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

>NEW SCION BLOG POST

theonyxpath.com/the-bindings-of-fate/

So given that Dark Eras gave us the Skinchangers template as a Merit, do you think the Companion will give us 2e Thaumaturges?

ded thred

so give us something to talk about

vampires

They're shit, next topic

Your homebrew monsters unrelated to any specific splat?

mummies

Beast is fun

Mostly for Old Vamp fans, but what were some of the coolest deformities you guys have come up with for your nosferatu?

Stranger Things made me want to run an Innocents game, so I'm gonna go with that. Supernatural was like a campaign that got super hung up on the Ghost Stories splat and got derailed into some cosmic good vs evil boring bullshi. Why couldn't we just have sweet-ass monster hunting? The Wendingo and Scarecrow-God were fucking great.

I tried to make a thread about this, but it's basically dead: Essentially, the players are the President and his most trusted advisors (secretary of defense, more competent members of the First Family trusted congressmen etc) who are made aware of the Supernatural and have to navigate the World of Darkness wielding truly excessive military, legal, and economic power that they have to be excessively careful with because you can't walk down a hallway in the white house without bumping into someone who works for the Invictus, Seers of Tgrone, or both.

Stupid idea or no?

>an Innocents game
>the players are the President and his most trusted advisors

what

We /80s b movie/ now

Do you mean a mortals game? Innocents is about playing as children.

Ah, I see that got mixed up.

My post is about two different things. I was responding the the OP about the most WoD show, saying that Stranger Things was basically an aesome Innocents campaign. Then I plugged my own campaign idea with no sense of shame or remorse. Should have separated those two out better.

>WoD
>Supernatural.

It's a bad fit. You can build a basic hunter okay, but you can't do supernatural style magic, and it can't do the supers they deal with on a daily basis very well.

Well it's more that * of Darkness is the preeminent system for anything even remotely urban fantasy or horror like because it's the only system with any market penetration that deals with supernatural creatures in the present day.

* of Darkness is the hammer, so all those shows look like nails.

This is how I Mastigos

youtu.be/lWL6FkQkYYc

You guys were talking about abilities? Because I remembered this gem

...

The 90's were a lot more awkward than I remember.

Are Acanthus and Mastigos still the gods of Mage in 2e?

At least they were for that author.

To be fair that's from the Mage parody called Warlock from Black Dog's Pentex guide to subsidiaries, so it's meant to be a tongue in cheak-ish thing

I think.

>So given that Dark Eras gave us the Skinchangers template as a Merit, do you think the Companion will give us 2e Thaumaturges?

In the Spiritualism in the US era? Not unlikely.

How would you make the complicatedness of Thaumaturges into that same kind of half-page template?

Just like with the Skinchangers: Completely neutering them.

You act like they had much going for them to begin with.

Cheiron Group or Faithful of Shulpae, which one is more metal?

Cherion is too corporate to be metal, so it's the Faithful of Shulpae by default.

>What is most WOD like show?
youtu.be/oyoXURn9oK0
Possibly related.

Also, related to Scion.

Is upgrading to 2e worth it? I love all my 1e stuff (recently unpacked it all and decided to get back into it, maybe with a hunter game)

It's a lot better, in many ways.

Like what, is there a tl;dr of the major changes?

Changed mechanics
New subsystems
Helpful ST tools
More focused setting

It would take a lot to go into the various differences. Other than the core rules changes, which are mostly making some Hacks from Armoury Reloaded core rules, there's a lot of stuff added.

You really didnt help him out lol.
That said I personally dislike 2e, I dont like the god machine metaplot garbage and DTD is trash. But otherwise people should just play whatever

>New Social Maneuvering system to handle convincing someone over a period of time
>New Investigation system that helps the players guide the story a bit, so the ST doesn't have to come up with a list of clues for every location
>New Chase system that works similar to the Social system
>Vice & Virtue are no longer 'pick one from this list of 7', they're more free-form
>Experience costs replaced with flat amounts, you gain an average of 1/session based on your actions in-game
>Aspirations, character-specific goals to help tell the ST what kind of stuff you wanna do
>Dread Powers are now a core thing, instead of Hunter-specific
>Vampire removed Fog of Ages or w/e
>Werewolf fixed Gifts being shit
>Mage fixed Ritual Casting being OP
>Demon is pretty cool; basically imagine a cold war spy movie mixed with the Matrix
>Beast is shit, it was supposed to be the 'you are a dragon!' game that could also be used easily for crossover, but it ended up being 'THIS IS THE CROSSOVER GAME!! also some otherkin stuff' with poor game design
>Changeling is going to be more focused on the PTSD angle
>Promethean is going to be a bit more forgiving to people who want to stay in a single city

What are you a faggot?

Mastigos less so, Acanthus more so.

>I dont like the god machine metaplot garbage
Well that's nice
It literally doesn't affect any game except for Demon and Mortals(if the ST decides to go with it)
It's not metaplot, it's just Demon's default antagonistic force.
>DTD is trash
That is a valid opinion to have, but most people disagree.

Demon is amazing and the God-Machine isn't metaplot. It's no more "metaplot" than the Seers or Pure. I don't even understand how or why people think that its Metaplot.

Beast is about as Otherkin as Werewolf. It was always billed as the Crossover game, which is always going to be a problem. But what really is its poor game design? It's lacking in a lot of ways (Hero mechanics are bland, powers are of the "blow something up" variety, no Morality) but nothing strikes me as "poor", just underwhelming.
Changeling is actually going to be LESS focused on the PTSD angle, if anything. Hill doesn't want it to be a game where all you do is mope and /wrists like a lot of people did in 1e. That said, I don't really see what's being done to make it more proactive or any less "hide from the Fae" other than keeping the Fae at home and having you hide from Huntsmen instead. Changeling feels like a game that would really benefit from court politics, but that's sort of hurt by "and then there's an outside enemy that will eat your face if you start infighting".
Technically in Promethean you could always stick in one city, until you were high Azoth.

Its all just opinions man. I think people should play whatever they like. Im just not a fan of the god machine thing at all.

Does demon mean inferno cant be used anymore? or are there more than one type of demon...

>Or are there more than one type of demon
"Demon" is probably the most used term in the entire goddamned game.

>Does demon mean inferno cant be used anymore?
Yes. If you ever try to use the mechanics found in Inferno, Richard Thomas will personally come to your house and delete the files off of your computer or burn your book, despite the fact that the two cover very different things.

well inferno is 1e so yeah its incompatible with demon

There are at least 4 types of demon
God-Machine Demons, from DtD
Inferno Demons, from Inferno
Goetic Demons, from Mage
and Supernal Demons(from Pandemonium), from Mage

...I'm getting conflicted here. And sorry Ive only ever played nWoD games never any of the splats except inferno and slasher.

I feel like people get too caught up in knowing everything in every splat. People need to remember that its your campaign and unless youre god(machine) himself such knowledge wont come into play very often. You may meet a vampire or two as a werewolf or hear rumours of a mage as a changeling but overall the world of darkness is mysterious and having everything perfect and spelled out to your characters like you reading every splat will just ruin your game.

Inferno is incompatible with Demon: The Descent in that they're using slightly different mechanical systems. But Inferno's mechanics are so shitty that you can port them to 2e pretty easily and not lose anything.

Also Maeljin. Really any evil spooky ephemeral being can be called a demon. The ones from Inferno could be Ghosts, Spirits, or something different entirely.

I more meant the fluff than the mechanics. My games i tend to simplify the mechanics down a lot. I guess i was just cnfused as I thought these angel demons were replacing the evil spirit demons altogether

Why more so for Acanthus?

Again, you can do whatever you want regardless. The World of Darkness isn't one cohesive "everything must be true" whole. Unless, of course, you want it to be.

Nah man, people are just kinda giving you a hard time because there were already other Demons than Inferno demons long before DtD came to be. In fact the DtD corebook has a sidebar about how many types of demons there are in nWoD/CofD. The funny thing, to me, about the sidebar is that it doesn't really tell you anything other than the fact that there are other demons out there referenced in other books.

this is beautiful

It tells us that the 'maeljin' are Inferno demons, at least

Maeljin *are* Inferno demons, and what Mage calls "Akathartoi"

IM thinking about starting up a hunter game and focus mostly on ghosts and inferno demons. Would the Fallen is Babylon SAS fit with this them

As someone who hasn't read any Werewolf, did DtD misspell maeljin? I only just noticed that you guys were spelling it differently than within the Demon book.

Yes.
I didn't notice it until you pointed it out, but yes, they swapped the j and l around

Hey Dave, why does Rewrite History still allow a mage to rewrite other supernaturals back to humans?

Dave, can you explain the new Legacies to me? Legacy Attainments don't seem that good. What's the benefit of them? Is it just no Hubris and no Dissonance/Quiescence?

>Is it just no Hubris and no Dissonance/Quiescence?
They also cannot be counterspelled or dispelled, don't against your Spell Control (this is big), never create Paradox, and they cost a maximum of one mana.

Legacy Attainments are insanely good, and it still blows my mind how some call them weak.

>never create Paradox
The problem is that they don't cause Paradox anyway, aside from Sleepers watching, since you have limited Reach. There are a lot of minor benefits, but "doesn't cause Paradox" was a MAJOR bonus in 1e.

In 2e the reason people say they're weak is because in a lot of cases you would be better off casting the spell itself. There are many minor benefits, but no major one since you have really strict limitations on Reach and Spell Factors.

I'm also not sure whether or not the second optional ability is like combining the two spells or if you can cast one without the other.

You can cast one without the other

>In 2e the reason people say they're weak is because in a lot of cases you would be better off casting the spell itself.
I think this impression is mostly based on what spells get chosen as Attainments.
If the Attainments were well thought out, this should nearly never happen, because there are wide categories of use were Attainments are nearly always preferable if available.

Something like Know Nature for example is useless as an Attainment, because none of the bonuses a Legacy Attainment offers matter to this spell.

On the other hand, basically all long term defensive spells and buffing spells are great as attainments thanks to being undispellable and not taking up your precious Spell Control. This goes double for obvious buffs like Transform Body, which get the most out of that Dissonance immunity. Even more important for any spell you can used to extend your Lifespan.

Any spell that normally risks Wisdom loss is great as an attainment, like Soul Stealing, Mind Control, or direct damage spells. Inuring is possible, but Paradox intensive sucks.

Any spell that can be used a a big emergency escape button is really damn great as an attainment, because when you need them they are something you really really really and under no circumstances want to risk getting counterspelled.

Some summoning spells can also be good attainments thanks to Spell Control and immunity to Dispel Magic, though these often suffer from having either low Potency or low Duration when used as an Attainment.

Really, being better off just casting the spell instead of using the Attainment requires someone to have fucked up when creating the Attainment. If it happens often with a specific attainment, maybe a different one should have been chosen.

>Really, being better off just casting the spell instead of using the Attainment requires someone to have fucked up when creating the Attainment.
But everything you listed is not necessarily thematically appropriate. It's all mechanically viable, but that doesn't mean its going to fit the legacy. If Attainments had just one more Reach, or more than a potential of -4 in Spell Factors, that'd be a lot better.

But if you want anything more detailed than "I cast this spell with this Reach", it's not doing much. I don't mind a lack of flexibility in *using* the Attainments, but it feels like there's a lack of flexibility in *making* them.

>But everything you listed is not necessarily thematically appropriate. It's all mechanically viable, but that doesn't mean its going to fit the legacy.
I have converted the Attainments for three different Legacies for my game. There are such an incredibly number of spells that can fit any imaginable Legacy thematic and are good attainments.
So I don't buy this argument at all.
There is ALWAYS a spell that fits thematically and is good as an attainment.

>Only system with market penetration that deals with the modern age and spoopy magics.
>It's a hammer and everything looks like nails to *oD players.
Of people are going to try to do everything with it like they do with d&d, then why isn't there a ton of *oD homebrew to make it so other stuff?

But yeah. I don't know of anything (official or otherwise) in *oD that makes it capable of running a Supernatural campaign.

I'd be looking to the actual Supernatural RPG, Cinematic Unisystem, FATE, GURPS, or HERO, before trying to make it work in *oD.

That would just take a ton of time homebrewing before i could even attempt to run a Supernatural campaign.

Except for the part where Dresden Files is still probably the biggest Fate game. WoD/CofD are the biggest names in the game, but there are alternatives that aren't completely obscure.

Urban Shadows just came out to high praise, too.

>Supernatural in *oD
>new magic system based on symbols and chanting in dead languages, which anyone can attempt with the correct knowledge.
>a universal system for building whatever superpowers you might need to represent whatever monster type you need, rather than being constrained by splat categories, so you can stat up anything from ghouls and ghosts, to angels, demons, and leviathan.(without splat specific disciplines and the like).

Don't get me wrong , that would make *oD a much more versatile system than its ever been, rather than only able to handle variations on its own in - system setting.

If it had those things, I'd be inclined to use it far more often than i do now; but it doesn't, and there are simply other games that would be way easier to use for a lot of other stuff i want to run than homebrewing half a goddamn system.

> What is most WOD like show?
> Supernatural

The biggest problem with Buffy is the whole 'Vampires are demons' thing

Otherwise, it's totally a Hunter game.

I believe you mean kindred the embraced.

But you can literally do all of that already.

Mortals can perform exorcism in the corebook, and stuff like Supernatural Merits, Second Sight thaumaturges, and Hunter Endowments give them other powers. "Build your own monster" has been possible in Hunter since its release and now the CofD corebook has mechanics for it as well.

Except again for the "anyone can do magic of you pass them a book full of spells".

>CofD has build your own monster rules
Guess my *oD is rusty. Huh. That's neat. Does it feel you the xp costs of different monstrous abilities, if, say you wanted to build Cas or Crowley as a playable character?

Second sight thaumaturges are pretty different from what you see WoD witches do, and doesn't really cover the "cause chaos by giving a bunch of random housewife mortals a book with spells in it" angle.

Does it give you *

>Be me
>Lazily scrolling down through Veeky Forums
>See that someone thinks that Supernatural is more like WoD than the show that it was based upon (Buffy).

WTF Kiddos?

The Dread Powers system is for building antagonists, so it doesn't have xp costs. Vampire also uses it for Strix.

It doesn't give xp costs, no. It probably wouldn't be too hard to suss out, though, based on the costs for splats to do similar things.

I'd probably just stat Cas and Crowley as an actual Angel and Demon, though, desu.

Is scion more wod or exalted?

Fucking beats me.

I wouldn't use WoD to run a Supernatural campaign.

But as i mentioned , the Buffy/Angel rpgs would do a pretty good job of it.

I think they just see that there's a game like for mortal hunter characters, and stop there saying "eh, close enough".

GURPS monster hunters is closer than Hunter the Vigil is though, unless Vigil has changed a lot since cod came out.

It's basically Exalted Modern except without the Exalted-specific fluff

WoD started in 1991
Buffy started in 1997The movie came out in 1992

Check your facts, m8

i guess its more on exalted level of power but nothing setting wise is the same.

It starts off as "CofD mortals with mythology" and scales up to "you're playing the gods themselves."

What's wrong with Vigil? It's perfect for the earlier seasons of Supernatural.

CoD angels and demons are quite different than Supernatural ones though.

Personally I wouldn't want to use any preexisting *oD splat to represent supes in a Supernatural game (unless they are spot-on), I'd want them to be like they were in the show, since that's what I'm trying to run in this hypothetical.

>Thinks buffy coming out in 1997 and wod in 1991 has any bearing on supernatural being based on buffy.

What are you even babbling about? It's not that everything looks like a nail, it's that its a pretty fitting system for a lot of the things people want to do. It's actually better than a lot of other systems, and I'd actually prefer it over the Supernatural RPG.

>But yeah. I don't know of anything (official or otherwise) in *oD that makes it capable of running a Supernatural campaign.
It's listed as inspiration for Hunter: the Vigil, and they even call themselves "Hunters". There's nothing about Supernatural that would make it incapable of being run in Hunter. In fact, the way they treat a lot of the monsters feels like *exactly* how you should do things in Hunter. Their Vampires for instance feel like how you should approach doing Vampires with Dread Powers instead of using the Vampire: the Requiem rules. What possible homebrewing would you even need?

>you can't do supernatural style magic
Why can't you? Again, it's the kind of thing all over the blue books. Sam and Dean following a ritual is not impossible to do in Hunter. Are there many examples? Not really, but the books often assume you're capable of creating McGuffins. There's even talk of players finding rituals or relics that do magic in the original core corebook, if I remember.
>and it can't do the supers they deal with on a daily basis very well.
Again, why can't it? Dread Powers. Numina. Nothing is impossible here. Those are even non-playable characters, so you don't even NEED rules for those in the first place (and in 1e if you were playing a core mortals or Hunter game you were expected to do a lot of legwork yourself anyway).

>then why isn't there a ton of *oD homebrew to make it so other stuff?
Chris did Mass Effect. There's a game for playing mad scientists. A game for playing magical girls.
There's plenty of homebrew. Hell, there's even suggestions for Cyberpunk and fantasy *in the official books*.

To be fair, is ambiguous in its pronoun game.

Mostly that it doesn't have supernatural style ritual /symbol magic, that any jackass can attempt - and there are other monster Hunter game lines that can do that or if the box.

Dread powers hasn't been changed to work for PCs, which could plausibly come up in - game.

I'm not saying it's a bad game, just that it would not be my go-to for supernatural because there are better fits.