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MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Wikipedia Brown posted:

If they can’t take the simple step of firing Zak S in a very public and humiliating manner, then I don’t think any of their statements can be taken seriously.

They can't fire someone who doesn't work for them. His name isn't on the credits for V5 and other WW staff/freelancers working on V5 like Dawkins have stated before this that he hasn't worked for them since the mobile game came out.

Gumball Gumption posted:

They also did not say they're changing anything in the book which has a lot of nazi dog whistles in it.

Define 'a lot'? Because they already changed the 1488 which was in an old preview). If you have access to the full text, why not post a list of all the 'dog whistles' and send it to them so they can fix them?

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MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Mors Rattus posted:

Did you really pay ten dollars to defend the honor of Paradox White Wolf?

Nah. I was already going to buy the membership because I liked reading the Mage discussion here (this is about the only sane place I've been seeing Mage discussion, which I've been trying to learn and get into as I liked 1e but haven't had much luck with 2e so far), but it was the first thing that I felt like replying to, mostly because it's something I've been trying to follow in my own decision on whether or not to buy any 5th Edition stuff. And how is 'hey, if you have the list, send it to them to fix it?' defending? I feel like that's a legit question, since they said in the interview they want to engage the community and want to correct the mistakes.

Anyway. I've been reading Awakening 2e. Has anyone had much luck rolling in any of the expansion material from 1e into it, particularly some of the things like Runes or other esoteric magic-done-through-another-way? Or the Magical Traditions?

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Wikipedia Brown posted:

That actually makes sense, but they could still renounce him.

hangedman1984 posted:

Aren't they actually in fact still defending him? Claiming they investigated it and he hasn't done anything wrong?

IIRC one of the WW staff posted on Facebook in a thread saying 'if we say this as a company without legal evidence, and he loses work because of it, he has grounds for legal action'. I assume they're doing what they can within the bounds of what contract he had with them.

I've been working on a Mage chronicle, and most of my experience with Awakening has been 1e, where I played a fairly long chronicle, but I've never STed Mage at all. I'm wanting to use 2e as the rules seem a lot more streamlined and easier to deal with, from what I can tell, and I'm working up the concept of a cabal of Mages who are involved in a Mysterium-heavy Consilium. The four people I have who are interested in it are all on board for a total 'Mage Indiana Jones' chronicle, with the Consilium being a home base for Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones-esque adventures. Right now we have commitment to an Acanthus Mysterium, a Moros Arrow, an Obrimos Councilor and a Thyrsus Mysterium.

Coming from 1e Mage and still absorbing the 2e core book, what are some pitfalls I should look out for between 1e and 2e, particularly with rules changes that aren't glaring that might get glossed over?

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Jhet posted:

Pitfalls. Spellcasting is a lot different in how it's done, but it may not be immediately obvious if you're speed reading through it because you're already familiar with 1e. Other than that, just get used to people trying to fit yantras into everything, and maybe just leave them to do it. It can take up a lot of time figuring out spellcasting pools even when quick, so figure out how your group wants to play and then just roll with that level of pickiness. Maybe your group will be better than I am about the minutiae, and that's cool too. Biggest advice is to use Group Beats because of all the arguments that happened about 15 pages ago. You probably already read them. They work great, I love them. The mages in my game actually grow at a steady pace.

You also asked about Magical Traditions, and this stuff is easy to roll into Yantras. Runes, esoterica, and the like could all easily be rolled into spellcasting implements, and the themes are up to you about how they actually intersect with magic. Personally, we end up using Runes the most, but I think they're a +2 yantra and they have to take time drawing them out so they're best for ritual casting.

Joe Slowboat posted:

I've also houseruled runes to provide extra benefits for making spells permanent, to offset how the spell ends if the runes are disrupted. I think what I went with was waiving the reach to get to advanced duration for spells cast with runes.

E: I also have a player who used Mind and rune tattoos to bump up a number of skills permanently to 5, so I'm looking forward to her getting in a fight with a Mage who knows to aim for that. It'll spice things up.

Noted. I'll do some more deep digging into the spellcasting section, which has been my longest 'read this section' portion of the game prep.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

bewilderment posted:

Probably a dumb question answered years ago, but as of CofD, what's the explanation for vampires who start at BP 1 (which is still the default) then getting a weird bloodline that suddenly radically changes them? Handled more on a case by case basis for the story, or is there also a more generic "yeah as you increase in blood potency there can be some weird effects as the blood awakens" explanation?

They're taught how to 'change' their Blood to match the Bloodline's blood variance, through mystical manipulation of the blood. Or they create it themselves if they're founding the Bloodline.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

neaden posted:

New preview is up for Geist, this time it's the antagonists and locations.
Reapers seem cool, the examples are nice too. Mass and the judge both seem like good long term villains to slot on. I think they need a little more detail though, like do they gain essence from reaping ghosts, it kind of seems like it but it's not stated. It says they destroy anchors too, but given that your body it an anchor it seems like that means they should be destroying graveyards left and right.

Eaters of the Dead I really like, creepy with lots of potential variety in who they are and how they work. I really appreciate the science fiction based ones too, keeps everyone on their toes. The fact that they are incentivized to eat celebrities is just the icing on the cake for plot hooks.

Necromancer's are pretty similar to Eaters, but not as creepy as antagonists. The note about killing them just meaning you've made an angry powerful ghost is good, but that should apply to Eaters just as much, probably more. They should make nice in the know NPCs to bargain or gossip with. I really do like how Geist has so many more possible low powered in on it PCs then the other game lines. Hell a Geist can just tell people they are a medium and while some people are going to think they are a scammer no one will think they are too crazy. After all most people believe in ghosts, even if they don't believe in werewolves and vampires.

How much Bleach has gotten shoved into that Reaper section?

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Kurieg posted:

You mean you didn't like the German blood purists being lead by capital G God?

He probably means 'putting restless ghosts to rest/fixing evil ghosts with a Japanese reskin' and the swap to 'Meiji-era Japanese Afterlife Superheroics'?

ETA: I totes misread your post. That'll teach me to post on like 2 hours sleep.

MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jul 24, 2018

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

neaden posted:

I've never seen bleach. Reapers are basically body horror geists. They all have a mask of some kind that they can take on or off. When the mask is off they are a regular ghost. With the mask on they are rank 3-5 and transform into a body horror semi human monstrosity that hunts down and eats ghosts by turning their ribs into a giant mouth or disengaging their jaws, then vomits them back out in the Underworld. Some of them are good intentioned who honestly believe ghosts shouldn't be in the living world. they will try to convince ghosts to peacefully pass through a gate and if they do eat someone they make sure to vomit them up somewhere nice. Others are purely mercenary, being a reaper gives them access to what they want. Others are basically monsters.

So it REALLY draws on the Hollows from Bleach, which are Ghosts that couldn't rest and eat OTHER ghosts to fill their emptiness. They're defined by their big-rear end masks, and the taking off/on of the masks draws from an evolution of the Hollow, the Visored, and to an extent the Arrancar (who stick all their ghost powers in a death god's scythe-sword and get their mask back when they transform using the sword). I suppose at least some of these Reapers seem altruistic from your description, which is at least different from EAT ALL THE THINGS Hollows.

MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jul 24, 2018

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Lost_Heretic posted:

This sounds like some internet poo poo that I don't even want to know about.

Short version: the internet ruins things because of memes, and even when used in grammatically-correct fashion, it's derided as LOL MEME.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018
Spectacular. My Mage game fell apart before we even started.

Players got stupid over personal issues. Feh.

Guess it's back to Vampire with the SANE group.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Desiden posted:

Wait, how the gently caress are they using "cuck" in this book anyway? The only inkling I got from that review was that some NPC was referenced as a cuck or something, but now its sounding like its a category or a trait or some poo poo?

It's referenced in the Sample Prey section, but we have literally ZERO context other than 'they included it'. The article that posted it is not the best on explaining they things they picked out to be salty about.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Zereth posted:

Vampires caring enough about sex to have opinions on condom use in the first place feels weird to me.

It's not that. The section is 'vampires might use Blood play to mimic the urges that they had as a mortal since the Kiss is euphoria, smart vampires do things to mitigate the bond, other vampires might use it to enforce the blood bond. if you want to fake drinking from someone or entice/fake/manipulate someone into drinking from you during this intimate act, here are the dice rolls for that'. Y'know, manipulative vampire poo poo. The whole 'raincoat' thing is the euphemism that's used for 'protected from the Blood bond' in that section. It's certainly WRITTEN like a safe sex guide, because that's what it essentially is.

That doesn't make it necessary, but the blood and sexual metaphor has been a staple of VtM's fiction forever. It's also not even an entire page. It's probably about half a page when not in 3-column and not stuck next to 'here's the effects of drugs in blood on vampires'.

MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Aug 4, 2018

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

ZearothK posted:

All in all, I think this edition is actually a significant step forward in terms of rules, but there are significant issues with presentation. It also feels that we're getting less with this book, Vampire Revised had all 13 clans, their sects, disciplines and several thaumaturgical paths, as well as a lot of setting info. V20 had pretty much everything. This one has the Seven Clans and Caitiff and a very open setting - which I already have with Requiem. I don't think this edition is a mistake, and it might even grow to be good as it matures through supplements, but there are several caveats at the moment.

This is a good review, and though I like a bit more of the art than you seem to, it's very along my lines of thinking (also there's a lot of implications with at least London from BJD assuming those plot threads move forward at all). Also, the getting less is, at least from what devs have said on Facebook and other locations, on purpose. The core is meant to be the baseline and establish the setting 'focus' and then books expand outward from there. It also makes it more accessible to new players in their attempt to grow the base (I can't count the number of times players went 'Well, this is in the core book, why can't I play it in your Camarilla game?' when playing in the Revised era).

Plus with the major setting changes (particularly to the Sabbat and the Gehenna Crusade), it would be a LOT more page count to include enough to make that a functioning playstyle within the core book. I'm actually okay with this, as it lets me go 'Okay, here's the core' and not have to fight with a lot of excess, and then I can plunk down the Sabbat book and go 'Okay, here...' and go forward with the Sabbat's particulars.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Basic Chunnel posted:

What’s the Bloodlines nod?

Malkavian intro.
There's a Loresheet that's based around being associated with Jeannette/Therese, and it's written with a very Bloodlines focus (the 2 dot Lore there is 'Performing Monkey' which is written up as 'the sisters give you missions as you've proven a reliable asset'), and talks about the Asylum being the biggest rival to the Succubus Club for vampiric night life.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Reene posted:

Interview with the Vampire is a genuinely good movie and the book honestly holds up pretty well too. I would definitely recommend it to anyone putting together a *WoD game featuring vampires.

All the books are actually fairly readable through Queen of the Damned. I wouldn't read anything after that though unless you're very invested in the setting/characters.

Yeah. Skipping through to the first Prince Lestat (because holy poo poo what was she smoking with alien birds that feed on suffering and immortal self-cloning clones) is pretty good. Prince Lestat is actually interesting in that you see some other elder vamps, and you get some of the VtM feel in them setting up their government and such.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Dawgstar posted:

One thing about V5 I'm curious about are the loresheets. Can I get a summation?

They're merits, of a sort, that give you an intrinsic tie to something in the setting. Each level gives you some benefit tie. a lot of them are being tied to specific events (such as leaving the Cam with Theo Bell), to being descended from particular famous Kindred (Descendant of Helena, descendant of Zelios, Descendant of Karl Schreckt, etc.) You can buy each level individually, so you don't have ot go in order/get all of them if you choose not to. The benefits are wide and varied, but invariably the level 5s are all pretty much game changers.

Here's the Hardestadt lore, for example.



Pope Guilty posted:

Post-Urshulgi Schismatic Assamites are a natural to join the Camarilla- they're mostly the least bloodthirsty portion of the clan and every one of them has something to offer in addition to being competent combatants in the Final Nights.

The Lasombra antitribu officially joining as a group, as opposed to the usual situation where they're just individuals who happen too be members, is a terrible idea for the Cam. The mainstream clan hates the antitribu with an intense passion, to the point of hunting them, and the Camarilla welcoming them in an official membership capacity would probably result in some kind of war.

Considering that as of BJD the actual Lasomba Ante is up and about, I can see why some of them, particularly younger ones to fit the narrative of a focus on younger Kindred, might jump ship in the face of that. Plus the majority of the elder Lasombra are off dealing with the Gehenna War, leaving things open. I can see it being an interesting plot change to play around with.

MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Aug 10, 2018

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

That Old Tree posted:

They were very explicit in the Facebook about one Clan per book in the Cam/Sab/Chicago books.

Eh? They've said multiple times 2 in the Cam book and 1 in the Anarch book. Nothing about the Sabbat book has been teased or released at ALL.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

That Old Tree posted:

Woops you're right that they didn't mention the Sabbat book. However they did say:


:shrug:

They must've dialed some things back then, which sucks. Original projects from them said 2 in Cam and 1 in Anarch.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Dawgstar posted:

So one Cam book will also double as the Malkavian book?

Malkavians are in the core.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

WhiteWolf123 posted:

Is the 5th edition book officially on the shelves yet? Most vendors still have it listed as a preorder, but they don't show an exact release date. But some folks came back from GenCon with hard-copies in-hand... was that just a Con exclusive promo or something?

They had them at Gencon and were selling them. They said that the stores that are stocking them would have them close to the end of this month at one point.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Mors Rattus posted:

The real question is 'how much will Anne Rice's sudden swerve into hardcore but weird Christianity influence this'

Probably not much, considering she just wrote 2 Lestat-based books within the last 5 years that didn't really go crazy with it. Not that Lestat and Atlantis wasn't crazy anyway.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

That Old Tree posted:

I don't know about the loresheets, but the Considerate Play section was going to be a paid, separate product, but then the Kotaku article about an unwanted rape-y scenario during a demo happened, and now it's automatically stuffed into the back of the PDF. I can't remember if they said they'd add it to any further print runs for the physical books. I'm sure the edgelord crowd would prize highly the books without that section in it.

They said that the second printing would have everything additional in it. The extra stuff is the warning at the front, about 8 more loresheets, and the appendices on 'don't be a dickbag and talk to each other about comfort level'. The PDF also lacks the 'sample prey' section.

joylessdivision posted:

Also apparently the other two books that were supposed to launch with the core guide didn't for reasons I don't remember, so lol if you pre-ordered the deluxe 3 book set.

The Cam and Anarch books were never supposed to launch with the core. They were always slated for October/November, and Mophidius and WW were pretty upfront in the preorder process (I got emails about it during the last month of preorder from Mophidius) that if you bought a bundle, it'd all ship together when the other books released. Considering these are sealed products and shrinkwrapped because every book has a PDF, it being one 'unit' is exactly the same as how most other box sets go.


Bedlamdan posted:

So how is V5 looking, overall? Good? Bad?

My group so far is enjoying it (I'm back to being Forever Storyteller for vampire, but after the Mage game fell apart I wasn't sure I was going to get to run much of anything, and the usual vampire group is much more reliable in general). There are some things that we found questionable (I don't like how Armor works, and the example of the conflict-based combat in the book is not clear on how it actually works; Karim and Jason clarified some stuff on Facebook with that though). The changing up of attributes is fine, paring down skills is alright (there are some consolidations that I am not super fond of, but it's alright), character creation was really good (there was a lot more depth to the characters in creation it felt like using V5, and the relationship map is really helpful as an ST to keep things and people the players regularly interact with down and ready to reference). We ran some mock tests and messy crits and bestial failures didn't come up much; I would say probably 2 out of 20 rolls, maybe? The Discipline trees are probably my favorite thing out of it. I am generally about 80/20 on the lore; overall I like the 'tapestry' of what they have done, though there are some things I wouldn't have done in the same instances.

Honestly, it is a change. And people who were expecting 'V20, but with updated metaplot' probably won't like it. It changes up the system to streamline a lot of things, moves around attributes and strips out ones that were often problematic (like Appearance). The fandom is super divided on it though. It might be worth downloading the Quickstart from the WoD website, as it walks you through the mechanics and other changes in a chapter-by-chapter breakdown and gives you a story to run, so it might help you make up your mind.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

PHIZ KALIFA posted:

Did that 14/88 reference actually make it into the book, and if so could someone post a screencap/citation?

It didn't and it was never in the book itself; it was in one of the alpha documents.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Dawgstar posted:

Nah, they got a whole show for it that started last week (I think). LA By Night. The NuWW Head of Community Jason Carl is the ST.

The first hour of it was pretty good, but I had to crash partway through. Apparently some stuff from in it (like how that game is presenting Vannevar Thomas, for example) are canon for V5. I kinda hate that, unless they're planning an LA by Night supplement at some point to address that in the same manner, since it won't be seen line-wide by being part of a game that's behind a paywall..

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Loomer posted:

That is an absurdly terrible decision if it's true, and also one that confirms that NWW's stance is basically 'well, in our games... so now also, your games!'

Eh, I'm fine with the canon advancements in broad strokes, but something like this needs to be addressed in a book. It doesn't really invalidate LA by Night, but it'd be nice to have some of that addressed later on.

But, as stated by Jason, who is a dev for V5...



So YMMV really, but a lot of people are going to see that, and a lot of people are going to be like 'Huh? It's not in the book...'

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

The Changeling posted:

Ohh, yep, his Facebook shows that on August 29th, though he's still listed as "In-House Developer" for OPP, which is good.

Man, if V5 wasn't already rocky enough...

Dawkins addressed this on Facebook. He had a contract, the contract ended, and he'd found other work before their offer to re-up came in.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Dawgstar posted:

Some might have noticed the WoD sale going on at the Storyrellers' Vault, and it was announced there's going to be a CoD sale when the WoD sale ends. Those Requiem Clanbooks are coming home.

Nice. I feel lucky that my local Half Price Books seems to be a waypoint for WoD books. I picked up all the Requiem clanbooks and the Lancea book I was missing for dirt cheap there. Also copy number 5 of the Book of Nod.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Warthur posted:

How is BJD if you're the sort of gamer who has little to no investment in actually keeping up with metaplot and just wants to run your own stories in your own city? Is there stuff that can be usefully strip-mined (and if so, how much) or is it too married to canon?

There's lots of ideas; each section presents beckett interacting with something interesting from the metaplot. There are ideas to mine but next to no mechanics. So I'd you can make things like Laibon theory of why the Antediluvians are assholes or Hazimel getting his eye back inspire you to local stuff then go for it.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Pope Guilty posted:

Oh, duh, thanks.

Cursive A is Aisling Sturbridge.

EDIT: NINJA'd

MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Sep 26, 2018

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Halloween Jack posted:

But seriously, folks, which are the books that explain how Gehenna/Apocalypse didn't happen and the classic WoD just keeps on truckin'?

There aren't, but the Gehenna books were always optional scenarios, that's where there are multiple of them. The current metaplot rolls back to the end of Revised and then moves forward from there.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

NutritiousSnack posted:

What's the verdict on the 5th edition?

There is none?

Some people like it. Some people hate it. Some people like some things about it and don't like other things about it.

It's like all games, there will never be a consensus.

Crasical posted:

What is it about fifth editions that makes them turn out as throwback editions? DnD 5 was a throwback to 3.5, Shadowrun 5 is a throwback to 3rd...

V5 is a deliberate throwback to 1e in order to allow new people an easier in to the setting and setup, at least as far as the devs stated. It does over-reference lore to an extent (which anyone bog new to VtM would go look up on the intertubes), but it doesn't present overwhelming options, and it seems more likely to ease players into the 'base mode' and then build from there.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Lord_Hambrose posted:

What are the odds of Paradox noticing the piddly return on investment on V5 and just pull the plug on all the rpg stuff developed in house? They are clearly willing to outsource to Onyx Path if they want to keep the brand alive.

Probably nil, considering we have no real numbers anywhere about how V5 is selling and won't til early next year at least through ICv2. At least with V5 we can get sales numbers in that manner since there is a physical release.

They also said initially that only the core books would be developed in house and everything else would be licensed out, anyway. It's not 'outsourcing to keep the brand alive' its the business model that they built: as a licenser, who can be pitched to, since it doesn't seem like the plan was for any exclusive licenses. Besides, even licensing to Onyx Path, OPP still has to follow the setting docs and bibles for V5 and WW has to approval all text. It's not like OPP can just go and do another corebook with their license without WW approval to significantly rewrite V5.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Rand Brittain posted:

So, uh...

After looking at the oWoD humble bundle, and seeing that it had a bunch of pristine digital scans of books that are only scans elsewhere, I examined the new worldofdarkness.com store, and found that it is absolutely chock full of clean digital WoD PDFs of books that are only low-quality scans on DTRPG. I have absolutely no idea why, but the list includes:

Renegades
Sea of Shadows
Guildbook: Pardoners and Puppeteers
Inanimae: the Secret Way
Kithbook: Eshu
Transylvania By Night
Clanbook: Cappadocian
Clanbook: Salubri
Tribebook: Bone Gnawers
Tribebook: Children of Gaia
First Contact
Holy War
Fall From Grace
The Infernal
The Moonstruck
The Spellbound
The Nocturnal
The Book of Mirrors
Alien Hunger


The main cores and the clan books and Book of Nod should be that way as well; they were all cleaned up OCRed recreations in the Humble Bundle last year that had all them. I think WW saw that DTRPG had just poo poo scans and said 'We can do better' and did that recreation. That or since they own the IP, they might have access to files that OPP didn't for their DTRPG push.

MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Oct 20, 2018

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Dawgstar posted:

So oddball question - in 5E, to the Setites call themselves The Ministry now?

Yes. From what little we know they have become more of a spiritual group and are offering their advice to the Anarchs in particular. This was set up in BJD with the Setites inducting people from other clans.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

That Old Tree posted:

From what I recall of the Lost game I was in like a decade ago, pledges are bonkers enough that you can really gently caress up the power dynamic with just one or two. Really, the system did need to be rewritten entirely, but from what I hear (I haven't read CtL2's pledges yet) they're just sorta "meh" now, which is honestly worse when they're such a potentially fun gimmick to go in on.

Yeah, 1e pledges get hyper-bonkers if a player knows how to use them. And that's not even accounting for players who know the rules better than the STs and the STs are overwhelmed by what they want to do.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Nehru the Damaja posted:

Did the Brood officially stop being vampires at some point or were Edge and Christian just moving forward like nothing happened?

Also re Changeling, how the ever loving hell do you get a group that can handle stories of abuse, trauma and survivorship at center stage all the time. I can't even get That Guy in d&d to not turn routine social situations into disasters.

Because Changeling isn't about playing up the abuse/trauma angle, it's about playing up the aftermath, the rebuilding of your existence or finding a new existence. You don't have to sit on top of the Trauma Button constantly.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

joylessdivision posted:

It seems like Mage, and really any of the other WoD games wouldn't run into as much Vampire LARP fuckery because Vampire is well...Vampire.

Also I like to imagine OMage LARP is just a bunch of people dressed like college professors yelling at other people dressed up in robes about how they're doing magic wrong.

HAHAHA.

Mage LARP becomes the type of situation that ends up discussed re: powerlevels, stacking +1s and stupid applications of spells, and using your dots to ruin the fun of other people.

Changeling becomes 'pretty princess the trauma gangbang'. And my only experience with Dreaming LARP can be best described as 'Changeling the Child Porn' due to physical relationships between childling PCs and adult wilder and grump PCs.

Forsaken can't get its head out of Apocalypse's rear end.

NWoD LARP suffers from power creep badly; you can build characters that do max successes (which translates to max damage) on a 2 (you only fail on a 1, or if draw a 1, or your pool doesn't surpass a default number decided for the game; the book recmmends 10 with every 5 a success, but 8/4 gives the best mapping to dice successesyou without much XP invested into it. I've watched NWoD LARPs turn into 'how can I get all the stackable +1s to this'. It's even worse in a large org like the MES, where approvals are arbitrary and someone in one city might get no pushback for a concept, while the same concept (or similar enough, using say the same bloodline/covenant combo for example) might be denied on the grounds that 'the ST doesn't feel it's appropriate' despite there being ten other similar concepts and combos of stuff in the global game

The issue is the people. LARP can be great, but you have to vet your group well.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

NGDBSS posted:

How did this system work? I participated in a nWoD LARP back in 2004 or 2005, but I was only around for one session and didn't actually do anything that required an RNG.

Also, what was the original implementation of the MET/oWoD RNG? Some local aficionados attempted to rework that LARP system into something better, and while they made some progress they were basically missing the forest for the trees by not changing it enough. In particular everything was decided by RPS, but because ties went to whoever had more traits in an area (even by a difference of +1) you had a system that was more brittle than Fire Emblem. Also you could use your skill dots as rerolls but your opponent could cancel these with their own, so even a point of difference in skills also made for significant gaps in play.

For the NWoD ones, you carried a 'hand' of cards, an Ace through 10. You tallied up your total pool like you would in TT, and drew a card. You added the number on your card to your total. A 1 was an auto failure; a 2-10 added; and a 10 meant you drew a second time and added that second number. Then you used the XdivY formula; if your total exceeded X, you had succeeded; then you divided your total by Y to get number of successes. So getting a 16 in 8div4 would be 3 successes, for example.

And the only LARP versions of OWoD that have been written had RPS as their base mechanic. It went through a couple of permutations in the original Laws of the Night, but what you describe is pretty much par for the course. The newer MET VtM from By Night Studios cares more about your pools and they matter more (you don't use pools for retests; they're more like TT pools), with a lot less janky stuff, but having more traits still matters on a tie since ties go to the person with the higest pool. But it runs a lot better because of pulling out all the retest options and such, so you really only have 1 retest per challenge in MET VtM.

MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

Yawgmoth posted:

but 16/4= 4. :confused:

Sorry, I wasn't clear on XdivY, my bad. You start at the 'success' level of 8 if your number surpasses that total, so it's 'first success at X, then an extra success every Y further.' So with 8div4 it's:

8 = 1 success
12 = 2
16 = 3
20 = 4

And so on and so forth.

MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jan 9, 2019

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MoonKnight
Jul 14, 2018

NGDBSS posted:

What's the name of this book? While it sounds like the new system is still binary as hell, hopefully it doesn't have as pronounced of the "max out your traits and max out your relevant skill dots or the RNG will loving curbstomp you" problem that the devs didn't clue into.

Mind's Eye Theatre: Vampire the Masquerade is the newest MET OWoD book, published in 2013. They also released MET: Werewolf the Apocalypse and are at some point doing MET: Changeling the Dreaming as well.

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