Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Goku's one of the Bound and King Kai is his Geist.

e: not sure if he's actually a Sin-Eater though. also Beerus is an Exarch and Frieza is a Seer and one of his Pylons

Launch is a Demon, which explains why she can switch Covers, is one of the only DB characters ever to fight with a gun, and was able to retroactively conceal all trace of herself ever existing

e2: Piccolo is a Changeling, and King Piccolo was his Keeper

the Androids are Prometheans (obviously) and Cell was a Centimanus

Chiaotzu is a Vampire. Tien is a Deviant created by Master Shen, and Krillin is some weird non-splat Horror whose defining trait is having no nose.

Mr. Satan is a Hunter, and Buu is a high-ranking spirit who was tainted by the Maeljin but got better (possibly an Idigam considering his progression from formless trickster -> Kid Buu)

and as for woof, well:

https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/King_Furry

e3: and finally, Yamcha is a Mummy, because they find him in the desert and he gets weaker with every passing episode

That Old Tree posted:

Here is a post pointing to Dave Brookshaw's Mage APs on RPGnet, with some commentary.

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.

Octavo posted:

I voted for Mummy (even though I usually run Mage: the Awakening and play Vampire: the Requiem) since it's the game that got me to jump over from classic WoD. It's definitely a mess, but I have played it and it's fun. If I were to give a pitch for Mummy, it would be that it's about the horror of specifically middle management in eldritch stage capitalism. Your millennia-spanning self has a cult to serve you, judges that you serve, and you get summoned back from the Underworld to do the bidding of both.

It plays like inverse D&D. You the immortal lich are usually awakened by pesky adventurers breaking into your tomb, setting off your traps, stealing your treasure, and killing your henchmen. Then you go after them!

One great way to play the game is to have one or two players be the mummies and have everyone else be the obsequious cultists.

The best books for the line are Sothis Ascends (historical settings), Book of the Deceived (truly horrifying antagonists), and Malcolm Sheppard's phenomenal bit of mythcrafting, Dreams of Avarice.

I Am Just a Box posted:

Short version:

• It went in a thematically confused, detail-cluttered game with a focus around rising from death and falling dead again but little advice on how to fit that focus into a party of multiple player characters, and it came out a thematically confused, detail-cluttered game with a focus on etc.
  
• It doesn't do the whole Mummy 1E "Storyteller's Wall" thing of hiding setting information from both players and readers who haven't bought whatever future supplements hide future revelations. This is a good change for sure but doesn't make up for the game's various other weaknesses.
  
• It feels a lot like a game built by and for CofD lore nerds rather than game thematics. There's an expansion on what the Duat is like and what dwells there, including shades (seemingly some aspect or cast-off of departed souls awaiting judgment?) and fiends (demonic beings that live in constant pain and exist to lash out and pain others). This is neat but really not that immediately relevant. There's an associated lesser template like how Changeling had the new Fae-Touched and Geist had playable ghosts, and this time it's Immortals. Not immortals in general, but the specific types of immortal from World of Darkness: Immortals, like Blood Bathers and Body Thieves. The new central conceit is that when a mummy dies in one time and then rises in another time, the process doesn't obey linear time, so you can from your perspective die in World War II and wake up next in 700 BCE. Except it's not really central at all, and not particularly integrated into all the stuff that was already there.
  
• It's even more cluttered than before, actually. I've noticed nothing of note that has been dropped, despite some concepts being kept and constantly referenced without actually being defined or explained this time (the sahu). The above Immortals don't get their own appendix like in other 2e cores, but get fit into the middle of the Storytelling System rules chapter, right next to the other preexisting supporting-cast mummy template (sadikh) and the new supporting-cast character type (invested mortals and sorcerers). Amkhata, Mummy's preexisting unique ephemeral entities, are introduced and fully explained before the section on how ephemeral entities work. Fiends are another type of ephemeral entity, but their rules don't come until two chapters later, under Creating Timeless Tales. There are rules for what happens to a character between full Descents, and they're really fiddly and drawn out and I can't imagine using them at the table without grinding everything to a halt. There's little rhyme or reason as to what concept is described or explained where.
  
• The preview manuscript had shifting target number magic, but it was received poorly and the developer actually said he's going to take that out and replace it with Werewolf 2e's Advanced Actions for blessings and a negative counterpart for curses. So I guess that's nice.
  

quote:

Matt McFarland, AKA Black Hat Matt, was a freelance writer for White Wolf, and later Onyx Path Publishing. He and Rose created Demon the Descent in 2014 and it was incredibly well received. After Demon was released Matt pitched his idea for Beast: the Primordial, the elevator pitch is "You're a person with the soul of an ancient monster, like a dragon, or a gorgon." and given his tenure on Demon people were pretty optimistic. The Kickstarter draft came out and Beasts were actually incredibly petty, very rapey, did not actually transform into dragons or gorgons, and had very strong coding as LGBTQ/Minorities. They also exude what we have dubbed the "Poochy field" that makes all the other supernaturals love them and ignore their more problematic qualities. This wouldn't be too bad except for their enemies were also rather obviously themed as gamergaters, MRAs, and white supremacists. What made this worse is that Matt straight up compared his detractors to MRAs. After some controversy, OPP released a press release promising that they'd fix the wording in the actual finalized book.

The actual finalized book came out, it had incredibly weak justifications for what Beasts do, and only the most superficial changes. The Storyteller chapter then had sidebars straight up saying that of the things that were changed due to backlash are 'lies' and that Beasts are actually super awesome and justified and everyone loves them for being the awesome woke hell rapists that they are. The subsequent releases for Beast varied in quality depending on the author, raging from people rightly making GBS threads on beasts for not being open with who and what they are, or polishing Beast's knob so hard their lips fell off.

Then in late 2017 during the RPG #MeToo movement, it came out that Matt raped someone roughly 10 years ago. He did not contest the claims, willingly stepped down as a moderator on RPG.net, then RPG.net banned him and OPP Quietly cut ties.
In early 2018 we discovered that Matt and his Wife(who was also the lead editor on Beast) used their positions as a member/the chair of the International Games Development Network to silence assault accusations from events as recent as 2015, meaning that Matt was still sexually assaulting people during beast's development.

The last book he wrote for Beast before he was let go (and probably what he was working on at the time he was let go) includes a faction of Beasts who are compelled against their will to Rape and describes the heroic act of choosing not to rape someone every day, stating that these beasts should be applauded for having the mental fortitude not to rape literally everyone(and it's not their fault if they do).

It is important to note that not everyone who wrote for a Beast product is a terrible person, but that Matt is. And as the lead designer and editor, he and his wife were the only two people who could see the product they were making, and made a decision to leave it as it is. Beast is not a good game, and it does not deserve to be fixed or remade.

Lord_Hambrose posted:

Please include an extensive discussion of why Wraith was the best White Wolf line. (It was!)

Dawgstar posted:

It's a shame all its best books - and they were really good - came at the tail end of the line.

Lord_Hambrose posted:

Oh yeah. It is such a fascinating setting, but starting off dead and things only getting worse is a harder sell than being a cool Werewolf who gets into rowdy fights.

Wr20 is a fantastic product, and it actually really love that all the Guilds now provide secret alternate powers for their members. Some of them existed before, but not everyone even got a book in the old line.

Rand Brittain posted:

Dreaming 20th Anniversary's writers made heroic efforts to turn the gameline around, and honestly succeeded incredibly well. They came up with a take on Banality that's useful (basically, anything that makes you too tired to have fun is banal), reworked the Unseelie Court so that it has a philosophy beyond just being a murderous lunatic, and came up with a system for hsien magic that actually works. On top of all that, the Arts and Realms were reworked into a magic system for Kithain that's good, actually powerful, and makes every Art and Realm worth buying or combining. (I think changelings are now one of the most powerful splats instead of definitely the weakest.)

Unfortunately, Matt McFarland is a very bad developer as well as a rapist, and the book isn't consistent about any of this stuff. The Unseelie have a reasonable philosophy in their discussion section, but all the Unseelie legacies are only fit for murderous lunatics because they're unchanged from the last edition. Some sections still occasionally refer to science as banal because writers who didn't read any of the discussions on the topic didn't get their drafts edited. The king and queen are waiting for a sidhe baby to be born and settle the succession, which is not actually a thing that happens.

Also the Gallain got squeezed into such a tiny section that there's no room to explain what purpose they serve in the game or why you would play one. Honestly, they never actually had a purpose, and they probably should have gotten a full book of their own instead of being crushed into such a tiny space.

That Old Tree posted:

A Somewhat Comprehensive History of Samuel Haight
Even in his first appearance in Valkenburg Foundation, Haight was already edging into "WTF crossover!?!" territory, and it quickly spiraled out of control from there. He resented being just some kinfolk, and he tried to prove himself in various (mortal) ways that didn't pan out. Eventually he was like "gently caress all ya'll, I'm gonna make myself a werewolf" and traveled the world seeking magical knowledge.

This is how he came to find and kill a Tremere and steal his grimoires. Which are apparently enough to teach you some blood magic. So even "base-line" Haight has some powerful evil Fetishes and loving vampire Thaumaturgy.

At the end of his first appearance he successfully uses lupus garou pelts in a ritual to become a werewolf and then…he auto-escapes. This dude who should absolutely be a crazy boss fight uses his super one-of-a-kind fetish to escape, and even if the PC group has the wherewithal to follow him, he escapes even harder.

Unfortunately, his Exit 2: Umbra Boogaloo drives him crazy (crazier?) and traps him in some ancient demon-prison. Fortunately, per Storytellers Handbook to the Sabbat, some crazy vampires just so happen to be trying to summon that demon. Things go awry, but this allows Haight to escape.

Then he shows up in Rage Across the Amazon, where he has already acquired beforehand and off-screen a memory-stealing magical sword. This is because your PCs are supposed to once again play catch-up as he seeks to slay El Dorado, who it turns out is a mage living in "the Dorado Realm" which is exactly like the legend of El Dorado but not also a person. Haight wants to learn Sphere magic. Anyway, as before, your PCs can beat him to Dorado or not, it doesn't matter because this is really the story of how badass Haight is and he struggles with Dorado for a few moments before stabbing him in the heart the end. But wait! Dorado's death weakens the Realm and Wyld spirits are here to gently caress this poo poo up, for some reason. Also the sword isn't wicked awesome enough to contain Dorado's rank coolness, so it explodes. Yet Haight survives:

”haha gently caress you” posted:

There is absolutely no chance that the pack could locate him, even if they tried.

So Haight went to all this trouble to learn Sphere magick and his cool magic sword exploded because it wasn't good enough! Except wait:

”no really gently caress you” posted:

but the fetish has granted Samuel Haight rudimentary knowledge in several Spheres of Power. Haight now understands the ways of the mages and the principles involved in using magick. What he will do with this knowledge remains to be seen in his next adventure…

We're not done yet because he then shows up in Book of Chantries. You see he only has rudimentary knowledge of the Spheres, and he wants more. So he tries to get in good with a chantry detailed in the book, but everyone's like "holy poo poo no get out of here" and so he and his lackey Skin-Dancers (kinfolk turned into werewolves like him, he's trying to start his own tribe) set about slaying. He gets to the World Tree at the center of the chantry and rips it apart, giving him infinite Quintessence for the scene. And, I guess, more knowledge. (!?!?) Finally, he'll be able to surpass his totally rudimentary and weak understanding of the Spheres, which I forgot to say earlier are Arete 4, Correspondence 3, Entropy 3, Forces 3, Life 2, Matter 3, Prime 2, Spirit 4, and they'll stay that way from here on out.

What a poo-head beginner's understanding of Sphere magick! Anyway that piece he tore off the World Tree is now a cool artifact staff that gives him crazy countermagic powers and an enormous amount of Quintessence. Unfortunately he doesn't realize that the staff is unstable, and it will be his undoing.

He shows up in New Orleans by Night to be a source of information as a side-part of the story where the summary says "if the players can convince him not to become a vampire he gives them the information they want" but then in the actual detailed section that gives his crazy stats and everything you just have to emo-ly answer his questions about ~the eternal night~ and he says "gently caress being a vampire. Here's the info you wanted. I'm out!" Whatever.

Finally, he is the centerpiece antagonist of an entire book: The Chaos Factor. He's going to find and devour an antediluvian in Mexico! Like in the adventure featuring him in Rage Across the Amazon, ultimately the PCs get to play audience to the same basic climax no matter what they do. Haight is a dumbass and doesn't know the difference between a methuselah and an antediluvian, but it's still pretty baller that he found Shaitan, which might be the first Ba'ali depending on how you take the bloodline's backstory. No matter what, Shaitan gets the gently caress out of there, though you are given the chance to let some of your PCs get pasted by him if they want to try it. Finally, whether he's loving with Shaitan or the PCs, Haight overuses his World Tree staff and it explodes spectacularly, killing him (and potentially most/all of the PCs!).



But wait! There's more! In Wraith's Book of Legions there's an off-hand mention that he got turned into an ashtray because the soulforgers like to poo poo on people who get too big for their britches. And then, finally-finally-for real, the ashtray is swept into Oblivion by the Final Maelstrom, hitting a mage who happens to be in the Underworld during the novel Judgement Day.

He worked for/with, and betrayed, Pentex and the Black Spiral Dancers at various points in all this.

Oh, and he gave his DNA to an evil corporation to make a clone of himself.

PS All the specific books I mentioned above came out in 1993-1994, except for Book of Legions (1998) and Judgment Day (2004). So even though his first appearance was honestly tame and actually a little compelling and a good story-hook for a normal WtA game, it seems like his entire horeshit "arc" was planned from the very beginning. I love it, and I hate it, but I love it, too. According to Phil Brucato in an interview, Haight was meant to be a joke the entire time.

Mulva posted:

Again, White Wolf is dead. They fired everyone and turned it into an internal brand name. It's not going to develop anything. It's not going to publish anything. All the people involved in the terrible setting ideas are gone, a statement we can make fairly accurately because literally everyone is gone. V5 was the vanity project of one guy at Paradox, and they didn't give a poo poo because they could make back every single dime he spent there by releasing a single video game. Seriously if they made "Europa Universalis but Vampire" I'm pretty sure they could buy out 99% of all active roleplaying game publishers. The only thing that could possibly happen for them to give a poo poo about White Wolf was it causing so much horrific press they were forced to actually acknowledge it existed.

As it turns out it managed that feat with shocking efficiency, so they destroyed it. Utterly. Now a different company will publish Vampire and new people will develop it, and all you really have is a basic system and whatever setting ideas people decide to use moving forward. Whatever V5 would have become if it didn't shoot itself in the dick is over. It's probably effectively V6 at this point, even if they aren't going to rebrand this early. Granted they've gone longer than 1st edition did before moving to 2nd, so hey. Honestly that'd be what I do. Just say gently caress it and new edition it. You can keep the rules, they are neat enough and workable. Take whatever errata input you've gotten, tweak them a little, and just new fluff the thing. Combine it with whatever material you are currently working on and drop it all at once. Core and Clan book and whatever else you have. Blammo, new push to wipe out old mistakes, and you literally never have to mention V5 again. As I brought up, all you have at this point is the Anarch and Cam books, and the most meaningful thing they did is destroy the company that made them, thus making them somewhat irrelevant.

Helical Nightmares posted:

Come on down to the actual play thread. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3743698

There are two really quite good Vampire 5th actual plays.

On is Blood on the Thames a Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition podcast featuring a London coterie of a Malkavian painter, a Tremere, a Gangrel and a Nosferatu.

https://www.twitch.tv/bloodonthethames

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9i3SeRLTMA

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast...1440609602?mt=2


The second is LA by Night, by Geek and Sundry. This focuses on a coterie of Anarchs struggling verses the Camarilla and other threats like the New Inquisition.

https://geekandsundry.com/shows/la-by-night/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vampire-the-masquerade-l-a-by-night/id1468538502

Dawgstar posted:

Speaking of: Here's the video for the Werewolf creative team for the OP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzfAWlJkshE and here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkZZ7Q2Lsvc

quote:

Loomer wrote on Sep 29, 2019 12:56 AM:
The Project is something I've been working on over the last seven years on-and-off, and basically boils down to this: I set out to create a comprehensive list of every supernatural critter in the Old World of Darkness as published. It began with a desire ten years ago to figure out all the vampire NPCs I could use for a game set in the 1920s and grew from there.

It's still a work in progress as of October 2019, but I intend to wrap it up in 2020. At that time, I'll release final or near-final datasets listing the following:
-Every Mage, Vampire, Mummy, Imbued, Demon, Ghoul, Wraith, Werewolf and Fera, Sorceror, Projector, Inquisitor, Spirit, and so forth
-Every corporation owned by the above or linked to them in some way
-Every relevant general note about the world
-Every significant supernatural-linked event through human history
With those will also come write-ups finally answering, once and for all, the question of 'how many vampires are there in <x>', 'how many Garou per human', based on the represented setting, an 'assumed' setting that reconciles the setting as depicted with the setting as actually described, hidden connections between the game lines, and a range of suggested tweaks of ratios and populations for particular use scenarios.

In the meanwhile, if you're curious to see the preliminary statistical analysis and some of the other tidbits:

Demon Demographics:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=466476980

Hunter demographics:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=466602875

Changeling demographics:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=466734030
http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/...s-of-changeling

Mage demographics:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=468725417
http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/...raphics-of-mage

Wraith Demographics:
http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/...aith-demography

Vampire demographics:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=483622528
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=483788243
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=483808205
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=483815168
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=483856878
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=483862170
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=483890570
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=484051248
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=490468052


Garou demographics:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=490314271

Miscellaneous:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3712435&pagenumber=226&perpage=40#post463655072 [Combining Orpheus's endgame with Vampire the Masquerade's 'Masquerade of the Red Death' trilogy]
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=463719758 [Changeling's Apocalypse]
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=463751378 [Miscellaneous line apocalypses]
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=463860942 [Gehenna]
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=464031126 [Apocalypse proper]
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=464328348 [Ascension]
http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-classic-world-of-darkness/mage-the-ascension/1038222-real-people [Real People of the World of Darkness]
http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/...g-image-warning [The World of Corporate Darkness]
http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/...hy-of-concordia [Concordian Vassal Network]

Beefeater1980 posted:

Trip report: tried out CoNY and so far it’s a better-than-usual visual novel that nails the atmosphere. Rolled up a Toreador and so far everyone around me is a pretentious a-hole, 5/5 would luvvie it up again.

Spector29 posted:

I have returned from 1.2 playthoughts of the new game, Coteries of New York. Verdict: It's Not Great.

The writing is fine, but English mistakes abound with comma cruelty, misspellings and missing punctuation. There's some technical stuff that's busted as well, with some first person narration being delivered by other characters as dialogue, or dialogue that should be delivered by other characters presented as narration. Sometimes when using a power the game would increase your Hunger (we're using V5 lore and mechanics, you see), and other times it wouldn't, leaving you as a player very confused at the cost of not just spamming your Disciplines.

[Note: I only played the Ventrue path, so the things mentioned below may not happen exactly like I describe on other paths.]

The Good:

The two (of potentially four) coterie members I focused on were pretty interesting, Hope the Malk and Agathion the Tremere.

If nothing else, I know enough about V5 now that I could jump into a tabletop game and be able to know what's going on both mechanically and in the setting.

The Bad:

Choices - there are none. Not really. Over the long tradition of False Choices in video games, you've had Persona Choices and TellTale Choices; the former giving you three options to respond that all amount to the same thing, the latter giving you a bunch of branching choices that all ends in the same place and situation anyway. CoNY does both. Many, many times you're given choices that only practically serve to give you different pieces of exposition, as barring a couple major signposted moments, you're going to go along with the plot whether you like it or not. Your Companions are a decent example; the game makes a big point that you're going to need allies, and when you complete the four-part series of missions to formally bring them into your crew...they show up once to save you in the finale, then leave and are never spoken of again.

Dropped Threads - I completed two sidequests, one with a vamp getting weird about a Priest's True Faith hurting him, and a stalker Malk who wants to vampire-bang you. I completed both, and...nothing happened. Not even a nod to finishing the questline in the finale.

The Ugly

Bugs - So, at some point on the path, you're asked to infiltrate the Anarchs to arrange a meeting with a smaller Baron in order to take down the big one. You do a quest to gain the Anarch's loyalty and to get them to arrange the meeting, then you get grabbed by the Big Boss's goons and told to knock this whole thing off. Except...well, that whole night just...didn't happen. Skipped over it entirely. The flags got set, and when we meet the goon later we have a reaction like he beat the poo poo out of us, but that didn't at all happen on screen. Thankfully I was able to figure out what happened from context clues, but that completely ejected any building immersion the game was getting with me. But in general the game seems to have a problem with the wrong flags getting set, like in the beginning where the Sheriff says that I mouthed off to him when that literally did not happen. (I checked to see if he was just lying and played through the scene again, and sure enough if you choose to drink from the blood bag and vomit all over yourself because of the Ventrue Bane, your character is too embarrassed to mouth off to him. You could say he made up the lie anyway, but I'm skeptical)

Bane, Schmane - That's another thing that might be very minor, but the game has you vomit up a few feedings before telling you that you have a type. Since this isn't the tabletop game, you don't know what your type is and have to figure it out. This is neat. However, every feeding opportunity after that, your character keeps down fine. Now, this might be because all the feedings happen to incidentally match your type (it's not hard) but it's enough of a challenge that it's a weird coincidence it never bothers you again after the opening.

Rushed Ending - This might be the most route-specific complaint, but the ending was a shitshow. You're kidnapped by the Second inquisition, then broken out, then send to a place, then monologued at for a while as everyone has their motivations laid bare, then you go to another place, a fight breaks out that you can't influence at all, and that's it. You have exactly one impactful choice in that entire scene

Angry Lobster posted:

Welcome to Vampire: the Eternal Struggle (or VTES for short)! VTES is a multi-player collectable card game based on the award-winning Vampire: the Masquerade role playing game in which players take on the role of ancient vampires known as a Methuselahs. Considered mere legend by many, Methuselahs rule everything from the shadows, engaging in a eons-long Machiavellian conflict that encompasses political, social, and even physical warfare. The struggle is won or lost based on the actions taken by your minions – younger vampires who unknowingly do your bidding. In this way, the game can allow for deep and immersive storytelling as your minions purchase equipment, hire retainers, and even suggest legislative changes to vampiric society, all in the service of your dark plots.

The game is currently published by Black Chantry Productions.

VTES was the second card game designed by Richard Garfield (designer of Magic the Gathering, Netrunner, and other games). It was designed to avoid some of the flaws that Garfield found in Magic: VTES does not require you to include resource or mana cards in your deck, and cards are instantly replaced when played, meaning that card draw isn’t as important as knowing when to discard or “cycle away” a card. It also has a gameplay experience more in keeping with a boardgame than a traditional card game – VTES is usually played by 4 or 5 players and games can last up to 2 hours.

Unlike most multi-player games, players in VTES do not engage in a free-for-all. Instead, each player directs their attacks to the player on their left (their “prey”) and defends against the player on their right (their “predator”). You gain victory points by eliminating or “ousting” your prey from the game, in which case the next player to the left becomes your new prey. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game wins (even if they have been ousted!). This arrangement makes the game a very social one – you and the player two seats to the left and right have common enemies. But if you help these allies too much, you may find that you’ve made one of them too strong, and when they suddenly become your new predator, your help has transformed an ally into a deadly threat.

VTES is also a resource management game. Each player begins with 30 points of influence called “pool” that Methuselahs hold dearer than unlife itself. If you run out of pool, you are ousted from the game. But this pool is also the way that you sway vampires to your cause. Weak fledgling vampire are easily seduced, but the older more powerful ones require more convincing, which may require multiple turns to accomplish. Once a vampire is converted to your side, all the pool you spent on them becomes blood possessed by that vampire, which can be spent to play cards that allow them to activate their unique vampiric powers. Each minion must manage their blood and you must manage your pool – spending more provides you with additional minions, but brings you one step closer to being ousted. Under- or over- investing in your minions may well cost you the game.

In short, you are likely to enjoy this game if you enjoy any of following:

-a modern, supernatural setting.
-card games like Magic the Gathering.
-very social multi-player games that involve a lot of deal making.
-games with a long play time, and with complex rules that encourage great strategic depth.

Conversely, you are not likely to enjoy this game if you are opposed to the following:

-games that include player elimination.
-long games with many layers of strategy.
-games that require a group to play.

How do I find people to play with?

There are several ways:

1-Check the list of Princes. these are VEKN volunteers who serve as local tournament organizers. Check to see if one lives near you, and feel free to email them – they should be able to provide you information about whether a local group exists and how to get in contact with them.

2-The Vtes Player Map which shows the location of all players who have registered on it.

3-Check the Event Calendar. It will show you when and where upcoming tournaments are being held around the world.

Online play

If you find that you don’t have a regular play group (or you just need more VTES in your life), you can also play online. There are two main platforms used for online play. Jyhad On-Line (JOL) is a web-based service that is similar to a play-by-post system where players do not have to all be online at the same time, but games take weeks to finish.

The other platform (and the most popular one, by far) used for playing VTES online is LackeyCCG, a program that you need to download and patch for VTES (Instructions).

Resources

-The Vampire Elder Kindred network. The Official V:TES Players' Organization.
-Rulebook
-Amaranth A handy tool for building and sharing your decks. Also available as a mobile app.
- TWD The tournament winning deck archive.

Gerund posted:

Do you want a "Best book list" for Changeling or are you running out of space on that, OP?

AmiYumi posted:

You know, I haven’t seen any discussion at all about CtD 20th. Flipping through the core it looks like an absurdly overpacked monstrosity, seems like they added every supplement or crossover supplement the original ever had to the main book? I can’t even imagine what a mess that must be to try and reference.

Was there any chat here, or just a lack of interest given its origin material?

Loomer posted:

While I appreciate the shoutout in the intro, we could probably do without bombarding new readers with my lengthy rants. I can do a more polished general write-up/abstract of what it's about with links to my relevant posts and OPP threads, if that's agreeable?

MonsieurChoc posted:

I recently read the comic Rachel Rising, and it's the most oWoD thing that doesn't have vampires or werewolves in it.

Mors Rattus posted:

Goku's a monkey.

joylessdivision posted:

You've kinda described my Malkavian SPC I came up with the other day. Hosts a podcast (I might go AM radio, haven't decided) about the paranormal, mixing legit WoD poo poo with fake stuff to keep the listening audience on its toes.

Strange minds think alike.

Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:

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.

Kurieg posted:

Beast also gave us the merit that allows beasts to run a pirate radio/tv station out of the collective unconcious, should they so choose.

Which would be awesome in any other game.

Mulva posted:

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Well, no, the PCs are the Innsmouth people. The antagonists are, like, I guess Obed Marsh himself, and only because he's a domineering rear end in a top hat rather than because of some racist nonsense about hereditary degeneration or interbreeding.

Mulva posted:

Hey dude with a half dozen posts, what would *you* like to talk about?

joylessdivision posted:

You mean you don't want pages upon pages of arguments about Dracula Houdinis and how not at all dumb an idea they are?

Loomer posted:

Houdini is an 11th Generation Tremere living in Chicago, though he likely met his end in the Garou Nation-Camarilla Conflict of 1992.

Jhet posted:

I think it's more an issue of scale for me. I don't have room for 200' of map in each direction, and because of all the various powers, I don't know that I've ever had a combat last more than a few rounds anyway. Maybe Werewolf would be different I don't know, but I normally run mage so any map I would make is immediately not useful because they're going to look at it and immediately compensate for everything on it. Every vampire combat has also been short and sweet due to disciplines too. I guess I just have never seen a reason why it would be necessary past a cool looking luxury thing.

I understand the wargaming aspect of maps and minis, but even with all the combat rules I've never needed it because of the shorter amount of time dedicated to the combat portion of the game.

I ride bikes all day posted:

I feel V5 does a better job of explicitly linking death to the vampiric condition. You can't simply take blood points until your tracker is maxed out - Someone has to die to quiet the Beast completely.

The Unlife Aquatic posted:

Hey, does anyone have a link to that collection of goon bloodlines for VtR? I remember it having some very interesting sea vampires.

Yoshimo posted:

Christ, my head hurts now. So all the pregen stuff for original WtA can't be used with 2e? I can't seem to find info about anything else release for WtA 2e other than the core rulebook, I guess my question is "is there any point in playing 2e?" We don't have the time to make up our own stuff, hence the need for pregen scenarios.