General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

[Morty]

I'm putting together the backstory for a new CtL LARP character, and have a question.

Spoiler: Character

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He's an Elemental with a custom kith. This element is "Code of the Universe," and his kith blessing is "can buy Contract of Animation."

Spoiler: Backstory so far

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When Code was a teenage, he was in an active guild in WoW. Not the kind that pushes for world first, but one that plays regularly and expects its members to keep up. His dream is to become a game developer.

One morning, he woke up and "remembered" seeing an ad for a local company that is looking for beta testers for their new VR hardware. In reality, the "memory" was implanted in this dreams by a True Fae. Code applied and was accepted. When he went to the address to get his hardware and orientation, he actually entered Arcadia. The game (which is really a video game put together by the Keeper) is a cross between WoW and Eve Online. The setting is fantasy, but the events of the game are very player-driven, with the Keeper mostly watching and adding tweaks as it sees fit.

One day, another PC hands Code a piece of paper with symbols on it. When Code looks at the paper, a console comes up in his HUD. Studying closer, Code realizes this is a developer's console, and the symbols are the code to bring it up. With more time, Code figures out the "cheat codes" for the game. Eventually, he learns how to write himself out of the game.

Code wakes up in a hotel room at DragonCon. I put him there for metagame reasons. My wife and I have already written the ST and his business partner (also a player, call them N and C) into the game as NPCs. (The real N and C are professional crafters, and do most of their business at cons. DragonCon is one of the big ones they go to.) I thought it would be amusing if the NPC versions of N and C were the ones who found Code. However, I have to get Code out of the hotel room and to the lobby, where he will be found by N and C.

And recommendations on how Code should react to his return to the world? He didn't pass through the Hedge - just warped from Arcadia to the hotel room. He didn't come through a Hedge Gate. There are no other Changlings around when he wakes up. (C will contact the local freehold after they find Code.)

Seems like it'd take him some time to really accept for certain that he's out of the "game" and back in the real world, honestly. Even if he's mostly sure, there should be some part of him that doubts.

[Anonymouswizard]

You made me laugh out loud, man, since we do have a guy in my group who has True Faith and Humanity 9 and sometimes whines about how hard it is and how superior he is to other vampires because of being an altruist and hating all the factions in the Jyhad because they're all rotten.

I honestly think attaining and keeping Humanity 9 should be a real pain in the arse that constantly gets in the way of the group's goals. Humanity 10 is the same, except you have to make checks if you start whining about it or calling yourself superior. H9 is practically sainthood.

OtoH, I remember True Faith being somewhat tied to Humanity, and that's also something I'd do away with. Faith and morality/humanity are separate beasts, and while True Faith should be incredibly rare (instead to just rare in Dark Ages games, but the Technocracy has stamped it out), although I'd generally allow a Mage to buy it without justification at the cost of a more restrictive Paradigm.


Side note I remember reading Ascension 1e once and noticing that the Traditions had set Focuses for the various Arcana. I'm glad they got rid of that for 2e, choosing your own focuses is one of the most entertaining parts of cheating a Mage. I'm also still not convinced that Forces and Prime were assigned to the correct Traditions, I tend to swap them.

[The Jack]

Humanity 8,9 and 10 are ironically the most selfish things to obtain.

[The Jack]

cWoD Storytellers.

If I had a character who lost most of their legs, but was supernaturally strong, could it be ruled that the character can travel just as fast with their arms?
It's kinda terrifying, potentially a masquerade breach if overdone.
Idea was an amputee in a wheelchair turned vampire, the kinda person who wouldn't let themselves be defeated by such a setback and who ended up with an incredibly fit upper body. They developed potence and have been training themselves to leap and sprint with just their arms.

There was an old pre-made lasombra who used a wheelchair and who I believe used obtenebration to make up for his immobility. I think a garou lacking legs could do a two armed run with glabro or crinos.

On the other hand, having a limp is a signficant flaw even if with strength you could potentially hop really, really fast. But I think being able to circumvent a mobility issue by using arms travel has it's own problems, so balance wise it kinda works.

Thoughts?

[fishyfishyfishy]

cWoD Storytellers.

........

Thoughts?

I would require a Dexterity + Athletics roll every time they attempted something like this. Difficulty would vary based on the feat they were attempting. Just having the strength to accomplish a task doesn't mean that their body is going to be efficient at performing that task. It takes years of training to accomplish certain feats of Athletics that such a thing would resemble. It's more about balancing yourself than raw strength.

[Anonymouswizard]

cWoD Storytellers.

If I had a character who lost most of their legs, but was supernaturally strong, could it be ruled that the character can travel just as fast with their arms?
It's kinda terrifying, potentially a masquerade breach if overdone.
Idea was an amputee in a wheelchair turned vampire, the kinda person who wouldn't let themselves be defeated by such a setback and who ended up with an incredibly fit upper body. They developed potence and have been training themselves to leap and sprint with just their arms.

There was an old pre-made lasombra who used a wheelchair and who I believe used obtenebration to make up for his immobility. I think a garou lacking legs could do a two armed run with glabro or crinos.

On the other hand, having a limp is a signficant flaw even if with strength you could potentially hop really, really fast. But I think being able to circumvent a mobility issue by using arms travel has it's own problems, so balance wise it kinda works.

Thoughts?

On the one hand I'm not certain I'd allow it. Oh, I'd certainly allow them to travel like that, but I'd probably put a penalty on raw speed if they want it to be controllable.

On the other hand, my next character if I ever get to play Apocalypse again is going to be a Metis Ahroun who was born without legs. In everyday life they use a wheelchair, but when combat starts they abandons it in order to fling themselves at enemies.

[Milo v3]

Today in my Requiem session. My players attempts to deal with a ghost ended up setting a car impound lot on fire, buying the services of a vampire exorcist who speaks in the third person by paying him thousands of dollars before he even does anything, a player getting a pet ghoul dog, and someone ended up dramatic fail frenzying with the goal of "Escape the danger", so he ran off and is now hiding in a sewer until he hits a breaking point.

In the end they did technically harm the ghost, but only from the anchor being destroyed in the fire they didn't intend to start in the first place.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Scenario: The Arcanum has a hall reserved at a university for a private event. This event is by invitation only, but does deal with the topics of the Supernatural. It is a formal debate between two members with a moderator and everything. The attendees are all either members, or associates of members who were personally invited. There is some minimal security enforced to prevent anyone not invited from attending.

The Question: The debate is on Vampiric influence in society. What sort of bullet points should be gone over on both sides of this discussion?

[The Jack]

Sociology.
-Vampires are merely an extension of the ruling class
-Vampires pervert the ruling class further and worsen them

-Estimated demographics for people who at some point have received a vampiric mind control.
-The estimated effect of dominate. (bring up a load of case studies)

-Estimated costs of maintaining secrecy, number of Vampire related deaths and missing persons.

-How much Can you blame vampires for overpopulation, growth of high density cities, wealth inequality and pollution. Midnight siege had this cool little bit about how vampires purposely increase inequality as the rich give them entertainment, the poor give them easy food, and middling people give them nothing. It's in the best interest of vampires to make sure cities don't run well; That police are corrupt, people are poorly educated, and that the street lights are in poor repair... but you could just chalk that all up to general corruption and low tax rates.

You could also go into culture and religion. A lot of faith/mythology both modern and ancient features blood quite heavily in it, and some scholar could interpret that as people believing the supernatural divine. Of course, we can't talk about that here. I'd actually recommend you research the stuff yourself and don't just stick to one faith.

More silly things:
are Neo classical and neo-gothic buildings more popular due to the influence of ancient vampires looking for a return home.
-are people bad with paperwork because of vampires?
-Is the spread of HIV primarily the result of vampires?
-are werewolves vampires (you're looking at the gangrel here, not the garou)
-Did vampires invent cities?
- Do nicer countries have less vampires? Is socialism the result of a vampire-less society.
-Are Tzmisce responsible for unrealistic body standards?
-Did vampires set up goth subculture to take advantage of pale skin with black clothing-camouflage (and corsets, never forget the corsets.)


Remember the Arcanum has a lot of mistaken beliefs. Feel free to completely bull**** something, like how canals were carefully created for border control because vampires can't cross running water, or something.



p.s
I want a v20 nos to have skills some skills with being a plumber, electrician, explosive maker and a dude who works with spy cams and similar gadgets. How does his diverse skill set best work on a character sheet? There's crafts, technology, professional skill/knowledge... I kinda want to do it with the least dots possible without too much cheese.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Remember the Arcanum has a lot of mistaken beliefs. Feel free to completely bull**** something, like how canals were carefully created for border control because vampires can't cross running water, or something.

Oh yes, that's actually a really good point. I'll definitely include some off the wall stuff. Thanks for the tips! Lots of great ideas.

[One Tin Soldier]

So guys, what exactly is a Goetia?

I'm getting ready to run a Mage: the Awakening 2e game, and I'm having trouble figuring out what these things should be and how they would be included as antagonists and/or supporting characters. Now, I get the basics: they're ephemeral beings from the Astral Realm. They can't normally Manifest in the physical world without Awakened magic or other general weirdness (like the LA setting). They can be representations of concepts and ideas, or they can be fragments of someone's personality.

But what does that look like in play? Let's say a character wants to go into their Oneiros and face their goetic demon to overcome a personal struggle. How would I build that Goetia? What characteristics would it have? What kind of challenge would it present to that mage? Is it just one being, or would it be specific to the struggle they're trying to overcome?

For that matter, what makes a Goetia that represents a concept like faith or hate different from a spirit of that same concept?

I do like the idea of these things, but it feels like the book is missing a section where they are properly fleshed out. I'm hoping you guys can help.

[Milo v3]

So guys, what exactly is a Goetia?

I'm getting ready to run a Mage: the Awakening 2e game, and I'm having trouble figuring out what these things should be and how they would be included as antagonists and/or supporting characters. Now, I get the basics: they're ephemeral beings from the Astral Realm. They can't normally Manifest in the physical world without Awakened magic or other general weirdness (like the LA setting). They can be representations of concepts and ideas, or they can be fragments of someone's personality.

But what does that look like in play? Let's say a character wants to go into their Oneiros and face their goetic demon to overcome a personal struggle. How would I build that Goetia? What characteristics would it have? What kind of challenge would it present to that mage? Is it just one being, or would it be specific to the struggle they're trying to overcome?

For that matter, what makes a Goetia that represents a concept like faith or hate different from a spirit of that same concept?

I do like the idea of these things, but it feels like the book is missing a section where they are properly fleshed out. I'm hoping you guys can help.

Normal Goetia act abit differently depending on which part of the astral they are reflective of. A goetia from an onerios is going to be reflective of a certain individuals personality/mind, and generally is going to be pretty weak unless it's a major pillar of that person's mind or attitudes, and will by highly personalized to represent how that person processes that idea, but they can also represent ideas of that person, so you might find goetia of how the person sees their father which would be very warped from that individuals perspective. These are different from a spirit because a spirit is made up from the essence they eat and are predatory instinctual creatures. A faith spirit might be made of the various iconography from which it was born and feed on, which can be from multiple people all praying at once or having crisis's, etc., and then would be hungry and try to feed off similar things and try to manipulate the mortal world so that there is more faith for them to survive off. An oneric faith goetia would an accurate representation of that individuals relationship to faith, it wont try to create more of itself unless that makes sense for the person to be trying to bolster their faith, if someone's faith is shaken, their faith geotia might be ragged or tired, and it will probably look like a religious figure they associate with their faith, or what they think their deity looks like, or look like themselves in religious clothes.

A goetia from the temenos reflects some aspect of the human collective, whether that is a famous figure, a place, concept, character, etc. Their rank is dependent on how much it matters to people in general. The temenos realm that reflects the niche show you watch might only have rank 1's, while harry potter temenos realm might be full of rank 2s and 3s because of how well known the characters are. Now, while spirits are born from phenomena, they aren't accurate representations of that, they are seperate living entities that evolve and develop in different ways based on what resonance they feed on, while each temenos goetia is a representative of the ideas themselves, and temenos geotia can represent things like ficitious entities that don't really have spirit equivalents. The temenos goetia of the old tree on main street might be a tall bastion of life in the temenos full of stories of all the people who played on it as a kid, but in the shadow that tree might be paranoid and territorial spirit that is ever vigilant in trying to defend it's last piece of territory from being swallowed up by urban spirits.

Anima Mundi goetia is the hardest to get conceptually for some, where they're reflections of everything that isn't humans, and not from the human perspective. The main difference between these and spirits is the accuracy and symbolic nature of goetia, where it will be a representation of the true soul of a tree, moon, rat, cloud, rather than being an ever-evolving creature focused on it's survival at all costs. Consider the Sun. In the shadow, the sun is an mighty spirit of unending wrath who inflicts a terrible gravity on all he can see. While in the anima mundi, the sun just is. The anima mundi sun rests in the sky and churns in internally ordered chaos on an unimaginal scale to gives off light and heat into the solar-system as that is what the sun does at it's core.

[One Tin Soldier]

Thanks, that's some good insight. My next question, then, is this: What do goetia want? If they're going to cross purposes with the players, after all, they have to want something.

[Sian]

VtM:B 2 hype



Release in Q1 2020

[The Jack]

VtM:B 2 hype



Release in Q1 2020

You know, I'm kinda uneasy about this. I'm worried they'll infect it with V5, it looks like it could be a little more linear, and you totally wouldn't use movement of the mind to pick up a weapon and swing it in the same turn

Also the music's nowhere near the same.
It reminds me of Deus Ex: Human revolution. Oh it's fine, but it's both more pretentious and less clever than the original Deus Ex.




Also, wasn't someone working on a Werewolf game (that looks to be of low quality?)
For real though, I can't help but recall the V5 announcers saying they'll get video games and TV series up. This better not be V5, I'd be much happier to hear about this game if they'd gave up on v5.

(Also it's ma birthday, most conflicted gift I think I'll get!)

[Sian]

If I understand correctly from reports of the announcement and demo, it's going to handle combat and movement in the veins of Dishonored 2.

EDIT:

Just saw the Keynote



Appearently Bloodlines 2 and V5 had a fair bit of cross-pollination where ideas in one development was moved to the other

[The Jack]

I'm going to remain very skeptical.

v5's an abomination. Resonance isn't an awful concept but it's far too pronounced. On one hand when they talk about v5 I'm glad they avoided talking metaplot, maybe they know it's a bad idea? I think going with Seattle because they know seattle is a good idea. They do seem to stress that they've really thought about things, and maybe that'll guide them away from v5?


They do seem to have pulled out the goodies when they promise more of everything.


Is it bad that I don't trust half of them based on appearances? I'm not sure if I appreciate the honest -people not good at interviews being interviewed- over some charismatic Tod Howard type, but they do have the warning signs of being the echo-chamber types that wrote v5.


They need elders, they need the masquerade to be working and workable, they need camarilla dominance, they need the Tremere to be the Tremere, they need disciplines to be extensions of the vampric condition (passive or easy to use) rather than *gamey powers... (spend blood for ultra specific celerity move no.2 !)


*I'm aware bloodlines did this for some disciplines, it was a weakness. Whilst Celerity was an amazing translation of Pen'n paper to computer, needing to activate every discipline (including pen'n paper passives) a lot of esoteric disciplines were just ways to murder people.


I'd be fully on board if it weren't for v5. That ****'s gotta get retracted.

[Sian]

Something i rather appriciate is that they've up front said that while they might very well make DLCs with clans not in it from the start, that would certainly be something that would be Free additions

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I'm excited because it's Bloodlines, but disappointed because it's Masquerade. My dreams of a Requiem video game remain just that; dreams.

[Milo v3]

Thanks, that's some good insight. My next question, then, is this: What do goetia want? If they're going to cross purposes with the players, after all, they have to want something.

That's going to depend on the goetia. Each will have it's own desires based on what it is a reflection of, so it's sort of too broad a question to ask what goetia in general wants.

[Morty]

I'm excited because it's Bloodlines, but disappointed because it's Masquerade. My dreams of a Requiem video game remain just that; dreams.

Agreed. And I would give my right arm for a Hunter: the Vigil game. But IIRC Paradox doesn't actually have the rights to release CofD games?

[Sian]

Agreed. And I would give my right arm for a Hunter: the Vigil game. But IIRC Paradox doesn't actually have the rights to release CofD games?

Paradox own the whole catalogue, but licenses off CofD to Onyx Path

[Morty]

Paradox own the whole catalogue, but licenses off CofD to Onyx Path

Right. And they don't seem to really care for CofD one way or the other. Which is just as well for the most part, but it sadly means we won't get a video game of it.

[137beth]

Have there ever been any CofD video games? I'm not aware of any.

[Milo v3]

Have there ever been any CofD video games? I'm not aware of any.

No, as CofD doesn't have the brandname recognition of World of Darkness or Vampire the Masquerade.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

But there wasn't even when CofD was still nWoD.

[The Jack]

oWoD appeals to me more than CoD because, although the metaplot is agonizing bull****, the narrative provides a relevant critique of society. Sects, clans, tribes, traditions all have something to say about some kinds of people. It's a satire, it grabs problems and amplifies them to crazy supernatural proportions, and we can learn from that.

CoD is a postmodern mess. You can have a bit of X, a bit of Y, and they'll be happy to share space and be diplomatic. Because you can have a bit of everything, you've really got nothing. There's nothing to say. oWoD (before v5) is exclusive, not inclusive; You're either with the program or you're out. Conform or die; welcome to the roller-coaster, All in.

From a narrative perspective, oWoD is stronger because it demands extremes. You can't be a weak Get or an incompetent shadow lord, you can't be a ventrue with less than 5 dots of etiquette and no sense of snobbery hidden behind it, you have to be loyal to the tremere or they'll hunt you down, you have to have a massive interest in tech to be a virtual adept... The game encourages you to get into a mindset that isn't your own, and that's great.

CoD is more lenient. The vampire sects aren't iron fisted international conspiracies you need to abide by; if you don't like Invictus you can go support someone else, they're not going to force you to be Invictus. That's a lot easier, and because it's a lot easier it's a lot less powerful. (insert every argument about why I hate V5 here)


I think it's easier from a video game perspective too. "As a blood sucker, you're a fascist now" isn't just more powerful than 'you're a blood sucker, let's talk about your options', it's a lot easier. With bloodlines you've got the rulers, the radicals, outsiders and the enemy. You can make a big deal out of the differences between rulers and radicals, fully explore those two options. If you had a game with a multiparty system of eight different sects or whatever you could do ok but unless you've got eight times the budget it's going to be very hard to give those systems the equal weight they need to be of equal interest.

You could of course focus on a very personal story with CoD for a good narrative, but really the world isn't as interesting.

[Morty]

But there wasn't even when CofD was still nWoD.

nWoD never had the same kind of momentum oWoD did. It had a troubled start, with Requiem and Forsaken having a lukewarm reception, plus the whole edition war. It started picking up speed later, but still had to coexist with oWoD and White Wolf/Onyx Path wasn't what it used to be. That's my take on it anyway.

[lightningcat]

nWoD never had the same kind of momentum oWoD did. It had a troubled start, with Requiem and Forsaken having a lukewarm reception, plus the whole edition war. It started picking up speed later, but still had to coexist with oWoD and White Wolf/Onyx Path wasn't what it used to be. That's my take on it anyway.

Part of the problem is defining each game line. You could describe the oWoD games in one or two lines. But how do you describe the CoD lines?
Vampire the Masquerade was "vampires control the world from the shadows."
Werewolf the Apocolypse was "fuzzy eco-terrorists."
Mage the Ascention was "fighting for reality."

[Morty]

Of all the problems you could find, I don't think defining the games is one.

For the record, I think CofD is a much better series of games than its predecessors - Requiem 2E is particularly a leap ahead of the previous two Vampires. But the point is that no one's willing to make or release a video game based on them.