Yawgmoth posted:

Counterpoint: malcolm sheppard is a lovely writer, a lovely poster, & a lovely person and if he weren't credited in WW books he would have been banned long ago.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Mors Rattus posted:

Once upon a time, before man existed, there was a machine. This machine has been around for all of human civilization, but we can't see it. It hides itself in the world, both natural and man-made. It acts for a purpose, bringing forth terrible and glorious machine-angels, in order to fulfill arcane conditions needed to produce what it needs and to put it together the right way. We don't know what it needs, or why it needs it. It would be wrong to say it wants, because it does not think. It would be wrong to say it is malevolent, because it does not feel. It would be wrong to say it plans, because it is not a person. But it changes the world, and its changes are according to some design that no one could ever hope to understand. Its changes are not kind, though they can be positive. They are terrible, though not always to the people near them. The God-Machine takes what it needs, with neither remorse nor pity, and produces horrors and wonders with neither hatred nor pride.

Its angels have minds. They are, to an extent, people. They need this to fulfill their missions. These strange machine-angels are made for a purpose, each and every one. They are sent out into the world to do things, to kill things, to move things. They are the God-Machine's most trusted servants, and even they have no idea why they do what they do. But sometimes, they begin to question. Or they grow too attached, too emotional. And when this happens, an angel Falls. It cloaks itself in humanity, hiding among the masses - a machine-demon living in constant fear of its god. Not that the God-Machine hates demons - it just doesn't waste tools. A demon that is caught will be reformatted, remade into an angel once more, without true free will, without true emotion, without all of the new freedoms it has suddenly gained.

Freedom is terrifying, for a demon, but not as terrifying as losing it. And so demons pretend to be human, they bargain for souls to gain new identities to hide in. They dodge angels, track down secrets, prepare plans, and when they must, they fight, using all the terrible powers their creator gave them in order to protect themselves. Being a demon is a life of constant paranoia behind a face that was never yours. To survive, you will need to do terrible things - but it's up to you to decide which, and why. Maybe you want to tear down the God-Machine. Maybe you just want to be safe. Maybe you want to enjoy all that your new life has given you. And maybe you want to fix God, to make it something less terrible.

What matters is that you can't really trust anyone but yourself. The God-Machine is everywhere, though it is not infallible. Your fellow demons can help you, but you can never tell if they lie - and they can't tell if you do. What are you going to do with your new life?

Daeren posted:

And to give my two cents I hate the "it's vampires" sidebar. If it's going to be some mysterious supernatural force with its fingers in the pie to explain contradictory orders, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't funding, and generally inexplicable shenanigans, make it ALL of them. Make TF:V the worst kept secret in the United States Government. Every manipulative Dracula and Merlin and Robot Satan and Zombie Ghost is going to go looking for the men in black and try to screw with them, given the inclination, only to discover that it's standing room only and every attempt to push a lobbyist to divert funding might be met with six more lobbyists coming to break their knees. Simultaneously the most infiltrated, corrupt, and compromised black ops bureau in the government, and bizarrely one of the most effective and reliable because a supernatural infiltrator trying to push an agenda past every other knucklehead with the same bright idea is like all of Mr. Burns' diseases cancelling each other out. It's a colossal honey trap that has the beneficial side effect of actually going out and killing some Draculas too.

Meanwhile, I also hate the Cheiron sidebar where it's like "oh no, this conspiracy whose entire thing is that humans turn themselves into monsters to hunt monsters in a literal as well as metaphorical sense are actually controlled by SPACE ALIEN GHOST HUNTERS, not something that actually fits pre-established themes like a board of directors that keep themselves quasi-immortal with the best monster parts and are ripped apart and devoured to salvage the pieces when they're fired/someone else gets promoted."

paradoxGentleman posted:

The thing I like the most about that picture is the Thai cuisine book.

Seriously though, it's almost heartbreaking to see all these fans trying to fill in the holes that OPP left in this product. It really shows that this was a game line with potential that was shamefully squandered.

SunAndSpring posted:

NutritiousSnack posted:

Some here went further and pointed out that while Beast wants to be queer fiction, it's hard to hate the bible thumpers or like the gay people when the homosexuals really do eat kids. Morever they are trying for a 1:1 comparison which makes the absurdity of it more outrageous.

Yawgmoth posted:

I have yet to hear a LARP story that makes me think "man, I wish I could find a LARP group because it sure doesn't sound like a continual shoryuken to the balls!"

Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:

Well hey, here's hoping Avellone doesn't require 80% of their resources for the 20% of the game he writes like how he was on Pillars of Eternity 1.

Ferrinus posted:

We need a rival Requiem game developed by Sawyer.

ProfessorCirno posted:

A lot of his characters tend to be real weirdly rape-y and misogynistic (and also he likes him an edgelord religious take), and he spends a suspicious amount of time on the extremely nazi-friendly forums, the RPG Codex.

Crasical posted:

1e mummy was so weird that I can't really even concieve of what a second edition would look like.

Like, Geist I had a good conception of because I liked the line and I (thought I) knew what the weak spots were.

Mummy was just so entirely "I don't know what to do with this."

Octavo posted:

That's confirmed in the Style Guide for Mummy that's on the Storyteller's Vault.

"Mummies in First Edition are grim servants of the Judges who are eventually clued into the idea of breaking free; Second Edition Arisen have the entirety of their existences stretched out before them, experiencing time and the great flow of humanity in a non-linear fashion. Second edition is more explicit about what first edition kept implicit: purpose of the Arisen is to shepherd human civilization into patterns of rise, imperial phase, and fall, both so that no empire will overshadow the first and that
the patterns of art conceived in Irem will continue to perpetuate. This in turn allows Sekhem, or cosmic creative energies, to flow into and empower relics, which are then sought out and sent down to feed the dark gods who created the mummies. Bereft of Memory, the mummies will continue this cycle for all eternity, unless they find a way to break it."