them into competitions where they stand a 50% chance of dying, against their will, that they can't back out of and lasts for years? Well that's just part of who I am I guess!"
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2015 23:52
|
|
|
moths posted:Beast might be an interesting game for the right group, but good luck finding that group because teen revenge powertrip otherkin fantasy is goddamn catnip for wrong groups. Even if the game turns out to be the mechanically best Onyx Path offering, it seems like it's headed in the wrong direction for me - and entirely the right direction for people I never want to sit at a table with again. I agree. Onyx Path need to realize that we have severe mental scars from having to play RPGs with nerds. Clearly, the only responsible thing to do is revamp their entire publishing schedule in order to eliminate things that nerds might find cool. We need our fantasy games about sexy vampires and awesome magical powers to be a safe, nerd-free space; otherwise, all the cool people might start to think that we're nerds.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 00:50
|
|
|
moths posted:Antonio could only nod. And then everyone stood up and clapped. The handsome student teacher finally noticed her, and they fell in love and are still together to this day. There's no need to be embarrassed by playing a power fantasy RPG. Exalted, for example, can be a pretty cool game. The problem with Beast so far is that there's no drama to it. The fiction we've been presented with is just a straight up revenge fantasy. Nerd girl wants to school some dumb jock and she does it, and that's it. There's no tension to it. Compare to the intro fiction to Exalted 3e, where even though the Solar Exalt wins a fight, it's a near thing and she's flooded her home town to do it. The Heroes are a hamhanded way of establishing drama, especially when they're created by the PC avoiding conflict. What's worse is that, as portrayed by the dev commentary, they're completely ineffectual, vain buffoons. If they're sooo stupid and sooo arrogant, how do they threaten a Beast at all? Maybe they get some cool powers, but from Mors Rattus' post, it sounds like the Beasts have some effective powers of their own that would prevent simple powered-up humans from threatening them at all. People complain about Exalted's antagonist factions being too strong, but at least there you know why they're in opposition to your character and how effective they are, even beyond their combat powers. DSPaul posted:I agree. Onyx Path need to realize that we have severe mental scars from having to play RPGs with nerds. Clearly, the only responsible thing to do is revamp their entire publishing schedule in order to eliminate things that nerds might find cool. We need our fantasy games about sexy vampires and awesome magical powers to be a safe, nerd-free space; otherwise, all the cool people might start to think that we're nerds. Or, perhaps, they can come up with a reason to buy their game other than "You can pretend to beat up bullies!"
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 01:13
|
|
|
I'm uneasy about Beast myself, to be honest. But I spend my days at a law school surrounded by broken people with serious emotional problems and then go home and read old White Wolf stuff, so I may not be unbiased.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 01:28
|
|
|
One thing I note in reading: Heroes are exactly like the Beasts that cause them. A Hero produced by a Tyrant (Hunger: Domination) wants to tear the Tyrant down and take their place. A Hero produced by a Collector (Hunger: Hoard) wants to steal the Collector's stuff. A Hero produced by a Predator (Hunger: Prey) wants to fight and kill the Predator. A Hero produced by a Nemesis (Hunger: Punishment) wants to bring the Beast to face its sins and destroy it for them. A Hero produced by a Ravager (Hunger: Ruin) is fine with destroying literally anything and everything nearby to take down the Ravager. Heroes have all your urges, but focused entirely on you. It's not Perseus and Medusa - it's Dr. Jekyll fighting Mr. Hyde. And that would be - that is - a much cooler conflict. Unfortunately, the book doesn't focus on that, but rather on how Heroes suck and are lame and you should hate them. (Honestly the book talks a hell of a lot about Heroes for something that insists the story's not about them.) Personally, I think it'd be cooler if, rather than being born with the soul of a dragon, Beasts start out as dragonslayers. They are the people who became obsessed with killing the dragon and stealing its horde - and when they won, well...there always has to be a dragon. Congratulations, now it's you.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 01:33
|
|
|
Yeah, there's really no other logical way to do "Heroes" except as embryonic Beasts (or, for the weak/unlucky ones, Beast fodder). And they should come after you when you're sated, not when you're hungry. C'mon, people.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 01:36
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:And they should come after you when you're sated, not when you're hungry. C'mon, people. The blogpost mentions they come if you eat too little or too much, so it's probably changed.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 01:42
|
|
|
Basically. I meant to type "revenge fantasy" and somehow lost that word.DSPaul posted:I agree. Onyx Path need to realize that we have severe mental scars from having to play RPGs with nerds. Clearly, the only responsible thing to do is revamp their entire publishing schedule in order to eliminate things that nerds might find cool. We need our fantasy games about sexy vampires and awesome magical powers to be a safe, nerd-free space; otherwise, all the cool people might start to think that we're nerds. I think you're being facetious, but substitute "maladjusted creeps who make other players uncomfortable" for "nerd" in your joke and we're essentially in agreement.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 01:43
|
|
|
So what does Beast bring to the table which you can't do with say......a Changling of the Beast, Ogre or Darkling Kiths?
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 01:55
|
|
|
Beasts are hyperfocused on causing terror and fear. They are hunters - an Ogre, Beast or Darkling doesn't have to make waves. They're changed by where they were, but the Beasts are much closer to Keepers than to Changelings in outlook and demeanor. Beasts are pretty much universally terrible people, people that exist to hurt others. At best, you get a Beast who focuses their desire to hurt or dominate on 'deserving' targets, but the book is very clear that the hunger itself doesn't give two shits about 'deserving.' (One thing I like is that they have no simple, direct blessing powers. A Beast can use Nightmares to kind of sideways-bless people, because spending Satiety on a Nightmare tends to add a benefit to the horrible curse you're smacking down, but it's not something you'd volunteer for. For example, the Beast combat-buff Nightmare also causes the victim to violently attack the nearest person.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 01:59
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Yeah, there's really no other logical way to do "Heroes" except as embryonic Beasts (or, for the weak/unlucky ones, Beast fodder). I feel like that would be the best way to do it, really. It makes your character much more tragic in a way; they weren't good enough to resist temptation, and now they've become what they set out to destroy and now it's up to them to either manage their curse or dive into it. It'd also lessen the whole "hurr this is a game for otherkin durr" poo poo that you're gonna hear from people if Beasts aren't born but made. Also, I think Heroes should be less "Arrogant douchebag jock that wants to beat me up for being different" and more "The best suited person to kill you nearby". Like, a methodical serial killer Beast might inspire the cool and calculated detective that's just as clever as he is to take a special interest in the case, or the stealthy Beast that always sticks to the shadows will come up against a hunter with eagles eyes and keen ears that wants to bag the best game of her career.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 02:34
|
|
|
The real good way to do Beast I guess would be to make it the struggle between the Arisen and the Dragon from Dragon's Dogma.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 02:42
|
|
Zarick posted:The real good way to do Beast I guess would be to make it the struggle between the Arisen and the Dragon from Dragon's Dogma. I'm still extremely upset that the new Dragon's Dogma is gonna be a Japan-only F2P MMO.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 02:46
|
|
|
Zarick posted:The real good way to do Beast I guess would be to make it the struggle between the Arisen and the Dragon from Dragon's Dogma.  I now mourn for something that will never be."Take up arms, newly Arisen, for my kind do not heed the toothless." And Grigori switching from taunting you and threatening you to welcoming death as you make it clear you're able to push forward the Eternal Wheel. Or making the Bargain, or denying the cycle, or the Dark Arisen... Daeren fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Apr 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 02:49
|
|
|
Daeren posted:
"Heed the zealot's lesson well, Arisen. When the weak court death... they find it." Basically that whole game ruled and I don't really like World of Darkness (Exalted aside) games that much, but it'd be cool if Beasts actively creating heroes did so to test them, make them strong enough to actually save the world. Then at least there'd be a reason to call them Heroes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 02:52
|
|
|
Overall: I don't like the Beast fluff. (You told me on page 2 that Beasts have no global culture and in fact rarely have more than a very local one; please stop telling me things that all Beasts believe and theories they share with each other via, I don't know, the MONSTER INTERNET. Also, seriously, please stop having Heroes use internet slang and comparing them to internet trolls.) I don't like Atavisms - they're neat in theory but are all kind of ridiculous and OP. I like most of the Nightmares and Lair stuff quite a bit, with a few notable exceptions. I sincerely hope that things change between this leak and the actual product, because I can see signs of something good here but it's not really working as-is.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 02:52
|
|
|
What's OP about Atavisms, if you don't mind going into it? My feeling's been that Vampire, Werewolf, and Demon have already muddied stuff with so many overblown, rocket tag-y mechanics that there's not really a reliable baseline to judge game balance by.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:11
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Also, seriously, please stop having Heroes use internet slang and comparing them to internet trolls. Daeren posted:However, the evasiveness of what, exactly, Heroes have to make them compelling foils and not thinly veiled analogues for Those Fuckers to string up as oWoD style punching bags, is not exactly something that brings a lot of confidence, especially when Heroes would apparently never exist if it weren't for Beasts doing Things(?), therefore putting the blame for any Going Too Far actions squarely on the Beasts that made them. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:16
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:What's OP about Atavisms, if you don't mind going into it? My feeling's been that Vampire, Werewolf, and Demon have already muddied stuff with so many overblown, rocket tag-y mechanics that there's not really a reliable baseline to judge game balance by. Easy aggravated damage in several cases, insanely good armor, a lot of costless powers that you can use any time (unless you have Satiety 10, which is insanely easy to avoid having) which get better very easily, especially at low Satiety. Many of these powers are unrolled. One of them, once taken, makes you literally impossible to lie to - any attempt to deceive you automatically fails, period, all the time, constantly. This is a minor effect attached to the rest of the power. E: a handful of samplings - you can take a power that will constantly, always give you +Lair to social rolls (to say nothing of its boosted stuff). One that lets you constantly, always, costlessly shoot fire that has (Lair)L weapon modifier, can autofire at low Satiety and deals Durability-ignoring aggravated damage for a scene for 1 Satiety. A power that makes you always, constantly, at all times, become impossible to notice if you stand still or are in a crowd. A power that constantly makes your unarmed attacks deal (Lair)L, which can be made into agg damage for a scene for one Satiety. A power that constantly multiplies your Speed by (Lair+2), on top of constantly boosting you in chases, giving you Defense against Firearms, boosting Initiative and, for one Satiety, let you ignore multiple attacker penalties and add Lair to your Defense before doubling for Dodge. (That's not all - that's just some of what it does.) A power that lets you constantly fire off wind blasts, be immune to all weather (including magical lightning bolts), and, for 1 Satiety, summon up a storm that will devastate anyone and everything caught in it for several miles across. (Extreme Environment level 5, which IIRC deals agg damage.) There's several methods of making your fists ignore Durability completely; the Atavism one also lets you punch cars to stop them dead without reducing momentum for the passengers inside. (Or trains, for that matter, if you picked up the trick that increases your effective Size.) And of course the one that gives constant 3/2 armor plus immunity to bone breakage and the Wrack tilts. This upgrades to 4/3 at low Satiety, can utterly cancel out lethal damage that would normally downgrade to bashing, and for 1 Satiety renders you immune to attacks that would normally deal bashing damage and downgrades all normally lethal damage to bashing. On top of the armor. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Apr 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:20
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Easy aggravated damage in several cases, insanely good armor, a lot of costless powers that you can use any time (unless you have Satiety 10, which is insanely easy to avoid having) which get better very easily, especially at low Satiety. Many of these powers are unrolled. One of them, once taken, makes you literally impossible to lie to - any attempt to deceive you automatically fails, period, all the time, constantly. This is a minor effect attached to the rest of the power. You know, I never really noticed this while WoD 1e was still running, but that entire game line must've had really strong top-down game balance control because you almost never got superpowers that were dramatically out of line with, like, the basic numbers established by vigor/resilience/celerity right at Requiem's inception. This applies even to Mage - the problem there was your ability to stack twenty different spells and related effects, each of which actually did very faithfully adhere to the basic standards for dicepool size, combat damage, etc. established by Vampire and continued by Werewolf. I really get the feeling coming straight out of Vampire that whatever oversight existed on that level is just gone, now, so you've got a bunch of writers trying to outdo each other in terms of rhetorical "pop" if not raw damage/soak/completeness of mind control/convenience of teleportation/radius of AoE curse/etc. Also: quote:Also, seriously, please stop having Heroes use internet slang and comparing them to internet trolls. Could we get a quote or two, here, because this is simply wonderful. The extent to which Heroes are goofy standins for basically everyone right-thinking people hate is really kind of embarrassing. I was kind of taking my glasses off and blinking when I saw that someone raising concerns about Heroes over on rpg.net was immediately compared to a men's rights activist ("What about the Heroes" "#notallheroes") by people working on the line. This is the same problem that afflicts that faction of alchemists that got spoiled from Promethean 2E, if anyone remembers them - the Golden Chalice or whatever. You remember, the dudes who are so white, so rich, and so conservative that their writers kind of forgot to make them at all relevant to Prometheans in any way whatsoever?
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:28
|
|
|
Hero Slang Sidebar posted:Anonymous: A group of humans a Hero enlists as his or her personal army to help kill a Beast. Storytelling Chapter! quote:Heroes always have a catalyst, but that catalyst generally looks utterly wrong to the Beast causing it. In only the rarest cases will a Beast be able to look at her own actions and believe the Hero is justified. e: The Hero chapter is really weird, by the way, in that it seems to assume Heroes work on PC rules. It specifies that they don't get Aspirations or Beats. Except, uh, they're NPCs. They never had those.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:39
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:
The writers really don't want you playing Heroes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:50
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Beasts are hyperfocused on causing terror and fear. They are hunters - an Ogre, Beast or Darkling doesn't have to make waves. They're changed by where they were, but the Beasts are much closer to Keepers than to Changelings in outlook and demeanor. Beasts are pretty much universally terrible people, people that exist to hurt others. At best, you get a Beast who focuses their desire to hurt or dominate on 'deserving' targets, but the book is very clear that the hunger itself doesn't give two shits about 'deserving.' Mors Rattus posted:Heroes should be these people. They need rationales that make sense within their contexts, and those rationales need to be sufficiently strong, reactionary, and ingrained in their very identities that they’re unwilling to see other alternatives. Heroes believe that whatever a Beast does is a slight against humanity. Since Heroes are part of humanity, they see everything a Beast does as a personal attack, and an affront to their very identity. What in the ding dong heck is going on here
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:54
|
|
|
I get that you Onyx Path guys really hate internet trolls or whatever, but I'm not exactly playing this poo poo to beat up some straw-men of fat people who get mad about boobs or their lack thereof in video games.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:55
|
|
|
Dammit Who? posted:What in the ding dong heck is going on here The first one was my takeaway from reading the entire book. The second is a quote from the ST section that is pretty dumb. It's kind of weird because much of the book is utterly unafraid to tell you that, yes, Beasts are terrible people.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:56
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:E: a handful of samplings - you can take a power that will constantly, always give you +Lair to social rolls (to say nothing of its boosted stuff). One that lets you constantly, always, costlessly shoot fire that has (Lair)L weapon modifier, can autofire at low Satiety and deals Durability-ignoring aggravated damage for a scene for 1 Satiety. A power that makes you always, constantly, at all times, become impossible to notice if you stand still or are in a crowd. A power that constantly makes your unarmed attacks deal (Lair)L, which can be made into agg damage for a scene for one Satiety. A power that constantly multiplies your Speed by (Lair+2), on top of constantly boosting you in chases, giving you Defense against Firearms, boosting Initiative and, for one Satiety, let you ignore multiple attacker penalties and add Lair to your Defense before doubling for Dodge. (That's not all - that's just some of what it does.) A power that lets you constantly fire off wind blasts, be immune to all weather (including magical lightning bolts), and, for 1 Satiety, summon up a storm that will devastate anyone and everything caught in it for several miles across. (Extreme Environment level 5, which IIRC deals agg damage.) There's several methods of making your fists ignore Durability completely; the Atavism one also lets you punch cars to stop them dead without reducing momentum for the passengers inside. (Or trains, for that matter, if you picked up the trick that increases your effective Size.) And of course the one that gives constant 3/2 armor plus immunity to bone breakage and the Wrack tilts. This upgrades to 4/3 at low Satiety, can utterly cancel out lethal damage that would normally downgrade to bashing, and for 1 Satiety renders you immune to attacks that would normally deal bashing damage and downgrades all normally lethal damage to bashing. On top of the armor. And Lair is your Blood Potency analogue, right? It sounds like Beasts don't actually an equivalent of Essence/Vitae/Mana, but instead just spend Satiety willy nilly? A lot of that stuff sounds on par for the new normal, frankly. Like, a firebolt that deals +Lair damage is probably worse than a pistol that deals +3 damage or whatever. Although I should register here how glad I am that Protean claws got machined down to dealing a piddly amount of lethal damage all the while everything else in the game got cranked up to 11. Dammit Who? posted:What in the ding dong heck is going on here I feel like there's some kind of really fascinating synthesis possible here but damned if I know what it is as of yet.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 03:58
|
|
|
This is all frankly embarrassing to read, and embarrassing by proxy to consider being written. Edit: The good news about fluff is that for the most part you can excise or rehabilitate all this dreck, but you'd hope in 2015 we wouldn't have to.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 04:00
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:The first one was my takeaway from reading the entire book. Yeah, that's what I was getting at. I'm willing to believe your takeaway is an accurate representation of the book, so where are we? Surely a monster that exists to bring terror and fear actually is a slight against Humanity or whatever?
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 04:00
|
|
|
Lair is your Supernatural Tolerance stat, yeah. (It is also a literal place; this part is pretty neat.) Satiety is closer to being Vitae than it is to an Integrity-analogue. You don't sin against it or have breaking points, you just spend and gain it. At low Satiety, however, it's much easier to gain Satiety - your needs get increasingly specific as you get closer to 10. (If you hit 10, you lose access to all of your Powers for a while. Never hit 10.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 04:00
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Satiety is closer to being Vitae than it is to an Integrity-analogue. You don't sin against it or have breaking points, you just spend and gain it. At low Satiety, however, it's much easier to gain Satiety - your needs get increasingly specific as you get closer to 10. (If you hit 10, you lose access to all of your Powers for a while. Never hit 10.) To what extent is it even possible to hit 10 by accident? I don't think I "get" why having too much Satiety is supposed to be a bad thing. Does your astral form just pass out groaning on the astral couch in an astral food coma, or something?
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 04:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 06:12 |
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Lair is your Supernatural Tolerance stat, yeah. (It is also a literal place; this part is pretty neat.) Isn't the point of the "I'm a horrible monster"-game to turn into a regular human being? If even for a day, getting to do just regular stuff is the thing of grand crusades for most other splats.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2015 04:02
|
|
