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

hey I'm new to the world of darkness, coming from the vtmb game on pc.

a few threads ago when I was lurking someone was posting a bald man with a bunch of blue girl arms.

what game line is that from and what is it about? I have a fetish for lots of arms

Welp, keep in mind that Vampire:TMB is from the OLD world of darkness! It has since been rebooted, and a lot has changed!

Geist the Sin-Eaters
It's the last game published by White Wolf before they got bought by CCP, and it's a mess.
You play someone who died, but got saved by a powerful ghost who bound itself to your soul.

You can also have lots of arms in Demon, fyi

Technically speaking, Unchained aren't affected by Disquiet, but if they don't "play along" their Covers suffer Compromise.

I... don't think so?

I mean, vampires are pretty much walking corpses, unless you're a thinblood in WoD.

Regular vamps don't have heartbeats, they can't eat food or drink water (outside of merits), they are cold to the touch and pale as a... well, a corpse.

Thinbloods can often eat food (and keep it down for a time, and even digest it if they *really* want to spend the blood for it), many still retain a blush of health (albeit a bit dimmed) and some warmth to their skin. In some cases their hair and fingernails still grow, and some thinbloods aren't even immortal and instead simply grow older at a much-reduced rate.

But if we're talking regular vamps, yes. They literally have to die before they can become vampires. They're enchanted/cursed corpses at their core.

>It has since been rebooted

In more ways than one.

You got the Chronicles of Darkness (which used to be called "New World of Darkness"), and then you got the original World of Darkness, which is what VtM:Bloodlines is based on.

And (Old) World of Darkness has recieved an Anniversary Edition in recent years, which has pumped new blood into the game and cleaned up a lot of the shitty rules and whatnot.

Personally, I prefer the (Old) World of Darkness. I find it to be a more interesting place to play chronicles in.

Not quite correct. They ARE affected by disquiet, however they are in complete control of their emotions and thus they can chose not to act on the effects. That said, obviously ignoring disquiet could lead to cover compromise.

Any annoucements from Grand Masquerade yet?

Only 14 rapes so far, decent for an event of this size

So can someone give me the cliff notes on how mummies use their pillars for stuff?

Goth vamps are sucking off other goth vamps.

Bunch of lightweights

Handful of Dust will be a single-chapter POD. What's up with that? Did they rewrite it to better fit with 2nd edition?

That's not how it works. Demons have complete control over what their Cover *displays*, not what they actually *feel*.

Their primum doesn't "feel" anything, it's not a construct that's equipped to have emotions. A demons emotions are derived from its human half

Why are Beasts unaffected by disquiet? Besides just being the most Special Snowflakes of the WoD that is.

>you don't get to know what it does to Mummies

Well fine then. I didn't want to know anyway!

Because they're the designated crossover splat. I'm sure if you asked someone in charge it'd be something like "They're too far from humanity to be affected"

The write up in the Demon Storyteller's Guide lays it out more clearly: Demons can ignore Disquiet, but not acting on it can be a Compromise, as that is the effect that a normal human would have in that situation.

>Disquiet: Whenever a Promethean does something explicitly inhuman or the Storyteller fails a Social roll for the character, all players whose characters witness the failure must roll Resolve + Composure. On a failure, she gains the Disquiet condition. A demon can choose to ignore any Disquiet effects levied against her, though this forces her player to roll for compromise unless she is in demonic form.
>Disquiet
>You’re filled with disgust for whatever Promethean was unlucky enough to catch your attention. You need to make life difficult for him, but this progresses towards antagonism, violence, and eventually murder.
>Resolution: The Promethean that caused it is killed, or the character stays away from the Promethean for the next three scenes. If the Disquiet was suffered by a Cover, switching to another Cover does not resolves this Condition as the affected Cover regains it when the demon switches back.
>Beat: Prevent the Promethean from accomplishing a goal. Do lethal damage to the Promethean. Get in the way of his Pilgrimage. Kill him. Each time one of the criteria for taking a Beat from this condition is fulfilled, the next time a player takes a Beat from this Condition, she must select a different task from this list.
I like that the whole thing is condensed to one "do this, then your choices are limited next time" Condition; I like that Demon takes the Hunter route for things. In the Demon STG, Prometheans:
>Have 3/3 Armour
>Three Embeds or Exploits, flavoured as Transmutations
>one Form Power to represent their Bestowment
>Heal 1L/2B/half an Agg each round of touching electricity
>Disquiet as above
>If they have a major setback, roll Resolve + Composure and if they fail they Torment

I was going to say that it's because their souls have been replaced with their Horrors, then I remembered that vampires and werewolves post-First Change don't have souls anymore either, so it can't be anything other than "Special Snowflake"-syndrome.

>I'm sure if you asked someone in charge it'd be something like "They're too far from humanity to be affected"
Or maybe it's that they're goetia formed of nightmares and their entire schtick is glomming onto other things and mimicking them.

>Too far from humanity
>Demons are affected
>Top kek

Again, it's because their entire schtick is mimicry and they're literally mindforms inhabiting a human body.

I have the impression that Sin-eaters will essentially be able to resist due to having ghosts in their head. If I'm not mistaken, Ghosts aren't effected by Disquiet or anything, other than Ulgans narratively making people more haunted.

Demon's entire schtick is pretending to be human.

Demons are "affected" in so much as their human cover is affected and they can still ignore it because the cover is not the primum.

>The affliction worms its way into the victim’s mind — and the victim doesn’t necessarily have to be mortal. Anything not animated by Azoth is susceptible, including most other supernatural beings and animals. The only entities that don’t have to worry about it are other Prometheans, Pandorans, and the enigmatic qashmallim.

Beasts are immune because they're super special snowflakes and they want to be able to be included in every game ever

Will BtP ever not be shit?

Yes. It isn't shit right now.
Will Beast ever be able to be mentioned without idiots whining that it's the super special snowflakes?
No. No, we will all have to deal with that forever.

What's beast like then?

Wife Beater Simulator 2016™

When Chronicles rolls around to 3rd Edition, they might manage to rework the line into something worthwhile.

It's alternate unofficial name is Abuser: the Justification.

Then McFarland should have left his goddamn soapbox at the door when he wrote it.

All it needs is some direction.

>They're Sin-eaters, but with nightmares instead of Geists
>The nightmares have a secret nightmare lair in the dreamworld
>And actual rules
>They need to be fed by scaring people
>They believe they're related to all the other monsters
>They can feed by watching other supers regain their juice
>They make new powers by watching other supers do things
>There's even less social splats than Geist
>They have nightmare afflicted badguys who think killing Beasts will get them laid
>They don't have a Morality stat, it's their energy stat instead
>There's nothing to do except feed your Horror by spooking people
>Or you can join up with other supers and tag along and feed your Horror by watching them
People treat it like the game is saying abuse is a-okay and Beasts are justifying their actions and trying to say they're the best.
These same people probably defend Vampire and say you can totally feed "safely".

No, he shouldn't. No one should.

Why don't you just go back to the OPP forums Aspel? Fellating Hill and McFarland is generally appreciated there.

Shut the fuck up, Aspel

Oh my I wonder why people would think such things

>Beasts are monsters. They can’t be otherwise. They must be allowed to hunt, feed, and even kill

> Human psychologists draw a distinction between negative reinforcement (teaching a behavior by associating it with the stopping of something unpleasant) and punishment (teaching to avoid a behavior by following it with something unpleasant), but few Beasts feel the need to split that hair.

>Teaching a lesson through terror is morally reprehensible to most people…but Beasts are not people.

Do you apply withstand penalties if the target(s) are unaware that a spell is being cast? e.g. casting a spell to put all the potential sleeper witnesses in the building to ironically fall asleep

Yes, withstand still applies

Cool, thanks.

Unless they get exceptional success ofcourse.

Anyone know how much Benedictions cost in 2e?

Benedictions from the Hunter the Vigil conspiracy, Malleus Maleficarum. Mortal Remains seems to leave that out, but I doubt it's the same flat 5 xp considering the experience changes

Knowing and Unveiling spells seem like they'd all make great Praxis abilities. You're probably going to be casting them frequently, they're low risk, and you'll have tons of reach to play with.

I'm just going off of hearsay. Would it be possible to make Beast not utter shit if you dropped the pretext of them hunting 'heroes' entirely and made said heroes just... utter monsters? Like use the word "Hero" ironically?

Oh yes, He's a hero alright. He's a former Russian general... who now owns a major corporation that puts African children to work mining rare earth metals. A true paragon of humanity, he is!

Hero is already used ironically.

Beasts don't hunt Heroes.

I honestly miss when Beasts created Heroes on accident, mostly because Ahabs are one of the most fun ideas out of Leviathan.

From what little I have seen (MRAs!) it isn't.

well I mean you could still do that, right?

I don't even like either of them that much. I just think these arguments are made by idiots.
Also, the place I go "back" to is here. This is my place.
No.

Oh no, Beasts think highly of themselves. This is something no other splat has ever done at all. Surely no game ever had monsters saying they were totally justified in being monsters. Certainly not a game about vampires in 1991.

That's always how it is, they just can't up their Withstand unless they're aware of it. Also do you mean incidentally or something? "Ironically" fall asleep doesn't make much sense.

Probably is intended to be. Go with what you think is appropriate. 2 is probably best.

Beast don't hunt Heroes, Heroes hunt Beasts. It is used ironically. Heroes are more along the lines of Gaston. Who was a paragon of manliness who also:
>Locked Belle's father up to get her to sleep with him
>Put together a lynch mob
>Realized Belle loved Beast, so wanted to kill him more
>Did it all just to get his dick wet
Also, what Beast needs is direction and focus, instead of being the, what, third (failed) attempt at making a game with no social groups or anything like that? At least in demon it works because of the big high concept.

Just report his bullshit. He won't put on a trip, and he won't shut up, so just report his trolling bullshit.

Aspel, the /game itself/ says the monsters are justified in being monsters. Are you defending this?

When will we get news from the Grand Masquerade? All I want is 4e news. I have been waiting 18 years.

4e is out already man, it's called V20.

5e is next on the table, and that's in the White Wolf department.

I would if it was for a good cause. As is, it seems you'd need to take a scalpel to the splatbook in order to make it less... weird.

Its clear WW were trying to go for an anti-hero sorta thing. They fucked up by making said beasts wholly unsympathetic (and ironically, making the heroes somewhat sympathetic in terms of whats happening to them)

Okay, then 5e.

White Wolf needs to quit fucking around and announce a goddamn game.

...

Which book is the Armory merit in?

If you mean "esoteric armory," its in the both the new CofD main book and the old free update to the nWoD corebook. I believe the merit is in the ephemeral entities section, rather than the main merit chapter.

I don't mean esoteric armory. I mean the first edition merit.

Doesn't exist in CofD at all, the closest examples are Esoteric Armory and Advanced Armory from Hunter(the Taskforce VALKYRIE endowment)

oWoD has an Armory background, though, I think.

Pretty sure it's in the book of the same name, Armory.

>Taking part in the thread is trolling
It says it as much as Masquerade or Requiem says it.

Beasts aren't wholly unsympathetic. Heroes are only sympathetic if you're some weirdo who thinks killing people for being [thing] is okay. Jesus, the book bends over backwards to pander to people who hated the first draft and people still act like it's the same.

There is plenty of space for sympathetic Beasts, and the book even shows plenty of them off. It also shows spiteful assholes, but that never bothers anyone in the other books.

>Heroes are only sympathetic if you're some weirdo who thinks killing people for being [thing] is okay.

You know, you can dispute one hyperbole without completely falling into the complete and opposite hyperbole. I know you're always ready and willing to go to bat for games like Beast and Cthulutech, but you really gotta think about what you write before you post it.

>Heroes are only sympathetic if you're some weirdo who thinks killing people for being [thing] is okay

Considering we are talking about nightmarish creatures... Yes. Yes I do.

Thats not what makes heroes unsympathetic. Heroes don't care about fighting beasts because its the right thing to do, they only care about fighting beasts because it makes them look good and they're obviously the most important person around.
Anyone else fighting beasts usually has a fairly good reason to be doing so.

>Heroes are only sympathetic if you're some weirdo who thinks killing people for being [thing] is okay.

Really Aspel? You're really gonna play the 'Beasts dindu nutin'-card? When the [thing] Heroes kill is a confirmed torturer/rapist/murderer/cannibal then the Hero is most certainly sympathetic. The fact that McFarland outright wrote that the only 'good' Heroes are the ones that completely ignore Beasts, no matter how monstrous or vile it is in sating its Hunger, is kinda a problem.

>killing people for being [thing] is okay
When that [thing] is a nightmarish monster with no kind of moral compass who either by act or ommission torments the general population (bar crossovers), yeah, I think that's a sympathetic character.

You're not shooting a guy because he's a gay black jew.
You're shooting a fucking monster that drives people mad, because it's a fucking monster that drives people mad.

Don't drag ctech into this.

Does anyone not like the rules for combat in Chronicles? Or at least the defense being so much higher for melee weapons?

It's not 'higher', it just applies to anything that isn't a firearm or otherwise exempt.
Thrown weapon still need to deal with Defense.

It's almost like dodging a bullet is hard, or something.

Something something WHITE ROOM something something REALISTIC.

I find it retarded, personally.

I dislike it. But I take it as purposeful design.

I think they want people to suck at hitting in melee unless they either A) have melee dots B) spend resources to get the hit, plus C) use the environment and tilts.

Unlike guns where spray and pray should be a possibility in dire situations, I rationalize the change as saying 'fights between untrained people are pathetic and usually not effective'

It's like Aspel never read any version of the Hero Sleeping Beauty regardless of draft or final.

The reason I don't like it doesn't have anything to do with guns being super dangerous, that's true for nWoD anyways.

I don't think it's retarded, I just think that it takes away the feeling of "any moment I might die" by giving melee a massive defense boost.

I agree with it being purposeful, it makes the gap between guns and melee intensely large and I see how that can be nice. The problem I find is it makes melee practically useless if the baddies put points into athletics.

Yeah. I was in a hunter game using 2e.

We had to catch a high school athlete once. Innocent girl that might have been possessed.

It didn't go well. She was just slightly overturned, and it made all but our melee bruiser useless. Even if her stats had been closer to normal, we would have been burning willpower to keep nangrip on her.

But Heroes don't kill Beasts because they are evil, they kill out of compulsion.

This is why Defense should be the lower of Athletics and Brawl.

I wanna be the hero

I love the CofD Defense rules... Because they're silly.
Defensive Combat (Weaponry), Quick Draw (Swords), Mage Armour (Fate/Space/Time).

Cut bullets out of the air, or use Space to parry them at someone else.

Do note that when you get to playing the tabletop, most of the powers won't match up with what you see in Bloodlines because of the need to adapt the powers to an FPS.

If a Hero manages to kill that Namtaru Ravager that has stalked, killed, and eaten 20 people over the last month, then guess what? I won't much care why they did it, because that's one less murderous, maneating beastie making the WoD a shitty place.

Hey atamajakki, why do you love mummies so?

What if they get a bunch of people killed in the process because they don't care about the consequences as long as they kill a Beast?

Inherited Egyptomania from my dad, a fondness for how it screws with the default mechanical assumptions of CofD, and the excuse to explore damn near any period of human history in play.

Not that guy, but even if I don't like the hero, I'd still be glad that Beast is dead. I can be against both of them and still prefer one over another.

>Teaching a lesson through terror
This meme needs to end. There is ZERO support for these "lessons" in BtP, and it's painfully obvious that they're used as a justification for Beasts' degenerate urges.

>Oh no, Beasts think highly of themselves. This is something no other splat has ever done at all. Surely no game ever had monsters saying they were totally justified in being monsters. Certainly not a game about vampires in 1991.

VtM vampires' self-importance was nothing compared to the amount of self-fellating that's all the rage amongst Beasts.

Also, that was one of the aspects that people didn't like about Masquerade, or did but then got very fatigued of it after many many source books that leaned too hard on that aspect. of the game. Though, I suppose there's a point to that statement, Beast can certainly come off as a parody of 90s White Wolf games.

when hunter compact that focuses on hunting beasts?

(the one that hunts heroes actually sounds kinda fun)

How would you build a genie character in your favorite gameline?

Roll up a Mummy, make only wishes that involve murder or theft.