World of Darkness

[nimble gale]

And converted setites are considered full members, too, there's no prejudice against them

[rapid glacier]

I think the only ways to really get out of the pyramid were Vinculum/Vaulderie rituals or let a weak bond expire naturally somehow, right? Like that was the point of the pyramid in the first place, top down control of the kindred in the clans

[mighty zephyr]

Though if you do vaulderie you get the instant kill button on your forehead

[craggy coyote]

as Kevin in HTP noted not necessarily.

while the church of set would be willing to take on a tremere who has blood sorcery they'll share that would require

1. a way to cancel the tremere for long enough to break the blood bond naturally or break it like vaulderie

2. reason to believe the tremere wouldn't just kill anyone involved.

it's doable but the tremere pyramid is by design hard to escape and encourages conformity

though the setites desire for knowledge and temptation imo means a fairly large amount of them would love to try and do it

[nimble gale]

A setite that could convert a tremere and keep them safe would be quite a coup, I think. Also it's the tremere, they deserve to be punished for their hubris by having their prodigies stolen.

(this post brought to you by tzimisce/nosferatu/gangrel gang and the one salubri in the shadows)

[marble sorrel]

Changeling character concepts are fun.

...hah, the example character has allies (Bone Gnawers)

That's fun

Randon Sidhe Knight turning up with Silver Buckshot to fight Black Spiral Dancers

House Liam are great.

[nimble gale]

in a fucking trenchcoat of all things

[worthy sundial]

man i forgot how good ctd art is

[marble sorrel]

Trenchcoat and Sunglasses.

[nimble gale]

this is not a hot take but of the owod lines, changeling and wraith easily have the most evocative art for their lines

[marble sorrel]

The fucking changeling book art for a Black Spiral Dancer might not be physically accurate but man it's fucking evocative.

[worthy sundial]

it goes fucken hard

[marble sorrel]

...oh hey, the old noble book establishes what the Technocracy knows about the Sidhe. The answer being 'fuck all'.

Makes sense. The Technocracy is traditionally absolute garbage at Spirit Stuff. Only the VEs have any handle on it at all.

[nimble gale]

"we know enought o know that we don't know enough, but what we don't know can absolutely hurt us, so we shhould probably hurt it first. Then sell the footage." - a syndicate member, probably

[marble sorrel]

...I also think Changeling 1e might have been the first WoD line to A) Have gay characters B) Have a slightly more modern understanding of gender. It's got canon gay characters in the example characters and it talks about the conflict that can come from when your fey history and your human history end up having different gender identities.

[nimble gale]

that's cool

[marble sorrel]

God, the old art for Dr Anton Stark is creepy as fuck.

[nimble gale]

I don't like his fingers

[marble sorrel]

WoD taking shots at it's own fanbase.

"Here we go, one of the sources of Banality in the world: The guys who won't use deoderant and harass people at the LARP"

No comment, just gorgeous art

And of course one of the example Dauntain (Fey who've become beings of Cold Iron, rather than Glamour) is a cop.

[marble sorrel]

Silly Idea - Entropy-Happy Son of Ether who refers to his ghost summoning science as 'Hauntology' and gets in loud arguments if you point out that Hauntology already exists in philosophy.

[nimble gale]

Does he insist that philosophy isn't real Science! ?

[marble sorrel]

It's not a hard science, says the guy scrawling 'ghosts!' on a blackboard

[olive citrus]

Is the pack totem background optional? The flavor text seems to make it seem like it’s required, but mechanically it doesn’t say you have to invest points

[marble sorrel]

You don't have to but it's not much of a pack without one. That said: Some lack such. A group of Ronin likely wouldn't have one.

[olive citrus]

Huh ok.

[marble sorrel]

You might need to ask the question of 'why does nobody like you'.

Which to be fair, could be as simple as 'we all got together 3 days ago. We're still in the process of finding one.'

[marble sorrel]

1) If you can soak lethal, you can soak aggravated. This does *not* apply to anything that is a splat weakness (Fire for Vamps, Silver for Werewolves, Cold Iron for Changelings) etc. It still takes just as long as normal to heal though.
2) If your ability calls for manipulation and you don't like it, talk to me about potential other stats. Can't promise I'll accept a given swap but not being able to use Charisma for being a muse is very silly. game kinda really overuses manipulation for 'anything that is both social and remotely clever/insightful'. Appearance in particular is criminally underused.
3) The maximum TN change on any roll is +3/-3 unless the effect expressly calls out being bigger than that (Like Way of Fire reducing red fear by 1-5 or a Rank 5 Bunk, though neither of those would stack with additional reductions) so you can't stack 2-3 TN reduction effects for -5 TN.
4) Extra action effects can only grant an offensive action for every 2 actions granted. Dodge or move is fine but you won't get a second stab until Celerity 2. You also can't ever stack them. You just take the highest number of extra actions.

Looking at some houserules I'm looking at implementing for when I'm running 20th ed wod. How do these seem?

[vast blaze]

Dammit Ikiryo, now I wanna play Changeling

[marble sorrel]

Yay

[olive citrus]

Changeling might honestly be my favorite wod setting, next to mage.

[hybrid dock]

[mighty zephyr]

2 doesn't seem like a houserule

I'm fairly certain that's just The Suggested Rules

[high current]

i need to actually read Dreaming at some point, considering it seems like it'd be a good mirror for the tv show Grimm, which i'd previously compared to Lost though obv if i ran a Grimm inspired game, it'd be more about changelings solving changeling problems than...essentially a fae hunter working with fae to track down fae criminals as much as i enjoyed the show, it is essentially copaganda: fae edition

[mighty zephyr]

Ah wait, ability like spells and shit

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, for stuff like 'Hey it says that changelings use Manipulation + Kenning for acting as a muse to regain glamour but I'm pretty sure I could guide someone through a technical task intellectually or inspire a painting by being super pretty'.

[mighty zephyr]

Feels a bit odd to just specify manipulation

and not just leave that open to any ability

[marble sorrel]

Oh it's not just for manipualtion. That last bit was me just commenting that WoD writers have a bit of a tendency to Default to Manipulation as an example of it.

...or did you mean the muse stuff?

As yeah, I 100% agree on the muse stuff front

[mighty zephyr]

Well the rule is, specifically "if the ability calls for manipulation"

which makes me think it's only manipulation

[marble sorrel]

That's fair. I should clarify it's for any ability if you can justify why you'd like to do it a bit of a different way and I trust you're not doing it purely to powergame'. XD

[mighty zephyr]

Ru awakening in the depths like the Balrog about rules swindling

[marble sorrel]

That's more or less the role of Knights among the various courts.

'Hey, we seem to have a problem. Throw Player Characters at it'

I do really like the combo of Kith (The type of fey you are) + houses. Sorta helps to decouple culture and physical aspects. Like yeah, a Troll is always going to be Fucking Huge, he's a troll. But a troll isn't locked into 'be a warrior'. They can just as much join house Dougal's Artificers as they can house Danann's pathfinders etc.

And you'll find basicly every type of fae in every house, as while the Sidhe tend to join the same house as their family, that's not a requirement and as long as the house accepts you, you're a member just like any other.

Giving you a boon based on training or mystical blessings and a flaw based on ingrained culture, history or curses.

Like House Danann pathfinders are acclimatized to the Dreaming and don't risk Bedlam even if they're permanently in it. They also have the ability to invoke the house name to talk with any being in the dreaming diplomatically.

But because they're so acclimatized to the dreaming, the GM can reverse-mists you. Where rather than forgetting about Fae things, he can go 'Hey, that mortal fact you need? Gimme a roll to see if it's slipped away from your dreaming-acclimatized mind?'

[high current]

[marble sorrel]

Also, this character is only briefly mentioend in House Dougal but that's a hell of a description.

Countess Volk, fae cyberneticist advocate of the Fabrication Society

[high current]

but yeah Grimm never explicitly calls them fae but like, they're all very much inspired by Grimm's Fairy Tales, and a lot of them are essentially Fae With A CGI Face

[high current]

that is indeed a hell of a description

https://tenor.com/QY1G.gif

[marble sorrel]

The rules for them are pretty simple honestly. Fae Cybernetics just fully replace the limb/organ missing. You've got all function and feeling and such, with one limitation - They cease working if they touch cold iron. So if you've got a Silver Hand replacing your lost one, it's just as good as your flesh one was...but at the touch of cold iron it will go limp until the cold iron goes away.

The listed example is a fae who's throat was repaired with them who starts suffocating when a cold iron chain was wrapped around their neck.

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, that's basicly how Fae Mein works.

You don't Permanently Look Elf to the average person. You've got a human look and a fae look and generally people only see the human look unless they're another fae.

But if you want to do some Big Shit/Make A Point, you Invoke The Wyld and you become entirely your Fae Mein

Which isn't subtle but it also lets you take that sword that normally is made of dreams and beat a very real guy's ass with it.

[high current]

ye, in Grimm it's less of a Big Shit thing, but the Wesen all have to Woge to use any of their special powers(which, like, Monroe, the guy in that gif, has heightened senses when he Woges, and also teeth and claws if he gets into a fight)

there's other Wesen with more notable special powers, like the Hexenbiests who are essentially just Fae Mages

https://tenor.com/baKMg.gif

[vast blaze]

...to be fair I think I would also start suffocating if someone wrapped a chain around my neck

[high current]

depends on how tight, im assuming this was less 'choking' more just 'restraining', but it caused their throat to stop working anyways

[marble sorrel]

Basicly yeah.

To go with an example of how Fae Mein might be in a game: There's a guy who's big. Like, he's well past 6ft tall and built like a linebacker. He's carrying around a tire iron and wearing a heavy jacket but is well...that's mostly Just A Dude.

If he Invokes The Wyld, suddenly you're not looking at a guy like that. You're looking at a 9ft tall troll with bright blue skin. He's carrying a massive warhammer and wearing armour of glittering ice. He picks you up and throws you across the room effortlessly.

But at the same time, now that he's entirely a 9ft tall troll guy in the physical, he's also gunna get stuck on the door when you run screaming.

Without Invoking the Wyld, those aspects are still there but only to dreaming-based things.

So if there is a Corrupted Dreaming Spirit lurking around and feeding on people's hopes, driving them into deep depression?

That Dreaming Warhammer will still work on it just fine, even if nobody else knows why he's swinging around the tire iron.

[high current]

also genuinely wondering now if there is actually a Changeling equivalent to like, the one Interesting Thing about Grimms, because 99% of the time its just 'being a Grimm means you can see when a Wesen Woges without any help'(Hank, the guy who freaks out in the gif above, had to drink a special concotion to be able to see it iirc)
but its also noted at one point that all Wesen can recognize a Grimm when they Woge, because to a Woged Wesen, a Grimm's eyes are pitch black and reflect their Wesen form back at them; ig normally they don't even see their Wesen form in the mirror

[marble sorrel]

I hope I'm being coherent?

[high current]

ye, i get the vague idea of how the wyld and chimeric reality work

(the reason i think they dont normally see their wesen form in the mirror is, Monroe from the gif above and another wesen ally the main dude makes in the show, when explaining the pitch black eyes that reflect their own wesen form thing, mention that they find it unsettling to see that reflection and it took some getting used to after they became friends with him)

[marble sorrel]

I don't think there's anything quite like that. That said: Changelings do have a situation where they'll wake up one day and find a new face staring them back in the mirror/have to get used to their new mein. As they're not changelings from birth.

Or at least, not awakened changelings

It's like being a Mage. Most people can become a mage. Very few do.

[high current]

yeah not surprised, i figure it'd have to be a best fit of like, a court whose knights have a terrifying mein or something like that

ah, the thallain exist

[vast blaze]

Goddddddddd now I wanna play Changeling really bad

[pure mauve]

For some reason I thought of a Geist splat, just from trying to figure out what's missing from the existing splats (which are all reasons for characters to come back from the dead), and one big one that I don't think fits neatly into any of the other motivations would be the Curious. They died with a question burning away in their brain, and couldn't rest in peace without it being answered.

[nimble gale]

I've been workshopping a changeling character that's not following some stereotypes, but also is very stereotypical in other ones. A Seelie Redcap Knight of House Liam who's a devout catholic... because name another religion where you get to eat your object of worship every time you gather up to pray. That's legal.

[velvet sparrow]

Lmao @hybrid dock

[hybrid dock]

Thanks for the ping lmao

[high current]

nevermind, house beaumayn exists and their flaw is basically what i was looking for but specifically to thallain and members of the shadow court

[pure mauve]

...if a sin-eater's first death is due to some sort of long-term or chronic condition, do they still have that condition when they're brought back?

[mighty zephyr]

Depends TM

[pure mauve]

Stupid Geist story idea: a ghost wrote a novel, but died before it could be published, and won't move on until it is. This is complicated somewhat by the fact that the novel (once the PCs find it) is really bad.

Not necessarily offensive or anything, but... it experiments with tone and format in ways which do not pay off, and if you make it past that you have a long, rambling screed about a high school girl falling in love with an elderly male author, interspersed with what the author thinks are interesting explorations of mundane life.

The less-funny alternative is a ghost who wants you to avenge their killer, but it turns out their killer was acting in (justified) self-defense.

[mighty zephyr]

https://youtu.be/ik0BPKM9WQg?si=GATIvJ3ZgjlZ3mOe

[pure mauve]

Also possible! Although it's possible the ghost had the idea first... just... also worse.

[dawn wigeon]

i fucking love changeling

[pure mauve]

The eternal question is: which Changeling. OWoD? Because I know very little about it (generally know more about CoD/NWoD stuff), and Changeling bears almost no resemblence between the versions.

[dawn wigeon]

Changeling the Lost 2e, CoD

[marble sorrel]

Imagine a CTD and CTL character meeting/how much they'd weird each other out.

[pure mauve]

Probably the CTL character runs away screaming. Or exhibits some kind of fight/flight/fawn/freeze reaction.

[marble sorrel]

Dreaming Character: "Hi, I'm a Sidhe and I'm here to help."
Lost Character: "Kill It, Kill It, Kill It!"

[pure mauve]

Honestly I don't think a CtL character would even think of a fey as like... beatable necessarily. This is a Pure Traumatized Panic Moment.

[orchid void]

I mean

That’s A Huntsman

Beat It To Death With A Stop Sign

[pure mauve]

Fair.

...so, question: while looking through location merits, I noticed that Prometheans can make a "hovel", within which time spent does not count towards the creation of a Wasteland. Were they always able to do that? Is that a thing to make Prometheans play nicer with other splats, who tend to stick to single locations?

[craggy coyote]

it can also be for sts who want chronicles in a single location

eg a city based chronicle for Promethean where you can still spend time in the city observing humans and having to retreat after too long but wont turn it into a wasteland

[high current]

Feldspar

https://tenor.com/bF85e.gif

[hybrid dock]

Hm

[high current]

there's a character in Outer Wilds called Feldspar, which may or may not have been the intended reference with that name
and Outer Worlds and Outer Wilds frequently get confused with each other by people who aren't familiar with them(there's also an "Outer Worlds my beloved" gif with the Outer Wilds art on the left side)

[hybrid dock]

Lmao yea

[mighty zephyr]

I am learning that no one on Earth can do Gilgul in M20

[mighty zephyr]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/727099244011454555/1425118065062056016/image.png?ex=68e66c20&is=68e51aa0&hm=43bd7b36fb457c7f64f564abaac78654143e1234ab7738d71c7fc86c352af378&

https://i.imgur.com/r0wxAh9.png

Dante can't even do a basic ward

[marble sorrel]

Changelings: "Wow, sucks to suck." Gestures to Prop covering it entirely

More seriously: That feels like comical amounts of sphere inflation.

I feel like a ward could be done with almost 'any two of those listed ones'. Like Mind for 'precise targeting of classes of living beings' and Correspondence for the ward itself.

[high current]

yeah M20 has a big problem of compounding sphere requirements and just being badly written overall tbh

like, if i attempt to run oMage again before M5 comes out, I'm either using nMage mechanics with the oMage setting, or looking into Revised rules

[mighty zephyr]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/727099244011454555/1425124737494810756/image.png?ex=68e67256&is=68e520d6&hm=88d864b9fd14eb3873d89b19d7073c08fadcb9c291303e7a0be0d833aa279624&

This is also advertised as a Spirit 5 effect

And in Ascension you cannot sub in spheres from other mages

so just like, no one can do this

[marble sorrel]

...why is it easier for a changeling to Gilgul a mage than another mage? XD

[worthy sundial]

that seems entirely contradictory to what the rite entails

given the constant pluralization

[mighty zephyr]

Unless it's tucked away somewhere

The way casting works is that other Mages can only add Arete to the dicepool

Not spheres

The main caster needs to match the full sphere requirement

[marble sorrel]

Changeling's Naming 2 effect - Nickname is very funny. You give someone a nickname and everyone who sees them just instinctively thinks of that nickname when they see them/it becomes the first impression they generate when meeting people.

It doesn't force them to act along with the nickname but while they're acting against it, they can't recover willpower. So they have the choice of 'fight through this miserably' or swallow their pride and go 'fine, the nickname is accurate'.

So you can go "HEY DUMBASS!" and they're actively not allowed to demonstate being clever around other people if they want to recover willpower.

[high current]

Fat Charlie from Anansi Boys

(iirc it's explained fairly early in the book, Charlie was never fat, but his father made a joke about him being fat once when he was a kid, and it stuck for his entire life)

also i appreciate the fact that CtD actually gives a plausible explanation for how other splats work within the framing that Dreaming offers for the world

[mighty zephyr]

ehhh, I don't think it works out too well outside of Changeling

"They're just Changelings who forgot they were Changelings"

[high current]

well yeah but no splat is free of conflicting metaplot stuff when you look at the other games

[mighty zephyr]

Oh definitely not

Which is why I think you should always take their explanations as just internal coping/propaganda

Since most splats can't even tell you where they themselves came from

[high current]

but within the context of Changeling, the explanation it gives for other splats makes sense and is actually sometimes supported by the mechanics from what i've seen

eg the Nunnehi can bond with a patron spirit similar to how Werewolves do

[marble sorrel]

To be fair, it also expressly goes 'This is a changeling theory'. Vampires get 3 different theoretical backstories from the changelings depending on which kith you ask. XD

[mighty zephyr]

Well regular humans can also do that.

[high current]

and i appreciate that Changelings have a mostly accurate take on how Wraiths work, thanks to the Sluagh they've got most of the facts correct, they just look at it from a slightly different angle

[marble sorrel]

Vampires
According to fae scholars, vampires descend from one jealous redcap. He apparently slew his brother in a fit of jealousy, placing his jaws around the sibling’s head and snapping them shut. It’s a tale with traction, much to the chagrin of the redcaps.

When not responding to these rumors with violence, redcaps correct tale-spinners with their version. The envious fae was one named Lilith, of a separate, lost kith. Yes, she behaved in a way similar to the redcaps, but she was Thallain. Her murderous actions brought a curse down on her entire line, as the Tuatha
de Danaan denied them the Dreaming forevermore.

A popular rumor contrary to both tales is prevalent among the commoners. Desperate for immortality, a sidhe offshoot became vampires by consuming the life of other, more vibrant creatures. Such parasitical behavior is typical of the sidhe, they say.

The Vampire one seems to go with 'Cain was a Redcap, not a human', 'Lilith was a Fae' and 'Have I told you about the labor theory of economics?' as options.

So it's not quite 'fae that forgot they were fae' so much as 'oh yeah, still a curse but some of the origins had fae stuff involved'.

Honestly, they're not too far off from the generally accepted Cain theory. Very 'yes, and' rather than 'nowhere close'

Get of Fenris: "Oh we hates those Fae, we're gunna kill them."
Other werewolves: "How does that differ from your stance on literally anything else?"

[hybrid dock]

I remember reading demon and it just said “I have no fucking clue what this is” when it came to werewolves

“What the fuck is that. We didn’t make those. Who made those. What the fuck?”

[marble sorrel]

Fenrir hatred for the sidhe stems from an incident long prior to the Shattering, when fae and shapechanger were seen as immutably linked. An entourage of gleaming sidhe lost their horses in the mountains. In need of alternate mounts, a noble espied a werewolf in conversation with a commoner — exchanging grunts, howls, and egregious body language — and realized this savage creature would make a perfect mount for the arduous country. He gathered his host, and they subdued the werewolf and her fellows, placing them under a geas to remain obedient pets for one millennium. Since the geas concluded, the Get have been unfriendly to the fae, and homicidal to the sidhe.

To be fair: Get likely have pretty solid reason to be Very Salty. This was Kinda A Dick Move to people as proud as werewolves.

[hybrid dock]

And vampires…
Tbf the Cain myth is pretty easy to accept for a demon

[mighty zephyr]

I mean it's The Bible But Not Really

Demon would go "yeah totally I was there, definitely"

[hybrid dock]

Yeah

Which is why werewolves are so funny in that context

[mighty zephyr]

Then you show them a dinosaur bone and they freak out

[hybrid dock]

“I wasn’t there for that what the FUCK”

[mighty zephyr]

Going to a museum and a demon points to a neanderthal and goes "why are you displaying that ugly man"

[nimble gale]

Werewolf: "Hey show some respect on them, they were our favored kin before the other fera exterminated them."

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, this is a remarkably 'they know shit' understanding:

Reasoning with a wraith when one is encountered is possible, just like any Prodigal, but the sluagh tell a tale of a wraith’s chimerical makeup. Just as fae society splits between Seelie and Unseelie, wraiths are possessed of rational and insidious portions vying for control. The Shadow is the dark half of a wraith, and it can be difficult to tell when the Shadow’s taken over. The Shadow despises the vitality present in changelings, and will spitefully orchestrate the downfall of Kithain to whom it takes exception. Shadow-controlled wraiths will drain the Glamour clean from a changeling.

Most people who know ghosts exist don't know the fact that shadows are part of a wraith's nature.

I do find it funny that the Changeling take on Mages is 'We'd love to work with you, as we agree on quite a few things but you fuckers won't stop stealing shit so we can't trust you'.

Which...to be fair...yep.

That's mages

[nimble gale]

Well it's called a freehold, that means it's free to hold right

[clear delta]

People also often grab rules from New Mage 2e

[mighty zephyr]

They said that yeah

[clear delta]

They did?
Damn my eyes

[mighty zephyr]

Mages not being able to stack spheres in rituals is insane to me

Half the mechanics in this game are impossible

[hybrid dock]

Stacking spheres is hard they’re very imbalanced

I haven’t managed to stack more than 2

[mighty zephyr]

No I mean like 2 mages working together

"I have forces 4 but need a spirit guy"

[high current]

im remembering that some of the best moments in the M20 game i ran were the bits where i said 'fuck what the book says, this makes sense to me and is cooler'

[mighty zephyr]

I mean yeah

But thats a condemnation of the book

[high current]

ye, M20 was where i got into oMage but it's a flaming pile of garbage compared to the other 20th Anniversary Edition books

by which i mean the mechanics in the books are a mess and dont agree with each other, as has been discussed in here before

i havent read older editions of oMage enough to know if they were better but, i imagine they must have been if there were actually people wanting a 20th Anniversary Edition in the first place

[craggy coyote]

I wanted a similar ting in VTM for sorcery tbh. Rituals that require the vitae or aid of certain disciplines. Want to shake the earth somewhere? Go grab a potence user

[marble sorrel]

If used to target a person, the changeling may place a powerful wind at their back, doubling their movement speed for every two successes rolled.

I wonder how this stacks. So if you get 2 successes, it's doubled. If you get 4 it's...doubled and then doubled again? Or is it merely tripled?

Book isn't quite as clear as it could be.

[nimble gale]

I think it's supposed to be 'doubled, then doubled again', but that is

extremely strong

[marble sorrel]

The 'using it to slow the other guy down' version is very funny against werewolves.

'I got 6 successes so mr werewolf is moving 1/8th speed. I will stroll away from his Crinos form'

[high current]

yeah 'doubling for every 2 successes' implies it scales up exponentially

[marble sorrel]

Zoomy Changeling

[nimble gale]

I think we call those pookas

[olive citrus]

God, took me so long to wrap my head around pooled backgrounds @.@

[mighty zephyr]

why so

[rapid glacier]

This was a running joke for one of my new WtA players and then this showed up on the WoD discord lol

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah this is classic

Especially when people realized in WtF that the Oath of the Moon synched up weirdly well with the sailor moon theme

[rapid glacier]

Lmao

Yeah her PC is the one that was the Girl Scout, and now she’s a very different kind of scout

[high current]

so i have finished skimming the mechanics sections of C20, and it does seem very neat actually it is a little disappointing that Naming and Contracts dont have anything to really replicate the classic fae trick of 'may i have your name'

closest it gets without unleashing i think would be using Naming 5, Reweaving, to literally remove their name, but like, what does that actually do?

[mighty zephyr]

Mildly inconvience them, I suppose.

[marble sorrel]

Bated Breath is a fun one in Tale-Craft (Players Guide). It's that classic 'Oh god, he's monologuing', where are long as you keep speaking, people are enthralled and listen (As long as you're not using it to hurt people. Can't make them stand in the fire.)

A fun part of it is that it expressly allows you to keep doing things. You can walk about, interact with the environment and do non-hostile magic while it's active.

So you can expressly walk up to a guard, start your rambling and before he knows, you've slipped past him into the building while he was distracted by your nonsense.

[pure mauve]

...sounds like a NWoD Demon power.

not a specific one, but it has that vibe.

[marble sorrel]

Talecraft starts pretty mundane with 'You learn what people think about something'. Note: It doesn't necessarily give you facts. If everyone thinks Boo Radly is a creepy serial killer but he's actually a nice introvert, you'll find out he's a creepy serial killer.

But by the end moves from 'Learning stories' into 'telling stories' and then 'rewriting stories'

••••• Stranger Than Fiction
A pooka brushes aside the despair of her motley by explaining that the local chief of police is actually her favorite cousin and sure enough, he lets them off the hook for their trespassing. A redcap laughs as he explains that the Thallain goons didn’t search everywhere, and produces a switchblade from an unmentionable hiding place before cutting his friends free.

Stranger Than Fiction allows a caster to tell a story so powerful it alters reality itself, subtly but powerfully bending events so they fit the changeling’s personal narrative. Essentially, this cantrip allows the changeling to create their own lucky breaks, freak chances, fortuitous coincidences, and other technically plausible if not particularly likely events.

It is important to note that Stranger Than Fiction is more like creatively editing the narrative of reality than outright re-writing it. The cantrip cannot simply “undo” actions that already occurred, nor can it contradict longestablished facts. If a changeling’s friend was taken away by the police, he could not use this cantrip to say no arrest happened... but he might be able to explain how, in the confusion, the police actually arrested his friend’s twin brother instead. If his mother died when he was young, he can’t suddenly bring her back to life by saying she actually just ran away, though he might be able to describe how an old key his mother left him just happens to fit the mysterious chest the group found among his mother’s old things.

As a rule of thumb, the longer a fact has been established or the more commonly it’s encountered by others, the harder it is for this cantrip to twist it, since the magic relies in part on exploiting the gaps in what’s commonly known or expected. Thus the Storyteller should adjust the difficulty of this cantrip accordingly, or even declare that it cannot achieve the desired result.

The capstone is very fun.

So if you're backed into a corner by a Technocracy guy, you can look him over and go 'Hey, I think you left your laser pistol in your other set of pants' and he's suddenly without the tool he was planning on using for Forces spells.

As that could plausibly happen. It would be embarrassing and kinda silly but it's a plausible event.

[high current]

'embarrassing and kinda silly' seems to be the bread and butter of changeling

cringing is a sign of banality

[marble sorrel]

Mage: "You're under arrest Reality Deviant!"
Sidhe: "Oh wow, you talk like that for real for real? Cringey boomer alert. So like, no hate but you're soo banal while we're low-key the new thing. Your 'enlightened science' is so mid I almost feel sorry for you tbh."

[rapid glacier]

Mage: [Fails to soak 9 AGG psychic damage and explodes]

[nimble gale]

changelings are capable fo dying to cringe, and they make it everyone else's problem

[high current]

antag idea: a dauntain who follows the motley around taking videos of their shenanigans and posting them online as a cringe compilation

[nimble gale]

... I love that actually

[marble sorrel]

I felt like the Swan Maiden Kith was a bit Overcomplicated/overpadded, so I took a shot at my own version of it.

Birthrights

Swan’s Blessing
Swan maidens receive an additional dot in both Dexterity and Appearance, even if it takes them above five. In addition, thanks to their innate grace, they cannot botch Etiquette or Performance rolls. By default swan maidens cannot fly, but the cost of the Winged Merit is reduced to 2 points. The Winged Flaw remains unchanged.

Love Conquers All
All Swan Maidens have a True Love, without paying points. This may be defined before the game starts or left for the GM to establish later in the game. If she loses her true love, she will inevitably find a new one.

When a Swan Maiden Unleashes for the sake of Love (her own or another's), she may choose to gain an automatic success. This prevents her failing to unleash but makes losing control more likely.

Fraility

Broken Heart's Curse
Whenever the Swan Maiden suffers a betrayal of her love, or a close relationship of hers ends unhappily, she suffers a Banality Trigger. This is not limited purely to romantic relationships, being just as much a factor if she is betrayed by one she believed a friend for example.

In addition, Banality seeks to squash the flames of her heart, reacting badly when she unleashes the true power of love. When the Swan Maiden loses control when Unleashing, the GM can avoid the usual downsides of losing control of an Unleashing. Instead, a close relationship of hers will soon suffer a risk or major complication. This makes the relationships of Swan Maidens incredibly turbulent, swinging from sweet to telenovela at a moment's notice.

Still very much all about Love but a bit less 'why do I have an entire page of frailities/why is love conquers all so comically powerful?'

[nimble gale]

Hell yeah, Swan Maidens

I like it

[marble sorrel]

The general design intent was to make the Blessings/Frailities link into each other. Love Conquors all promotes unleashing. Unleashing promotes the GM making your relationships more trouble and trouble in relationships means it's more likely that you'll hit Banality Triggers if you can't manage the chaos.

[olive citrus]

I was going through mock character creation with my partner, and I don't think I explained it very well. Is it better to just let her read through the first and second chapter of the book?

[nimble gale]

Which book?

because some answers are 'yes' (V20, for example) and some are.... nnnnoooooo (m20, for examle)

[olive citrus]

w20

[nimble gale]

W20 is pretty self-directedly-readable, I'd say

[clear delta]

Is there something based on ugly duckling?

[marble sorrel]

Nah, this is based off the Swan Maiden, a different thing entirely.

https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/swan.html

As an side: It's kinda funny looking at various splats starting willpower.

Mages: ALWAYS 5!
Changelings: 4-5
Vampires: Incredibly Variable 1-5
Werewolves: 3-4

Vampires have the lowest potential willpower but werewolves will quite often have the lowest because they can't raise it without bonus points/a lot of tribes are on the 3 end. Changelings and Mages stay winning with the guys who tell reality to go take a hike understandably having a very solid minimum.

[clear delta]

I wrote "is there", not "is that"

[fading kettle]

Weird question, but, how do I create NPCs for Mage 20th
One of the players, who dm'd Vampire before told me he did it by making PCs
so that's what i did
but Maybe i skipped some rules about it

[marble sorrel]

Oh, whoops. Sorry. Not that I'm aware of, though a Pooka could easily be such.

[mighty zephyr]

Thats basically it yeah

Theres no real npc/PC divide

[fading kettle]

ok
but then, how are the standard statblocks made ?

[high current]

the stat blocks in the core book for awakened NPCs all appear to more or less conform to standard character creation, and presumably any deviations would be made up for with a bit of xp/freebies

[fading kettle]

ok
sorry to insist
How do I make non-humans / non-playable types of creatures ?

[mighty zephyr]

You build them like you would players and give them appropriate stats

[high current]

i think they're referring to animals and spirits, which dont work at all like humans

[mighty zephyr]

You can also just remix the animal stats

[high current]

there is no secret rules section anywhere that tells you how to build animals or spirits, you kinda just gotta use what's offered and move dots around based on vibes until you're comfortable making stuff up from scratch

[fading kettle]

hmmmm
i see

[clear delta]

Ugly duckling as a changeling that can mask better as a mortal?

[marble sorrel]

Silly Pondering for people: What odd moral lines do your characters have? The things that most people would see as unimportant that are key to them or others would see as important that they're not concerned with.

[hybrid dock]

I’ve got a vegan beast

[mighty zephyr]

My gangrel who was a Hound wanted to kill another vampire because she wiped out a neighborhood's dog population to cover up a crime

[craggy coyote]

... Does mage 20th not include generic NPC stat blocks for animals?
VTM 20th has at least a generic bestiary you could use as a starting point (pg 388)

[high current]

it does

[fading kettle]

Oh yes, it has
It's just, that, what stats to use when the players are fighting let's say shikigami, entities from the Upper Plane, things like that ?
How to make custom creatures.

[craggy coyote]

Yeah at that point either check for adventure books w/ stat blocks or you're gonna have to use your best judgment

[high current]

take a spirit stat block, adjust rage/gnosis/willpower up or down if it feels necessary

[fading kettle]

Okay, that's what I did. I was just curious I skimmed some rule that specified things like that

[rapid glacier]

my local WtA had a Glass Walker who respected 'the spirits inside of vehicles and cars', so much so he stole cars from people who take care of them poorly (or not at all) and refurbished them, treating them as if they were like hurt animals

[mighty zephyr]

Trying to find which splat this best represents

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSnGR0J2IXs

What vibe is this

[nimble gale]

Euthanatos

err, Chakravati

[clear delta]

Whoa

Forgot death note had a musical

[nimble gale]

Wraiths also start with 5 minimum willpower. Hunters (Imbued) start at 3, demons start between 4 and 5. Not sure about mummies? I'd hav eto dig my mummies book out again.

[marble sorrel]

I do love how extra so many changeling treasures are.

It's legally not allowed to be understated.

Kiss’s Seal
(Unique Item ••••)
The logo on this tube of lipstick looks like an ornate royal seal, as if pressed from a signet ring into a dab of wax. The shade is anything the wearer desires it to be, even changing between applications. While the color doesn’t lift or rub off the wearer’s lips, it has a way of leaving its mark. 

Mechanics: Held within the seal decorating the lipstick tube, the power of Sovereign waits to be released. While the changeling doesn’t have to choose to use the Dictum cantrip (Sovereign ••••) when they apply it, they must kiss their target before issuing their command. Anywhere will do; the cheek or hand is just as effective as the lips.

Uses: 2

"Oh, I need to do some mind control? Cool, let me get out my best lipstick."

[pure mauve]

I love how all the Geist 2e Ceremonies were clearly not named by ancient powerful forces, but by very modern people coming up with shitpost-y names for the things they've figured out they can do. I imagine something similar is true for C:tL's equivalents, but some of those are named after the older powers or myths they're evoking?

But Geist has actual ceremonies named "Bloody Mary Done Me Wrong", "Extended Checkout", "Crow Girl Kiss", "Losing the Religion", "My Twenty Dollar Cherubim", and "DJ Amadeus's Sick Flow".

[marble sorrel]

This is still my favourite C:TD Cantrip in sheer naming.

[pure mauve]

Although it also has stuff like "Ishtar's Perfume" or "Triptaka's[sic] Journey" or the wonderfully tone-mixing "Running with Atropos' Scissors"

also there's one for singing a sailing shanty

[worthy sundial]

v5-heads, does anyone know any discipline/blood sorcery ritual that lets u track a blood bond to its source

[graceful saffron]

Mmm, another lovely slow burn session for my Vampire the Requiem setting.

[vast blaze]

Man

I cannot wait for my Tremere Vampire to fall deeper and deeper into Occult rabbit holes and realize just how much shit is out there in the wider world

[pure mauve]

...am I correct that Giovanni have methods of controlling ghosts, even in Chronicles?

[vast blaze]

"Huh, so it's not just us vamps, there's werewolves, mages, something called changelings... neat. Wonder what else there is...?"

a few sessions later

"God is a fucking robot and His cast-off angels are eldritch machines, there dwells in the depths of space unknowable things that would make a Baali tremble, the entire fucking universe is being ripped apart by an insane triad of incredibly powerful spirits, there exists at the bottom of all creation a sentient darkness that wants to consume everything, oh my fucking god how deep does this all go"

[mighty zephyr]

Giovanni aren't in Chronicles

But yes, necromancy was their whole shtick besides being Mobsters and being Incestual

[pure mauve]

...whoops.

I was just thinking that sin-eaters are probably inclined to dislike many of the other splats, since those other splats harm humans and/or have tools for controlling ghosts, which they would Not Like. And they're mostly likely to encounter those other splats when they're doing one of those two things since otherwise their paths wouldn't cross.

I might mostly be thinking about how Sin-Eaters would interact with Mages, though. Honestly that'd be interesting, since Sin-Eaters get to do a number of things that the Mage would probably view as cheating (like being able to just... cross the rivers of the Underworld).

[mighty zephyr]

They generally despise necromancers, yeah

Because most other splats don't recognize ghosts as people but as phenomena

[pure mauve]

Exactly. Meanwhile, the core thing that makes a Bound into a Sin-Eater is treating ghosts as people and working with them to help them. And some dickhead controlling them with necromancy helps nobody.

[mighty zephyr]

Also yeah, Mages can do things with utility incredibly easy, but struggle doing so intimately, meanwhile most other splats are the opposites

[pure mauve]

Also, some sin-eaters (it requires a rare Haunt which you can only get if you personally find it in the Underworld, and then you have to take it to 5 dots) can just wave their hand and open up a hole to the Underworld. It's called The Wrong-Way Door.

And I know Mages get to travel between lots of different planes, but they probably can't navigate the Underworld near as well... and now I'm imagining a krewe running into a mage in the Underworld for whatever reason.

But, yeah, Sin-Eaters can get to the Underworld really easily and navigate it pretty well.

[clear delta]

Dev compared like this
Mages in the underworld are people coming to mount everest with high tech equipment
Bound are native people who know the place and navigate without ultra expensive ewuipment

[marble sorrel]

And there's an awful lot of dead people with expensive equipment on the way up Everest.

[vast blaze]

What would a good additional discipline be for a melee-centric Tremere?

I know there's the obvious Potence or Celerity or Fortitude, but part of me is also considering going for Path of the Levinbolt

[mighty zephyr]

Can't you only have one Thaumaturgy path at a time

[marble sorrel]

In V20 you can learn multiple. You have one primary path but you can buy secondary ones.

Aininur for example has Spirit Manipulation and Awakening of Steel and Hunter's Winds

Though only Spirit Manipulation at a high level.

Very good anti-werewolf tool when Werewolves smell the true shape of people.

[vast blaze]

Aye, aye

...ultimately, though, I think a physical Discipline would serve me better

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, physical disciplines are less Action Economy heavy

[vast blaze]

I can already hurl fire, hurling lightning is just kinda redundant, if cool

[marble sorrel]

Thaumaturgy is good but Potence and Celerity and Fortitude are passive

Which often matters a lot more

[vast blaze]

And extremely relevant for a Melee character like mine

[mighty zephyr]

I mean if you wanna minmax, you're gonna get your ass kicked if you don't stack celerity and someone else does.

[vast blaze]

Speed does triumph strength

[mighty zephyr]

Celerity is not a balanced discipline which is why I would say not to go for it

[marble sorrel]

Though it depends a hair on which version of celerity you're running. Even in oWoD it's got like 3 different versions as they tried to make it work.

[vast blaze]

Vampire 20th Celerity

[marble sorrel]

20th tried to hit it with a bit of a nerf and it's less powerful than it could be but still very powerful.

[clear delta]

Mages often screw up, yeah
There was going to be a book about mages interacting with other worlds, and the first chapter was going to be called "We don't belong here"
Unfortunate it never was published. Wanted to see how mages relate to worlds in depth, and what trouble they raise
Devs said mages tear holes when crossing the gauntlet with a spell to do it anywhere rather than at a locus, abd that even the most careful thyrsus disturbs the Shadow when visiting it
It would also talk about Archons, otherworldly liches. While I found mage's opposition to immortality heavy-handed, seeing what trouble Archons raise and how they work would be interesting

[marble sorrel]

The big thing is that V20 Celerity loses to a group of dudes, while Pre-V20 Celerity wouldn't.

V20 Dark Ages Celerity is the Most Nerfed version/the closest to balanced (But still bloody powerful/a bit much)

I'd not say 'don't go for it' but go in with your eyes open/aware it's a beast of a beatstick power.

[clear delta]

1e kinda explained astral archons, Morpheans, and why they suck

[marble sorrel]

Makes sense. Mages have the power to get through the gauntlet but others like werewolves and changelings are literally designed for it.

So it makes sense that they'd be 'smoother/safer' than mages.

[clear delta]

It's so funny "the process to become one impairs your ability to have external events affect your opinions and traits, so your internal drives argue only with each other until they stabilize into oddball opinions and traits. The only way to treat that is to rob thoughts and graft them inside you"

[marble sorrel]

I have my thoughts on how I'd tinker with celerity in an ideal world, though part of it would also be adding a bit more distinction between types of enemies. (Something in line with 4e's minions/normal enemies/elites or FGG star war's Minions, Rivals, Adversaries).

Basicly: I'm entirely fine with a celerity guy running roughshod through a entire patrol of cops or second inquisition guys who don't even have names. Dealing with entire clusters of mooks is the superspeedster vibe. I'm less okay with it speed blitzing a Real Opponent with multi-attack stuff.

[clear delta]

1e defined ghost mages very early, before a lot of lore

Spirit mages are a bit underexplored, but you can see they'd disturb the spirit ecosystem

[marble sorrel]

Well, with Threat Null in M20 it looks like spirit mages are going to be More Of A Factor.

[clear delta]

Oh

I am talking abou New Mage

Thought you knew

There won't be any new books for it, unfortunately

[marble sorrel]

In my defence, it is 3am

[nimble gale]

It being 3 AM is a powerful defense in all cases, just ask any Time mage

(that applies to both!)

[vast blaze]

Is the Huge Size merit better than an extra point in Stamina, in V20?

[mighty zephyr]

It's cheaper.

[vast blaze]

I'm not sure which to spend my remaining freebies on

[mighty zephyr]

But it's just health

won't affect rolls

[vast blaze]

Gives another Bruised level too, but I'm not sure if it outweighs being able to Soak damage more

[nimble gale]

It can also provide various utility bonuses based on the situation, givne you are Fucking Huge (TM). but also utility maluses, because you are Fucking Huge (TM)

basically I like it if the character in yoru head is Two Fridges Chained Together

[mighty zephyr]

My Huge sized character was basically the size of Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

[marble sorrel]

With Trolls already being huge, a troll that picks up the Huge merit basicly turns into Gamagōri, with a height of 'A head taller than the next biggest guy in the scene'.

[vast blaze]

I'm taking Huge

My guy is a professor as well as a melee specialist, it'll be absolutely hysterical seeing this gigantic fucking muscle-bound slab of beef studiously reading up on obscure Garou lore

[marble sorrel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhvLG8JD52M

[vast blaze]

Real

Except he can also shoot lightning from his fingertips

[mighty zephyr]

I will say keep in mind

pick stuff that fits your character

and not mechanical benefits

It's going to be very obvious if you do the latter

[hybrid dock]

LIGHTNING SHOOTS FROM MY FINGERTIPS-

[vast blaze]

https://tenor.com/view/unlimited-power-star-wars-gif-10270127

[nimble gale]

I mean sometimes you also just pick stuff that's at odds with what you expect from a character like that and it makes it fun

why is the professor hueg? "I thought it'd be fun" is a valid excuse

[vast blaze]

Aye

That and he's a Hunter in his spare time, of course he'd be fucking ripped

[rapid glacier]

I’m a big fan of making WoD characters who are bad at their job and still trying

[mighty zephyr]

Well he would have had to be ripped before the Embrace

[vast blaze]

He was a Hunter before his Embrace too

[marble sorrel]

You can be ripped after the embrace if you've got a fleshcrafter friend 😛

'I paid a guy with an Eastern European accent who insists he doesn't drink...wine...fifty bucks and now I look different' is always valid for vompires.

[mighty zephyr]

Well being a hunter Tremere definitely sounds like a way to not have any fleshcrafter friends

[marble sorrel]

I mean, clans are not monoliths (Tremere a bit of an exception) and the Tremere get along pretty well with the Toreador, who do have fleshcrafters of their own.

[nimble gale]

There are always exceptions and exceptions can, in the right hands, make very fun stories

[mighty zephyr]

I feel like it's more "you would probably kill or take a moral stance against any flesh crafter"

[marble sorrel]

The only objection the Tremere ever had to the dark arts was people not sharing them.

[nimble gale]

hell, given the tremere can make gargoyals it wouldn't surprise me if they had a ritual somewhere that could mimic the lesser applications of vicissitude

[mighty zephyr]

I'm saying this as "You were a Hunter who actively hunted Vampires"

Not as a Tremere

The Tremere part is more "people probably don't like YOU"

[marble sorrel]

I mean, it's not any more or less evil than any other vampire discipline. Honestly likely less inherantly evil than several of them.

Just kinda squicky

[nimble gale]

Depending on which version of the metaplot you follow anyway

'a literal disease from outer space/the abyss' is pretty evil, but not my preferred interpretation of vicissitude tbh

[mighty zephyr]

It's really funny that Viss got retconned literally every edition

[marble sorrel]

This reminds me: I should totally play a Volgirre one of these days.

Vic Discipline Toreador is likely the 'I made him into a fancy chair' combo

[rapid glacier]

“I thought she said ‘paramore’ and now I’m a pair of armouir

[marble sorrel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGQghEWUFR0 Just turning up with this blaring.

...man, now I'm re-listening to the repo soundtrack.

[marble sorrel]

It's amusing that as not-really-great in many ways Kindred of the East is, it blew it out of the water with it's power stat.

One of the core things with KOTE chargen is you can't buy more power stat and in-game, you can't spend exp on it.

You need to build it up in-game with your actions

It combines Power Stat and Morality Stat into the same thing. Where the more understanding you gain of your chosen path (As it's more like kindred Paths than Humanity) you have, the more spiritual power you can draw on.

It would be like if a Kindred on the Path of Chivalry is actively empowered the more in-line he becomes with the ideal of a knight, not just a base rote understanding.

it's a much more interesting setup than Humanity for vampires, which can often kinda sit off to the side mostly untouched.

[pure mauve]

Geist 2 does something similar with Synergy being both power stat and morality stat, I think?

[nimble gale]

well, I might have come up with the silliest idea for a crossover chronicle for old world of darkness I ever have before, and it keeps eating at my brain like a particularly insistant worm.

A joint Void Engineer, Sidhe, and Garou defense of the Moon (in physical reality, the dreaming, and the umbra) against a two-pronged attack (at the same time, though not on the same side) by Nephandi/Banes and Threat Null/Dauntain.

[tough pebble]

So I finally played the demo for Book of Hungry Names yesterday.

I have now bought Book of Hungry Names.

[tough pebble]

Very strong writing. I'm not exactly feeling the consequences of my actions so far, but more than likely that would take a second playthrough to know what can and cannot actually change.

My character has done almost zero form-changing in combat and has basically just been using all of their rage on gifts while human, though, I should really think about a second playthrough just to experience habitually causing chaos in crinos.

It feels like there's something about rage generation that doesn't seem right in this game that, but I honestly don't know. It feels like it doesn't match the mechanic as I've read it?

[mighty zephyr]

Rage generation largely depends on your dialogue choices

The more incensed you are, the more you get, the calmer you react, the more you lose

[tough pebble]

Ah, then I have been playing a coward this entire time. Good to know. Berserker second playthrough it is.

Mainly just surprised that the barista job has failed to implode despite the maddening descriptions. But I am playing with ST mode off for this first run, so I have zero mechanical feedback period.

[mighty zephyr]

Also based off auspice

Your base is decided by auslice

[tough pebble]

That part I figured, and then also confirmed when I had to check some details on joining the DLC3 tribes

A second playthrough will also be interesting in that I will know ahead of time what convictions are required by what spirits and tribes.

I got extremely lucky that I could actually join Silent Striders, because up until I had to look things up on how why the DLC wasn't triggering (save fuckery, my save didn't upgrade from the demo properly and I had to edit the flags so it recognized the DLC), I didn't know the exact convictions I needed.

(unless the game tells you waaaay back when you first think about tribes. In which case I forgot.)

[tough pebble]

I'm otherwise enjoying the game, though. Usually I'd complain about the lack of savescumming save slots in this kind of game, but I guess dealing with a bad choice head on feels fitting.

[rapid glacier]

just keep note its rules are like a hybrid of W20 and W5 and some homebrew thrown in, like how your auspice determines base Rage and such

[tough pebble]

Ah, that explains a lot.

[rapid glacier]

the writer did an interview where he said all the notes he got on the W5 book were just 8 pages of rough notes, mostly name and lore changes, and not much else

[tough pebble]

Was he familiar with W20 before?

[rapid glacier]

I personally think he did a great job nailing the one thing that's really hard to convey sometimes about WtA; the vibes

yeah he wrote for CofD Werewolf iirc

he's been playing WoD 'since high school' he says in the interview

[marble sorrel]

As primarily a W20 player, running into the ||Get|| kinda weirded me out but that's 'lore change' stuff.

[rapid glacier]

making them into the Cult is discourse we've all beaten to death at this point but BoHN uses them well and gets the W5 viewpoint across basically instantly

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, just one of those vague bits of tension that comes from '5 made a lot of setting changes but is also a continuation of 20'

[tough pebble]

Oh yeah the vibes are immaculate

Joining the silent striders ||only for the patron spirit to respond by making me fall through the umbra and wake up spitting out the concept of death|| was incredible to read for a scene of like, 3 pages

[rapid glacier]

I have to go to work @tough pebble but I'm down to talk WtA, especially 5th and by extension BoHN at any point for any reason lmao

My favorite tribe so far was the Shadow Lords one, precisely because of how it unlocks a ton of new dialog for Stormcat || and if you're an Ahroun, gives you the single funniest problem solving option in the entire game ||

[tough pebble]

It's funny how my brain completely turned off on that discourse the second they walked into a scene and I wanted to punch them

At this point my annoyance with W5 has simmered down from "stuff I heard online" to "just annoyed that other fera are vaguely waves hand in rules and lore"

and even the last is mostly because I liked that the Corax and Garou being on good terms mirrored the real life association of ravens with wolves, and also I want to play Corax, you cowards

…kitsune can stay gone, though. we don't need them to come back. make new werefoxes.

[marble sorrel]

...I like the Kitsune. I kinda wish they were broader but I like what there is.

[tough pebble]

My annoyance with the kitsune is they have so many superspecial things about them that it's patently absurd, and they're essentially based only on the Japanese fox spirits

[marble sorrel]

I mean...they've got a lot less there in the 'they're special' than like the werespiders. They're mostly just particularly mystical shapechangers who turned up late and thus missed out on a lot of werewolf history.

I do think they should just be 'werefoxes/be not exclusive to the beast courts' but I don't think that would really take much changing. As they're already very Fantastic Mr Fox without any help.

[tough pebble]

fair enough.

[mighty zephyr]

Im not a huge fan of kitsune

Like

Cmon Man

Why They Exclusively Japanese

[tough pebble]

Because excessive weebery

[marble sorrel]

...it is amusing that they took two of the more maligned splats for WoD, combined them and got one of the most beloved CoD splats.

Kindred of the East + Mummy = Geist

[pure mauve]

Mummy is still in CoD... but also, wait, is that really how it worked?

[marble sorrel]

Yes but CoD Mummy has nothing to do with oWoD Mummy. XD

[patent stirrup]

Nither version of oWoD mummy

[pure mauve]

Fair... a lot of CoD and WoD splats are pretty different, especially the peripheral ones. Like, Changeling is completely different in every way, and Demon's pretty unusual too.

[marble sorrel]

I can't say it's exactly how the developers planned it but if you sand off cultural aspects...Geist is very much the child of those two in both mechanics and thematics.

KOTE is about being a link between the living and the dead.

[pure mauve]

Huh. I had no idea.

[marble sorrel]

And Mummy is about someone who died and came back by having the soul of another already dead person shoved into them

[pure mauve]

Oh, then, yep.

[tough pebble]

On the subject of multi-continental foxes I did enjoy my surprise with the fox spirit in Hungry Names ||being French

Local fox spirit? Nope. Imported Reynard.||

[pure mauve]

Geist 2e, from my cursory reading, feels less superheroic than Geist 1e? Like, in 1e, every Sin-Eater was very tanky (able to seal wounds with Plasm), and they had a wide variety of powers which were "stuff ghosts could probably do". In 2e, that tankiness is now locked to the Caul manifestation, and they lost access to a lot of their more generally useful powers in favor of stuff that either specifically interacts with ghosts in some way or stuff that helps ghosts fulfill their last requests via information-gathering (Memoria in particular) or sneaking around.

That's probably a good thing, to be clear, because I'm thinking less superhero team and more... uh, basically "Leverage but the clients are ghosts and that's why they need help".

(I need to watch Leverage.)

[mighty zephyr]

They can still use plasm to heal i think

[pure mauve]

I think maybe, but they have less durability (unless they've put a dot into Caul).

I miss the key + manifestation power system, since it leaves 2e keys feeling almost vestigial to me, but I understand the balance headache it must have brought and how it made every power actually like 3 different powers that could work in totally different circumstances.

Like, 1e Caul usually made you tankier, but it could also improve your intelligence.

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, there's a lot less 'I am an elemental powerhouse' in 2e.

[pure mauve]

I also... honestly I kind of feel like the elemental keys especially are vestigial? In 1e they allowed you to do manifestations with each of the four elements. With 2e, they feel weird and spoony and overly specific, and almost every death that could be justified as one of them could equally be justified as something else at the same time.

[marble sorrel]

Yeah. 1e was a lot more 'I died by Fire, so I do Fire Things'.

[pure mauve]

But like... disease is a reason why you died. So is violence, or wild animals, or sheer chance. But fire or water or cold are moreso just the proximate cause of death, and "silence" is sort of in between those.

If you die of pnumonia, do you get the sickness key, or Deep Water since it governs cases where you die without air in your lungs?

It would make sense if each death gave two keys, kind of like in the first edition... but they don't. You get one key from your death and one key from your geist's death. I guess this means that if both you and your geist died in similar circumstances, you could take different interpretations to be able to get different keys?

[marble sorrel]

I'll admit, I'm not 100% sure where I'd put my last geist character without the elemental ones. As it wasn't really violence or an accident befalling them.

[pure mauve]

Who are they?

Also Elemental keys apparently represent methods of disposing of the body in the first edition, but not the second.

quote from the wiki:

Note that a given death may lie within the purview of multiple Keys (perhaps someone who died of drowning might take up the Key of Blood, rather than Deep Waters, because he was pushed into the river).

[marble sorrel]

A Firefighter who died rescuing people from a burning building.

Like you could maybe do accident, as the building being on fire was an accident but the reason the building was on fire didn't really matter to the way they died.

[pure mauve]

Yeah, okay, fair. ...what was their Burden?

Or were you playing 1e?

[marble sorrel]

They were a 1e Geist

[rapid glacier]

I mean in W5 it’s assumed they are hiding from Garou because well, shits gotten much worse and the Rage Monsters Who Kill Things group isn’t known for its hospitality anymore

Oh god that was from an hour ago I’m so sorry

[marble sorrel]

Looking at the 2e burdens I don't think any of these link up with them well.

As the reason they came back was 'I'm not ready to stop trying to help people' in 1e.

[pure mauve]

I sort of like the Burdens, because they give a built-in motivation. Tying your powers not to how you died, but to why you refused to stay dead.

[pure mauve]

Could be Abiding, or Hungry possibly?

[marble sorrel]

Maybe. There isn't a perfect fit but I could kinda see it being stretched to work for them.

[tough pebble]

Nah that's okay

Though my reading was more "total retcon" than "changing situation"? Maybe I don't know enough, though

[pure mauve]

Although Bereaved feels weird and out-of-place next to the other Burdens, because it doesn't really explain to me why these characters desperately want to keep living? It just feels like they wanted to be able to tell a certain kind of story about Sin-Eaters searching the Underworld, and then backwards-derived the specific Burden that would encourage that.

[tough pebble]

I'm a bit too broke to be purchasing a TTRPG I don't think I can convince my friends to play lmao

[rapid glacier]

It’s both, there’s far fewer of the other fera compared to 20th and the ones still kicking around are keeping more of a distance

[mighty zephyr]

Fera are also now a broad spectrum and not "gaia's least favorite kids she let get killed for no reason"

It seems largely like shifters were made by their animal incarnae

All semi independently

[marble sorrel]

They had Fire + Water keys. Water Caul in 1e was much fun.

[mighty zephyr]

They also arent called Fera but Shifters

[pure mauve]

...I do miss the key + manifestation system. But it would have created issues; in 2e, each splat has a unique manifestation, and so would any hypothetical future splats (like, say, ones who refused to stay dead because they had a question they needed to know the answer to). And making 1 unique power is much easier than making it actually secretly be eight totally different powers which you buy several of at the same time.

[marble sorrel]

I hope Changeling keeps the Art + Realm setup. Which is basicly a simpler, more functional version of the Key + Manifestation one.

As it's 'effect + what you can target with that effect'

So if you've got 'Make stuff tougher' and Prop, you can make that wooden door as tough as steel.

If you've got make stuff tougher + actor, you can make a human more durable

[tough pebble]

Honestly that sounds like a good change, just hoping W5 goes somewhere with them instead of leaving all the details in the dark

[marble sorrel]

I wonder if the Beast Courts are still a thing. I liked them as a 'Hey, this is what a functional society of shapechangers looks like'. Especially with Changing Breeds 20 making it very clear 'They're not better at mystical stuff because of Mystical Eastern Magic or something. They're better at mystical stuff because they've got a functional society that can put more work into research and ritual and less on Dying In Stupid Ways'.

Beast Courts: "We have so many reasons we're better than the werewolves we don't need Racism to also be a reason."

[mighty zephyr]

I imagine probably not in any similar fashion since the Beast Courts were still pretty orientalist

[marble sorrel]

I mean, W20 was actively stepping away from orientalist aspects of them/pushing back against that.

[rapid glacier]

I just want more stats for more/different shifters

Like, as fun as it would be to play as one, I’m okay with the focus being more on the Garou instead

But I like having the weird shifters in my game as NPCs who have gifts to teach or things to offer, I’ve got a crow shifter in my local W5 game even

[nimble gale]

I feel like having the Beast Courts as a thing acutally works better in W5 with the whole 'we're sanding off the cultural aspects of everything'. The Garou Nation is what came about in Europe and europe-touched areas, the beast courts are just... the equivalent in asian areas. Maybe have it shattered like the Nation was, maybe have it reduced in reach/impact, but like. People of a similar background who live in the same geographic area are going to form support groups.

[rapid glacier]

Moonlit Path seems to indicate or imply that the other Incarnae work with specific shifters in a similar manner that Gaia or Luna does with werewolves, which I dunno might have that effect?

I’d like to see more stuff fleshing them out regardless, I can make up my own lore but I’d be okay with them spooling some of these plot threads into something

[clear delta]

Yeah you can give fire or accident key
Then put a burden abiding, since their whole thing is helping people. It may not be mainly about a legacy, but the concern still is with something bigger than him and how his job has an impact on people's lives
The keys mean your character will get bonus plasm using powers in appropriate situations, alongside curses related to the keys
Also if the geist flips out from some trigger or crisis, it wields keys as influence

[marble sorrel]

Right, 2e giests have a bit more 'can lose control' than 1e ones

[mighty zephyr]

I think if anything itd be more like a phenomena than a faction in W5

a Beast Court has appeared

[rapid glacier]

Oh like a gathering of shifters band together like a pack or Sept?

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah

And its either good "Hey potential allies" or bad "Hey they just kicked a pack out of a Caern"

[rapid glacier]

Or squatting in a forgotten one, etc etc

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah

[rapid glacier]

Yeah yeah I like that concept, still let’s Garou interact with them and they can be antagonists or supporting NPCs

[pure mauve]

I have three random Sin-Eater character concepts bouncing around in my head and nothing to do with them...

Two Kindly, one Hungry.

[mighty zephyr]

Stat em up and rotate them

Or run a game and use them as npcs

[pure mauve]

I don't own the books so I don't know how to stat them up, and I doubt I could find anyone to run a game for...

Unless I wanted to do so online, but even then, I'm not sure.

Should I just share their concepts here?

[mighty zephyr]

Could do so here or the #1356366183653310644

[pure mauve]

Probably here since two of them are just single-sentence concepts.

Concept 1 is a museum curator (probably an art museum, but it could be a history museum) who refused to stay dead out of fear that their replacement would downsize the collection or sell works into private collections, and they don't want that because they want these important pieces of art to be available for the public to view. Honestly, they sort of give off NPC energy in my head, almost? Like they'd give you missions or requests related to stuff in the museum, or be available to be contacted if you really need something from said museum.

Concept 2 is an ex-cop who realized as he was dying that being "one of the good ones" was, fundamentally, Not Good Enough. Honestly, he'd probably be a good character in part because "knows how to meaningfully use a gun" is in fact a relevant and useful skill which not every character possesses, and the Kindly in particular are not that great at direct combat with their default haunts (they're okay at it with Marionette, but not great at it).

Concept 3 is probably the most detailed. He always had a sense for when people were nearing the end of their lives, and he used that to... well, basically, to scam the elderly out of their life savings (possibly via "alternative medicine", possibly just via standard scams). He justified it to himself as the idea that he was selling them stories, giving them hope in their last days. Then, he got sick, sick enough that all his ill-gotten gains couldn't really help. And as he laid there dying, he realized that his victims hadn't wanted "a story"; they had wanted actual hope, an actual chance to do something good, and he had just taken advantage of that.

I think his geist might have been a snake oil salesman?

...they could be NPCs. The NPC idea I had was a squad of "ghost hunting" youtuber teenagers who go to "haunted" spots (which have about a 50% chance of actually being haunted) and videotaping everything and generally being a mostly harmless nuisance who present themselves as experts on ghosts but really know basically nothing about them.

...except that recently, one of them seems to have stumbled upon a ritual that can force ghosts to manifest. And it's super janky, and their version of the ritual has a bunch of entirely unnecessary steps mixed in, but it still works and now they officially know just enough to be dangerous.

[pure mauve]

I'm also just thinking about how each Burden can do in combat and... Vengeful is the best at it, since Rage is exclusive to them. But Abiding gets Caul (which gives defense at 1+ and claws at 3+), Kindly get Marionette (which lets you control small objects and make improvised attacks with them, or control people at enough dots) and Hungry get both. So it's really just the Bereaved who struggle in combat, and they at least have Shroud to help avoid fights.

[marble sorrel]

...I've just realized that Garou have no power over Changeling weapons.

Jam Weapon can stop any Weaver born weapon.

Weapons forged of glamour are very much not weaver-born.

They're forged from creativity and dreams, which is basicly the opposite of the weaver's stasis.

[mighty zephyr]

It's Wyld and Weaver

So I think it'd still apply if it was a complex device

[marble sorrel]

...I'm not sure where the Weaver part comes in for a weapon that's made of dreams/might not even exist in reality.

[mighty zephyr]

Well that'd be the Wyld part

https://i.imgur.com/VnrHvw5.png

You'd be essentially adding More Weaver to it to make it imbalanced and not work

[marble sorrel]

My concern is that it's not made from 'fabricated materials', as noted in the system part there.

[rapid glacier]

That sounds like an ST call at that point but lmao it works on knives?

[mighty zephyr]

It do be magic

It's difficulty 9 to work on knives

[marble sorrel]

Jam Technology do be a Bit Bullshit.

[rapid glacier]

Now assume that’s the 20th one, is it the same effect for the W5 version

[mighty zephyr]

This is 20th yea

[marble sorrel]

The technocracy book does note that anything mage made/a wonder gets an opposed roll.

So you'd need to hit 9 and get more successes than the wonder to affect a Mage's Enchanted Blade.

[mighty zephyr]

https://i.imgur.com/VSGnibu.png

This is 5th

The main difference is that you don't pick the complexity first

it just gets less complex the higher you roll

[marble sorrel]

I guess Treasures would likely fall under the same rule as Wonders, if you wanted it to work. Where the object can Attempt To Resist because it's also magic.

[mighty zephyr]

otherwise, generally the same effect

[marble sorrel]

Werewolf: "I can jam technology, what is your weapon?"
Changeling "A small dragon I point at people and he breathes fire"
Werewolf: "...the fuck?"

[mighty zephyr]

I mean the Werewolf can pull out a gun that they shoved the concept of dying alone into

It's equal weirdness

[marble sorrel]

Also: Man, so much of the Nocker kith book is dunking on the technocracy.

'You took science and you made it boring. How do you do that?'

[craggy coyote]

Angry Etherite noises
"WE TOLD THEM SO!!!!"

[nimble gale]

I do like the society of ether quite a bit. Had one as an npc in a solo mage game I ran once who was a high school science teacher. She routinely used Forces + Entropy rotes to make Dramatically Appropriate Lightning with the help of her Etheric Weather Control Tower.

[marble sorrel]

I also like their justification on how the technocracy at this point knows fuck all about the Fey.

'If a technocracy team finds someone weird, they tend to shove them in a small boring cell and have boring people talk to them. By the time an actual mage turns up, the changeling has likely lapsed into banality and is functionally just a normal human'

so most 'we caught a fey' tends to result in the technocracy going 'No, you caught someone who's clearly off their meds but is entirely normal. Stop this shit'

Which is why right now the Changelings actually have a pretty good view of the technocracy but not the reverse

[rapid glacier]

Yeah you make the roll and then see what gets effected, you can’t like target it, it’s whatever you get for the roll, as I understand it?

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah

[rapid glacier]

Also lol it works on locks and winches, I guess I’d allow a knife if you got to like I dunno 8 hits somehow

Or crit

Or a brutal, if it would be funny to do so

[mighty zephyr]

It does say anything with moving parts

[marble sorrel]

Evil GM: "Sorry guys, it's non-targeting and that innocent human nearby had a pacemaker..."

[rapid glacier]

Oh not that evil, but the idea of it jamming a Klaive and a gun with a brutal success would be funny as two heavily armed combatants start attacking each other with the equivalent of a whiffle bat

Well, until one of them shifts Crinos, don’t think those claws or teeth will count

[marble sorrel]

Oh, I'd 100% do that to a player but I'd let them know first

Give them a chance to go 'no, maybe I won't use that'

As having 'crud, I can't use this power due to collateral damage' prompts decision making.

Like if you're defending kinfolk, I'd totally let a player know 'Hey, you remember Bob has a pacemaker. If you use jam technology, he's not going ot handle that well'

[nimble gale]

well if he's reliant on weaver bullshit to live maybei t's his time anyway

(felt dirty typing that)

[marble sorrel]

Shut up Red Talon 😛

(Okay, that's not fair. A Red Talon wouldn't have let him live this long)

I wonder if the Hunter's Wind thaumatugical trick to remove your scent/smell like anyone you know of your choice would fool Scent Of The True Form.

As that's a big werewolf 'tell what someone is by smelling them'

But this is actively changing your scent

It's kinda really situational if it doesn't work on the Primary Smell Guys about.

[nimble gale]

I'd allow it

[mighty zephyr]

I'd at least make sure it's a contest

[rapid glacier]

I know in W5 it calls out that some supernaturals would be able to resist it with a test I can’t imagine it being different in 20th

Although it does call out Banes and Fomori, not like Kindred or Magi

[marble sorrel]

Between that and Humanity 8+ Vampires not being detected as 'wyrm' creatures, Aininur's very difficult for werewolves to realize she's not a vampire.

You know, minus one big problem.

The local werewolf killed her once

And she's still walking about.

So 'The exact sort of supernatural abomination' is likely less of a particular concern

[rapid glacier]

If smell doesn’t get you, and wolf with the enhanced senses gift might just notice you not breathing or can’t hear your heartbeat

Hell if it’s cold outside, they might pick up on you not having breath showing unless you’ve got Blush of Life running

[marble sorrel]

Luckily for Aininur Blush of Life is 0 blood so she basicly keeps it going constantly.

[rapid glacier]

There’s also the blood factor, and Garou being hunters might just get curious why you smell so damn bloody all the time

Wear a lot of perfume I guess

Pull a Moist von Lipswich and throw a peppermint bomb at one (would not recommend)

[mighty zephyr]

Also resonant to all that Moidah And Blood

[rapid glacier]

What I’m getting at is any ST will find a method to pin her down eventually, unless you’ve started getting really good at killing or befriending them

A long term solution would have to involve something systemic to make her not a target to begin with, I’d imagine, and disciplines and traps are only gonna work for so long

Course same goes for the Garou, right? Ainuir is a Kindred, she can find a way to whip up some angry crowds of torches and pitchforks with some leg work surely

[marble sorrel]

So far Aininur hasn't been allowed to do any Moidah. She wanted to but the Dumbest Prince Ever said to let the guy go. XD

[rapid glacier]

So what she’s Tremere, when has being told ‘no’ by the Prince stopped any of them from doing what they wanted anyway

[marble sorrel]

She's Haqim, not Tremere.

[rapid glacier]

Even more reason not to listen to a Prince

[marble sorrel]

She's officially the Court Thaumaturge. Like 90% to make the local Tremere salty.

[rapid glacier]

Oh

Okay we’ll see that, that complicates things

Because now stepping out is gonna get you ground up into Tremere soup and they’re chomping at the bit to do it

[marble sorrel]

So far most of her Court Thaumaturgy has been going about and doing stuff like 'driving spirits of plague out of mortal graneries'

As while Thaumatugy has some good impressive uses...most of the day to day uses are 'making shit easier for the local mortals'

As if the mortals are hungry and sick, that's bad for the local vampires

[rapid glacier]

Ah so not the ‘Burial Goods’ style evil wizard but the Kazama Kiryu style evil wizard that helps old ladies cross the street and feeds cats

[rapid glacier]

This is the dark ages game, right? This is probably a much bigger deal back then I’d imagine

[marble sorrel]

Yep

This is right after the Mongol Invasion

So with a lot of local farms burned, making sure that nasty spirits of sickness and hunger don't creep in is important.

Aininur's way of describing it is 'The tremere are good at impressive magic, I'm good at useful magic'

As the war has left a lot of banes of hatred and murder and plague going everywhere.

[rapid glacier]

Hey now Tremere Magic is also useful, if you’re an evil-ass wizard

[marble sorrel]

Not even due to supernatural reasons, mostly. Just due to 'an army going through here is devestating to the environment'

The Baali are crawling out of the woodwork less due to 'this was their plan' and more 'the demonfuckers can smell weakness, after a lot of the big local vampires got killed fighting the mongols'.

[marble sorrel]

Our Tremere player character is actually kinda a useful mage. Her speciality is Weather Control, so she's helping Aininur make shit function.

That said: Said Tremere is trying to become an evil-ass wizard the moment she can.

[rapid glacier]

Well yeah, you already said Tremere , that’s the preferred end state

Scheming Vizier type shit

[marble sorrel]

Said Tremere is also terrified of Aininur for a very funny but understandable reason.

Aininur: Has the Assamite Quietus trick where you breath out mist that drains willpower. People that fail to resist it also get 1 point towards blood bonding.
Tremere: Is a tremere in the era when the Tremere weakness is 'Blood bonding me takes half as long'

[rapid glacier]

every kindred should have a healthy dose of respect and concern about any of the Children of Haqim, they tend to be….bitey, if you catch my drift

[marble sorrel]

Aininur has a Blood Tempered Sword of Silver. She's very stabby.

She's super into swords and died the first time due to a werewolf. The GM said it's not metagaming to have a silver sword if you've literally been killed once by a werewolf already.

[marble sorrel]

Really not sure what to think of this gift.

On one hand: Yay, ranged aggravated

On the other: Shapechangers don't exactly lack for aggravated damage.

And the actual amount of damage isn't that high.

I guess it's a lot cheaper than Electroshock (Less reliable than Electroshock but still, a lot cheaper)

[heady kestrel]

Its also flavorfully neat

Just to be able to BLAST

[mighty zephyr]

Its also good for a non combat spec character

[marble sorrel]

Yeah. I think overall it's good because Kitsune's Warform is +3 dex but only +1 str

So it's good for 'Fuck it, FIREBALL'

[marble sorrel]

Entertainingly: It's for their warrior aspect.

[mighty zephyr]

I did also read 20th changing breeds

The Beast Courts are still pretty orientalist in 20th I gotta say

The whole Middle Kingdom and Dark Continent concepts just kinda

Eh

[marble sorrel]

This feels like a borderline 'must take' if you plan to kitsune warrior.

...it is gunna be interesting when they eventually get to C5 what they do for enemies. As well...a lot of the established changeling enemies are not other changelings but things from other splats entirely.

Like Fomori from Werewolf

And the Technocracy from Mage.

[mighty zephyr]

Well theyre probably gonna do what they've done for every splat so far

[marble sorrel]

There is Thallian and Dark-Kin but they're much less central to changeling than a lot of splat's foes.

[mighty zephyr]

"Here is a section of your main enemies
Then here is a stat block for a werewolf, vampire, and mage as an example of how to use them"

I also imagine C5 will focus changelings onto their own themes

[marble sorrel]

...I mean, those were a chunk of their themes. Yeah, the Tuatha De Danann care a lot about fighting the Fomori, that's Kinda Their Thing.

And the Technocracy are the cause of WoD being so Banal.

[mighty zephyr]

Well i also imagine this will not be entirely true of M5 either

And the TU will instead be the defenders of white imperialism and capitalism instead of its orchestrators

[marble sorrel]

...is that what they've said they're doing with M5?

[mighty zephyr]

They havent said anything about m5

But this is how the wyrm works now

Human greed is the root cause, making the wyrm go out of balance

[rapid glacier]

5th Ed does seem much more directly anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian in lieu of “your splats super special Bad Guy Faction” as the chief antagonists

[marble sorrel]

Got it, the TU caused the soviet union to fall. 😛

[rapid glacier]

VtM is more anti monarchist but that’s splitting hairs tbh, same kind of principle

[mighty zephyr]

VtM still also refocuses that humans control history

[rapid glacier]

They were mad about Czar Vargo still

[marble sorrel]

I really hope they get a cultural expert for Changeling. I'm...really tired...of games going 'EVERYONE KNOWS CELTIC MYTHOLOGY, WE DON'T NEED CULTURAL EXPERTS TO WRITE ABOUT IT'.

[vast blaze]

Y'know what my Crackpot Conspiracy Theory for WoD is

The Technocracy had some hand in the Masquerade

Cause think about it, it's the PERFECT way to eliminate a threat to Consensus

[mighty zephyr]

Thats not really crackpot

[vast blaze]

Cause it perpetuates itself without any need for their intervention

Besides maybe tightening their grip to make the Masquerade tighten in turn

[mighty zephyr]

Its demonstrably false since we know the Convention of Thorns, and also just "Mages did it" which is a very common Fandom wodism

[vast blaze]

Yeah that's true

Why it's specifically a crackpot theory

[marble sorrel]

It's kinda funny that if you ask werewolves who ended their 'cull all humans', it's the weaver giving humanity silver. Then you check the changeling book and the changelings are 'Hey, so don't tell the werewolves but that was actually us. When you're constantly filling humanity with terror, it kinda produces more Nightmares than healthy Dreams and we felt like the Werewolves were Being Dicks. So we taught humans how to forge silver'.

[velvet sparrow]

Well

They were behind the Inquisition that made vampires think of the Masquerade as necessary

To some extent at least

[vast blaze]

I KNEW IT

[nimble gale]

The idea of the masquerade predates the burning times, but those plus the anarch revolt codified and enforced it via the camarilla being founded

Prior it was more 'don't be stupid and show our hand'

[marble sorrel]

Brujah: "This sign can't stop me because I can't read."

[rapid glacier]

Dark Ages Brujah could probably read, they are the Learned clan after all

Probably wouldn’t have changed anything though lol

[marble sorrel]

Oh, I've realized what this works really well with. Friend of Sorcery.

System: You make all Gift related or Knowledge related Occult rolls at -1 to your difficulty. In addition, you grasp the principles of Theurge Gifts more easily. Even if your Auspice is something other than Theurge, you can learn the Gifts of the Crescent Moon at the same experience point cost as those of your own Auspice. If you are a Theurge, you spend one less experience point to acquire a new Theurge Gift (although you must still abide by the restrictions of your Rank).

So that makes it TN 5 instead of TN6 and also just Generally Makes You Better At A Lot Of Kitsune Things.

As Kitsune love themselves sorcery

Opens up a lot of good gifts too.

[marble sorrel]

I get the feeling this Kitsune I'm working on is going to be the most annoying fucker for other characters.

[marble sorrel]

The Character: A TV star that took part in a Reality TV show and then moved onto an Urban Fantasy Series. Not great but they coasted on 'the actors are hot and people are just here for the drama' so it was pretty popular.

Pondering the dot level of fame to go with for that.

I feel like it's 3 or 4. They're well known but they're not A-Lister Well Known.

But yes, they're an actual supernatural creature who's famous for playing a Wizard on TV.

Being Rich, Famous and Thought To Be Stupid can do a lot that 'werewolf' can't.

[rapid glacier]

3 I think fits

We’re talking like side character on Charmed or equivalent right

[marble sorrel]

I was thinking more 'main character on charmed' but Charmed is 100% the level of TV show I'm thinking of.

Where it's well watched and well known but not like...prestige television.

Not an absolute juggernaut show like say, Game Of Thrones was.

[rapid glacier]

Yeah not 4, 3 fits but it’s iffy

Can’t have half a dot but like I dunno give them a dot of something that makes them hot

Like 5E has Beautiful/Stunning for one or two dots surely there is an equivalent

[marble sorrel]

Oh, in this case the character has appearance 5. Because this show was literally just going 'hire pretty people!'

And I think it's funnier if in terms of actual acting they're 'decent but nothing spectacular', coasting 100% on 'The people tune in to stare at this actor and he makes wordsounds sometimes'.

You roll 'social stat + fame' to try and get places on your fame.

This Background also complements Social Traits when you’re trying to get things done. A successful Charisma, Manipulation, or Appearance + Fame roll can open lots of doors. Of course, folks will recognize you, too, so don’t expect to scam those free airline tickets or get past that security detail without someone remembering that you did it. 

[rapid glacier]

That’s right legacy has Appearance as an Attribute

[marble sorrel]

Yeah. It's a bit more active than Chronicle's Composure, which can be a bit passive/hard for players to directly leverage.

Neither is a perfect extra social stat.

[mighty zephyr]

Well composure is a resistance stat

[marble sorrel]

Yes but resistance stats can end up being very 'I might resist things well but I've got a very limited amount of things I can actively do to help progress the scene'. Appearance has it's own issues (The three social stats have some notable overlaps in places), that said.

[rapid glacier]

Yeah the CofD equivalent is probably Charisma, which has the same overall effect but not explicitly Hot

It’s more force of personality

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, CofD replaced Perception with Resolve and Appearance with Composure to go with 'each set of stats has a resistance stat'.

[rapid glacier]

It’s like that in 5 too, it’s a good change, I really liked the Power/Finesse/Resilience or Resistance method

[craggy coyote]

... wild to hear that coming from vampire 5 where composure is both a useful social stat and also the default gun attribute.

they really changed its roll around.

are there any other stats that also got such changeups?

[rapid glacier]

I mean Wits is also one that got changed

Or reframed is more accurate

[mighty zephyr]

Did it?

[craggy coyote]

I mean Wits is still the skill you pair with awareness/perception to not get jumped and notice little details in v5 and 20th from what I've seen

[rapid glacier]

It’s not tied explicitly physical senses

My phone did not like the word explicitly for some reason

[mighty zephyr]

Vulgarity

[marble sorrel]

I'll admit, my issue with resistance stats is in part that I feel like they overlap with the Willpower attribute. Doubly so Resolve.

[mighty zephyr]

Well those two specifically make your willpower pool

So yes, they are the two halves of willpower

[rapid glacier]

and your willpower regen as well

[craggy coyote]

yeah. in vtm 5 composure is... really good.

a few dots in firearms and etiquette and some dots in dex with celerity makes a competent warreador build with some ability to socialize and avoid frenzy ... which if you're me you really need because you took the alternate bane and god that thing can spiral

[rapid glacier]

Resolve is also good for combining with weird stats to prevent someone from fast talking you if your Wits aren’t high enough to keep up

Through sheer stubbornness

[craggy coyote]

that and avoiding being hit with the low tier god by ventrue

[marble sorrel]

I feel like it's kinda redundant to have 'mental fortitude' as an attribute that then helps form a 'mental fortitude' pool as well. It's...inelegant. I also feel like in CofD the resistance stats also tend to have very few rolls involved that you initiate, leaving characters that go heavy on them with a relatively limited amount of things they can do to progress a scene.

It's why I'm not 100% content with either set of stats, CofD or oWoD. They've each got some issues.

[rapid glacier]

Yeah lmao that is a thing that can happen in VtM

Well Willpower is more Effort than Fortitude

It’s putting focus on something outside of the norm

[mighty zephyr]

Theres also a ton of ways to use the resistance stats

Composure to gamble and keep a poker face

Resolve to keep going through pain

[craggy coyote]

me using resolve + intimidation to stare down a guy into the dominate

because that is how you resolve the whole "lol he's not making eye contact" thing, resolve intimidate vs wits awareness

[marble sorrel]

...I'm pretty sure 'keep going through pain' is an example of the thing I'm talking about, where it's not really stuff you initiate, it's a response to people doing stuff to you.

[craggy coyote]

I mean resolve does have proactive uses

it's used to be the person looking on stake outs, powering through unpleasant social interactions, manually double checking clues...

anytime your characters goal is to be a thorough bastard there's an argument to roll resolve

[marble sorrel]

Okay. Went a bit light on more 'Shapeshifter' backgrounds but managed to get Resources 5 + Fame 4 along with a few other shinies for this character. Helps that Kitsune don't care about Pure Breed, that's an Inbred Werewolf Thing.

Also got 3 dots in spies because this guy isn't actually stupid, he just plays it.

[rapid glacier]

Resources 5 is a hell of a lot, for a b-list celeb, you sure? Like that’s the kind of cash that gets noticed

Wait you can just take dots of generic spies? Like very specialized contacts?

[marble sorrel]

It's a background that shows up in mage but the GM ruled it's mundane enough other splats could easily get it.

It's less for 'contacts' and more 'vague spy network that isn't on-screen a lot'

It's useful for 'organization' level social stuff

Less 'lie to that guy' and more 'start rumours that X is happening, that will circulate to various groups'

[rapid glacier]

Wild

[marble sorrel]

So they've got a couple of spies in Pentex and the Syndicate, which is great for 'working out what the bad guy plan is before it gets rolling'.

[rapid glacier]

Just curious is the ST for this game known to weaponize your character sheet, like say have a ton of people always recognize you for your Fame or have the IRS and accountants constantly heckle you for the high Resources?

[marble sorrel]

This GM very much likes when the players give the GM rope to hang themselves with.

[rapid glacier]

Oh they’re gonna have a fun time with this fox, then

Roll high!

[marble sorrel]

They're hopefully going to be very frustrating as I don' think any of the other players have gotten more than resources 1.

And they are very much going to be smug about 'Oh, I guess I'll have to pay for this then' when it comes up.

The other players know me well enough that it's not going to be 'Iki's being a dickhead' but instead 'Iki's playing a dickhead' luckily.

I wouldn't make a character this frustrating with strangers.

In terms of 'general dickhead things' I also discovered recently my Favorite Combination Discipline.

Presence + Celerity to have as much time as you need to think up the perfect insult.

[rapid glacier]

Lmao

[marble sorrel]

I am so tempted to get this on every vampire I can. XD

The mental image of countering the various werewolf 'I do a supernatural howl that has an effect' with 'Shut up you mangy mutt' and having the werewolf be so hurt they go quiet is eternally funny.

[rapid glacier]

Or it will be for the brief seconds it takes for one to willfully fail a Frenzy and whoops, immune to mental effects for the duration of this Crinos rampage

Deliberately antagonizing a werewolf is like the closest you can get to a holistic explosive device, but it would be funny to do this to a Lasombra and watch them get so made they literally disappear

Lmao that last paragraph says if another Toreador thinks you use it you lose face in the Clan

“Ugh, they had to use chatGPT for a witty comeback” energy

[marble sorrel]

In 20th it's actually not that easy to frenzy. If your permanent rage is less than 4 it takes a lot

[tough pebble]

"You used a verbal em-dash, nobody has that good speech."

[marble sorrel]

Garou who have permanent Rage ratings lower than four can still frenzy, but only under circumstances that touch on a particular psychological trigger: locking a claustrophobic werewolf in a confined space, or an arachnophobe coming face-to-mandible with one of the Ananasi werespiders.

There's also the chance that if they do frenzy it's a Fox Frenzy instead of a Berserk Frenzy

Which would be 'you burned the werewolf so hard he ran away crying'

[marble sorrel]

I do really like a lot of the bonuses that Noble Houses give for Changelings. There's a decent number of 'better at X' things but they also have a lot of 'this is a notable boon but not just a dice bonus'.

They play a lot with 'You can never botch the skill your house is associated with', which is cute/a nice bonus to make it so that you never mess up that badly.

The Gray Walkers excel at all forms of close combat, and seem to have a preternatural skill at going unnoticed. They make no sound when fighting unless they choose to do so, and receive a –1 difficulty on all Stealth rolls. A Scathach can never botch a Stealth roll. In addition, due to their intense combat focus, all Gray Walkers receive +1 die on all Brawl and Melee rolls, as their perception of time seems to slow down, making it easy to land hits and avoid return strikes.

'Make no sound when fighting unless they choose to do so' is great

'I'll shoot him with my pistol' utter silence

[tough pebble]

First playthrough of Hungry Names is complete. Honestly, surprised I did so well without even knowing what I was rolling half the time.

Now comes the "solve everything with claws" playthrough.

[rapid glacier]

What ending did you get

Use the uh achievement name so as not to spoil it for others

[tough pebble]

||Eat the Tiger||. Full marks on glory too, even though I wasn't even trying to (after checking my save file, I... Had a ridiculous amount of honor if I'm reading the other save flags right?)

[rapid glacier]

I always take ||Ride the Tiger|| but that one is also a good one

Now it’s time for Maximum Violence Shadow Lord Ahroun playthrough

Although be careful about Rage, if you hit five and gain more you Frenzy and it always makes your situation go into a fail state, so spend it on your gifts and shifting to keep it low

[tough pebble]

Yep, though I might pick black furies or red talons instead, depends on if I want to have to delay for a DLC3 tribe again...

[rapid glacier]

You’ll miss out on solving every problem by ||shitting lightning at it|| and I do mean every problem, except one which is ||something underwater||

[tough pebble]

But yeah, ran around as a silent strider theurge (though a touch late on the tribe because the save had to be edited to make it recognize the DLC...) that barely shifted and ran down all of their rage on gifts to avoid bad shit before doing anything. Generally respected litany, respected humans, respected spirits over rage, kept the hope, and originally ran totally serious until I figured it was time to get the stick out of the proverbial ass, ended up neutral on that. A lot of people came out alive, and briefly glancing at some flags ||I'm surprised at how many can actually die given I figured they couldn't.||

[rapid glacier]

A lot of the supporting cast can, although I’m not sure if anyone else in the pack besides (potential ending spoiler) ||Elton|| can

[tough pebble]

I have a feeling that the friendly body count on this run is gonna start looking pretty high by the end of this. Just a guess.

[rapid glacier]

I’ve been playing on Iron Wolf mode for every run after the first and I can’t get a full violence run going, the farthest one I had ended when ||Daphne shot me while I was in a frenzy|| lmao

[tough pebble]

Okay, went slightly mad tearing apart the game scripts to figure out that the dlc_* flags are misnamed slightly (they don't flip until you trip over the content and the game determines then if you have the DLC). except for dlc_3_can_do_intro, which I think is only set at the start of a save file, and controls if you can trip over its content at all.

So, my first playthrough starting from the demo could not trigger it until I did my save edit. Which makes no sense, because the entire thing is just as guarded as the rest of the DLC from demo players running into it, and when it can happen is actually controlled by other logic. So the only flag I needed to flip last time was the latter, and this new save file is fine. Why is Hungry Names like this?

I really need to stop spending several hours tearing apart Electron games to figure out how their save formats work, this is like the second time this has happened.

Anyways I'm like 2 hours in and would probably be dead if I was in Iron Wolf mode. Off to a great start!

[rapid glacier]

Godspeed 🫡

[olive citrus]

Are septs always populated by 1 to 2 tribes? Could you have other tribes as well? Im asking mostly because the people I have interested in playing seem to want to play 4 different ones. Do I as the st, need to determine what tribes are available for play for this to work?

[mighty zephyr]

Septs are rarely one tribe

Likewise, packs are rarely mono tribal

[marble sorrel]

That's fine. There's not enough werewoofs for anything but the rarest places to be monotribe. Even then you'd likely find other clan diplomats there.

Like maybe back in the era of the White Howlers you'd find more related groups due to difficulty of travel but definitely not in the modern age.

[high current]

yeah no most septs aren't exclusive wrt tribal membership

i say most cause i can imagine maybe a Red Talon pack establishing a Sept and telling anybody born human to fuck off, and on a similar note there's some folks who might fully refuse to engage with a Glass Walker Sept because of association with the Weaver

[vast blaze]

Do different kinds of blood taste different to vampires?

Like, would Type O taste different from Type AB, or would the blood of a more sedentary person taste different from a more active individual, or would a vegan's blood taste different from a non-vegan's?

[mighty zephyr]

Yes but not because of biological factors mainly

But because of the resonance of the blood

[marble sorrel]

Someone on drugs has a long history in WoD of tasting like/affecting vampires like that drug.

So vampires drinking from drunk people get the feeling of being drunk

[vast blaze]

Oh yeah that brings up another question: Can vampires capable of eating food get drunk off of liquor?

Or high off of edibles, or energized from caffeine?

[mighty zephyr]

Probably not

Theyre still corpses and immune to poisons

And those are just poisons

[marble sorrel]

I'd let them get some effect if they had Blush of Life going and have Can Eat. Can Eat isn't exactly a super powerful advantage after all.

Blush of Life being cheaper for high humanity is generally good for making being high humanity a 'yay, life is less miserable' thing and combining it with another nice minor advantage makes sense to me.

[vast blaze]

It's barely an advantage at all tbh

Makes it easier to blend in with people but that's about it

...though it is nice for roleplay and that's a huge chunk of Vampire

[mighty zephyr]

It also helps you evade scrutiny and like

Have meals with your family

[marble sorrel]

Aininur uses it to prank new vampires by offering them sweets she's currently eating.

She's an asshole at times

[vast blaze]

...honestly, in-universe Eat Food feels like one of the best perks a vampire could have

Mechanically it's Not Great, in-universe it's like

"I can enjoy food... I can have my fucking lattes and my cookies and my stews and my burgers and my bacon..."

Makes everything more bearable when at the end of a long shitty day of dealing with shitty Camarilla politicking, you can just go home, cook up a nice Guinness stew, and just have a nice meal and relax

...the stew doesn't actually fill you up, but I mean at least you can savor how good it tastes

[nimble gale]

But it does have to exit the entrance door, which ain't great

[vast blaze]

Eh, at least it's not intermingled with bile and doesn't have most of the unpleasantness of vomiting

Beyond having to force yourself to vomit

...wait actually, would a vampire's digestive tract still mostly function or would it just sort of atrophy

[mighty zephyr]

Depends

[craggy coyote]

in v5 it mostly atrophies?

ITs implied vampires don't really shit unless special things happen

as humanity decreses the amount of time you can process food goes down

but there are things that make vampires shit

Specifically a teeb alchemy formula to remove blood bonds

which specifies that it actually does hurt, because of the need to reanimate the digestive tract

Saturn's Flux, from Blood Sigils, Pg 80:

The process yields a thumbnail sized
pellet, crackly and gray. To gain the effect, smoke it
in a steel pipe on a bed of ash, taking precautions
as Kindred must for dealing with a small open
flame. Within twenty-four hours of ingestion, the
smoker literally shits out the Blood Bond—painful
and bloody but not injurious for mortals. Kindred,
with withered digestive tracts, take a point of
Aggravated damage as the unwholesome influence
resists expulsion

duratIon : As mentioned above, the effect kicks
in within a day’s span of ingestion—sometimes
waking Kindred from daysleep with agonizing
cramps

so uh, no your digestive tract is not looking too good unless your humanity is 9+

[tough pebble]

Behold: An exercise in becoming a hammer that seeks fresh nails.

Hungry Names almost feels like a different tone of story when you're not pulling back from danger and burning all your rage on spiritual assurances. For one, there is a lot more brutal gore descriptions. Shame none of my friends would follow up on my recommendation for this game.

[rapid glacier]

Yeah that’s a monster right there

[vast blaze]

...I do not think I am fond of V20 combat

[velvet sparrow]

:)

[marble sorrel]

I don't think any edition of WoD has had great combat, overall.

[vast blaze]

I mean I get it's not the central aspect but fuck me this feels miserable

-3 to everything dexterity-related due to armor is probably the worst of it, I can't do shit

[mighty zephyr]

I mean yeah, downside of armor

[marble sorrel]

That's what...Class 4 armour? Like a full Riot Gear?

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah I'd imagine

or full plate

[vast blaze]

Full plate because I'm stupid and thought the dex penalty only applied to like

Stealth and such

Not ANYTHING dex-related

[marble sorrel]

...oddly enough, that's a higher penalty than full plate should be.

[vast blaze]

It's riot gear reflavored as plate, I forgot that plate mail is already a thing

Fucking

[mighty zephyr]

Class 5 is -3 penalty yes

[rapid glacier]

this might also explain why shotguns are the most dangerous weapons, they're reliably shot while in full riot gear lol

[vast blaze]

Tried to get in through an alt entrance to avoid having to engage in a ritual, got a fucking bomb to the face for my trouble, armor got instantly destroyed so now I'm just running around with -3 to every single dexterity action with no benefits, got capped in the head by some shithead that rolls 10 die to headshot someone and got put down instantly

Fun times

[marble sorrel]

Here we go, Dark Ages Companion's. Plate is notably better than most armours due to articulation.

[vast blaze]

So now I'm just sitting around waiting to get finished off and roll up a new character

[mighty zephyr]

Base V20 would make it equivilent to riot gear

[marble sorrel]

...wait...if the armour is destroyed why are you being penalized still...this sounds very...the GM out to get you, I'll admit.

[mighty zephyr]

Though this is also before like

plate armor exists

[vast blaze]

AND my leg got shredded so that's ANOTHER -1 to my Dex

[mighty zephyr]

as we understand it at least

like "a full suit of plate"

[vast blaze]

Apparently it's destroyed enough to not do shit diddly do protect me but not enough to have disintegrated and not hamper me anymore

Which tbf does feel reasonable

If highly frustrating

[marble sorrel]

What destroyed it? There's not honestly that much in WoD that just outright destroys armour.

[high current]

i mean, if you're not getting any mechanical benefits, it doesnt seem reasonable to still hit you with the mechanical downsides imo

[vast blaze]

The fucking bomb that went off in my face for trying to be clever and find an alternate route

...on further inspection I am not actually fucked, I'm only at Crippled

[mighty zephyr]

I feel like you probably wont be killed right out of the gate

[vast blaze]

And I'm 8th gen so next turn I can pop three blood points, get down to Injured, and scurry off

[mighty zephyr]

Vampire yeah

[valid merlin]

that doesn't seem reasonable to me tbqh

[vast blaze]

Thank FUCK I invested in Generation, shit's paying in dividends now

[velvet sparrow]

Yeah

[marble sorrel]

Obviously, I'm not there so I can't comment directly but...I will admit, a GM going 'fuck you, big gear lost, crippled and shot in the head' feels very...'GM being a bit of a dickhead'.

[vast blaze]

I doubt he has it out for me

This is a community server I just joined, nobody's known me long enough to have a strong opinion on me

[mighty zephyr]

I feel like you might be undergoing a little bit of hazing at least

[hybrid dock]

Oh Jesus

[vast blaze]

I mean it's still on me, it just isn't really doing anything to protect me at this point

[valid merlin]

sure, so maybe it has a lower rating and penalty

[vast blaze]

Like I'm still covered in metal plating, it's just ripped up and has bigass gaps and holes in it

[valid merlin]

but no protection and full penalty is just punishing for no reason

[marble sorrel]

Oh yeah, I'm not saying so much 'out to get you' so much 'that's excessively harsh for GMing vampire.'.

Like to go with a very basic thing - 10 dice to shoot people is a lot and going for headshots is something most people wouldn't do without a good reason. Headshots are a lot of penalty for a very minor bonus unless you know the other guy is a vampire and thus halves bullets to places other than the face.

[vast blaze]

I think this is some Big Bad Evil Guy is the thing

[marble sorrel]

A professional, skilled soldier with actual combat experience is like...6-7 dice.

[vast blaze]

So it's not just Random Fucking Mook

...still feels extremely excessive but at least it has some level of justification

[mighty zephyr]

Did you know who it was before you stormed in

[vast blaze]

We did not

[mighty zephyr]

And are you doing so alone

[vast blaze]

I'm with three others at least

Fourth split off to investigate the basement before the building collapsed from having a bomb go off inside

[high current]

have they also been targeted with headshots?

[vast blaze]

No, but that's because they haven't left the building yet, which I did

And also because it's just one sniper, not like a battalion

...wait no they did leave the building

Still though, it's a single sniper that seemingly lacks Celerity

[marble sorrel]

Did you really fuck up the soak roll? As I'll admit, I'm still kinda stuck on the 'oh yeah, armour gone'. That could maybe be the result of a botched soak roll but generally speaking armour doesn't get destroyed soaking damage in vampire.

[vast blaze]

Which one, for the bomb or the sniper?

[marble sorrel]

The bomb was the one that took the armour off, iirc?

[vast blaze]

Yeah

I got 4 successes on a pool of 10 and the bomb dealt... let's see...

[mighty zephyr]

You should also only be taking bashing damage

So like

Not a huge deal

[vast blaze]

5 aggravated
2 lethal (shrapnel)
3 bashing (concussive blast)

[mighty zephyr]

Oh

[vast blaze]

Headshots are Lethal damage

[mighty zephyr]

What??????

[craggy coyote]

... What kind of Bomb was it

[vast blaze]

Shaped charge I think?

[mighty zephyr]

I mean shrapnel shouldn't do lethal

[vast blaze]

It was a booby trap for people that tried busting through the wall instead of going through the ritually-trapped doorway

[mighty zephyr]

You are a corpse

[vast blaze]

Swords do Lethal, right? I assume the logic is "sharp, therefore Lethal".

Which seems sound to me

[mighty zephyr]

Oh right masquerade sucks like that

[vast blaze]

God and all I had to do was fucking cover myself in blood to get through

This is entirely on me

[craggy coyote]

... IIRC no

[mighty zephyr]

Did you use auspex?

No Tect thats right

[vast blaze]

I did not, because who the hell booby traps a wall beside a door?

Oh wait for the ritual

[mighty zephyr]

Well I meant in general

[vast blaze]

No, someone else figured that out, someone else in the party indicated that we didn't have time to play at their silly rituals, I agreed and tried making another entrance, immediately got punished for it

We were in an Assamite's silence field so nobody could tell him to stop, which... makes me wonder why he didn't just let someone yank me back

[mighty zephyr]

Well hey, learning experience

Go eat a guy and be fine

[marble sorrel]

Bullets do bashing, generally I've seen people say shrapnel also does bashing because vampires don't care about bleeding out. Vampires take lethal from swords because swords take big chunks out of them.

[hybrid dock]

Get a juice!

[velvet sparrow]

So was that bashing damage before or after the halving

[simple valley]

sippy juice

[vast blaze]

Before halving

The explosion itself did very little to me beyond fucking up my leg and ruining my armor

[velvet sparrow]

I forget if you halve the result or dice rolled

[vast blaze]

After all was said and done I took one single Bashing and one single Aggravated

And I healed the bashing too so I ended up just Bruised

[velvet sparrow]

...
and the armour got shredded, but somehow not enough to not have a penalty

[vast blaze]

There's rulings for armor that takes too much damage, which my armor did

Hang on, I remember it's in the core book somewhere

[high current]

armor absorbed 5 agg, 1 lethal, 2 bashing, and is shredded enough to not provide a bonus, but still provide a penalty

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, ti's twice the rating in damage.

[high current]

its the 'still providing a penalty' that i'm stuck on

[marble sorrel]

Rating 5 armour would take 10 health levels of damage to get damaged.

[vast blaze]

Which it did

[mighty zephyr]

He also got shot

[vast blaze]

In the fucking head somehow

[mighty zephyr]

If its a sniper its probably because they aimed

[velvet sparrow]

It says "the armour is destroyed", not "the armour stops giving a bonus but still gives a penalty"

[vast blaze]

I'll bring it up I guess

[marble sorrel]

It's kinda cruel

[velvet sparrow]

Not kinda, imo

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, I'm kinda understating it.

I think my GM was less mean about me getting gutted by a werewolf than this.

[velvet sparrow]

I think it's just cruel and leading me to wonder if the ST has something against Wamly/Wamly's character

[velvet sparrow]

Gutted by a werewolf buddies

You lived though, didn't you

[nimble gale]

I will admit this whole thing feels like, like... 'Oh, you're choosing to find an alternative method instead of the one I came up with? WOE, PUNISHMENT BE UPON THEE, GET BACK UPON MY RAILS'

[vast blaze]

Like I said I've not been here long enough for anyone to have a strong opinion

[mighty zephyr]

Thats not what it feels like

[vast blaze]

Unless they just weirdly hate Tremere

[marble sorrel]

I did not! It's why Aininur's a Vampire. She was very much in a 'oh, she's going to fucking die' state before she got vamp'd.

[vast blaze]

Which they haven't given any indication for

[velvet sparrow]

So, one: possible

The second is, is this still the uh, swordsperson hunter-esque character?

[vast blaze]

Yeah the weirdo spellblade anarch tremere

[marble sorrel]

On the 'plus' side - She did maim the werewolf in the process. It grabbed her and was just sorta staring at her so she shoved her silver necklace down it's throat. She proceeded to have Less Hands and Less Guts immediately afterwards but the werewolf did run off choking and gagging, which was funny.

[velvet sparrow]

I got gutted after being turned into a vampire.

Hudson did not survive the night :(

Which, one the one hand, I didn't really know what I was doing when making him so he was kinda... and then I got to make Sigismund

But on the other, I did like him