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

Eh, stuff like the erciyes fragments and wraith: the great war prove they can manage it if they try

>CoD has a lot of helpful hints, even if you play WoD. For example, I don't describe the fear a character is feeling, I just hand the player an obnoxious card with capital F "Fear" written on it (can't forget that Capitalisation, it allows for Trademarking Fucking Everything). Also, I don't resolve ghost stories through clever plot and careful pacing - I use a flowchart. I write pages and pages of crunch for every concievable possible scenario, because why make up a single roll on the fly with a flexible stat system when I can have an entire paragraph explaining the rule procedure when someone gets kicked in the genitals?

Oh thank god i though that i was the only one.

Do...do you wanna exchange flow charts sempai?

>I make the entire system boring and bland as batshit, removing all backstory and metaplot.
They were literally comparing nWoD unfavourably to oWoD, so yes, they seem to think that the metaplot was good.
Although frankly I've never seen any metaplot that was good. Shadowrun's is also garbage, and possibly worse than oWoD's. Shadowrun's is probably harder to ignore, too, since they make mechanical changes and give them narrative justification, as opposed to just tweaking the rules.

There's also Degenesis, which has a metaplot, and the whole second edition book is filled with what feels like "there's a story and a reason here, but ~it's a secret~ until future books".

Oh, and of course CthulhuTech's modules of "one of your players is captured and raped through GM fiat, and all the NPCs have an invincibility spell on them that takes 16 hours to cast"

They seem to think that removing the metaplot was a bad decision, not necessarily that the old one was perfect (I have never met a single person who's liked and accepted every single part of the old metaplot)

Would you?

I'm not saying they think it was perfect, but they clearly liked it. No one complains about the decision to remove something they didn't like in the first place.

He could complain if he prefers some metaplot over none at all

True, I've just never seen a metaplot that was wholly good. Some are OK, I guess. AMP's isn't terrible.

Why would anyone complain about the lack of metaplot of NWoD.

Have you read the example character in mage? Would you wanna follow that bland matrix reject across books? Why?

>bland matrix reject
Who?
Also, Mage: The Awakening at least *does* have an ongoing plot with the characters. It's just not a "meta"plot because their actions don't affect the rest of the game. The Nemean and his actions in Boston didn't change what people could do in their own Boston chronicles, and it didn't rewrite the setting or throw factions into disarray.

Well technically neither did oWoD, since there's nothing stopping you from having Ravnos characters and plotlines by setting them before the well of nightmares

>lso, Mage: The Awakening at least *does* have an ongoing plot with the characters. It's just not a "meta"plot because their actions don't affect the rest of the game. The Nemean and his actions in Bost

The acathus from 1st edition core, zero or zeno or some edgy name like that.

>having Ravnos characters and plotlines by setting them before the well of nightmares

Or just ignoring the whole thing really. Why metaplot is so restrictive again? Unless they dont update the mechanical side.

NWoD players can are as retentive about "canon" as any OWoD one. Try to suggest a mechanic change or a new spin on an organization and they would quote the books as if that meant shit.

I have meet people who insist that per the "canon", in awakening silver ladder can dispose any city that dont have an ladder as an hierarch which is also false but whatever.

because cannon fags derail games all the time

in owod this meant whole organization and countries didn't make sense. World wide conspiracy just up fuck your local city plot. and in Nwod it just meant your city didn't make sense.

on what scale do you want your verisimilitude disruption?

Zeno, the guy whose cool cause he has a motorcycle, and that's why he's cool.

Yes, but it's quite a different situation when whole factions shift and change compared to... nothing changing for the broader game.
Ignoring the metaplot is hard because the supplements are all assuming you're following it. For instance, if you started out running a game with Masquerade 1e and played from 1991 to 2004 and chose to ignore the metaplot, you would basically be unable to use most supplements.

Not really. I've only seen people say someone's change is stupid, or pointing out that the impression they have of something that exists isn't accurate, not that they can't do it.
>I have meet people who insist that per the "canon", in awakening silver ladder can dispose any city that dont have an ladder as an hierarch which is also false but whatever.
You're probably talking about me, since I've said that a few times. It's not false. In the book they state that Silver Ladder doctrine is that any Consilium that doesn't have a Thearch as Heirarch or Councilor is not a valid Consilium, and should be over thrown.
I'm not saying that every city will have a Heirarch that is in the Silver Ladder. I'm just pointing out what their policy is.
I've actually had a city where the Ladder wasn't in charge. I made it that way specifically because the player was a Silver Ladder fangirl and wanted to fuck with her.

Pointing out how something is as the default doesn't mean that's how it is in every single city. That's sort of one of the points of the nWoD. Not everything is homogeneous. It's not about the canon. You can ignore that entirely if you wanted to. I know plenty of people who ignore the Heiromagus messianic death cult aspects of the Guardians.

Frankly i run game on local scale so wether the city or the country doesnt "make sense" is all the same.

>It's not false
Not false, but I've heard people parrot your out-of-context comments, missing the crucial context.

The Ladder created the Consilium system, and their mystic practices are based around performing their duties within it.
If they're denied any ability to ensure that it is functioning as intended, then that's basically like stripping away the Guardian's masks, or forbidding the Mysterium from performing their rituals.

>Ignoring the metaplot is hard because the supplements are all assuming you're following it. For instance, if you started out running a game with Masquerade 1e and played from 1991 to 2004 and chose to ignore the metaplot, you would basically be unable to use most supplements.

How so? I ask because i started with mage and basically only used the supplements for crunchy bits and discarded any metaplot i though was retarded like the Masassah war or the avatar storm as written.

Did masquerade mechanics have anything to do with politics? Or who switches sides?

>You're probably talking about me, since I've said that a few times. It's not false. In the book they state that Silver Ladder doctrine is that any Consilium that doesn't have a Thearch as Heirarch or Councilor is not a valid Consilium, and should be over thrown.

I was talking about a face to face game, you usually game on Cordoba, Argentina?

>I know plenty of people who ignore the Heiromagus messianic death cult aspects of the Guardians

oh yes, all the time. I make a point that the Guardians who believes in magic jebus are the retards of the order.

But my point was that i meet lots of NWoD fans that as intolerant of anything not fitting the "canon" of the books as OWoD fans complaining that "in X years Z organization" wasnt functioning.

The context isn't really important, though. The Silver Ladder's position is that them being in charge is more important than the will of the people. That was essentially what the "theme" of that city was: That the Ladder there realized (after a big war) that being in charge didn't make them leaders, it just made them in charge.

>Did masquerade mechanics have anything to do with politics? Or who switches sides?
An entire clan was killed off and another clan changed sides.

And no, that wasn't me, then. But they're right, the Silver Ladder does say that.

I've frankly never met many people who say something MUST follow the canon. I've met people who find deviations stupid (I certainly hate people who try to throw Caine into Requiem), but not that they need to follow the canon.

>will of the people
Nobody in the Ladder should give half of a shit about the will of the people though.
What's what the principles of the Sage is about.

In the oWoD, can Antes go Rotscrechk as well?

>>Now you can say "I'm Swooning" and look up what Swooning does and keep track of it.
>This is in and of itself extra bookkeeping. Add on top of that the fact that you're dependent on tracking and then dumping your conditions if you want more than a couple of Beats at the end of a session...
Status effects already existed in the game. That's not a new thing. Giving them all names and then putting them in the back of the book together is new. But putting them all in one place (or on cards they want you to buy but probably no one will) means it's easier to understand. It's easier to look that up and keep track of it compared to flipping through to find out which power does what effect.
If I'm Dominated by also someone used Nightmare but also I'm under the effects of The Kiss, I don't need to look through all those sections of the book, I just need to know that I have Mesmerized, Swooning, and Spooked.
I also love that each of the Conditions has a way to gain Beats. It encourages you to actually play up the condition. I like carrot and stick gameplay that focuses on the carrot.

>>Or, alternately, having that card helps keep the actual bookkeeping to a minimum.
>Oh yes, I love having to buy extra feelies in order to keep track of what's going on in the session.
You don't need the actual cards. And it's better than having unnamed conditions. Because Conditions have always existed, they just haven't had names. As an example, I'm going to pull out whichever book is on the top of the stack and give examples:
Tear-Stained Boneyard makes you feel like you're drowning, giving a penalty to all actions
Phantasmal Boneyard gives a bonus to see through illusions (and many others give simple bonuses like that as well)
Every Curse Manifestation is really just a Condition.
Although, wow, Geist's powers are so lame. So many of them are just bonuses and penalties. There's not really even anything like "sleep" or something.
Honestly, 2e is a lot more flavourful. The Beat and Resolution of the Conditions really helps add narrative to them.

>>I actually find mechanical structure to help the narrative.
>I'm sorry your imagination is broken and you can't include things in your narrative unless there are clear, concrete dice bonuses and penalties that the game has predefined for you involved.
My imagination is perfectly fine. I'd like the game to be imaginative. If you would prefer a bland game where there's nothing that adds mechanical weight to the narrative and everything is based on how well you can emote without any real emotional resonance there's always OSR. But me, I'd rather games that make one situation feel different from another situation in a more tactile way. I don't play freeform games because I *want* some sort of structure that adds mechanical weight to the narrative. Not because I "need" it due to a lack of creativity.

>My imagination is perfectly fine. I'd like the game to be imaginative. If you would prefer a bland game where there's nothing that adds mechanical weight to the narrative and everything is based on how well you can emote without any real emotional resonance there's always OSR.

Someone hasn't played any of the Sine Nomine games, or Beyond the Wall.

Either way, it all comes down to game playstyle and philosophy. "Emotional resonance" is something that comes only from the immersive and social aspects of the game, and exactly what will break that immersion will differ from gamer to gamer. For some folks, it's having things come down to a simple binary roll, and for others it's having a more mechanically rigorous structute. There's no real silver bullet to achieving it.

CofD 2e's system is in a very strange position where it's in the middle of the spectrum, so it can turn off both sides pretty easily, depending on the circumstances. Ultimately I think it's better but the system's still nothing to write home about.

Being in the middle of the spectrum is where I like it. I don't like many other games because they're either too crunchy or not crunchy enough. I actually am surprised I like CofD 2e, because it's more to it, but it's a very narrative It's all those systems I like in theory, but with enough meat to satisfy me.

And, like I said, for people who *don't* like emotionally resonant mechanics, there's always OSR. Or GURPS, which will always feel like GURPS.

it's mostly towards how the ST handles it. Conditions / Beats are like suppose to be the rewards for indulging into the narrative. likewise they incentivizes player to play in character.

STs can over tax the system without meaning too, by over loading the character with conditions. Like pulling the scene into too making directions.

They're like suppose to be an emotional burden to overcome in the scene and a reminder of previous scenes. Their like hitpoints in that manner. although the previous monster/rooms have been defeated, and out of mind; you're still down hitpoints

thats just my way to look at it

>And, like I said, for people who *don't* like emotionally resonant mechanics, there's always OSR.

Again, something is only "emotionally resonant" on a personal or social level, when a player feels immersed. The mechanics themselves can attempt to encourage this, but that doesn't make the actual mechanics "emotionally resonant". You're attaching a subjective quality to some pretty standard narrative mechanics.

Apply what this guy is saying to roleplaying games
youtu.be/2bsxQZ5JDec
youtu.be/fgIeBgLO6rY
youtu.be/XfFteTrAvZw
youtu.be/PmkDLZePGPE

I wish there were some Youtube channels like this, but for roleplaying games.

Actually that last one isn't important, I should have rewatched it before linking it.

youtu.be/xBN3R0m31bA

Thanks, that's pretty funny.

>You monster. I found the artist and now I'll waste the next half hour of my finite life looking at stupid comic strips.

There's nothing stopping you from having Ravnos *after* the Week of Nightmares either. They just wouldn't have been likely (read, basically zero percent chance of survival) to exist if they were anywhere near India at the time of Zapathasura's awakening and/or death.

If they were just a regular Ravnos in the Americas (and there are quite a lot of them there) the biggest issue is when two or more Ravnos meet up and go "ARGARGLE, DRINK YOUR BLOOD!" at each other.

While the Ravnos were absolutely decimated in comparison to what their numbers *used* to be, there's still a few members of the clan left. A little over a hundred members was the number given in "Time of Thin Blood". The Week of Nightmares happened in 1999 according to the Revised timeline (if you're following the 20th Anniversary timeline, the Week of Nightmares happen whenever the Storyteller wants it to happen). So, Gehenna in Revised takes place in 2004.

If you're dead-set on following the old Revised timeline (for whatever ungodly reason) that's still five years or so where the Ravnos are free to Embrace childer again (which they are likely to do, just like any other clan/bloodline are likely to start embracing again), a perfect time in which to craft various Ravnos plothooks and chronicles, or even new player characters.

Of course, the elders of the clan are completely gone. Kaput. Dead and buried.

The Ladder's test for legitimate Consilia is that there's a heirarch *or* Councillor. They're acbsolutely fine with a Heirarch from a different Order, as long as one or more Councillors is a thearch.

In some Consilia, the Heirarch is strictly just a chairperson and moderator, and the Councillors make the actual decisions.

Gary Gygax's spin on D&D and nwod are both mechanically complicated, the former far moreso than the latter, primarily due to initiative etc. Though AD&D inits are still far less complex than, say, Exalted 2e inits.

owod fan here. Metaplot is indeed dunmnb, and very VERY intrusive, on the order of "your character no longer exists! STs, please, really, don't let players get away with saving their characters -- it detracts from the wangst of the setting!"

It does however impart ENERGY to the setting. Its like a comic book franchise.

Of course. An ante is a """""""""""""""normal"""""""""""""""" vampire with blood pool: 100/20 (or whatever), a fuckhuge amount of maturation points, and level 10 disciplines whose power is PLOT, ie whatever the ST decides. But its safe to say very few antes have a level 10 power pertaining to resisting rotz.

Hey Dave, can you save a Sleeper from quiescence by erasing the memories of Magic from his mind before quiescence sets in at the end of the scene?

Are Hidden anything in particular? I for the life of me cannot figure out why they'd have 5/5/5 stats, 15 health and not being prone to moving on when they kill their killers, are they strictly new for Hunter?

Walkers are directly equated to Risen in Hunter: Walking Dead and shamblers could be any number of things, though a hive mind of spectres using Fetter Rape strikes me as the most likely.

Also are Hekatonkhire statted anywhere?

>any Consilium that doesn't have a Thearch as Heirarch or Councilor is not a valid Consilium
I said that, Dave :V

I have never felt that my games needed to be imparted "energy" from an external source.

>if you started out running a game with Masquerade 1e and played from 1991 to 2004 and chose to ignore the metaplot, you would basically be unable to use most supplements.

What utter horseshit. I know it can be done, because I've done it. It's easy. Metaplot didn't affect the Sabbat books in 2nd Ed, or any of the 2nd Ed supplements except "Under a Blood Red Moon" and the shift from Chicago 1 to Chicago 2. Using the Revised books just meant ignoring the Time of Thin Blood, The Red Sign, any other pre-packaged "on rails" adventures, The Week of Nightmares and it's fallout, as well as a heap of City By Night books you wouldn't have used anyway. Keep the Gangrel, the Ravnos and the Tremere Antitribu.

Fucking done.

>An entire clan was killed off
Of which mechanics play no part, and can be ignored.

> and another clan changed sides.
Of which mechanics played no part, and can be ignored.

You are zero for two, pal.

the metaplot was hokey, intrusive, and extremely, senselessly aggressive, as well as equating Tremere antitribu players to players of The Last Bunyip or The Last White Howler

it did not however prevent you from ignoring it, only tried to use shame tactics on you

>only tried to use shame tactics on you

Pffft. Please. I'm about as likely to take hollow judgements in a RPG manual as seriously as a maniac street preacher. White Wolf has always been about the idiotic assertions people are "playing it wrong". Phil "Satyros" Brucato has a poke in Mage 20th at people who (I shit you not) have the AUDACITY to eat takeaway franchise pizza at their sessions instead of ordering ecologically sustainable small business take-out, or cooking a large meal for four to five people. This is the same book where he complains there wasn't enough room for Sorcerers, despite being 200,000 words and the size of the Greater Chicago Phonebook... maybe if he hadn't masturbated thought-bubbles endlessly there'd be room for actual content, but that would require management to reign in the excesses of a bunch of old fucks that need rubber wallpaper and thorazine more than a paid job

I've been through the whole Mage 2E book and still don't know how Goetia work. They live in the Astral Realms and represent concepts, okay. What makes them different from spirits?
If I kill a Goetia in my Oneiros, do I lose that aspect of my personality?
What exactly signifies a different "rank" between Goetia? Is it more dependent on the idea's popularity, or its depth in the culture?
Can there be multiple Goetia of the same concept? Or is it more like "whoops, someone already took Ronald McDonald as a Familiar, too bad"
I suppose there's a book somewhere that describes Goetia in detail, but they got hardly anything compared to ghosts and spirits in the core book.

Goetia were by far my favorite element in 1e, I wonder if they're any good in 2e.

Goetia are native to the Astral, Spirits are native to the Shadow.
Goetia are maintained by their realm in and of itself, while Spirits are forced into a semi-predatory ecosystem.
If you kill a Goetia in your Oneiros, it might influence your mind slightly, but it'll reform in time, much like a Spirit. If you excise it from your head though (by summoning it to the Fallen world) then that will influence your personality.
Goetia Rank is about the concept's pertinence. So the Astral Realm of people's perception of some local mayor will be fairly small. But the realm of McDonalds? That's going to have a crazy powerful fucking Goetia in it.
There can be MANY Goetia of the same concept.

Goeita are explained quite nicely in 1e's book Summoners.
Which it quite honestly a book EVERYONE needs to read.
It's fantastic.

What the fuck.

Its good to know that the prime guy behind Mage is... exactly the stereotypical author I envisioned.

>Phil "Satyros" Brucato has a poke in Mage 20th at people who (I shit you not) have the AUDACITY to eat takeaway franchise pizza at their sessions instead of ordering ecologically sustainable small business take-out, or cooking a large meal for four to five people.

Wut? Where is this?

>Phil "Satyros" Brucato has a poke in Mage 20th at people who (I shit you not) have the AUDACITY to eat takeaway franchise pizza at their sessions instead of ordering ecologically sustainable small business take-out, or cooking a large meal for four to five people.

Wut? Where is this shit?

Chapter 7, Telling the Story:
>Many gaming groups favor a potluck approach, with the members all bringing something to the table. Others pool their money and pitch in for a meal prepared by someone else. Whatever you do, please buy smart, eat healthy, and give your hard-earned cash to ethically-run local businesses whenever possible.

and,

>Even so, it’s a good idea to get the feast out of the way before your game begins. The rarified reaches of the Astral Realms may be hard to evoke when the scent of pizza’s in the air. [...] However appropriate the meal, though, it’s best to get the eating out of the way before your game begins. That way, the attention’s on you, not on the last piece of pizza congealing in its own grease.

And finally, we have this arrogant little gem;

>Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to be rich or have a big house in order to set up a good gaming space

Yes! Popular belief in Veeky Forums is that regardless of whether you're playing Fighting Fantasy or FATAL, it *needs* to happen in your sprawling mansion on your family's estates. That's why we're all fabulously rich, and totally not playing in sheds and basements.

Brucato is an overprivileged piece of shit, who assumes he's writing RPG's for toff fuckers with cash to burn.

Sure explains those "Deluxe" editions, doesn't it?

> /me hums "Do You Hear The People Sing" and downloads M20 supplements off MEGA

>What makes them different from spirits?
They are literally just mind-spirits. It's not a complicated thing at all.
>What exactly signifies a different "rank" between Goetia? Is it more dependent on the idea's popularity, or its depth in the culture?
There is literally a sidebar on this very topic.

Summoners has some of the spookiest shit of any book.

You sound whiny and hateful, to be honest. How do you stand interacting with other people if you consider those quotes to be horrible slights on your very essence?

>You sound whiny and hateful, to be honest.
Well, if *I'm* being perfectly honest, I don't give a fuck what you think of me. You're the little bitch that got snooty because "durrr, goetia r juss mind-spirits, u is a dumbhead" - so you understood it and someone else didn't, you want a fucking gold star?

Also,
>whiny and hateful
Veeky Forums, I'm home.

>How do you stand interacting with other people if you consider those quotes to be horrible slights on your very essence?

I'll let you in on a little secret, I don't waste time socialising with Phil Brucato or people that shit me to tears. The only reason I'm even speaking to you is because it amuses me.

Go fellate Phil Brucato some more.

Man, I don't even care about the guy, I just find people wanking about how terrible he is to be overblown whiny bullshit. No one made you buy his game.

So, wait, you felt I was getting snooty, but you totally weren't in your post (or this one)? Seems pretty arbitrary.

>/me hums "Do You Hear The People Sing" and downloads M20 supplements off MEGA
So you're just as full-of-yourself and self-righteous as Brucato, then.

I thought it was a pretty funny review. Brucato is a totally ridiculous man after all. Better to embrace the stupid in RPGs than to be embarrassed of it.

And lets face it, the Brucato outlook on life is perfect for Mage.

>The only reason I'm even speaking to you is because it amuses me.

>*sheathes katana, tips fedora dismissively*

Video games aren't roleplaying games, and a lot of their theories and structures don't crossover as well as one might expect. Mechanics in a video game can be said to be emotionally resonant because even the most open video game is ultimately going to provide a controlled, crafted experience to a player. This is enhanced by storytelling techniques from film or television, so video games get the best of both worlds: influences from active and passive medias to encourage immersion and emotional reaction.

RPGs are different from the very beginning: The rulebook is not actually the game. The rulebook is the blueprints for the game, and it is the mixture of improvisation and social contract that is the missing component to create the impact of the gaming experience. Immersion will always be more difficult, but in exchange its versatility goes beyond anything a video game could achieve at the moment. Mechanics can arbitrate disputes and encourage the intended narrative of play, but emotional impact cannot to ascribed to them, because getting the player to feel is the referee and the player's job.

Tone of the poster aside, RPG documents are always based on hard word count limits. Being economical with them is crucial, so the many asides that Brucato makes is actively making less room for more relevant content. It all comes off as padding, and it should have been cut.

He can be confirming what you say rather then saying your wrong.

>Many gaming groups favor a potluck approach, with the members all bringing something to the table. Others pool their money and pitch in for a meal prepared by someone else. Whatever you do, please buy smart, eat healthy, and give your hard-earned cash to ethically-run local businesses whenever possible.
Kek. Shouldn't be it also vegan only?
>However appropriate the meal, though, it’s best to get the eating out of the way before your game begins. That way, the attention’s on you, not on the last piece of pizza congealing in its own grease.
Geez, thanks for advice, mum.

>I also love that each of the Conditions has a way to gain Beats. It encourages you to actually play up the condition.
It does the opposite of that, actually. You get absolutely no reward for playing up the condition - you get the reward for REMOVING the Condition.
>I like carrot and stick gameplay that focuses on the carrot.
I have seen the idea behind conditions handled so much better in multiple different game systems that the way ChroD does it feels much more like a stick.

>While the Ravnos were absolutely decimated in comparison to what their numbers *used* to be, there's still a few members of the clan left. A little over a hundred members was the number given in "Time of Thin Blood". The Week of Nightmares happened in 1999 according to the Revised timeline (if you're following the 20th Anniversary timeline, the Week of Nightmares happen whenever the Storyteller wants it to happen). So, Gehenna in Revised takes place in 2004.
Can post-Zapathasura Ravnos still Embrace?

I wouldn't have much of an issue with this (it just comes off as silly on its own, honestly) if he didn't then turn around and complain that he DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH WORDCOUNT for other things he wanted to include.

Why doesn't OPP have fucking editors?

>Man, I don't even care about the guy, I just find people wanking about how terrible he is to be overblown whiny bullshit. No one made you buy his game.

Maybe we're pissed because it was supposed to be a 20th anniversary edition, a love letter to the fans and all that? What we got was a badly edited mish-mash of unworkable garbage, with a heap of concepts changed for no good reason (the Christians are right, now, did you know?). The rules are broken up, hard to read, full of irrelevant rants on whatever the author is pissed off about this hour, they repeat for no good reason and are often contradictory. Some young game designer could have gotten the job and done a better product by 150%, culled page upon page of unnecessary bloat and made the book actually worth the money. But no, we get this POS. Even better, we get people like you, apologists for incompetence and mediocrity.

M20's How Do I Do That? should be held accountable at the Hague. What a complete misnomer, more like How Do I Confuse My Players?

But sure, pretend that everything OPP touches is pure gold. I'd hate to contradict a delusional schizophrenic.

>(the Christians are right, now, did you know?)
Wait, what?

How does that even jive with consensual reality?

Well, I didn't look down on anyone for eating pizza, criticise people for not using "zie and zir", make assumptions about everyone living in splendour, hobble the concept of Paradigm until literally everyone can cast magic using Yoga and spend page upon page lecturing people about the evils of modern technology while I typed 200,000 words into a laptop's word processor, so....

>Daddy, what's a false equivalency?

>Shadowrun's is also garbage, and possibly worse than oWoD's.
It's not just possible; it DEFINITELY is.

I still don't understand why you all get so triggered over fedoras. It's a fucking hat. Do you have any idea how pathetic you sound when you dish shit on people over a fucking hat? Grow up and join the real world, where people worry about real problems.

Fedora. Christ....

No, but you're literally equating yourself to a goddamn freedom-fighting revolutionary martyr for pirating an RPG book because you think the guy who wrote it is a tool.

I'd say that's taking yourself as seriously as Brucato does.

Are you new enough that you don't understand how memes work? They're not literally attacking the hat.

Never played either of the Mage games, so I don't know; are you guys always as crazy as you seem to always be in here?

Why wouldn't they? Bloodlines don't have antes, and they get by just fine.

This, this, god almighty, a thousand times this.

I know. That's why I'm so confused as to why people playing Mage hate the guy who thinks he is one. I mean, that poster made it out like he was personally being insulted. The tone of Dudes of Legend is more insulting, judging by those quotes.

Mage fans are prone to fighting at the drop of a hat. It has been this way for over twenty years.

They don't cross over perfectly, but they still cross over. I was tired last night and throwing an example of what I meant before going to bed. Mechanics in a roleplaying game can very much be emotionally resonant. It's all about adding mechanical weight to the narrative. Dogs in the Vineyard for instance would not work as well with a different system. The system it has very strongly reinforces the themes of the game. The same with Monsterheart's String economy. There are even a lot of Conditions in CofD that really help sell the tone. The Humanity system in Vampire is also a good one, in that when you do things that are inhuman--whether positive or negative--you lose Humanity, and everything is tied to Humanity. There are also the little carrots, like how interacting with your Touchstone gives a point of Willpower.

While there is no computer system running a roleplaying game, it's ridiculous to say that the book and the game presented in it isn't the system, and isn't something you can judge. You can tell me that it's up to the ST to get players to have emotions, but my point is that some games make that a hell of a lot easier. Again, I point to Dogs in the Vineyard. That system is meant to make you feel like you're pressed into backing down or risking bigger and bigger Fallout to double down and press on. And it does that by making physical and verbal battles more or less equivalent.

Going back to the Conditions and Willpower gains, those get people to care about things, even just a little, because there are mechanics tied to them. There's something on a page to give a mechanical weight to your action. And for things like Morality, there's a mechanical penalty for doing bad things. That gives meaning beyond just how well you roleplay.

Also, perhaps--just perhaps--Brucato felt those asides were important to the tone of the game.

Then I'm not sure why "there are only 100 of them left" is such an issue. They can refresh their numbers, and they won't even have an Ante breathing down their necks waiting to eat them all, because that guy has already been killed.

I mean, the lowest-generation Ravnos in the world are gonna be like, 8th gen, but aside from that they should be fine. Just have those guys do the embracing instead of their childer and grandchilder.

It fits in with the Rules section on spirits. First, the caveat;
>We’re not here to tell you how to believe or to force a religion (or the lack of one) down your throat. Maybe all spirits really are aliens or angels or demons or archetypes. That’s your call to make, not ours.

Ok so far. Then we get told that there are only 3 truly supreme Celstines; The Essential Divinity (source of all heavenly goodness), The Godhead (personified God or Gods) and The Adversary (literally an old Christian term for Satan, and yes, evil incarnate).

So yeah, fuck the Triat, fuck 20 years of gameplay, There Is But One God and Brucato is His Prophet.

Dudes of Legend is written with irony. Brucato seems to be woefully deficient in that area.

Oh, I understand memes just fine; a series of inside jokes that rely on repetition in order to make people laugh. The problem is, "tips fedora" isn't funny, it's just heaping shit on a particular group of people who think they're stylish, and saying "look at me! I'm better than him because I don't wear a hat!"

When I was 16, people got the same way over pork pie hats. Maybe y'all just need to mature a little.

Vampires are thrown into YUUUUGE fits of despair and decline over being dwindled to almost nothing left, even though, as you say, nothing ***directly*** controls their population in VtM.

But I think Ravnos, after their antediluvian was gnarmed, suffered some sort of vague frenzy on sight rule with regards to each other.

>Why doesn't OPP have fucking editors?

Because that would require quality control, we cant have that and OPP/WW remain the same, wouldnt we?

So they could Embrace, but then they'd immediately devour the childe?

Wow. You are actually so high on the Aspergers spectrum that you can no longer tell when someone is trying to make a joke that fits with the rest of the post. I'm not even going to insult you, I genuinely feel sorry for you. The internet must be a scary place when you can't perceive people's intentions.

It would also have saved us the clusterfuck that was the Beast Kickstarter.

of course, the Beast Kickstarter made OPP 115 grand, so why would they change it?

how many fucking Satans does owod need?

I don't find Brucato's triat any more or less retarded than the stasis/dynamism/entropy one but its still dumb.

As the person who made the post; no, I was using the katana-and-fedora as convenient shorthand for the sort of person I was talking about.

>Oh, I understand memes just fine; a series of inside jokes that rely on repetition in order to make people laugh. The problem is, "tips fedora" isn't funny, it's just heaping shit on a particular group of people who think they're stylish, and saying "look at me! I'm better than him because I don't wear a hat!"

>When I was 16, people got the same way over pork pie hats. Maybe y'all just need to mature a little.

>You are actually so high on the Aspergers spectrum that you can no longer tell when someone is trying to make a joke that fits with the rest of the post.
Maybe your jokes are just bad.

It's just Fan-Rage. It's healthy for us to vent, it stops incidents like when all those Warhammer 40K fans went troppo and sent death threats to Matt Ward over the Necrons teaming up with the Blood Angels. We throw insults at each other like crumpled balls of paper until we get bored and wander off. No-one gets hurt, and if anyone gets really genuinely pissed off they put down their device and go do something else... or just fap to porn.