Previous Thread: Halloween is right around the corner. What have you got planned for the most World of Darknessy of holidays?
Resources:
>Pastebin:
pastebin.com
>Onyx Path Publishing's online store page
drivethrurpg.com
>OPP Blog
theonyxpath.com
>Mega
mega.nz
mega.nz
Does this game actually have sexy Halloween witches?
Yes I know that's Mercy.
It might. Nothing stops you.
I have a Sin-eater concept that's a spooky Halloween witch. Her Geist is basically the Witch from Wizard of Oz. She dresses like a gothy type, with a zip up leather corset over a white off-the-shoulder blouse, a ruffled skirt, long black and orange stockings, and some kitten heel Mary Janes. Top it all off with an old fashioned tree branch broom used like a walking stick, and a Deathmask witch hat.
Of course, this being Geist, she's also usually carrying a tool belt of ghostbusting equipment, and has scarification and tattoos on both shoulders. And the blouse is a Casket Jacket charm, hand sewn from the lining of a coffin.
I really need to make a reference for the draw threads.
Looks like Chronicles is benefiting from a Halloween sale on drivethrurpg at the moment, for anyone who still buys things.
So the Onyxpath site has 11 different games listed. Are these all set in the same setting, is it like the 40k RPGs where they sort-of go together but each one is just focused on a different group of people?
Pretty much, yeah.
The Chronicles of Darkness are in their own shared world. It's sort of like superhero comics. Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, and the Flash all share a world, but most of the time they're not sharing a comic.
Ah, and the most interesting sounding one ,Deviant: The Renegades isn't out yet. Curses.
>Interesting
Sure I guess you can call Hunter 2.0 interesting if you want.
Failed experiments trying to avoid men in black doesn't quite sound like it's the same as people hunting monsters.
Cheiron Group.
That sounds like it's on the other side of the coin.
So one of my mage awakening players want to join the guardians of the veil. So far id just hand-wave them because i dont understand labyrinths but now im gonna have to put spotlight on them.
Does WoD have any sourcebook for human cults ala wod mafia or 13th precinct? I dont know anything about real life non magical cults and my only idea is CoC cannon fodder cultist.
Where i could get more info on them? Does the GotV book explain how a cult works?
Is your player playing a Cultor? Because the GotV do a lot of things that aren't just maintaining the labyrinths, and you could focus on those.
I'm going out and doing something, so no time for a Halloween game this year, unfortunately.
I assume that the World of Darkness and the World of the Chronicles of Darkness still sell "Sexy X" costumes regularly for Halloween.
>the World of the Chronicles of Darkness
This is why I hate the rename. It's either that or just find-replacing "World of Darkness" with "Chronicles of Darkness" which results in a lot of weird grammatical wrongness and awkward sentences.
I dunno. If Witches were real, wouldn't they get pissed off at people wearing slutty witch costumes for Halloween?
I don't think anyone sees the name change as ideal. But the impression I get is that it was either change the name or drop the game.
That is why it is simply, The Chrod.
I get that part, I just feel like WWP/OPP didn't spend any time thinking up a good name to rename it to."
"Say, all these books you've been releasing have been The X Chronicle, right? So you've got a bunch of Chronicles in the World of Darkness? Just call it Chronicles of Darkness. Time to get lunch."
Unfortunately the name "Chronicles of Darkness" sounds incredibly pretentious. It sounds like some teenage wannabe-novelist's "magnum opus".
By the way people, Steam's got a Halloween sale on Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, which lasts until November 1st.
75% off.
If you're not a pirating pirate who pirates, then I urge you (Yes, you! No, not you, the other, hotter guy!) to grab a copy. If nothing else, you can give to a friend (or future friend) if you wanna help them get into WoD or even CofD (since the themes are pretty similar, to say the least).
Just call it what it is. Shit.
I feel like Chronicles of Darkness would have been fine if that's what it was called from the start. The name itself isn't a problem. It's the loss of recognition.
The thread has had enough edition wars. You'll really have to try harder.
I wish this game had been better.
>I wish this game had been better.
What was your particular gripe with it? Because it remains one of my favourite games of all times, and it's widely considered by the gaming community to be a cult classic.
Mind you, I'm not denying it had flaws, but to me they were minor flaws at best that didn't detract from the awesomeness of the whole, so I'm just curious what you found lacking. :)
Can an attack spell be focused to a specific limb? If so does it cause a tilt if it does sufficient damage?
I just look up secret organizations dreamt up by conspiracy theorists and build from there.
>Implying cutes witches don't wear sexy outfits all year round.
Don't ruin this for me plz.
I would allow it, but unless it's cast sympathetically, I would include standard penalty for targeted body part in attack roll as in normal combat.
So many things. I enjoyed the game... at first. But it all starts piling up.
First off, I think the character design on every female character is fucking stupid and I'm glad we're mostly out of the "female characters exist for the male target demographic to jerk off to". Jeanette is the epitome of this. She oozes cringey sex appeal. Don't get me wrong, the voice acting really made it work, and I used the console commands to keep Tourette alive. Imagine my disappointment when that meant fuck all and they stayed in the same place and acted like no time had passed. Every female character (except maybe Samantha and the Nosferatu) feels like it's pandering to a demographic I'm not part of.
That's really only a minor gripe, though. "the game's treatment of women is cringey" ranks pretty low on my problems.
More important are things like... the combat is utter garbage. Full stop. The character is floaty as hell and trying to do melee in an FPS system is not workable.
The tone is inconsistent in a frustrating way. I find it hard to get into the atmosphere of the game when there are stupid puns and dick jokes everywhere as if I was playing GTA with fangs.
The game has some *amazing* examples of well done modern level design. Ocean House Hotel is famous for a reason. Why am I listing this as a negative, then?
Simple: The majority of the levels in this game are fucking dungeon crawling garbage. Ocean House is great and does good atmosphere, but it's the only time I really feel like I'm playing a horror game, except maybe the house on King's Way. And right after King's Way is when the game goes to shit.
The Nosferatu Warrens is a sprawling Vozhd filled shithole of a level and I eventually said fuck it and started noclipping through the levels to get to the good parts.
Do Vampires suffer lethal damage from falling? I assume it's downgraded to bashing.
Jesus christ.
I'm not finished
Oh, also? I have no clue what Isaac's reward was. My game fucked up and nothing I did would make him give me the reward. I finished the game and he still told me to come back for my reward.
The end of the game is a fucking trainwreck mechanically and narratively. Chinatown gives Deus Ex a run for it's money in terms of racist silliness. Getting captured by a triad is great, until it turns out all the tests are stupid and most of them the kind of thing that doesn't work in the system, though I can't remember the specifics.
Everything with the Anarchs is useless. I really wish they were more important. I wish so many things were more important.
The whole thing with the Werewolf was fucking terrible. I just feel like the controls for the game were bad, which makes that section difficult, and that entire sequence just sort of *looked* ugly. The big bad werewolf had a sloppy model.
I'm shooting these off as they come to me, and I'm really on the verge of crashing for sleep. I'm just going to skip to the ending.
The ending is stupid and doesn't work.
There's narratively no moment when Jack could have slipped bombs in the sarcophagus. If Caine was behind it all--as was clearly the original intent, Word of White Wolf that the Cabby is only a Malkavian Methuselah who thinks he's Caine be damned--that makes no fucking sense. Clearly he wasn't in the coffin--we see the king sitting with Jack--and the idea that Caine would fuck with some tiny little shithole Camarilla domain for no reason doesn't sit well with me. It serves no fucking purpose. I don't even think it jives with the Caine in that novel with Beckett, either, but I don't really care.
It's just such a dumb ending.
Also, for the record, I told everyone to go fuck themselves. I don't particularly feel like playing it again, because I know I'd have to go through so much garbage. Like Ventrue Tower! Holy shit I almost forgot. I Godmodded that shitheap and it was still a chore.
Last note before I pass out:
The Malk you play as that everyone loves is a Fishmalk through and through, and is just one more example of how Veeky Forums actually loves a That Guy.
I still have no clue why you thought you would enjoy a game known for being janky over a decade ago in a setting you don't even like. You've really got to learn to listen when someone says "No, don't bother, you won't like this".
Theyd suffer lethal. Falling, y'know, breaks bones and shit. Bullets are bashing because the vampires don't need their organs. Falling pulverizes bone and shit.
So yeah.
I want a Bloodlines that doesn't suck. I want the game that Santa Monica made me think I'd be playing. I want good acting and good choices. I want Deus Ex, not GTA. I want characters that don't feel like cartoon characters. I want a world to explore that isn't filled with silly jokes that make me roll my eyes. Also I want more of that really shitty goth music. The Asylum's track is great.
Although the entire world being papered with gothic industrial band posters feels ridiculous.
Oh, right! My game also fucked up and I didn't get Heather. I told her to go to my Haven and she just never showed up. Maybe she was with whatever reward Gary promised.
That's interesting. So the best way to fend off a vampire if you don't have fire is to try and toss them off a ledge.
Because the early bits of the game are really good.
And I was playing with the patch! I mean, I know the patch wasn't going to fix the combat, but at first I could get through everything with stealth. I did like it. Despite all of this, I liked it at first. It was dumb, but it was still enjoyable. But then when they were meeting forced deadlines they just shoved shit into the box and called it a game. Bloodlines is WHY I wanted to like the One World of Darkness. And why I'm frustrated that it seems like I won't. I liked a lot of Bloodlines, but then the game falls apart and it's fucking shit.
It's Valve and Activision's fault.
So which presidential nominee is a member of the gentry and why? How do we banish them back to Arcadia
I hate to say "I told you so", but I told you so. It's still a classic of immersive gaming, but if you have no patience for the quality dropoff and you don't like the writing enough to carry it, it's just not going to be a good time. That's just how playing old games work, I'm afraid.
It pretty much slowly falls apart after the Santa Monica arc, and falls flat on its face once you hit the sewers.
Especially when it becomes apparent that if you made a noncombat character (because the early game was full of stealth and talky solutions) you're fucked.
>There's narratively no moment when Jack could have slipped bombs in the sarcophagus
I always kind of expected some thing about him and the driver.
Remember the archaeologist? In his dialog tree he admits there may have been someone helping him along. Odd point one
Also remember the Elisabeth Dane. Someone slaughtered the crew. If the person inside was just the skeleton, than who did it?
I think Jack did it. Part of his back story if you bother asking, is that he was once a Pirate. My theory is that Driver set things up with the archaeologist before he came over, Jack Set up the Ship to be discovered that way. Then slipped the bombs in afterwards.
As for why? idk seemed like they were just two dicks looking to have a laugh. shrugs
>GTA with fangs
You say this like it's a bad thing.
I want to go on record of saying that Chicago by Night 1st Edition is the best setting for WoD, hands down. No other published setting book, WoD or CofD, can compare to the pure distilled awesome that is the original Chicago setting. Although Milwaukee was decent, the rest were utter shit. Especially Berlin by Night and the three Revised setting books (New York, Cairo, Mexico City).
Lodin was the coolest Prince I had ever seen in a published setting, shame that the metaplot kills him off. Luckily, I don't use the metaplot.
I can buy Jack attacking the ship. The problem I have is how and when he managed to put the explosives in the sarcophagus. They weren't in while it was on the ship, it is unlikely he put them in while it was in the museum, and even less likely while it was in the Giovanni mansion. Unless he stole the sarcophagus for the Giovanni and put the bombs in while he's at it, but I doubt they'd trust some Anarch asshole for the job.
>There's narratively no moment when Jack could have slipped bombs in the sarcophagus.
While most of your arguments and complaints are understandable, I should point out this one; Jack's heavily implied to have been the guy who slaughtered everyone on the Elizabeth Dane ship. If you talk to Professor Johansen and have enough persuasion/intimidation, you find out that he never actually *found* the sarcophagus. He was instead sent a package which detailed the location of the sarcophagus and the key, which is again, at the ending, heavily implied to have been Jack. And professor also reveals that the key was actually lost before the Sarcophagus was stolen, which perplexed the Professor... but that was because Jack didn't want anyone to reach the "endgame" too fast by opening the coffin before everybody had gotten all hot and bothered about it.
>"female characters exist for the male target demographic to jerk off to"
But that's the point, same thing with the clubs, they are there to show that vampires would normally indulge in carnal pleasures and dwell in these kind of places. Try to think about it, they are vampires, the whole idea here is that they don't care.
Now, if you are talking about a stiff character I agree with you completely, they can't simply make a character stand there as if nothing happened after you complete a certain event.
I'm thinking the bombs were slipped in at the same time the key was stolen.
You had to have the key to open the box. And we know the key landed in the lap of the eastern vampires. (not going to bother remembering the name sorry least a storm blows over my head)
>I'm thinking the bombs were slipped in at the same time the key was stolen.
Or, seeing as Jack knew the location of both key and the sarcophagus (Johansen mentioned how it was incredibly "lucky" that the key was pretty much right *next* to the sarcophagus when they found out, and how odd that that the sarcophagus hadn't been looted long ago), he simply slipped in the bombs long before Johansen even found the sarcophagus, or before it got loaded onto the Elizabeth Dane.
Alternatively, Jack slipped them in during the massacre on the Elizabeth Dane, seeing as he had access to both sarcophagus and key at that point (and plenty of time to do it, seeing as the Elizabeth Dane was left adrift and empty for several days).
Character idea.
An awakened farmer. Thanks to a combination of life magic and a potent hallow on his farm/sanctum the farmer waters his crops and livestock with tass. The high yield high quality produce and livestock is highly valued in the surrounding counsilia.
I think the sarcophagus was open while you visit the Dane. I'd also be surprised if the archaeologists or the police didn't do some preliminary scans on it and thus detect the bombs when they took it.
>Because the GotV do a lot of things that aren't just maintaining the labyrinths, and you could focus on those.
Do they? I didnt read their order book but i though their main thing was offing bad mages and keeping labyrinths, what else they do?
>I think the sarcophagus was open while you visit the Dane. I'd also be surprised if the archaeologists or the police didn't do some preliminary scans on it and thus detect the bombs when they took it.
That's why it was being brought to the museum; Johansen mentions that they had X-rays and other technical stuff to examine the sarcophagus with, but it got stolen before they could get a good look at it.
>New York
Whats the problem with New York by night? A friend is thinking of running it because he heard it was pretty awesome setting book?
They're the main source of intel on the Seers (and the rest of the Pentacle's enemies), they do a lot of counter-intel and misinformation campaigns, they do cleanup when magic gets out of hand (it's going to be a Guardian with the Death Arcanum doing first aid on the souls of any Sleepers who suffered an Integrity break due to that massive paradox a thearch pulled down because "paradox is a tool of the Exarchs", and giving followup care (possibly alongside a Mind Mage) trying to get their psyche back to normal as Dissonance sets in...
The coffin was open on the dane. You get to see it open. The key must have been stolen a little bit after that. And then the eatern vampires got the key not long after that.
>Jack Stuff bombs during or aftetr the Boat and the key either gets handed to the Eastern vamps or is left in such a way for them to steal it.
Are you guys having halloween sessions over the weekend or in the coming week?
I'm trying to put together a small interlude in my Vampire campaign, based on Japanese mythology, having a bit of trouble getting that authentic feel though.
You have been hired to create a new WoD/CoD game using a supernatural creature not yet featured in the series.
Which do you choose?
Princess The Noble
Senpai The Fangirl
Onyx Path: The Disbanding
Dracula: the Ass-Blasting
Slav: the Moonshining
New York is only good if you like the specific metaplot events connected to it such as the Tzimisce Antediluvian and Ur-Shulgi.
Chicago is a better setting because it works both with the metaplot and without it, making it more versatile.
>Gypsies
>The coffin was open on the dane. You get to see it open.
No, you see *handprints* that seem to indicate it being open, due to the placement of the handprints seeming to be halfway hidden under the lid. You don't actually ever see the inside of the sarcophagus, nor is there any way to peek inside, until you get to the ending.
I loaded up my Bloodlines copy and I am literally staring at the sarcophagus on the Dane right now. It's not open. If my PC didn't have problems taking screenshots I'd upload a pic to prove it.
I hear that Chronicles of Darkness is different from World of Darkness, in that it's more a set of rules for horror role-playing than a setting with its own lore and canon. Is this accurate?
Scratch what I said, I found a pic on the internet.
As you can see, it's not actually open.
It does have a setting, but it's not the all compassing metaplot of oWoD and it can easily be ignored if you wish to.
How much do the Strix actually suck?
The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Like dirty secrets of the black hand.
Fext: the Invincible
Could you try noclip inside? I'm just curious if there is some hint from devs. IIRC in Half-Life you could look this way inside G-Man's briefcase.
Crunchwise or fluffwise? They're alright mechanically, if a tad predictable. I think they work in the Roman setting, but are a bit out of place outside of it. I personally prefer to use VII as the unknowable antagonists for modern vampires.
I combine the third origin story from their book with the popular theory of vampire Lincoln being a big player to make them brainwashed catspaws of VALKYIRIE
So they're a ancient conspiracy with a city in the underworld, that want to upstart the end times and slaughter an entire clan and plunge a political faction into unending civil war? Neat
Hey, I liked Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand!
Say what you want about Dirty Secrets, but Time of Thin Blood, Berlin by Night, and Gypsies were all far, far worse.
And yes, the Strix are awful.
You told me nothing. Everyone in the world hyped it.
The only real 'satisfying' explanation is that no one was in the coffin and ~Caine~ was just following it around making everyone in the area spooked. Then he or Jack slaughtered everyone ~Just because~ and stole the skeleton.
It's clear they had one idea starting out and then had to rush to come up with a different explanation, and what they came up with sucks.
>sounds incredibly pretentious. It sounds like some teenage wannabe-novelist's "magnum opus".
So it's like a perfect fit then?
Complaining about sexy vampires is pretty ridiculous.
It's not the sexy, it's the way the sexy is used.
Oh, I did, you just didn't listen. Everyone hypes it to the moon, but they're also pretty open about the game's faults. Bloodline's second half quality drop is one of the most common points brought up about it. If you're not used to playing janky games, or if you don't like the setting and writing enough for it to carry it, that second half is going to come down even worse.
It was pretty obvious from the get go that you weren't really going to enjoy it for long, and I still don't know why you didn't just put it away one you stopped enjoying it. Life's too short, you know?
>If you're not used to playing janky games
I feel like you're underselling it. I enjoyed Enter The Matrix. That's a jank game.
I actually played Bloodlines years ago and enjoyed it, and that's why I was quick to buy it when it was on sale last year.
I'm just not seeing it. It's a sexy vampire game set in seedy L.A.
I think there's just enough jank in Bloodlines to label it that way. Then again, a lot of my favorite games are janky-ass games, so maybe it is an overgeneralization.
Do you actually know what Deviant is? Because last I checked Hunter didn't let you play Akira.
No one denies it's a game with flaws, but what it gets rights it gets really right. There aren't that many games that even try to do what it tried to do.
If its flaws overshadowed its strengths for you, personally, that's a pity. But that doesn't mean that all the people for whom that's not true are wrong.
If anyone's interested, here's a decent analysis i watched recently. I think it does a pretty good job of summing it all up.
youtube.com
But, you see, Cherion can do everything that happens to a Deviant, like transplanting the part of a Mage's brain that does magic into your brain so you become an Akira, therefore it is just Hunter again, clearly.
I can't tell if you're joking.
I think he's joking.
That said, there is a very evident and clear thematic overlap between the Cheiron group and Deviant. Curious if they'll acknowledge it beyond "nuhuh Hunters signed for it and you're a victim ablooblooblooo"
>"My game's super cool because you can be an Akira OR an Orphan Black because you got a Mage brain attached to your brain, which I think is cool and canon and good as hell, to me."
>Damon Burgundy, Mage the Awakening and Deviant the Renegades developer
Pumpkin: The Carving
Skeleton: The Rattling
Zombie: The Shambling
That's somewhat true. World has a very detailed setting with lots of metaplot. In contrast, chronicles is more a toolbox, setting-wise. It has more of an implied setting. Some setting stuff is true because it's baked into the rules, but a lot of stuff is left up to the GM to decide. A lot of stuff is given multiple explanation for you to choose from. So a lot of it's setting is more suggestions and stuff you can use for inspiration rather than there being some carved in stone canon.
>Creature: The Lagooning
ftfy.
Gypsies is the least shit out of that list, its only fault is going into stereotypical representation of a minority instead of a sexual or gender identity. Since transexuals being magical in a bunch of cultures is OKAY but bloodlines or romas is raycist.
I meant that Bloodlines is more than just janky.
I'm getting ready to leave, but this article is good
quinnae.com
I've watched that before, but never finished it. Honestly, I don't think that it's one of the great computer RPGs of that era. I haven't even finished Deus Ex but I think Deus Ex is more worthy of that title (and it kind of loses a bit of oomph when suddenly you have a lightsaber that one shots everything). I think that it barely being finished makes it unworthy of that title. If you consider the game up to about Hollywood, sure, but as a finished product? No.
I mean, I don't think anyone even plays it without the Unofficial Patch.
Is this a mechanical thing? I quite like the idea of even worse smoke Vampires, do the rules not do them any favours?
>So they're a ancient conspiracy with a city in the underworld, that want to upstart the end times and slaughter an entire clan and plunge a political faction into unending civil war? Neat
More like an unneeded addition to the game that bring nothing that could not be done with what was already there.
I feel like you're confused about how to use the Strix and what a "Strix Chronicle" actually is.
Also, I'd disagree. Strix bring quite a bit to the table. They're the Beast without The Man, if nothing else.
You didn't even finish Deus Ex? I don't really think you're an authority on this subject. And yeah, Deus Ex is better, but that doesn't mean Bloodlines isn't still a classic. You don't actually have to choose, more than one game can be good. And yeah, of course people use the patch, why wouldn't you? Again, no one is saying it's perfect, but it's still better than a lot of the competition. Classics don't need to be perfect.
And you're still complaining about sexy vampires being in sexy vampire: the rpg.
I didn't say I was an authority. Nor did I imply it, though you may have inferred it.
Arguing that something can be good in spite of it's flaws is fine. But Bloodlines isn't even a finished product, and requires a third party to be barely functional at best. The first half of the game is a classic. I honestly don't think all the people who reinstall it finish it.
And saying that the argument was complaining about sexy vampires being sexy is missing a whole hell of a lot of nuance. I like sexy vampires. But there's the way that the sexy is portrayed and used. It's pandering and juvenile.
Also, I get distracted easily, so I tend to get halfway through a game and then not play it so long that I don't want to come back to it. I mean, I need to completely restart Dragonfall one of these days, since coming back to it after a year would mean I've forgotten half the story. But when my experience with half a game is better than my experience with a whole game, that makes me confused as to why the whole game (''''whole''' game) is treated as one of four pillars. Then again, maybe Deus Ex's back half is also garbage and buggy.