General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!

[Cirrylius]

Originally Posted by Spamotron

Thematically though you're character is rules lawyering existence trying to comprehend infinity

Well? How does that make it a less valid road to Supernal understanding? Is the Moros who believes that ego-death (and subsequent resurrection) will let him see the universe clearly somehow inferior to the Moros who communes with the mystical Mother Rock to purify his base substance into a platonic ideal? Or the Acanthus who maps out every fate-thread in his whole timeline physically in his Hallow to see the whole pattern he's woven into the cosmos? Or the Obrimos who uses... uses... Forces mastery to...

...okay, I'm kind of drawing a blank on that particular Threshold.


My point is that the fact that I the player found an interesting way to divide consciousness by zero doesn't make the method any less meaningful; as long as the character has to undergo the same process of soul searching (hur), research, prep and Arcana mastery, he shouldn't be subjected to a greater probability of disastrous failure if he's covered his bases (well, any more than the usual risk of ceasing to exist if he loses himself in the Supernal).

Originally Posted by Spamotron

If there wasn't a real risk of something going tremendously and horrifically wrong it would break narrative verisimilitude.

I'm just kind of exasperated because even though the Ocean of Fragments is written as a pretty safe place, as long as you obey the rules and want to forget who you are, and Leviathan is written as no different from any other Kerberos (and significantly less assholish and capricious than some), everybody seems to assume that Underworld plus Water plus Tentacles equals Eternal Cthulhu Soul Rape. In fact, I suspect that the reason Leviathan is written that way is because the writers are attempting to distance the NWoD existential-sinner Underworld from the OWod Labrynth-with-giant-ambulatory-yeast-infection-Neverborn Underworld. It may not be safe getting to the Ocean, but the dangers, once there, are pretty cut-and-dried.

[The Glyphstone]

The last Obrimos archmage who Ascended is why we have an asteroid belt instead of a 5th inner planet.

[CN the Logos]

Originally Posted by Cirrylius

"The Law of Depth- The progression of erosion must be followed.
It is a violation of the laws to attempt to dive down to a deeper zone in an attempt to lose a particular identifier. That is, in order to lose a truth (and stay faithful to the laws), a character must first lose all motes and formatives. A character that attempts to break this law attracts the notice of the Leviathan,
who usually holds him at his “proper” depth until he either escapes or loses the right kinds of identifiers to return to the depth he was attempting to reach."
The law governs downward motion only; otherwise, no one could ever come back past the second zone, since that's where you lose access to the beach.

Ah, you're right about that. My apologies.

In any case, the mage physically disappears when his threshold begins, and reappears at a Demense or Hallow afterwards. The Mind reboot was a redoubt in case it was different in the Underworld.

Without some sort of soul backup, you'd still be a drooling vegetable when you reappeared anyway. Not that the plan is foolproof even so; there's a serious question as to what, if anything, is left of the person who loses both natals. Not sure what would happen if the mind reboot spell went off and there was nothing left to reboot.

Speaking as a player, if I suggested this Threshold to my ST and he answered "Huh. Let's see", and then let my character die because of the fluff I chose for the character's transition process, that ST would lose some extremities. Maybe I should just stick with the sample in IM of "Mage ruminates for an extended period. Mage reconciles with failed student. Mage casts Imperial Spell". Forgive me for wanting a Moros' Mystery Play to be a little more metal than that.

Well, I wouldn't tell a player "Huh. Let's see," and then point and laugh when they tried it. That would be unethical. I would however mention in advance that from a thematic perspective, trips to the Underworld are extremely dangerous and cost the traveler almost as much as s/he gains, and that while I won't say "absolutely not," your success is only assured if you can somehow convince me that you are more awesome than Osiris, Orpheus, Izanagi et al. Otherwise, here are some dice, suitable modifiers will be imposed based on your actions throughout the chronicle up to this point, you may now start praying to the God Machine for an exceptional success.

While I personally don't consider the adventures of Batman McGodwizard scary at all, the fact remains that the World of Darkness is at least nominally a horror game, and while lying out of character about what I'll allow is just not cool, I'm also under no obligation to allow the players to automatically succeed at whatever they want to try doing.

Originally Posted by Spamotron

Thematically though you're character is rules lawyering existence trying to comprehend infinity and Mage is still part of the WOD horror line. If there wasn't a real risk of something going tremendously and horrifically wrong it would break narrative verisimilitude. I would give you bonus successes for creative outside the box thinking and a cool concept but I would still require a die roll with a high chance of failure. Nobody said attaining phenomenal cosmic power was safe.

This, pretty much. No guts, no glory.

Originally Posted by Cirrylius

Well? How does that make it a less valid road to Supernal understanding? Is the Moros who believes that ego-death (and subsequent resurrection) will let him see the universe clearly somehow inferior to the Moros who communes with the mystical Mother Rock to purify his base substance into a platonic ideal? Or the Acanthus who maps out every fate-thread in his whole timeline physically in his Hallow to see the whole pattern he's woven into the cosmos? Or the Obrimos who uses... uses... Forces mastery to...

...okay, I'm kind of drawing a blank on that particular Threshold.

You know, if there was one path to godhood I'd set to the sound of AC/DC, it would be the one followed by the guy who makes things explode with his brain.

I'm just kind of exasperated because even though the Ocean of Fragments is written as a pretty safe place, as long as you obey the rules and want to forget who you are, and Leviathan is written as no different from any other Kerberos (and significantly less assholish and capricious than some), everybody seems to assume that Underworld plus Water plus Tentacles equals Eternal Cthulhu Soul Rape. In fact, I suspect that the reason Leviathan is written that way is because the writers are attempting to distance the NWoD existential-sinner Underworld from the OWod Labrynth-with-giant-ambulatory-yeast-infection-Neverborn Underworld. It may not be safe getting to the Ocean, but the dangers, once there, are pretty cut-and-dried.

And this is the bit that that rubs me the wrong way. The Kerberoi are implied to be the ghosts of some of the first entities to have ever died, and it is very probable that Leviathan is the ghost of the primordial deity of chaos (typically represented by the ocean) slain by the Father of the Gods. If I were running a horror game and one of my players said, "Yeah, it's just the restless ghost of Tiamat, no big deal," I'd take that as a sign I'd done something horribly wrong.

[Yuki Akuma]

I was under the impression that Kerberoi were beings that had always been dead and had never been alive?

[CN the Logos]

Originally Posted by Yuki Akuma

I was under the impression that Kerberoi were beings that had always been dead and had never been alive?

I'm not aware of any fluff to that effect. The three major possibilities for their origin given on page 250 of Geist are:

1. Location spirits who just happen to be tied to a part of the Underworld rather than a place on Earth and thus have entirely different rules compared to regular spirits.
   
   
2. The ghosts of the first things to ever die, who may or may not have existed in the Underworld prior to dying.
   
   
3. Sin-eaters who decided to live in the Underworld full time, and rather than dying just... changed.

Any or all of these explanations could be true; none of the three are confirmed as absolute canon and there's no reason that different Kerberoi couldn't have have been created in different ways. I admit some bias against number one, if only because the Kerberoi act nothing like spirits aside from being connected to a concept and place. Still, the idea that the Kerberoi are both very old and originate from things that were once alive gets a bit of support from Yama, who is more or less identical to his mythical counterpart, and Plenty, who hasn't turned into a Kerberos yet but is already in charge of a domain with Old Laws that fit his personality. And there's the one that the Book of the Dead all but states is the ghost of a True Fae, which sets a precedent for other godlike beings becoming Kerberoi after their destruction. Leviathan being THE Leviathan isn't stated outright, but it's not a giant leap of logic to assume that's the case.

[Spamotron]

Look Cirrylius basically your character is seeking Enlightenment. In my book enlightenment is internal. You've come up with a cool way to potentially perceive the truth of existence but the key is then comprehending that truth. Is your character wise and experienced (in the worldly sense not the game mechanical one) enough to get what he's seeing and Ascend or will it be beyond him and he loses everything to information overload possibly leading to insanity.

There are two ways to figure that out. One: tell a cooperative story with your fellow players and Storyteller over the course of a campaign and then after that story is told collectively decide whether Ascension or Insanity or Something Else is the appropriate and fitting ending for your character. Two: the storyteller comes up with an appropriate difficulty target for Ascension and rolls some dice.

The second sounds really unsatisfying to me. But since it seems that you are trying to pull this straight out of character creation I don't see any other choice.

[comicshorse]

This is kinda a strange question but it does relate to my Changeling game so I'll ask it here. Is it possible to tell the difference between the gun shot residue left by two seperate pistols ?
( P.C.'s Motley run a gang and my character has started doing some dodgy stuff. He belongs to a gun club where he uses a licensed pistol. So I wonder if I use a unlicensed gun in a crime can the police prove the residue didn't come from me firing my perfectly legitimate pistol at the perfectly legitimate gun club)

[ToySoldierCPlus]

Easy answer? No. More complex answer: sort of. The amount of residue left behind by a gunshot is based on a number of factors, particularly the calibre of the weapon fired. However, gunshot residue isn't left at the crime scene per se, but rather on the hand and sleeve of the person who did the firing, or on other surfaces very near the gun when it is fired. There is, however, no way to link gunshot residue to a specific gun, and it's very difficult to use it for anything more specific than broad generalizations, such as, "This much residue had to have come from a large-caliber weapon."

[The Glyphstone]

If you're leaving gunshot residue at the scene of the crime, you might want to stop using siege artillery to shoot people.

[ToySoldierCPlus]

Originally Posted by The Glyphstone

If you're leaving gunshot residue at the scene of the crime, you might want to stop using siege artillery to shoot people.

But why? If you hit the people just right, it makes the room look like a vat of beef stroganof exploded. Before a bomb went off.

[comicshorse]

Originally Posted by ToySoldierCPlus

Easy answer? No. More complex answer: sort of. The amount of residue left behind by a gunshot is based on a number of factors, particularly the calibre of the weapon fired. However, gunshot residue isn't left at the crime scene per se, but rather on the hand and sleeve of the person who did the firing, or on other surfaces very near the gun when it is fired. There is, however, no way to link gunshot residue to a specific gun, and it's very difficult to use it for anything more specific than broad generalizations, such as, "This much residue had to have come from a large-caliber weapon."

Ah thanks. It was the residue left behind on my clothes and hands I was worried about. Still that means my P.C. had better renew his membership of the gun club

[Fouredged Sword]

Yes, you should have a excuse to have fired a gun. In the united states and many other countries gun poweder has an additive than leaves a distinctive trace. It is used to easily tell who fired a gun recently. Firing any gun will give you traces, as will working with gunpowder. Consider getting a bullet packing kit to have an excuse for days you didn't go to the range (ranges keep logs, best be truthful).

[comicshorse]

Originally Posted by Fouredged Sword

Yes, you should have a excuse to have fired a gun. In the united states and many other countries gun poweder has an additive than leaves a distinctive trace. It is used to easily tell who fired a gun recently. Firing any gun will give you traces, as will working with gunpowder. Consider getting a bullet packing kit to have an excuse for days you didn't go to the range (ranges keep logs, best be truthful).

Good tip, I'll defintely get a bullet packing kit. And yes my P.C. also believes you should always tell the police the truth,......about anything they can find out anyway

[Ganurath]

So, I've recently acquired Mage: The Awakening as an impulse buy. Is it my imagination, or do Mastigos have a decisive advantage over the other Paths? It seems to me that Space is the best Arcanum by far, and the Mind is upper-end as well.

[Cirrylius]

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

Without some sort of soul backup, you'd still be a drooling vegetable when you reappeared anyway. Not that the plan is foolproof even so; there's a serious question as to what, if anything, is left of the person who loses both natals. Not sure what would happen if the mind reboot spell went off and there was nothing left to reboot.

Spoiler

Ah. I misspoke. It's not a mental reboot, it's a mental reinstall. A Contingent Mind 4 or 5 copy of his own mind, designed to restore "I Am" in the oneirus, to give him a glimpse of the Supernal before restoring everything else. Of course, if the Ocean affects the soul as well as the mind, the whole thing is moot, but that'd be one of the first experiments he'd perform, using a mote or two. The whole thing is supposed to be a kind of piecemeal approximation or dry-run of a Death 6 effect based on Suppress Own Life, but affecting the mind instead of the body.

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

The Kerberoi are implied to be the ghosts of some of the first entities to have ever died, and it is very probable that Leviathan is the ghost of the primordial deity of chaos slain by the Father of the Gods.

Spoiler

Misspoke again. Let me clarify. Whatever else Leviathan is, dead god, cosmic principle, Deathlord, Neverborn (Primordial? UGH), in the book it is treated solely as a Kerberos. Whatever else he does in the deeps, the only time he ever interacts with characters is if they break the Laws, and it does so in a predictable fashion. Whether its behavior is just personal preference, some kind of cosmic geas, or just complete indifference to anything outside the Laws of the Dominion, as long as you mind your p's and q's, Leviathan don't intervene. I'm sorry if you'd prefer something else, but the cold fact is that Leviathan is (or at least acts like) the Ocean's schoolmarm. The only thing I can suggest is writing an angry letter to WWP. If I had to guess, I'd say it's written like that because having it exhibit more complicated behavior in that Dominion... well, a spirit that deep in the Underworld, that powerful, might smack too much of direct, arbitrary, ham-fisted ST intervention, because a spirit that powerful will succeed at virtually whatever it does, with no chance of failure, unless the ST decides so, and if it does fail, by ST fiat, that violates verisimilitude for the spirit. No-win situation. That's entirely conjecture, of course, and I'm not really interested in discussing the why of Leviathan.

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

If I were running a horror game and one of my players said, "Yeah, it's just the restless ghost of Tiamat, no big deal," I'd take that as a sign I'd done something horribly wrong.

Spoiler

Don't mistake my reaction for the character's. The character is a student of forbidden and horrifying lore; even after determining that the Leviathan won't do anything to polite swimmers, you couldn't pull a pin out of this Moros' a** with a tractor if he thought Leviathan were around. If I seem dismissive of Leviathan, it's only because I'm here addressing it as a potential threat for the purpose of communicating why it's (contextually) safe to go swimming with a primordial god-fish the size of a large city block. I wouldn't go out of my way to taunt the damn thing, or even draw its attention so my character could get a look at it; finding a reason to interact with Leviathan outside the bailiwick of the Laws would be bats**t. I'm not trying to smirk over the fact that I've found a way to rules-lawyer safety in the depths of the underworld; it's just something that has to be addressed if I actually want this character coming back.

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

Well, I wouldn't tell a player "Huh. Let's see," and then point and laugh when they tried it. That would be unethical. I would however mention in advance that from a thematic perspective, trips to the Underworld are extremely dangerous and cost the traveler almost as much as s/he gains, and that while I won't say "absolutely not," your success is only assured if you can somehow convince me that you are more awesome than Osiris, Orpheus, Izanagi et al. Otherwise, here are some dice, suitable modifiers will be imposed based on your actions throughout the chronicle up to this point, you may now start praying to the God Machine for an exceptional success.

Spoiler

That is still staggeringly arbitrary. Just the preparations for this attempt would be harrowing in the extreme. He'd be looking at months and months of research, bargaining for favors, consulting with other Mages, summoning dozens and dozens of ghosts, building up traveling supplies, artifacts, and Mana, just to prepare for the real work Down Below. While a Master of Death is more at home in the Underworld more than anyone except a Geist, the fact remains that the vast majority of his research and prep would be taking place on a plane of existence which is inherently inimical to human life, and swarming with creatures dangerous, untrustworthy, and outright insane. It would require multiple trips, across multiple Underworld rivers, interviewing and wrangling with other Kerberoi, months of research in the Aethaenium (which would be particularly dangerous to a scholar whose Vice is Lust for unhealthy forgotten lore), and then in the Ocean itself, experimentation on his own sense of identity in the waters, interviewing and Unveiling that beachcomber guy, the sailors, and the Admiral. At the end of all that, a Mage whose will and sense of self have always been an unassailable fortress will dive into the Ocean, and over the course of months of meditative sensory deprivation will have his ego stripped to the core, and for a brief moment functionally cease to exist. So forgive me if, after the character finds a winding and torturous path to enlightenment (and the player found that, after herculean effort, the endgame was actually pretty plausible) the thought of a ST taking all this into account and saying, "... on the other hand, the Mysteries and perils of the Underworld are never-ending, so... *rolls dice* ...OM NOM NOM" makes me see red. Especially considering that all this stuff is, strictly speaking, a thematic consideration in a world where any potential Archmage can do all the research and prepwork in a much safer place and manner, and just develop a single spell to do the job.

Originally Posted by Spamotron

You've come up with a cool way to potentially perceive the truth of existence but the key is then comprehending that truth. Is your character wise and experienced (in the worldly sense not the game mechanical one) enough to get what he's seeing and Ascend or will it be beyond him and he loses everything to information overload possibly leading to insanity.

I'm... not really addressing that. IM didn't give me the impression that Mages losing their mind during Threshold was much of a problem.

[CN the Logos]

I rate spoilers now? Awesomesauce.

Spoiler

Originally Posted by Cirrylius

Ah. I misspoke. It's not a mental reboot, it's a mental reinstall. A Contingent Mind 4 or 5 copy of his own mind, designed to restore "I Am" in the oneirus, to give him a glimpse of the Supernal before restoring everything else. Of course, if the Ocean affects the soul as well as the mind, the whole thing is moot, but that'd be one of the first experiments he'd perform, using a mote or two. The whole thing is supposed to be a kind of piecemeal approximation or dry-run of a Death 6 effect based on Suppress Own Life, but affecting the mind instead of the body.

I'm not stating that I don't think it'd work based on your choice of magery. I'm just saying I don't know what the final fate of people who go swimming in the ocean actually is, because it's left deliberately ambiguous. Do souls who go to the bottom of the ocean merge with the World Soul? Do they cease to exist? Do they just float, totally devoid of any thought or will right above the ocean floor? It seems like what happens there could affect whether or not you've got something to reinstall to, or whether the reinstall retains the experience.

Misspoke again. Let me clarify. Whatever else Leviathan is, dead god, cosmic principle, Deathlord, Neverborn (Primordial? UGH), in the book it is treated solely as a Kerberos. Whatever else he does in the deeps, the only time he ever interacts with characters is if they break the Laws, and it does so in a predictable fashion. Whether its behavior is just personal preference, some kind of cosmic geas, or just complete indifference to anything outside the Laws of the Dominion, as long as you mind your p's and q's, Leviathan don't intervene. I'm sorry if you'd prefer something else, but the cold fact is that Leviathan is (or at least acts like) the Ocean's schoolmarm. The only thing I can suggest is writing an angry letter to WWP. If I had to guess, I'd say it's written like that because having it exhibit more complicated behavior in that Dominion... well, a spirit that deep in the Underworld, that powerful, might smack too much of direct, arbitrary, ham-fisted ST intervention, because a spirit that powerful will succeed at virtually whatever it does, with no chance of failure, unless the ST decides so, and if it does fail, by ST fiat, that violates verisimilitude for the spirit. No-win situation. That's entirely conjecture, of course, and I'm not really interested in discussing the why of Leviathan.

The problem is that other Kerberoi do, in fact, do things aside from enforcing the laws. Orcus makes soulsteel, Yama judges souls (and even sends emissaries to the living world to hunt people down), Clockwork and Dominus battle each ther for some esoteric reason, the inhabitants of the Junkyard compete in ghostly Battlebots tourneys to see who gets to be the Kerberos, and Enoch... is a librarian (they can't all be awesome, I guess). Leviathan isn't described as doing much, but that could possibly be attributed to the fact that there isn't much to do in the Ocean of Fragments. Aside from the Boat to Nowhere, the floating memories you have to risk your own memories to get access to, and the sweet release of annihilation, there is nothing there. Leviathan's probably gone through all the really interesting memories by now, it has a truce with the Freighter for whatever reason, and it's obligated not to bother people trying to destroy themselves. The lack of action on Leviathan's part could be lack of interest, yes, but it could just as easily be lack of opportunity.

For that matter, there's at least some evidence that Leviathan considers annihilation a good thing in the form of Xolotl, the "guide" that sacrifices its victims to Leviathan by throwing them in a river leading to the ocean. Xolotl could just be crazy, but if it's even slightly sane, that implies that Leviathan isn't just passively guarding its domain; it has agents actively seeking beings to destroy.

Don't mistake my reaction for the character's. The character is a student of forbidden and horrifying lore; even after determining that the Leviathan won't do anything to polite swimmers, you couldn't pull a pin out of this Moros' a** with a tractor if he thought Leviathan were around. If I seem dismissive of Leviathan, it's only because I'm here addressing it as a potential threat for the purpose of communicating why it's (contextually) safe to go swimming with a primordial god-fish the size of a large city block. I wouldn't go out of my way to taunt the damn thing, or even draw its attention so my character could get a look at it; finding a reason to interact with Leviathan outside the bailiwick of the Laws would be bats**t. I'm not trying to smirk over the fact that I've found a way to rules-lawyer safety in the depths of the underworld; it's just something that has to be addressed if I actually want this character coming back.

And I respect that. My argumentative nature aside, you actually seem like the kind of guy I'd enjoy having as a player in one of my games. It's just that when I'm running a horror game, I like there to be some actual trepidation at the part of the players. Doesn't have to be full fledged terror (and it would be difficult to get that reaction from dice anyway), but I at least want to inspire uncertainty and nervousness. In my experience, it's led to better horror-based RP, more immersion. You may be awesome at RPing someone scared out of his wit while having the metagame knowledge their your victory is assured, but I haven't met many people like that.

That is still staggeringly arbitrary. Just the preparations for this attempt would be harrowing in the extreme. He'd be looking at months and months of research, bargaining for favors, consulting with other Mages, summoning dozens and dozens of ghosts, building up traveling supplies, artifacts, and Mana, just to prepare for the real work Down Below. While a Master of Death is more at home in the Underworld more than anyone except a Geist, the fact remains that the vast majority of his research and prep would be taking place on a plane of existence which is inherently inimical to human life, and swarming with creatures dangerous, untrustworthy, and outright insane. It would require multiple trips, across multiple Underworld rivers, interviewing and wrangling with other Kerberoi, months of research in the Aethaenium (which would be particularly dangerous to a scholar whose Vice is Lust for unhealthy forgotten lore), and then in the Ocean itself, experimentation on his own sense of identity in the waters, interviewing and Unveiling that beachcomber guy, the sailors, and the Admiral. At the end of all that, a Mage whose will and sense of self have always been an unassailable fortress will dive into the Ocean, and over the course of months of meditative sensory deprivation will have his ego stripped to the core, and for a brief moment functionally cease to exist. So forgive me if the thought of a ST taking all this into account and saying, "... on the other hand, the Mysteries and perils of the Underworld are never-ending, so... *rolls dice* ...OM NOM NOM" makes me see red. Especially considering that all this stuff is, strictly speaking, a thematic consideration in a world where any potential Archmage can do all the research and prepwork in a much safer place and manner, and just develop a single spell to do the job.

It's that arbitrary. You'd be hard-pressed to find a katabasis in actual myth that didn't suck in some way for the protagonist, with the exception of a couple of really simple ones like "and then they went to the upper part of the Underworld, spilled enough blood to give a ghost the ability to talk to them for a few minutes, and found out that they should have taken a left turn instead of a right at that last uninhabited island." Even Geist basically says "Yeah... you probably should have a good reason for this, because it's gonna suck."

I wouldn't just say "OM NOM NOM" on a less than exceptional success either. It would be more interesting to let you succeed, but inadvertently cause something I could spin into another storyline. Maybe you ascend to godhood, but your momentary merging with the nothingness at the bottom of the Ocean of Fragments connects you to Leviathan in a way you hadn't anticipated, and the Kerberos is able to use you as a sort of anchor to return to the living world ("All oceans are one ocean"). Now you have to search the supernatural world for lore that would possibly lead to the King of the Children of Pride passing on for good, maybe even need to hunt down the AWOL Sky Father to figure out what Leviathan really is and how it can be stopped for good. Meanwhile, a seagoing Gozer the Gozerian is reenacting some of Final Fantasy X's more outlandish cutscenes using the US Eastern Seaboard as its stand-in for Spira.

If you're still seeing red... well, I don't really care. It's a horror game, or at least it's supposed to be, and the Storyteller is under no obligation to let you triumph over all adversity. The game where s/he is does in fact exist, and it's even made by White Wolf, but it's called either Exalted or Scion depending on the setting you use for it. Also, the mere fact that reality-warping Batman wizards exist in what is otherwise consistently described as a bleak, low-key magic setting makes me gnash my teeth in rage. I generally make it clear that mages as described in Mage don't exist. I hate it so hard that I am homebrewing my own splat for when I need powerful-but-not-omnipotent magicians that vaguely fit the wizard archetype. Actually describing the journey to nigh-omnipotence as simple and/or safe makes my eyeballs bleed.

And with that said... I have spent way too much time typing this. I'm not sure what it is about White Wolf discussions that inspires me to create text walls.

[Fouredged Sword]

All magic is awesome broken if used right. Forces can stop hearts, mater can make any item and make tools super tools, fate can give all rolls the 8 again ability, time has the ask the dm a question spell, prime can mess with other spells, life can throw a tree at you, spirit can ignore disbelief, death can kill you (and ignore disbelief).

Yes, space is good, and many mage builds pick up space 2. Mind is also good, and many mages builds pick up mind 2 (for the anti-mind control armor). But remember that a srcy works both ways and another mage can cast back at you, and attempting mind control of another mage will lead to being lit on fire as soon as he see's you wave mind magic in his direction.

[Cirrylius]

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

I rate spoilers now? Awesomesauce.

I imagine people are getting tired of reading my text walls on their way down to New News.

Spoiler

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

Do souls who go to the bottom of the ocean merge with the World Soul? Do they cease to exist? Do they just float, totally devoid of any thought or will right above the ocean floor? It seems like what happens there could affect whether or not you've got something to reinstall to, or whether the reinstall retains the experience.

I admit, I'm assuming there's at least a moment of stillness as I Am falls out of the back of your head (shaped like a giant pearl), for the purposes of making a cool visual if nothing else.

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

You may be awesome at RPing someone scared out of his wit while having the metagame knowledge their your victory is assured, but I haven't met many people like that.

Heh. Playing this character would make RP'ing that a little easier and subtler. He's never been emotional, and possesses iron self-control. He'd still be freaking fairly bad, but a lifetime of hardassery and terrors experienced would keep him functional and keep the horror in hand. A good metaphor would be a distant onlooker hearing a single dying prisoner screaming his lungs out in terror in the middle of an empty Alcatraz.

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

Leviathan isn't described as doing much, but that could possibly be attributed to the fact that there isn't much to do in the Ocean of Fragments. The lack of action on Leviathan's part could be lack of interest, yes, but it could just as easily be lack of opportunity.

That's a good suggestion, but the fact that the Domain is listed in the book at all assumes there are STs who are going to be putting characters through their paces down there. IOW, Leviathan may not have many opportunities, but the implication of running a game in the Ocean means that whenever he's used in game, he will still have them, especially since he seems to know what's going on anywhere and can get there instantly. Leaving that out of the book, even if in a "NO REALLY. STs ONLY!!" sidebar, would be ludicrous.

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

Xolotl could just be crazy, but if it's even slightly sane, that implies that Leviathan isn't just passively guarding its domain; it has agents actively seeking beings to destroy.

That would make a great story arc, and Leviathan's Ferrymen would make a really frightening enemy conspiracy for Geists. But 1) unless the ST expands on that via fiat, there's just the one assh*le doing Leviathan's bidding, and it strikes me that over the course of millennia, Leviathan could catch more drowned rats than that. 2) Even if the guy's not crazy, all that means is that the victims will lose their identities in the water (barring Admirial, divine, or ST intervention). If all Leviathan wants is identities... it's got the character's identity. Even if it actively wants identifiers, there are fewer reasons to want two identical sets of them.

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

I wouldn't just say "OM NOM NOM" on a less than exceptional success either. It would be more interesting to let you succeed, but inadvertently cause something I could spin into another storyline. Maybe you ascend to godhood, but your momentary merging with the nothingness at the bottom of the Ocean of Fragments connects you to Leviathan in a way you hadn't anticipated, and the Kerberos is able to use you as a sort of anchor to return to the living world ("All oceans are one ocean"). Now you have to search the supernatural world for lore that would possibly lead to the King of the Children of Pride passing on for good, maybe even need to hunt down the AWOL Sky Father to figure out what Leviathan really is and how it can be stopped for good. Meanwhile, a seagoing Gozer the Gozerian is reenacting some of Final Fantasy X's more outlandish cutscenes using the US Eastern Seaboard as its stand-in for Spira.

Heh. I think the worst consequence for the character personally would be his inability to archive the process by which he achieved

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

godhood

...Archmage. Unless he tries to continually update his Mind re-install on the way Down (which strikes even me as a terrible idea) then he'll have no memory of the time between his last Mind update and his Oneiros. And that little worm of curiosity does gnaw so.

...oh. No. There are worse consequences. Somewhere in the Ocean are floating all of the character's identifiers. He's up and walking around the fallen world, but there's still a fragmented, soulless copy of him in the Ocean. What's really ironic is that this character is based on an older, non-WoD one, and he had a very similar catastrophe in his life.

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

Also, the mere fact that reality-warping Batman wizards exist in what is otherwise consistently described as a bleak, low-key magic setting makes me gnash my teeth in rage. I generally make it clear that mages as described in Mage don't exist. I hate it so hard that I am homebrewing my own splat for when I need powerful-but-not-omnipotent magicians that vaguely fit the wizard archetype.

*shrugs* Angry letter, or Rule Zero. Sorry.

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

...but I at least want to inspire uncertainty and nervousness.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a katabasis in actual myth that didn't suck in some way for the protagonist.

...and the Storyteller is under no obligation to let you triumph over all adversity.

Actually describing the journey to nigh-omnipotence as simple and/or safe makes my eyeballs bleed.

How... how is what I am suggesting simple or safe? I'm not suggesting that all that prep should be blue-booked or treated as down-time. This is in-game stuff. A whole goddamn mini-campaign. My character would have to cross a half-dozen rivers at least once, make overtures to initiate contact with Geists, make a staggering expense of all possible kinds of resources, successfully interact with other Kerberoi (including Hades, and he's just a jerk) without violating their Laws, and beat up the False Ferryman if I want to follow all leads. On top of that, there's still the risk of being swept away into oblivion if the character can't build an interface with the Supernal in time, and that's an actual unavoidable mechanical risk. Does all that not somewhat make up for the fact that the actual process of the moment of Threshold is the one moment when the player isn't sweating bullets for his characters life, soul, and identity?

[TheCountAlucard]

Originally Posted by Fouredged Sword

life can throw a tree at you

Better still, Life can turn an existing tree into said tree's mass in bullet ants.

[Fouredged Sword]

My love of life magic comes from a character of mine who pulled a lice off his head (he cultivated them for such use). He would flick the lice at you and turn it into a oak tree in mid flight. After the oak tree hit he would turn it into a swarm of army ants to swarm you.

That an he would imitate a bullet shrimp to punch like a shotgun with no physical stats under 6. Fun times.

[Selrahc]

He would flick the lice at you and turn it into a oak tree in mid flight

Doesn't work, unless you're getting tricksy with time or fate. Transformation spells, like almost all other spells, are instant actions. Transforming something in mid-flight, after you have thrown it no less, is something that would only be possible for a reflexive spell. For this to work you're going to need to throw on conditional triggers and work with oak trees that have been pre-transformed into lice, then give them a trigger that ends the spell duration upon them being thrown. (That does of course raise the problem of any time you are hit with a supernal dispellation from Prime, dozens of oak trees suddenly form in your head...)

I'd also say... lice aren't aerodynamic. You can't throw them like a dart or flick them like a pellet. You would need to attach them to something that flies true, even if you did have some reflexive transformation spell.

[Fouredged Sword]

We always played that physical actions could be used as needed to achieve a spell effect. This speed up play and encouraged creative use of magic. One could create a sword of fire and swing it at someone, ect.

[Selrahc]

We always played that physical actions could be used as needed to achieve a spell effect. This speed up play and encouraged creative use of magic. One could create a sword of fire and swing it at someone, ect.

Okay.
It drastically buffs mages though. Essentially making all magic reflexive? Wow.

[ToySoldierCPlus]

Originally Posted by Selrahc

Okay.
It drastically buffs mages though. Essentially making all magic reflexive? Wow.

It's not like they weren't broken already. If it's a Mage chronicle, all the players are still on even footing. If it's a crossover, I can see some issues, but Mage already has crossover issues.

[Fouredged Sword]

It applied only when a physical action was involved as part of a spell effect. We played it that way to keep the action moving in the game and to keep the pressure up.

One could create fire AND throw it. One could pull a gun out of the wall AND fire it. It made the game much more fast action. Very fun in an action packed mage game. Made magic and creative solutions more important in the moment rather than the heavy focus on buff and shoot.

[Morty]

Originally Posted by CN the Logos

Believe or not, there's some real life justification for Requiem's RAW on slashing weapons versus firearms, although it's a bit of a simplification. Weapons that primarily work by piercing are more likely to hit a vital organ and thus result in a fatal injury. However, an attack that pierces straight through a person to hit vitals is less likely to do serious damage to the musculature/skeletal structure/nervous system around the wound, so until the victim collapses from blood loss/shock or the nervous system is directly damaged, he can still fight. Contrast that with attacks made by an edged weapon, which are more likely to hit limbs or penetrate less deeply into the target's body, but are also more likely to sever the muscles tendons, nerves, etc... required for the damaged body parts to keep functioning. It doesn't matter if the wound is actually going to kill you or not, if the tendons that allow you to clench your hand or the muscles that move your leg are severed, you're going to have a hard time continuing to fight.

As physical creatures who maintain their life through supernatural means, vampires don't care nearly as much about piercing injuries because hey, they weren't using that pancreas anyway. They still rely on muscles, bones and tendons to move though, so attacks that damage these will still put them down even if a coup de grâce is required to finish them off.

Personally, I think a better system might be to create a system in which injuries dealing more damage than (target's Stamina + N) have a chance to cause some sort of crippling injury (which would differ based on the type of damage and the weapon). Under this modification, vampires downgrade all damage to bashing, but can still be temporarily crippled by weapons that damage their bodies in appropriate ways. Whether the resulting increase in complexity is worth what I'd consider an increase in verisimilitude is debatable though. I think the current rules are fine as an abstraction.

I'm not saying that the current explanation for the way Vampires treat damage doesn't make sense. It does, for the reasons you just listed. But having them recieve Bashing damage from all mundane weapons would make sense too, and might be more thematically and mechanically appropriate. We'll have to see what else comes out of it. Between this and Blood Sorcery, Vampire's going to look a lot different in a year's time.

[CN the Logos]

Originally Posted by Morty

I'm not saying that the current explanation for the way Vampires treat damage doesn't make sense. It does, for the reasons you just listed. But having them recieve Bashing damage from all mundane weapons would make sense too, and might be more thematically and mechanically appropriate. We'll have to see what else comes out of it. Between this and Blood Sorcery, Vampire's going to look a lot different in a year's time.

Yeah, you're right there. One of nWoD's strengths and weaknesses is that it's so mechanically simple. On the one hand I don't even need to write mook stats, regardless of what they do specifically, and that's great. On the other, its simplicity means that it's not going to be perfectly realistic, and any rules that increase verisimilitude are probably going to raise the system's complexity too. It's not a matter of "can we create rules that perfectly model what happens when a vampire gets hit by a knife as opposed to a bullet;" we can totally do that. It's a matter of "is this worth the trouble?" So I wouldn't be that perturbed by whichever way the ST wanted to run it myself (although auto-torpor at full lethal sucks, and anything that alleviates that problem and makes vampires less fragile is okay with me as long as it makes sense).

I'm also looking forward to Blood Sorcery tremendously, even if I do have to refluff at least a third of it.

[Eurus]

I have mixed feelings on Vampire fragility. On the one hand, it sucks because seriously, Dracula getting potentially gibbed by a machete is kind of lame. On the other hand, Vampire culture kind of acknowledges the fact that they wouldn't do well in a full-on conflict with humanity, so being vulnerable is perhaps appropriate.

[The Glyphstone]

Originally Posted by Eurus

I have mixed feelings on Vampire fragility. On the one hand, it sucks because seriously, Dracula getting potentially gibbed by a machete is kind of lame. On the other hand, Vampire culture kind of acknowledges the fact that they wouldn't do well in a full-on conflict with humanity, so being vulnerable is perhaps appropriate.

That cultural skittishness is more because of their vulnerability during the day (ghouls are only so reliable) - most vampires aren't scared of going hand-to-hand with mortals if they're awake at full power.

[Fouredged Sword]

All the physical resistance in the world won't help you when your weakness is as common as fire. It has been a weapon in the arsenal of man from the start of civilization and we are very good at using it. Even if vampires completely ignored all bashing and lethal damage from mundane weapons they would be right to fear an all out confrontation with all humans everywhere. Large numbers of humans are just that dangerous.