/cofd/&/wodg/ Chronicles of Darkness and World of Darkness General

But... but... at least the Beast fiction anthology goes on sale!

I'm just so fucking disappointed in the lack of Mage 2.

We all are, user.

What's the difference between Alpha, Origins and Hero? Which one makes you a demigod like the original Psion?

When you put it that way, at least one DaveB created thing has gone to print this wekk.

I imagine the Paradox approvals process is Dracula at one of his ridiculous goth LARP orgies throwing darts at a board with 'Mage 2e Approved' in the center. Then even when he hits he just says 'Not edgy enough! Bwahahaha!' and starts over.

Scion. Psion is a very different word.

And Hero is what makes you a demigod; Origins is a "mortals" book that's also the core, like nWoD 1e was set up.

Alpha: a vertical slice of the game, most likely to be released when Scion's Kickstarter begins.

Origins: A "Chronicles of Darkness" style core rulebook, focusing on the other parts of World of Myth.

Hero: The starting place for beginning Scions.

I'm going to have to buy them all then, aren't I?

Random question for the thread: what was the longest number of sessions a game you've been in has gone without combat?

I've done entire chronicles where there was only one combat. That was Vampire though and there was a shitload of politicking, in fact their one time in combat was a bad feeding and they whined about having to go through it the whole time.

No
Alpha might not even have a price, we don't know
Origins is only going to be necessary if you want to run a game in the settings with the PCs as mortals
Hero is the real game, and all you'll need for it.

My old Hunter game went a good 8 or 9 sessions, I think, without any combat. They only bumped into the monster they were looking for a few times, towards the end.

I did a shit job with that game.

Origins will have like a bazillion minor templates for Scion, so probably, yeah

So, wait. Will Hero have the core rules as well as the rules for the Hero template?

Half a dozen, something like that.

I will play VtM for the first time, any tips?

Check what the other players are doing.
Match their Generation.

Which version? This is important.

>Mage2 still not out
Why do you hate money, Paradox?

How do they hate money? They know you'll buy it whenever they put it out. Making you wait only makes you indignant, no one is ever really going to not purchase it because of the delays. The fact is that CofD just doesn't matter to the people at Paradox / WWP so anything that gets sent from OPP for it gets shelved and put off till they're finished doing whatever work they're on marketing the important IPs.

Brujah are the most versatile clan.
Potence and Celerity to rape face and Presence for help in social interactions. Just be prepared to frenzy from time to time.

Toreador is a good second, with Auspex instead of Potence. Good for investigative work.

I personally prefer Dominate Malks. They are fun.

Third edition of the masquerade, only core book.

Auspex helps in combat too right? Doesnt it increase shooting?
Depends what character you want to make. Melee go Brujah for Ranged go Toreador

They'll change their tune when they find out how little oWoD is actually going to end up making them.

They're not gonna make oodles of money, but there's clearly enough of an audience and enough people interested in nerdy nostalgia to at least bite on a new Vampire the Masquerade video game.

How much revenue the IP actually generates is largely irrelevant. They bought an idea, then handed it over to the ultimate edgy tryhard who's just using it to throw LARP parties and get laid. This is a trainwreck in the making and we should be thankful that OPP managed to stay at arm's lengh from the garbage fire.

Fuck, if we get Bloodlines 2 out of this hairbrained revival of the world's most 90s setting, then more power to them.

Granted.

Imagine though, we could have gotten Vampire the Requiem: Bloodlines.

>Fuck, if we get Bloodlines 2 out of this hairbrained revival of the world's most 90s setting, then more power to them.

I just hope whoever does it thinks "Deus Ex, but with Vampires", or possibly "Dishonored, but with Vampires" instead of "Bloodlines 2".

That's pretty much guaranteed, after we get the first official WoD tie-in: a slot machine.

I doubt we'll see any games like that. We're gonna get vampire 4X games. City management shit.

Unfortunately, it will almost certainly turn out to be "Pillars of Eternity: Now With Vampires". Which isn't bad, just you know. Not what people are going to want.

I just want one 4x, grand strategy, or city builder style game out of them in wod. Even if it is owod and therefore lame, it would still be interesting to see like, a city control game where you are a vampire elder, competing with others and trying to overtake the Prince.

Paradox is a publisher as well as a developer, and has a contract with Obsidian to make more RPGs. We're getting a VtM RPG in some way, shape or form, especially since video game bibles are going to be the new version of core rulebooks for the tabletop games.

>"Deus Ex, but with Vampires"
This COULD work though there needs to be better hubs and NPCs then the last Deus Ex game

>Dishonored, but with Vampires
Ha ha....no

>Paradox is a publisher as well as a developer, and has a contract with Obsidian to make more RPGs. We're getting a VtM RPG in some way, shape or form, especially since video game bibles are going to be the new version of core rulebooks for the tabletop games.
I remain skeptical.

>Tropico but playing as a city Prince
I could get behind this

I'm going to call it right now. Their version of VtM is going to require special 'blood dice' for certain rolls. It's all the rage with companies now to sell proprietary dice (fucking FFG).

Yeah but FFG also makes good games. So they have that going for them.

Well, except the star wars lcg,I hear that has gone downhill

I'm not.

chronicles of fagness

That's a shame, I really liked the early Star Wars LCG stuff. That doom countdown of theirs was pretty nifty.

You could do something neat with that. A Blood Dice pool instead of gathering Vitae that you roll when you use Vampire power.

I should submit my reincarnation guys to OPP as a pitch.

Don't they always accept 1000 word submissions? 500 fluff 500 crunch

Yes, you should do that. You should all pitch/submit to OPP already, you know who you are.

Yup. The 500 crunch is what scares me; I'm not the greatest at coming up with no rules stuff.

I'm pitching a tent to OPP right this second.

Go ahead. No one will ever publish your work because of your toxic reputation on the forums.

I'm more worried about the fluff, personally. I wanted to do a Hunter compact, but I don't know if my 500 should be the opening to their entry, or just a bite of fiction related to them, or what.

That's the easy part; you just so who they are and what makes them cool. Don't worry about the nitty-gritty; what would you tell a player about them in order to try and make them play one of these guys?

>implying anyone cares about forum behavior for book writing

If this were anywhere near true, nearly half of the population of RPG freelancers in the market would not exist.

Yeah, I guess.

After I get denied, then I can expand it and put it in the homebrew thread. Everybody wins! (or loses, depending on your perspective on crappy homebrew)

The thing about Hunter is that they already take my ideas and make them cooler

>What if we have a PMC that hunts down monsters?!
>Oh they already exist? And they get cool ass magic tattoos? Oh ok...

No, they all just shitpost anonymously. The ones that don't HAVE been fired.

So, if the masquerade game was my introduction to this whole thing, what order should I read the books in?

The Masquerade Core Rules to start with probably

Depends. What did you like about it?

There are two Vampire RPG's out at the moment, with quite different themes, and Bloodlines sits firmly in the middle of them, theme-wise.

Yeah but I guess Masquerade would be better to ease him in.

Hey, the Knights of St. Adrian aren't a PMC! They're a bunch of surly truckers and bounty hunters and I love them for that.

True. But the monster that is the Masquerade setting is daunting. I tried to get in on Masquerade in it's latter days. It was incomprehensible.
Thankfully, nWoD came out at about that time, so I clung to that instead.

I thought they were supposed to be Mercenary Knights?

Well thats the issue of you getting into a setting at the end of its life cycle instead of slowly learning things over time. And to be fair Vampire easily has the most books in nWoD as well.

>Well thats the issue of you getting into a setting at the end of its life cycle instead of slowly learning things over time. And to be fair Vampire easily has the most books in nWoD as well.

Yeah. And now the alternative for a new guy is to get the book that has all the rules, and very little of the setting... Or the mammoth that is the backlog.

They're a bunch of rowdy roadies.

>On paper, Howard Investigative Services hires out its brains and muscle to bail bond agents. On the road, they're the Knights of Saint Adrian, patron of guards and soldiers. They do the Lord's work, hunting down the devil and earning a heavy commission for their trouble.

>The Knights are tough customers -- the toughest, really, thanks to the tattoos in angelic script that let them get as good as they give. They're a close-knit group of bounty hunters hunting fugitives from the Almighty.

tell me a bout it. I hardly made a dent in either setting

My idea can still be a reality then.
My idea was to have a bunch of Ex Millitary/Gun Nuts/already established Mercenaries that have had contact with the Super Natural and find each other. They advertise in vague terms with world leaders or corporate CEOs asking if they need any "Unusual" OpFor taken care of. Alongside actual Mercenary work of course.

Divisions could be
Logistics: Handles transporting and maintaining equipment and cutting through government bureaucracy.
Fireteams: Does what it says on the tin.
Suits: Negotiating deals,covering their asses legally and throwing money around in case something goes horribly wrong.

The only thing I'd worry about is carving out a niche for them that isn't covered by VALKYRIE and Cheiron; the former does a lot of "military versus monsters" stuff already, while the latter is "corporate hunters doing it for profit."

You might be better off with a Compact of veterans who Saw Some Shit than trying to make a new Conspiracy.

The idea is basically Supernatural Blackwater but I can see how it might be a bit redundant. It didnt have to be a Conspiracy either. Could just be a really well equipped Compact like Ashwood Abbey.
I wanted the feeling of having the freedom of Cheiron with the OORAH Soldiering of VALKYRIE

Isn't there also Division Six?

Thats Anti-Mage stuff

Division 6 is a bunch of tools who unexpectedly survived their mission. Now somewhat expanded, but still tools.

I meant in the 'mercenaries that don't belong to the US government doing supernatural related military ops'.

But I think Division Six might be closer to spooks than mercenaries... I can't find my file for Witch Finders.

Division Six are a bunch of dupes who think they're government agents.

They're a shittier version of cowboy Delta Green, basically.

So. I have an upcoming campaign where one of the players want to play a one-armed guy.
Easy, I say, Persistent Arm Wrack. No problem there...
But should there be a situation where it earns him a Beat? I feel he makes his life harder to make a character more interesting, and I want to reward that. A Beat situation on the Condition feels like the best idea.

What line would be best for a 1960s America Dark Era? I keep waffling between Mage, Changeling, and Hunter.

Give him a Beat in any scene where the missing arm fucks with his character. That should be plenty balanced.

There's a persistent condition called Crippled. Granted, it looks like it's intended for legs, but it basically says the same thing Atamajakki said; give him a beat when his disability leads to danger or severe inhibition.

theonyxpath.com/i-know-what-you-did-this-monday-meeting-notes/

Mage it's coming out this wednesday!

In your dreams lol

The real one dropped hours ago.

I'll try again in a year or so

So Hunter has groups that kill monsters, dissect monsters, record monsters on film, steal from monsters, fuck monsters, and try to rehabilitate monsters.

What would a group that approaches monsters diplomatically look like?

My guess would be something like the Barrett Commision, sans the "fuck you got mine" aspects of the Compact. Careful, studious research, along with making damn sure they've got the upper hand in the situation.

The Long Night TRIES to be diplomatic.
From their extremely fanatical point of view.

Ashwood Abbey also tends towards diplomacy. Of a sort.

I'm not looking for "convert in the hopes of redemption" or "hey, wanna drop acid and go to my orgy?"

More of a "hey, can your pack stay between 35th and Herbert and not kill anyone if I make sure the vampires stay on Balboa?"

Not sure if want

My love for VtR over VtM is due to the "toolbox" nature of the game. It works super well at the table. But the rigid metaplot/lore framework of OWoD would work better as a vidya. And lets be honest 99% of the people who wi;; play Bloodlines 2 aren't fa/tg/uys but Bloodlines fags like those on Veeky Forums who will start bitching about how the game sucks because you can no longer create a FishMalk and talk to road signs

Far too reasonable for the Vigil, I fear.

You don't have to be a murderous weirdo to uphold the Vigil.

Perhaps not. But the Vigil consists of people who are dedicated to Putting Things Right after encounters with the supernatural. Hard to do that via diplomacy. Doubt there are enough hunters like that to form anything larger than a few cells cooperating.

Ascending One MO is also "Try to talk the monsters from fucking with communities under their protection" or even "arbitrate between different supernatural entities so they fuck off and innocents don't die in the crossfire"

They are just always ready to get high and JIHAD as soon as talking fails

Even after your (probably catastrophic) first brush with the unnatural, the average person is still probably not eager to maim and kill. That gets easier when the monster is a many-jointed thing of teeth and white fur, but when you find out Susan (the nice girl from Communications class) feeds on promises and doesn't have a reflection? You'll probably try and talk it out.

The scary thing about the CofD is that many of the monsters were people once; they have normal faces and feelings and like to watch shitty TV shows. It takes a special kind of freak to try to crowbar the face off of something that looks and acts mostly like a normal guy.

So with my PMC idea I thought of an idea for Endowments.

Band Of Brothers:While the military says to obey your commanding officer at all times the relatively informal nature of a Private Military ensures that Loyalty is earned not given. After spending time with your team and have shown a willingness to stand firm and if need be sacrifice yourself then your Brothers In Arms will do the same.

Basically its a combination of tanking and holding the line with some support skills thrown in there.
2 I already thought of.

Techno-Jargon: A habit learned from the experiences from various military branches around the world you have now learned the combined slang of your Squadmates. You can communicate with others who also know this particular brand of confusing phrases,Abbreviations and acronyms. You can use this to safely communicate confidential information at times where privacy can not be secured. Using this in battle can also have this benefit as enemy combatants have a hard time figuring out the orders and tactics you are conveying.

No One Left Behind: You have shed blood with your fellow Hunters and have forged a bond that very few can understand. When assisting another hunter in combat you may spend 1 willpower dot for free. If they are in critical condition (such as bleeding out in the middle of the field in a firefight) and you are sacrificing yourself to help them then you may spend 2.

Are these good or bad?

This is a compact isn't it? Don't only Conspiracies have endowments?