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

A shitty one though.

Oh now that you mention it, that's true. In that case i'd attribute it to the eternal Jyhad and easy hunting grounds for good blood. Perhaps it's just a status symbol, I'm no expert at the whole WoD thing anyway.

>I don't really understand. If they don't have any targets they could be pursuing, then of course they're not doing anything. It's very hard to do stuff in a vacuum unless their GM is an expert of improvisation, so don't blame them for it.

Last time, whenever they found something that could shatter their normalcy, they took care of it as fast as possible, then went back to their lives.
They never kept their eyes open for problems, but only reacted to things when they intruded.

>whenever they found something that could shatter their normalcy, they took care of it as fast as possible
>They never kept their eyes open for problems
I feel like this contradicts itself. So did they or did they not keep their eyes open for problems?

Is there a specific (not a vague and generalized one, mind you) goal they could be pursuing at any given moment? A specific piece of Infrastructure they could break? An Angel they could destroy? An anomaly they could investigate?

Really? Last I checked people were getting into flame wars over it.

Exhibit A.

All things considered, the idea of a government is to have a lawful way of running things, and even if there's only very few members in the community, since they're vampires the resources these members have can be frightening.

In the end, kindred of shared locations will gather to handle disputes, or to address threats to the community. Rules and goals are likely to be created to solve on or another problem, and the political game is all about making sure these favor you.

It's sounding like the players were very reactive, not proactive. Whenever something came up directly in their lives that they couldn't ignore it got dealt with. Once that was gone anything that might be hiding in the back alley was ignored until they had to go down that alley. They weren't searching for things to do, they were searching for ways to not doing anything out of the ordinary.

It's such a popular opinion, that it's suffering from backlash nowadays. Basically the two sides have polarized, but your dislike is far from being unpopular or unsupported by the community.

Vampire the Masquerade was around for a bunch, and it has a lot of really hardcore fans that didn't enjoy or appreciate the transition. They also tended to be very vocal about this.

A lot of the politicking happens because there's essentially nothing else to do. As you while away the long years, you need to keep occupied. Eventually, the only thing that can occupy you is fucking around with other immortals. It's hollow, empty, and all they have.

Neonates join in because the structure is already there and they don't realize there's nothing to win. It's just about the pursuit. Another form of predation.

Yeah exactly.

They only had the goal "stay safe", they didn't look for infrastructure. They didn't investigate anomalies. They only fought angels when they came across them in normal life, or whenever other Unchained they knew called for backup.

Also, the very important part: Every vampire will one day either be dead or a threat. One or the other. The politicking delays the threat part.

You don't generally wander the streets looking for infrastructure and anomalies. Make sure they have enough to go on, and if they still don't do it, then that's that. If they're not being proactive, try to take the initiative yourself. Either way what's important is that they're having fun.

Reposting from last thread, curious to see if I get any more responses:

So in the not so distant future I will have a Vampire game for some newbies. I plan to actually have them start as revenants with a similar setup to the old VtR 1e demo (Dance de la Morte, I believe), so essentially have them wake up as vampires/revenants and not knowing what to do until they are picked up by the local Kindred society.

I am considering setting it in Miami, but I am not sure what the local politics should look like. I am either considering a pretty wild Cronie country with other covenants only tolerated or a post-covenant-war situation in which a Dragon Prince is the peacekeeper and "least hated candidate" since the Order was mostly neutral in the fighting.

What does Veeky Forums think?

Sounds like you need to have a talk about how you want the chronicle to go. If it's frustrating you, or you're not having fun because they won't leave their character's houses unless someone breaks down the door talk to them about expectations. As someone about to run my own game, I'm glad you came here with this problem just so I remember to have the conversation myself.

Mage is ass. Not so much the game, as the people who play it. The kind of players that Mage was designed for aren't the kind of players who want to play Mage. Thus it always devolves into wankery.

For mortals, Integrity should be abolished and Breaking Points should be rolled into Willpower. (Still represents the same general thing, but ties them into a single resource/mechanic)

Blood bonds should be a Majesty devotion, not an out-of-the-box ability.

Tzimisce and Malkavians are cool. In theory.

Hunters need a power stat.

All of my opinions are incendiary, but "Dark Ages is a better and more coherent game than base Masquerade" is a pretty spicy one.

The faction that brings them into undead society proper should be the one with the least political power at the time, and should appeal to the PCs. They're more likely to side with that group, and there's a lot more room for plot when you start low on the social totem pole. Bringing down the opposition and all that.

People that favor Mage, and like playing Tremeres in VtM are usually elitist assholes who have a delusionally large ego.

So thinking about the lack of real basis for Vampire authority for earlier, what if 'the state' manages land, feeding rights and the masquerade as well as internal policing? The Primogen are replaced by a council of the Viscounts who each control a portion of the city, the Prince who creates the laws and adjudicates issues the Kindred have with each other, the Sheriff who helps maintain the Masquerade and punishes lawbreakers and the Chancellor of the Blood who manages hunting territory, management of blood banks et cetera.

My only issues here are a) how do you create laws managing feeding rights and b) how do you police those laws? In New York City for example, if most of the ~160 vampires decide to feed around the clubs in downtown Manhattan how do you decide who should feed elsewhere? How do you keep track of who is feeding where? How do you stop them from feeding where they like?

>The kind of players that Mage was designed for aren't the kind of players who want to play Mage.
Nerds? I'm pretty sure nerds are who Mage was designed for.
>Integrity should be abolished and Breaking Points should be rolled into Willpower.
What does this even mean? You lose Willpower when you fail a Breaking Point? Having it be a separate thing is much more conducive to theme. That's more of a Hack for games where you want characters to lose the will to live, and works with Integrity-as-only-Sanity.
>Blood bonds should be a Majesty devotion, not an out-of-the-box ability.
But blood-as-drug is one of the inherent themes of Vampire.
>Tzimisce and Malkavians are cool. In theory.
In practice they're dumb, and the writers seem to encourage that.
>Hunters need a power stat.
I disagree. Hunter is just Mortal+. Why would they need a power stat? At that point they're just oWoD Hunters. I could see Tier 3 Hunters having a generic power stat, with Endowments purchased like real powers, and Conspiracies creation rules that amount to "build your own super", but that's about it.

Vampire society works the same way all feudal societies work. One person (or group) is physically and/or socially powerful and has everyone else willing or forced to work for them. They then force or encourage others to work for them, on down the line. I don't understand why people act like Vampire society can't work period. I mean, shit, it's not really that different from the PTA or something.

>Vampire society works the same way all feudal societies work. One person (or group) is physically and/or socially powerful and has everyone else willing or forced to work for them. They then force or encourage others to work for them, on down the line. I don't understand why people act like Vampire society can't work period. I mean, shit, it's not really that different from the PTA or something.
Could you at least read an entire line?

>I could see Tier 3 Hunters having a generic power stat, with Endowments purchased like real powers, and Conspiracies creation rules that amount to "build your own super", but that's about it.

That's a really bitching idea, actually...

>how do you create laws managing feeding rights
Decide what you can get everyone to agree to (preferably that benefits you the most) and say that's the law. That's how every law works. Say something is the law, punish those who don't agree.
>how do you police those laws?
Punish anyone who breaks them. How you do that is up to you. Could be just cutting off a hand or something, could be banishment, could be Final Death. Could be a slap on the wrist or fines or being blood bound.
>In New York City for example, if most of the ~160 vampires decide to feed around the clubs in downtown Manhattan how do you decide who should feed elsewhere?
You just make it illegal and punish anyone who breaks the law.
>How do you keep track of who is feeding where?
Divvy up feeding rights. This also allows you to carve out and distribute territory based on preference or politics. No one wants to feed on the winos.
>How do you stop them from feeding where they like?
By wielding your Sovereign Power against them, same as any other ruling body.

If you mean things like "how do you know if someone has broken the law?" well, shit, you just found the reason Britain is filled with cameras. Pretend instead of humans you've got orchards. How do you make and act on a law that no one can pick peaches from a specific orchard without permission? Sure, manpower is hard to come by, so you can't just constantly patrol every inch. There are some Disciplines and Devotions that can make it easier, but you can't watch everyone all the time. And that's what tempts Vamps into trying to break the rules and poach.

I was specifically replying to
>the lack of real basis for Vampire authority for earlier
Not necessarily his specific Domain set up.

I'm a big fan of build-your-own stuff, provided it's got good rules. Hunter core was good advice, but kind of terrible implementation. Mortal Remains continued the weird "Dread Powers must be ranked 1 to 5" thing, but with the Horror creation rules in CofD core you've really got a good baseline for stuff.

I still want to do my Suicide Squad Hunter game. Fuck, maybe I should just run that, since it seems to be the only one I can get a decent number of people interested in. Better than everyone (myself included) dragging ass on Mage.

>how do you create laws managing feeding rights
Those that already possess power shape the laws so that it favors them, while still keeping the less powerful satisfied enough that they won't rebel.
>how do you police those laws?
Sherrif, and of course peer pressure. Even if there's only one official agent you make it so that breaking the rules makes you a pariah, and a target for everyone else.

On actually enforcing and managing this, your best bet would be following real world methods. Occasional busts to reinforce the fear of capture, and making examples out of the perpetrators.

Position matters in a tangible sense (because it lets you have control over some kind of institution which has actual power) and also in the more emotional sense, as vampires are especially petty creatures driven to seek power over one another.

You may say there's no need for a state and thus a state will not exist, but just like in real life lolbercucks like yourself have to answer to the men with the guns, or in this case, the men with the level 5 Discipline powers and army of vampiric children at their side (and the men with the guns).

If nothing else, the Elders who want control over the rest of the vampires are going to try to get that control, and in the absence of something like Anarchs (or sort of Sabbat), they will have it.

I really like Mage the Ascension and I really hate Awakening. In fact, I don't like a single one of the CofD game lines.

I'm not libertarian, dude. I was just trying to work out how vampire governance works with a low population and no taxes.

Government doesn't require either a large population or the collection of taxes, but vampiric societies aren't guaranteed to not have those things in any case. Camarilla vamps are part of an international hierarchy, as are Sabbat, and together they cover the vast majority of vampires on the planet.

But this is all an unnecessary diversion, the more important thing to realize is that vampires have government and politics for exactly that same reasons we have them - to decide who has power and who gets what.

>Decide what you can get everyone to agree to (preferably that benefits you the most) and say that's the law. That's how every law works. Say something is the law, punish those who don't agree.
>Those that already possess power shape the laws so that it favors them, while still keeping the less powerful satisfied enough that they won't rebel.
I meant specifically. I have no idea how I, out of character, manage feeding rights for that many individuals.

Thanks for the responses though, they were very helpful.

Who said there's no taxes? Usually tax is in the form of services.
>Camarilla vamps are part of an international hierarchy, as are Sabbat
I thought he was talking about Requiem.

That's not something we can help you with, really. At least not without knowing more. Essentially you divide the city up and say who gets where based on how much the Prince likes them (or how much the Prince needs them to be happy).

Requiem Chronicler's Guide actually has a whole chapter devoted to Domains and Domain based play. Dave used it when coming up with this advice.

So would a Power Rangers-style Morphing Grid be Prime+Space+Forces? That's Prime for the suits, gear and zords/megazords, Space for the sympathy and Forces for the explosion in the background.

Platonic Forms are obviously magical by Word of DAve, using them in public would make them explode with dissonance.

Shit mate, that's some hardcore projecting you've got going on there.

Well, that depends on what you want to do, but if I had to come up with one, how about a tier system?
Older vamps get the best areas, and younger people are more restricted.

Alternatively you could go clan based, or administrator based. Something like different turfs being given to influential people who then both police them and allow (or don't) others to use their areas for feeding.

>I thought he was talking about Requiem.
Didn't see anything about that, but my points are not any less accurate.

Well shit...Ah well, maybe they only use Prime for the creation of stonking great robots and use Matter and Forces for everything else.

Why do I get the feeling that this Is going to get rather complicated?

Thanks again for the help guys, I'm going to start hammering out the details now.

Matter+Prime will make your Prime less obvious. Also, transforming is going to be obvious no matter what.

Houserule suggestion - Since adding effects from the Practices of the level above takes Reach (eg. Pattering Platonic Forms to be 'Lasting') and adding equal Practices is a dice penalty (eg. Perfecting PFs to increase durability or Mana capacity), taking a dice penalty with better value lets you add lesser Practices to a spell.

So you could add Veiling to make your PFs not obviously magical. And since equal level Practices go -2/+1, make this -2/+2.

So a -2 dice pool penalty when casting Platonic Form means you get a +2 on Sleeper's roll to notice the magic?

Demons actively try to destroy God machine infrastructure. Its a spy game. Hiding is important, but not as important as the mission.

>Since adding effects from the Practices of the level above takes Reach (eg. Pattering Platonic Forms to be 'Lasting') and adding equal Practices is a dice penalty (eg. Perfecting PFs to increase durability or Mana capacity
What?
I don't understand anything you just said and see no reason it would work the way you think it would.

Since the Practices are fixed, rather than having exceptions like in 1e, if you want to cast a spell but add in effects outside it's main Practice you either need to Reach (literally Reaching ahead to get a power the current arcarnum dots don't allow) or a dice penalty as you add in effects you can already use, which make the imago more complex.

My suggestion was casting Platonic Form as Weaving/Veiling, rather than just Weaving would allow you to create Tass that wasn't overtly magical, since you already learned how to conceal Prime effects at 2 dots in the Arcarnum.

My other suggestion was that since increasing durability or mana capacity (essentially casting it as Weaving/Perfecting) in your PF required you to take a -2 dicepool penalty/1 increase, then casting it with a lower added Practice (Weaving/Veiling) should be more efficient, so -2 dicepool penalty/2 increase instead.

>a dice penalty as you add in effects you can already use, which make the imago more complex.
I'm not sure where you get this.

>I'm not sure where you get this.

>Perfecting spells are the opposite of Fraying spells in many ways: they bolster, strengthen, and improve rather than weakening and eroding.

Common sense says that increasing a PF's durability or mana storage capacity is a Perfecting effect. And these give a -2 dice penalty for each one increase.

So applying equal practices to spells of the same level (Weaving/Perfecting, maybe Knowing/Compelling or Ruling/Shielding, etc.) would presumably follow the same pattern

Adding a second Practice entirely would be a Combined Spell.

Whatever, clearly I'm accidentally typing in French or something. Because I'm obviously not making sense to you.

No, you're making sense, I'm just disagreeing with your conclusions.
>The Arcanum descriptions explain discrete spells and their effects. Sometimes, a mage wants more than one of these spell effects to take place in a single casting. The result is called a combined spell. The main advantage of a combined spell is that it counts as a single spell toward the total spells a mage can have active, and all its effects activate simultaneously.
Veiling a Perfecting spell would be two discrete effects.

Why do Changelings get so little love?

I assume you are talking about Dreaming, 'cause Lost gets tons of love.

Have you ever tried to date someone with PTSD? It can get pretty rough.

Same here. I just can't force myself to like Awakening's lore. Its so generic gnostic shit. Ascension had that cool po-mo consensual reality thing going. Like I've tried reading Awakening's core book like five times, trying to find something to draw me, but I always leave the book thinking "Man, this really sucks".

Then I go read Genius and I'm like "Holy shit take all of my money."

Admittedly I rarely see Lost being discussed, but you make a good point. Nobody ever talks about Dreaming.

>I rarely see Lost being discussed

The reason we are quiet about Lost is that there is very little to argue about.
I AM surprised there isn't more talk about the playtest docs, but I don't think that is contentious enough to be argued about.

Lost hasn't really gotten much love as of late because of two major reasons:

The first is that the original game was out for a while. It's been long enough that we all realize that the concept is great, but the game doesn't really facilitate much in the way of interesting plots, especially with the overwhelming focus on "the True Fae will snatch you away again at any moment" and the fact that characters end up focused on wallowing in their misery. Add on to that the fact that much like most of 1e, the mechanics are garbage and didn't get thought through well enough and there's enough reason that no one talks about it often.

The second is that info on the 2e has stalled and a lot of anons didn't really like what they heard, partly because they misunderstood the things that were being done to fix the "wallowing in misery" parts of the game as well as the build-your-own city aspects (here's a sample from when I almost ran it, file related). Maybe I should try that again. People seemed interested in that more than Mage.

For Dreaming? It was a clusterfuck mess with a decent core concept ruined by even shittier mechanics than 1e Lost, as well as disjointed and schizophrenic tone setting. Is it happy and upbeat? Is it dark and depressing, with every bit of happiness and adventure just an ephemeral sandbar that will be swept away as the tide of age overtakes it? Is Chimerical death like having your essence scoured away and something to give you nightmares, or is it just naptime?

Have you tried 2e? Also, I just can't understand that, because Ascension is so dumb to me. Both the Ascension War and consensual reality. All the core parts of the setting are dumb.

Changeling: The Lost, you fucking idiot.

funny guy

See the reasons I like it are probably the reasons you hate it. The concepts behind Mage only semi-fit into the rest of the World/Chronicles of Darkness, but they are awesome considered by themselves.

From that simple concept of consensual reality [which works perfectly find as long as you suspend disbelief and don't stare too long into the abyss], they derive an explanation for why magic doesn't work well in front of normies [Paradox], and paves the way for literally anything to happen, in a universe held together purely by group opinion.

Basically I like the game because

1. The underlying philosophical concepts I find fun and elegant.

2. I love all the factions. Akashics? Sons of Ether? Order of Hermes? Pretty much every faction in Ascension is immediately comprehensible, ties into real world occultism, and is cool as fuck. Meanwhile the factions of Mage the Awakening, while not terrible, are totally separate from real life magic, and don't really stick out that much to me. Also old Mage had much better villains. Technocracy was sympathetic, Seers of the Throne are just "Meh, they're evil tyrants, kill them all"

3. Its the ultimate kitchen-sink wankery, juxtaposed with boring real life. You can have people in raygun gothic rocketships battle state of the art spacecruisers, you can have old kung fu guys battling cyborgs, you can have Doctor Strange take on the men in black and their 'alien' allies. And all of this just, glitters in the background of boring 9-5 reality.

Its not overly serious [although it can be, if you focus on the more intellectual side of things], but its fun as all hell. Awakening I don't think is a terrible game. I mean if I played it I'd probably have fun. But it doesn't just instantly capture my imagination like everything about Ascension does.

>seriousdanbackslide
What?

Check out "The Dover Boys" on youtube. It helped define the way Warner Bros. did cartoons.

>Changeling: The Lost, you fucking idiot.

Do ...do I explain the joke?

>real life magic
Wat.

Real world occultic systems, I'm not implying magic really works, I'm just saying Ascension bases itself on how people thought it worked. You have Taoist alchemist, and Hermetics performing kaballah, and faith healers and Hindu holy men opening their chakras. Etc.

Thats one of the main things I like about Ascension. It basically asks you "What if all this bullshit really worked, and there was a reason it usually looked like it didnt?"

>Seers of the Throne
>villains
Awakening isn't really designed for villains or pulp adventure, which sounds like what you're looking for in a game.

Yeah. Whereas Awakening asks the question: "What if the gnostic, theosophic and platonic ideas were right?"

This also has the huge-ass benefit of having an actually coherent setting.

>an actually coherent setting.
There's nothing incoherent about Ascension. Sorry that you're rustled about people liking different things.

Seers of the Throne are definitely villains. And they're boring ones.
And it does so by having factions that are literally boring as all hell. Wow, Atlantis! Its like I'm really watching Spirit Science! Tell me more about the fangs of the Dragon!

>And it does so by having factions that are literally boring as all hell. Wow, Atlantis! Its like I'm really watching Spirit Science! Tell me more about the fangs of the Dragon!

So the options are boring vs. moronic?

>The Order of Hermes is moronic
>The Akashic Brotherhood is moronic
>The Sons of Ether are moronic
>The Verbena are moronic
>The Technocracy is moronic

How about no.

Yeah. Ok. The Order of Hermes is fine.

I don't like things where I have to avoid thinking about them to hard, especially in a game like Mage, that seems to want me to think.
You're right, though, I hate everything you like about it.
Also, the Seers aren't really villains in the traditional sense. I also don't feel the oWoD stuff really does that great a job at reflecting real life magical traditions. They're all pastiches. At least Awakening treats those things as symbolic of real power. Ascension just gives you Theme Park versions of other cultures.

Cultural traditions on how things would or should work. Personally, I think Ascension does that worse. 2e especially encourages you to be a traditionalist wizard and rewards you for indulging in the trappings (albeit not as much as it could or should, but I'm houseruling yantras anyway).

Ascension is built on a foundation of sand in the form of Consensual Reality. None of the traditions other than Technocracy should work by that logic, and even the Technocracy should work differently. More than that, the Ascension War and the Traditions being against each other is built on a bullshit premise, and ultimately Gnosticism would make that setting better.

The Seers are antagonists, yes, but they're not the kind of antagonists you seem to think they're meant to be. The factions are also meant to be more broad. Yes, "broad" can come off as bland, but it also means that you're not shoehorned into specific character types. Oh, and they're also ideological differences, not completely different beliefs and playstyles. They're political factions. Not entirely different races or cultures warring with each other, the way that Ascension has it.

You're also giving a bit too much stock into "Atlantis".

Would Eric from Zero Time Dilemma be good inspiration for a Hunter?
>why is everyone talking about time travel and teleporting?
>they'd better stop bullshitting me, I have a shotgun and I want revenge

>Awakening isn't really designed for villains or pulp adventure

You're a crazy person. The Seers are ostensibly villains while Left-Hand Path is entirely about villains.

Secrets of the Ruined Temple was an entire book of pulp Awakening. The Mysterium is an entire faction of "action archaeologists."

Damn, post got eaten.

Not him, but yes. All of the oWoD "supernatural race" options are generally pretty bad. By and large even the better options shoehorn your character into a rather narrow box.

Not only do I feel like you're putting too much stock into the Atlantis Myth, I feel like you're misunderstanding how the factions work. In oWoD, they were all at war with each other, with the "good" factions essentially in a stalemate and teaming up to fight the evil Technocracy (because technology is evil in the 90s). Each Tradition was both "magical race" and political faction. All the magical races inherently hate or dislike each other, because... well, that's not really given any adequate reason, to be honest. "They must be liars" is the closest I've seen to a reasonable answer, but even then the fact that other people can do their magical reality warping differently than you shouldn't be a problem; your magic still works. The only thing close to a real fight is in who's Tradition is dominant, but that's not really something most people are going to care about.

In Awakening on the other hand, your "magical race" is your Path, and that's very different from your sociopolitical faction, which is the Orders. Other than being a player faction, the Orders are meant to serve a very different purpose than the Traditions. At best the Orders are all about how you view Magic, but that's not a static, uncompromising, and unchanging thing. The Adamantine Arrow--Claws of the Dragon--are a group that see Magic as something that inherently comes from struggle and serves as the militant arm of the Diamond (often whether the rest of the Diamond wants it or not). That doesn't stop an Arrow from changing their beliefs and joining the Free Council--the Pentacle group that believes Magic is created not by the Supernal but by the cultural and social structures of humanity--or even keeping their original beliefs and believing more in their new beliefs.

I'm getting started on Mage the Awakening 2. Is it just me or Rotes/Mudras are broken as fuck? Why would anyone use freeform casting instead of spamming rotes all day?

But you're right.

You forgot the Euthanatos.

Because you only know a tiny handful of rotes compared to the vast swathe of other magic available to you, and by extension your enemies. That Psychic Domination rote doesn't do shit for you when your problem is that all the air has been spontaneously transmuted into pain.

Sure, in an ideal world, you wouldn't cast outside your rotes, but in an ideal world you wouldn't need magic at all because you wouldn't have any problems.

Sorcerer's Crusade is also better than Mage. Prove me wrong.

Dämonen > Alle, bitte.

On Ascension I wonder why you don't hear about rogue Technocracy Members.

I mean sure you have the Sons of Ether but they're too out there. Where are the Technocracy members who enjoy radically powerful technology that aligns with consensus, but feel that the current group is too oppressive?

So you honest to your mom prefer Dreaming to Lost?

The politics didn't intrigue me until my friend said that its about each faction trying to push their own definition on what "Balance" is (aside from Adamantium Arrow and Mysterium who would rather just let everyone else play politics). The book doesn't explicitly say or focus on it though, so it mostly gets interesting if a ST touches on it.

Ascension is still miles better for me. And I say this as an avid CofD lover who only learned about oWoD later.

First, you do hear about them. They are mentioned in like every book in the entire line. But as to why they're not a major force, it's because the Technocracy is really good at what it does. Technocratic agents are heavily indoctrinated and monitored like 24/7 by supervisors.

Of course if you're just talking about generic technomancers, well there's the Virtual Adepts, Disparates, and Orphans for that.

What kind of animal is your fursona, /cofdg/?

Mine is a cow.

geckopirateship go and stay go

>it's not implying magic really works
Someone fell for the Technocracy meme.

>not fapping to monster on human
>not self-inserting as the human

>involving humans at all

Once you get 5 in your relevant Arcana rotes become practically useless.