General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!

[Lady Serpentine]

I believe the default is if there is no change, use the original.

Which is that it's dependent on Rage rating... But says nothing about what rating to do what damage at. You see the issue?

[SiuiS]

Which is that it's dependent on Rage rating... But says nothing about what rating to do what damage at. You see the issue?

No, I thought you solved that. Lemme see.

Okay, so you can handle damage amount, and don't know if it is bashing, lethal or aggravated? Does Rage go 1-5? if so, I would say make it 1, 3 5 but that's a guess.

[Lady Serpentine]

No, I thought you solved that. Lemme see.

Okay, so you can handle damage amount, and don't know if it is bashing, lethal or aggravated? Does Rage go 1-5? if so, I would say make it 1, 3 5 but that's a guess.

It does, yes. And that sounds reasonable. It's somewhat hard to balance the Elemental Rages against the others, seeing as they don't have the utility abilities like, say, Stillness or Stigmata, but that ought to work as a baseline.

[hiryuu]

Okay, think I got this first contract set pounded out. THis is for the North/White Court.

Spoiler

Show

Contracts of the Northern Star
The Northern Star provides the changeling with the ability to manipulate and evoke cleansing, melancholic emotions in their subject.

That Which Has Been Lost (●)
With this Contract, the changeling touches a subject on the shoulder and attempts to discover something that has been left behind, something that the subject either wishes to cleanse from themselves, forgetting it, or get back. This could be homesickness, a treasured item, a person, or even a particular emotion or sight.
Prerequisites: None
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Wyrd + Empathy + Mantle (North) - victim's Resolve
Action: Instant
Catch: What the person has lost is within sight of the subject.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The changeling
Failure: The changeling cannot determine the subject's past.
Success: The changeling sees an event or item the character left behind in their past. It could be something they miss, but it could be something they don't care about anymore; in either case, the changeling understands that, as well.
Exceptional Success: The changeling also gains insight into what made the person leave their past behind them.

learning to Let Go (●●)
Part of the Court of Purity is in releasing people from their past burdens, making the soil new for growth to begin again. This clause helps the changeling suppress emotional ties to people and objects for a time, however briefly, allowing one to act free of it, or even experience a brief moment without it weighing upon them. This clause can be dangerous when invoked, so it is used somewhat sparingly, but it is simultaneously a great boon.
Prerequisites: Mantle (North) (●) or Court Goodwill (North) (●●●)
Cost: 2 Glamour
Dice Pool: Wyrd + Empathy + Mantle (North) - victim's Composure
Action: Extended (threshold equal to the subject's Willpower)
Catch: The changeling is helping the subject forget emotional ties to the changeling.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The changeling makes the memory stronger, and experiences it with the victim. The changeling is worse off, and immediately acquires a temporary derangement that lasts a scene.
Failure: The changeling cannot help the subject, and must begin again.
Success: Progress is made. When enough successes are accrued, the changeling grants the subject the ability to re-roll a failed degeneration roll made in the previous scene, potentially preventing loss of Clarity or Morality. This clause can also be used to suppress a derangement acquired from a loss of Clarity or Morality for a scene, if it is too late to reconcile the past completely. It cannot suppress Frailties gained from Clarity loss.
Exceptional Success: The changeling also grants a +1 bonus on the new roll.

becoming Unclouded (●●●)
With this clause, the White Courtier burns away his past entirely, effectively becoming a new person for a short time, seeing the world with a new perspective, whether good or ill. This new perspective lets the changeling see a problem from an entirely new angle.
Prerequisites: Mantle (North) (●●) or Court Goodwill (North) (●●●●)
Cost: 2 Glamour
Dice Pool: Wyrd + Expression
Action: Instant
Catch: The changeling is away from the company of friends or anyone who can help him remember who he is.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The changeling becomes so mired in herself that she sits down on the spot and reflects on her past, overcome with grief over what she has lost.
Failure: Nothing happens; the changeling cannot put himself out of his old mindset.
Success: This clause allows the changeling to roll again for any mental roll that does not allow multiple tries, and may allow the changeling to completely forget a slight or other personal peeve that is currently bothering her; this clause instantly counteracts magic that is affecting the changeling's emotions. In the meantime, the changeling has selective amnesia; he does not know what sort of physical or social skills he might possess, and can only make new rolls for mental skills made earlier in the scene.
Exceptional Success: The changeling can apply a -2 penalty to one of his mental skills to acquire a +2 bonus to any other mental skill for the rest of the scene.

Dredging Up Pain (●●●●)
The past is painful; that's one of the reasons it's often left behind. This clause allows the changeling to draw up a painful memory, forcing a victim to relive the incident or become obsessed by it.
Prerequisites: Mantle (North) (●●●) or Court Goodwill (North) (●●●●●)
Cost: 3 Glamour
Dice Pool: Wyrd + Empathy + Mantle (North) - victim's Composure
Action: Extended (threshold equal to the subject's Willpower)
Catch: The changeling is holding a diary or other such record of the subject's past and presents it to the air, holding it up over their head.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The changeling suffers a flash of her own experiences in Arcadia and hears the voice of her own Keeper, and suffers an immediate Clarity roll (roll three dice).
Failure: The changeling can't find anything she can amplify or afflict on the target.
Success: The changeling amplifies one of the subject's past painful memories; the changeling has no control over which memory is dredged up unless he knows the specific memory he wants to bring up. The target immediately begins suffering from a severe derangement. Changelings afflicted by this clause tend to either flee or stand in place, shivering, but will fight back if touched or moved, as they experience their durance once again. Using this clause on changelings can potentially cause Clarity loss..
Exceptional Success: The changeling gets a sense of what the memory they have dredged up happens to be, seeing in play out before them as their victim interacts with it.

The Past Catches Up (●●●●●)
With this clause, the past becomes a real and tangible thing, or else fading into obscurity, allowing the changeling to eliminate it utterly or make it catch up to their victim, confronting them directly. This clause cannot be used unless the changeling knows the person or object they wish to scour or to call up.
Prerequisites: Mantle (North) (●●●●)
Cost: 2 Glamour + 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Wyrd + Expression + Mantle (North) – Victim's Resolve
Action: Extended (threshold equal to twice the subject's Willpower)
Catch: The changeling is using this clause on a willing subject to scour the past.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: One of the changeling's own pasts comes catching up to them just as if they were the subject. Note that the Keeper is in the changeling's past.
Failure: The changeling fails to make progress toward the goal.
Success: Progress is made. When enough successes are accrued, the changeling must touch their target with a coup stick and whisper a clue to the subject as to what's happening. Within the next day, an item or person that the subject has left behind in their past and severed all ties to comes catching up. They run across the item at a garage sale, the person rolls into town, the FBI discovers clues that implicate them in a crime they've committed, and so on. If the changeling wishes to scour a past, the subject loses all contact with the item or person or event. The FBI loses information, the item is lost or stolen, the person leaves town or the subject loses phone numbers and e-mail addresses. The subject can recover the item with an extended Wits + Investigation roll, with a threshold equal to the changeling's successes, and an interval of one day.
Exceptional Success: The changeling also knows precisely when and where the person or item will be when the subject encounters it.

[JAnderson789]

I don't like the new rules because they aren't really World of Darkness anymore. Sure, they share the same brand name, but this is really a new game being made by a completely different creative team who seem to have a rather obvious and snobbish distaste for the predecessor game.

The rules are... well, they sort of defeat the point of a storytelling game by being really, really complex in comparison to nWoD's elegant simplicity. More rules just mean more ways to game the system, and the new rules are just copied from FATE (e.g. Conditions) and Call of Cthulhu (e.g. Integrity). Combat has actually been separated into two rolls now, something the nWoD was created specifically to avoid and which people applauded the designers for, and now they're applauded for adding another roll (Mirrors handled this much more elegantly by adding a soak rating). The various defenses for the rule changes are either "it is not meant to be realistic" or "it is so meant to be realistic," which I find silly: make up your minds, please?

The fluff takes a fiction placed in the corebook for atmosphere and then blows it up to the point where it takes over the plot of rest of the series. It kicks out the original game's gothic horror in favor of cosmic horror, which I feel is an overdone and boring genre unless it's being used for comedy (let's see how fast we can kill off our PCs!) or as the backdrop of a more interesting fantasy or scifi setting rather than the driving plot (Game of Thrones' White Walkers). The "mythos" sounds to me too much like Cthulhu-lite, all the games will presumably be shoehorned into this mold of Great Old Ones (e.g. Strix, Idigam, Exarches) and Sanity (e.g. Integrity, the new Humanity) regardless of whether it makes thematic sense, and the "angels" are the kinds of things that would be rejected from the SCP wiki.

[hiryuu]

What's that fluff? This is nWoD, where you're modular and don't have to be used? Why thank you, I didn't notice that before, what with it having an entire chapter devoted to explaining that and then mentioning it in a sidebar on practically every page.

For what it's worth, the God-Machine flavor doesn't really speak to me much, either. Even so, it's cool to mine for ideas. My next nWoD game won't even have Vampires, mages, or werewolves in the world - everything is going to just be changelings with mistaken identities or at the very least connected to the Hedge and the Wyrd. A Darkling Leechfinger with a sunlight frailty or a Farwalker Ogre with a frailty that exposes his true mien under the moonlight are easy to lump into other categories. Also dumping the steampunky-faux-Brit atmosphere in favor of a more "dreams that never came to pass" retro American future.

Combat is still only one roll. Defense subtracts dice, armor subtracts successes. That's it.

Honestly, the morality mechanic is a welcome change: morality didn't actually do anything except make it easier to do bad things.

[Morty]

Combat can become two rolls if the defender dodges - then Defence is doubled and rolled as a pool against the attacker's attack pool. But yes, it's otherwise one roll, as before.

[SiuiS]

I don't like the new rules because they aren't really World of Darkness anymore. Sure, they share the same brand name, but this is really a new game being made by a completely different creative team who seem to have a rather obvious and snobbish distaste for the predecessor game.

I don't follow. The changes are generally either Cosmetic or represent how they normally play out at tables.

The rules are... well, they sort of defeat the point of a storytelling game by being really, really complex in comparison to nWoD's elegant simplicity. More rules just mean more ways to game the system, and the new rules are just copied from FATE (e.g. Conditions) and Call of Cthulhu (e.g. Integrity). Combat has actually been separated into two rolls now, something the nWoD was created specifically to avoid and which people applauded the designers for, and now they're applauded for adding another roll (Mirrors handled this much more elegantly by adding a soak rating). The various defenses for the rule changes are either "it is not meant to be realistic" or "it is so meant to be realistic," which I find silly: make up your minds, please?

Again, cosmetic. The rules aren't complex, they are comprehensive. The system plays out identically. Conditions give you incentive to RP your negative status, but that's it. Doors give you a solid framework for what the difficulty of forcing a social situation is, and that's it. The difficulty is still just resolve+composure.

The fluff takes a fiction placed in the corebook for atmosphere and then blows it up to the point where it takes over the plot of rest of the series. It kicks out the original game's gothic horror in favor of cosmic horror, which I feel is an overdone and boring genre unless it's being used for comedy (let's see how fast we can kill off our PCs!) or as the backdrop of a more interesting fantasy or scifi setting rather than the driving plot (Game of Thrones' White Walkers). The "mythos" sounds to me too much like Cthulhu-lite, all the games will presumably be shoehorned into this mold of Great Old Ones (e.g. Strix, Idigam, Exarches) and Sanity (e.g. Integrity, the new Humanity) regardless of whether it makes thematic sense, and the "angels" are the kinds of things that would be rejected from the SCP wiki.

Yeah, the god machine stuff is weird, but apparently people asked for it. A lot.

As for idigam, Exarchs... They are already covered and already have the same noneuclidian, reality ignoring feel. And the planned Mage book – if they get that far – sounds like it won't involve Exarchs.

Combat is still only one roll. Defense subtracts dice, armor subtracts successes. That's it.

Honestly, the morality mechanic is a welcome change: morality didn't actually do anything except make it easier to do bad things.

You can opt for a counter roll, but that mechanic is deism fed to let you do things with the roll; dodging is kinda bland, dodging as getting a fighting counter is more interesting. It is weird though, draws attention to combat.

Morality... Eh. As an intended method of evoking gothic horror, it failed. The original system was designed to balance you out on a knife's edge at 5 or so, so you were always in danger of snapping. But instead of making degeneration a natural thing, they made it look like falling from 7 was bad. There was not only no incentive, there was active disincentive. Morality was a terrible failure of a mechanic.

Then, trow on top of that how people felt icky associating mental imbalances with being immoral (instead of thinking it only went one way, and immoral people were potentially crazy) and you have a perfect storm of misunderstanding.

[MugaSofer]

I don't follow. The changes are generally either Cosmetic or represent how they normally play out at tables.



Again, cosmetic. The rules aren't complex, they are comprehensive. The system plays out identically. Conditions give you incentive to RP your negative status, but that's it. Doors give you a solid framework for what the difficulty of forcing a social situation is, and that's it. The difficulty is still just resolve+composure.

To be fair, there does seem to be more to keep track of now, and the comprehensiveness could give a (false) impression that it's inflexible and supposed to cover every eventuality.

Morality... Eh. As an intended method of evoking gothic horror, it failed. The original system was designed to balance you out on a knife's edge at 5 or so, so you were always in danger of snapping. But instead of making degeneration a natural thing, they made it look like falling from 7 was bad. There was not only no incentive, there was active disincentive. Morality was a terrible failure of a mechanic.

Then, trow on top of that how people felt icky associating mental imbalances with being immoral (instead of thinking it only went one way, and immoral people were potentially crazy) and you have a perfect storm of misunderstanding.

Gotta say, I never had those problems myself, but judging by the internet plenty of people did. OTOH, if they were going to use Sanity from Mirrors, they should have kept it as it was, IMHO.

I don't like the new rules because they aren't really World of Darkness anymore. Sure, they share the same brand name, but this is really a new game being made by a completely different creative team who seem to have a rather obvious and snobbish distaste for the predecessor game.

Well, this is the New WOD, so there's a certain precedent ... but yeah, this should probably have been a proper new edition, it's one in all but name.

The rules are... well, they sort of defeat the point of a storytelling game by being really, really complex in comparison to nWoD's elegant simplicity. More rules just mean more ways to game the system, and the new rules are just copied from FATE (e.g. Conditions) and Call of Cthulhu (e.g. Integrity).

Actually, Integrity is copied from Mirrors. Can't speak for Conditions.

There does seem to be more complexity, though, you've got a point there.

The fluff takes a fiction placed in the corebook for atmosphere and then blows it up to the point where it takes over the plot of rest of the series. It kicks out the original game's gothic horror in favor of cosmic horror, which I feel is an overdone and boring genre unless it's being used for comedy (let's see how fast we can kill off our PCs!) or as the backdrop of a more interesting fantasy or scifi setting rather than the driving plot (Game of Thrones' White Walkers).

I usually find cosmic horror pretty dull, but for some reason the GM really clicked with me - each to his own, I guess.

The "mythos" sounds to me too much like Cthulhu-lite, all the games will presumably be shoehorned into this mold of Great Old Ones (e.g. Strix, Idigam, Exarches) and Sanity (e.g. Integrity, the new Humanity) regardless of whether it makes thematic sense, and the "angels" are the kinds of things that would be rejected from the SCP wiki.

Actually, the new humanity is called "humanity", mate. And ... Strix don't sound very cosmic, from what I've heard.

[Leliel]

I usually find cosmic horror pretty dull, but for some reason the GM really clicked with me - each to his own, I guess.

Maybe because it ain't actually cosmic horror, though it is Lovecraftian: You can fight the Machine and come out ahead, just don't expect to get through unscathed. See "The Evil Clergyman" for that (man fights off possession by, uh, an evil priest, but the ghost was able to reshape his body into his old appearance before he was exorcised).

Actually, the new humanity is called "humanity", mate. And ... Strix don't sound very cosmic, from what I've heard.

JAnderson has a point when he says that B&S Humanity is infinitely different from Original Humanity: Here, it's a measure of your ability to pretend (to yourself, especially) that you're human-fake it till you make it, with the caveat you're not expected to be able to fake it forever. Lower you are, the more and more you act like a supernatural, utterly amoral apex predator, which ironically means you also become more humble and merciful; wolves don't care about being better than the sheep or prolonging their pain, they just gotta eat.

Strix is something I am 110% in agreement with you, though: Not only are they all too understandable villains (alien is not the same as incomprehensible in modern parlance), they aren't even the main focus of a game involving them. As usual, it's other vampires you have to be wary of.

From the sound of it, Kindred at large regard them as a massive nuisance more than anything, and a source of fool's deals. Unfortunately, there is a lot of fools in the world.

[SiuiS]

To be fair, there does seem to be more to keep track of now, and the comprehensiveness could give a (false) impression that it's inflexible and supposed to cover every eventuality.

Ah, that's a concise way of putting it. I can see that.

Gotta say, I never had those problems myself, but judging by the internet plenty of people did. OTOH, if they were going to use Sanity from Mirrors, they should have kept it as it was, IMHO.

Me either, but my experience is rather narrow. I can understand the problem academically, I just don't agree it is a problem.

Well, this is the New WOD, so there's a certain precedent ... but yeah, this should probably have been a proper new edition, it's one in all but name.

I'm actually on CCP's side here. Developers wanted a new edition, parent company shot it down. GMC is portable and modular. If it were a new update they would be competing with themselves.

[JAnderson789]

JAnderson has a point when he says that B&S Humanity is infinitely different from Original Humanity: Here, it's a measure of your ability to pretend (to yourself, especially) that you're human-fake it till you make it, with the caveat you're not expected to be able to fake it forever. Lower you are, the more and more you act like a supernatural, utterly amoral apex predator, which ironically means you also become more humble and merciful; wolves don't care about being better than the sheep or prolonging their pain, they just gotta eat.

The Humanity system isn't really that different in practice. It's still an odd sliding scale where characters go through being compassionate, to being callous, then sadistic and childish, and finally animalistic. Except now you lose humanity whenever you do things that would be physically impossible for a human being (surviving a bullet to the brain, walking underwater without holding your breath, seeing everything you love grow old and die while you remain young), as well as things that a human being could actually experience (reading your own obituary if you fake your death, joining a secret society).

The "difference" the developers try to emphasize is that vampires aren't humans suffering from a curse, but demon parasites pretending to be people. At that point I just stopped reading, because the reason I play the game is because of the moral conflict, and I don't like being told my character is delusional for being compassionate. And, I'm not kidding here, someone actually compared becoming a blood-sucking monster to getting a sex change (the lead developer is a transexual and didn't speak out against this clearly offensive statement).

Let's just state the obvious: I'm getting a lot of Mage Revised vibes, except with much less death threats. Just like Jess Henig and Justin Achilli before them, the new creative team thinks they can "revise" the World of Darkness and that their vision is clearly superior to the old. This time, somewhat hypocritically, they state they still support the classic world of darkness mostly unchanged from its original incarnation (and actually retconned out the revised editions), but all new world of darkness titles produced after the change will be based off GMC.

I can't wait until we get New World of Darkness 20th Anniversary Editions, which will be promoted as "a return to the themes and moods of the original editions that were sadly neglected by the revised editions." Based on past experiences, I genuinely believe Onyx Path will release that in ten or so years, around the same time they're releasing the 3rd edition of new World of Darkness which will ditch the cosmic horror of GMC in favor of whatever short fiction the fans have been clamoring to be explored that time. Or they'll release a third total reboot of the brand that aims to wipe away all the accumulated cruft of nWoD in favor of re-examining the original themes or whatever they're trying to accomplish this time.

"Those who do not learn from history-" Oh screw it, I think I've made my point. It's only a matter of time before World of Darkness has a retro-clone renaissance because people have become sick of constantly changing editions.

[Leliel]

And I'm getting a lot.of words that don't make sense to me.

I'm on a smartphone right now, so I'll keep this short: you apparently want Masquerade, when the rest of us already have V20. Requiem's failures came from also wanting to be Masquerade.

And frankly, the fiction was also written with the "demonic predator pretending to humanity" view in mind. And Humanity isn't good. See: Lancea Sanctum.

[SiuiS]

Let's just state the obvious: I'm getting a lot of Mage Revised vibes, except with much less death threats. Just like Jess Henig and Justin Achilli before them, the new creative team thinks they can "revise" the World of Darkness and that their vision is clearly superior to the old. This time, somewhat hypocritically, they state they still support the classic world of darkness mostly unchanged from its original incarnation (and actually retconned out the revised editions), but all new world of darkness titles produced after the change will be based off GMC.

Ignoring fluff issues, this is a good thing; the rules are much tighter and don't need the weight of "we always played it this way" to function. GMC is pretty solid game rules. To the point of being easily extrapolated to a universal system.

[Sith_Happens]

So how's the whole "actually testing those rules" thing coming along?

[SiuiS]

So how's the whole "actually testing those rules" thing coming along?

Slowly. The first thin we discovered is that breaking points are hard; everyone can come up with a net story or tale, but most people hit a stumble when trying to make a specific breaking point out of it unless they focus on the breaking point rather than the question you are, ostensibly, supposed to answer.

We are otherwise in te opening scene, investigating and gettin the whole party in on the situation despite their different occupations.

[Lady Serpentine]

Slowly. The first thin we discovered is that breaking points are hard; everyone can come up with a net story or tale, but most people hit a stumble when trying to make a specific breaking point out of it unless they focus on the breaking point rather than the question you are, ostensibly, supposed to answer.

To be fair, some of that was just that we were unfamiliar with the system. I, at least, wasn't sure exactly how much of the information generated by each question was supposed to be included, for instance. I'm sure that next time, it'll go a fair bit more smoothly.

While on that subject, breaking points can actually end up influencing the setting. Unless you plan on vetoing things, it's probably best to be prepared to revise the area based on them.

We also discovered that supernatural merits tend to be popular if they're allowed, but whether that's just an artifact from the fact that they're stuff a lot of the players want to test and it was recommended we take stuff we wanted to test, or a general thing, we don't know.

[SiuiS]

I think that's selection. Tell people "we will all be psychic government investigators" as you shouldn't be surprised when everyone rolls up a psychic government investigator. I picked Mind of a Madman because its less psychic and more tortured detective.

[Lady Serpentine]

I think that's selection. Tell people "we will all be psychic government investigators" as you shouldn't be surprised when everyone rolls up a psychic government investigator. I picked Mind of a Madman because its less psychic and more tortured detective.

And I picked Umbrakinesis because it seemed appropriate for a fetch and wanted to test it. So yes, probably selection bias, but something to think about just in case.

Of course, I probably should have considered that if Morgan ever does end up actually getting fetch powers, she won't be able to do that anymore, which makes it kind of foolish for her to have any kind of supernatural abilities...

[Delusion]

The "difference" the developers try to emphasize is that vampires aren't humans suffering from a curse, but demon parasites pretending to be people. At that point I just stopped reading, because the reason I play the game is because of the moral conflict, and I don't like being told my character is delusional for being compassionate. And, I'm not kidding here, someone actually compared becoming a blood-sucking monster to getting a sex change (the lead developer is a transexual and didn't speak out against this clearly offensive statement).

WHAT?!?
Was that just random forum comment atleast or was it a real game developer?

[MugaSofer]

The Humanity system isn't really that different in practice. It's still an odd sliding scale where characters go through being compassionate, to being callous, then sadistic and childish, and finally animalistic. Except now you lose humanity whenever you do things that would be physically impossible for a human being (surviving a bullet to the brain, walking underwater without holding your breath, seeing everything you love grow old and die while you remain young), as well as things that a human being could actually experience (reading your own obituary if you fake your death, joining a secret society).

I *think* that's because they're trying to emphasis how it's anything that distances you from, well, humanity is a Humanity check. So those are all just possible examples. It does come off as a bit unfocused, though.

The "difference" the developers try to emphasize is that vampires aren't humans suffering from a curse, but demon parasites pretending to be people. At that point I just stopped reading, because the reason I play the game is because of the moral conflict, and I don't like being told my character is delusional for being compassionate.

It's possible I'm a fan of both Buffy and the original folklore, so I didn't notice that.

But yeah, Vampires have always been the most inherently villainous of the major splats, so a bit of refluffing is probably in order.

And, I'm not kidding here, someone actually compared becoming a blood-sucking monster to getting a sex change (the lead developer is a transexual and didn't speak out against this clearly offensive statement).

It's impossible to know without seeing the original quote, but I can see how that might be.

In many places, you have to spend time presenting as the gender in question in order to get reassignment surgery or even, sometimes, hormones. And there's always going to be an element of that with socialised stuff that operates on an "instinctive" level.

Any chance you could pull the actual text, though?

history repeating itself.

You know, I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

[hiryuu]

Speaking of God-Machine, I made Condition cards!

Hooray!

And I have made this boss map of the Hedge in Atomic City.

Warning it is freakin' huge.

Spoiler

Show

[Morty]

I do love the condition cards with pictures.

[Leliel]

New news on the Demon front.

Apparently, people who go to Origins can find part of a riddle that, when solved, will reveal the rest of the title.

Also shows how demons think. They do seem to be interested in symbolism and patterns, but only to the extent they can be directly used.

[Morty]

I wonder: would you allow a character to take both the Dodge action and the Aim action in melee combat? Either in the GMC rules or the basic rules. At first I wondered if you could take the Aim action in melee at all, but at least in the GMC there doesn't seem to be anything preventing you from that.

[Mewtarthio]

Also shows how demons think. They do seem to be interested in symbolism and patterns, but only to the extent they can be directly used.

Also, extreme paranoia. Then again, it's not really paranoia if the universe itself is out to get you...

[SiuiS]

I wonder: would you allow a character to take both the Dodge action and the Aim action in melee combat? Either in the GMC rules or the basic rules. At first I wondered if you could take the Aim action in melee at all, but at least in the GMC there doesn't seem to be anything preventing you from that.

No. Both mechanically, and for verisimilitude. Aim is not just checking where you're gonna shoot, it's stilling your breath, getting adrenaline under control, sighting down the barrel, starting to lead the target and timing your shot.

You don't do that while dodging pyramid head's massive cleaver with a dodge roll unless you've got the merit for it.

Also, extreme paranoia. Then again, it's not really paranoia if the universe itself is out to get you...

Not true. The old saying "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you" also means "just because they are out to get you, doesn't mean you aren't paranoid".

[Morty]

No. Both mechanically, and for verisimilitude. Aim is not just checking where you're gonna shoot, it's stilling your breath, getting adrenaline under control, sighting down the barrel, starting to lead the target and timing your shot.

You don't do that while dodging pyramid head's massive cleaver with a dodge roll unless you've got the merit for it.

That's a fair way of looking at it. Besides, mechanically speaking, both dodging and aiming make you forgo your attack in exchange for a benefit; if you both dodge and aim, you get two benefits for the price of one.

All in all, aiming in melee is probably not worth it.

[MugaSofer]

If you've got time to stand around carefully lining up your blow against a Melee opponent, they presumably can't attack you - maybe you sneaked up on them, maybe they're incapacitated. In that case, a bonus seems reasonable - but in that case, there are already the Killing Blow rules, right?

I can't really think of a situation where you'd be Aiming in melee - maybe if you're invulnerable and can ignore their attacks? Or if they're actually too incompetent to hit you, perhaps because you drugged 'em?

[Leliel]

Also, extreme paranoia. Then again, it's not really paranoia if the universe itself is out to get you...

Mage: *pops out of bunker* "Ahem." *pops back in to avoid lighting strike*