World of Darkness

[mighty zephyr]

Wamly if I had to guess you are probably getting hazed a bit due to the peculiarities of your character

[vast blaze]

Maybe? But I'm not the only Anarch Tremere around.

[mighty zephyr]

At least I would not be surprised if this was the case

Its not the anarch tremere thing

Its the "I am a gen 8 spellblade in plate armor" thing

Not trying to be rude but strangers will react to that with certain preconceptions

[vast blaze]

Mmm

Maybe

...bottom of the fucking initiative, grand

I'll make something less outlandish to replace him I guess

[mighty zephyr]

I mean you are probably not going to die

If their reaction to this character is to immediately kill him then they shouldnt have approved it in the first place

[nimble gale]

It is legitimately difficult to truly kill off a vampire the masquerade PC unless you're actively trying

[marble sorrel]

If it's not Actual Fire/Other aggravated damage, it takes some serious killing

[vast blaze]

I'm at Crippled with someone already attacking me

[mighty zephyr]

Thats still probably not going to kill you

[vast blaze]

No matter what I do here I'm taking at minimum one damage, putting me into Incapacitated, which leaves me a sitting duck for Miss 10-Die-Sniper

Alongside her other two goons

[mighty zephyr]

At which point they will probably switch targets to more active threats

[velvet sparrow]

Which at worst puts you into torpor

[marble sorrel]

If they keep shooting you while you're down and there are others about...yeah, then the GM has it out for you.

[mighty zephyr]

You are most likely

If this st is not a cunt

Going to just get your ass kicked

And then leave to live another night

[vast blaze]

...it has been pointed out to me that I can apparently use a Willpower to act now

[mighty zephyr]

So things you can do

[vast blaze]

Celerity for sure

And Dodge

[mighty zephyr]

Dominate the sniper as well

[vast blaze]

I have one dot in it

Better off just attempting to fry her fucking face off with a levinbolt

Not the only person in this shitshow with an absurdly high damage attack

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, you can use willpower to ignore wound penalties.

[vast blaze]

If I survive this I'm just going to stop engaging with combat altogether

Not worth rolling the dice on if this group has a massively overtuned unit or not

Gonna stop trying to be fucking clever too, don't want to roll the dice on getting another bomb to the face for my trouble

...maybe I should just abandon this character and roll up a Charisma focused one instead, combat focus has thus far proven to be utterly fucking worthless

[mighty zephyr]

Well like here's the thing

"Combat" is a failstate in wod

You want to do murders

Murder is great

[vast blaze]

I guess this idea was just fundamentally worthless from the start then

I'm retiring him for something that's actually worth a shit

[mighty zephyr]

You can definitely still make it work

You just have to realign expectations

[marble sorrel]

I wouldn't even say combat is a failstate, there's plenty of valid reasons to do combat but...it does seem like that game is well set up for a character that wants to do combat. Shaped Charges in the walls is some silly bullshit.

[mighty zephyr]

Well that part is fine with me honestly, though I would ask for a roll so someone can react to it

"I am doing a big evil thing so I put traps out" is like
Yeah

[nimble gale]

It just kind of fails my railroad sniff test

[vast blaze]

I think what irks me the most is that I just

Didn't get to react to it

At all

[nimble gale]

There's 'traps in the walls' and then there's 'the PCs aren't staying on the railroad'

[vast blaze]

Like I'm a Dex 4/Celerity 1 vampire

[mighty zephyr]

I would have to see the exact order of events to say the sniff test passes or fails

[vast blaze]

we reach the door

occult checks to determine weird symbol, one person succeeds and learns it means the door is trapped and you have to partake in the ritual to pass

other member doesn't want to do ritual, I assume trap means something thaumaturgical or something to do with the actual door itself and attempt to breach wall

wall explodes

bad guys pull up outside, perception rolls reveal left side is clear to escape through

exit through window, immediately get capped in head

[mighty zephyr]

Well

That doesnt smell railroady to me

[vast blaze]

Yeah it's at least not railroad-y

Just... kind of a bit bullshit feeling

[mighty zephyr]

Im not gonna defend it from that angle

[rapid glacier]

Without broader context, that’s the kind of bad to worse that’s usually reserved for The Big Fight of a chronicle, or you guys kicked a hornets nest of someone with more power and prep time, but it certainly does feel shitty

Now wether your ST meant for it to feel that shitty, I dunno

[mighty zephyr]

But like you are also generation 8 so like, youre gonna be fine

[marble sorrel]

I'll admit, I'm not sure where 'wall explodes' comes in from a 'the other guy doing things for reasons other than Fuck The PCs'. Most people don't tend to just stick explosives to their own places/they had perfectly serviceable magical traps on entrances.

[mighty zephyr]

Well it seems like the magical trap is the explosive

[rapid glacier]

Oh if you’re going against elders and you know it? Hell yeah put explosives and traps everywhere, one of them will clip them enough to stake em

Well, hopefully

[vast blaze]

Or the explosive is a failsafe of smart guys trying to circumvent their bullshit

[mighty zephyr]

If you are knowingly dealing with super strength individuals than yeah

[vast blaze]

I have no idea what I am dealing with

I went in blind

Got into a van at least, so I can escape

I'm rather fucking sore over this tbh

I'm just going to scrap this stupidass character idea and make something actually functional

[marble sorrel]

Sorry your first experiance went like this.

[mighty zephyr]

Take a breath and come back to it later

[vast blaze]

"Hhhhhhhhhhgh Imma make a sword user in a gun world" yeah great idea dumbass, bring a knife to a gun fight, surely this won't end poorly

[mighty zephyr]

Wamly, you don't gotta beat yourself up over it.

You had misaligned expectations, it happens, we all do it

[nimble gale]

(also like generally speaking the sword-user in vtm is legitimately a threatening combatant with less hoops to jump through against other kindred than the gunslinger)

[marble sorrel]

...Warm, you're kinda spiralling. I'd take a break and relax for a bit. As ID said - Swords are not bad for vompires to focus on. This is an exceptional situation that's not really indicative of general play.

[vast blaze]

sorry

[mighty zephyr]

It's a learning experience

You got outta there, you can readjust how you think about situations, and you can still do your cool character

[marble sorrel]

Like unironically, 9/10 times, a vampire in heavy armour with a sword is a threat that most people can't really face unless they've got a lot of distance from you.

Bullets do very little unless it's headshots (And headshots are very low accuracy/can still be soaked) and heavy armour adds a full 'foritude 5' worth of extra soak against bullets

[mighty zephyr]

Or they know something like that is On The Way

[vast blaze]

Issue

I am about as subtle as a bull in a china shop

Which seems moderately imperative

[mighty zephyr]

You do not need to be, you just need to play to your strengths

[marble sorrel]

I mean, you don't really need to be subtle all the time.

[mighty zephyr]

Like

I would watch some inspirational media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exO6ANqEX4k

[marble sorrel]

To go with a 'stuff you can do in modern nights' example: The vompire knight barreling out of the back of a van into some gangers or newbie shovelheads? That's not a threat the enemy will have much they can do to stop.

[mighty zephyr]

Like you can do This With A Sword

[marble sorrel]

And you can put a van a lot of places/it can hide you just fine

[vast blaze]

sorry

[mighty zephyr]

It's okay man

Take care of yourself

[marble sorrel]

This is...you made a vampire tank and the first encounter was evidently full of anti-tank weapons.

Yeah, agreed. Take a little time to destress. If you wanna talk about other character ideas or things you can do to help it later, we'll be about.

[vast blaze]

I'm sorry for how I acted, that wasn't right of me and I need to control myself better

[marble sorrel]

It's fine mate. We all get heated sometimes.

[mighty zephyr]

It's cool

[high current]

im reminded of the time i was in a pf1e game with a lightning damage focused sorcerer, and we were mostly dealing with demons(which have lightning immunity in pf1e); sorc died and i swapped to a fire oracle, the first session with that character we switched from demons to devils(which have fire immunity), and i felt like the gm was bullying me, but according to him it was just really bad timing(and according to him i never told him anything about my characters prior to us playing which, seems unlike me but it was long ago enough that i dont remember so )

[marble sorrel]

To sorta help put things in a bit of context when you're good for it about vampire durability against guns most of the time.

You've got 10 soak. Lets put that against a Shovelhead with an Assault Rifle, a very hard hitting gun.

Assault Rifle are 7 damage. Lets give this Shovehead some decent stats and skills. He was decently fit and had some range practice in his life. He's got 5 dice in shooting (Dex 3 + Firearms 2). He's going to get on average 2 successes, pushing him up to 9 dice of damage.

He'll do on average 4 damage. That's a good bit of damage, it would fuck a human up. You're a vampire though...and one in heavy armour. Your 10 dice will on average soak all the damage...and even if you didn't, the remaining unsoaked damage would be halved and downgraded to bashing.

Double Digit Soak is 'It takes something serious to hurt you'. A decently trained, solidly statted guy hosing you down with an M16 is within the range of 'It might do a little damage eventually'.

[vast blaze]

This assumes he doesn't just headshot and land it

[marble sorrel]

Sure, lets go with this with a headshot and redo the math!

Making it a headshot increases the TN to 8. That drops his average number of successes down to 1 but does add +1 net damage from being a headshot.

Which is...the same result but if it does do any damage, it's lethal instead of halved bashing.

At the cost of twice the chance of 'not hitting at all' and 4x the chance of 'oh I dun fucked up' botching.

[vast blaze]

And if it does land anyway?

He's rolling with 5 die, at least one is statistically likely to roll above an 8

[marble sorrel]

If it does land, then it's doing 7+1(Average Successes)+1(Headshot) dice of lethal damage. So the same 'you'll soak all the damage most of the time'.

So the same '4 damage on average', which your 10 dice would entirely soak most of the time.

This is the power of 'vampires soak lethal damage'.

to do a comparison - Same guy, same armour but he's a Mage or Changeling instead of a Vampire.

4 lethal, being soaked by just the armour (5 dice). That's gunna soak 2 on average.

A mage or changeling in full riot gear will be on the ground bleeding out if a squad of mooks with assault rifles hose him down.

The vampire will be Mildly Peeved.

Basicly: The concept here isn't bad. Most of the time, most things can't really handle a heavy armour vampire.

A heavy armour vampire can go through Soldiers, it can go through Knights, it can go through grizzly bears.

And unless someone's got a flamethrower or heavy explosives, he's not going to stop.

Sorry for the wall of text.

Just wanted to make it clear you didn't do anything wrong

[mighty zephyr]

Also if you are Dex 4 with Celerity you might actually just be better off dodging

with no armor

[vast blaze]

Would I?

But wouldn't Dodging just mean I can't actually do anything unless I use Celerity?

[marble sorrel]

Honestly, it depends a lot on the threat. Heavy armour is best for keeping action economy and handling loads of smaller attacks.

Dodging tends to be better against singular dangerous foes

[mighty zephyr]

You should have multiple actions

Like as a sword user your main goal is to thus:
Step : Not die to being shot through use of cover
Step 2: Charge and kill the guy in one flurry of attacks

[vast blaze]

Which I'd imagine Celerity helps with

[craggy coyote]

Quite a bit. Multi action go brr. Brujah in armor go brr

[nimble gale]

Also was no one going to tell me jimi hendrix was canonically in wraith 20, was I supposed to just find that out on my own

[vast blaze]

Guh

Whar

Elaborate

[mighty zephyr]

Well jimi Hendrix is dead

So hes a ghost now

[nimble gale]

@vast blaze writeup in the player's guide for Wr20

[vast blaze]

Holy shit

Peak

[nimble gale]

one benefit to being a history nerd is that you'll be reading Wraith and then point at a name and go WAIT I KNOW THAT NAME

[marble sorrel]

Like how Paris is basicly unbreakable due to a famous military engineer?

[nimble gale]

like the fact that the Necropolis of Paris is run by Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban--yep!

[vast blaze]

HOLY SHIT VAUBAN WARFRAME

[nimble gale]

Vauban the warframe was named after Vauban the dude!

And he is a fascinating bit of military history. He basically invented the modern fortification

[vast blaze]

Nuh uh clearly it's the other way around

[marble sorrel]

He also basicly invented fucking up modern fortifications.

He worked out how to bounce cannonballs when attacking.

Stuff like 'if we hit this tower at this angle, it will reflect into their main parade area and get some of the troops in the fort'

[nimble gale]

de Vauban basically looked at warfare in the late 1600s and went 'hmm, not enough math'

'I'm going to math at it until france wins'

[marble sorrel]

Vauban sitting there for 20 minutes doing the math on an angry birds level before playing.

[nimble gale]

but yeah his ghost is in charge of the Paris necropolis, which has as long as he's been the leader of it, never fallen to storm nor spectre.

Homer canonically existed in oWoD and is a leader of the Chanteurs guild.

... George Patton is an overlord of the legion of mystery.

Robespierre too

well, not an overlord in the legion of mystery but a canon wraith

[vast blaze]

Simpson? Or that one Greek philosopher?

[nimble gale]

Homer is more poet than philosopher, but yes, the latter

[vast blaze]

Oh yeah, I'm gonna get some art of my weirdo spellblade

Ended up going for a snake-themed cane because I thought it would be a neat callback to the old Dark Ages Tremere coat of arms

Also realized I was being overdramatic over one singular extremely shitty situation, I'm gonna stick with the build a bit longer

[nimble gale]

👍

[tough pebble]

Decided to do a "what-if" on determining how interesting western washington (in general) would be for a WtA game:

• Unless you're literally standing in middle of SODO, in urban spaces you're not too far from patches of greenery, and it tends to get denser as you get further from Tacoma or Seattle. It's usually fairly contained in small parks or is decorative patches of trees, but you're usually not in total urban hell.
• Most of the urban and suburban areas are concentrated around Puget Sound.
• On the other hand, a vast majority of woodland in this half of the state is commercially logged in cycles and is not permanently wilderness, unless it is within federal wilderness or national forest.
• On the other, other hand, there's a lot of federal land, and most of it is mountainous terrain, so you're not exactly hurting for hard-to-reach natural spaces, assuming you can keep away from the tourist-y park trails.
• For some reason the listed canon caerns nearby are in South Lake Union (presumably in someone's apartment, lmao), Discovery Park (which, well, is one of the larger parks in Seattle, but not really the place I'd think of when trying to put a caern in a natural space), and... In Vancouver, Canada. And then the last caern listed in Washington of unsure(?) canon is in the southeast of the state, so completely out of my perception.
• Apparently Pentex's western branch office is in Seattle, and yeah, it's either there or in Redmond at this point.
• The local wolf population exists, it's certainly not a large amount (low triple digits), but getting sighted in lupus form won't spark a complete ecological mystery.

[vast blaze]

...that does make for a juicy setting

[tough pebble]

Living near the cascades has probably desensitized me to the presence of mountains, but, come on. Take one look at that mountain range and tell me there isn't a major caern on it, White Wolf.

[rapid glacier]

Well if you’re going with W5, their answer was there was, past tense

[tough pebble]

I mean it's probably decent. lots of watersheds to protect from pollution, cyclical logging isn't exactly "putting everything back where we found it". good chunk of weaver bullshit tied up in the big cities in case your ST is feeling spicy.

[tough pebble]

my annoyance that it costs like 30-90 bucks to properly read the lore of a TTRPG I likely cannot convince my friends to play, only grows.

but do tell

[rapid glacier]

I’m at work so I’ve gotta type this only phone, so it’ll take a minute but cans summarize with W5’s focus on younger wolves and new packs highlights an often overlooked aspect of Gothic fiction, and that’s how decay is shown and its place in the narrative

Now, the obvious aspect is Gaia’s Howl/The Wyrm corrupting everything or being miserable yeah, but the one that comes to light when you focus on the new blood is the old blood who kind of allowed this to happen in the first place

Or if not allowed, then failed to stop meaningfully

So a new pack in the area will absolutely stumble across an old caern site or stomping grounds or a den of another older pack that died off or abandoned it for one reason or another

In this PNW setting, even if there isn’t a specific Sept called out, any ST with the time and wereithal could come up with a plausible example of “yeah there were Garou here but they’re basically dead now”

That ‘old guard screwed this up for us new cubs’ is a form of the same Decay that older Gothic literature also uses

(And a not-uncommon sentiment IRL, while we’re at it)

Anyways I’ve gotta get back to my wrench turning but there’s a lot more to unpack there, but that area and conceit you came up with is very similar to why my home game and my discord game of W5 are set in and around Appalachia

[vast blaze]

Appalachia's a fucking awesome place for a WoD game of just about any flavor

Not the least because it's prebuilt with a bunch of legends of spooky shit

Like not-deer

[rapid glacier]

The haunted Studebaker is my favorite, literally the spirit of Moonshiners running from the cops

[vast blaze]

There's also my mf goat MOTHMAN

[tough pebble]

hmm, well, the mountains aren't like, insanely far (my family's old yearly hiking trips can attest that you're in for like 1.5-2 hours drive from Seattle depending on where), so "restore an abandoned caern in the cascades" could make for a decent plot point without permanently skewing the entire game into a rural area.

[high current]

afaik it's of dubious canon at this point but, WtA:Earthblood starts out near Seattle iirc

granted i think it was of dubios canon even before W5 actually released cause iirc it makes some weird choices on how to handle things

some of which was probably budget reasons but

main things i remember were you only have 3 forms, homid, lupus, and crinos, and like all of the spirits you interact with look identical except for like 2 of them that are big parts of the plot

[rapid glacier]

I tried to send you a PM but we aren’t discord friends, but if you’d like I can link my roll20 game when our stream starts up; it’s not exactly playing a game yourself, but you can live vicariously through the other players if you wish

[vast blaze]

...I think I might know why my first game went so poorly

The ST doesn't seem to have a lot of experience storytelling

I'd bet my bottom dollar he heard "combat is a failstate" and took it at face value

That, and the sniper is apparently one of the Big Bads of the present storyline

[vast blaze]

Tha lad

[mighty zephyr]

Shapeshifting in W20 is so fucking weird

[craggy coyote]

Oh shit, you're the guy who commissioned Mona? (artist is in a PbP server I'm in, i got to see a WIP!)

small world

[vast blaze]

Yurp

Presently the last adjustment I've asked for is for his beard to be the same shade as his hair, I do hope I'm not annoying her with it

[craggy coyote]

If they are, they haven't mentioned it to me. Glad to see her getting work either way

[vast blaze]

Aye, yeah

Ended up paying $10 extra because $50 felt too low

[vast blaze]

How weird

[mighty zephyr]

So many rolls and specifics

[craggy coyote]

i am unfamiliar with W 20 (and much of 20th in general.) Would love to see examples if you wanna rant about it

[mighty zephyr]

https://i.imgur.com/UKomZf9.png

https://i.imgur.com/LkEKj7G.png

You also go to breed form if you fall asleep

So there's no "surviving in the wilds as a wolf"

You can't grapple as a wolf???

[craggy coyote]

Reminds me of V5 limiting the protean durationsto a scene so you can't just fuck off into the woods

[craggy coyote]

... you ever get the feeling a rule was made by people who don't understand animals?

Because... no

No that's not how wolves work

they bite and they hold it down

[vast blaze]

What of the secret sixth form

[tough pebble]

Is it like, a twitch stream?

[tough pebble]

I've known about that game for a while and I've been generally informed that it was not a very good game.

Also, "starting out near Seattle" is basically meaningless if it becomes apparent a writer hasn't been in the pacific northwest, so that's not an appealing coinflip to take with my money lmao

[mighty zephyr]

It's like

not bad but it's not good

It's just kinda mediocre

The trailer fucking rules

[tough pebble]

Besides, the point I was making was more about how theorizing how interesting it would be to run a WtA game in west Washington, rather than seeking anything that happens to have Seattle in it

[mighty zephyr]

I was gonna run a game set where Seattle was like

"The distant Empire"

A Proceterate runs Seattle, but you're like several hours out in the wilderness

[tough pebble]

Was travel time meant to be a huge barrier?

[mighty zephyr]

yeah

[tough pebble]

It's something like 2-3 hours to drive to true wilderness from Seattle, unless you're talking about across the Canadian border and up the coast. Washington may be a fairly large state but the Cascades condense the "West" part pretty heavily, and again, a lot of the forest here is commercially logged and dotted with small towns, you have to be like, in the foothills of the mountains to start truly avoiding signs of human contact.

And if that kind of wilderness is acceptable, you could be like, an hour out.

The travel time could be fairly decent if we're talking over the Cascades and into east Washington, but I'm not all that familiar with that half of the state.

[marble sorrel]

...I got time and travel swapped when I read that and had to read it a few more times going 'wait, when did time travel get involved? This isn't Changeling'

[pure mauve]

...I'm suddenly thinking about a hypothetical Geist video game that would never happen. And how, ironically, in the first generation of Geist you automatically get a snarky NPC who follows you around, explains important setting info to you, and is only visible to you, like how apparently the newest Vampire game has Vampire Johnny Silverhand but without needing to justify it. ...but in 2e, Geists are more like... honestly, like Disco Elysium skills, as I understand it? Where they tell you to do things, but it's not always easy to draw a clear line between them and yourself.

...honestly, in a Geist video game, I'd probably do it so that the Geist isn't an individual person, but its opinions leak into every single textbox or every single description. Like the geist is basically the (opinionated but amnesiac) narrator for your journey.

[tough pebble]

…Though I guess the real question is "what do you consider enough of a travel time to be a barrier"

[pure mauve]

Now I'm imagining each Haunt working like a Disco Elysium skill to determine the Geist's personality, and... yeah, that would be neat. It's explicitly noted that Bound who have lots of Caul blur the lines between themself and their Geist, after all! And you could feasibly generalize that and say that the Haunts act like their personality. Especially if you get a chance to pick up Well and/or Void, since those especially have degenerative effects, and you can't start with them...

[rapid glacier]

yeah, we do recordings with Twitch so we can show our friends later, or some can listen in live if they want

[tough pebble]

I'll take a look, then.

[high current]

Yeah Earthblood isn't bad but it's very "game that would have done gangbusters if it'd come out in 2009”

In like, every way you can imagine

Like, instant Xbox 360 gamerbro classic, would have gone down next to Gears of War and other late 00s edgy badass games, but instead it released in 2022 or whatever and is just kinda... There

[rapid glacier]

wasn't it an Xbox arcade title

I could have sworn it was like digital only and had a pricepoint to match

[pure mauve]

I suddenly randomly had the thought "what if each Geist Haunt was like a Disco Elysium skill and whispered in your ear, what would that look like" and then felt the need to write it up.

• The Caul: Blur the lines between yourself and your Geist. It becomes harder to separate your own thoughts and emotions from your Geist's, or to remember what your own body is supposed to be shaped like as warping your flesh becomes more and more natural. At Caul 5, it's almost impossible to tell your own thoughts and feelings from your Geist's. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, but merely the highest level of synchronization.
• The Curse: Malicious and scheming. Tends to view the actions of others as requiring your permission to happen, regardless of whether that's true or not. Believes in being patient, taking command of things, and holding grudges even after your own death. At Curse 5, everything is part of some larger plot or scheme.
• The Marionette: The world is made of puppets, and you are the puppeteer. Take charge of objects, corpses, and even people, and make them your tools. Exert your own agency, even when it denies the agency of others. At Marionette 5, it becomes hard to remember things can or should happen for reasons other than because you willed them to happen, as the skill demands you control your enemies and allies alike to reach the desired outcomes.
• The Memoria: You are an archivist, and the world your library. Get lost in potent memories of the past, swirling in grief and anger and loss. All things must be preserved; nothing can be forgotten or lost. At Memoria 5, the boundary between past and present blurs away, as memories are every bit as real and fluid as the world in front of you.
• The Shroud: You are a dead thing, not of this living world. The dead are ephemeral beings, touching lightly on the living world, and the Shroud encourages stealth, passivity, and observation over taking dramatic action. At Shroud 5, you are a faint thing, your actions only rarely noticed or dramatic.

[marble sorrel]

DAMMIT TREMERE DOING SOME TREMERE BULLSHIT.

"Hey, I'm a literal demon. Want to make a deal?"

[nimble gale]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[marble sorrel]

"Sounds good to me!"

[nimble gale]

FIRST ONE'S FREE, KID

[pure mauve]

• The Tomb: Unique to the Abiding, those who died with no legacy left behind. The Tomb sees not what is, but what could have been. In every scrap of refuse or rubble is a fragment of possible greatness, lost before its time, but still yearning to fulfil its true potential. At Tomb 5, the world is a phantasmagoria of what-could-have-been, with even blueprints and symbols blurring into great armies or towering monuments.
• The Oracle: Unique to the Bereaved, those who died forever yearning for one they could not ever find again. The Oracle gazes beyond the world of the living, casting a ghost deeper and deeper into the underworld. All that it sees is true, but the further you look, the harder it is to notice what is in front of you. At Oracle 5, your senses are but trivial in comparison to knowledge of the deep places of death, and your knowledge of past, present, and even future.
• The Boneyard: Unique to the Hungry, those who died with something they could not bear to abandon. The Boneyard claims a territory, with you as its sovereign. "This is mine" is its rallying cry, and it pushes you to protect your claim but never abandon it. At Boneyard 5, everywhere you claim is your sovereign kingdom to rule as you see fit, and it is hard to remember the value of the world beyond your borders.
• The Dirge: Unique to the Kindly, those who died unable to atone for their sins in life. The Dirge is a thing of passions and emotions, great swooping feelings far stronger than logical thought. Joy, despair, grief, anger... all are part of the Dirge's song. At Dirge 5, rational thought melts away beneath the surging tides of passion and emotion demanding to make themselves known.
• The Rage: Unique to the Vengeful, those who died in unforgivable circumstances. The Rage demands vengeance be taken, and enemies be destroyed. At Rage 5, all of life is a grand war being waged against a great enemy, and every action is a battle in that war.

(sorry about the walls of text but this lived in my head and needed out)

• The Void: Not available at character creation, but only acquired through delving the secrets of the Underworld. The Void is a reminder that all things will one day die; flesh rots, bone breaks, stone crumbles to sand. Even the stars will one day burn out. Everything around you is temporary and fragile, and it would be oh so easy to bring it to that end it will one day reach. If you reach Void 5, everything around you seems like a flimsy veneer over the permanence of death and the underworld, one which only exists because nobody has yet acted to tear it down.
• The Well: Not available at character creation, but only acquired through learning the secrets of the Ocean of Fragments. The Well is deep, drawing upon an ocean of thoughts and memories. Still waters run deep, and all water runs to the ocean, and memories are equally inseparable as the distinction between "self" and "other" becomes harder and harder to pin down. You can pick up on the memories of others, but find it harder and harder to remember which memories are originally yours — and, worse, harder and harder to care. If you reach Well 5, "you" seem more and more like an illusion, just a temporary container for thoughts and memories and even physical form, but which could just as easily be emptied and refilled as the boundaries between people dissolve in the ocean.

...there's a lot of flavor about how the Caul and especially the Well can really screw up people who learn them, and then I was thinking about how the 2e Geist wouldn't be a person who follows you around but an opinonated narrator or something akin to DE skills, and then this happened.

[hybrid dock]

uh oh

[nimble gale]

cackles and jumps back and forth like a shitty little imp

[pure mauve]

...it would be nice if I could ever play a WoD game instead of just being randomly consumed with a hyperfocus and then doing nothing with it.

[marble sorrel]

'like'? XD

[nimble gale]

you can't prove I have 'shitty little imp' under my species tab

[vast blaze]

Persnips we ought to get a group together, you and I

[pure mauve]

Perhaps! I... don't actually have any of the books but I wouldn't be opposed to the concept. I'm most familiar with NWoD/CoD Changeling, Geist, and Demon because in middle school I used to kill time looking through those rulesets in particular but am very willing to learn something different.

[vast blaze]

Chronicles could be fun, we could do a multi-splat game maybe

I believe it's 5e Chronicles that lends itself well to multi-splat gameplay?

No wait 2e

Cause I recall playing in a game where I was playing Mage: The Awakening, and we also had Werewolf: The Forsaken, Geist: The Sin-Eaters, and Princess: The Hopeful

And they all ended up meshing together really well because they largely used similar base systems

[pure mauve]

From what I understand Beast is designed to play nicely with other splats?

But CoD is also much more interoperable than OWoD.

[vast blaze]

Isn't Beast that really edgy splat that's just kind of unpleasant

[worthy sundial]

tbf thats all of them

but yea chronicles is better equipped for multisplat games, mainly bc they have the actual same mechanical chassis

i believe wod5 is also better now but not all the splats have gotten a 5th edition

[vast blaze]

The particularly edgy and unpleasant one

[mighty zephyr]

Its not much more edgy than your average vampire game

[vast blaze]

But yeah maybe we could get a multi-splat Chronicles game together, that seems fun

[tough pebble]

IIRC the conversations about it that's happened here before multiple times

It's Complicated

[worthy sundial]

this is also true of all the splats

[hybrid dock]

I’m super into beast

I love beast

[vast blaze]

A Vampire, a Garou, a Mage, a Hunter, a Geist, a Princess, just this utter smorgasbord of freaks

[hybrid dock]

Like having read it and developed my own opinions on beast.

Fuck, I really love beast

[worthy sundial]

garou is apocalypse terms

[hybrid dock]

It’s a shame because I love the word garou so much

[tough pebble]

As in initially struggles to distance itself from moralizing but later changes its mind, IIRC

[marble sorrel]

woof

[tough pebble]

uratha in forsaken, right?

[worthy sundial]

yea

[hybrid dock]

Yeah

Uratha is forsaken

[pure mauve]

I don't think so? It's sort of "generic" in some ways; like, yes, you're a monster that's compelled to be a little evil and figure out how to do that in the least evil way possible, but so is every splat? But, interestingly, random humans around you get brainwashed into Heroes who are empowered and compelled to try to stop you. That's the most interesting thing about it, I think?

[worthy sundial]

u can tell whats forsaken & whats apocalypse based on whether or not its sumerian

[mighty zephyr]

Just be French

[tough pebble]

funny fictional reverse-engineered proto-indo-european branch

[pure mauve]

I feel like the really edgy miserable splat, based on the small amount I know, is Promethean.

[hybrid dock]

Yeah that’s my main issue with the book.

But like, conceptually?

[worthy sundial]

i still wish i got that ctl game off the ground

[hybrid dock]

And mechanics wise?

And some of the lore?

Beast is fucking AWESOME

[hybrid dock]

TRUE

[worthy sundial]

honestly bewildered that ppl let wta run w its terminology Like That

[mighty zephyr]

It was the 90s and WW didnt like changing names for anything

No matter how racist it turned out to be

[worthy sundial]

well no my main issue is the incoherency of the choices

[mighty zephyr]

Oh

Yeah

[worthy sundial]

like u have garou & then caern

just like a hotpot of words

[mighty zephyr]

And then Totem

And then all the forms are Greek

[worthy sundial]

at least vampire stuck to latin

[marble sorrel]

This bit without context is very funny.

[tough pebble]

something something "it's multicultural!" says the writer who cannot write multicultural

and that's how you get canadian racial slurs in your TTRPG

[marble sorrel]

To give some credit: As someone who's Irish and has studied Irish Mythology, Fianna was perhaps one of the best possible names from Irish Mythology they could have picked for a werewolf group. It's genuinely fantastic.

Now lets just ignore the fact that 90% of their talens are 'magic booze' or 'I'm surprised this item isn't magic booze, being made by those drunken idiots', where they put all the Anti-Irish Racism.

[worthy sundial]

oh fianna's fine

im more talking abt the like general lexicon

[tough pebble]

You really have to wonder why the drink created via controlled rot and which loosens mental control is something a wyld-aligned tribe deliberately centers around

Really willing to tangle up their own lore just to take pot shots at the irish

[worthy sundial]

like compare wta's dictionary to wtf's uratha first tongue

[marble sorrel]

Oh yeah, more commenting on how the Fianna were associated with wolves, they were notably not a biological tribe (They were a warrior band you joined) and they're often linked to the myth of Irish Werewolves. Whoever picked that name either got really lucky or did some research.

While a lot of werewolf terms are 'shit we picked to sound exotic and nature-y'

[worthy sundial]

oh that i wasnt aware

i kmew they were a general warrior band

but not the werewolf connection, thas neat

[mighty zephyr]

Yknow im surprised there was no ink about the Fianna being sympathetic to the Red Talons due to the English wiping out the Irish Wolf

[marble sorrel]

Part of it comes from one of the terms for going raiding was 'Going Wolfing', or that's the rough translation at least.

[worthy sundial]

wolfin out w the boys, non homoerotically

[mighty zephyr]

It was definitely homoerotic

[vast blaze]

Anyone else here down for a multi-splat Chronicles game?

May as well ask here before I go searching around my friend groups for other players

[worthy sundial]

id be down but idk if my schedule would allow it

[vast blaze]

If @pure mauve is down for it maybe we could do an asynch text game...?

[worthy sundial]

not v into pbp unforch

[pure mauve]

That would be fun but I'd be curious what splats we should do? Like for multi-splat in particular I'd probably tweak my character based on what everyone else was doing. I've had ideas about a demon "justifying" a multi-splat team by setting up a multi-splat heist squad.

[marble sorrel]

Thanks for the kind offer but CofD is not quite my cup of tea overall. I hope you have a lovely time.

[vast blaze]

Good point

Because my thought process was "play whatever, as long as it's not some unbalanced garbage"

But that might not work out

[marble sorrel]

My general thoughts on multi-splat stuff is to start off with a premice and have people work out how they hook into that premice.

[pure mauve]

The issue with multi-splat games is explaining why the character would want to interact, yeah.

[marble sorrel]

It can be as simple as 'WOD BRPD' or a specific location you're all linked to or a major event going down.

An initial hook for everyone to hang their hat

Helps give people something a bit more specific than 'could be anything' and into more 'What do I want to play for this scenario'

I hope I'm remotely coherant?

[vast blaze]

That's very true

Like Banana said, a Demon gathering up some folks for a heist is a good one, or a bunch of randos getting together to do some Hunting like I suggested

[worthy sundial]

if ur fine w/o party play & more factional conflict, even just figuring out a shared location is good enough

[pure mauve]

"a bunch of randos getting together to do Hunting" isn't a multi-splat game, though. It's a Hunter game.

[worthy sundial]

i do think multi-splat is harder to pull off in a party setup

mb u could be wrapped up in a murder that ties in all splats involved

[pure mauve]

I did have an idea for something vaguely like that: a vampire feeds and accidentally kills a person. No problem; the person has been disappeared, and nobody's found the dead body, so it's distasteful but not a full-blown Masquerade violation. Except the death left behind a ghost, and a local krewe found that ghost (who is angry and wants revenge on their murderer), and meanwhile the Sin-Eaters have accidentally breached the Masquerade because they probably did not know vampires existed prior to this.

[vast blaze]

Lmaooooooooooo

Just an utter clusterfuck everyone has to deal with

[pure mauve]

I get the impression Sin-Eaters probably do not know of the other splats that often? They don't really have a community in the same way as other splats do, since it's possible to become a Sin-Eater without ever meeting another Sin-Eater, and geists mostly also have human knowledge mixed with knowledge of the underworld. They might know about mages, because mages sometimes enter the Underworld or do obnoxious necromancy stuff, but they're probably unaware that there's mages that aren't necromancers and don't do death stuff.

Or, of course, some might, but it'd be a very case-by-case basis. So either them or Prometheans probably know the least about other splats? And Demons know the most.

[mighty zephyr]

Well no

Werewolves can pop out of anywhere, Mummies can wake up for the first time in 2025 and not know Mages exist, and even Vampires sometimes Just Happen

A lot of splats can have people that slip through the cracks

And outside of Mages Werewolves and Vampires, no one really has a big community holding things together

[marble sorrel]

Also those communities are dumb.

Or at least, they see things through a very specific lens

Even vampires who know about blood sorcery likely don't know mages are distinct from blood sorcery.

[mighty zephyr]

CofD

But like they aren't dumb so much as ruthlessly paranoid

Everyone is an island in the dark

[marble sorrel]

...I was talking CofD. It has both mages and blood sorcery.

[vast blaze]

Which is ironic given Tremere was a mage that fucked up a ritual and made his followers into...

Demi-vampires?

Mostly vampires?

[worthy sundial]

i believe that is vtm lore

[vast blaze]

Looks and acts like vampires but aren't really vampires?

[worthy sundial]

tremere in cofd r liches essentially

[vast blaze]

Ah, Mages that did a ritual to achieve undead immortality?

[marble sorrel]

That's VTM. The average Lancea et Sanctum guy doesn't likely know shit about Mages beyond 'yeah, some mortals are also magicians'

[vast blaze]

That fucks infinitely harder ngl

[mighty zephyr]

Well Tremere used to be a Mage order

They were monster hunters and godbinders

[vast blaze]

...wait deadass?

On the monster hunter bit?

Is that Chronicles lore?

[marble sorrel]

Tremere in WoD before they were vampires were the 'kill/fight shit' mages. Obviously, all mages are scary and there are plenty of other places with combative mages but Tremere were the 'mages willing to go to war' mages.

[vast blaze]

The spellblades

So I guess my Tremere spellblade isn't as much of a weirdo as I thought

[marble sorrel]

It's part of why the vampire shit ran through them like fire.

[vast blaze]

He's just inadvertently returning to Tremere's roots

[marble sorrel]

Hosue Tremere had military ranks and strong structure

If your commanding officer tells you to drink the weird potion, a lot of people in the house likely went 'orders are orders'

Tremere himself is famous for never losing a Wizard Duel, while he was a pointy hat.

[mighty zephyr]

Chronicles Tremere

Were the monster hunters

[marble sorrel]

I'm starting a ban on naming more shit tremere that isn't actually the same thing. XD

Ars Magica, Chronicles and WoD all have House Tremere and in none of those cases do things go the same way.

Though Ars Magica has the excuse of 'the licence rights got unentangled so they're legally not connected any more'.

Like how Marvel has a whole heap of characters who fought unnamed transforming robots back in the 90s but if you reprint the comic you need to black out spiderman from the cover with Optimus prime.

[vast blaze]

...god can you imagine an OWoD Tremere meeting a Chronicles Tremere

Literally just that one "I'm you, but better" meme

"I'm a vampire that none of the other clans really like. I mean we get magic but it's not really as good as true magic, besides the whole doesn't trigger paradox bit"

vs

"I am a fucking immortal soul-devouring lich. Nobody likes me but who's gonna have the balls to say it to my face?"

[mighty zephyr]

Well everyone actually

Theyre kinda persona non grata and hunted down on sight

Blood Sorcery is, and I cannot stress this enough

Basically as good as mage magic

And in a lot of ways better

Because low level mages kinda suck

[velvet sparrow]

In Chronicles or WoD?

[mighty zephyr]

WoD

In CoFD its less equal

[marble sorrel]

Basic magic in WoD lets you like...see things.

[velvet sparrow]

Better in some, worse in others

Any WoD mage could theoretically reach a level that a blood sorcerer can only get if they manage to diablerize a 3rd/4th gen

Practically, unless you are Built Different enough to get to that level, being a vampire is pretty good

[mighty zephyr]

Potential Man meme

Potential Mage

[velvet sparrow]

Wasn't Tremere notably not all that good at the whole magic deal, being more of a politicking type?

[mighty zephyr]

No he was a fantastic wizard

Never lost a duel, highly studious

Essentially an Archmage iirc

[marble sorrel]

Like, this is what Correspondence 1 gives you.

This is not to say that mage magic is bad

But the cornerstones of it are not exactly world shaking

Or Forces

Again: This isn't to undersell mages. They are terrors

[vast blaze]

It's just they start out kind of a bit underwhelming

[mighty zephyr]

The main thing is that people often compare masters and archmasters to loke

A 13th gen

[marble sorrel]

But as Voy says, low level mages are very limited. Generally to perception or very minor adjustment of the things in that sphere.

[mighty zephyr]

A guy with 5 dots in multiple spheres is fighting Methuselahs

[marble sorrel]

The Second Dot is when you go from 'perceiving' to 'manipulating minor aspects of that sphere'.

Third is when you can turn things into other things. Like say, turning fire into electricity like you're a steam engine 😛

One of the hardest things for a mage to do, ironically, is Throw A Fireball from nothing.

As that requires creation

And creation is a bitch sphere-wise.

It's much easier/simpler for a mage to amplify or control a fire though. So you can do Firebending Shit long before you can throw a fireball.

[mighty zephyr]

Well throwing a fireball is easy

Forces is one of those things where you never actually really need prime outside of extreme circumstances

Snap your fingers and turn that sound into fire

Shine a light

So much ambient trickery

[marble sorrel]

Oh yeah, that's why part of that sentance was 'from nothing'. As I wanted to make clear that 'making stuff' is much harder than 'manipulating stuff' for mages.

[pure mauve]

correct me if I'm wrong, but... how much can you do with body heat? Because that generally seems like a useful power source.

[mighty zephyr]

Anything really

[marble sorrel]

It is!

[mighty zephyr]

Depends on successes

[marble sorrel]

You can amplify it with 2 or transmute it with 3.

Though transmuting away your body heat to turn into lightning might be a bit dangerous if you're not careful.

[pure mauve]

I'm just thinking of Name of the Wind, where characters frequently use their own body heat as a power source, but also note that doing so is genuinely quite dangerous.

[vast blaze]

Me deliberately getting a fever so I can more effectively crank out lightning bolts

[tough pebble]

"my body is a steam engine, and baby, I'm taking my entire maintenance crew with me."

[open roost]

reading immortal hulk might start warping how i describe transformations

[orchid void]

try An American Werewolf In London for the classic

[mighty zephyr]

Best werewolf transformation scene ever concocted in a visual medium

God it is so fucking good

[orchid void]

one of my favorite ways to talk about a shifting, usually for my woofs, is the noises of it? a crack of bones growing, like the sound of green wood snapping, the grinding of the skeleton moving and setting into new positions. The tearing of muscles working free of their moorings and growing thicker and re-attaching, wet rips and slithering beneath the skin

study some anatomy~ watch some surgeries~!

[worthy sundial]

curious if u can work in taste somehow

[worthy sundial]

shifting has gotta be fuckin w ur tongue right

[orchid void]

ohhh i usually focus on Out-Looking-In

[worthy sundial]

that makes sense tbf

[orchid void]

probably can work in taste like

[pure mauve]

why do I have the sneaking suspicion Animorphs was very important to you as a kid?

[orchid void]

no, actually

i have merely been reading world of darkness books since i could read

i learned how to minmax a brujah with a copy of 1e VTM my dad won at a gencon

[pure mauve]

Ah. It's just that Animorphs frequently described bone sounds from transformations.

[orchid void]

that was in 1997

[worthy sundial]

animorphs is probly good shit for this

[orchid void]

anyway

[worthy sundial]

i need to find that tumblr post again thatw as just like
'like u care'

[orchid void]

animorphs is probably a good place to go back to and probably better than my suggestion

which was go watch surgical footage

and to look at anatomical models and think about the physicality of the thing

like, bones. bones snap and crack and creak and groan and grind. they are in held in tension and in place by a myriad of Bits (medical term) so what happens when they start twisting and warping?

how far until it has to break and re-heal? you ever see how your forearm works?

[worthy sundial]

see surgical footage probly is more helpful

[pure mauve]

Animorphs repeatedly asserts that the transformations are totally painless, but you can feel your body warping and twisting and bones breaking and fusing in ways that should be excruciating.

[worthy sundial]

just obviously more gruesome

[high current]

i still remember the first tim seeing the werewolf transformation in Hemlock Grove

was like, the first time i saw it done so bloody i think

https://tenor.com/n5SE.gif

[orchid void]

well, yeah, but we are playing horror games aren't we~?

though some proper splatter-films might help out

why not go digging thru the Video Nasties for your WoD plots

[worthy sundial]

this is reminding me abs-cbn had a werewolves vs vampires soap drama & i wanna see how they handled the transformations cuz 2010s ph teleserye did not have Budget

v boring turns out but

[tough pebble]

Side tangent but you've informed me that I need to up my game in my own original writing

Someone growing a hundred quills in a second kind of gets glossed over so I can describe what it looks like afterwards. I haven't yet thought about what it feels like to have a ton of sturdy bolts naturally embedded in your flesh. Maybe I should. Or maybe I'll just freak out my friends too much.

[orchid void]

here's what i did for my Hunter-In-Darkness

And then her smile keeps getting wider. You can hear the bones creak and snap and grind together in her body, hear the tendons snap like rubber-bands and the tearing sounds of muscle wriggling free from its mooring. See her open up her mouth, the muzzle of some great beast forcing its way between her lips. Her skin near explodes from the forces at work on it, long strips of bloody flesh bursting against the muscle and bone that build up the prodigious size of the beast, matting the fur with her own blood. A canine nightmare bays for your soul, wearing its own shed skin like fluttering ribbons, stalking forward with taloned hands at the ready. Hands flex. Teeth clack. The Hunt begins.```

[tough pebble]

Damn that's fucked up, thank you for the inspiration

[orchid void]

Missy McCoy is my favorite serial killer for luna

soooo important to her charm points that you're fighting her in warform and she's wearing her own shredded skin as a holy rainment, for she is the wolf-of-terror, the howl-of-madness, a comin to herd men away from those places where he need not tarry

[mighty zephyr]

non-sequitor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7-si8Ki4R0

but goddamn the vibes here are immaculate for WoD/CofD Old West

[high current]

The Wyld West™

[spice abyss]

Oh hey, I can mention my favorite werewolf transformation!

It's from The Quarry.

The werewolf just literally explodes out of the human form.

[vast blaze]

Makin a Mage 20th Edition character

Wanting to do a spellblade sort of mage, do y'all have any recommendations for that

Yeah I like spellblades, before y'all say anything

[marble sorrel]

Akashic Brotherhood are the classic there.

Masters of Mind and Life.

[vast blaze]

I assume they're the body buffing mages

[marble sorrel]

Yep and both paths are good for that

[vast blaze]

Do they get traditional elementalist stuff?

[marble sorrel]

Forces is also good as kinetic energy is a force, as is matter as swords tend to be made of matter. XD

Elementalism stuff is more the area of Forces.

But notably - Mages are not locked into specific paths. They have a speciality but all are open to learn

[vast blaze]

Ah, excellent

I like being a fella what can swing a sword and sling a fireball

...actually wait hang on

I recall someone saying here I could emulate a HIT Mark in Mage

How might I do that

[marble sorrel]

Honestly, HIT Marks are not that different to just Being A Mage With Cyberware.

Good physical stats, good combat stats, not the talkiest person about.

This merit lets you just Innately Soak Lethal Damage.

[craggy coyote]

https://tenor.com/view/jesse-ventura-predator-bleed-no-time-gif-17577765

[marble sorrel]

A mage with some 'improve self' spells going and some wonders isn't too far from a HIT Mark.

[high current]

you could also just make a Hermetic with a sword

or any tradition really but Hermetics are the most wizard-y

and they get Forces as their affinity so like, swing sword, use Forces 3(?) to convert the sword's momentum into pure heat/electricity/whatever

[vast blaze]

Oh shit I'm definitely taking that

All the tankiness of a vampire without the glaring downsides

[marble sorrel]

There is also the Enhancement Background, which gets you bonus stats and tricks at the cost of either paradox or flaws.

If you want to be an absolute brick shithouse.

[vast blaze]

I might do that

Flaws do add cool narrative juice

Is there an Enemy equivalent in Mage 20th Edition, like how V20 has the Enemy flaw?

Could take that and just say that my guy has some big nasty Garou after him

[marble sorrel]

Funny thing: 3 dots of enhancement gets you 9 points for devices that are Part Of You

An Alanson R-25 Hardsuit is 8pts

[vast blaze]

👀

Sentient power armor

I CAN BE MY CALIBAN OC

[marble sorrel]

Armor: Seven additional soak dice of protection shield the character from bashing, lethal, and aggravated damage. The bulk of the suit and servos reduces the wearer’s Dexterity-based dice pools by two dice, and he must be wearing the helmet in order to get the full protection for his head.

• Strength: Those internal servos add two dice to the wearer’s Strength-based dice pools, except for feats that involve jumping or running. The agent can run a maximum of 20 yards per turn, and that level of activity quickly strains his muscles even with the help of the suit. (Assume one turn of running per dot of Stamina.)

• Temperature Control: Internal heating and cooling units keep the wearer relatively comfortable in temperatures
ranging between 0 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 to 45 degrees Celsius).

• Hard Fists: The suit’s reinforced gloves and boots add one die to the damage of all weaponless strikes. That damage, without weapons, inflicts bashing-style harm. Concealed blades can be deployed within the gloves, making that damage lethal instead.

• Integrated Communications Interface (ICI):Assuming that the agent’s wearing his helmet, each Alanson hardsuit has radio, Internet, VDAS, GPS, telephone, and video capability.

[vast blaze]

It would absolutely be more of a Hellboy type of situation but GOD that would fucking rule

[marble sorrel]

You'd be Slow but Tough and Very Scary.

[vast blaze]

Oh fuck I might just do that

Sentient super-heavy HIT Mark that fled the Technocracy after gaining sentience

[marble sorrel]

And you've got a bit of an advantage over a lot of mages wandering about:

Other than the functions of certain vulgar modules, the Alanson hardsuit remains coincidental in tech-based reality zones.

People just kinda Accept Heavy Armour is a Real Thing.

[vast blaze]

Only issue being you still can't really just be going around in it

[marble sorrel]

Very much not but you could use magic to disguise it. Mind to do a psychic illusion of a normal guy, or forces 2 to warp light armour you.

[vast blaze]

Yeah you can't trigger Paradox but you'll still draw a load of attention as a seven foot tall Astartes scale brick shithouse clad head to toe in armor that looks more akin to a walking tank

[vast blaze]

...true...

Drop the illusion when you go to hunt a vampire and it's just

"OH WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THAT THING HOLY SHIT YOU WERE JUST A BIG GUY A SECOND AGO WHAT THE FUCK"

[marble sorrel]

Hell, there is a very simple option for how to disguise it that's in line with the technocratic idea.

[vast blaze]

Beyond pulling a Goris and just wrapping myself in a big cloak?

[marble sorrel]

Life ritual to coat the robot in artificial skin 😛

[somber scarab]

If you're not turning heads dressed like that, why even bother?

[vast blaze]

I'd rather not go everywhere as The World's Most Obvious Robot

Especially in situations where some small degree of subtlety might be required

Prince gets all pissy and vengeful over his childe getting ripped apart? Easier to find the cowboy robot in a crowd than the brick shithouse of a man.

...I mean granted

What the fuck is he gonna do

Send more goons to get chewed up and spat out

[vast blaze]

My question is, how do you emulate the "you are not organic" aspects

I.e. don't breathe, don't eat, don't drink, don't sleep, no blood for vampires to drain

[marble sorrel]

Honestly, that's likely a pretty simple life effect.

[vast blaze]

I assume it requires constant upkeep

[marble sorrel]

Most do, yes

[vast blaze]

Zog

[somber scarab]

Sorry that continually persisting in the face of entropy requires some sort of effort :v

[vast blaze]

Oh no I mean like

In terms of having to spend resources to actually keep up the "of course you don't need air or food or water or sleep, you're a robot, why WOULD you need all that" mechanic

[rapid glacier]

First full game session of my WtA game complete, now my little pack has to wrangle with a Drattosi that has infected an entire train in a lunar month, this time without derailing it, destroying a part of IS40, and hopefully not killing a handful of innocent commuters in the process

only one of them got their hands ripped off, which I would call a win

and also this happened >.>

[marble sorrel]

'not killing innocent people'

Are these really Garou? 😛

[rapid glacier]

Well they derailed a train into the highway, and also the ones responsible are between the ages of 15 and 17

they're children still, and they Feel Some Kinda Way about just causing that kind of damage and fatalities, especially innocent bystanders

which is a healthy approach to what amounts to being a domestic terrorist

[viscid stratus]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/70278916/chapters/182509646
Didn't realise there was a wod channel, but I'm also going to leave this here; (Backstory of the Siring of a Toreador character of mine, in a game that's now fallen apart sadly q.q )

[vast blaze]

Question

What do Mummies like

Do

Like what's their schtick

[high current]

old or new

[vast blaze]

Old I think

Mummy: The Resurrection specifically, is that old?

[high current]

ye

their schtick is basically fighting the servants of Set and Apophis

[vast blaze]

Then yeah, old Mummy

What do they like

Do

What's their schtick

[high current]

but also like, very good question, old mummy was barely a thing

[viscid stratus]

they ruin powerscaling conversations, which makes werewolf players mad

[high current]

despite existing since before Werewolf, they were never a major part of WoD

they just kinda, were there, kind of

[viscid stratus]

other than that

[vast blaze]

I guess a better question is what are their powers

[viscid stratus]

I'm still convinced no one has ever played a game of mummy

very much including the people who wrote the book, hence the balancing issues

[vast blaze]

Vampires are superhumans, werewolves are Vampires But Better, mages are fuckin wizards, Changelings are weirdos

What do Mummies get

[high current]

immortality and magic

[viscid stratus]

they're sort of wizards, but with all the undeath benefits and no real drawbacks

is my understanding

[mighty zephyr]

Well, it's not immortality

it's "really really hard to kill mortality"

If you psychologically destroy one and make them suicidal they instantly evaporate

Or if you use I think a spirit 4/prime 5 effect

[high current]

yeah as far as i can tell Mummy's schtick power-wise is just Magic™, but like, specifically static/linear magic, called Hekau, which operates on a Path system similar to Thaumaturgy/Necromancy/etc(to the point that if a mortal sorcerer becomes a mummy, their paths are converted to Hekau paths)

[vast blaze]

So it's like Tremere magic

[high current]

basically, from a mechanical perspective

[vast blaze]

Hrmm

Asking because I joined a multi-splat server and I'm debating Mummy or Mage

[high current]

i'd go Mage, mostly because Mummy is a mess

[mighty zephyr]

Mage is also a mess but at least that mess is tacked onto just a guy

[vast blaze]

Rather than being an overpowered mess

[orchid void]

note: mage is also an overpowered mess. abuse tass for fun and profit. turn vampires into lawnchairs.

[marble sorrel]

I'd go mage because right now there isn't a Mummy 20.

It's not hard to convert to 20 but that's some extra work/needs some oversight.

[marble sorrel]

Okay so: Mummies are not dead, per-say. They are true resurrection, not undeath. They're a melding of a powerful ancient soul and a modern person, helping to cover the weaknesses of that modern person.

Their clan system is 'in what way were you weak in life'.

And that becomes your strength as a mummy.

Those who were too passive become dynamic, those who were dull become brilliants, those who were lacking in creativity become fonts of inspiration.

You come back and it the spell of life tries to make you a better, healthier person for your new life.

They're the creation of Osiris, who basicly took one look at how shit WoD was and went 'someone needs to fix this shit'.

It was also implied in their first book that the end point of mummies is gaining Dynamic Magic on top of mummy shit by rediscovering the true names of all objects but mage writers later went 'no, even another splat's Golconda equivalent, where it has no rules and is purely theoretical is not allowed to play in our sandbox'.

They're basicly, if you've played CofD Geist 1e, the same thing.

'You died, you came back with the help of a ghost buddy and you're here to make the setting a better place'.

CofD Geist 2e added more pathos, which is not something mummy has much of.

[vast blaze]

I do kinda dig that flavor

[vast blaze]

I've been told that Mummy: The Resurrection is what's being used, presumably this server has systems in place to convert it

[marble sorrel]

So in funny things I've learned: The Dumbest Prince, the guy who's been a vampire for all of 3 weeks at this point is...Humanity 4.

This shit wasn't even 'he lost his morals as a vampire'

He just started like that.

Which I mean...he's a Medieval Soldier. Looting and Casual Violence is kinda his bread and butter before he got vampired.

[vast blaze]

I've heard a lot that Mages are the weakest of the splats, in that they have not a whole lot physically and their big main gimmick is just kind of neutered with a single regular guy watching, is that true or is it exaggerated

[spice abyss]

Weakest of the splats

What in the hell is the person who told you this smoking

[vast blaze]

I mean it makes some degree of sense

Vampires have super good regeneration, werewolves are just fucking unfair to fight, changelings have inordinate amounts of bullshit, but meanwhile a mage's entire schtick is just neutered by ONE sleeper looking at you

[spice abyss]

It's really not.

It's really not.

[vast blaze]

Doesn't Paradox just make it to where you can't use magic without getting slapped by reality?

[mighty zephyr]

Mages are the weakest splat in terms of average gameplay

You require a lot of prep time to make yourself even Stevens with most other splats, and if caught out you are essentially an average human

And you are significantly hungrier for xp

[vast blaze]

Why play a Mage over a Tremere then?

They just seem categorically worse

[mighty zephyr]

Because you can go outside during the day

And you can do everything all at once vs Just Blood Powers

[vast blaze]

...good point, I forgot the whole vampire weakness thing

[spice abyss]

I am realizing that I am not thinking in terms of combat power, and instead of in terms of what Mages will get up to.

Yeah, sure, the werewolf is going to outfight everyone.

But the list of things that should be fighting werewolves anyways is very select.

But a Mage is far, far more plot warping than just about any other splat.

[mighty zephyr]

I think even that depends

Wam is exclusively playing in pbp servers which means he will be playing an apprentice and apprentices are about on par with everyone else plot wise

[vast blaze]

For now, anyway

There's potentially a cross-splat in person game brewing

[viscid stratus]

The thing with mages is that they are exactly as powerful as the player is creative

[mighty zephyr]

Yes

You can do a lot with creativity

But trying to brute force and throw your weight around until you have like, a hundred xp under your belt will be a quick way to the grave

[vast blaze]

Do y'all have any advice for merits or flaws in M20 that can emulate being a robot, besides Constructed

My ST's suggested Phylactery, with the justification of "You're an AI core puppeting a robot body remotely"

[mighty zephyr]

I would say constructed is probably the main one

Maybe echos for vulgarity

[vast blaze]

Guessing there's nothing specifically for "don't rely on biological processes"

Beyond whatever concessions the ST gives

[mighty zephyr]

I will say wam, I will again advise approaching your first foray into a game by taking it at face value and starting with a mundane individual

And then molding them into the fantasy later

[vast blaze]

Yeah

[rapid glacier]

Mages are the weakest splat if you lack creativity and/or only have played DnD your whole life, otherwise they exist in a tier unto themselves

[mighty zephyr]

I feel that is overselling

Just sorta mathematically they arent too out of bounds with everyone else until they have multiple spheres at 4+

[rapid glacier]

But they’re unpredictable as an antagonist or adversary; you roughly know how a werewolf is gonna act when it’s fight time, and based on some guess you might be able to predict a vampire

But a Mage might do anything or have anything up their sleeve

Hell you may not even be able to physically observe one in action to try and guess its reactions, if you’re another splat these folks are Bug Dangerous

Big*

[nimble gale]

Mage's have the lowest non-minor-splat floorbut the highest ceiling (except for like, mummies I think)

is basically how it goes

[marble sorrel]

Somehow the serial (in both senses of the term) Amaranth performer is the moral compass of my current group.

[nimble gale]

I mean the anda's not doing TOO poorly

[velvet sparrow]

Changelings get up there, no?

[nimble gale]

They do, but mages get higher overall id say, though it's not like it's fully linear

[marble sorrel]

Changelings can get there but their real big spike, Unleashing, is inherantly very unstable.

It's not like mages where paradox isn't really that much of a threat

A changeling unleashing is always risking some big problems.

[marble sorrel]

Werewolves: "Permanently destroying a spirit takes a powerful ritual. Even Gaia's greatest warriors cannot easily end immortality."
Vampires: "Omm Nomm Nomm."

(Though the GM did clarify that if it's a spirit notable enough to have stats/not just be background stuff, the players will need to either bind it or deplete it of essence first. It's Ghost Eating Technique, not 'point and kill'.)

Spiritus is a weird discipline. It's powers involve 'talking to your sword', 'becoming Mari McCabe, 'Thrall's Ghost Wolves', 'Wait why the fuck do you have Crinos Form', 'Ghost Eating Technique' and 'Going No Thoughts, Head Empty to avoid the sun hurting you'

I'm not kidding. The Capstone A) Makes you much less smart B) Makes you immune to sunlight.

[vast blaze]

...oh BOY one of the STs in that Vampire server I'm in finally remembered I have Enemy 5

There's a Stolen Moon about to fucking ruin my entire life

[vast blaze]

Potentially a stupid question, is there anything in Mage about mastercrafted weapons/armor

I remember there being a rule for it in Dark Ages Vampire, or maybe it was the Vampire 20th Edition Dark Ages supplement

Where it removes a good 2 points of dex penalty from armor and I think reduces the difficulty of attacks made with weapons

[high current]

not sure about oMage, i know nMage has a whole thing with platonic ideals of given weapons and other things

[mighty zephyr]

You would just cast magic on it

[vast blaze]

Suppose that'll suffice

Mostly asking because I was vaguely considering a chainsaw, but upon further consideration one point more damage isn't really worth three extra difficulty over a regular greatsword, and also the risk of just fucking slicing yourself if you roll badly enough

...oh neat, the M20 book uses neopronouns

Based

[vast blaze]

Odd question: Would an Appearance of 0 or 1 make sense for a robot PC

Less "You are INCREDIBLY fuck ugly, oh my god" and more "You are DEEPLY inhuman looking"

[mighty zephyr]

I do not think you can go to Appearance 0

I would also again, and I cannot stress this enough Wam, recommend you not make a robot out of character generation

[vast blaze]

...yeah

Better to do something more mundane

Sorry

[mighty zephyr]

Don't apologize

[mighty zephyr]

You Gonna Tell Me

The Garou Straight Up Didn't Cause the War Of Rage

The snakes did

[worthy sundial]

lmao

[mighty zephyr]

Is literally every fucking problem in every splat

caused by snakes

[craggy coyote]

... I mean, are we including the christian mythology "snake tricked us" myth as canon? because if so, we can go beyond a good chunk of mummy, vtm, and wta and just say, yes to everything, I think

[mighty zephyr]

I think Lucifer counts as a snake yeah

[worthy sundial]

wod rly not beating the christian allegations

[marble sorrel]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/whitewolf/images/d/dc/PentexFirstTeam.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180625022731

I do find it funny how the Pentex Propaganda version of their First Teams is literally just 'Yep, that's the X-Men'

The Pentex-Men

Meanwhile actual First Teams are just 'Oh yeah, that's some SAS-level psychos'

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/whitewolf/images/0/09/PentexFirstTeam2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180625022815

[rapid glacier]

X-Men vs The Boys

[marble sorrel]

Shedding the Spirit Skin - Level 5, Gnosis 7 - This "necklace" is actually a mummified snake painted with bizarre runes. Samuel took it from a Black Spiral Dancer he killed a time back. It allows the wearer to Reform in the Umbra as if he were a spirit. The area he reforms in is random, and normally linked to an area under the dominion of the Wyrm.

God, I forgot how fucking many fetishes were invented purely to stop player characters just blendering Sam the first time they meet him.

'Here is my Literally Immortal Unless You Can Permakill Spirits necklace'

'Oh and then he got the 'Makes You A Mage Too' fetish'

The funny thing is that as bullshit as same is on a conceptual level...I think a half-decently optimized player character could kick his ass.

He's spread so broadly he's not really good at any singular things.

In theory he's a physical powerhouse but he also forgot that 'dexterity' is the god stats of WoD and his is kinda mediocre.

You know, until you hit the point where the GM is supposed to give him two hundred quintessence to do shit with. That's a full year of a rank 5 node in quintessence. XD

[mighty zephyr]

I think the Arete 4 Gnosis 8 make him a nightmare for most PCs

Also the inexplicably 9 Countermagik dice

[marble sorrel]

Though with Rage 10 I'm not sure he could use either Arte or Gnosis most of the time. As it's 3+ successes on a rage roll to go into a frenzy and he'll get that most of the time.

Like I know they wanted 'big stats'

But rage 10 is not really a good stat to have

[mighty zephyr]

also

nyyeheheheheheheh

[marble sorrel]

...I'm missing something.

Samuel Haite 5e: He rolls 9 dice on all actions. All rolls have 2 Hunger Dice, 2 Rage Dice and 2 Paradox Dice. He is not long for this session.

[mighty zephyr]

Hes already in 5e

Hes the Skinner in Wyrmtide

[marble sorrel]

iirc, he's only a skin dancer/stolen moon so far in 5e?

(And lets be honest, I doubt he's going further than that, except as like an april fools joke)

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah they arent doing the meme, hes just a malicious magical stolen moon

[marble sorrel]

That's fair. That sorta blending was very silly.

Iki says, as Iki scours Werewolf books for things for his Vampire character.

My general takeaway reading over the werewolf fetish list.

'Werewolves, this is the 5th Creates True Sunlight Fetish you've got. Have some variety. You've got nothing for most other splats beyond general werewolfing'

[olive citrus]

How do you decide how many successes extended actions require? It doesn’t really tell you in the book. (Reading w20)

[marble sorrel]

Okay so generally there's a bit of a give and take between Time Period and Extended Action.

Researching something might take weeks unlike breaking down a door but you don't up the successes for that, you increase the time between checks. Generally my area is:

Not really being opposed, not really difficult: 5 Successes.
Average difficulty but not something someone could blast through all at once: 10 successes
Difficult: 15
Circumstances are Actively Against You (Data is deliberately Hidden, the guy you are tracking is trying to cover his tracks etc): 20

With the difficulty coming from personal circumstances.

For example, if you're tracking a guy over a long distance and day 1 is nice and sunny and clear? Normal difficulty.

If day 2 is raining and ruining the tracks, I'd up the difficulty of the roll for that day to 7 or 8

So 'base task' sets the number of successes and 'circumstnaces' set the TN for the rolls.

But that's just how I personally do it

[mighty zephyr]

You basically just have to wing what the time interval is

But then set it per roll

[marble sorrel]

My general goto for the time interval is 'what is the shortest someone could conceivably do this, divided by (successes/5)'.

So if the difficulty is 5 and you think a guy could get it done in 1 day? Then the time period is 1 day. If it's difficulty 10 and you think they could get it done in 1 day, the period is 12 hours'.

As I use the period to set the 'minimum time' basicly.

[olive citrus]

It’s a bit to wrap my head around, but I think im getting it.

[marble sorrel]

It's a bit incoherent because I generally think in 'tiers' of 5 successes so it's less 'divide by a divide' and more 'divide by the tier'.

[marble sorrel]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/whitewolf/images/6/6a/RED-network-x1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180624235441

I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.

[hybrid dock]

What’s this art from

[orchid void]

WtA presumably

[hybrid dock]

Its such a different artstyle lmao

I love it though

[vast blaze]

It's a pretty good style yeah

[hybrid dock]

Maybe it’s just the presence of actual color

[vast blaze]

Very comic book-esque

[hybrid dock]

But I adore this

Yeah

[vast blaze]

The framing is really good too

[hybrid dock]

Yeah

Like how the woman looks just kinda uncomfortable

[vast blaze]

I would too, having that guy lean in that close to me

Even if he wasn't obviously a big scary monster

[high current]

think its from W20, probably book of the wyrm or the pentex indoctrination manual, but that's just a guess without having checked
gimme like 5 minutes to confirm

yep, Pentex Indoctrination Manual, pages 59-60, which is covering the RED Network, Pentex's tv network

W20 had a lot of art that, honestly, I think Karen would love

*by which i mean 'filled with weird monsters and stuff'

[clear delta]

So been making a ego gear legacy in onyx path discord
Legacy that mixes mind and matter into magic items
Taking on symbolism of objects carrying emotional weight and information
Instead of stealing things from the astral, they extract a bit of the essence from astral objects and creatures, and weave into objects to grant them power
It's an idea based on EGO gear/psychoments from Project Moon
They must obtain the samples from the targets, with creatures requiring trickery, deals or pure violence
Mind and matter primary, paths moros and thyrsus. Orders mysterium and free council.
Oblations: Design on paper, writing analysis of mental archetypes
Yantras: Tools for forging or tailoring, literature book
1 Classic information attainment. You can gauge a goetia or object's traits. You can try to detect something you want for a project, within a radius
2 You learn the emotional resonance and essence that permeates the world. You may collect it from astral beings, and put it in objects. They become better at certain actions, and resonant
3 Finally, you can properly meld physical and mental. Ritual. You get to alter traits of the object, and put a fitting improvement
Optional: Summon goetia or astral object
4 You may remold the item, and add [dots] numina from the astral subject
5 The item repairs itself over time if it wasn't destroyed, specially in a resonant situation. Users of the item wield it as if they had experience, gaining temporary dots in a relevant skills

The object is lasting, but breaks over time and from use, requiring maintenance
As it breaks, it becomes more prone to influencing the user, and the influence can be made stronger to push a worn ego to work like it used to

The legacy is embedded in engineering and makerspace groups, but also has an interest in culture and sociology. Their occult vibes are subtle, but mortals do find them a bit weird
They took knowledge and inspiration from older legacies, and like finding things left behind physically or in the astral from their predecessors
Their astral realm is a base and storage for them

[vast blaze]

Odd question

In-universe, who would hire a Hunter

[mighty zephyr]

anyone

[vast blaze]

Mages, Vampires, Garou, anyone that has the money to spare I assume?

[high current]

vampires notoriously sent hunters after other vampires(mostly the cam sending them after the sabbat)

this was generally regarded as Not A Good Idea™ and is the reason why we have the Second Inquisition in V5

though that was less 'hiring' more 'leaking information on the location of a possible vampire hideout and letting that resolve itself'

[craggy coyote]

More or less.
Its a punk/noir setting so you have a gamut of tropes from being hired by your enemies, femme fatales, and trying to do some good by inevestigatng missing perosns cases only to end up on the trail of the supernatural

[mighty zephyr]

I mean a Hunter is just A Guy

everyone just hires guys

[mighty zephyr]

Reading changing ways for w20

And there are so many pregnancy mechanics

[mighty zephyr]

See it doesnt really feel like a fetish

It seems mostly like a natalist horror show

[rapid glacier]

WoD was just putting whatever in books, huh

[sour zephyr]

what do you mean?

[mighty zephyr]

Emphasizing the horror of pregnancy and child birth

[craggy coyote]

I should probably read more of the kin folk lore then.

the horrible forced birth and resulting werewolves eugenics alongside treatment of kin folk is one of the many ways werewolves shoot themselves in the foot.

but also ... that's a subject to be tackled with a lot of effort to be done well.

how's the tone been overall?

[mighty zephyr]

For some reason the write up about how every tribe handle Metis also includes how cool they are about being gay

Also Garou apparently cant use condoms?

[craggy coyote]

1. metis are werewolves born of woof parents right? and they've got that cultural taboo?
2. when were these books written ?
3. ok that seems like the authors feitsh

[sour zephyr]

yeah
what, are they not the right shape or something lol (don't answer that please)

[mighty zephyr]

They just fail

[mighty zephyr]

Yes
2014-2016
Maybe

[craggy coyote]

... Well I've got 45 minutes before I've got a run to class. any chance you can give the book and page number? would love to see this for myself

[mighty zephyr]

I mean its the whole book

Changing Ways

[hybrid dock]

Wh-how

[mighty zephyr]

They just dont work most of the time

I didnt see a specific reason

Just "even spiritually buffed birth control fails"

[hybrid dock]

????

Wow

That’s…somewhat a baffling decision

[orchid void]

thanks apocalypse was worried you’d be normal and i would have to care about you

this is mean of me, I’m sorry

[craggy coyote]

Glass Walkers go so far as to suggest that sex between two
werewolves using protection is not against the Litany, but
werewolf physiology means no contraceptives are partic-
ularly effective. Chemical contraceptives burn out of the
werewolf’s system, while surgical modification (such as
vasectomy) falls foul of the werewolf’s regenerative capa-
bilities. Physical means such as condoms and spirals break
in the heat of the moment.
In the end, there really is no clear-cut answer, but one
should look at the facts; “mate” can mean just sex and as
such, sex between two werewolves is against the Litany

... PG 57.

This uh. While it arguably makes some amount of sense, it still feels... very fetishy "yeah werewolves fuck so ahrd the condom just won't survive"

Glass Walkers
Yes, we are modern. Yes, we are trying to update Garou so-
ciety. But there must be limits, and breaking the first law of the
Litany is one of them. If you absolutely have to get your freak on
with another werewolf, then avoid penetration. Even spiritual-
ly-awakened birth control methods fail far too often
Pg 62

[mighty zephyr]

Del im still telling ya W5 got rid of the breeding lore and you should look at it

[craggy coyote]

^

Thank god, because this is... Listen put that in your home porn game and then go get your freak on with Ed greenwood

[hybrid dock]

I’m baffled

[craggy coyote]

I ain't judging it just feels unneeded

[hybrid dock]

Vexed, even

[orchid void]

forsaken got rid of ghost children and that helped im willing to take a swing at it but u kno im just making Missy Again

[mighty zephyr]

There is fun ways to make Missy

Lemme hobble out of bed

Ive been depressed all damn day and just laying face down for the last 3 hours

[hybrid dock]

Voyyyyyyyyyyy

Get outta da bedddd <333

[orchid void]

Give Me The Power To Inflict Gulf Coast Weredyke Upon The World

[craggy coyote]

I mean it seems like you have it, she's right there

[rapid glacier]

Gulf Coast Weredyke is a powerful phrase ngl

[mighty zephyr]

average Portland band name

[rapid glacier]

Yeah that’s a Pogues cover band for sure

[orchid void]

she’s a dyke from mobile alabama

spent most her life in bilouxi

[rapid glacier]

Hell yeah

but yeah try out W5, hell if you need a copy I can probably grab a cheap PDF copy on humble still and I'll gift it to you

[mighty zephyr]

beat u to it

[dense vault]

Oh what a wonderful energy she has.

[orchid void]

sh'es honestly a delight. serial killer for luna 🫶

[vast blaze]

The downside is that it got rid of literally everything else as well, I've heard

[vast blaze]

Y'know I'd swear she was some serpent-themed Gangrel at first sniff

Is she a like, were-reptile of some flavor?

[nimble gale]

It's better to think of w5 as an entirely different game with some things named the same

Than being wta

[mighty zephyr]

They didn't, this is people edition warring.

It's certainly got less content than W20 but W20 is, for one, finished, and two was about bringing back everything from every edition prior no matter how much it sucked.

[rapid glacier]

the only people I've heard say this are people who haven't or will not play it, fwiw; I've got many people in my current WtA game from across decades of playing WoD and WtA and they're vibing hard with it

[high current]

not literally everything. mostly just the problematic stuff, and also Fianna which I don't know that people had problems with
(Metis, Kinfolk being breeding stock, and tribes having a primary association with any given culture are gone)

i still wish the Hart Wardens had kept a connection to the fae and the traveling warrior-poet thing, but, c'est la vie

[nimble gale]

I just prefer the mechanics and themes offered in W20, because I like the garou nation being a much of problematic assholes in-universe and making the attempt to fix it while navigating the politics of the nation.

[mighty zephyr]

Well they definitely do still have the warrrior poet thing going on.

[vast blaze]

Ah, I see, so it's just folks whinging about change?

[nimble gale]

I think it adds to the game more than detracts from it

I wouldn't say whinging, just some people prefer different editions. W5's a very different game with a very different focus than W20 or previous WtA editions

[high current]

ive yet to play W5 specifically but im a fan of the special dice mechanics from my experience with them in V5

[nimble gale]

it's much more personal horror focused

[mighty zephyr]

The Fianna were very Irish stereotyped

It was a very core character trait of theirs

[nimble gale]

Also generally I think you could have kept some of the cultural inspirations in several of the groups and just... done it better, instead of abandoning everything, but after The Chechnya Incident modern white wolf want sto play everything super super safe

which is fair

[vast blaze]

Side question about this, how much would a competent Hunter even get paid, anyway

[mighty zephyr]

Do you wanna google how much hitmen get paid for in this day and age

[vast blaze]

Cause I'm trying to figure out if a Hunter with a Resources Background of 4 makes sense if the Resources come from hunting

[vast blaze]

Excellent point

[mighty zephyr]

4 is like "I own several businesses in town"

[nimble gale]

Well, there's a lto of ways to profit off the hunt, but 4 might b ea bit much. Most people these days are resources one.

[high current]

My stance remains that they could have dropped the Irish stereotypes but kept a connection to fae and traveling
Hell, changeling even refers to their teleportation routes as a 'silver path', so they could have tied it to the moon somehow

[nimble gale]

4 might be 'I have an inheritence', mind you

[mighty zephyr]

I also am of the opinion that there is no real way to do "Your character class is tied to your ethnicity" and done it well

[vast blaze]

I'm sure there's some way but it requires a shitfuckingload of nuance and care

[high current]

Cultures other than the Irish have trickster spirits, gods of stories, and stuff around travelling
C20 even offers kiths from several different cultures

[vast blaze]

...that's a very good point

[nimble gale]

It's hard, not impossible is my opinion. Though also tribes are less 'class' in an RPG sense and more 'species'

I'd argue auspice as class

[mighty zephyr]

This makes it worse, for the record

Like it's very bioessentialist

[craggy coyote]

Once again depends. Though its a punk setting so I'd say generally the richer you are the higher the odds are you're working for a right bastard

[vast blaze]

This is true

[craggy coyote]

Resources 4 hunters basically just make you the Turks

from FF7

[vast blaze]

Except less cool

[mighty zephyr]

You are also a career criminal

So like, really easy to get your ass arrrested

[craggy coyote]

^
Corporate backing is a neccesity for pro hunters as well as police contacts and influence

You are on a good day, effectively a private investigator

on a bad day you are a serial killer

[high current]

I'm saying drop the ethnicity association entirely and just say they're connected to trickster spirits and fae etc, every culture has some degree of that
And afaik nothing in C20 requires you to be part of x culture to pick a kith associated with them(granted, there's some combos that'd be a little potentially)

[mighty zephyr]

Well that's sorta besides my point.

And in regards to the Fae thing, I think it's like an aside you can use in your game if you want to use the Changeling stats

[craggy coyote]

Nothing explicitly required the Ravnos be Roma either, or the Banu Haqim be middle eastern doesn't change the lore was very "we took a culture mashed it up and made them all one kind of creature" instead of allowing them to be diverse and have varied ties to multiple splats/groups in same splat

[mighty zephyr]

but I think generally, keeping the core identity of every splat contained entirely in their own splat is good

It's why I like that Silent Striders aren't cursed by another splat's major antagonist

like "what the fuck do I care about an Antediluvian"

"That word does not appear in the Litany"

[craggy coyote]

Yeah much as I like mummy having ties to VTM ain't exactly a good thing for being a stand alone setting

[mighty zephyr]

Set is the bad guy of like 4 different splats

[clear delta]

The Hades effect

[mighty zephyr]

It's the same guy!

[craggy coyote]

Eh, Everybody hates Hades is its own thing

[mighty zephyr]

This is just some guy showing up

[craggy coyote]

Set was at least kind of an asshole in what versions of the Egyptian mythos we have

WOD set is just hating for the love of the game though

[mighty zephyr]

He was also a Jackal not a Snake >:C

never gonna get over that Set is just Conan Set

[craggy coyote]

SET BEAST MENTION

LETS GOO

[high current]

poor Hades, the chillest of the greek gods but everyone says he's evil because of his association with death and the underworld

[mighty zephyr]

Hades isn't even the god of death

that's Thanatos

Hades is God of the dead

[clear delta]

Followers/ministry of Set is so funny with their snake obsession

[craggy coyote]

Hades is literally the hotel manager

[high current]

ye, he's just the King of the Underworld, God of the Dead, and kind of by extension 'anything underground'

[worthy sundial]

theres a lvl of overcorrection in how ppl characterize hades these days its like
hes not That chill

[clear delta]

True, but he protects Ra
Travelers too, I think

[worthy sundial]

hades does also command thanatos in at least one telling like this is a whole thing

[high current]

i mean, tbf, it's Atropos who decides when someone dies Thanatos just represents death itself

[vast blaze]

Da skungly.........

Gritter

Greechure

[orchid void]

no? mostly her forms are a variety of big fucked up coywolf

[clear delta]

The only werereptiles I know in CofD are the werecrocodiles
Whose whole thing is hunger and eating people

[mighty zephyr]

Mostly because they were born from eating the flesh of the corpse of Crocodile, the pangean god

Lots of deific cannibalism in CofD

[vast blaze]

Guess she wears contacts then, unless I'm misreading animal eyes for reptile ones

Sorry

[craggy coyote]

He protects Ra, because Apophis is a worse option, he still hates Horus/Osiris, and is the god of Red Desert which means he's still generally antagonistic is my understanding.

[vast blaze]

"Look, I'm still an evil fucking asshole, but it's you or Apep, and frankly I don't like the idea of the world getting eaten, cause then where the hell am I gonna be evil at?"

[marble sorrel]

I'll admit I'm kinda really sad the Fianna stuff got scrapped. I'd rather people put an honest effort into writing my culture well than just going 'If we remove all the Irish from this, nothing of value is lost'.

[orchid void]

I think that’s very fair, and as I read I do sorta miss those historical flourishes but just as much I do kind of appreciate the Apocalypse tribes made a bit more like the Forsaken, inasmuch as I have read so far

Mostly in that I don’t have to wade through the weirdness of the Silver Fangs and Shadow Lords “European eugenics guys kinda cool” and the children of Gaia are no longer just where they dumped all the hippy stereotypes

Like, yes there is something lost in not even trying and it’s a shame to get rid of the ideas of the tribes as distinct ethnic groups- but doing that is deeply fraught and I can see why a team that needs a book out would focus on an easier and cleaner answer of refocusing the tribes as spiritual callings and tying them heavier into Garou identity that way

[marble sorrel]

Yeah. I think part of is i worry it's a harbinger for Changeling the Dreaming, which is pure Irish Mythology/would be basically unrecognisable without it.

As well as some general bitterness that I don't think I've ever seen a game engage with people who know Irish Mythology because 'Everyone Knows It'. It's the Background Radiation of Mythology that people feel like they don't need to care about either way/people think is too well known despite most people not actually knowing much about it.

Sorry.

[vast blaze]

Question regarding the Time sphere in Mage 20: I heard from someone that you apparently have to buff firearms to have a sufficiently high rate of fire to actually use them during a Time Sphere activation, is that true or a load of crap?

[mighty zephyr]

Kinda, depends

If you are using Firearms as a focus yes, you cannot use it for Sphere ratings higher than your ability dots

[vast blaze]

But you don't need to buff them in order to actually shoot them if you stop time?

[mighty zephyr]

Well stopping time to do an attack is more akin to getting extra actions so potentially yes

[vast blaze]

Hmm

[mighty zephyr]

How Do You Do That, page 112

for freezing time

[vast blaze]

Ah, handy dandy, thanks Voy

[mighty zephyr]

You will not be freezing time out of character generation

ftr

[orchid void]

I would also suggest reading some proper esoterica if you’re gonna go for mage but this is my personal shibboleth for both of those games

I feel that Illuminatus! and the Invisibles are your best ins on the post Operation Mindfuck Cultic Milieu that Ascension was written in- rather than our current Q-Derived Madnesses

[mighty zephyr]

I think it depends on your sect

[orchid void]

I just mean for the vibes, but yea

[mighty zephyr]

oh then yea

I think the best way to play Mage is to make your own religion

[orchid void]

This is part of it. You gotta cook your brain a little. Then it makes sense

[mighty zephyr]

The mechanics won't

[orchid void]

Remember, it’s worse than true- it actually happened

And that you are in real fictional danger at all times

[nimble gale]

MtAs and Unknown Armies are both games where you gotta be a little cooked before youc an cook

[vast blaze]

Oh yeah I know, I'm asking for future reference

[dawn wigeon]

just experienced the most hype changeling session ever

[high current]

unknown armies mentioned

i had an entropomancer character i played who our objective was to get him to ascend as the Free Man by basically being very loudly and attention seekingly irresponsible and chaotic as possible
i have sense re-used his basic background for a few of my own PCs in other games, as well as for NPCs in some games i ran intended to introduce players to a new system and setting, basically just an easy personality for me to default to while explaining stuff

he finally ascended by using a Major Charge to Blast a monster of some sort, i dont remember what it was exactly, created/summoned by The Milk that we encountered in a dingy basement that was, uh, certainly a Milk location(their gimmick as an antag faction is they kidnap kids and try to raise them into basically demigods), which our GM said basically punched a hole through reality, creating a black hole, that sucked this monster through and destroyed a decent chunk of manhattan

[vast blaze]

Whu haben

[high current]

side note, i remember getting into Unknown Armies after hearing it was really weird, and as i was reading it not finding anything too weird
this is one of the first times i think that ive tried to summarize the plot of a game i was in, and im realizing how wild this sounds when im not fully immersed in the batshit weirdness that is the Occult Underground

[vast blaze]

Do y'all know of any ways a Mage could magically disguise themselves as someone else

[high current]

potentially billions but mechanically there's at least 1 per sphere probably

forces to bend light and make an illusion, mind to project a hallucination, life to shapeshift, matter to make a physical disguise, spirit to possess someone else, entropy to say you happen to strongly resemble someone else, time to age yourself up/down(doesnt work for looking like a specific someone unless you already look similar probably), correspondence to basically make an overlay of their face onto yours with a portal effect kind of thing, prime probably the hardest one, cant think of anything

[nimble gale]

Prime makes all the others more real

[vast blaze]

Could Forces just like, project a false image of what you look like?

Or would it only bend light to not fall on you specifically?

[vast blaze]

...I mean I guess you could also just wear a mask but that's not as fun

[olive citrus]

How do people give out Renown? Do they give them out right away or just tally them

[rapid glacier]

I don’t, I let players buy it and give them the all-clear to spend the xp on it after a major event

Well for W5 anyway, I think the rules for it is different in W20

[mighty zephyr]

Depends on the edition yeah

@olive citrus which one you using

[olive citrus]

W20

[mighty zephyr]

Oh okay so

Basically how it works is people get Renown XP that they then have to "lock" with a rite

[marble sorrel]

You do cool things, you get temporary renown, you do a big right to go 'Hey I'm cool' when it gets high enough.

So a werecoyote gets some temporary humour renown every time he makes the vampires run into a wall painted like a tunnel and laughs at them.