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What was the overall verdict on Werewolf 20th? I remember skimming over it and finding it appealing but I'm trying to remember if it was the one that was omega-ultra-horny or "phobic above and beyond the legacy of the source material."
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Sep 28, 2019 07:31
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I have a dark secret to confess. I love the Stargazers. They're my favourite tribe.
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Sep 28, 2019 07:33
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MonsieurChoc posted:I have a dark secret to confess.
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Sep 28, 2019 07:39
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Nessus posted:What was the overall verdict on Werewolf 20th? I remember skimming over it and finding it appealing but I'm trying to remember if it was the one that was omega-ultra-horny or "phobic above and beyond the legacy of the source material." I recall hearing there was some dissonance between the core resolution systems and the Gifts because the writers didn't talk to each other or something. Other than that, generally positive second-hand impressions up until Shattered Dreams (where ParaWW inserted a lengthy  NOT CANON sidebar in preparation for the next edition) and Changing Ways (where there was just…weird bad stuff added by ParaWW about gender politics, abortions and trans people in the Garou Nation).
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Sep 28, 2019 07:44
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The cores of Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, and Wraith are all fine to great. There is nothing massively glaring that will tear down your experience, nothing major you have to work through, in any of them. They are all massive and filled with a giant helping of rules and information to do a lot with. Now this can sometimes mean that you have a bit of a superficial look at a bunch of stuff [Because even though the Vampire core is over 500 pages it can't cover literally everything in perfect detail for instance], so if these are your first interactions with the setting you might want a little more. You are entirely capable of either looking back to the past for one of the Revised era books to give you more general information and using the 20th edition to see how it's changed to get a fuller picture. And Vampire 20 in particular has a ton of new books, most of them great [Including the single greatest revamp of an old concept I think I've ever seen in a PnP game]. With Mage it's.....I'd say it's the only one that's a step back. There's some interesting stuff there, and the mechanics aren't atrocious or anything, but Phil Brucato is a very specific type of writer and he made some interesting choices for the core. And the dude also some ideas about magick WITH A K USE THE K WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. It leads to a book that isn't as streamlined or usable as the rest. Mostly because the rest of the books just assume that everything that happened happened except for the end of the world and move time forward. Everything else that isn't directly tied to the end of the world or some world shaking side event is up for grabs. Mage doesn't assume anything happened. You can dial it back to Mage 2nd plot points if you want to. That's....certainly a choice, but you'd probably save like 20 pages or more if you just took a stand like the rest and did the same thing. And the changes it did make might be.....less than well accepted depending on your views.
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Sep 28, 2019 08:19
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That Old Tree posted:I recall hearing there was some dissonance between the core resolution systems and the Gifts because the writers didn't talk to each other or something. Other than that, generally positive second-hand impressions up until Shattered Dreams (where ParaWW inserted a lengthy
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Sep 28, 2019 08:30
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It also bears noting that Brucato is very much stuck in a certain late 80s model of chaos magick kybalion-loving new age neo-hippy dudeguy, and this colours nearly all of his work quite seriously. It's why paradigms in M20 are a total mess, why there's a constant focus on otherness as innate goodness (as opposed to, well, simply otherness), and underlies his eye-rolling but not ill-intentioned identification of all trans people and enbies with the magical hermaphrodite. That last one, incidentally, isn't so much bigoted as applying a very narrow magical idea of gender as simultaneously performative (as expression of duality's perceived encoding) and essential (as embodiment of that same duality's occult nature) to a wide range of disparate, culturally-coded experiences. I know of a few transfolk new agers and occultists who do make that identification themselves but far more who absolutely don't so it's problematic but not necessarily transmiscic.
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Sep 28, 2019 08:37
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M20's companion Book of Secrets is also loving terrible and I hate it. M20 is far and away the worst of the anniversary lines, though that poo poo from Changing Ways sure drags down W20's average. Wraith 20 is pretty good, tho. Despite the 60-page comic that appears before the table of contents.
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Sep 28, 2019 09:09
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Nessus posted:(MASTER OF KAILINDO ROUNDHOUSE KICKS YOU). Jon Talbain is a kung-fu werewolf, Jon Talbain is a Darkstalker, the Darkstalkers are WoD canon. Checks out.
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Sep 28, 2019 09:10
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Loomer posted:It also bears noting that Brucato is very much stuck in a certain late 80s model of chaos magick kybalion-loving new age neo-hippy dudeguy, and this colours nearly all of his work quite seriously. It's why paradigms in M20 are a total mess, I thought the focus section of m20 was pretty good. Players choosing a core belief, a set of practices, and a set of instruments was well done. Now, the How Do You Do That book was the one that finally convinced me to give up on the idea of ever being able to adjudicate sphere magic, and move onto Awakening 2e for good. HDYDT’s awful rules bloat and conflation of paradigm and sphere requirements proved that no one, not even the game’s longest running developer, understands the magic system in Ascension.
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Sep 28, 2019 11:57
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I've got the broken down player thing where I can't meaningfully differentiate bad and worse versions of old Mage rules. It's certainly not better, but I don't know if it's worse than Revised. It's the same giant clusterfuck it's always been I guess? There are some ideas in Gods and Monsters, HDYDT, and Book of Secrets that are worthwhile. There are others that are not so much, and there are other ideas still where I just want to sit the guy down and go "Stop fetishizing non-dominant cultures for their perceived opposition to or non-conformity to the status quo". I also feel weird busting on them though because all of them are to some degree based on still extant cultural practices to some degree or another, so I want to just bow out of the entire interaction. 20 was a perfect chance for the streamlining of what the games were about, boosting the strengths and ditching weaknesses. M20 wasn't even more of the same, it was literally the exact same stuff beat for beat from a guy that was behind the curve well before the end of the line. It's impressive how much that book does to make as little change as it does. And the change that it does make is "EVERYTHING IS NEPHANDI! And also I'm getting limp at how much the Traditions are just basic western cultural imperialists and racial caricatures, so I've created a new group that is even MORE outsider and revolutionary!". And I suppose I should muster some emotion, but all I can think is "Good job buddy, here's a cookie! Go draw in the corner why I see how much work it'd be to ignore all of this.".
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Sep 28, 2019 12:14
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That Old Tree posted:Wraith 20 is pretty good, tho. Despite the 60-page comic that appears before the table of contents. I don't know what the gently caress they were thinking of when they decided on this. Wraith 20 is amazing because it manages to contain everything you need to play Wraith, but you just have to flip past nearly a whole source book worth of pages to even start looking at it. The setting stuff is particularly strong. It does a very good job of describing Stygia looks and feels like, which I feel that they never really did a great job with before. There is even a cool map! I think this is really fantastic because it is the one place that will always be relevant in a game, because the setting is going to be your local area because ghosts are everywhere.
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Sep 28, 2019 12:14
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Mulva posted:I've got the broken down player thing where I can't meaningfully differentiate bad and worse versions of old Mage rules. Oh yeah, me too. I once drew out comparisons between each editio’ns sphere rules and not only are fundamental problems never really solved, but each edition also introduces new problems for no good reason. Forex, why on earth does time magic add +3 to the spell difficulty when requiring more successes is how you measure the magnitude of an effect in m20? Why does it take Prime 4 + spell spheres to imbue a talisman that stores a spell and quintessence, while making a talisman that only stores quint (soulgem) also require matter 4? Mulva posted:20 was a perfect chance for the streamlining of what the games were about, boosting the strengths and ditching weaknesses. M20 wasn't even more of the same, it was literally the exact same stuff beat for beat from a guy that was behind the curve well before the end of the line. It's impressive how much that book does to make as little change as it does. And the change that it does make is "EVERYTHING IS NEPHANDI! And also I'm getting limp at how much the Traditions are just basic western cultural imperialists and racial caricatures, so I've created a new group that is even MORE outsider and revolutionary!". It’s frustrating watching the line dev ratify nearly every mistake he made in the 90s. On the Mage podcast, he basically admitted that he hates the Traditions and thinks they’re the real fascists. I really think the only way a future M5 version of the game could be any good is if they replace Brucato with someone like Malcolm Sheppard or Howard Ingram who still thinks the main protagonists really are right to fight the Technocracy. I’d love to see a version of the game with a lighter magic system, a thinner core, and a really loose hand with canon. Remix the traditions so they really are plausible protagonists and not hackneyed 90s caricatures. Malcolm attempted this a few times on his old blog, I think.
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Sep 28, 2019 12:37
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I'm sorry Digital Osmosis you made a mistake you have to wear that baggage forever no matter what you do (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 28, 2019 15:46
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Lord_Hambrose posted:I don't know what the gently caress they were thinking of when they decided on this. Wraith 20 is amazing because it manages to contain everything you need to play Wraith, but you just have to flip past nearly a whole source book worth of pages to even start looking at it. gently caress, I gotta pick up Wraith 20 now don't I? Fun fact: Wraith was both my first and last oWoD game. I got into the storyteller system, I poo poo you not, through the Street Fighter RPG (underrated!) I musta been... 9? I wanted more books that used that system to picked up Wraith, probably 2E. I couldn't make heads or tails of it and returned it to the book store a day or two later. Not sure what my next one was (Changeling?) but it worked, and I went through the cores until Wraith which I bought, read once, understood more-but-not-a-lot-of, and put it down. So if Wraith 20 is complete and goes out of the way to be like "this is what being a Wraith actually is like" then yeah, might have to pick it up.
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Sep 28, 2019 16:53
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That Old Tree posted:M20's companion Book of Secrets is also loving terrible and I hate it. M20 is far and away the worst of the anniversary lines, though that poo poo from Changing Ways sure drags down W20's average. It still cant be worse than nWoD Mage corebook, which made the baffling decision to have gold text on silver pages so it is literally physically unreadable at any distance
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Sep 28, 2019 16:58
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Shrecknet posted:It still cant be worse than nWoD Mage corebook, which made the baffling decision to have gold text on silver pages so it is literally physically unreadable at any distance I was so glad when the Mage: the Awakening 2E book came out with both readable ink and readable typefaces.
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Sep 28, 2019 17:38
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Shrecknet posted:It still cant be worse than nWoD Mage corebook, which made the baffling decision to have gold text on silver pages so it is literally physically unreadable at any distance Huh, I always saw it as blue text on a black background
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Sep 28, 2019 17:39
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Shrecknet posted:It still cant be worse than nWoD Mage corebook, which made the baffling decision to have gold text on silver pages so it is literally physically unreadable at any distance M20 is honestly a lot worse than Awakening 1e, although not for that reason.
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Sep 28, 2019 17:42
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Shrecknet posted:It still cant be worse than nWoD Mage corebook, which made the baffling decision to have gold text on silver pages so it is literally physically unreadable at any distance Sleeper-like typing detected!
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Sep 28, 2019 17:46
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Shrecknet posted:It still cant be worse than nWoD Mage corebook, which made the baffling decision to have gold text on silver pages so it is literally physically unreadable at any distance Light blue on white. Sometimes on a dark blue sidebar (??????????????????????)
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Sep 28, 2019 18:14
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Can we add The Ultimate Badass Sam Haight to the OP because I feel like everyone should know the wonder and stupidity that is Sam Haight. He's my favorite dumb character of the oWoD and brings me so much delight.
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Sep 28, 2019 18:32
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Write up the saga and I'll add it
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Sep 28, 2019 18:43
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Soonmot posted:Write up the saga and I'll add it Welp guess I gotta dig through my folders to find all the books he pops up in so I don't miss any of his antics
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Sep 28, 2019 18:47
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Digital Osmosis posted:gently caress, I gotta pick up Wraith 20 now don't I? Absolutely. Of all the 20th Anniversary books, other than I suppose Changeling, Wraith 20 is definitely the one that feels the most like a improved new edition of the game and not just just a big summary of the previous edition in one big book.
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Sep 28, 2019 18:49
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Soonmot posted:Write up the saga and I'll add it That Old Tree posted:
It could definitely stand to be further summarized but this might be a good starting place. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Sep 28, 2019 |
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Sep 28, 2019 19:04
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The real crime about VtM is triple column manual designs and spreading poo poo all through the book. Last night I was trying to find something on thinbloods and it was scattered in 4 different spots of the book.
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Sep 28, 2019 20:17
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I recently read the comic Rachel Rising, and it's the most oWoD thing that doesn't have vampires or werewolves in it.
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Sep 28, 2019 20:41
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MonsieurChoc posted:I recently read the comic Rachel Rising, and it's the most oWoD thing that doesn't have vampires or werewolves in it. That's a solid book, I need to go back and finish it
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Sep 28, 2019 21:27
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Demon is the best, Hunter is the most underrated.
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Sep 28, 2019 22:15
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Metapod posted:I'm sorry Digital Osmosis you made a mistake you have to wear that baggage forever no matter what you do why the hell are you not banned from this thread already?
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Sep 29, 2019 00:08
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Basic Chunnel posted:Demon is the best, Hunter is the most underrated. Hunter has a special place in my heart for sure. What I remember of the 2e playtest looked solid too.
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Sep 29, 2019 21:01
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01011001 posted:Hunter has a special place in my heart for sure. What I remember of the 2e playtest looked solid too. Hunter is excellent, and probably the best candidate for an all-purpose "what gameline do I pitch my players who are totally unfamiliar with CofD on?" for its versatility and accessibility. I wouldn't call it the most underrated, not because it's not good enough, but because it's too well rated to be underrated. I see plenty of praise for Hunter when the games are discussed. It's got a good reputation, and it deserves it. I haven't been especially optimistic about what has been discussed and previewed for Hunter Second Edition, but well, worst case scenario, the 2e patch in Mortal Remains works just fine.
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Sep 30, 2019 05:37
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I have enough trouble convincing my friends to play anything not immediately Dungeons or Dragons related so I'll probably never get a proper opportunity to try one of the "weirder" WoD/CoD games despite really digging some of the concepts. There any decent Actual Play content of Mage/Changeling/Promethean/Geist/Mummy/Hunter/Demon out there? Editions don't matter much despite being vastly different, content's content. I've never had a Vampire/Werewolf game as player last longer than 1-2 sessions before the GM vanishes off the face of the earth, but that's a probably unrelated supernatural curse.
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Oct 1, 2019 05:29
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Cerebulon posted:I have enough trouble convincing my friends to play anything not immediately Dungeons or Dragons related so I'll probably never get a proper opportunity to try one of the "weirder" WoD/CoD games despite really digging some of the concepts. There any decent Actual Play content of Mage/Changeling/Promethean/Geist/Mummy/Hunter/Demon out there? Editions don't matter much despite being vastly different, content's content. Here is a post pointing to Dave Brookshaw's Mage APs on RPGnet, with some commentary. While it may still be unpalatable, Hunter in my experience can be made close enough to what they're used to that D&D-olytes can be nudged towards something at least a little different if you get just a little bit of initial buy-in.
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Oct 1, 2019 06:01
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(Cross-post from old thread since I am a senile methuselah:) So our The Lost game is finally off to a good start.. We left the keepers during a large battle in the Hedge between several fae armies, having been subservient to 2-3 different ones. We were all taken in Hamelin, Germany, though we have lost different amounts of time (5-25 years). Now to my problem: The dim-witted Beast in the party brought a decapitated head with him out of the Hedge, for reasons that happened in the Prologue and he seems unable to explain. The face has both Mask and Mien, appearing as a mouthless Manikin-ish head behind a mask of a jolly expo robot of some kind. My character was enslaved to a fae known as the Dollmaker, and helped him create and repair other Clockwork changelings like herself. The head communicates to her via telepathy that it needs a mouth, and in a fugue-like state she remembers what she did, and builds a mouth for the head. Narrowly making a clarity check, she runs to the toilet and vomits in terror. Now fully verbal, it shouts that it's name is FERNANDO and that it was kidnapped by the Dollmaker out of Argentina. Berating the beast for shoving it in a bag and pleading for help getting it's body bag, an NPC older changeling caretaker keeping us safe shoots the suggestion down. We learn that the fae still sends hunters and spies to get escaped changelings back. Clearly, we love Fernando and would like to keep him, but the prospect of returning to their keepers scare our characters shitless. While no one is prepared to just put him in a bag and chuck it in the Hedge or kill him, we can't have a keeper spy around. Problem is, we can hardly pledge him to be truthful, as the resources we'd have to offer him are staggering. In case he's guilty, he can just say "yeah, what are you gonna do about it" and use the massive traits we gave him to gently caress us up. What would you do at this point? I Am Just a Box posted:If you really want to play paranoid hardball and not take a few risks on behalf of a clearly suffering fellow person, why would you have to give him staggering benefits in exchange for an oath of loyalty? He could certainly refuse to swear an oath that didn't offer him much benefit to swear, but you could also certainly refuse to keep lugging a head around in a bag, and the head's not going to have much it can do about that. While Fernando is entertaining, he also seems pitiable and genuinely terrified of his fate. We can't make ourselves get rid of him, so I guess we're getting him a body or something.
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Oct 1, 2019 10:11
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I still think Fernadno telepathically forcing your character to make them a mouth against your character's will is Very Suspcious
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Oct 1, 2019 10:33
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he didn't force my character to do it. He just happened to request it in a mind-talk language of cogs and gears only I understoo.. holy poo poo  I guess it's possible that he used contracts to coerce me. Both I as a player and my character are fresh to the world of changeling, but I guess there's nothing against it. I might ask the caretaker if he thinks this is more likely than other explanations. Tias fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Oct 1, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 10:44
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I really want to suggest adding Predators and The Pure to the list of best Werewolf books while you can still edit the opening post. Predators is just an excellent book about terrifying spirits applicable to any other WoD line, and The Pure is just full of cool and well-written antagonist werewolves.
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Oct 1, 2019 11:30
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If people are still interested in the adventures of our little coterie, gimme a shout, depending on if it's better posted here or in the stories thread.
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Oct 1, 2019 12:07
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