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Nessus posted:I too was down. I think they hit a reasonable sweet spot of being readable either in a serious way (Buddhist wolves from the Himalayas make as much sense as IRA wolves) or a goof-rear end gonzo way (MASTER OF KAILINDO ROUNDHOUSE KICKS YOU). Wait. OWoD had some Exalted type kung-fu werewolves? Because poo poo like a werewolf dragon kicking some jackass vampire/mage/spirit/Pentex executive in the face can't be wrong and i'll hear no argument about it. 
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Oct 2, 2019 12:28
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moths posted:Not only did they, but it was a werewolf only martial art that involved limited form changes. Your homid fist could turn into a crinos claw as you connected with some chump, for example. Angry Lobster posted:Yes, that's basically the Stargazers schtick. Now you're making me feel like I missed something awesome by not paying much attention to OWoD Werewolf. Also, I kind of am curious if there were any in fiction viewpoints on what most of the other inhabitants of the OWoD think when they see some werewolf bang out some sweet transforming kung fu moves on the nearest bad guy. 
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Oct 2, 2019 16:53
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moths posted:Because of the Delirium it's usually something like a guy in a gorilla costume just karate chopped someone's head off, and that seems completely rational. So literally kung fu murder furries. Well alright then. The WoD has seen worse.
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Oct 2, 2019 18:37
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Dawgstar posted:Those are some fun characters. I especially like the idea of a Malkavian neurologist. This seems about as likely to end as well as a pyromaniac becoming a firefighter. So yeah. Fun times I guess. Shrecknet posted:I cannot imagine using fb for pbp, it might be the worst way to communicate on earth. I'm forced to use it for my LARP fpr downtimes and stuff and I hate it more than i hate the joyless players in it This makes me wonder what people decades from now are gonna think when they see a bunch of pretentious vampires posting on archived Facebook pages without the benefit of knowing what VtM is. "Guys, guys, I think i've cracked the code! This guy called Raven Nyte is talking to his friends and I think they're actually all secretly vampires!" Archonex fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Oct 4, 2019 |
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Oct 4, 2019 14:24
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EimiYoshikawa posted:
Pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere in 1e that head shots and heart shots do extra damage or something like that. I don't think 2e ever really got into minor "what if?" exceptions like that as a general rule of thumb. 1e however has stuff like The Blood and Danse Macabre for all your setting specific minutiae needs. In character head shots apparently hurt like hell too. We're talking "crippling pain for the rest of the night" levels of awful if you go by one novel. Heck, in one of the novels it's even used as a threat to get one grade A rear end in a top hat vampire to fall in line and stop causing trouble for everyone else. The main character straight up threatens to dome them in front of everyone else if they won't calm the gently caress down. Which is admittedly a fairly novel way to enforce discipline, if not a bit hilariously dickish. Archonex fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Oct 11, 2019 |
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Oct 11, 2019 15:09
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Bogart posted:Vampires have been capitalists all along?! I mean part of the original pitch was "You've been forcibly brought into this system that literally eats up lives to preserve the power and wealth of those at the top. Now you have to find a place in it when you're at the bottom of the pecking order if you want to survive.". Which is pretty anti-capitalist in theme. So yeah? Ferrinus posted:True Blood MIGHT work, but only because vampires would be consuming the stolen life-force of the workers slaved to and exploited by the massive industrial process such a product would require. True Blood is entirely doable in both settings. The problem is what happens when your average The Lance alone really ought to have pretty much every legit version of Christianity declaring a freaking crusade on vampires. It's like someone's idea of a heresy decided to spawn a heresy specifically designed to degrade the teachings of the book itself. Basically an ultra-heresy. And don't even get me started on the Sabbat. Ironically the only one that could probably stick around is the Carthian's. Something 1e partially acknowledges by having their "What if they were the Camarilla equivalent in the setting?" segment having their main goal to be to enact a True Blood type coming out (albeit in a fairly inept sort of way) to humanity. Meanwhile the Invictus's Camarilla equivalent mostly spends their time jerking off about how great they think they are while screwing each other over, the Circle is possibly unwittingly working to start an apocalypse for the Mother of Monsters, the Lancaea et Sanctum tops their usual heretical state of being by deciding that God is simply too slow in his works and are working to try and kick start the apocalypse themselves to force him to judge humanity, and the Ordo Dracul is...Uh...Just kind of there and doing  really? I mean, it's really loving monstrous science that anyone with even a bit of decency would be horrified at. So that's bad too. Basically, what i'm saying is that in a True Blood type setting most of the covenants and groups as they are gotta go. Which is also probably why there isn't a True Blood type setting in the main game lines. Because like Loomer said the reason why being a vampire sucks in these settings is that other vampires with way more influence than you tend to be awful bastards. Archonex fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Oct 23, 2019 |
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Oct 23, 2019 16:43
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Mulva posted:You can absolutely tell a story about playing as an abuse elemental and have it work. It's not the themes, exactly, because they are present in a lot of other games that also turned out fine. The actual problem is that it's trying to do some many different things with it's various elements that it never really comes together in a clear package. The one thing that got me is that aren't Beast's supposed to feed off of fear? I may be mis-remembering it but it seems like they could have gone with a better interpretation of how they do that if so. Of course this means abuse in the current write up, but if you go off of that theory that they're basically to make people afraid of the unknown then it's entirely possible they could have been written to not be so incessantly poo poo. I mean, there's a difference between Johnny Dragondicks the child-eating monster abusing and terrorizing his way through the neighborhood and some random Beast who gets their fix by scaring people away from that alley where they're 99% liable to get beaten/mugged/raped/eaten alive by whatever is lurking in that area. Hell, I even remember that an earlier draft got into this. The old thread had people that were cracking up about one of the Insatiables (The really weirdo antagonists, no less!) that are supposed to be worse than Beast's. Said Insatiables had at least one write up where they had their needs fulfilled by literally just being an internet troll loving with people online. Basically writing Creepypasta tier stuff and pissing people off online is how they depicted as being a horrible person. That's it. That's their great crime against humanity. Meanwhile, Beast's literally have a variant based around racism and fear of the other in one of the books. Of course a good chunk of the line was written by a sexual predator. So I guess it'd make sense that to him the people that find a non harmful use for their urges would be even bigger bad guys. Kinda makes it even squickier when you consider that though.  Edit: Now I want to see a parody write up where you've got Beast's feeding in hilariously underdone ways as part of trying to get by as what they are. We're talking, the safety inspector that teaches people about the value of OSHA by organizing non-harmful accidents. Or the DARE instructor that turns into a loving gryphon in the middle of his "This is your brain on drugs, kids!" speech to scare them straight. Ferrinus posted:Nah, no one will care. It'll just get folded into the already-open secret that we're ruled by an international cabal of satanic pedophiles IRL. The discourse, and more importantly the global mode of production, will smoothly absorb and adapt itself to public vampires. Yeah, that's possible. I feel like having actual no poo poo carnivores that need to feed off of humans would make for one hell of a scapegoat though. And that's when they aren't actually mucking things up. Because you know that the Invictus or Lance wouldn't be able to resist going with the whole "I am superior to you, bow to me mortals!" shtick they're so fond of. Plus you gotta factor in corporations like Cheiron. Which would absolutely be up for farming vampires for their blood or whatever for (insert horribly illegal experimental product here). Though maybe the fact that they're capable of super powered feats of strength and all sorts of crazy blood magic would mitigate this. Historically people that have wanted to denigrate and oppress minorities got a whole heck of a lot less enthusiastic about it on average when they could fight back. Archonex fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Oct 24, 2019 |
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Oct 23, 2019 23:53
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Ferrinus posted:The bourgeoise already exist. Vampires would simply not be a big deal unless they challenged the ruling order, which they don’t, because they mostly reproduce and represent it. 1e has a book that gives a write up for a viable blood stand in. It's in the shards/mirrors/alternate universe book whose name I forget. The Woundgate setting (Which has a large number of humans aware of the supernatural. Basically one step removed from True Blood.) in particular heavily implies it's an actual industry for the supernaturally aware portion of the human populace. Albeit, there's also some implications that it's a really hosed up sort of business because it's the World of Darkness and normal healthy things tend to be prohibited for the sake of drama. Ironically, it comes from a plant. Which technically means that vampires that prefer to use it go vegan. It's also incredibly toxic to living humans if I remember the stats for it. So any human that drinks the stuff thinking they're going to get super powers or steal life or whatever is probably going to be taking a trip to the hospital. Archonex fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Oct 24, 2019 |
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Oct 24, 2019 23:18
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Speaking of V5, the White Wolf reddit occasionally is a veritable gold mine of hilarity.  I'm kind of surprised that more books haven't focused on that sort of social manipulation outside of "the olds hate technology, the young know how to use it" thing that is common across both games. Though now i'm wondering what other sort of social media burns and memes could be applied to Vampire. Archonex fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Dec 5, 2019 |
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Dec 5, 2019 10:29
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Mors Rattus posted:God, I love the Fog of Ages conceits in nVamp. That they mostly got rid of it was a shame. It and the predator's taint, despite being a royal pain in the rear end when used mechanically as it was written really hammered home the lovely situation vampires were in. Edit: Also, all the fake social media jokes are just great.
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Dec 8, 2019 15:01
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Everyone posted:Did 3E still end up going with that hosed up sex stuff noted here: Wasn't the hosed up sex stuff because it was part of the charm set of easily one of the most hosed up Death Lords? Y'know, the titty monster one that lives in a batshit insane turbo-hedonist ghost palace. Like, literally, I think there's 2e artwork of one of her death knights turning into a four story tall literally sanity rending titty monster. Which I assume she taught them because lol what the gently caress. Regardless, looking back on that fiasco i'm kinda divided on those charms. That particular Death Lord's entire thing has always been to take the whole "seductive vampire" concept and crank it up past 11 to absurd 44 and above heights. It was even a joke in setting that other Death Lords were all "Whoa, slow your roll there." when it came to her behavior. But what the gently caress does she have going for her power-set wise without them? I mean, poo poo. Her learnable charms cap out at "I can literally recreate that one awful Star Trek episode where Doctor Crusher fucks a ghost.". That's not entirely impressive to begin. Sex charms were also in 2e as an optional joke book so it's not like there isn't precedent for them. On the other hand, that's not the poo poo you want to put into your early previews as a non-joke if you want people to take it seriously and not think you're some sort of hosed up deviant. And again, they were in 2e as a joke to gently caress with people. It wasn't serious or part of the core themes. All that being said, being able to say "I unleash my rape ghosts." in the most straight faced manner at an Exalted table would probably not be the most absurd thing to ever happen in someone's game... Edit: I think my biggest problem when I originally read those charms was that it was clear that Holden and Morke had no loving clue what they were doing without all the other 2e era writers there to direct things and make sure that extraneous/potentially offensive stuff like that didn't take center stage first and foremost. It was basically foreshadowing the problems with 3e that'd happen later on. Archonex fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Dec 12, 2019 |
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Dec 12, 2019 05:22
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Joe Slowboat posted:They were also technically seduction ghosts, it’s just that ‘pay willpower or be compelled to kiss the ghost’ is not a free choice. Nah man. From what I recall when you read the other charms it became apparent that they were straight up rape ghosts. The charm description of one of the previous charms really inferred that point without hitting on it outright. Heck, there was even a "succubus" style charm that let you steal essence/willpower/life that was ripped out of the pages of 2e. At the very least they're sexual assault ghosts that get really handsy with you while impersonating someone close to you. Which is itself rapey is heck. Also, it was entirely possible they could have worked that charm set in if they had kept their mouth shut about it and just kept the Lover in Darkness/whatever her name is a mystery and said "Yeah, we don't want to touch this in the 3e core book since it's a bit too heavy. Her themes are a bit too controversial to get into without a lot of disclaimers and prep work first." whenever someone brought her up. That's how they got away with putting sex charms (Which included the same abyssal succubus type charm that in 2e outright required drinking "fluids" from people during sex.) in as a joke in 2e, in fact. Instead they went full rape ghost right out the gate and alienated people by seeming juvenile and creepy. Both of which are things that are very much at odds with including adult content in a game. On the whole, most players are perfectly capable of handling adult content so long as the devs are mature about it. They weren't. Which is probably why that stuff isn't going to get added in now.  Joe Slowboat posted:Fair enough, and I certainly don’t think there should be sexual violence charms; I just think ‘spooky seducer who kisses you and sucks out your body heat’ should be an archetype Abyssals can handle and do ghostly things with. Not by any means necessarily the same charms from the preview, and yeah 100% the Hamster and his sex pest buddy shouldn’t be involved, but it would be nice to see that style of Abyssal handled more interestingly than 2e’s “titmonsters” (thanks for that word, Archonex). I definitely agree. Abyssals should be able to opt to heavily lean into that aesthetic as well. It's part of the appeal. It's just Holden and Morke reaaaallly did not approach the issue of it well at all. I mean, contrast that preview with the Daeva clan book which has several pages getting into making sure everyone is comfortable before they get down to the issue of sex in a game. One goes "Hey, here's some rape ghosts y'all!" with barely no preamble and the other goes in depth to make sure that players at the table aren't squicked out by the topic before getting into the powers and other related content. Also, now I really want to post the art and description of that titty monster charm. It's hilarious in how ridiculous it is. It's definitely NWS though so whatever.
Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Dec 12, 2019 |
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Dec 12, 2019 06:06
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Dawgstar posted:Yeah, it's worth a playthrough (or watch one) to see some of the characters but you can't really... do much. I remember doing my absolute best to remain polite and cordial to the Sheriff the first time out and even then I still got 'they are a problem' which was irritating. It also felt weird to win over a Gangrel with, mostly, the Power of Friendship. I mean, this is common for vampires in the OWOD. Look at any politician who listens intently to someone talking and then spouts out some pre-rehearsed outrage or concern that's separate from the behavior of the person they're talking too and you've got an idea of how the more manipulative and dickish vampires operate. The older ones cover it up with the whole "How dare you talk to me that way Also, the game may have a bug with the ending? That seems to be confusing people and making them think it's shorter than it is. People are saying the game stops at night 17 and doesn't continue due to an issue that appears to be a bug with the menu's disappearing. Meanwhile other people are insisting there's more. Though maybe they're trolling. Also, the devs are promising more stories after release. So maybe they're going to continue the story? Nessus posted:Yeah I literally can't stand the idea of trying to play 3E because I know for a drat fact that I would spend more time creating the character sheet than playing the game, given the attrition rate of online campaigns. It doesn't help that if you have Shards a lot of 2e's notable issues are perfectly fixable/fixed as of the last ever 2e release and errata release. Abyssals in particular end up not being awful to play due to resonance getting a much needed overhaul that makes it more about being a badass death and undeath aspected Exalted murder deity given human form and not at all about "Crawling in my skin!" game play crippling suffering on the part of the Abyssal Exalt. Ditto for if you know when to ignore Holden and Morke's "fixes" to the original content via errata. They did as much damage as they did fix things. Which is ironic, since it was how they got people so hyped for a 3e edition. Archonex fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Dec 12, 2019 |
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Dec 12, 2019 17:13
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Dawgstar posted:Somebody was asking for confirmation for this a while back: gently caress yes. This is actually a really fun show to watch. There's been a whole bunch of spin offs from other groups (Including at least one from the guy who plays Victor.) trying to pick up on the popularity of it but they don't have that professional look that helps sell it as more than just a bunch of badly done streams by super nerds. The Penny Arcade one in particular is atrocious in its production values. This is despite Jason Carl also being the GM for that one and doing his damnedest to try and make it work in spite of the lovely mics making it a pain to listen too and the PA folks being...Well, the PA folks.
Archonex fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 19:22
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Also, there's some sort of ARG mixed in with a charity drive involving VTM, the games out/coming out, and LA by Night going on at the moment. It features Outstar, Eva's actress and probably that Tender ARG from what i'm seeing in chat. https://www.twitch.tv/outstar Think that's the link though I may be wrong. Apparently there's going to be some character lore dropped there too if that's your bag. Edit: Also, they're talking about doing a play through of the new VTM game. So who loving knows at the moment. Archonex fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 20:15
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Mors Rattus posted:I refuse to believe loving Penny Arcade can’t afford good hardware. Have you listened to it? If you haven't go check out episode one and then compare it to LA by Night. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2smsDmVfco It's depressing because someone in the comments says it's because they want to appear authentic and indie when loving lol it's PA. The guys that made kept making transphobic comments and jokes and doubled down on them until people started bailing on their convention (Only to keep going with their lives as if it wasn't a huge loss in profit.) are about as far from that as you can get. Edit: Oh god, I forgot how lovely the audio on the intro was. Archonex fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 20:51
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xanthan posted:And thus my interest in going to read Penny Arcade again died a miserable death, replaced by being happy I fell off of it a long time ago and never bothered to play much of the video games. Definitely gonna checkout LA By Night, but there any good purely audio ones I could put on my phone? Technically they all are okay for audio. Really, LA by Night seems like it would be the worst for a purely audio listen in that regard since it has a lot of physical acting involved at times. While it would work you'd probably miss out on a fair bit of the charm if you did only listen to the audio. I haven't seen much of it yet, but if you don't mind the usual sound quality issues outside of LA by Night and a really harsh cold open (We're talking, it starts literally in the middle of a hunt or something. You'll have no idea what's going on for most of the first episode.) i've heard that the Long Beach by Night one is pretty good. It's run by the guy that plays Victor in LA by Night, has appearances from at least one other cast member from it, (Eva) and the general cast seems far more likable than the PA guys. Just be aware that i'm really not kidding on it being a harsh cold opening. Even the comments on youtube for the first episode are riddled with "Wait, where's the previous episode?" and "Did I miss an episode?". Archonex fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 23:36
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Dawgstar posted:That really does just plop you out there with nary a by your leave. I mean, it's fine, but very jarring. Yeah, and from some of the comments and such it seems like they regretted that decision. So at least they're not plowing ahead with it and eventually sorted things out. Regardless, i'd recommend it over the PA one. The only thing the PA one seems to have going for it is Jason Carl in a less roleplay heavy setting. Which means he's able to let his hair down a heck of a lot more. Unfortunately that also means a lot of the charm that brought a lot of people into LA by Night is kind of not there since like someone said one part of the appeal of it was seeing how characters like Annabelle reacted to the situation they were in. Also, now that i've had some time to think about it I think there were two or three at most more games I saw on youtube and twitter over the summer. But they weren't in any way official. There were also a couple of earlier runs of games up on youtube that were largely audio only around when LaBN was in season 1-2. Pretty sure they're around still and posting but obviously they're just random enthusiasts playing the game and putting their stories online after seeing how successful LAbN was. Edit: Twitch probably has more games going than youtube has since that's where they seem to be initially streamed. So keep that in mind. Other than that, I guess either check twitter with a tag like "bynight" or "vamily" and see what pops up. Or see if someone else on here knows of any.
Archonex fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Dec 15, 2019 |
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Dec 15, 2019 00:08
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Loomer posted:One of the last stories in Dark Destiny 3. Choc is correct, by the way: Santa is Odin and he kills vampires for Yule for sport. That's about as great as "Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter and inadvertent founder of Task Force VALKYRIE.". By the way, that's an actual thing in the NWoD. Archonex fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Dec 18, 2019 |
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Dec 18, 2019 12:01
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Everyone posted:It's both. Players inclined to do so can use/abuse various game ability to do all kinds of horrible poo poo. "Charm Person" from AD&D can be used to facilitate rape. But there's a difference between a player choosing to use an ability to do something evil and a game requiring something that's just evil. I feel like this bit of magic should technically be offset by everyone wanting to loving murder you for doing it. It's like the Tremere hypothesis of downsides posted earlier in this thread. You want to be one of the most potentially overpowered clans? Great! You get an endless number of enemies that hate you just for what you are or what your ancestors did to them in the past, a bunch of homicidal douchebags in your hierarchy that want to keep you as their de-facto slave for eternity (or in 5e, multiple hierarchies that will want to kill you for not being part of them), and have to deal with normal vampire bullshit on top of everything else. Like another poster said way back in the thread. You want to be a Tremere? The GM's response should be to let them be a Tremere. Then have the karma come hard and fast. Also, given that Innsmouth is a thing that's only slightly worse than what some depictions of the place have been like in HP Lovecraft's mythos. Dude was a skeevy turbo-bigot if you go back to read about him.
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Dec 20, 2019 12:50
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Joe Slowboat posted:General HPL note: There was definitely a lot of sexual peril in some of Lovecraft's works. Just in a way that was socially acceptable for the era and was more focused on his super bigoted beliefs. Dude was hard up on miscegenation being the downfall of society among a whole variety of other things. People adding in the sexual stuff overtly later on is just a logical result of what happens when you get someone looking at the stories that wasn't prone to screaming at crowds of minorities in a blind rage. Hell, Innsmouth itself represents a good part of this. And if Lovecraft wasn't such a messed up weirdo (Seriously, this is the guy who apocryphally had to periodically be reminded that his anti-Semitic rants weren't okay by his jewish wife.) he probably would have focused more on that. As it is was the guy had a huge rage boner against minorities so that took center stage. Also, Shub-Niggurath (Yes, seriously. That's it's name.) says hi to your lack of sexual peril. It's literally a hosed up and altogether nightmarish depiction of a whole bunch of different fertility gods. Basically a demonization of pagan gods mixed with an inferred demonization of the act of procreation itself. Though, again, because Lovecraft was a tremendous weirdo he just kinda skipped over the squicky details whenever it came up in text. neaden posted:The problem with this in a group game is it basically makes the Tremere character the star. They are the most powerful and the plot revolves around them? Not really going to disencentivize a lot of players. Back then, no one said that was the case. The point of it was that if there's a Tremere around they had better all be ready for extra trouble to come at them on top of what they're going to get by default since Tremere have a pretty notable history of being assholes of one variety or another. Keep in mind that other clans have plenty of opportunities for the same thing to happen. Gangrel have to worry about pissing off werewolves given their preferred haunts, Nosferatu have to worry about the Nictuku or clan prejudice, Giovanni have to worry about angry Cappadocian remnants or literally anyone ever that died or was hurt by them, etc, etc. It's just potential for more consequences to come up. Edit: Also, I should point out that i'm not saying that a game book talking about chaining up ten year old naked girls to die of exposure and starvation is okay. It's very much not okay. I'm just pointing out that there's some really awful poo poo in the history of Lovecraftian literature and it didn't just come out of nowhere. Also, that using that ritual in any sort of sane setting ought to mark you for death by anyone decent in it since holy poo poo you just chained up a ten year old girl and brutally murdered her. Archonex fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Dec 20, 2019 |
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Dec 20, 2019 17:13
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Everyone posted:
Yeah okay gently caress that. Who would even think that'd be a good premise for a game? Archonex fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Dec 20, 2019 |
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Dec 20, 2019 18:26
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Oberst posted:Edit: also hunger dice are one of the best mechanics in any vampire game. Its awesome to have blood levels matter instead of being a mana pool Like a lot of the changes V5 is praised for, i'm pretty sure that's also cribbed from Requiem as an optional rule. 1e had optional rules for a whole lot of stuff. I might be misremembering it but a heck of a lot of other stuff is pretty similar to Requiem in v5 now too so .Shame too. With V5 acting as the elephant in the room as far as Vampire goes it makes me wonder if we're ever going to get more novels or in character books like in 1e. Stuff like the Chicago novels and anything with Frances Black was pretty fantastic to read. The novels by Greg Stolze in particular were fantastic and could probably stand on their own if they had been written independent of VtR. Archonex fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Jan 31, 2020 |
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Jan 31, 2020 20:05
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Slimnoid posted:WoD was made, as many others have pointed out, from the (mostly) very narrow viewpoint of hetero white men coming from a middle-class background. They might've been considered "woke" for the 90s, but so was Joss Whedon, and both have aged like milk. Their attempts at progressiveness were made with what they knew at the time, but it's still coming from a confined understanding of race relations, gender, and non-conformity/alienation. The final product ended up coming from that viewpoint and lived experience, and it really shows. I don't really believe that the mistakes made at the time were done in ignorance. Rather, it was a lack of curiosity about being fully-informed on the matter, combined with a kind of casual arrogance that comes from being so self-assured in your own idea of progressiveness. Thing is, the old white wolf guys at least acknowledged when they hosed up. The gypsy book and a bunch of the other cultural pastiche stuff got quietly retconned out of the line over time. The guys that did V5 were straight up signalling with nazi code words, ran a LARP where Sweddracula straight up thought it was okay to be a bit rapey with their rules, and generally were just unapologetic shitheads that only started dancing around what they represented when people started calling them out. Hell, they couldn't even apologize for a lot of the poo poo they did, doing that weaselly "Well i'm sorry you're offended." crap along with similar wording. There's a difference between "Oops, we hosed up! Let's fix this for all of you." and "Haha gently caress you libtard cuck *Writes in a dice roll that is secretly a nazi code word in a scenario dealing with immigrants in a shady way, hires on alt righters known to harass LGBT minorities, and then starts an international incident out of sheer bigotry.*". It's like comparing getting a hair in your soup to someone dropping trow and deliberately spewing diarrhea into it to piss you off. I'd argue that the OWoD of pre-V5 fame wouldn't be written at all today since the people behind it would have a bit more self awareness and generally didn't seem like raging douche bags behind the scene. Instead we would have gotten a more metaplotty VtR or something like it. Archonex fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 15:34
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Badactura posted:I always thought Beast was trying to get to the kind of space Vampire is in where the monster is unequivocally bad by human moral standards, but serve as interesting dramatic characters or investigate ideas about how maybe human moral standards are bad, man. I think it was Dave that mentioned that the original idea behind Beast was literally Dragon: The ______ or something like that. It seems like the idea behind it changed a bit from it's original concept to what we got. Which is kind of sad since going with the original idea would have been interesting and could have fit as one of the many nods to OWoD and Exalted that the CofD has. And that's before you factor in the potential tie ins to Mage. Unfortunately, Beast also infringes way too much on Vampire's narrative themes and is damned near impossible to work into a game without either making someone uncomfortable, defaulting to adding them in as an antagonist since by far and large they're assholes, or in the case of some of the more esoteric stuff Beast brings up requiring one heck of a specialized game due to the nature of it being things most splats would never encounter. The latter of which (Despite seemingly ticking Dave Brookshaw off. Sorry dude.) I still have an issue with. Like, the stuff about the Dark Mother's dimension and all the stuff outside a lair in the supernal is neat and all. But since only a few beings can even reach the supernal it doesn't really mean it's usable in most games you're going to encounter. Stuff like the Underworld and the Hedge/Arcadia are at least easy to work in since literally just about anywhere can lead to them. But the Supernal is pretty much the realm of OP super-entities and slightly less powerful wizards for the most part. So how the heck am I supposed to work the players into reaching this place outside of a game where everyone is a Beast? That being said, I really did enjoy it as a lore blurb. Especially in fleshing out what the Dark Mother possibly is in the CofD. The idea that the Supernal has all these little sections and locales full of entities is rad as gently caress and if there was a splat (outside of Mage) that let you play some sort of inter-dimensional Sliders-esque game i'd be down for that. Edit: I should also add that at least Vampire presents the characters as a hell of a lot more sympathetic. They're trapped in a state where they're liable to mentally degrade into a feral monster if they do monstrous or inhuman things. A fact that was even more obvious in 1e. Of course that would be entirely avoidable since outside of figuring out how to get a handle on their new instincts vampires aren't driven to kill...Except most vampires are also trapped in the whims of a society that invariably tries to push you into being a monster in one way or another. At least most younger vampires realize they've been handed a poo poo deal and end up losing a fight that's personally and culturally stacked against them. Beast's are often portrayed as just straight up self righteous jackasses in the original work. Heck, some of the stuff that got posted here basically comes off as abusers_justifications.txt. Archonex fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 02:40
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Also, to go with that above post about the various splats and ecosystems, i'd argue Vampires are more like hunter-gatherer's following the herd. Y'know, pre-agricultural societies and all that. Vampires don't really usually have the sort of pull in the CofD/NWoD to get cities built. Rather, they just follow the efforts of humans that set up population centers. Heck, even some of the terminology veers into this. Pre-agricultural societies supposedly had to deal with other tribes and villages raiding them for livestock or to take their hunting grounds. It was a bigger problem than war, in fact. And one of the big things that represents currency and conflict among vampires is their herd or feeding grounds. There's some pretty big parallels there. And given how lovely life for people was back then it's probably no surprise that the lives of vampires suck a bit more because of it. Note that this is probably a good thing. Vampires that decided to advance to a post-agriculture world would probably need to mass harvest humans. Or in less dystopian futures either rely on synthetic blood or that plant in the Woundgate alternate setting that can be ground up/milked/whatever to create a blood substitute that only the undead can safely drink. Ironically, I think the only time something like that was really touched on in the NWoD/CofD was during the 1e London stories/lore. If I recall it right I think it was supposed to be a plot point that the leadership of London was mass harvesting humans to farm them to survive...Something? Possibly the Strix coming back to kill every vampire in the area they could find. So basically they accomplished advancing beyond hunter-gatherer subsistence and politicking by being greedy assholes and then promptly lost any benefit it could have achieved also by being greedy assholes. Basically the results you'd typically expect from the older and more powerful vampires in the setting. Archonex fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 03:13
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Joe Slowboat posted:Uuuuh Archonex, do you mean the ASTRAL rather than the Supernal? Because the Dark Mother stuff in Beast books takes place in the Temenos, the human astral realm, and the Anima Mundi, the world-soul astral realm. Neither are the Supernal, they're just parts of the mental plane. The Temenos is where human thoughts and concepts live, and the Anima Mundi is where the world dreams. The Supernal is far beyond both of those. I don't have the book in my hands any more so I don't remember which it is precisely. Regardless, when I read it I tried to think of a way to get people into it and outside of Mages (Who can technically bullshit their way into just about any other area of reality with enough effort or incentive.) I couldn't think of many wide ranging splats that'd cover reliable access to it outside of Beasts themselves. And yeah, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the rear end in a top hat abuse elementals are monster poseurs. Archonex fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 03:27
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Froghammer posted:Vampires at least have no bones about who and what they are, and the slow descent from trying to hang onto your humanity as it slips through your fingers to deciding that it's no longer worth it is, like, the whole point of the game. It getting harder and harder to ethically obtain the things you need to survive (blood, money, a place to sleep, influence over other vampires) while getting easier and easier to just start taking them as Blood Potency rises and cool vampire powers get unlocked defines that game's narrative. It's also hypothetically feasible that a vampire can be a decent person that doesn't actively gently caress up the lives of people around them. A lot of what makes vampires in the WoD such toxic assholes is A: They have no loving clue how to handle their instincts and new needs when they're new and B: The process of doing that will almost certainly get them sucked into the shittiness that is whatever power structures are present unless they live out in the boonies or something. It's not likely, but if they're separated from the FYGM (give me yours too) culture of vampire society and all the petty evil bullshit the older ones do it's possible they could turn out alright. The problem is that that wouldn't make for a good story or game. So you'd never really see it happen outside of fiction blurbs. Hilariously, despite the OWoD being a hell of a lot more punishing in terms of enjoying things (Pretty sure 2e NWoD vampires can taste food and have sex among other things from what I recall.) that humans do Annabelle in the LA by Night series is probably a good example of a decent vampire. She feeds by consent (Something other vampires think is weird. To give an idea of how hosed their "upbringing" was.) and generally is depicted as a decent person sucked into a lovely situation despite everyone else around her actively alternating between trying to corrupt her or being in awe of her basic capacity for empathy and logic. With Beast being good is literally anathema to your nature. Like someone else said, the only way I could see it working is if you were doing a nicer take on the Scarecrow Ministry and focus on terrorizing people away from dangerous areas or people. Heck, even the Scarecrow Ministry comes out ahead of Beast's in their default format. Since the Scarecrow Ministry is implied to commonly try to scare the poo poo out of people specifically because they don't want them to get dragged off to a magical nightmare world to be violated and tortured into becoming like them. Edit: Back when the early drafts had excerpts posted on here a Beast's end game was literally "You get consumed by your beast." or "Congrats! You're an awful monster! But you feel good about it now because you're stronger than everyone else you're likely to meet." or just "Hey, you're dead/cut free of your Beast while your Beast is loose to gently caress over everyone else. Congrats!". I remember ranting about how loving stupid it was since it was the logic that lead to the Wicked Dead book in VtR having an excerpt on why some of the alternate types of vampires in that book shouldn't be considered for a long or serious game. Namely because in case of things like the horrifying parasite that infests people you're playing what are explicitly doomed characters with no happy ending. The happy ending is that you loving die before it takes you over and infests or hurts everyone around you. And that typically isn't fun for your average person that isn't a massive sadist. Pretty sure better endings to a Beast's arc were introduced later on. But the fact that those were the logical end games back then really says where the game was going. Archonex fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 19:57
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Rapist: The Punishing sounds like the Black Dog take on parodying it. So it's pretty much perfect.
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Feb 13, 2020 20:39
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CottonWolf posted:Feeding by consent is pretty stupid when your entire society is based around hiding your existence from humanity (for extremely good reasons). Which makes it hilarious that it works. Literally the first person that gets revealed as her feeding from is like "Yeah okay if it'll help.". Turns out that most people aren't sociopathic dickheads! This character is then killed to protect the masquerade, to Annabelle's horror. Boron_the_Moron posted:I wonder how a NWoD Neonate would get along with Changelings. Feels like there'd be some common ground there in terms of the nature of their transformations, and their reluctance to be the monsters that their masters made them into. There's a few times where this is brought up in the 1e books. Turns out that so long as the vampires don't try to sell out the Changelings or get addicted to their blood they get along pretty well. Hell, one of the generic takes on the Vampire splat literally is just "Oh, they have to drink blood and have a whole bunch of weird biological traits? And i'm supposed to be scared of them?" by a leechfinger. There's also one misunderstanding I recall reading where some people look at blood drinking and vampiric changelings and assume that vampires are just Changelings in denial or something. Basically taking two similarities and assuming that a similarity equals the same thing so who gives a gently caress. Then again there's just as many Changelings that look at the ones that enslave people with their blood and think it's time to bust out the contracts that control fire. So it's doubtful something like a vampire in the Lancaea, Invictus, and maybe the nastier religions in the Circle of the Crone would get along with them. None of them are big on freedom or letting someone with literally magic blood get away. Though they'd cloak in their own faction based bullshit. Archonex fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Feb 14, 2020 |
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Feb 14, 2020 01:11
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:They're "people" in the way that the factory workers exploited by the factory are still workers. They're a human soul hijacked by an enormous Exploitation Monster, and now the question is "how long do i maintain a cohesive personality before i give up and glut myself at the expense of others?" The Strix are just explotation monsters without the pretense of moral justification. There's nothing saying this is true. The Strix are probably some form of demon-spirit-hybrid thing. It's also likely that at least some vampires have absolutely nothing to do with the Strix. In 1e there were a number of potential groups that'd fit with this. Hell, one of VII's potential origins is that they're humans that made a pact with an entirely different sort of demon to become vampires. Mind you, the Strix's earlier motivations are described as being jealous of the Kindred. Not that they're just rampant exploitation monsters. Vampires can experiences all the bodily pleasures of the world without having to deal with the whole "Everyone I hijack turns into a rotting corpse or gets broken down from my insane chaotic evil hedonism" issue. They also hate the way that vampires are still human because they literally can only pretend at it. This gets to the point that even a humanity 1 vampire is too human for them. Of course, when you factor in the fact that a humanity 0 vampire usually isn't going to be able to enjoy all those things (Since it's all hunt-feed-kill-sleep at that level.) it puts that jealousy in even further perspective. The hate they have for them is at least partially the hate that someone has when they envy someone else's blessings. It might be more accurate to say that they're demons of vice, shadow, and envy. In fact, the supposed origin myths that involve Strix from the vampire end of things all seem to involve envy in some way. If you really believe that the Julii were made by the Strix (And there's evidence against this too.) then they were literally created due to envy from Romulus getting to found the roman empire while Remus was left in the dust. Likewise, the Daeva origin story involving Uruk literally has a vampire getting created (And has direct references to Prometheans, oddly enough.) because of envy over love and the spite of someone else not getting to enjoy it. Heck, if I could dig up the old RPGnet forum where the writers of the Clan books chimed in and people pieced the original and finished story together one mentioned that his ideas got waylaid into something else. That thread made a pretty convincing case that the creation of the Ventrue (and the destruction of the Julii) may have also been the result of envy. And yet again, the Strix show up as antagonists there as well. Likewise, the example Strix in 2e don't all fit your profile of them being rampant exploitation monsters. Edit: I should also add that given 1e's nods to Exalted and the OWoD that the Strix are very similar to the Nemissaries. The only difference is that the Strix get way more of a detailed write up than the Nemissaries ever got so there's more room to fill things out. Nissin Cup Nudist posted:At least one Vamp had to have done a Batman at some point This is literally what some Nosferatu do, yeah. Also, the 1e Chicago book had a communist Nosferatu Robin Hood that'd take from the rich (In the novels he's even shown raiding the house of a drug dealer to rob him.) to try and inspire the people to rise up. It probably wasn't intentional but given that Chicago is thought to be one of the inspirations for Gotham... Archonex fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 01:47
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Digital Osmosis posted:Only tangentially related but it really bugs me that in Vampire the Requiem Theban Sorcery requires high Humanity and Cruac requires low Humanity. I know Humanity isn't exactly a morality meter but uh, it's pretty loving close to one. It's really easy, maybe even intended then, to read in that the Lancea et Sanctum is a "good" faction and the Circle of the Crone a "bad" faction. I guess I get why, fictionally, Cruac requires low humanity - it draws on The Beast - but I don't get why Theban Sorcery demands you stay softhearted. Both factions are generally presented as assholes, hell the Lancea's whole ideology is "be as terrifying a monster as you can because God" and yet advancing their special super secret blood magic makes that hard to do. I could see a strong case for ANY blood magic being limited by Humanity, but not one flavor over another. This is because Theban Sorcery is really just pagan sorcery they stole from another culture on a severe downturn around the time when they were trying to get the power and justification to tear down the Camarilla. 1e went into this quite a bit. There's a section in...I forget which book, really. Maybe ancient mythologies? Anyways, it goes into how there's a bunch of ancient Egyptian vampires coming out of torpor. The example character join the Circle since he was a priest or something back in his era but finds that he just can't perform blood magic with the same skill that he used too. The reason turns out to be that it's because he's one of the original practitioners of Theban Sorcery before it got hijacked by the Lancea et Sanctum to justify their claims that they were chosen by god. The Lancea et Sanctum are also implied to be less than thrilled that all these vampires from the days of old are waking up with a potential laundry list of their crimes and why they're a bunch of frauds hidden away in their memory addled heads. In this case, being less than thrilled means that they will straight up loving murder anyone that figures out that they're a bunch of phonies. Be it being one of those vampires or anyone chancing across ancient texts that name them as being thieves that literally lied their way to power. Sadly I don't think 2e ever really addressed this plot line again. Which is a shame. Because the Lance are right up there with Beast's in the whole self justifying abuser issue. PHIZ KALIFA posted:uhhhh actually i think you'll find that the strix are the friends we ate along the way Cool story bro. 
Archonex fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 02:17
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Oberst posted:No you see the literal walking corpse that drains the life force of others is the good guy and getting a yes absolves them of monstrosity So what, in this hypothetical scenario there is literally no way a vampire can be a good guy? Because simple logic says you're wrong. [quote] Warthur posted:The problem vampires have isn't so much consent as it is informed consent. Withhold the information about what you need it for, and the consent is instantly questionable at best when it's given and much more likely to be withheld. There's a reason why the Masquerade exists. Outside of the obvious benefits to the older vampires and keeping it secret creates narrative tension in that an actual way to help their condition becomes dangerous. Kurieg had it right in that consent is pretty much necessary for vampires to have a life that isn't plagued with fighting off rear end in a top hat gangster vampires wanting to run a racket on you or dealing with starving and murdering people by accident. It's why Annabelle gets so much awe from other vampires in LA by Night. And it's why there's really a game to begin with. I mean, are you saying that there's no hope for people treating them decently? Because i've got bad news for you. People give up far worse things than a bit of blood for friends and loved ones all the time. poo poo, my neighbor donated a kidney to her dying father when she was twenty and he was so old he probably wasn't going to get use it for more than a few years. With her health issues she probably shaved a good twenty years off of her life and made a good number of the ones she has left pretty miserable. Speaking personally, if someone came up to me and demonstrated that yes they do in fact need blood to live i'd not consider it an issue to give a bit of blood if it meant someone not dying. Why? Because i'm not a sociopath for one. And secondly i've seen people do far better than that. You underestimate your average person's sense of decency and altruism. Also, this ignores that what you're saying happens in a game where the Masquerade is going. Cheiron is mentioned to harvest vampires not just for their parts but also for their blood. Theres's a little blurb somewhere in one of the books that mentions that one of their inventions is a little red pill that's a combat stimulant. I think it's mentioned that it's being as being given to armed service members overseas without them knowing what they're being forced to take. Which cannot go wrong at all. Nor will it ever make more vampires, larvae, or revenants. No siree. At least in a post Masquerade world that sort of thing stands a chance of being regulated out of existence. Archonex fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 02:51
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Digital Osmosis posted:See this is neat, and makes sense, and furthers the theme of "pagan-ish or catholic-ish, all vampire religions are loving horrifying." Still it doesn't answer the question of Humanity - why would one branch of pagan blood sorcery fail if you tell a little white lie and another fail if you don't murder anyone who mildly inconveniences you? They wouldn't fail off of something so simple. From what I remember the failure point for either form of blood magic is above or below 5 humanity for Cruac or Theban Sorcery, respectively. Also, they would only fail if you were a tremendously powerful user of that type of blood magic since from what I recall Cruac effectively requires you to cap your humanity out at 5 to be able to use 5 dot spells and Theban Sorcery requires at least 5 humanity to use 5 dot level spells. If I got the math on that wrong someone feel free to correct me. What's more, you can "opt out" of Cruac or Theban Sorcery the same way you can opt out of those caps or minimums on your humanity by saying you just want to lose access to the highest dot you'd lose if you went past that cap. IE: A practitioner of Cruac could say they want to lose access to Cruac 5 in exchange for getting their humanity back to 6. Given the time it takes to get to 5 dots and that 5 humanity is (in 1e, at least) considered to be one of the better stable ratings of humanity for vampires that are okay with homicide/the culture they got forced into this means that anyone that can't use one or the other is either trying to work their way back to their humanity or is on the slow slide to losing it. As for the in character reasons? Cruac pretty clearly appears to be tapping into the beast as a source of power. So it makes sense that the more power you want to draw out of it the more it's going to require you to give up your humanity. It's all about impulses and desires. Even some of the suggested flavor for spells plays into this. For instance, a dance that'd invoke lust or something like it is mentioned as requiring a vampire to literally dance until they collapse sweating on the ground. In a way, it's all about giving yourself over to something in exchange for a result. Coincidentally, vampires really don't want to give themselves over to their impulses since that tends to lead to bad things for the people around them. (As a somewhat unrelated side note, in several areas it's suggested that Cruac also seems to be a way to work around the restriction on vampires not being able to use essence. Meaning Cruac is potentially a way to interact with spirits and ghosts on top of being full of all sorts of fun things like divination, curses, the ability to create horrifying monsters, and associated body horror. Keep in mind that many members of the Circle also have no idea what the heck things are like outside of the living world too. So in the case of anything to do with spirits they're kind of playing with fire. It kind of puts their tribulation equals creation mentality in a less intelligent and somewhat accidentally suicidal light. Also, hilariously enough, in 1e one of the ultimate abilities a practitioner of Cruac is mentioned as being able to learn straight up temporarily replicates a bunch of high resonance effects from the Abyssal Exalted as mentioned in the "What if the Abyssal Exalted weren't cursed by the Neverborn" write up in Shards too. The Circle considers it as a sort of temporary ascension to godhood. So, uh, yeah. They're not exactly screwing around with safe things. Even if some individual cults can theoretically be more nature, peace and humanity loving and less "gently caress yeah monstrosity is great let's eat people!".) Theban Sorcery is described as an intellectual, will refining, and scholastic exercise that requires study and more than a bit of devotion to the craft. Or to put it in another way, it requires things that require interfacing with the human part of a vampire. Since the Beast is all about vampiric impulses and needs and not things like "thinking", "socializing", or "not ripping your best friend's throat out in a fit of mad hunger" going too low in humanity would logically start to remove access to it bit by bit. Alternatively, maybe it's really just ancient Egyptian sorcery from some presumably benevolent unknown entity that wanted vampires not to devolve into slavering monsters. Only then it got hijacked by a bunch of proto-Dominionist's that decided to use it as part of their justification to wipe out other religions. Along with a justification for why they should get to abuse and terrorize humans into worshiping their preferred god.
Archonex fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 03:05
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I Am Just a Box posted:You were so close Missed this before but this is like the NWoD version of Yes, Yes, Yes, NO.
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Feb 18, 2020 04:41
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Digital Osmosis posted:I was being extremely hyperbolic, Archonex. I did remember that "most vampires stabilize at Humanity 5" would allow an average vampire to use the most powerful of either of the blood sorceries, and I think that does ameliorate some of my complaining in practice, but I guess I'm still bitching about things in theory. My fundamental issue is just that Humanity is pretty close to a "goodness meter," or like one of those lightside / darkside meters from the KoToR games, and that gives a weird tinge to the whole thing in a way that implies "THIS violent and terrifying vampire religion's secret blood magic is the good secret blood magic, but THAT violent and terrifying vampire religion's secret blood magic is the bad secret blood magic." Eh, i'd say that humanity isn't really a karma meter so much as it is an assessment of how much control you've ceded to the Beast. The Beast is evil because it's a rabid douchebag. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the humanity meter qualifies as a meter for goodness. If you really want to push your luck you can get started on some pretty awful poo poo around humanity 6, which is a humanity level that some actual murderers and criminals come in at. It's more like a meter ticking down until you go batshit insane and someone needs to quickly write and enact the script of 'Old Yeller 2: This Time it's Vampires'. This is especially true in 1e, where a vampire starts getting more and more visibly mentally unstable, corpse like, and more prone to losing control of themselves as they get lower on the humanity scale. It's only really above 7 that the meters start getting overtly "good" in increasingly ridiculous ways. Saying it's directly a karma meter is like playing a zombie apocalypse style game and putting a karma meter on anyone that gets bitten. It's more a case that they're losing to whatever infection is plaguing them. Only, in that metaphor they can actually regain control if they can be snapped out of the downward spiral instead of turning at the worst possible moment and biting someone's throat out. Not that vampire society is inclined to do that for others, but yeah. Likewise, a Kindred at 5 could technically be a good guy. Albeit in that edgy 90's anti hero sort of way that's entirely fitting to VtM. They're not actively murderous, and would probably go out of their way to avoid murdering someone if they could. But they would if they had too. Really, I think the real issue with the Pagan/Christian bad/good divide is that vampires are explicitly said to have no loving clue what they're doing. A member of the Circle could practice Cruac without being a monster (And the fact that there's a fair number of downright heroic cults in the books is proof of this.) while staying at a steady 5 or above (Really, any vampire can get at least 3 levels of Cruac and stay at the default "human" level of humanity.) and a Lancea et Sanctum vampire could be a monster that only barely qualifies as righteous while having access to the strongest levels of Theban Sorcery available. But the ignorance of how they and their magic works makes sure that people that practice Cruac are more likely to degenerate since they're capped out at 5 if they want to push their capability of Cruac to 5 dots. While the hosed up ideology of the Lance means that those vampires are more likely to only meet the bare minimum standard of using Theban Sorcery at it's max while having free reign to occasionally do all sorts of awful things. Ignorance gets a lot of people turned into vampires in the canon, and ignorance also plays at least a small part in turning them into monsters. It's a plot point that the vampires don't have the rule books in front of them after all. Likewise, none of the splats really have a detailed idea of what's up with themselves or how they work. Or even regularly communicate between cities for that matter. Like the discussion veered too a few pages back all the communities of supernaturals are metaphorically a bunch of primitives huddled around a fire, afraid of the night. This is especially true of vampires, which have to deal with essentially being undead hunter gatherers since there's no effective alternative to eating people outside of possible AU alternative sources in certain books. Edit: I'm probably going to say something controversial with this, but I really think it this is part of why the derangement system works so well for vampires. If you want to play vampirism as an infection (And keep in mind that zombie movie classics like Night of the Living Dead were inspired by I Am Legend --- a book about a vampire apocalypse. Which itself was inspired by some really old vampire myths. So it's not like there isn't some precedent for that.) then it's all too easy to play it as whatever consciousness is controlling the body is coming unhinged at the seams bit by bit as the vampirism starts to mentally take over. I mean, it's all but implied at some points that vampires are actually more the blood than the body they're puppeteering around like they're in some sort of bio-punk occult horror setting. Hell, some clans and bloodlines in 1e and 2e (like the Pijavica or whatever they're called. Along with that bloodline that can literally grow an heir to act as a backup body to transfer into if their current one dies. Seriously, you could substitute that with tech instead of vampires and you'd have a cyberpunk mainstay.) literally weaponize this to great and often horrifying effect. I know it made some people uncomfortable since people in real life can't just cure themselves of life long mental conditions by changing the way they act. But outside of hunters or a prelude chronicle you're literally not dealing with normal humans. You're allowed to stretch the rules a bit when you're talking about a bunch of blood powered walking corpses desperately trying to hold onto their humanity. Archonex fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 06:43
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I Am Just a Box posted:And yet this is all the more reason not to do it through derangements, which are clearly modeled after normal human mental conditions. Why would a consciousness buckling under the alien will of the Blood manifest as Inferiority Complex or Vocalization or Schizophrenia? Some of them weren't human mental illnesses though. Wasn't Sanguinary Animism a thing? Or did I misremember that as being part of the NWoD and not the OWoD? I'm not sure that vocalization qualifies as a real mental illness too. A derangement that causes you to spout off your innermost thoughts at precisely the most inopportune or dangerous moment is more a tool of narrative fuckery than it is a legitimate mental illness of any sort. Especially when you consider the sort of thoughts that a vampire in this setting is likely to have. Having the entire hall be serious grimdark politics only for the clearly evil vampire that looks like he came straight out of the mirror universe suddenly start a villainous monologue about how he's going to betray everyone and take over the city never gets old. It's also not exactly anything you'd expect to see in real life. Unless you're some sort of super villain in which case I tip my hat to you and ask that you don't turn your death ray towards my house. Inferiority complex and the like really don't fit though. I'll agree that the derangements system kind of hosed up in that it just threw everything at the wall and didn't take the opportunity to say "Would this fit with vampires." and just went straight with "It's just all the mental illnesses we can think of!" outside of stuff like Sanguinary Animism or the aforementioned vocalization derangement. Archonex fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 08:27
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Warthur posted:It doesn't require everyone to come to that conclusion - just enough people, with enough power and lack of scruples to exploit it. Good thing we live in an egalitarian society where a disproportionate amount of power has not been accumulated in the hands of billionaires, eh? This is the same logic that says that nothing good that could be abused by bad people should be done ever. It's bullshit nothing matters-ism.
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Feb 18, 2020 10:41
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Vampires, especially in the nWoD, can essentially be understood as victims of a kind of supernatural wound or disease; the appropriate response to vampirism is one based on pathology, not difference. This is pretty much 100% accurate. With the qualifier that the Masquerade is probably 100% necessary to survive in earlier centuries. The way it's depicted compared to the setting means it is ironically just as much as a hold over from earlier, less civilized times as much as the Invictus's "claim to be nobility but also really be gangsters" schtick. As it is it's just fueling the worst excesses of the vampires depicted in the books. Which in turn leads to more hunters with entirely justifiable reasons behind why they want to kill vampires. Which in turn leads to more violence. Which in turn leads to more monsters as poo poo goes awry for the younger ones that are used as cannon fodder to protect the older ones. Etc, etc. Like, imagine if the Masquerade came down during the era of the inquisition. This is actually a plot point that's brought up. It doesn't matter how good you are. Authoritarian power systems love them some genocide and oppressive behavior that they can scapegoat why things are so terrible for the people with. And that's just a notable one that's mentioned in the canon of both the OWoD and NWoD. This is also true today to a certain extent. Imagine if, during the reign of Trump vampires revealed themselves to the world. It doesn't matter if they're ethical, decent people or monsters. Nor would it matter if there's some True Blood type situation going on. The Republicans and Fox News would fear monger so hard we'd have them in concentration/outright death camps before your head could spin. Anything to get elected and keep shoveling money to your Timing is everything. Which is why that "What if Carthians were the Camarilla?" segment in one book is so neat. Granted, it's clear they're making the wrong choices in how they do it. But it's definitely a nice warm up for whenever that Shattered Masquerade book comes out. Edit: Also, I almost forgot but even in the base line NWoD there's ways to get literally infinite blood if you have the occult knowledge. Literally any vampire that knows how to access the Underworld can get as much as they want. And the difference between the way they do it (Literally all it requires is to tip your head upwards, hold your mouth open, and wait for a few hours to get all the blood dripping down from on high. Basically, act like a chicken that cannot drown.) and simply putting a bucket out to collect the stuff is just whether or not you have a bucket on hand. Likewise, there's plenty of ways to straight up create blood. I think one poster even mentioned a player in his Mage game was buddying up to a lot of vampires by saying "Yeah, I can heal myself and have infinite blood as a result. Here you go." with the caveat that he was doing it in a pants on head stupid way so he was going to get eaten eventually. It's like saying that something isn't possible when the reality is that the knowledge or technology doesn't exist for it yet. Except it does. And there's even alternate versions of the setting that have straight up alternative things vampires can feed on (They can literally go Vegan by eating a special type of plant, for instance.) in place of blood. Archonex fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Feb 19, 2020 |
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Feb 19, 2020 15:23
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Morpheus posted:Wait really? That's hilarious. Just this super hipster vampire, scarf around the neck and a man bun (no real hate on them, but it's really the stereotypical look). Small glasses, V neck. Fangs. Yeah, I forget what the book name is but google the words NWoD Woundgate and it's in that book. That's the name of an alternate reality/alternate take on the setting where the supernatural is already out to the public in a really unique way. The way I remember it being described is that something happened so that the whole Exarch situation no longer exists (and quite possibly never happened). Instead there's some weird Lovecraftian angels loving around in a wound in reality and what might have been the Hsil/the spirit world changed so that it was colonized by mankind and all the other supernaturals. The people in the default living world don't seem to know about the supernatural. But the people that live on the other side of the barrier are just "Eh. Whatever. I've seen weirder." to the sort of stuff that exists in vanilla NWoD. I think it even gets mentioned that the US government considers both sides of the world that corresponds to their territory as theirs. So despite the Masquerade effectively not existing any more you could get up to all sorts of neat situations with Hunters too like where federals agents gotta go track down the vampire serial killer since he's some "purist" that won't loving stop eating people to death. Or this ghoul/dhampir family won't stop murdering people to feed their blood to the vampire food substitute because they think it makes it taste better so we had better deploy the army to go gently caress them up. It's the sort of setting where you could do an intro to the setting like: "Investigative reporter discovers hole in reality. Realizes there are entire civilizations out there. Then whoops it turns out it's just occult America/insert nation here. Cue adventure." as an intro. In fact, I think it was designed so that you could even add it onto an existing default WoD game if you wanted too. With the caveat that if you don't do it in a certain way it'll make groups like vampires and their society look pretty hilariously dumb or even more corrupt in how insular they are. A good chunk of the setting on the supernatural end is fairly pastoral from what I recall. So you can get up to some real Twin Peaks, Alan Wake, and Deadly Premonition type stuff if you play it as the player's starting as unaware of it's existence. It's also "Wild West" enough in how things are largely unregulated and there's plenty of unique Shatter based civilizations in many areas so that if you want you could have a lot of interesting takes on the people that oppose the way things are set up over there both on the supernatural and hunter end of things. It's been years so i'm almost certainly misremembering some parts of it. But it was legit awesome and I was kind of disappointed when the idea never got revisited in more detail. Edit: Hah. Found the opening to it. Part of the intro text to Woundgate posted:Did you know that dhampirs farm suicide trees? It’s a traditional profession. They tend small orchards: a few acres where the half-dead collect thick blood in clay vessels. Properly prepared, it will slake a vampire’s thirst, though it’s not as satisfying as the real thing. Dhampirs earn a modest fee in denarii from the suicide orchards. Their taxes help keep the Occult Republic of America alive, but earn them few friends; nobody likes a vampire’s lackey. Archonex fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Feb 19, 2020 |
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Feb 19, 2020 15:52
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