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

Sorry, was making dinner or I'd have answered sooner. Assuming you're still around...

Princess is a game about playing Magical Girls in the World of Darkness. I don't actually know much about the "1e" version of it, but at the very least the GMC+ update (the Dream version, since the project split) is really well done. It's far from perfect, but it's at the very least a completed fan project with a cohesive premise and coherent setting. It's got more focus than Geist and Beast, that's for sure.

Their origins are part Exalted, part Mage, part Changeling: the Dreaming. They're "Nobles", magical guardians of a long destroyed and beautiful civilization, fighting back against the Creatures of Darkness that bring despair and anguish to the world. They're inspired by and make references to a lot of existing Magical Girl shows, but the things that it draws most from is Nanoha and Madoka and the web novel Sailor Nothing.

Players are Nobles, often called Princesses, but Princes exist.
They belong to one of five Callings (Champion, Grace, Mender, Seeker, Troubadour) and most align themselves with the Courts, each ruled over by a Queen: Swords, Diamonds, Hearts, Clubs, Spades.
There are also three "Twilight" Courts, who are essentially ruled by Queens that have fallen to the Darkness or otherwise push the boundaries of what the Radiant Queens find acceptable.

You deal with the things of the Dreamlands as well as anything that would cause suffering. Princesses have a neat (if clunky) mechanic that causes them to accrue negative marks the more they experience suffering and darkness that can cause them pain and make it harder to do their thing.

Is the Highlander splat in the pastebin?

has the right of it, but for reference, the WoD and CofD games are:

World of Darkness

Vampire: the Masquerade - Wrestle with your dwindling humanity as the vampire shadow war comes to an explosive end.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse - Rage against the dying light in an increasingly corrupted world.

Mage: the Ascension - Take a stand in the war for all reality.

Wraith: the Oblivion - Search for redemption in a nightmarish afterlife.

Changeling: the Dreaming - Bring light back to the world before you vanish forever.

Hunter: the Reckoning - Become chosen to take back the night by a mysterious force.

Mummy: the Resurrection - Fight the forces of darkness in the world's last few moments.

Demon: the Fallen - Find redemption among the people you damned yourself to help.

Chronicles of Darkness

Vampire: the Requiem - Hold on to your humanity as you take your place in the All Night Society.

Werewolf: the Forsaken - Keep yourself in balance as you undertake the greatest hunts.

Mage: the Awakening - Explore the mysteries of the Fallen and Supernal World.

Promethean: the Created - Learn the true meaning of humanity in a world that fears and hates you.

Changeling: the Lost - Reclaim who you really are after having your life stolen from you.

Hunter: the Vigil - Put your humanity on the line to protect it from the darkest forces.

Geist: the Sin-Eaters: Take advantage of your second chance at life among a world of the dead.

Mummy: the Curse - Discover the relics of your forgotten home, and deal with the horrifying secrets they tell.

Demon: the Descent - Thwart the plans of the mechanized god you once served.

Beast: the Primordial - Build your legend and feast upon a a world fallen into complacency.

Deviant: the Renegades - Strike back at the shadowy forces that made you a monster before you self-destruct.

Got a link to sentai?

Their power stat is their Inner Light, their energy is Wisps, and their morality is Belief. When they lose all of their Belief, their Phylactery (essentially the Soul Gem from Madoka) is destroyed and they lose all their powers and become a Soulless husk until someone can give you a pep talk and you spend the XP to go back to Belief 1 and the Willpower to reform your Phylactery, after a tense Social Maneuver. If a Creature of Darkness seduces you instead, the Princess tries to Transform anyway, opens their heart to Darkness, and becomes one of the Dethroned, an evil princess who exists to corrupt and destroy, and often creates or controls Darkspawn.

Their powers are called Charms, and many of them have persistent effects that are turned on instantly when the Princess transforms. They also have a second feature called Invocations that are similar to the Renown of Werewolves or Keys of Geist. Each Court has an affinity element (Fire, Life, Water, Earth, Air, Storms, Tears, Mirrors) and each charm has several Upgrades, many of which require having a certain amount of one of the Invocations (Invocations can also be used to regain Willpower, and in some situations are free. Legno can be added for free if a Charm is used on plants or non-sentient animals, for instance). It's a system that I was thinking of pilfering for a Geist 2e homebrew.

You should read the pdf for the most up to date stuff sites.google.com/site/princessthehopeful/home
But for my favourite part, the Queen of Tears world of Alhambra, which must be saved at any cost, even if the outside world falls to darkness
princesswod.wikia.com/wiki/Alhambra

Princess and Genius are to my knowledge the only "complete" games. The rest are essentially overdeveloped minor templates. I'm not sure why you say it's unfun to play. It has more togetherness than a lot of the more recent official games.

Okay so I just have an idea how I would reiterate the Werewolf "legend" for my chronicles but zi want to make sure ta I don't accidentally remove the thing that makes people like the Forsaken.

Basically, Fatherwolf, Moom, all that? Lovely folktales. Werewolves keep the balance between mortals and supernaturals not because od some sacred duty or oath bestowed on them by some crazy otherworldly entities. Werewolves hunt down the transgressors because their instincts indicate that they are the best prey. Humans endangering supernatural ecosystem? Maim the majority and maybe chomp boss's hand to teach 'em a lesson about nature.
Vampire about to flip local town community over because of their erroded Humanity? Better chomp that idiot down.
Spirits possesing mortals in masses? Hunting Season.
Whatever fights comes between werewolves are usually between packs' hunting grounds, or werewolves taking down a frenzied out siblings who obviously need a timeout.

>I'm not sure why you say it's unfun to play. It has more togetherness than a lot of the more recent official games.

It's got a lot of content and there's things to do, but the actual game at the table is not fun to play. There's not much else when it comes to magical girl games, though, so it'll do if someone wants a magical girl game and doesn't want to play Magical Burst or something.

>zi
>ta
>Moom
>od
>All that syntax
Slow your roll and look over your posts before hitting send.
Also, taking out the origin with Urfarah, Luna, etcetera is kind of pointless and takes away a large aspect of Werewolf. They clearly have Auspices and Lunes. You don't need it to be Werewolves' "instincts" that tell them the transgressors are the best prey, or to make them into Planeteers. The Tribes are all about deciding which prey is the best and most worthy of their fight.

>but the actual game at the table is not fun to play.
Yes, but *why*? What do you feel isn't fun about it?

Mind my pronouns shitlord, I don't have to take zi shit

Where the fuck are the clan books in the pastebin

>Werewolves hunt down the transgressors because their instincts indicate that they are the best prey.
that's because they're descended from father wolf, the greatest of hunters

Anywhere got 2e rules for the Ministry of Mammon? I'd write up myself, but i wouldn't want to waste time when someone's done it better.
Also where's the Legacy where you merge with your 100,000 Leaves counterpart, I need more paradox messing shit, not just summoning Abyssal entities. Left Handed Path gave me little satisfaction!

It's just not fun to play. At the table, it plays like a bog standard CofD game with some magical girl flavoring. It's like Genius, where there's a lot in the book that's solid, maybe even enough to get someone hyped, but then the dice come on the table and the novelty of playing something like a Mad Scientist or a Magical Girl in the CofD setting fades away fast.

There's no real specific thing I can point to, it's just that the whole game as a gestalt feels adequate, but not fun or interesting enough to justify long, extended play. It's one of those "your mileage may vary" things, I guess.

They probably just feel too out of place.

Plus there is the added problem of having no one to talk about them with.

I haven't experienced playing it, but it really seems to me that Genius would work best without any of the other Supernatural factions.

The fanbook itself says that there are no conspiracies, the world is the way it is because humans let it get that way, and there's really no reason to try and keep your nature as a Genius secret bar the accidental destruction of your wonders, and the problems that arise from people as a whole knowing that you're loopy.

I don't really understand what you don't like about it, though. It seems like as long as you enjoy playing as magical girls (and as someone who has, I'm good with that), it's the kind of thing that can be fun.

>I haven't experienced playing it, but it really seems to me that Genius would work best without any of the other Supernatural factions.
I think most games work best if you use the approach Hunter takes.

I feel that Princess and Genius are thematically out of place, but Princess at least does a good job of feeling tonally fitting. I mean, power level aside, Madoka would probably fit in the WoD tonally, and Princess is about there.

It also inspired me to do a Changeling focused Magical Girl Hunter Conspiracy.

Most fansplats aren't worth talking about. Genius doesn't fit into WoD and its mechanics are a busted mess of oMage bullshit. Princess tries to fit in, but is confused and directionless like Beast. Leviathan gets the tone right with mechanics that are needlessly complex and terribly balanced against 2e (plus obligatory 'only good for mpreg' barb). Dragon is just unfinished.

And that's it. Any other game died so early in its creation that they aren't worth discussing or even acknowledging.

>Princess tries to fit in, but is confused and directionless like Beast.
But Princess has more direction than Beast...
It has X, Y, and Z splats, humanoid antagonists, monster antagonists, mechanics that encourage action, character goals, and even a mini-splat. It's only real problem is that Sensitivity is probably more complicated than it needs to be.

Leviathan seems to have *less* than Beast, though.

Dragon is less worth talking about than Leviathan. I think Dragon is less complete than Paladin, and that's saying something.

I mean, I'm not saying that everyone should love Princess; I just don't understand where all of these complaints are coming from. It's without a doubt the most finished project. It even has a supplement book. Other than "Magical Girls don't fit in the World of Darkness", I don't really see the hate for it.

> It seems like as long as you enjoy playing as magical girls (and as someone who has, I'm good with that), it's the kind of thing that can be fun.

Maybe for a bit, but that fades away fast, and once it's gone, you're just left with a template that plays like how one would imagine a generic CofD game plays, instead of a template that could only belong to a magical girl. It's missing some kind of spark to make the game interesting.

The only way I can really explain it is to have you to play it, but just the idea of playing a magical girl might be all you personally need to have fun. And that's fine. Like I said, it's a "your mileage may vary" kind of thing.

Maybe because this is the world of darkness thread, so 'doesn't fit in the world of darkness' is like, the greatest sin.

This is my princess

youtube.com/watch?v=_WgY4L10qdE

youtube.com/watch?v=uLyhb5iG-5g

I think she'd work in WoD

As in aside, I'm thinking about running a VtR game in South Africa. And making it Zef as fuck.
I just don't know much about South African history, and therefore what the Kindred there would be like. Brainstorm, anyone?

>It has X, Y, and Z splats, humanoid antagonists, monster antagonists, mechanics that encourage action, character goals, and even a mini-splat.

And none of those, at the table, are as fun or as interesting as they seem on paper. There's nothing about them that really makes the game itself unique. It's got its original setting to lean on, but that only takes the game so far. Again, it's like Genius where it's a far more interesting read than it is a game.

"It's the most complete" doesn't mean anything when the game itself just isn't as fun or interesting to play as something like Demon or Vampire. I don't hate Princess, I just don't think it's fun.

On werewolves. Yeah, sorry about all that awful typoing it's incredibly late over here (I don't think I can help my syntax being weird since English is the third language I learned in school.)

I just genuinely don't get the appeal of werewolf gamelines as described. These are just furry shapeshifters with Hulk mechanic added on with some very squicky enemy that is mostly related to the werewolves via gameline mythos (I don't recall any real life myths linking werewolves and spirits) and Fatherwolf + Mother Luna (Moom, for short, as a combination of Moon and Mom) feels like some excuse plot to justify werewolf condition when it's not really needed. Requiem doesn't explain why there are vampires, and Changeling leaves true nature of True Fea up to the Storyteller with multiple choice past.

I mean shouldn't game about being a werewolf focus on human side dealing with the fact that every month they will spend three days not in control of their body while trying to make sure that on those three nights they won't harm their loved ones and maybe minimize the damage?

The alteration to the lore I tried to make weren't about making werewolves planeteers, but removing the godsent antihero border-patrol -aspect and replacing it with more "natural" biggest-fish-detector that just pushes werewolves towards biggest offender of mundane/supernatural -balance to play on them being feared by every other supernatural and also let players be border patrol if they want to.

>come home from a long day at work
>turn on the TV, kick back, and relax
>your teenage daughter sinks into the room, and taps you on the shoulder, looking nervously at you, scared of what is to come
>you look at her, greeting her with a smile, and a hug
>she hugs back, but, quickly backs away
>"Dad, I have something to tell you. I'm...I'm a INSERT WORLD OF DARKNESS CREATURE HERE
How do you react?

Well of course honey. I was the one who sold you off to that fae in the first place. How do you think I got your mother to marry me?

>off comes belt

What comes next? Well...
Depends on your concept of what's good and what's bad.

it will either be painful, sexy, or both. Eitherway, it will be morally questionable

Same desu

>I'm a Demon!

I reveal myself to be a Hunter/Killer Angel in the form of the Demon's Cover's father. I must eliminate the Demon before she finds her Cover's actual father in the basement, where I chained him up.

Jesus fucking christ, I thought she grew out of pretending to be made up bullshit ages ago.
Goddamn "kin" bullshit.

>"I am a Genius, and here is my Amazon wishlist for my next project."
"Alright darling, whatever you want. Just don't fry my brain, ok?"
"...hold on... 57 dildos?!..."

Look, someone's going to have to solve Japan's birth rate problem. You gonna buy her those dildos or what?

The powers all revolve around transforming into your magical girl form...

Like I said, I feel like if you're cool with playing Magical Girls, it's got more than you could want (especially since most magical girl games don't have any of the social groups for you to hang your hat on, and tend to just be superhero games with more lace and frills).

The reason that Werewolves are unlike the mythology and cultural depictions of Werewolves is because "guy who flips out and tries to kill his friends and family once a month" isn't a very interesting game concept, and the "godsent antihero border patrol" aspect gives them something to hang their hat on. The Tribes give more than enough focus.

Clearly she's a Demon, since I have none of those things, least of all a teenage daughter. I would have had to have her at 13...

Well, that does explain the trench coat and wooden stakes

Honey, that's not an official splat, come back to me when you're a registered trademark

>I feel like if you're cool with playing Magical Girls, it's got more than you could want

But then you play it, and it's just a generic CofD template with magical girl flavoring. It's not like Demon, where it manages to be both a CofD game and a spy game at the same time. That gives it this hollow feeling at the table that never really goes away.

The problem about whether or not people are comfortable with being magical girls, the problem is whether or not the game itself is fun to play. I don't think it is, but again, mileages vary.

>The powers all revolve around transforming into your magical girl form...

And beyond that, it's just any old CofD game, which becomes very clear once you're playing it long enough. If you're lucky, the strength of the setting can at least offset the encroaching feeling that there's nothing really special about the splat. Yes, it does check all the boxes of what a CofD game should have. If that's good enough for you, by all means, but I think on-the-table experience is just as important, even if it is super subjective.

I need the Dark Eras Companion so bad

You and me both.

But I'll just make do with reading more of promethean.

>But then you play it, and it's just a generic CofD template with magical girl flavoring
The last time I played a Magical Girl game it was literally just a superhero game. It didn't even have any of the systems or setting in place to support specifically magical girls; we were just teenage girls who happened to be superheroes and fight monsters on school nights and worry about Buffy the Vampire Slayer style issues of "oh no, I'm just a monster hunter, how am I ever going to have a real life".
I don't even know what playing "just any old CofD game" is supposed to mean, since all of them play very differently.

I still want a Mirrors 2e.

I really want the Black Plague era as soon as possible. Prometheans and Vampires? Hell yeah!

In the meantime, I'll just ST a game of Prometheans 2nd edition

So does anyone have cool Scion concepts they're sitting on?

I want to do a Created Scion of Anpu/Anubis who is an ushabti, one of the little stone statues buried with the Egyptian dead to do slave labor in the afterlife. He's there to keep the line between the dead and the living, clashing with rebirth deities like Azar/Osiris and The Dagda.

Chris has the most adorable but disruptive kid in the universe.

>Created Scion
As in a Promethean who is ALSO a Scion?

I dunno much about Scion in general, but I'm pretty curious how a Scion of Gwydion, Thoth, or any other Magic deity would work.
I'm a huge dork and I always go for wizards/sorcerers/mages when the option is presented.

Scion now has four 'Geneses,' whereas first edition only had one. Born are what you'd expect, Chosen are selected by the gods, Created are likewise straightforward, and then Incarnate are pieces of that god.

WTF, does this look like Scion general to you nerdlings?

Just kidding.

I'm sad I never got to play my Anansi Scion because the one Scion game I was going to join collapsed.

Expect a Scion general once the Kickstarter gets underway. Hopefully we'll have some folks willing to run games!

Once Scion: God hits, I'll get to make my Incarnate Scion of Azar/Osiris who rewrites the classic myth as a transgender narrative; the man severs his masculinity and rules the underworld as a goddess.

That's pretty gay bro.

>Thoth
>not relishing every opportunity to type and say Djehuti

And?

And what? It just is gay. Like a penis in a man's butt. Like enjoying oWoD. Like the sexual tension in Supernatural. Just statements of fact.

>Like the sexual tension in Supernatural.

Also, transgender Scion isn't gay, it's queer. Gays aren't the only ones.

I have to wonder if the Ashwood Abbey will get demoted to villain status or not.

I don't think of it as a demotion, but I hope so. They (and Cheiron) belong in the Antagonist section. It fits them better.

I'm still really mad at Scion 1e

I went to a ridiculous amount of trouble putting together a Scion of Kalfu I thought would be fun, a classic pulp investigative reporter with a smooth voice and a big gun in the Big Easy.

Game fell apart in two sessions because of how trash the system is.

They would be so much more fun as antagonists. They play the role well.

But I mean, if they get fleshed out enough, like Slashers were, people can always choose to play them anyway. Evil campaigns are pretty common in most RPGs.

reminds me that one group member suggested we play a mage 2e game as Seers.

Cheiron is ambiguous enough that it can work either way.
Ashwood Abbey doesn't feel like something you can have PCs be a part of and not have it be a crowd of That Guys.

Is there any reason to get 'stuck in a role' as a Promethean except in character? It seems to be like, all negatives.

I have an issue.

I can't seem to pop conditions out.
And if I can't do that I can't give the players beats.

My players don't attempt to put it on NPC's or each other.

And the general interaction between NPC's isn't long lasting enough for them to warrant any of the default conditions.

Tips for motivating me & the players to use them or anyone got some sweet custom conditions that you see get used frequently?

There's an important line between Hunters aimed for play and Hunters that make great antagonists.

Have you seen the 2e preview yet? It looks mechanically sound.

I literally just played the highlander splat today as a one shot. It doesn't work well if you want a party dynamic unless you want everyone killing each other. Also the drama of The Gathering isn't interesting enough to warrant a secret society.

It could just be my poor Gming. If you have good motivated players I'm sure it could be great.

You could even have sweet flashbacks to try and look for Clues

I dunno. I feel like the Ashwood Abbey is fine if you don't focus on wanting to literally fuck everything ever. Like, being a secretary/assistant/other hireling to this old gnarly rich dude who loves to go on hunting trips in the Congo, where he hunts the most dangerous game: Changing Breeds

Wait how's zombie and giant play?

Don't you fuckin' take Cheiron from me.

Aren't the old most dangerous game guys a different hunter group? I thought most of the Abbey were young, drunk, rich college punks.

So, would Ebola-Chan be a Created or an Incarnate Scion of Babalu-Aye? ;)

Which one is the most priviledged scum?

Do cell phones get reception in Twilight?

Twilight isn't a place, it's a state of matter.
So, yes, unless your ST has a very good plot reason for the answer to be no.

The reason I say Cheiron should be as Antagonists is because they handle that role a lot better. They don't have to be eeeeevul, but they're very much not on the Vigil; they're working for a reason and that reason isn't to lift up the candle and protect the world from the dark. I see them as fitting better as Antagonists because they're the group that goes out of its way to hunt for something other than security.

They've also always been seen by most fans (or at least presented as such by most games) as being the company that's most likely to want to dissect members of other Conspiracy groups. They're the guys who if you don't work for them make you a crazy autistic with waif fu going on about hands of blue.

Being in the Antagonist section doesn't make them unplayable, but it does say "hey, maybe don't play these guys unless your group is okay with that kind of thing" (that said, multi-Org Hunter is basically as ridiculous as Crossover is).

Ashwood Abbey are literally a Hellfire Club. Like the Hellfire Club from X-Men, but not mutants. They're rich pricks who abuse their wealth and privilege to fuck and fight monsters. That they've got a super rapey vibe going on is the least of reasons that they're more fitting as antagonists.

Twilight may not be a place, but I don't think a phase shifted phone is going to work well. It may transmit, but anything it receives is gonna just be ~ghooooostly~

>Hunter/Killer Angel in the form of the Demon's Cover's father
"That boy ain't right."

Better question: can /pol/ meme a Titan (Kek) into an "ordinary" God, through Meme Magic Fatebinding?

>anything it receives is gonna just be ~ghooooostly~
This is a good point, actually
Anything you send out might be a bit static-y and spooky-sounding, depending on which Twilight you're attuned to
Ghost Twilight? Probably pretty similar to how the radio sounded when Eleven was using it in Stranger Things
Spirit Twilight? You might end up catching some stray spirits' voices, especially those who are related to phones/radios/signals in nature

I still want to see Mummy Twilight reconciled with everything else.

I disagree with the Cheiron. Kind of. The organization are villains, but not necessarily the people. They are just regular Joes who got in way over their heads and can't get out.

That would be interesting.

Yeah, but most of the Conspiracies are like that. With Cheiron, you're still a company man.

youtube.com/watch?v=fEocj1eLsmg
Which Gameline accommodates Deado's the best?

Remember: All exceptional successes, and all dramatic failures, give conditions.

Yeah. Whereas with groups like the Ashwood Abbey, you CHOOSE to be a raging degenerate.

Print off some cards with condition details on them.
People will care and remember more if you have physical copies.

I can see why this movie got shit ratings

Eh, apart from Fat Elvis it didn't have anything going for it.

I find the idea of Genius appealing, so I'm rather inclined to try and rewrite it for 2e. Not sure how to make the template really stand out, though, which is really the key issue. I was considering the idea of Geniuses donating Health dots to their Wonders, making them a lot squishier than your regular template.
I'm also considering the idea of Geniuses interacting with Infrastructure, though not necessarily the GM itself. Make them a lot closer to Demons than Mages, discovering and utilising hidden occult laws to build their Wonders. They can do it from scratch, but they're much more powerful if they steal parts of Infrastructure. Does that sound interesting to anyone?

Fuck off with this, Aspel. They really don't belong in the antags section and they are STILL hunters.

Both of those sound like pretty bad ideas to me.

Quite a lot of people disagree. Ashwood Abbey at least are incredibly likely to be put in the Antagonist section.

>rewrite it for 2e.
You know that already exists, right?

I sure don't! Just google Genius 2e? Is it in development or finished?

Genius 2e is still in development. Devs mostly argue what about first edition worked and what needs to be expanded or fixed. Seems at the moment they are arguing whether or not Obligation (their Morality replacement stat) should be rewritten and how.

Oh neat! Guess that saves me the trouble.
Maybe I could start working on Legends: The Destiny instead...

Either Geist: The Sin Eaters or Wraith: The Oblivion

Hmm...if we were using Geist, aside from mutating horribly in the presence of cumin, you could pull these guys off rather easily. The Soul Stench could be explained thusly:

>As a Deado walks in the real world it drags its ghostly Anchors behind it, these Anchors impact Ectoplasm laced with the Deados Vices into objects,causing them to malfunction and rot.