World of Darkness Megathread: Curse of the Were-Poster

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tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Pope Guilty posted:

Wow, I got my hands on a copy of the original Clanbook Gangrel and drat but they used to be The Gypsy Clan (also gently caress the Ravnos). Also:
Clanbook: Gangrel posted:
CJ: (in a pseudo street-rap staccato)
They call me CJ, and it was 50 years back
a bitch named Mikki took my blood and gave it back
I thought I was sick, I felt so queasy and green,
I felt myself hooked on something I never seen

This is the good poo poo.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 19:54

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 11:38

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Which Path is which Game of Thrones Character?

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 21:36

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Werewolf: The Wir- no, wait, that's done to death! Ah, I know: Homicide, Life on the Street.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 22:13

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Do LARPers change the kind of characters they play as they get older? Do middle-aged LARPers, aware of their bodies starting to fail them, play middle managers and bureaucrats? Is there a group of 80 year olds somewhere live-action-roleplaying vampire elders, and enlisting the nerdiest of their grandchildren as their neonate henchmen?

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 23:05

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

MalcolmSheppard posted:

Lots of the hardcore MET LARP folks I knew who are now in their 40s do Nordic style games, but beyond wanting new experiences benefit from the fact that you don't have to show up weekly.

I think a coterie of geriatric neonates all Embraced to preserve their talents sounds great.

Man, if I'm 80 something and LARPing, I don't have time to be a neonate. I might die at any second; I demand to be at least an Antediluvian.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 00:04

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Sorry Nana, but I need to diablerize somebody if I'm going to get anywhere in this world

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 00:14

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Ambi posted:

Since it's a new thread, and it was briefly in the 3rd post, can I ask - what is BvD ?

It's an abbreviation of "Baby versus Dog", referencing a dumb piece of chapter intro fiction from...I want to say Danse Macabre? One of the Vampire books. Where a ghouled baby fights a ghouled dog for the entertainment of jaded vampires, if it was unclear.

tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Apr 11, 2015

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 02:11

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Damnation City is really cool. The sample Princes all manage to avoid cliches and the city-building stuff is useful if you don't really know about the place you've set your game in.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 02:22

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

quote:

"Welcome to My Nightmare"

Eve loosened the hoodie. She had pulled it tight around her face, trying to screen out the world, for all the good it had done. The cafeteria was too loud, and the sounds too diverse. Boys thumping on tables, high-pitched laughter from girls, the hum of the microphone that the lunch lady used, in vain, to get them to shut up. Eve stared down into her juice, and thought of water, the silent, cool, Boundless Deeps. She felt the cold on her skin, and she was home, if only in her mind.
Something slammed into her back and pitched her forward. One of the boys � Antonio � was playing catch using a wadded up piece of paper and had slipped. Eve stood up, wiping juice and the remnants of her lunch from her hoodie. She turned to face him.
�My bad,� said Antonio. Eve said nothing. Antonio didn�t wait for acknowledgement, he just turned and went back to his game.
Eve reached out and grabbed him by the hair. She pulled, using only a fraction of her true strength, and yanked him backwards into her arms. If we were in the ocean, she thought, I could crush him. I could eat his skin and liquefy his flesh in my mouth, and drink him slowly. The thought appealed, and started to call her home.
Seawater trickled into the room from the corners. No one noticed. The students chanted �Fight! Fight!� Someone ran to get the principal.

Eve let him go. Antonio turned, and curled his hands into a fist. And then he glanced at his forearm, and stopped.
A row of angry, circular wounds had appeared across his arms. Eve hadn�t touched him there. He looked at her in horror, and she pulled the hoodie strings tight again. �Don�t touch me,� she said.
Antonio could only nod.

hahahaha yessssssssssss

welcome to hell, you loving normies!!!!!

# ¿ Apr 13, 2015 02:42

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Marian Apparition (*)
Target number of successes: 5
Sacrament: A piece of pure white cloth, stained with a single drop of menstrual blood

So, I feel like we talked about this

god damnit, white wolf and onyx path

# ¿ Apr 13, 2015 04:46

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

ErichZahn posted:

Peeps ... totes malotes... 'cause

Speaking of godawful things wrapped in person-shells....!!!!!

# ¿ Apr 13, 2015 22:13

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Who wins in a legal battle between the Beast lawyer and the Adamantine Arrow lawyer who fights his war in the courtroom?

# ¿ Apr 14, 2015 04:57

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

MonsieurChoc posted:

Well, ok, let's talk about Mad Science.

Hubris is only one of the many themes explored in fiction with the Mad Scientists. It's certainly one of the big ones. Science "going too far" and creating an out of control mosnter or plague or something like that. This doesn't really intersect with Mage though: Mage hubris is about finding out ancient secrets that should have remained buried, abusing your inherent powers, thinking yourself a god, etc. It's a very magical thing. It's very mystical, religious, spiritual. Mad Science is instead political, sociological.

Mad Scientist Game should be about bitterness. Betrayal. Mad Scientists are motivated by revenge, are disillusioned with the world that rejected them, wanted to change the world but were betrayed by their ideals, etc. Negative emotions dominate, and Mas Scientists are especially bad at handling them.

It's hard to put into words. Mage hubris is wanting to reign in heaven. Mad Science hubris is thinking if you ran the world using your supercomputer then there would be no more poverty.

You will be surprised and excited to know that there is a mage faction called The Free Council

# ¿ Apr 14, 2015 20:06

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Kurieg posted:

How does a demon get their first cover in the first place then? How do they get from "Running away from god" to "Hiding inside an edgar suit"?

Their original cover is whatever identity the God-Machine put them in in the first place.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2015 00:31

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

quote:

Beasts are fundamentally a part of the World of Darkness. They seek out the unseen, the strange and arcane, not because they wish to solve the mysteries (which would be rude), but because they feel that they should be involved. If the extended family is up to something out in the dark, well, maybe one of the Children can be of some assistance? Or, at least, can share in the bounty?

Guys, where are you going? I swear we're important, too! Hey, stop kidding around, let me in the clubhouse, come on, you said it was cool this time-

# ¿ Apr 15, 2015 16:15

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

I like how they ran out of ideas after Powerlessness, Destruction, Depths, and Revulsion, so they added...Skies? Referencing, of course, Man's primal fear of the sky, and birds.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2015 16:18

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

None of those things are primal fears.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2015 20:48

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Isn't part of being a Beast accepting that you're'a monster? You've had all these horrible nightmares, and one day you go, fine, whatever, I'll embrace my inner nightmare creature? But they're also squeamish about being an actual monster...? Finally, I embrace my dark heritage...of being a cabbie who takes rich people and puts them in poor neighborhoods but also makes sure no one dies as a result of what I do! Fear me!!

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 18:55

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Behold the creature of unimaginable nightmare, sprung from the formless fear of ancient man, a being of pure and temporary inconvenience

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 00:01

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Mendrian posted:

Well that's the real hard thing about these games and why I hope Beast gets an ST guide - what exactly are you supposed to play with these guys? What's supposed to happen with them? I don't doubt there's some cool stuff you can do out of the core (I haven't read the leak) but they're kind of disjointed, it sounds like. It's the same problem Promethean initially had. There's no clear direction for the story arc to go other than "ST's Call".

I still say out of the core, only Mage and Vampire had a clear direction in 1e, and only then because other Mages and Vampires were such compelling antagonists. Vampires are all dicks, done, you just wrote an entire chronicle. Mages are chronic fuckups, done, now clean up their mess.

Promethean has the most robustly designed and straightforward out of the box PC story arc of any game line White Wolf ever made.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 00:28

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Mendrian posted:

Promethean is a game you can win, yes, but (IMHO) it had poorly implemented group mechanics out of the box and was best played as some kind of solo adventure game. Also it told you roughly what a milestone was but not fantastic advice on how to achieve them (as a player) or how to conceive them (as an ST).

I dunno guys, your mileage may vary and all that, but there certainly wasn't a rousing cry of support for Promethean when it came out. It had some great ideas that was dragged down in places.

Promethean's commercial viability is extremely suspect but it's still a good, well-designed game that's distinct thematically and mechanically from the other lines. If you're looking for the real aimless game comparison, there's always Geist.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 00:42

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Kurieg posted:

Because you're the spiritual police pressed into service under threat of your own life? You normally don't have time to be creeped out when the poo poo you're dealing with is trying to kill you. I guess the Hosts are super creepy but that only really works once.

I guess what I'm saying is "Oh god look at all this creepy poo poo the spirit world throws at you" can work for a shorter duration game, but once you've become inured to it both in and out of character then what's left?

The creeping realization that you and everyone you care about is destined to die a violent and perhaps pointless death in the name of an insane and distant god

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 06:11

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Mors Rattus posted:

Yeah, that's Apocalypse at its worst. Forsaken, now...

Well, you've always been angry. You've always been different - too angry, too mean, too quick to judge. And one night, it all built up. As the moon rose, it all become too much. You changed, and it was glorious and terrible. You let loose all the anger, all the frustration, all the hunger that you always held in check. It was exhilarating! Until that night, you had never truly been alive. And when you woke up, you were covered in blood, naked and still smiling. That's when they found you.

They explained to you - you felt different because you were. Because you are more than human. They don't see the world as it is. You are more than flesh and bone. That hunger within you, that anger, they are more than anger and hunger. You are spirit as much as flesh. And you have a duty, they said. We have a duty. To feed that hunger, and to stake a claim. They told you about Father Wolf and Mother Luna. About the history of your kind, of werewolves. But that really wasn't what you cared about. That was ancient history.

What mattered now was the world around you. They took you in, and they taught you to hunt. That was important - and it was the greatest joy you'd ever felt. Stalking the prey, cornering them, harrying them, chasing - and, at the end, making the kill. You still remember the feeling of tearing the meat with your teeth. Though it wasn't meat, really. Living steel, a spirit of metal and bone. And that was amazing, too. To see a world that no one else would know, to see creatures who treated you with fear and respect - creatures alien to anything you had ever seen.

They hated you, to be sure, but they feared you, too. They knew - this is your patch. Your territory. And you know it, too. Consecrated with blood, again and again. You have named your enemies, and you have given yourself to the hunt. It is a fine line, walking between man and spirit, but you manage it. And every hunt, you are stronger, better. Every kill, you reinforce your sacred claim. There is no greater joy than this.

The wolf must hunt.

Yeah, the creeping realization that you and everyone you care about is destined to die a violent and perhaps pointless death in the name of an insane and distant god

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 17:38

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Mors Rattus posted:

Is there really such a thing as a death that isn't ultimately pointless? Especially in the World of Darkness.

This is the kind of question that produces actual subversion and interesting character development, which is why Beast is so frustrating. What If The Good Guys Were The Bad Guys is so straightforward that it's cliche. But what about a werewolf with survivor's guilt, who never expected to be the one to actually live, and questions the worth of knowing exactly what you are, if you don't like what you are? Or a mage who believes in the free council's ideals, but can't handle the actual reality of maybe dying in front of her loved ones, so she runs really far away from home to where she doesn't know anybody, and has to strike out on her own, because she thinks she'd be okay with dying where no one would miss her? Or a vampire who is doubly dissatisfied with the crazy violence of the Invictus AND the standard self-actualization spiel of the Ordo Dracul, and is looking for answers in a place nobody's ever actually explored before?

The tension between the platonic ideal and archetypes of whatever line you're running, and the actual emotional reality of the human being you're playing, is way more interesting to play and consider than an Uber terrorist who gets his kicks dropping rich people off in slums or whatever the gently caress

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 18:49

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Soonmot posted:

Ferrinus, I'm generally curious. Is there anything you actually like in nWoD?

I guarantee you that the most vocal critics in this thread are the people who play nWoD the most regularly

# ¿ Apr 23, 2015 19:40

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Sex in games is fine, but only if it's in the proper and sacred context of marriage

# ¿ Apr 23, 2015 21:47

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

"Auspex" sounds cool as gently caress, sorry

# ¿ Apr 24, 2015 07:37

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Libertad! posted:

Mechanics-wise, is there a way to do this so that neither side is rendered too unbalanced, either useless or overpowered?

E: Nvm, I'm used to a way different version of Mage rules than you're thinking of

tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Apr 26, 2015

# ¿ Apr 26, 2015 05:41

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

MonsieurChoc posted:

I guess the White Wolf writers really like that scene with the maggots in Lost Boys.

So this is my favorite trick: we present our guests with a plate of bosghetti, and then I will say, 'Why don't you eat some bosghetti?'

# ¿ Apr 26, 2015 17:51

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Androc posted:

A lot of the associated flavor text feels... well.

quote:

You sir, in the back, I believe you yelled "rap sucks". I didn't come here to perform vapid pop music and tonight is an open mike night. I'm going to be up here for the next 10 minutes, whether you like it or not. However, in honor of you I'll change up my style a bit and play something that may teach you a thing or two, if it doesn't send you running screaming.

holy poo poo lol

# ¿ Apr 29, 2015 06:23

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

What the heck is going on at Onyx Path? The decline in fiction quality and the lack of editorial control is pretty astonishing.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2015 06:45

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Dramatic Failure: The character bypasses the Trauma Survivor Condition and immediately develops the PTSD Condition.

# ¿ May 6, 2015 19:03

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

I'm glad that we discovered that talking about oWoD mage is the actually annoying kernel of truth in the "why is everyone talking about Mage for twenty pages" whining.

# ¿ May 21, 2015 23:13

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Daeren posted:

How do demons meet? Easy answer. Extremely carefully.

If you're playing paranoia themes to the absolute hilt, barring seeing someone transform into their demonic form right in front of you, which is a rarity for reasons which should be pretty obvious, you should never truly know who you're talking to really is. Yeah, he knows all the codephrases, he remembers all the right stuff, and he's acting the same as he always has. But maybe he was a deep cover mole all along, and he's swapped the cover over to an assassin Integrator ready to sell you all out. Or this new cover he swears is really him is actually an angel that spied on you long enough to learn just enough to get in your good graces and feed you both disinformation, carefully manipulating every interaction so the two of you never realize what's happening. Or that seemingly totally mundane contact of yours has been Spoofing the poo poo out of you and is actually a demon so deep in her cover that if she even thinks you're trying to suss out a confession she'll kill you and bury the body so deep even the God-Machine won't find it. Or maybe he's exactly who you think he is - except he's not really, because demons lie, and there's a whole lot more to his motives and abilities than you've been led to believe. Remember, even demons can't prove another demon's lying. And demons lie about everything, from the biggest things to the tiniest things. The second you tell the truth is the second you show your throat to someone who might have a dagger behind their back.

The closest demons can get to positively identifying each other as demonic without extremely careful conversation or potentially blowing their own covers is by using Aetheric Resonance, which lets you know the rough location of nearby angels and demons out of their Cover, and when a demon spends Aether nearby - or when an angel spends Essence. There's no way to differentiate the two. You have to spend Aether to activate this too, which means you show up on the radar of any demon who thought of doing it first, and they're immediately made aware you're one of two things - the enemy, or an unknown agent. Twitchy demons tend to treat the two equally until given an extremely good reason to do otherwise.

Paranoia is written into every atom of Demon's structure. It's suffocating in the best way possible, but for the sake of playability, I suggest letting the players just trust each other as much as demons can trust anybody, to avoid weeks/months of dancing around co-operating as little as possible. If you want to play the game so that the paranoia extends to the ring itself, that's extremely viable, but that takes a very particular set of players. NPCs, though, should always be treated as potentially traitorous. Even if none of them ever turn out to be, it is always, ALWAYS possible that the smallest thing you say to the most inconsequential person will be the thing that gets you dragged back to the reclamation forges, and it is that fact that informs nearly everything else about Demon.

E: As GimpInBlack says, a major thing that lessens the chokehold is that Fallen demons set off basically every poo poo IS GOING DOWN sensor in the general vicinity, so the demons that survive long enough to evade the detachment of hunter-killers sent after their last known location are generally aware of the local players that are willing to stick their necks out a bit. Of course, it's entirely possible they're scooped up by traitors first and crafted into unwitting trojan horses.

If you ran a Demon game this way without handwaving everyone knowing each other after two sessions the game would explode

# ¿ May 29, 2015 04:30

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Daeren posted:

And that's why I said to do exactly that for the PCs (and I suppose a few key NPCs) that unless your players are very particular sorts of people

"A few key NPCs" would have to be over half of all regularly interacted with NPCs because ~the mysterious possibly untrustworthy NPC~ is best used as a singular exception, so why is your advice applicable for people actually playing the game

e: I mean the theme of "trust no-one" can be best illustrated using one or two memorable characters, but if you extended it to even more than that, the conceit is overwhelmed

tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 04:37 on May 29, 2015

# ¿ May 29, 2015 04:33

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

I'm familiar with the genre. A game of nWoD can't actually resemble a spy novel except superficially. Games aren't books or movies.

# ¿ May 29, 2015 04:42

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

GimpInBlack posted:

EDIT IN RESPONSE TO YOUR EDIT: I think I get where you're coming from, but there's a difference between "you know, that Mr. Wrench guy is a shifty rear end in a top hat and I don't trust him" and "even this demon who's helped us out repeatedly might just be in it for the long con, I should keep my options open." The former, yeah, you don't want too many of (it's the Shadowrun problem, right? If every Mr. Johnson double crosses the runners, why are there even runners?), but the latter should definitely be omnipresent.

No, I get the appeal of the theme, but I don't think it can actually be explored concretely except at maybe the climax of a game. Paranoia can be emergent and organic when PCs confront the information deficit they have naturally, but its actual material consequences can't repeat themselves. "I should keep my options open" for a Demon means, in the case of betrayal, actual flight from the city or having to fight an angel, whereas for a vampire or mage it would mean summoning allies. You can keep the atmosphere of paranoia, but you can't keep its mechanics, because the powers used in response to it are so powerful and drastic in the context of the setting.

# ¿ May 29, 2015 04:47

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

quote:

Heroes are wrong. They�re full of themselves and dead convinced they�re not only in the right, but that they�re an important part of righting some terrible wrong. To the Begotten, this makes them clear, obvious antagonists. Heroes hunt and destroy Beasts. How do you then make them interesting and multi-faceted without removing that degree of obvious antagonism?

quote:

As noted in Chapter Four, it�s possible to lose Integrity from exposure to the supernatural, but this by itself doesn�t usually reduce the trait low enough to qualify a person for becoming a Hero. Thematically, too, it�s not appropriate for someone whose only �crime� was bearing witness to the supernatural to become a Hero. Since Heroes are Storyteller-controlled character, you as Storyteller dictate why the Hero is the way he is, so make choices that allow the Hero to fulfill the appropriate role in the story. If the Hero is a sympathetic character, driven to hunt monsters by the relentless attacks of the supernatural, then you might be better served checking out Hunter: The Vigil (and perhaps using Beasts as antagonists). If, however, the Hero has deliberately shunned other people, defining himself by what he is not, what he hates, or the wrongs done to him, that�s a perfect candidate.

What in the world

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 23:34

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Beast: the game where you need to buy into killing normies so much that the book tells you to seek sympathetic antagonists elsewhere

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 23:35

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 11:38

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Nothing wrong with a little vampire love

# ¿ Jun 3, 2015 21:33

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

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