/cofdg/+/wodg/ - Chronicles and World of Darkness General Thread

... Sometimes you might not be in the mood for killing or maiming anyone?

To take the werewolf alive for experimentation.

I think you mean sodomize.

Kind regards, your local Ashwood Abbey member.

use the oversized toys. they regenerate anuses

>What non-Of Darkness media do you find inspirational?

Sin City is pretty nice in my opinion, for showing off just how corrupted, merciless and disgusting the World of Darkness can be, especially for Vampire the Masquerade games.

...Darn, now I want to make Marv into a character for a session or two.

Roll for Anal Circumference.

Hey man, I ain't rolling for the monsters AC, I'm not the Story teller, aha.

Okay, roll for cock length, circumference and testicle size.

>What non-Of Darkness media do you find inspirational? What fits the tone of the games best, and what kind of book/movie/vidya/show do you wish your games played like ?

The comic-book series Fables. Mostly because I play a lot of Changeling and that I love adapting fairytales and legends into it, but also the surreal feel of it as well as a lot of intregration in the 'real world'.

Even if the scenario can be pretty messy.

Has DaveH mentioned whether Storycrafting is going to be in Changeling the Lost 2e core?

No love for Neil Gaiman? I would have through The Dreaming series was pretty much the go-to for Changeling ideas.

Why the fuck don't Chessex make d10 sets anymore? The only way to get d10 sets out of Chessex is to buy them from a third party that patiently assembles them.

Oh yes Neil Gaiman as well, actually I usually go to Neverwhere before The Dreaming.

Does anyone think White Wolf went full TSR back in the day with some of their Werewolf:tA supplements?

I'm looking at this "Talon of the Wyrm" they put underneath Tunguska, and this fucker has to be designed solely to exterminate troublesome Rank 5 packs. He has 14 health levels. That pales in comparison to the stats for Shaitan in The Chaos Factor, who, iirc, had instakill amounts of Celerity and was Generation 4, making him effectively unbeatable unless the players called in the entire Sabbat of Mexico City.

I fucking loved that series. Did you know they redid it as a radio play a while back? It included that whole "Mind the Gap" bit that was left out of the original TV show and starred Benedict Cumberbatch as teh Angel Islington, Muad'Dib's kid from Children of Dune as Richard and that Margot lady from Game of Thrones as Door. Fucking top notch.

Go to Diceshoponline, go to die sets, check d10's, check Chessex

Yeees I remember that. I heard it a while ago before I read the book cause my mother used to listen to audiobooks while cooking.

Never forget NWoD vampires in love book, the TSR wood burning kit of the line.

>Never forget NWoD vampires in love book, the TSR wood burning kit of the line.

Wait what?
Requiem got a book about vampire love?

drivethrurpg.com/product/97127/Strange-Dead-Love?

WTA was never the most nuance game line

Huh. Wow. Didn't pay much attention to 1e Requiem, that one went straight past me.

We also had the Chronicle guide to werewolf, which has a chapter dedicated to an alternative setting hack of "what if uratha could mate with uratha" with description of what kind of love each auspice is.

By the end, NWoD could hide their magical realmy writing.

Huh. Wasn't that the book with the awesome Sumerian Werewolf-kingdom as well?
Talk about uneven book then.

Can you explain what this "magical realm" thing everyone keeps mentioning is, exactly?

It's a reference to this comic.
Magical Realm has become shorthand for any inclusion of fetishes or otherwise sexual content in a game.

White Wolf mobile games go live this Christmas / New Years, starting with the Orpheus EVP game.

Are we psyched, or anticipating another Vampire: Redemption?

>White Wolf mobile games
>mobile

I'm seriously worried about those. We don't need to dilute WoD to pander to the lowest common denominator, but that's what's needed to succeed on the mobile games market.

The Orpheus EVP game actually sounds cool, the others seem pretty meh. Also Redemption wasn't that bad of a game, it was just the wrong kind of game and therefore ended up paling in comparison to Bloodlines.

>White Wolf mobile games go live this Christmas / New Years, starting with the Orpheus EVP game.
>Are we psyched, or anticipating another Vampire: Redemption?

i am dreading a dating sim-like WoD mobile videogame.

>Orpheus slot machine
wut

Nah, this one's one of those Earplay projects that OPP's also getting on board with. Apparently the game's premise is that it lets you turn your phone into a radio that can pick up the Shadowlands, and then a Spectre finds the frequency.

Orpheus GO! then?

It's just the one Spectre, and it's all voiced based. So you say things, it reacts, that sort of deal. It's seems like it's going to be more like Lifeline except not real time and with audio.

Written by the one writing V:tR2e right the fuck now for Onyx Path, ohohoho.

How would you design a cofd/wod game where mage are handled as "monsters"?

Hunter the vigil witchsomething

Actually developed by. It was written by the person who's developing Hunter. Also, I don't really see the problem with Strange, Dead Love.

It's actually a pretty boring book, for all the dustup around it. The soap opera style game was the best part, but Monsterhearts does that way better.

At least it wasn't Invite Only, though. Now THAT book was a big ol' pile of nothing.

>I don't really see the problem with Strange, Dead Love

I dont see the problem with trs woodburning kit neither.

It isnt offensive by itself is just unecessary and the point they ran out of ideas but try to grab a few bucks from their fanbase anyway.

>At least it wasn't Invite Only, though. Now THAT book was a big ol' pile of nothing.

Wasnt invite only an adventure?

Strange Dead Love is a much better rulebook than you might think, it has a lot of nifty scenarios and settings involved.

The dynamics surrounding romantic engagements are a pretty staple plot for Vampire and its crunch heavier than say owod clanbooks.

Nope. 72 page sourcebook on Vampire social gatherings. Like Strange, Dead Love, it's not bad, it's just kind of white noise, except this one is even more so.

I don't know what "full TSR" means in either context but WHY do you think either of those is so fucking super amazing?

14 health levels is possible for a starting wraith or risen char, and is itself not exactly amazing.

I don't know who Shaitan is (in this context), and I don't know why huge Celerity is "instakill." The PCs probably have it to. Two normal vamps with Cel 4 easily exceed his action economy.

Not magical realm by a long shot, its totally fucking vanilla and non intrusive.

I'm building a cowboy for an CoD wild west game. With Haunted Mines, and ghost bandits and shit.

Question Should I still use the drive skill, for horses, and buggy driving? or is that more athletics or handle animal?

If you mean as degenerate vicious antagonists, make it so that they can only gain mana by sacrificing human-tier intelligent beings, consuming souls, etc. Easy.

You might want to replace the Drive skill entirely as that is meant for cars, trains, and planes

I don't really think there was a dust up at all, though.

A game for running romantic one on one stories in the genre that's almost half romantic stories isn't unusual.
Like, half of all urban fantasy is paranormal romance. And most of those feature vampires. Strange, Dead Love makes perfect sense.

A woodburning kit is just a weird kitschy thing.

Yeah. I still need to read it, since a lot of what I've done in the past has been one on one (and romanticish). I mean, my Mage game was basically a dating sim, at least partly.

Drive should be replaced with Ride.

There was a dustup, like there always is with these kinds of books, whether it was people wondering if the book was really necessary when White Wolf was more or less going dark, to people worried about White Wolf being tasteless, even to the few people freaking out about it being some kind of ERP manual (these people quickly shut up).

It just happened to die quickly because it was pretty clear that it was just a normal sourcebook on a niche topic, and then no one really talked about it again.

So. I have this weird idea of making a hunter game. Only it's set in the 1920's, and the players will be hit men working for the mob. Clearing out the weirdo trash that tries to edge into the outfit.

Is this a stupid or cool idea?

Thanks good sires for replying

I would replace drive. but there are Trains in setting, and the core book has horses as a vehicle option. so hence my confusion

Yes, it sounds very cool. Anything Hunter related that isn't just super moralizing HFY preachy shit is always exciting to me, and its very expected that supernaturals will perform criminal activities.

Then maybe Animal Ken is only for rearing and taming horses and Drive is for riding them

Yeah. I also kinda want it to be certain it's not exactly anti-monster. It's just that the players will be the guys with the weirdo experience.
Monsters aren't BAD per se, it's just that anyone who tries to get a piece of the pie without paying for it will get beat down.

Either that, or making a Werewolf chronicle in the same vein. A criminal organisation that at it's core is a werewolf pack.

I really remember nothing of the sort.

Sounds good.

Horses would still be Ride. Trains probably wouldn't be Drive in the first place. Replace Computers with Technology. Running a train is Intelligence+Technology.

You should have them doing business with the supernatural criminal elements, but making sure that they don't get too wise. Look into the Tokyo stuff that's been released so far. The Hototogisu is what you want to be. A Chicago Hototogisu, and you're the enforcers.
Sell fetishes crafted by your voodoun grannies to the werewolves and strong arm the bloodsuckers into paying for your prostitutes.

It's been over five years, but I remember. There was an even tinier one over the romance options in Werewolf Chronicler's Guide, but that too was lost in the bigger discussion of "is selling these books piecemeal a good idea?"

>A Chicago Hototogisu, and you're the enforcers.

Yeah. I was going for Boston, but it doesn't matter much.

"full TSR" means a sourcebook for every single possible thing they could make money from, no matter how dreadfully done or stupid.

In this context that makes no sense though, because he was referring to two sorta tough antagonists.

most of them are pretty monstrous. the Euthantoi are an entire tradition of serial killers.

I don't think most mages are anywhere near that bad, but the Euthanatoi are unusual for going around killing people for being fucking pathetic losers. Although I consider myself a fucking pathetic loser, what offends me is not that they kill people for being losers, but that they justify it based off the logic of "killing doesn't real because you'll just reincarnate."

mages can justify any act, no matter how horrible as long as they get something out of it.

they are like sith versions of john constantine.
A ORPHANAGE IS ON FIRE!!
A. save children by nudging reality enough to have a fire sprinkler system put it all out early
OR
b. HEY LOOK GUYS A COUPON FOR A FREE FROSTY AT WENDY'S!!!

Can someone recommend some of the novels?
I reading Mage the Awakening - fallen world chronicles and after the first two chapters I'm somewhat underwhelmed.

talking specifically WoD novels?

A Hunger Like Fire is good, if you like Vampire the Requiem stuff. Fallen World Anthology is the only Mage the Awakening fiction book available at the moment, I think. There's a Requiem trilogy, a crossover anthology, I WANT to day that a Forsaken novel exists but I can't be sure, and the recent God-Machine, Strix, Idigam, Fallen World, and Firestorm Anthologies, along with Demon: Interface and The Primordial Feast.

Was anyone else super-bummed by Promethean 2e?
Like, it's kinda neat that they added more gameplay shit, like alchemists, more ways to keep the wasteland at bay, and making unfleshed an actual lineage, but World of Darkness has always been about heavy, well written lore and 2e skips out on a ton of lore that 1e established. The myths of the Zeka aren't mentioned, neither are clones, and Pandorans REALLY got the shaft in this one. The mockeries for each individual lineage don't even have NAMES anymore. In 1e they gave an interesting example of a powerful sublimati for each Pandoran mockery, but in 2e they just kind of threw 3 half-assed sublimati idea's out and said 'yeah these guys are kinda scary I guess.'
And don't even get me started on how speshul snowflake the extempore are this time around.
The whole book feels like they retconned way more than they added.
Literally the Pandoran's don't even have NAMES anymore.

I'm doing a bit of work on a Covenant for Requiem, my players have been requesting it since it's pretty tightly incorporated into the current campaign and I realised after six sessions that maybe I should actually do some work on it rather than pretending I've already done it but not letting the players see it. Y'know, regular GM stuff. I've named them 'The Forgotten'.

Rather than being a formalised institution such as Invictus, it's something more akin to the Carthian Movement in that it's more about individuals that share a general belief, but also an affliction. These Kindred have died in ignomity, their deaths unimportant and at best a footnote in an obituary. Some casualty of a war or killed in a feeding gone wrong perhaps. While many rise as Revenants, some are the passing fancy of their Sire and quickly left for dead. Though Revenants are by and large, the norm. The loneliness and despair that many of these Kindred/Revenants feel is a similar melody sung by Ghosts across the world. Ghosts who otherwise cannot fulfill their desires and resolve their lives. These Kindred are a bridge, a medium through which Ghosts can enact their will upon the waking world.

The crux of the matter is that the Forgotten are mediums by RAW, and they leverage their needs vs the desires of Ghosts the world over. Ghosts would innately be drawn towards one of the Forgotten, and the Forgotten is able to barter their services in exchange for powers of the Ghosts. The Forgotten can't tune out the Ghosts, they're always there and always wailing for help.

I wasn't sure whether these guys would work better as a Clan, Bloodline or Covenant by rules, I settled on Covenant for the time being but since I'm at a conceptual stage right now it's all up in the air. Does anyone have any advice/input on this? I'd like to iron out problems at the start if possible.

Clones were stupid, and Mockeries always felt unnecessary to me. I'm happy with almost all the changes, or at the very least lukewarm. Extempore are more interesting, although I think playing one or having on a game would be fucking awful.

It also feels like there's more, not less, of the worldbuilding stuff, especially in regards to Firestorms and the Azoth.

A lot of the mid tier to high tier operate on a completely different level than mankind. They're like anyone with a little bit of power. They dehumanize the larger masses, for their own petty goals. Power corrupts and all that jazz

Or like>they kill people for being losers, but that they justify it based off the logic of "killing doesn't real because you'll just reincarnate."

They have alien justifications for the alien stuff they do.

It may make sense to cut off the power to electrical grid and stop the technical spirits from taking information. But to everyone else, their power got cut by a fricken madman! Because they don't have the level of sight/delusion they only see the material concrete.

The trick is not how to make then seem dangerous and unstable. The trick is to make sure they have a consistent parallel logic behind them

HLF is pretty good. I lost my copy of it though. sad face. I never read the second or third books are they any good?

Because the first had it's own little complete story arc and plenty of pathos. I felt like the last few pages could have developed a bit more. Like Persephone felt like a weaker character in the narrative and it really wasn't her story no matter what the back flap says. Bruise on the other hand, is SO real. the down and dirty grime, and just the entire slog he goes through. His life is destroyed and he's picking up the pieces. He makes friends that hate him, but are also willing to throw him a bone. Not to mention he's closer to the mystery/ investigation than anyone else. That character made me want to play a Nos again.

Curse of the Blue Nile is pretty fucking great, even if in one chapter the author clearly never read the book when it comes to mummy physiology.

It's cool, but justifying vampires from incredibly different backgrounds and clans all beeing able to communicate with ghosts is tough. It could work as a cross-clan bloodline like some in 1e.

I wasn't aware those were a thing, thanks user.

Is there anything keeping Zeka from being played anymore, like any drastic rule changes on that front?

Well, there are no rules for them, so you'd have to make your own. A lot of their tone just doesn't fit.

They'd mostly be best as Extempore.

Like vampire Gesit? That has some creative design space. I mean their is a convent in the DanseMacarbe which is basically vampire changelings.

Play up the forlorn connection to the other side. Vampires Die and then they come back. Who's to say their Minds didn't wander in the intermediary. Like one of those near death experiences only you actually died and then came back to tell the tale.

You can even do a thing about one of their over arcing goals to replace the beast inside a vampire with a ghost/giest. giving them a new balance, instead of the hunger

Something worth remembering is that there's lots of covenants that exist only in regions or specific cities, so if you need to justify some weirder shit you can try to make it tie in directly with something in your city.

Basically use the setting as a lathe to shape society, Mr. GM

Ah ok.

Yeah this shit is why I'm going back to owod. At least there's no risk of your splat being randomly deleted there

Shit, I forgot that one, which is weird cause that one's pretty good. We should be getting that upcoming Mummy novel, too.

I haven't read them but from what I hear the second one is OK but from a different writer, and I don't think I've heard people talk about the third one.

>Yeah this shit is why I'm going back to owod. At least there's no risk of your splat being randomly deleted there

The Ravnos say "hello"!

Ravnos were massacred, they were not mechanically deleted.

Uh... yes there is, and it's not "randomly deleted", it's just "not updated", which happened several times whenever oWoD got a new edition. CofD provides you with the tools to create things as well.

Nevermind that everything from oWoD was technically deleted, and on top of that the mechanics and fluff are bad...

To-may-to, to-mah-to.

That's a very interesting idea user. I hadn't even considered it honestly, the replacing the beast aspect. I hadn't thought of Geist either, much as I love that book, I guess it informed the path I went subconsciously.

In relation to my campaign (which is really why I'm doing it, serve the campaign first, be versatile second), the Forgotten are only six decades old. They were formed after the Soviet/Japanese war in Korea in the 40s. The Forgotten now exist to exact vengeance for the fallen and unquiet dead, and they're leveraging the power of spirits with their Kindred prowess to wreak havoc.

I figure, not everyone can just become Forgotten. It's all about where the Kindred is embraced, where they died and why. A Kindred might awaken in a cellar, left for dead in some Shovelhead-esque manner, and the first thing they see is the four dead people who also died in this cellar, and they want to get the maniac that killed them. Maybe you could help?

I really do like the Beast replacing idea though, perhaps some alternate Humanity track? Something where the Kindred is less about fighting off the Beast and more about preserving a sense of self against the onslaught of the Pleas of the unquiet dead?

I hadn't thought of this either, cheers user!

>Nevermind that everything from oWoD was technically deleted

I don't see how so at all.

>mechanics and fluff are bad

Some elements of the mechanics are bad, but after examining the mechanics in anydice I don't find them to be as bad as I thought.

The mechanics are bad even beyond the mathematical component.
And I'm talking about how oWoD ended in 2004. And even before that, there were three edition changes that no doubt left much in the dust.

If you want to play oWoD, go for it, but "they didn't update the supplement based character type I liked" is a stupid reason. I've already explained to you how to play one anyway, and it wouldn't be too difficult to make it from scratch.

>The mechanics are bad even beyond the mathematical component.

Er... what else is there?

I haven't really seen much in the way of a mechanical takedown of owod. The main issue is inconsistency -- how many different ways of mechanically handling a split dice pool there are? And that's one of the most important parts.

>but "they didn't update the supplement based character type I liked" is a stupid reason.

Flighty birds throwing everything I like into the trashcan is the perfect reason to choose.

Approximately how powerful is the average adamant sage? Could he face a pack of low-level werewolves by himself?

I was thinking about doing a crossover in my W:tF game.