World of Darkness Megathread: Curse of the Were-Poster

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Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Kibner posted:

Thanks for the response. A few years ago, I was asked to create some documentation for a piece of software and we didn't have access to any Adobe products and the hospital I worked for sure as gently caress wasn't going to buy any. So, I learned how to use that LaTeX stuff I mentioned.

I imagine Adobe is much easier to use, since TeX based tools you pretty much write markup (like html) and using GUI based ways to write markup often leads to a lot of pain later.

Adobe InDesign's probably the easiest layout software to use on the market. Drag and drop anything, anchor stuff and flow with a few clicks, shortcuts for basically everything. For instance, it takes a single keyboard shortcut to add an index entry anchor/reference to a word/phrase, and just two more to generate an index that outputs the current page location of every indexed item in the book file!

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 00:34

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 02:34

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Axelgear posted:

Wait, lawyers - who choose to be a part of a system of rules about honourable conduct, virtue, defense of the innocent, etc. - are inherently incapable of acting justly, whereas people who use weaponry to fight and destroy other human lives are somehow more capable of virtue? Seems a bit of an... Odd judgement to me?

On the other hand, the American criminal justice system is actually about institutional racism, reinforcing existing power structures, and punitive, retributive destruction of anyone either guilty or incapable of paying for a sufficient defense of their innocence.

Worst thing you can do to somebody with a gun is kill them once, worst thing you can do to someone as a prosecutor is kill them every day for the rest of their life.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 02:56

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

MalcolmSheppard posted:

As an organization they do not especially care about you or "society."

In that case, an always-winning prosecutor would be a perfect ideological fit.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 13:42

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Grim posted:

People go to prison so they can be rehabilitated / to pay their debt to society

It'd be cool if the World of Darkness was entirely set in a Scandinavian country, yes.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 14:09

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Ferrinus posted:

In general, I don't like Seers who are better at magic as opposed to better supported in the use of magic and/or free of the drawbacks the Fallen World imposes on magic. A Praetorian should actually have weaker kung fu than an Arrow, but their spells should fail to weaken or unravel when witnessed by soldiers, or they should be able to call down tactical ochema airstrikes.

On the bright side, if you ignored the written Praetorian Crown, because Fighting Styles are stupid from the ground up, you'd be looking at net positive already. Hooray!

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 01:26

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Androc posted:

I mean, I think "serving the literal rulers of reality gives you The Cool Magic" is a pretty coherent statement that's in keeping with the thematic tenets of Mage as it's been established.

The real tragedy about this writeup is that it didn't use the superior, original version of the song.

I like the idea that serving the literal rulers of reality gives you The Easy Magic, but the Cool stuff seems like something best kept away from the Empowered Middle Management of the Fallen World.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 01:42

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Daeren posted:

Who then see the guys on the other side of the fence messing around with the Cool stuff and, being power-grabbing assholes, either convert for it or steal it, giving them access to it in the long run anyway.

You've now described a narrative with stakes and tension. This differs from the situation I think you intend to support.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 01:54

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

LatwPIAT posted:

I'm not a huge fan of some of the decisions and systems made in nWoD 2.0 over nWoD, but it would be really loving great to play oWoD games with easily comprehensible dice mechanics, a crossover-compatible base system, and editors who understand that writing up the exact effects of every single dice roll and ability in a consistent "Cost/Pool/Dramatic Failure/Failure/Success/Exceptional Success"-pattern with clear headings is a good thing.

Where have the mythical comprehensible-mechanic-writing, crossover-friendly writers been hiding, and will their families be in danger if they emerge for this project, of all things?

# ¿ Jul 31, 2015 20:25

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

I'm tentatively excited, except for being reminded that Beast isn't even out so it can't yet shuffle off to an ignominious one-and-done line-demise forever.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2015 04:29

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Use 1e's Nightmare discipline regardless of what edition you actually play, unless you're really enamored of 2e's Gnome Illusionist take on Nosferatu.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2015 22:57

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Loomer posted:

Nah, you want Laird Barron.

That's definitely the owod recommendation, but I'm going to have to side with AaF for having the actual point here.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2015 13:21

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

MalcolmSheppard posted:

We wrote support for it in Mage Revised and certain fans poo poo their pants.

Vampire 1st is about losing your Humanity. 2nd starts out that way and drifts away. Revised comes back. Werewolf is about fighting losing battles where all victories just delay the inevitable, but it doesn't home in on that until Revised. Mage is about what happens after the imposition of a dystopia in 1st, but that loosens to the high action of 2nd before settling into Revised. It really depends on where in those lines you look.

But never mind: No matter what, however, folks will default to adventure game assumptions in many games.

I mean I know lots of NWoD partisans think they're super-mature hot poo poo compared to their predecessors, but you're the group that bought two books called Armory, and it wasn't to explore the disempowering tragedy of violence. It's because you wanted more guns and moves for your dudes.

I wish I'd read the copies of oVampire/Werewolf/Mage that you've got hidden on your shelf, but you must've bought them at the store that insists that supporting one line over another necessarily requires wanting and buying all the supplements for it.

That's the only explanation here.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 18:46

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

MalcolmSheppard posted:

Well you see, I read them before I read about them on the Internet.

Weirdly I did too, but I didn't pick up on any of the "actually well-written and maturely executed" subtext in decades past.

Lord knows the text itself isn't.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 18:53

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

MonsieurChoc posted:

Network Zero goon starts his own Reviewer-style youtube show about the griblies of the night. Gives himself a adjective + title internet name. Web savvy supernaturals decide to troll him instead of killing him.

It took me a second to realize you weren't talking Andrew Daly's Review-style show.

Becoming a ghoul, becoming Prince, becoming draugr
**, *****, (no rating)

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 21:51

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

There's also no reason why GoV couldn't be the cleaners who take care of particularly off-message, public-opinion-unfriendly mages.

I think the group that gets Real weird in the face of Out magic is the Silver Ladder, who end up looking an awful lot like Scientology that can back up its claims.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 23:12

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

DJ Dizzy posted:

I have an idea that involves the hunters in my game befriending a human that happens to be hunted by the cheiron group. Is inter-conspiracy rivalry and threat a valid thing to do?

Absolutely! You could even add some layers to it by having them get a hand from someone in Cheiron at some point with another case they're working on, so it doesn't become a clear-cut David v. Goliath thing from the outset. You want to get REAL sticky with it, you could have different teams of NPCs at Cheiron with different goals --- maybe R&D wants the group-friend-person for sinister purposes, but maybe another project team within R&D is all about vampires and lends the group that aforementioned hand (and may or may not help against the Cheiron hunting crew---after all, both groups ARE competing for chunks out of the same budget at the end of the day).

# ¿ Sep 14, 2015 22:10

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

LOTS of angles to take with that one (from HR aggressively trying to re-recruit him because they want their employee churn to be low in time for the quarterly report, to just straight up trying to kill someone that might have any number of their secrets, to people trying to kidnap him actually-and-sincerely-for-his-own-protection depending on what kind of supernatural enemies he made while a part of the "harvest them for bits" faction).

But overall, you can definitely pull off inter-conspiracy rivalry and threat; at the end of the day, everybody's got their own goals at the macro and micro scale, and whenever those don't align, conflict.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2015 22:46

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Dave Brookshaw posted:

Then I have to go through it and check for page XXs.

Smite your layout guy with cleansing fire if this is remotely a concern.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2015 00:30

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

NIV3K posted:

You should come hang out in the Exalted thread where we've been complaining about this very thing for the past week or so.

I'm literally the guy who does that every time, in the Exalted thread, already

# ¿ Oct 2, 2015 01:30

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

But hey! Now the same company owns both Mage and the hit MOBA Magicka: Wizard Wars.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2015 17:55

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Lightning Lord posted:

You're way too late on that

Also just because g.txt is closed doesn't mean you can dump your stray grog in whatever threads you want!

If you find yourself defending the Ravnos in an internet argument, throw your computer in the garbage and move somewhere without electricity.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 00:41

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Lightning Lord posted:

That's all true if you don't play OWoD as 70s horror comics and early Vertigo the RPG - and if you're into edition warring.

I know Halloween's close and all but do you think you could leave some of the straw out of your men for everyone else

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 00:55

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Lightning Lord posted:

Part of why I like the OWoD is precisely because it's basically a giant horror superhero universe. I'm glad OPP decided to (at least with V20 and W20, haven't really gone through M20 yet) just embrace that and turn totally away from the obnoxious "See these lists of cool powers? Never let your players use those, that would violate Personal Horror" tone.

In what game line or universe is this ever applicable?

quote:

Yeah that too. Basically we need WoD Alan Moore

Do you have a time machine to go back and get Alan Moore before he turned into the guy that thought Lost Girls and Neonomicon were good ideas? Because if we get the guy now, you're looking at borrowing a lot of Exalted 2E's Infernals flavor and I think we're about full on that already.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 02:10

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Attorney at Funk posted:

Replace Beast with Wraith, and Geist with Demon: the Fallen.

This guy gets it.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2015 21:23

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

LatwPIAT posted:

Jyhad was actually a WotC project running on some sort of license scheme. In a bit of genius from WotC, making a CCG for Vampire for White Wolf meant that White Wolf was locked out from capitalizing on the popularity of their Vampire brand and CCGs.

And then White Wolf made Rage to try to capitalize on the Werewolf brand, where to this day I couldn't tell you how to actually play it.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2015 19:50

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Pope Guilty posted:

I thought I read somewhere that the rules weren't complete and it wasn't actually playable.

I distinctly remember that the instruction manual included with starter decks had a recursive loop in the index (term A says See Term B, B says see C, C says see A), and nowhere does it say whether you can play A combat card with a rage coster lower than or equal to your character's rage, you can play All the cards, some of the cards, how combos work (implicitly you're using multiple cards in a turn since they talk about what happens when using A after B, and you fill your hand for every combat), and so on and so on.

So you would be right to think that.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2015 19:56

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Cable posted:

The thing is that I want to start a game with some new people, and while I'm very familiar with H:tR already (and hence biased to go with it), I'm curious about what the bluebook and Vigil have to offer. If I'm going to run a game about everyday people that have to gather the guts and scarce resources they have to hide and try to make a change (even knowing that for the most part they won't change anything even if they kill that monster or save that person), what's the tonal and thematic difference of bluebook, Reckoning and Vigil? (I'd also like to integrate the GM in the chronicle maybe).

At its most basic level, HtR vs. HtV is about how "deep" you are into The World when you start fighting monsters.
HtR:

You have powers. They might be lovely, they might be extremely limited-utility, they might only do anything around monsters. But you are already marked as different, and have to grapple with whether this makes you an agent of god or a monster whose prey has bigger fangs or what.
Your choice changed what you are. Your reaction to your inciting incident didn't render you a Bystander, cursed to witness but not empowered to intervene. You're already off on the right foot, even if that foot makes you think you're crazy.
You are Way the gently caress outnumbered. There are a hundred things in the metaplot that could kill you, and a dozen more outlined in your book. You don't have to use the oWoD metaplot, but it's there if you want it.
You can throw agg-damage paper clips. Not really a proper thematic thing, but definitely a distinction.

HtV:

You might just be A Person. Unless you're descended from demons or requisitioned poo poo from a government agency or have potions or pills or artifacts from your org, you have no better weapon than research and tenacity.
You chose this life, but it's not the only life you live. The Profession merit/system is all about demonstrating that a significant amount of what you DO bring to the table is what you're doing when you aren't trying to Salem's Lot some Fright Nights.
You never know what you're going to run into. nWoD is a toolkit setting and the rules outlined in blue book + core HtV are all about idiosyncratic one-offs. Like half the poo poo in the Horror Recognition Guide (mandatory reading if you're running any game now that you've read this sentence, I condemn you to this happy fate) isn't really easily described via game rules, because it's just Weird poo poo Being Weird. And that's fun sometimes.
You can gamble on your own persistence. You have a Willpower gambling system that encourages you to take the big risks. It's no agg paperclips, but it's something.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2015 00:24

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Cable posted:

I might insert some normal humans that just notice weird stuff, and I might give the HRG a read to use some of the stuff. I like oWoD metaplot but I use it extremely loosely in my games.

Go buy it and read it right now, I don't care if you use it or not but it's really truly and sincerely the best-and-only piece of in-universe fiction I've ever recommended to people outside of the hobby to just straight-up read as epistolary fiction anthology.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2015 03:41

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

The number of people going to bat for Ashwood Abbey in the comments section of that blog is both surprising and very, very not-surprising.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 03:30

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Luminous Obscurity posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Wb14NZ01E

Lost 2E Huntsmen First Draft

Edit: They're Reverse-Changelings. Arcadian spirits twisted into material forms and forced into our world to serve the Gentry. They're understandably not happy with the situation. Think Agent Smith.

They're Mr. Meeseeks from Rick and Morty. That's unexpected.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2016 22:18

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

I think the only good idea to take even adjacent to Beast would be running a Hunter game where you find a weird awful monster whose existence has an anti-Disquiet effect on whatever area it's in, making people more heroic or compassionate or selfless. And then sometimes it eats somebody. Or this could work as a Promethean game, OR better yet as a variant of Pandorans that give off a general "hey everything's doin' ok, guys" kind of aura, which would make their hiding-in-plain-sight nature even more of a bummer gently caress-you to Prometheans. They're the terrible thing everyone wants to be around (but you can't or they go kill-crazy), you're trying to be a better person and no one wants you.

But any way you slice it, you don't really end up with playable Beasts, which I think is entirely okay.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 18:37

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Kurieg posted:

the Demon ones is "I wonder what will happen when I strip away your disguise"

Smash cut to

http://alexanderlozada.com/iasip/?IlRoZSBHYW5nIEdldHMgQXRvbWl6ZWQi

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 18:53

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

LeSquide posted:

From talking to some of the people who who are working on it*, it sounds like they're very aware of the problems with Scion 1e. They also have several folks with relevant degrees working on it this time, so I'm reasonably enthusiastic about it.

_{*Full disclosure, my better half works on it}

Please hang something on the back of the bathroom door that says "Balance Dexterity's place in the combat system" and you will do more good for OP products than anyone else in this thread could ever hope to.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 03:45

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Dave Brookshaw posted:

No idea. It's in layout, with all the necessary resources (text, fonts, artwork, even the back cover text) done. Just needs a layout person to actually assemble it, followed by the dance of finding page xx, looking for glitches, and getting the final pdf approved by White Wolf.

I already have a list of every page xx reference in the book and where they're supposed to go to, so that ought to be quick.

Make your layout person use the "tag cross-reference" feature in InDesign with the page xx entries pointing at the "supposed to go to" targets while they're assembling the book, and you won't have to look for them even once. Also if you want to use an outside indicer, send them the manuscript ASAP, have them list the page entries as related in the current doc file (or just highlight the words/phrases in the doc file to send to layout), and get your layout person to click "create index reference" for every entry as they go.

Then all you have to do is spot-check that it's right, no assembly on your end required.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2016 00:03

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Magnusth posted:

you're doing the lord's work.

This is my hill, but I will never know the peace of death.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2016 00:28

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Gerund posted:

So how good are they at delivering podcasts up to their par for Patreon?

edit: also I'd like to imagine that the DaveB in the comments is the Dave B

RPPR's Interview with Sean Jaffe about Blood-Dimmed Tides, the OWoDdest book that isn't Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, is what got me into listening to podcasts in general. They're A+++ material all the way.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 03:05

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

My favorite part of Blood-Dimmed Tides is a thing mentioned in the interview as an idea got dropped in drafting because it was too owod for owod: the idea that Gangrel (or possibly vampires in general) eventually feel the lure of the abyssal/lightless zone of the ocean, to swim breathlessly in eternal darkness.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 06:50

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Lightning Lord posted:

I'm just hoping that they retain the "play what you want" tone of OPP's OWoD releases. I really don't want to see "Anything other than a biker Brujah or Toreador artist is sunglasses katana trenchcoat twinking, never use the giant lists of powers we provide you. Personal Horror�!" ever again.

I mean, you can always play what you want, it's just that if you want your games to carry Bless of Brand Architect you'll probably need to settle up at the middle school lunch tables of your youth once more.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 20:39

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Lightning Lord posted:

Yeah obviously anyone can do anything they want, I just don't want to read 90s grousing about playing something other than the WoD equivalent of Male Human Fighter or see it officially enshrined.

It's funny you mention that because I was just about to say, if the Brand Architect really wants to right the wrongs of editions past and proceed as though we're at the predawn of the nwod era, the next logical step is a d20 conversion manual.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 20:47

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 02:34

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Swagger Dagger posted:

This is 100% true and a lot of balance decisions in their games have been based purely on nationalism. They make real good poo poo despite that, so I'm hoping that'll hold true with any WoD games.

Slavic Purity based metaplot incoming

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 22:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > World of Darkness Megathread: Curse of the Were-Poster

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