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

I know roleplaying can draw out a lot of huge faggots from out of the shadows of this world, but why is that WoD has a talent for it?

Bloodlines

We're the closest Veeky Forums has to normies besides people who got into D&D because of Big Bang Theory

I'm working on those Jungian hunters, but I can't come up with good rules for hypnosis and psychotherapy. Does anyone know if a book has something about that? Maybe Asylum?

How much Willpower can a character spend on a turn?
Horrors can spend based on their Potency, so I assume normal humans can just spend 1 per turn. But I can't actually FIND that any where.
Also, can Supers spend the same as humans?

>The setting had enough to it that people could create their own thing using what existed as a guideline, regardless of how diverse the different gamelines were.

The system's commonalities were a task resolution system, and even these had its variants as new games were developed. While that's still certainly enough to make the roots of a new game, that's not ideal or very encouraging. Add in that White Wolf wanted to present at that time that their games were very special, and it creates an insular home-brewing community that prefers to make new material for the setting the system is attached to, as opposed to anything separate.

>The company not being OGL is not the kind of thing that would ever stop hackers.

It wouldn't stop, but it doesn't encourage them either. A robust hacking culture is created from a designer that encourages that kind of action. Apocalypse World breaks down how moves work so that people could create their own version, Fate breaks down how its action systems work, Fate Accelarated lets you re-name its stats to whatever your setting may want to be, and the OGL is an OGL. What they all have in common is that they present the rules as something separate from the setting, something that can be pulled out, reformulated, and plugged back in. That's the opposite of what White Wolf wanted out of their games. It's not like they were selling you a system like GURPS was, they were selling you a full experience that no other game (at the time) could really replicate. That's why the White Wolf Heartbreaker is so short lived, while the Fantasy Heartbreaker will be with us forever.

>And Storypath is similar enough to the existing systems that it's worth talking about here.

Except it's not. Storypath is for action/adventure games. Storyteller was for horror/urban fantasy games and occasionally modded for high fantasy and epic urban fantasy. Storytelling is meant to do horror/urban fantasy better than Storyteller.

1WP/action

They're not Aspects, but they're clearly the same thought process.

David Hill actually stated in the Changeling Tokyo preview thread that you can spend as much Willpower per turn as you want. The only limit is one point per ACTION.

It actually does say this under Willpower. Page 73.

>Add in that White Wolf wanted to present at that time that their games were very special, and it creates an insular home-brewing community that prefers to make new material for the setting the system is attached to, as opposed to anything separate.
But this doesn't follow. I mean, your whole argument boils down to "oWoD wasn't as cohesive as nWoD", but then you go and say "so people did homebrew, but only in the existing setting".

But again, the question is WHY people only homebrewed WoD fansplats in the WoD setting, instead of using the mechanics to make non-WoD games.

People were clearly capable of making their own mechanical systems using the Storyteller framework. That's not really even a big question; it's a thing that happened, we can point to examples of it.

What is unusual is that it was all in the same core setting, instead of being outside of that (like Chris' Mass: the Effecting).

You keep making circular arguments, and addressing aspects that don't matter ("the corporate culture didn't encourage homebrew"). Homebrew happened. Hacking was a thing. The question isn't why it never happened, it's why it was always tied to the existing setting. And I know that primarily it's because the setting is the big draw, but it's still weird that it was so big in the 90s but no one homebrewed it for OTHER THINGS.

Storypath is clearly of the same lineage. Just as using WoD for Exalted or Trinity follows from the same lineage.

1. Look into the Horrors system from the Chronicles of Darkness Corebook. As a word of warning, you will need a copy of Hunter: The Vigil: Mortal Remains to make the CofD corebook play nice with Hunter. An easy, simple way of making monsters.

If you either don't want to do that, or can't afford the books, use this rule of thumb when making dice pools for antagonists: a set of three 10s has a very high chance of netting you one success, so your pools should be built in multiples of three. Weak aspects have 3, Average aspects have about 5-6, Strong aspects have 9.

2. The CofD corebook for both Horrors and the God Machine Chronicle inside, World of Darkness: Antagonists, and the Night Horrors series are a decent place to start for ideas.

3. I don't know a whole lot about SCP, but:

-A foreign power is attempting to infiltrate and subvert the organization
-An SCP containment project is too close to a source of civilian life for comfort, you must resolve the situation without going hot
-An internal power struggle between two or more directors of the organization has far reaching consequences
-A team-building exercise gets a little too weird when a friendly SCP gets involved

Infrequent but often enough to be keep my players on their toes. Other splats making guest appearances are always turned up to 11, vampires are ancient puppet masters with seemingly endless resources and servants, werewolves are unstoppable juggernauts of fur and fury, mages are avatars of incomprehensible power, etc.

Inferno demons go well with anything too,

I love Inferno more than is healthy, but even I have to admit it's a bit fucked mechaically

>I mean, your whole argument boils down to "oWoD wasn't as cohesive as nWoD", but then you go and say "so people did homebrew, but only in the existing setting".

No, my argument is that because of the way White Wolf presented its games, and how it treated its system, its home-brewing community did not develop a huge interest in creating and supporting a hacking community. Because things in the past effect future things, this continued even when the system was replaced with a system that would be more friendly to hacking.

>The question isn't why it never happened, it's why it was always tied to the existing setting. And I know that primarily it's because the setting is the big draw, but it's still weird that it was so big in the 90s but no one homebrewed it for OTHER THINGS.

If you understood exactly what impact White Wolf and its games had on the gaming community, it wouldn't be that strange. Even though they were presented as "a storytelling game of X", people didn't call the game "Storyteller" as much as they would say, "I'm playing a White Wolf game" or just "I'm playing Vampire". It was so unique, and it was created through its marketing to be so unique, that the fandom it had just wasn't as interested in doing something else with it. That's why homebrew existed, but hacking (for this conversation, a total conversion hack a la Dungeon World or something like Afghanistan d20) wasn't very common.

You keep thinking it's a circular argument because you don't want to get it. It really is that simple. If there was a popular fan hack, or if White Wolf had published some sort of guide to hacking the system, we'd have more of them. But that didn't happen, and therefore here we are. Nothing happens without precedence.

>Storypath is clearly of the same lineage. Just as using WoD for Exalted or Trinity follows from the same lineage.

Except we're not talking about lineage. Lineage doesn't matter. It's mechanically different enough.

I don't know if answers your question, but during the 90's oWoD was one of the most common roleplaying materials around in Brazil, and it was hacked for everything you can think.

But, the biggest proponents were a Street Fighter 2, Matrix, and something else.

And I agree with your point. Storyteller is generic as fuck and could be used for anything, but people got hung up on Vampire and Werewolf.

Great advice, thanks! I'm pretty psyched to get started, first time as DM and the group is excited for a spooky game (though I'm not sure if they are serious enough to stop goofing off).

Nah.

Good book, lotsa whiners.

>No, my argument is that because of the way White Wolf presented its games, and how it treated its system, its home-brewing community did not develop a huge interest in creating and supporting a hacking community. Because things in the past effect future things, this continued even when the system was replaced with a system that would be more friendly to hacking.
white wolf doesn't have a community
onyx path forums has lots of homebrew, across all games even wod

>Envy is better than Mages

ok

>WoD
>Closest thing we have to normies
>

My first Mage game also had us, the players, trying to kill what was almost certainly a Frankenstein. Killing Prometheans is some kind of Mage rite of passage.

It did in the 90s and the early 2000s. That's the basis behind my argument, that the fan culture of that time encouraged an insular kind of homebrew, and not as much anything beyond that.

I don't use the OPP forums, but if there's a hacking community there, then that's cool! I don't want my point to come of as "and this will be why there'll never be hacks of Storyteller/Storytelling ever ever ever", just that there's a really obvious reason why this sort of thing never caught on.

Oh neat, I didn't know that! I always love hearing about the international scenes for tabletop RPGs.

Hacking is creating homebrews. Mechanically, all of the homebrews were hacks. That's not the question. The question is "why were these all set in the main setting instead of their own thing".

Shit, Dungeon World and D&D don't even have guides to hacking the system.

Oh? I know Street Fighter was an official supplement, but The Matrix?
Maybe this was a Brazil only thing? If so, that's neat.

It's not very mechanically sound.

>I don't use the OPP forums, but if there's a hacking community there, then that's cool!
Actually, it's still mostly making games in the existing setting. Princess at least *tries* to fit the tone, but Genius is so wildly different that mechanical problems aside it would be better served as it's own game, unrelated to the wizards and vampires.

Inferno is shit.
Anyone making a game, don't listen to this guy. Use it sparingly to never. You are better off just using basic spirit rules for any demon.

Lust and Pride are balanced

>The question is "why were these all set in the main setting instead of their own thing".

Because the fan culture, created through various factors of how the original games were presented, was far more interested in the setting as presented than in doing something with just the system. When this is added with a bar of entry that appears high, this lessens the chances of extra-setting homebrew.

>Shit, Dungeon World and D&D don't even have guides to hacking the system.

Again, D&D is a special case in that it is the oldest and most popular game on the market. Until sometime after the internet age started, there was a huge chance that it would be the only game anyone would ever play, unless you had access to some more in-the-know friends or attended a gaming club. This meant that it would be made to do games it could not really do more out of necessity than out of choice.

The actual basics of hacking *World game do not like in the Dungeon World book, since it itself is a hack, but in the last chapter of the Apocalypse World book, "Advanced Fuckery".

When it's easier to separate setting from system and there's a low barrier to entry, you will see extra-setting homebrew/hacks. If there isn't, you won't. It's that simple.

I am pleased to see that things were different in Brazil, though. I could have some theories as to why this would happen in Brazil and not among American WoD fan spaces, but I don't know enough about the Brazillian WoD fandom or general tabletop RPG scene for any that I may come up with to have real weight.

There was and still is a very big roleplaying scene here in Brazil, and a boardgame one is growing fast.

There was LOTS of stuff, mostly unofficial. An old RPG magazine used to adapt and publish different things into Storyteller, we also got Paranoia in it for some reason.

I feel like this is going nowhere to be honest.

>Do you include matireils from other game-lines in your game?
I've had Changelings, Werewolves and Vampires star in my Mage game so far.
All as minor characters, situational threats, or situations they've had to rescue others from.

I have a mission planned for an encounter with an arm of the God-Machine, an ingenious inventor being fed inspiration by an Angel who also acts as his protector.
When the players discover this, being the nosy little shits that Mages are bound to be, the G-M will want to relocate its asset and the project.
However that individual is an interest of another Mage, and he doesn't want him running off, causing a 3-way tussle over the genius.
This eventually leads the G-M to decide to burn the project, ordering the Angel to kill its ward. However the Angel has come to love its ingenious companion, and the order causes it to fall.

>genius
TRIGGERED!
I know that isn't what you meant

Well, feel free to elaborate and think up hypothesis, the Brazilian RPG scene was based around homebrew, hacks, and general "piracy" of books and supplements.

In the 90's was really hard to come by the books, and specialized gameshops could only be found on gibber cities, and till the 00's, only in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte. So in general, if you wanted new material you had to 1) import it 2) wait for translation and publishing 3) develop it yourself.

Given that for the most part RPG players were college undergrads with almost no money, mostly STEM students, in a pre-internet era or mostly without sufficient enough access to it, developing stuff over old stuff was the rule.

I think the only two systems we had clear and easy access to were AD&D and everything White Wolf, except for Changeling, for very contrived and bureaucratic reasons. There was a very big push during the DnD 3.x era, so we got everything that was published, even some translated Dragon Magazines.

Oh, and you won't find any miniature tabletop games here except for Mage Knight and Hero Clix. You get awful lots of MTG here.

And yes, metalheads are the same everywhere in the world.

Does anyone have any ideas for new Dread Powers or Conditions?

I decided to try and make a fansplat in the vein of Night Horrors. The first section is devoted to going through and giving an overview of how to create cheap-o knock off versions of the main gameline monsters, in the same sort of way that Hunter would do it. I'm going to make new Dread Powers or tweak some of the ones from 1e/Mortal Remains, as well as make new Conditions that work with the powers. And probably some Derangements/Flaws while I'm at it.

As an example, here's a power that could represent Demon Pacts, Changeling Pledges, or even making someone a Ghoul. It's based on the power of the same name from Mortal Remains, but that one is ranked, rolled, and only gives one specific Merit for each version of the power.

Thoughts on what I'm doing? Any advice? I'm going to be using the crossover stuff from the Demon STG as a general guide, but I'm not necessarily going to do the same stuff. My goals also aren't exactly the same, in that I want to intentionally give cheapo versions and alternate options, instead of just saying "here's how you have an Ordo Dracul without using Requiem".

Aw man, thank you so much, this post is awesome!

Based on your rundown, my take on it is that it's very similar to why people do extra-setting and extra-genre homebrew for D&D over here: When something is popular or plentiful enough when it might as well be the lingua franca of your gaming scene,you learn that thing top to bottom and you make do with what you have. Since you had plenty of White Wolf, and the most common choices came down to either that or D&D, that increases the interest in extra-setting oWoD homebrew by default. This overcomes both the seemingly high barrier to entry and the carefully cultivated image of WoD games's systems and settings being inseparable that was present over here. Add in a strong DIY streak in your scene that wouldn't really catch on in the US until the late 90s/early 2000s, and voila! A strong hacking community.

Not an earth-shattering theory, I know.

Does anyone have Mummy: Curse of the Blue Nile or Tales of Dark Eras?

Thanks.

Can someone link me to some of the fan-made Hunter compacts for Changelings please? I had a character idea I wanted to expand on.

Has there been any indication when the final Mage PDF with all the errata or the Mage FAQ will be available?

no, no one at all has it

>mages are avatars of incomprehensible power

So normal mages then? :-3

>no, no one at all has it

I cannot imagine that no one on /wodg/ has either fiction anthology.

Is is because they're really bad or people just aren't interested?

So someone in the last thread asked if we are ever given numbers on the amount of true fae in CtL and the short answer is no. The slightly longer answer is that while we're fairly certain fae don't reproduce it is heavily implied in several places that changelings with high enough wyrd and low enough clarity can/do wander back to arcadia and can become true fae. It is also implied that there are a pretty good number of true fae.

They then asked how common having the same keeper is. This is left to storyteller discretion. It's never said how common a thing it is. However a factor which may be relevant is the number of trods connected to your freehold in setting. See more trods means more changeling from more places find their way to your freehold. Ie tons of trods lots new changelings who could have come from lotsa directions. Few trods, probably less changeling and their probably coming from similar places. This is also up to storyteller discretion. Hope that helps.

I just figure folks are more interested in the games when it comes to CofD.

blue nile is awful
other one is good
check the file share link at the top

You didn't even like Jackal Paw Blues? I liked that one quite a bit.

>blue nile is awful
>other one is good
>check the file share link at the top

I don't see Tales of Dark Eras or Curse of the Blue Nile in either the Pastebin or Mega links.

As someone who STs a lot, the sooner one realizes that numbers don't really matter (as long as you're not getting too over the top with it) the better. Best to not think about that stuff too much.

So werewolf regeneration could help one recover from traumatic brain injury, yea? Like a lobotomy or a survivable gunshot wound or somethin that would render a normal person potentially permanently comatose?

Even if it didn't "grow back" memories or what have you, the brain itself would recover from physical trauma as per every other part of the body, yeah?

As long as they didn't die, probably
Granted, you might have to shift into Gauru to avoid dying, with a shot that good.

yes

Yes, but you'd be like Wolverine with know knowledge of who you are, what your name is, what you are doing. If your lucky you still have a personality and don't have to relearn all of that. I mean your going to be total blank slate probably.

no its magic, you'll get it all back in time

Just saw that Deviant has been announced, any info on when it'll be released?

Always had a love for body horror and weird science.

When its done
That's all we know, right now. I'm not sure if they've even started writing for it, or done anything beyond nail down the basic system structure.

I've read most of the Blue Nile and only dislike one story so far.

You've been asking for like ten threads. You don't have $5?

You are right, thats how everything went down in the end, but I need to say that Storyteller was the lingua franca of high level play, and more "realistic" and grit games.

For everything else, we used 3D&T (Defensores de Toquio terceira edicao, or freely translated to Tokyo Defenders, third edition) a Brazilian made game system, very popular and simple. I know that someone tried to translate that to English here in Veeky Forums, but i can't find it.

>Ars Magica is getting a GUMSHOE port

Neat! Good news for Ascension fans.

Alright, r8 my generic vampire template for people who don't want to use Requiem when they're not running Requiem.

I think I should probably give more Storyteller advice on using vampires, particularly for STs who do want Covenants but don't want to care for all the baggage of the Invictus/Ordo/Circle/Lance/Carthians

Making my own criticisms, I'm not sure the specifics on Morality really matter for ST characters.

It does for quite a few powers, most notably Castigations and Benedictions.

There is however this Storyteller's/Player's Guide to Changeling History that claims that there is only one constant number of True Fae, and everything else are just Actors of their different titles.

mindseyesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Lost-Chronicle-Players-Guide1.pdf
24 True True Fae

Good old nwod, where all answers are wrong. I figured there would be something like this somewhere.

Considering the rules on true fae, and how they are actually complex creatures made up of many working parts (for those unaware, if you enter the realm of a true fae, its home, body, weapon, and titles, are all probably part of the true fae itself.)

Really, the idea of there being x many of them seems to conflict, but then again maybe not if like you said, they are just more working parts of a bigger true fae.

Once we get to that point though, all true fae could just be the working parts of one super true true true fae.

The god machine wins again.

Okay so question about Wisdom loss. Let's go back to Ammon in the alley. He just lead away two punks from the shelter and lead them on a chase till they are in an alley narrow enough they have to fight him one on one. The first one draws his gun but Ammon's sword was already out and is faster and with a flash of steel the enchanted blade cuts off gun arm of the asiliant. His buddy just manages to graze Ammon who turns around and with another flash of steel cuts off this man's arm as well.

--------
So Does Ammon risk wisdom loss for causing a lasting injury to these two men? If so is it at the 5-6 dice level (3 dice base +2 virtue +1 self preservation)?

You only get +1 for your Virtue, and its hard to argue that cutting someone's arm off with a magical sword is acting in self-defense.
In fact, I'd probably give you a -1 to the roll for escalating so much, especially when stunning them with a magical explosion would have been less deadly.

How do different splats work with God-Machine? I mean presence of God-Machine kind of makes most cosmologys feel delegitimate, though Vampires are still Vampires, and True Fae are probably super viruses hiding in Arcadia tormenting the Lost.

G-M is a tool of the Exarchs, they use it to control the world.

Remember - mages are always better

Or the Exarchs are tendrils of the God-Machine.

You wish m8

The god-machine is only as relevant as your ST wants, which is the beauty of it.

At base level, it really only torments mortals and demons.

But you can expand it to interact with most game lines and cosmology.

Are the actions of the G-M a mystery worth researching for mages?
What happens when the G-M and The Principle butt heads and angels fight angels?
May that weird cult of vampires really be working on infrastructure for the G-M?
Maybe that Idigams new form is the work of a G-M plan?

I likenit that way. You can have it have grand schemes, or use it as an excuse for something weird. (Your players bump onto a cryptid. Do they also realize there is a limb of the G-M stocking out nearby that cause the poor creature to mutate? Either way, they are in for an adventure)

Driect, wilful, permanent maiming of another given various other options would be a breach of Understanding Wisdom, probably at about Wisdom 5.
It'd be a higher Wisdom sin if you do so against someone who has access to regeneration, such as Mages, Vampires or Werewolves.

So 3 dice there, adding 1 dice if acting in concert with his Virtue, subtracting 1 if it's in concet with his Vice.

So wait. 2 gang bangers trying to kill me, the nuns, and the women at the shelter, and if I use magic to defend them it's a breaking point. If I use a mundane means (a sword or gun) I take a breaking point while they are pointing a gun at me intent to kill me?

First off, you said you chased them into the alleyway, so that means you're not really in danger. Second, you literally crippled a man.

Yes, causing Quiescence is a Breaking Point, but waving around a magic sword and cutting someone's arm off is more so. There are other ways to solve the problem besides chasing down and delimbing someone.

I lead them away, and lead them on a chase. They were following me. Possibly firing pot shots at me while running. I didn't chase them down, they were trying to chase me down.

Don't think of it like that.
Think of it like mentally traumatising all witnesses with Magic, or brutally maiming two people for the rest of their lives with a sword.

And no, "they were coming at me" doesn't help when you could have disabled them without lasting damage.

Yeah. Sin, and breaking points, ate about what you know to be true, not a universal standard.

So knowing you could have done it without hurting them badly is all it takes. Even if for someone without magic, that might have been all they can do.

Breaking points are a personal guilt.

What I know to be true is that if I just knock these guys out, they'll be back again tomorrow to kill me, the nuns, and the people seeking refuge at the shelter.

If I cut off their gun arms, they'll live. Yeah they just lost their dominate arm, but they'll live, but they won't be attacking anyone anytime soon. They may even choose to change their ways. It seems to be the better option that just knocking them out, and letting them come back in a never ending tide of thugs looking for innocent blood.

That's a pretty ridiculous, simplistic, and psychologically juvenile understanding of human thought.
I bet you read a lot of Batman without questioning the ramifications of crippling someone who's already resorting to criminal activity to obtain financial stability.

>if I just knock these guys out
Then don't just knock them out. Call the Police, or tie them up or something.

Permanently maiming them to teach them a lesson is an even more eggregious breach of Wisdom than cutting off their hands in the haze of combat to stop them from shooting someone.

It really doesn't de legitimize anyone's mythology, except perhaps mortal religions. Beast pretty firmly establishes that most everything was created by the Dark Mother and that the GM (and Principle and various true alien horrors) are the only things exempt from that. The existence of GM has nothing to do with whether or not the Crone, Papa Wolf, or the dragons were real.

>I mean presence of God-Machine kind of makes most cosmologys feel delegitimate
Don't call it a God, and it seems a lot less domineering.

>Beast pretty firmly establishes that most everything was created by the Dark Mother
Thanks man, I needed that laugh

>Beast pretty firmly establishes that most everything was created by the Dark Mother
Not really. I mean, that's what Beasts think, but the book really does seem to reinforce the "this is all Astral bullshit" angle. The Dark Mother doesn't have to be a literal thing (though she could exist within the Astral).
That said, The Dark Mother is clearly The Crone/Luna

>Thanks man, I needed that laugh
We get it, everyone hates Beast.

It's about as firm as anyone else's mythology, and it is at least minimally backed up by the kin mechanics. Having GM, Mom, and Principle as the cosmic trinity is totally fine with me.

The Bat dealt with a lot of Mobsters. Which are admittedly different from Gangsters. Most mobsters are not turning to crime as the only option they are doing it because its the family business. Even if they wanted to open up Sal's Dry Cleaning on 4th and Capital they'd probably end up borrowing money from Uncle Louie the Mobster. Why not the bank? Because the bank charges interest, Uncle Louie doesn't of course Uncle Louie wants you to allow some illegal gambling after dark, but as long as you do that, you can pay him back when ever.

Plus sending them to jail is an option yes. And if it was just one of them vs. me I might consider a less aggressive approach but I have two gang bangers pointing guns at me trying to see who puts the most holes in me.

These guys chased me down, intent on killing me. any court of law would call this justified self defense.

>any court of law would call this justified self defense
Trying to argue your way out of Acts of Hubris on the grounds of legality is not going to get you anywhere.

I hate the cosmic trinity idea, and it doesn't really fit at all.
Also, like I said, Kin mechanics are due to them being Geotia.

I feel like you're making a scenario specifically engineered to justify your own hypothetical.

But my character kills people all the time! He's not bothered by it at all!

Reminder that you aren't Batman. As a mage, you are Superman, which means you have to wear kid gloves when you deal with normal people. Using such overwhelming force because you can and not because you have to is the problem here.

Ah so, because I could always have access to (or modify a spell to have) stunning magic that doesn't deal more than a few bruises the sword option should be considered for the most extreme situations only.

A sword's fine, but use it right.
A painful wound takes all the fight out of most people, so long as they know you're not going to kill them, and as long as you don't aim for joints or organs, you should be able to take them down without endangering their lives or long term health in any significant way.

>just stab them in the leg

Pretty much in literally all cases there are better and more reasonable solutions than maiming a muggle.

Yes, basically. If you have nonlethal, non-permanent ways to stop someone, that should be the first step. Even most starter level mages should have some way to escape a normie pursuer without hacking off limbs.

Sure, why not.
A limp isn't a lost leg.
And if you feel bad about that, ask a Life Mage to do you a solid and make sure it heals right.