World/Chronicles of Darkness: you turning werewolves into wereterriers

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

unseenlibrarian posted:

It's me, I'm the one who voted for Deviant despite it not being out yet after reading the kickstarter previews and realizing it would be possible to play Dean Koontz's Watchers by letting someone take a Manticore companion merit that's explained as a super-intelligent golden retriever.

They just sent a backer email about how powers are built and it's looking very customizable, which is good, but also has the potential to be terrible! But I'm excited!

# ¿ Sep 27, 2019 18:59

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 02:16

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

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 see you and raise Geist 1e:
Light blue on white. Sometimes on a dark blue sidebar (??????????????????????)

# ¿ Sep 28, 2019 18:14

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

So Deviant backers, the Deviations and Scars manuscript went out today (powers and flaws). Question:

Is there any reason at all to take the Inescapable version of Relentless Variation, over Suppressible? Other than from a pure concept perspective, I can't think of any reason why you would ever take "always-on, no matter what, the end" over "trade off for something also bad, to turn it off," ever. The worst-case scenario is you just...don't suppress, in which case you're always-on in practice anyway.

Am I missing something?

# ¿ Oct 1, 2019 19:05

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

Octavo posted:

I think it's intended to model character concepts like those mutants who lived in the sewer in x-men. While most of the x-men were sexy and had powers they could toggle on and off, the sewer mutants (can't remember their name) tended to have ugly manifested scars with powers they couldn't turn off.

On the other hand, maybe you just don't ever want anyone to be able to take your powers away.

See, they give SOME benefit to similar Morlock-stuff (that's who you're thinking of), with having it where if you have an Overt Variation with a Relentless Scar, the secondary effect from Relentless is one Magnitude cheaper than usual (so if you went Subtle > Relentless at 3 Magnitude, you'd need a 3 Magnitude associated Scar, but if you went Overt > Relentless at 3 Magnitude, you'd need a 2-Magnitude associated Scar).

Maybe it's just a flaw in trying to capture a point buy system where the math effectively caps at 5?

Really though, the big kicker to me is that not only are your choices "always-on" and "activate something else in this one's place with a Scar Resistance roll," you also have this:

quote:

Inescapable: Choose another Persistent Scar (the secondary Scar). All Variations combined with this Scar also suffer the secondary Scar. The Deviant cannot suppress the entangled Variations at all � not even temporarily.

which like...are they thinking that always-on by itself isn't enough of a problem to warrant being an adequate scar (and given that always-on could mean always-20-feet-tall, always-slipping-into-invisibility, etc., that's silly) so it requires something else tacked on? Or am I misreading it? It just seems like some weirdly inconsistent "you get bonuses under X but not Y" mechanics-math, which granted is on-brand for CoD/WoD, but, still.

And as for powers being taken away, adding Relentless (of either variety) gives you Persistent and Perpetual tags now (and +5 to clash rolls as a result), so you don't get anything more out of saying always-on, period.

Chernobyl Peace Prize fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Oct 1, 2019

# ¿ Oct 1, 2019 20:06

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

Bosushi! posted:

OWoD Werewolf, via the short lived Rage card game, is essentially the game that got me into the tabletop hobby and I will forever love the absolute batshit nature of it.

A lot of people give the Stargazers, and Kailindo, poo poo for �not making sense� or something, but to me it makes perfect sense for a Werewolf to find a way to optimize their shape shifting ability in the way that all Martial Arts seek to optimize the human body�s economy of motion. If anything Kailindo as �the werewolf martial art� is far too narrow, and every tribe would have incorporated shapeshifting into their own martial arts.

Stargazers are problematic in that they�re steeped in early 90�s Orientalism and act as a catch all for anything vaguely Asian, so they could definitely use a much more culturally sensitive rewrite.

Let us never forget 1e Rage, the card game where the rules book did not tell you how to resolve combat, BUT did have space and time necessary to make a circular reference across 4 different items.

God what a piece of poo poo amazing game. I still have a bunch of foils around here somewhere from the Umbra set. The drat realms.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2019 17:48

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

Inzombiac posted:

Hello new thread!

I looked into Deviant a bit and it looks really cool. The name doesn't seem really appropriate but whatever.

Other than my mechanical quibbles I really like it so far, and as someone who really likes the idea of building characters in the abstract as well, the starting-at-tier system for Variations lets you trace a full character power progression and watch how quickly you can turn into a horrible near-unplayable freak. I love it!

# ¿ Oct 2, 2019 22:47

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

A Mortals game that becomes a Hunter game that becomes a Deviant game would be interesting, I'd think.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2019 23:30

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

Also, it's not really that well-highlighted that you can pick the same Scar at different (or the same) levels for different Variations, under this circumstance:

p60 of Manuscript 3 posted:

Repeatable Controlled Scars may have a different criteria for each purchase, if desired.

Which they use in this example, in order to use Perilous 2 twice, for 2 different effects, which also turns Carapace from Perpetual into Controlled effects (as the Perilous Variation Scar is Controlled, so now the entangled Variations are as well).

Same deal for the different ranks of Deterioration attached to Brachiation and Hyper-Competence.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2019 03:16

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

Bosushi! posted:

I think the "Repeatable" keyword is the context I was missing. So if I understand it right, a Repeatable Scar is one that can be applied individually for each Variation, whereas a Scar that's not Repeatable will have be higher magnitude if it wants to entangle multiple Variations?

That's my reading of it as well, yeah.

Another thing I somehow missed at first was that you can't put multiple Scars on one Variation, so once you get that bad boy up above a couple points, you're going to need a single big drat Scar to go with it.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2019 04:59

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

Xinder posted:

The new Deviant preview was sent out and this is my first exposure to the conspiracy stats.

They�re amazing. I don�t think I�ve ever been so excited to run a game as i am about Deviant.

quote:

Harmonious Community Interaction Algorithm: Members of the Moderation Team offer specialized management training to all members of the conspiracy, teaching them how to direct the collective behavior of the common people.

Deviant confirms: No mods, no masters.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2019 15:09

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

Soonmot posted:

My WtF game has a conspiracy theory website that releases trashy updates. Only those in the supernatural community know that some of the stories are actually updates on the state of the city, and use it as a resource.

The difference between a Hunter in Darkness and King of the Hill's Dale Gribble is that an HiD is more likely to be able to climb a fence. And that's it.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2019 17:52

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

Gerund posted:

Looks like Paradox is getting back into the classic World of Darkness tactic of telling people how they can't profit off of their IP after taking a year off after the international incident and losing the Gangrel name:

https://www.white-wolf.com/dark-pack

Pretty sure streams have been accepted as significantly altered works that you can make money off of for a while now but I guess putting out a decal for the Brand Supporters to use in their thumbnails is a minor benefit.

Seems like a good excuse for them to issue unenforceable but sufficiently chilling C&Ds to anyone trying to monetize videos critical of their work on YouTube, including discussions of the tabletop games and, say, any upcoming long-awaited PC games married to a new and controversial edition of the game.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2019 04:38

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

Loomer posted:

There�s an interesting notion in the fairly terrible Predator and Prey series. Michigan�s young kindred float between small cities that can�t really support s vampiric population to avoid overpredation. If we made this a more universal model, it could be quite interest8ng in its ramifications demographically.

In a pinch, I would think you could napkin-math stuff by considering a metro area (whether formal metro area or CSA, or just 'these towns near enough that you could commute from one to the next if you had to'-level) for area feeding stability/population support.

It might even be a fun and culturally relevant exercise in 2019 to look at what's effectively a commute for the modern vampire, especially in some of the Midwest and Rust Belt where population density is shrinking as industry leaves.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2019 14:57

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

Mulva posted:

You know thinking back to the oWoD there's really no downside to being a vampire if you aren't a monster to begin with and are willing to do some occult research. There's powers that take care of all the flaws. Hell I know like 3 powers that let you walk in the sun, and it's not like they are all crazy 9 dot super powers or something. Want to be immortal but afraid you'll miss chocolate? There are powers for that. Too narcissistic to live a life were your downstairs don't work right? Also powers for that. Frenzy? You can mitigate it. Having to drink blood? It's not too hard to make animal blood as filling as human blood or even pure vitae. Any particular downside you care to name was dealt with somewhere, by someone, and most of them could be learned by practically any vampire And the Thin-Bloods that can't learn some of them can still learn the rest, and the ones they lose are generally covered by the innate perks of being Thin-Blooded.

Really, I don't know what those jackasses were so angsty about.

Well, it was the 90s. Outside of big cities, basically nothing but bars is open past 9pm, you can't really even have a lazy night in because there's no streaming services and unless you planned it out in advance, video rental places might not even be open after sunset during the warmer months. Until the tail end of the decade, there's not really any reliable internet you can use to connect with people you haven't directly met since becoming a vampire.

2019's a landscape where it's a lot easier to be an isolated night-weirdo and still develop a robust social circle with which to pursue esoteric interests, without living in 1 of like 4 cities. And from there you can figure out who knows all the fun powers and how you can learn them too, though at that point, you won't even need most of them.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2019 05:54

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

Jhet posted:

But then what would Loomer have done with all that time?

I too don�t bother with population limits. They make for tedious story. For me it�s a lot like tracking encumberance in D&D. Great once in a while for a good reason, but otherwise it just gets in the way.

See I think of this in the opposite direction: population limits bring conflict over limited resources to the forefront, which gives vampire games a tangible and perpetual reason for conflict beyond ideological slapfights, Sabbat poo poo-stirring, and pissy courtly intrigue. Not that they should be a hard-and-fast thing, but I think they give more plot hooks than they take away, and also help you start to think how VtM as a macro setting functions, if at all.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2019 21:44

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

MadDogMike posted:

Honestly by their nature I don't know that even "low" vampire population would be free of struggling over blood; can't remember where I read it, but I recall one Vampire quote basically saying they all saw only what they wanted, not what they had. That one stuck with me and really kind of summed up a lot of the dickishness of vampire society, they might have more sources of blood and power than they could ever need but they still want yours because they don't have it. So really population numbers don't need to be "too high" or something to justify fighting, if there were only two vampires in a country of millions they'd still fight over it.

Yeah if there's way more people than vampires to eat, and the vampires are still all over each other competing for the herd, that's a story in and of itself! Vampires are awful parasites who should not be suffered to exist, but here we are!

Basically I don't think you lose anything by having population-number-guidelines, and if I'm going to pay for sourcebooks I'd much rather get guidance for setting development beyond "yeah I dunno whatever's Right For Your Campaign." Worst-case scenario I can just ignore it, but I don't get the hostility. Not like The Vampire Police are going to come into your house and slap the books out of your hands if you have an anime convention's worth of vampires sitting in a small college town, and there aren't mechanical ramifications that I'm aware of (whether stated or implied) for it, so like...why not? You lose nothing.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2019 01:05

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

Tremere Houdini should have a character arc revolving around either learning Necromancy, or insisting that all necromantic Disciplines are quackery or apostasy and destroying anyone who possess them or claims to.

Or learning it himself and regretting a whole lot of how he spent his free time.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2019 02:42

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

Yeah Loomer I hate to sound all capitalist about this but...if it wasn't work, someone else would've done it. You should get your :10bux:

# ¿ Oct 13, 2019 16:15

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

Shrecknet posted:

I need to fill inches in my Gazette for my LARP, and i wanna do a funny advice column. What are some questions for ann Landers but a vampire?

Dear Vlad Panders,

I feel like my ghouls don't respect me anymore. I remember when they would look up to me, even ask me for advice, but it seems like lately they only come around when they want something from me. How do I make them fear me without killing all of them?

- Tapped Out in Tampa

# ¿ Oct 18, 2019 03:37

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

The new Paul Rudd show on Netflix (Living With Yourself) is simultaneously very Deviant and very Changeling. Loving it so far.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2019 19:20

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

Shrecknet posted:

Thanks everyone for your help. Issue 3 of Up Against the Wall is out. (there's two versions, with two different Ventrue horrorscopes as suggested)

Enjoy!

Hell yes.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2019 19:34

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

Play the Assamite Elder but make the concept your own. Specifically, he came to town seeking this zine oracle and now must find out how he gleaned his dark truths.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2019 03:39

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

Jhet posted:

I can't think of a good reason to buy WoD minis? I don't think I've ever even thought about a vampire game with a combat map. I mean, if they look cool, sure, but I'm not sure there's must purpose other than looking cool.

For books that devote as many pages to combat rules (whether direct Combat Rules or gifts/disciplines/powers/etc. that only have combat applications), I've never really understood how pure theater of the mind is supposed to be the de facto mode of play. Then again, my ideal system is probably something like Strike! rules and WoD/CoD flavor so I might be in the minority here.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2019 15:58

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

Jonas Albrecht posted:

What should I expect/hope for W5 ("wive").

Turn the racism and misogyny dials up to at least 11, probably resolve half of the metaplot off-screen without getting any closer to the titular Apocalypse, and gear up for an international incident with...let's call Brazil this time?

# ¿ Oct 22, 2019 19:28

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

Loomer posted:

This is only the case if the curse is fuelled by abstract suffering rather than the direct symbolic repetition of the first murder.

You die if you work.

thus,

# ¿ Oct 24, 2019 03:54

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

Deviant's also cool conceptually because your starting Variations/Scars being the game's power level means that if you're building a character concept up, you can start with the basic 2 dots (+1 free from your origin) as someone relatively normal with one or two small weird tricks, and by the time you get to 7 or 10 points you're at "oh, I made a Batman villain. And like, a strong one." almost by accident. Like the first idea I came up with someone with constant Camouflage up. At the lowest power level, it just means you're usually hard to see, but you can concentrate and be normal again. At 7 or 10 total variations, he's spreading it by touch (Sacred Flesh) and his own version covers all senses and can only be turned off with focus that, if interrupted, he can't try again for the scene.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2019 02:13

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

You could definitely just say they're angels positioned as opposed to the God Machine but are in fact Controlled Opposition to try to lure out particularly elusive-but-desperate demons, or just for that ol' G-M "fuckin around with people for its own sake" reason, and both would absolutely work.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2019 19:50

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

Dave Brookshaw posted:

Where do you think I got the text of all those Awakening 2e dev blogs from? They were almost all lifted and adapted from Awakening's bible.

I have considered putting it up. Putting Deviant's up would be gauche, as it's basically my outline for the book.

Once the book's out if you put up Deviant I can guarantee you at least one sale, because I cannot get enough of the game already.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2019 16:49

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

Gerund posted:

The real silly aspect to the Time powers was that they were the 'true' aspect of the silly Speed powers, but only found in the real descendants of one of the umpteen clans that got Speed powers

Also in combat the Time powers were flatly worse than the Speed powers until you got enough Temporis to get "Celerity but you can take Discipline actions too" while until that point Celerity-users were already taking 3 or 4 more actions than everyone else.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2019 16:35

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

ilikedirt posted:

What game should i play if i want to be a wizard in modern times that maybe shoots fireballs at vampires, but also have rules that i can explain to people i want to play with without immediately and suddenly turning them off from the system for 100% of all time

Strike!

# ¿ Nov 3, 2019 05:19

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

Jonas Albrecht posted:

Which has more satisfying combat to play through RAW: W:tA or W:tF?

WtA has a more Exalted, "throw a thousand dice and hyper-murder the room" feel, WtF has a more "playing GTA except you have cheat codes" feel to combat.

It's a question of, do you want to feel strong because an already-busted system gives you stats and free actions stacked to the high heavens, or do you want to feel strong because you have a ton of weird, clever-by-half exceptions to how a fairly straightforward combat system works? Personally I'd say WtA, because busting combat open in WtF just reminds you how unsatisfying CoD 2e combat feels (and is probably intended to feel?) if you aren't playing a jittery tweaker with a handgun.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2019 02:40

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

PHIZ KALIFA posted:

Are there any major new (as in, not a re-release, not part of a series) well made high-crunch TTRPGs even being produced these days? All the major flagship standbys are coming up on almost 10 revisions apeice, and all I'm reading is that there's no clear idea as to how to shepherd the game into the kind of experience people want?

The Fragged (Empire, Aeternum, Kingdoms) games are...moderately crunchy? Like, weapons tables with properties, etc. And those are pretty new and seem to do pretty well on their Kickstarters.

But otherwise yeah, it's the province of heartbreakers

# ¿ Dec 13, 2019 00:30

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

Shrecknet posted:

GURPS exists my man. I would posit that the system literally called the Storyteller system, whose flagship game is 'a tale of personal horror' is literally antithetical to a high-crunch system

The problem is that the Storyteller system pitches itself as being low-crunch and then goes into loving, breathless detail of all the combat actions you can take, the modifiers from each weapon and how they interact with your various to-hit (and defense), damage (from applying it to soaking it to bashing/lethal/agg, to implementations of armor), and depending on your game set, whether there's a variable or static target number, 9-again, 8-again, etc.

The Storyteller system being rules-lite is charitably a nice plan that doesn't survive contact with the enemy (of playing the game), and uncharitably a branding exercise.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2019 04:04

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

Lord_Hambrose posted:

Does death and rebirth as a vampire cure mental illness?

Hell, in VtM it doesn't even cure a sunburn, canonically.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2019 17:41

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

For anyone who backed Geist 2e, Memento Mori (all the KS stretch goal stuff) is out now. Super-cool stuff, including two new Haunts (one around emptiness/nothingness, one around memories) and a bunch of cool mementos, including a cursed video game that can be played on anything with a screen and buttons, but won't turn off, including if you destroy the machine itself. The only fix is transferring it to another machine, at which point the previous one is irredeemably corrupted. RIP. It gives you access to the key of Disease, of course.

e: Also, in a rare burst of well-considered layout, the new Haunts have their relevant Conditions listed right at the start of the entry instead of tucked away in the back matter of the book. Please do this always.

Chernobyl Peace Prize fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Dec 18, 2019

# ¿ Dec 18, 2019 21:34

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

EimiYoshikawa posted:

There was a Lasombra who was paraplegic in life and used his shadow tentacles for mobility post-life that I remember from the Lasombra clanbook way back when. He stuck with me more than most example NPCs/characters.

Meanwhile I'm just thinking of the Lasombra in the clanbook who got spite-embraced with a really bad sunburn so he started out every night looking like an absolute dipshit.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2019 17:31

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

Vampires are soulless husks that fool themselves into thinking they're still human. Ghouls are people who opt in to monstrousness for a fix of that good poo poo. Spit on them.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2019 01:37

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

That's cool as hell.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2020 23:02

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

Strix vs Seers: Whoever loses, we win! As long as we aren't within a thousand miles of it happening.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2020 02:55

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 02:16

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

Pope Guilty posted:

What does it do to your whole society? What happens when suddenly the Ventrue neonate who could previously Dominate older vampires because he's the latest progeny of some low-Generation elder discovers that he can't just Tell people to do things anymore?

Conversely, the 300-years-awake 13th gen bootlick who's never quite been able to find a good time to diablerize himself some power, can now tell that guy to get tan. At least until the sluggishness of his vitae makes him go to sleep.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2020 01:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > World/Chronicles of Darkness: you turning werewolves into wereterriers

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