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2012-12-09, 11:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
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2012-12-10, 04:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Somewhere south of Hell
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
They are specifically talking about old school world of darkness though that's why the old school terms.
And technically Gauru claws and fangs do not do aggravated damage at all. You can enchant them to do so, but that's the magic effect.
Sophistry. Hundred foot mountain of muscle that isn't half-ephemeral substance able to condense down to human form and walk between dimensions.
[QUOTE=RPGuru1331;14349957]And? Unobserved and undefined laws of reality are no less laws. As far as the WoD is concerned, that's all part of the natural world.[/quite]
Being a law of reality doesn't make something natural when it is an explicit point that several game splats can arbitrarily enforce their whims as law of reality.
The Supernal realms are a part of the multiverse – more a part than our fallen 'reality'. But they are still supernatural, in the most literal sense; their nature is above, better and with higher priority than our own.
Your argument sounds a lot like "Unicorns are real because if they weren't we wouldn't have the word or concept in our society". It's silly.
The problem with the term 'supernatural' is it's generally a word that's used to mean 'things that don't exist'.
I am so bad atpledgecrafting I think any advice would actually be detrimental. My attempts so far have led to being attacked with a knife, being abandoned in the hedge after having a favor extorted out of me, and I'm currently recovering from being tossed into a mosh pit of zombies by a Minotaur after trying to help him up.
Meanwhile my motley mate tricked said Minotaur into a pledge that entirely skewed a fight in her favor. It's insane.
If you mean the prose, I skimmed it because I was busy. I could look again? And your inbox is full
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2012-12-10, 04:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2004
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- The Land of Angles
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to CeSlebrate!
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2012-12-10, 04:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2008
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to CeSlebrate!
"It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2012-12-10, 06:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
As I recall, the first one was due to some weirdness in the way a contract was written, wasn't it? (And it probably doesn't help that your ST is a lawyer when you're trying to come up with magically binding agreements in which they can't find loopholes.)
In any case, though, if you want to take another look, I certainly wouldn't object. My opinion is skewed, so that of others is always nice to have, and what I've seen of your writing has certainly been good enough for me to respect your thoughts on such matters.
Also, my inbox should be cleared out within five minutes of this post, depending on how long my current computer takes to load the proper pages.
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2012-12-10, 12:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2010
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to CeSlebrate!
I think I see the disconnect. You're using "magic" as a noun, as in "things that are literally magic, both in nature and in means." Yuki is using "magic" as an adjective, as in "things that are magical or otherwise supernatural."
In the WoD, there is magic, the noun, as practiced by mages, certain vampires, and a few other groups. There are also magical things, that is, every single supernatural thing in the WoD.
What was the original question that spawned this debate, again?
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2012-12-10, 06:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2008
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Your ST is actually a lawyer? No offense, but unless you're making contracts with lawyers IC, you should probably tell him to cool his heels a little. I'm trying to imagine something less fun than trying to make Pledges with an adversarial GM or player who has actual legal training, and it's not occuring to me (I'm counting the legal training, that can be a blast if it's your thing)
Sophistry. Hundred foot mountain of muscle that isn't half-ephemeral substance able to condense down to human form and walk between dimensions.
Being a law of reality doesn't make something natural when it is an explicit point that several game splats can arbitrarily enforce their whims as law of reality.
Plenty of people in the world around you would disagree.Last edited by RPGuru1331; 2012-12-10 at 06:08 PM.
Asok: Shouldn't we actually be working?
And then Asok was thrown out of the car.
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2012-12-11, 12:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2010
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Lord Raziere herd I like Blasphemy, so Urpriest Exalted as a Malefactor
Meet My Monstrous Guide to Monsters. Everything you absolutely need to know about Monsters and never thought you needed to ask.
Trophy!
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2012-12-11, 02:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2008
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
oWoD mages still have to abide by their own internal belief systems, IIRC. Which, again, is not actually identical to 'whim'.
Asok: Shouldn't we actually be working?
And then Asok was thrown out of the car.
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2012-12-12, 12:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Automatic soak is too strong. We modified it as follows:
First dot: No change. First dot is already useful since it gives you a roll to soak aggravated damage which means you can also spend the willpower on the soak.
All other dots: Extra health level in addition to giving the normal extra soak dice.
Second and Fifth dots also reduce wound penalties by 1 each.
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2012-12-13, 05:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Mm. Jumping the gun; he's one of the nicest, most on-the-level human beings I've known. The statement was hyperbole on my part to show through exaggeration exactly how bad I am.
I also forgot you were reading that >_>;
'sophistry', much like ignoring the salient point; That 'supernatural' is a term that ultimately lacks meaning.
True Fae and Changelings explicitly are forming contracts with unrecognized entities,
Your changing the subject like that is cute but I understand how badinage works. An unalterable law is not by default a natural law. Law =! Natural law. An oath isn't natural. To a changeling it's still law. There is also the difference between the natural world and the shadow world; look, shadow isn't natural so it's laws aren't natural laws.
Mages are explicitly operating on the laws of 'higher realities'.
Point for me, again.
And? People will disagree that the world is an oblate spheroid, because they allege that it is flat.
Contextual shift, I thought? The original was about oWoD but the evolution carried it elsewhere. Ah well.
I'll check that pledge ASAP C'nor. On break at work right now.
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2012-12-13, 06:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Sort of reading it. I keep losing the threads, so the last part I actually read was when you were doing all of that stuff with Rose's fetch. (And the bit about him being a lawyer was mainly a joke, yeah. I thought I put a little '' after it, but it seems I was mistaken...)
And that sounds good. I'm not doing anything with it in Dark Corners, and the other game I'd be playing hasn't started yet, so no rush.
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2012-12-13, 10:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Thanks for the info and the recommendation, although I've watched Madoka once since my last post and am now watching it again with the aforementioned girlfriend. As for Sailor Moon, she has the complete manga, so I may take a look at that.
I don't know why someone would be concerned that a lady who enjoys the World of Darkness of all things wouldn't like a dark anime. Probably the same line of thinking that prompted someone at the local gaming store to suggest I get her into 40k by showing her the Eldar, since "women like pretty things, and the Eldar are pretty."
I've actually been considering just slightly modifying an official splat to fit the sort of story she wants to RP. Changeling might work, as I've already come up with alternate fluff that reduces the Gentry to a background element rather than an obligatory part of every character's backstory, although what I've read of Changeling uses more subtle magical effects (fewer swords, lasers, and BFGs), at least at lower XP levels. I haven't looked at all of Changeling's sourcebooks though, so I may be missing something.
Another option is Geist, which does the whole "great power from a bargain with a supernatural entity requires the power's recipient to fight evil things" plot pretty well. It would by necessity focus the game on themes of death and death-related baddies, but that might not be a bad thing.
Or I might just use the fansplat once I finally get around to reading the thing. Anyone have any thoughts?
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2012-12-14, 08:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2008
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Mm. Jumping the gun; he's one of the nicest, most on-the-level human beings I've known. The statement was hyperbole on my part to show through exaggeration exactly how bad I am.
No, see, your statement ignores context, whereas mine points that out through comparison. The definition of supernatural in the game doesn't need to be explicit to be valid.
Which is explicitly called out as not operating under natural laws. Point for me.
Which are also not natural laws, since the fallen world being natural and the higher world being something else is the point of the setting.
The world is provably such. Demonstrate incontrovertible proof that spirituality is bunkum and that you aren't just being difficult, please.
You can have the last word though, mostly I just wanted to respond to this guy!
@CN The Logos:
I despise hacks, so I'm not the person to ask about that. I'd rather just run MnM3e than try to make Changeling, Mage, or Geist do something it's not meant to do (Exception: Geist as Persona, but that *is* something it's meant to do, more or less, so meh). Princess is generally solid, and I don't mean to say it isn't, it just does have noticeable problems beyond normal nWoD ones.
Assuming the terrible editing doesn't make you want to jam a pencil through the designers skulls, it's certainly runnable as-is, though. Regarding Sailor Moon, Manga, anime, doesn't make a difference to me (Though it may to your girlfriend); pick through a volume or two, or a season of it, is my legit recommendation. Whichever it is, you'll have a shared understanding, on some level, and it'll probably help in running the game, hacks or not.Last edited by RPGuru1331; 2012-12-14 at 08:57 AM.
Asok: Shouldn't we actually be working?
And then Asok was thrown out of the car.
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2012-12-14, 10:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2005
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
If it happens in the 'real world' as a repeatable phenomena, it's a natural law. Talk to an actual scientist at some point, seriously. Just because WW doesn't know how the premise operates doesn't mean it operates like they think it does. Within the confines of the nWoD, Fae Contracts are as much a part of natural law as gravity.
Or maybe that's only in Arcadia. I can never remember if it's implied that our own world is also a huge mess of magical contracts, with the whole ability of Changelings to make them even after they leave Arcadia.NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2012-12-14, 10:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Who's talking about a system hack? The extent of the mechanical changes would be modifications to the sins against Clarity/Synergy. Geist wouldn't even really have any fluff changes; lucid, cooperative geists exist, and "defends the world of the living against things that should not be" is totally a character archetype for Sin-Eaters.
As for Changeling, I like Changeling's system. It's a pretty good rules-lite summary of the mythological Fair Folk. Unfortunately, the people writing it thought it would be a good idea to require every player character to be a (usually metaphorical, sometimes literal) rape victim as part of their backstory. Also, the rapists are gods because man, having the threat of the Antediluvians hanging over chronicles like the Sword of Damocles was what made Vampire: The Masquerade great, but what that game really needed was to have every PC raped by one of them as backstory.
Ugh, pay me no mind. I'm mostly just bitter because Changeling is pretty much perfect as a system for the Neverwhere setting, but the standard response given to any suggested refluffing of any White Wolf game for any reason has convinced me that this game will never happen, and it fills my heart with sadness.
I do intend to get and learn M&M at some point, but I don't want to be dependent on an SRD right now, I can't afford a hard copy at the moment, and the lady's only played a d20 system for two short sessions several years ago, which left her with an unfavorable impression. So for better or worse, this thing's going to be using the Storytelling system.
(Exception: Geist as Persona, but that *is* something it's meant to do, more or less, so meh).
Note that I will never say that someone else's idea of a good RPG is badwrongfun (unless it's something like FATAL, FATAL is badwrongfun), and my personal opinions are exactly that. I'm just legitimately curious as to why you think a dark(ish) superheroine powered by anancient shade with an axe to grindALLY OF JUSTICE needs a new system, but that Geist was meant to run Persona games.
Princess is generally solid, and I don't mean to say it isn't, it just does have noticeable problems beyond normal nWoD ones.
Assuming the terrible editing doesn't make you want to jam a pencil through the designers skulls, it's certainly runnable as-is, though. Regarding Sailor Moon, Manga, anime, doesn't make a difference to me (Though it may to your girlfriend); pick through a volume or two, or a season of it, is my legit recommendation. Whichever it is, you'll have a shared understanding, on some level, and it'll probably help in running the game, hacks or not.
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2012-12-14, 10:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2005
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
I don't think you're giving Changeling enough credit...True Fae aren't really analogous to Antideluvians, more like a 4th or 5th Gen against neonates. True Fae can be beaten, they can even be killed, you just can't do it by punching them in the face. For all the suffering Changelings had to go through, there's a chance they can get vengeance, if not on their tormentor specifically than another True Fae who did the same thing to other people.
Antediluvians were plot devices on legs.NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2012-12-14, 11:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2008
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
I keep underselling the legitimate versatility of geists in setting, at least, thanks for the reminder.
Ugh, pay me no mind. I'm mostly just bitter because Changeling is pretty much perfect as a system for the Neverwhere setting, but the standard response given to any suggested refluffing of any White Wolf game for any reason has convinced me that this game will never happen, and it fills my heart with sadness.
Okay... As suggested above, I'm totally cool with altering fluff, and I've heard this suggested before. Multiple times, in fact. But I cannot for the life of me see why people think so. The Key/Manifestation mechanics have only the vaguest resemblance to Persona-based abilities. A disproportionate number of the Manifestations (and pretty much all of the standard Bound abilities and Ceremonies) involve death or dead people. Also, Persona games generally end with the player character(s) punching a god(dess) in the face, which is not generally a thing that happens in NWoD outside of Mage or ST fiat.
Other than the fact that the source of player character magic is an entity bound to the PC who might resemble a mythological figure, I don't see why people would want to use Geist for Persona.
Yeah, I'm going to have to finish reading it before I make any decisions on what I'm going to use. But that is reassuring; I mean, I don't expect perfection from my homebrew splats, just a rough sense of balance and coherence. If it's good at emulating the stories it's based on, that's all I can really ask for. Thanks for your advice.
Oh wait, there was one other complaint I had with Princess. There's points that are so weeaboo that I almost wept. I'm not exactly unsympathetic to weeaboo-ness, but everyone's got a limit, yanno?Last edited by RPGuru1331; 2012-12-14 at 11:48 AM.
Asok: Shouldn't we actually be working?
And then Asok was thrown out of the car.
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2012-12-14, 07:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
There are plenty of Contracts flying around, but no, our world isn't entirely reliant on them, or at least that's what I've gleaned in going back and forth through pretty much the whole book recently.
Or at least, it doesn't have to be. One could run it that way, of course, but there's nothing that states that it is, and it's reasonably heavily implied that our world is as normal as things ever get with the Word of Darkness.
You are evil for planting that concept in my head when it's probably never going to be run, you know that?
Anyway. While most Durances are pretty much horrible, awful, experiences, they don't necessarily have to be. To take two examples from A Gathering of Mists, one of the characters was basically starring in action movies all the time while she was in Arcadia, but abandoned her sister to do so, and came back because she realized that being without her responsibilities didn't mean they'd stopped existing. Another was taken and dropped in a forest, where she got to be a hero every day, only wanting to come back when it was revealed that the whole thing was essentially a very popular Arcadian TV show. They're both just as effective as the two with more traditional Durances.
(Please bear in mind this is all gathered from reading about them. I am not playing in the game in question. But most of it is taken from reading the OOC explanations by the players of the pair in question, so it should be pretty accurate, I think.)
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2012-12-14, 08:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Indeed. One of my favorite examples when explaining to people that Durances aren't necessarily horrible psychic/physical rapefests lasting thousands of years is what I call the Crazy Cat Lady Fae.
Fae have to embody stories, images, ideas, that sort of thing. This one embodies the classic crazy cat lady, and of course she needs cats. So she finds humans who act a bit like a kitten at times, steals them away, and transforms them into one of her beloved cats. She dotes on her pets obsessively, gives them treats, pets them, loves them.
One day, though, one of her cats gets outside by accident and wanders away, getting lost in the forest. As it blunders through the Hedge, it starts to remember the person it used to be, and turn back into that person. Eventually they find their way to the real world...but Arcadia changes people. They have cat ears, whiskers, and patches of fur on their skin. They've forgotten how to speak, and need to re-learn language. They prefer to lick themselves clean rather than take baths or showers. And they're always watching out, because their Keeper might come looking for them, and woe betide anyone who gets between her and her beloved kitty...Last edited by The Glyphstone; 2012-12-14 at 08:01 PM.
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2012-12-15, 02:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
I've heard the whole "Changeling isn't that horribly oppressive because the True Fae are theoretically killable" argument before. I don't buy it. While the Gentry may not be literally omnipotent, they're functionally omnipotent, which is the same thing from a practical perspective. Statwise, one particular dying True Fae happens to be the strongest thing given stats in the whole NWoD. Unless they come to you for whatever reason, you have to go to their domains in Arcadia and pray you've found the exploitable ST fiat weakness that allows you to survive the trip, let alone do any damage to one of them. If you manage to actually defeat one, well, they can all return from the dead one to four times, so here's hoping you can consistently repeat that feat. And if you do finally succeed in destroying all of one's titles and its true name, sending it screaming to that one place in the underworld that dead True Fae are implied to go, congratulations, the Gentry are practically limitless in number, and every single one of them is as psychopathic as the last.
Any sort of meaningful victory against the monsters that the entirety of Changeling's fluff revolves around is only possible via ST fiat. Which is fine on occasion; sometimes the PCs end up in a fight with Giygas for whatever reason and their only option is to select "Pray" and hope for the best. But the True Fae are involved in every single character's backstory. And while you can say "oh, this particular Durance wasn't so bad," the default backstory is soul-shattering trauma. After all, if the Durance wasn't bad, you have to come up with a reason why the character left it at all.
But debates as to how killable the Gentry are aside, the main problems I have with them are that they don't really correspond to the fae of legend, and that they are personally involved with every PC's backstory. It's mostly the second, really. I mean, I'm cool with shamanic werewolf sentai teams, dead bodies reanimated by alchemy/Jewish mysticism/mad science, and Geist: Name of an Obscure Custom to Hopefully Distract You From the Fact That We Just Stole the Premise of The Crow and Called it a Day. I just don't want to have to address the issue of Faethulhu for every major character in every game I think would benefit from having a few creepy elves. The Antediluvians were plot devices on legs, yes, but they weren't personally involved with every single player character.
You're welcome. Geist needs more love.
Huh. After the number of times I've seen "Just use mage/geist" on the WW forums for almost any concept you could imagine, I would think the standard response to actually refluffing splats would be more positive.
I'll grant I haven't read the extra books, but what about the Neverborn-lite that may exist at the bottom of the Underworld?
That's a pretty big one though!
And I am serious about reading or watching some of the older magical girl stuff. Aside from plausibly being a fun activity with your girlfriend, it'll probably be instructive.
Oh wait, there was one other complaint I had with Princess. There's points that are so weeaboo that I almost wept. I'm not exactly unsympathetic to weeaboo-ness, but everyone's got a limit, yanno?
But seriously, given the subject matter, I expected as much. I'd be shocked if there wasn't a bunch of gratuitous Japanese terminology, honestly.
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2012-12-15, 07:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
It doesn't make the game any less oppressive. I'm just saying there is a glimmer of hope in the darkness...and of course it's difficult as hell, you're murdering a demigod. Beating a Fae should be the end of an entire chronicle, likely with multiple PC deaths along the way. You might not get the one you wanted, the guy you're getting vengeance for is probably dead, and there are an infinite number of Gentry left that you'll never be able to kill...but that's the whole point of WoD. You'll never make serious, lasting change, but you can have small victories if you're willing to pay the Phyrric price.
But you can do it. And unlike the Antediluvians, not only are they actually killable (if barely), they are, as you said, directly tied to the characters. That makes it personal. Any sort of victory against anything is ultimately ST fiat, the True Fae are no different.
And C'mon...dissing Geist? There are eight different archetypes to pick from, only one is The Crow. You don't see Eric using his magical ghost powers to scam people out of sports cars.
Geist is the best game ever.NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2012-12-15, 08:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
But by that argument its no victory for, say, a Vampire to kill a Werewolf ( to use an OWoD set) as there are always more of them and most of them want to kill you. I can't think of any game where defeating one of them is going to mean you're never bothered again by the entire race.
But the True Fae are involved in every single character's backstory. And while you can say "oh, this particular Durance wasn't so bad," the default backstory is soul-shattering trauma. After all, if the Durance wasn't bad, you have to come up with a reason why the character left it at all.
And there are plenty of reasons why somebody would want to leave the alien world where he was kidnapped to to return to the world where his friends and family are even if his Durance wasn't particularly awful.
I always assumed Durance's don't always have to be mind shatteringly horrible or there wouldn't be Loyalists (though know I think of it Loyalists could just be operating on the grounds its better to serve as torturer than be the tortured)All Comicshorse's posts come with the advisor : This is just my opinion any difficulties arising from implementing my ideas are your own problem
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2012-12-15, 09:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2008
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
...Yes? That's the thing. NWoD assumes that you aren't going to try to punch Leviathan in the face, and that if you do, the power of friendship isn't going to help you much.
Persona games, on the other hand, generally end with the main characters defeating gods in single combat with the combined powers of friendship and gratuitous mythology references. Both types of story have their merits, but there's a subtle difference in tone and expected outcome(s) there.
She's suggesting the live-action Sailor Moon series and/or Rayearth. So... we'll see how that goes.Asok: Shouldn't we actually be working?
And then Asok was thrown out of the car.
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2012-12-15, 03:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
As I've mentioned before and will probably end up mentioning again (at length, in text-wall form, because I do that), it's not just that the True Fae are fiat bosses that bothers me. It's the combination of them being fiat bosses, the fact that they're involved in everyone's backstory, and that Changelings already work as the mythical fair folk without the need for cosmic horrors everywhere.
But really, when I think about it, the big thing, the thing I can't get past, is that I find the idea of a society consisting almost entirely of rape victims who got superpowers from surviving the experience really creepy. Not good "we're playing a horror game" creepy. Just regular, uncomfortable, "I don't want to be here anymore" creepy. I know there's no accounting for taste, and I'm not saying people who do like Changeling as written are wrong to do so (it's just a game), but no matter now many times people tell me "you don't have to mention it all that often," I'm still going to be creeped out by it.
And C'mon...dissing Geist? There are eight different archetypes to pick from, only one is The Crow. You don't see Eric using his magical ghost powers to scam people out of sports cars.
Geist is the best game ever.
But anyway, while there are many stories about people being possessed by otherworldly entities (ghosts or demons) and many stories about dead people refusing to die when they're killed, I'm only aware of one other story that combines those two folkloric ideas in that way.* Maybe I'm just ignorant and there's an entire subgenre of stories about people coming back to life due to bargains with benign spirit entities, it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong. But I think Geist is pretty upfront about its sources of inspiration.
And you know what? Every time I've tried to describe Geist to someone, I've gotten puzzled looks when I try to describe sin-eaters, right up until the point where I give up and say, "you're like The Crow, but you don't have to be a murder victim and you don't have to be looking for revenge on anyone. You could be a formerly homeless guy who froze to death and now works to make sure other people don't go that way, or a ex-businessman who decided life was too short for an office job and went walking the earth after not dying in a plane crash that killed everyone else on the plane. Stuff like that, the sky's the limit as long as it includes a near-death experience at some point. Also you can see and talk to ghosts, and have various other death-themed powers, including opening portals to the land of the dead." Believe it or not, the response to that description is pretty positive. A premise doesn't have to be carved in tablets made of solid originalium by the god of originality to be good, it just has to present its material in a way that makes it stand out positively from the other stories covering the same ground.
And other than using it as an occasional source of plot hooks, cool powers, and interesting NPCs (regardless of what system I end up using for the magical girl game, Sascha Vykos is showing up as one of the Dark General-equivalents), I dislike the OWoD. But that aside, werewolves don't have to show up in a Masquerade game. True Fae must show up in a game of Changeling: The Lost, even if it's only as backstory, which leads me to...
True but it can only be their backstory. They don't have to ever show up in person again.
And there are plenty of reasons why somebody would want to leave the alien world where he was kidnapped to to return to the world where his friends and family are even if his Durance wasn't particularly awful.
I always assumed Durance's don't always have to be mind shatteringly horrible or there wouldn't be Loyalists (though know I think of it Loyalists could just be operating on the grounds its better to serve as torturer than be the tortured)
I'm of the firm opinion that there's no such thing as badwrongfun as long as no one gets hurt. In fact, my girlfriend tells me that when she played Vampire: the Masquerade, she was in it for the vampire superpowers ("SHADOW TENTACLES"). It's just that the Persona games I've played have involved a lot of drawn-out combat which the protagonists typically win without serious injury, whereas NWoD's combat is over in seconds and usually results in serious injury or death for at least one of the parties involved. You could base a NWoD game on Persona, I suppose, but to me it would have a very different feel than the actual Persona series by virtue of the combat alone.
In fairness, Nyarlathotep was beaten three times in a row through straight up violence, not the power of friendship.... :D
*Some versions of vampires are demons possessing a corpse, but in those cases it's usually made clear that the original person's either not there at all any more, or unable to act while the demon uses the body to terrorize the living. Nothing like the geist/bound symbiosis as far as I know.Last edited by CN the Logos; 2012-12-15 at 03:19 PM.
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2012-12-15, 03:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2008
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
I'm of the firm opinion that there's no such thing as badwrongfun as long as no one gets hurt.
You could base a NWoD game on Persona, I suppose, but to me it would have a very different feel than the actual Persona series by virtue of the combat alone.
And as someone who enjoys the work of H. P. Lovecraft, that breaks my heart.
Minor side note you may or may not empathize with, and thoroughly off topic, but me and my roommate keep 5 Kyuubey plushies around. The visitor most disturbed by them is the one that is the biggest Mythos fan of them all. I'm not sure why that is.Asok: Shouldn't we actually be working?
And then Asok was thrown out of the car.
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2012-12-15, 04:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Because you need a reason the P.C.s came in contact with Arcadia in the first place. You could have them always be Changelings but that does remove the theme of the Changelings having been normal and then thrust wily-nily into this amazing world and having to adapt to it and find a balance between the two worlds.
And while you don't have to include them others may like to have more otherworldy gods mixed into their stories
so I'm having difficulty understanding why the response is so negative to me saying that I don't like the "cosmic horror with really creepy rape subtext" that White Wolf decided to go with.
This can be true for individual cases, but seriously, I've read the book. I own the book. The default assumption is soul-shattering trauma.
Ugh, pay me no mind. I'm mostly just bitter because Changeling is pretty much perfect as a system for the Neverwhere setting,Last edited by comicshorse; 2012-12-15 at 04:27 PM.
All Comicshorse's posts come with the advisor : This is just my opinion any difficulties arising from implementing my ideas are your own problem
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2012-12-15, 08:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2012-12-15, 09:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Point taken.
Minor side note you may or may not empathize with, and thoroughly off topic, but me and my roommate keep 5 Kyuubey plushies around. The visitor most disturbed by them is the one that is the biggest Mythos fan of them all. I'm not sure why that is.
Honestly, if we're using movie comparisons either way I prefer The Crow, but that's a matter of taste.
Incidentally, oh Great Modthulhu, if you ever see me mention Changeling or Mage on this forum again, please ban me for my own good. Every time I come to this thread, I tell myself I'm only going to say constructive things about the games I like, but then I say something without thinking (in this case a two sentence aside, which I immediately mocked as me just being bitter about a game idea that will never be used), and much nerdrage is incited and I end up burning precious hours of my life. I need an incentive to stop typing before I get started.
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2012-12-16, 12:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2008
Re: General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!
Mind, I don't mean solely /dead/ bodies, but they don't really need to be in nWoD either.
Heh, Kyubey's awesome. It's especially hilarious if you've ever had a class in marketing, because you can pick out every sleazy sales technique he uses. I think he does everything short of offering them another wish if they'll wish within the next ten minutes.
Incidentally, oh Great Modthulhu, if you ever see me mention Changeling or Mage on this forum again, please ban me for my own good. Every time I come to this thread, I tell myself I'm only going to say constructive things about the games I like, but then I say something without thinking (in this case a two sentence aside, which I immediately mocked as me just being bitter about a game idea that will never be used), and much nerdrage is incited and I end up burning precious hours of my life. I need an incentive to stop typing before I get started.Asok: Shouldn't we actually be working?
And then Asok was thrown out of the car.