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

Geist's problem isn't that a sourcebook couldn't fix it, it's that it didn't get any. Plenty of people have felt games got new life through sourcebooks.

So? You could argue the same about Changeling, and I don't just mean Dreaming.

And in those cases what the sourcebook did was already in the core, just badly explained or not fleshed out enough. Geist would have been a better line with at least two more strong sourcebook, because unlike Beast, it has a strong hook. That's why it persisted long enough for people to want a 2e so badly.

Beast doesn't have a good hook. It has a good sketch of a hook, and it has some things to do around that, but that's not enough, and no sourcebook is going to fix that critical flaw. Much like how Geist got the most limited line possible and we had to wait for a 2e for one that works better, we have to wait out the rest of the Beast line, and see if a new edition of Beast will learn from the past edition's mistakes.

I feel that if anything Beast's problem is that it has so many things it wants to be without actually going into enough focus with any of them. A sourcebook could help there.

Well, Changeling was a game about being kidnapped by the fey, which it accomplishes well enough, while I don't think Beast is really good for being a primordial monster.

No, not even there. Most of the sourcebooks set out for it will only exacerbate that problem, without actually giving it the strong hook it needs. Building a Legend will probably make the game easier to run, but I don't think it will fix the game.

So. There is a discussion on the forums. I'd like to bring it here.
Would you buy pdfs with individual bloodlines/legacies/lodges/entitlements, provided they were cheap?

>DLC skins
Jokes aside, if I weren't poor, I'd buy a standard six page Bloodline write up for a buck. Mix and match build-your-own-book stuff for PoD would also be nice, though I don't think Drivethru can handle that.

The CCCP was extremely left wing. Lenin thought the only way to achieve something akin to communism was to have the state enforce it (Which is in fact the only way to even be remotely communist). It was jingoistic because of the idea of a people's army, it had extremely socialist policies, etc.

You say left wing things are about Freedom, yet the achieve left wing ideals, like true equality, no classes, etc, you have to have a repressive government, a-la the Soviet Union. That's literally how the political Left-Right scale works, the further you stray from Center, the more repressive the state.

Do you feel the concept of Leviathan might be better for that?

Economically, it was left-wing. Socially, it was pretty conservative, though admittedly Stalin made it moreso.

Mixing splats is okay only if by mixing splats you mean different splats in single game. Otherwise it's absolutely haram.

Beast RMC and Beast Conquering Heroes should come out soon, so we have to wait if anything can be salvaged from the game, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that.

No, Socially it was left wing as well. Even Stalin with his National Bolshevism was pretty damn left wing. They had women ENCOURAGED to be in the military, and a state policy of forced equality. Sure, the people could be conservative, but in any given country you have everyone all over the political spectrum.

And before you go on about how Homosexuality was shunned (It was NOT in fact illegal, though), here's a little quote for you explaining why:

"Soviet legislation does not recognize so-called crimes against morality. Our laws proceed from the principle of protection of society and therefore countenance punishment only in those instances when juveniles and minors are the objects of homosexual interest ... while recognizing the incorrectness of homosexual development ... our society combines prophylactic and other therapeutic measures with all the necessary conditions for making the conflicts that afflict homosexuals as painless as possible and for resolving their typical estrangement from society within the collective"

—Sereisky, Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1930, p. 593

That's pretty fucking left wing.

Newsflash: something can be left-wing and authoritarian at the same time, because authoritarianism is its own axis of political catagorization. It happens a lot on the right-wing. One can even be a centrist and lean authoritarian. People can take any policy and torture it to whatever wing they want. Politics is complicated.

No splat touching, please. Hill's is a decent enough attempt but it's a design space I'd rather see avoided.

If I get banned for political discussion again, I dearly hope you do too.

>No, Socially it was left wing as well. Even Stalin with his National Bolshevism was pretty damn left wing. They had women ENCOURAGED to be in the military, and a state policy of forced equality. Sure, the people could be conservative, but in any given country you have everyone all over the political spectrum.
IIRC, the part with women being encouraged to join the military came after the initial Axis curbstomping, and it's not like any of them achieved particularly high rank (though I'm murkier on whether or not it was truly a realistic possibility, I admit).

>And before you go on about how Homosexuality was shunned (It was NOT in fact illegal, though), here's a little quote for you explaining why:
Article 121 in 1933 made male homosexuality illegal, actually.

>"Soviet legislation does not recognize so-called crimes against morality. Our laws proceed from the principle of protection of society and therefore countenance punishment only in those instances when juveniles and minors are the objects of homosexual interest ... while recognizing the incorrectness of homosexual development ... our society combines prophylactic and other therapeutic measures with all the necessary conditions for making the conflicts that afflict homosexuals as painless as possible and for resolving their typical estrangement from society within the collective"
Relatively left-wing for the time, maybe, but there's still stuff like "the incorrectness of homosexual development," so I wouldn't call it leftist in an objective sense.

>The government owning everything is left wing
Socialism is literally defined by the working class controlling the means of production.
It's an axis of political categorization on politicalcompass.org.
mcspotlight.org/cgi-bin/zv/debate/anything/messages/5311.html
Stalin also just... wasn't Socialist. The workers were not in charge.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_Russia#LGBT_history_under_Stalin:_1933.E2.80.931953

Can we please fucking talk about vampires and werewolves?

Stalin was a socialist. You can be a socialist and still suck at it horribly. The deformed nightmare of a worker's state that the USSR was was still an attempt of doing an economy without capitalism. It was the worst, but that doesn't make it not an attempt. You can be left-wing and still oppress people and commit terrible crimes against humanity.

Stalin beleived that the workers could seize the means of production only through the power of a strong state and a single party to represent and guide the workers, and that one could establish it without a worldwide revolution. I see that as the wrong path, but that doesn't make it not a path.

Much like authoritarianism, "freedom" is a concept that any wing can take and define for their own, it's just a matter of which definition one believes is the true one.

So i bought Requiem 2nd edition because i heard every faction has magic one way or another and i like the occultist aspect of Vampire.

I come from Masquerade (playing not DMing) but i have problem grasping how the different covenants fight each other?

I get the Ordo Dracul might fight other covenants for a place of power but aside from that? What do the Crone care about what the other Covenants do, unless is hunt them? Same for the Lancea.

Masquerade was easier to wrap my brain around, as the Sabbat Vs Camarilla was the main conflict that drive the clans to "play nice" to each other but Requiem seems aimless. I feel that the ONLY way to run it is personal conflict and that the covenants are just sorta there.

They all want to spread their ideology. The covenants aren't just a handy political club, they're philosophies on what to do as a Vampire for the rest of eternity. This can erupt as territory wars, but it also might manifest as more political fights.

Conflict in Requiem is less outright explosive between factions in its natural state, but more tense. The other factions aren't doing their duty, celebrating the right figures, doing meaningless rabble rousing, or wallowing in obsolete ideas or just failure in their eyes. They still have to get along versus the Brood, VII, and the Strix, but that doesn't mean that they don't try to take Princedom or the majority of Domains or just making sure they have a decent cut in some large Vampire scheme.

The Covenants aren't all at each other's throats. In fact, they're ostensibly on the same "team". Requiem isn't aimless, it's just not about an overarching setting of two teams duking it out. Every Covenant has reasons they might be at odds with another Covenant. There's a Religious/Political divide: Carthians Invictus, Lancae et Sanctum Circle of the Crone, with the Ordo Dracul picking up slack as creepy mad science nerds. But nothing about Requiem is set in stone, either. You may very well have a city where the Dragons and the Sanctified are allied. There's even a canon example of a mix of Circle and Lance in the "Livian Heresy", which if I recall worship's Longinus' mother as a Mary like figure.

Requiem *IS* a game about personal conflicts, and the Covenants exist not for team jerseys and who to fight, but as the backdrop of the city and the context for interpersonal conflicts. Take a look at some of the sample cities. None of them really have the standard Covenant set up. Some of them don't even have the typical Covenants at all, like Tokyo, which has the Zaibatsu criminal corporations instead.

Covenant stuff isn't the same as Sect stuff, because Covenant stuff is intentionally more complicated than "us vs them".

They don't necessarily fight each other, sometimes it's just power struggle or a kind of cold war.
But generally Invictus and Carthinas hate each other, and similarly Lancea don't like Circle. But often it's just about money, influence, hunting grounds. Requiem is much less black and white, there really aren't only good or bad guys, much like in RL.
If you care about motives of each faction, check out Mega bin with covenant books, although rules have changed, fluff is still pretty much same.

>Stalin was a socialist. You can be a socialist and still suck at it horribly.
Okay, well, how about we stop acting like a guy who did it all wrong is somehow the ultimate expression of socialism, and why we as Americans have to be more Right than even some of the crazy Nationalist places in Europe?

The USSR is still the largest implementation of socialism in the world, and fought with the US on a cultural level for half a century. It's going to be seen as the ultimate form of socialism for quite a while, even though it was bad socialism. If you're going to change the narrative, you need a better socialism. And there lies the hell a lot of the left has been in over the past thirty years.

If I remember right, the covenant books are still pretty good too, as a whole.

>Requiem is much less black and white

Mfw when people think any of the factions in VtM were completely black or white.

I think "diametrically opposed" would be a better way of putting it, if we're taking the later VtM stuff into account.

Does anyone have the Mage 2e pdf with errata? Thanks in advance.

>baby eating is the same as being a dick boss

Kind of hard to claim sabbat is any shade of gray

>Forced memeage
stop being lazy and cheap

You could use the whole Antediluvian thing as an attempt at a shade of grey, but that falls apart pretty fast in my eyes.

>Kind of hard to claim sabbat is any shade of gray

They think they're saving the world (and themselves) by killing Antedeluvians. They make no claim to be humane, and revel in their alien natures, and many of their number are complete monsters who torture humans for sport... and then there's the others who follow codes of thoughts and morality that are straight out honorable; always keeping their word, never showing cowardice, always repaying debts, duty comes before personal wants, and so on.

The Sabbat are inhuman, yes. There's undoubtedly a lot of black in them, at least from a human point of view.

Are they completely black? No. There's plenty of raging Sabbat assholes, and there's plenty of cordial (even if not mindlessly kind to everyone they meet) kindred in the Sabbat that uphold laws of honour that put a lot of Cammies to shame, especially considering just how low on the Humanity scale a lot of the Cammies drop.

There's rarely anyone in the World of Darkness who isn't an asshole. And even the ones who aren't assholes in the "let's murderfuck everyone" way, are usually assholey enough to make up for it in other avenues.

>straight out honorable; always keeping their word, never showing cowardice, always repaying debts, duty comes before personal wants, and so on.
That's just LE, and can be as black as it comes. The only ones I would call non-evil are the ones on the Path of Harmony, and that one seems quite rare.

Not everything fits into simplistic D&D alignment axis, user McAnonymous.

In the end, I think it does; you just need to use a consistent ethical calculus.

yeah pretty much just see the Ants as the writer/narrative trying to justify being monsters. When they really kind of didn't need to be to complete their quest. And if they're going for the I take monstrous allies to do the greater good, that doesn't play out either, because they continue to be horrible assholes.

A sabbat game is interesting because of the break from the christian narrative as the whole truth, and the splintering of different ideologies and methodologies of power and what do we do with the setting. but in practice is so horrible flawed

Sabbat without the Cam is the pointless, or the setting needs a rewrite. The belief you need a monster mommy and daddy to make sure you don't become a retarded monster, is a ridiculous assertion. and the overt amount of collateral damage a full scale sabbat entity creates destroys the setting verisimilitude of modern day with a secrete underworld. even with the backpedaling of the Silence of the Blood. that actually does make them exactly like the Cam without the elders. In practice Cam doesn't really give a sht out humanity, just in so far as it helps people blend in. But no ST ever enforces those rules or ideas, so its a moot point.

now if you want a story of a rag tag realizing the truth of yon elders and the super secrete world destroying evil they protect, you could use the anarchs. but lets face it. the sabbat are the real anarchs. they actually do the shit they set out to do. the sabbat actually destabilize whole courts and swallows them into itself.

It's a conflict of order verse chaos. not a saving the world against the evil I don't personally like

Ravnos on the path of Paradox were the only good guys really.

Vampire = Bad
Killing vampire = Good.

Pretty simple really, any vampire is potentially a threat to the humans so killing them all is the good thing.

>scratches his totalitarian moustache

I'm on to you, Johnny Technocrat.

>Some of them don't even have the typical Covenants at all, like Tokyo, which has the Zaibatsu criminal corporations instead.

Is there any rule for making covenants? or i could potentially put a covenant with Cruac, theban and scales magic all in one.

>but that doesn't mean that they don't try to take Princedom or the majority of Domains or just making sure they have a decent cut in some large Vampire scheme

Well this interest me but what could they care about exactly? Vampire dont need food or any resources besides blood and money eventually comes to anyone with unlimited life span so what would a covenant could wants as part of their cut?

I can see the Invictus/carthians and even Lancea Sactum wanting economical profit but the Ordo Dracul/Crone seem kind of beyond that kind of banal stuff.

Is Jonah Trenchcoat, i change it to sound even more edgier.

Bullshit. Ethics =/= morality. Morality is the only place there is absolutism and black and white thinking. Ethics are more a flexible series of greys. Flexible greys don't fit into a D&D style alignment system, where good and evil are recognised by the colour of their hats. The World of Darkness is a reflection of our world, not an idealisation of it.

>That's just LE, and can be as black as it comes. The only ones I would call non-evil are the ones on the Path of Harmony, and that one seems quite rare.

The Harmonists either abandoned their path in favour of the Path of the Feral Heart, became loners who never interact with the rest of the Sabbat, left the Sabbat entirely or got killed (majority of them got killed when they decided to try bullying the Sabbat into following the Harmonious way). There's nearly no Harmonists left.

But, the Feral Heart path that remains is also what I'd arguably call one of the more non-evil ones. It shies away from pointless cruelty, and advocates killing only when it is necessary for one's own survival. Of course, it also accepts killing as a perfectly valid option if your life is on the line, and feeling guilty over saving your own life is nonsensical to the followers of the Feral Heart. The same applied to the Harmonists, though the Harmonists were more concerned with the natural world and not "defiling it" in any way. Feral Heart is more concerned with the whole "A beast I am, lest a Beast I become" thing.

So they killed some wannabe vampire hippies, and got more packs of hardcore survivors in return. Not a bad trade.

Question becomes. How do I kill the most vamps?

Situation I am a vamp. Kill me, kills only one vamp. If I light myself on fire and grab vampyone. That'll kill two vamps! But if I wait it out and kill two more vamps with a van. That;ll make the first step in a long carer.

But how do I kill the secrete powerfull hiding vamps? Ah tricky tricky. If I can use vamps 1-3 to distract BigVamp then kill Bigvamp with a sneak attack. and then Congratulate vamps 1-3 with a flaming sword, thus breaking them from the curse and then kill myself. That'll make 4 regular vamps and one big bad gone.

>literally very paradox Ravnos before a sabbat raid

>America is more right wing than fascist Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Greece

youtube.com/watch?v=imOdJk5Qx5k

I could accept the Sabbat as being grayer if they had even the slightest tinge of success to any of their plans to defeat the Antediluvians. They seem utterly convinced that the Camarilla are their pawns, which I'm fairly sure is incorrect (the Assamites, Setites and Giovanni are where you should be looking).

>When the ghoul player seizes the means of production with his 7s in all physicals

you left out "Australia".

Oh boy, WoD music time!

youtu.be/_DSEldHcJ7o

>So they killed some wannabe vampire hippies, and got more packs of hardcore survivors in return. Not a bad trade.

More like they let everyone else kill the harmonists and converted the few that saw the writing on the wall. Path of FH starting and fighting in conflict they don't really care about is not survival but expending resources for another's benefit

The harmonists and the sabbat don't mix because of the horrible amount of collateral damage the sabbat wants, (Which is really dumb) and the amount that those actions fuck over the local systems. (economic political biological) The hamonists being an inhuman balancing counter point to the sabbat's open hedonism is a really cool story idea. but because the writers pushed the sabbat to be dumb edgy, Correct and horrible baby eaters is folly.

What is wrong with conflicting ideologies having valid points and fighting it out in game?

Mostly you infiltrate vampire society and make it implode. Kind of a count chocula version of bale hounds

>What is your opinion of splat mixing? From Samuel Haight to David Hill's Faerie Vampires.
Why would I want to mix splats? I play Mage I'm already the master splat.

>Stake vamp
>Chain to wall
>Feed like a gold fish
>Drain like a keg when hungry
AY Comrade it is a good vintage circuit 1920s slapper girl confirmed birth certificate and everything

>Is there any rule for making covenants?
Not really, but they're just social groups. Give them a purpose and philosophy. Same as you'd make any group. You could even start by tweaking an existing covenant for your area.
>or i could potentially put a covenant with Cruac, theban and scales magic all in one.
You could, but that'd get bland. There's actually a book called Sacraments and Blasphemies that gives rules for generic blood magic to use as either Cruac or Theban Miracles.

>Well this interest me but what could they care about exactly? Vampire dont need food or any resources besides blood and money eventually comes to anyone with unlimited life span so what would a covenant could wants as part of their cut?
Vampires do need food and resources. People are their food for one, and they're going to want the nice food. No one wants to have their hunting grounds restricted to the place filled with dockworkers and hobos. Beyond that, being undead doesn't mean you never want to watch TV or play video games or read books (there's even one Mekhet who catfishes people as a hacker). There's also parties and clubs. Social power. Money only comes to you eventually if you've got it to begin with, and power doesn't come at all unless you work for it.

There are plenty of reasons to want things. Check out "Sinners in the City" under Chapter Two.

>the Ordo Dracul/Crone seem kind of beyond that kind of banal stuff.
The Ordo especially need resources (both fiscal and physical) for their experiments, and the Crone are often victimized as a minority (and they're generally *always* a minority), with some Lancae et Sanctum controlled domains having them kill on sight (though in those cases it's not like the Dragons are going to fare much better). There's always reason to want power for you and yours, even if the reason is simply for power's sake

>Morality is absolute

>Considering the Balkans Europe
Also you know damned well which countries I meant.

>Ravnos on the path of Paradox were the only good guys really.

I assume you mean the Mayaparisatya Path of Paradox, since that's the really stupid "hurpadurp, killing all vampires is good, nurpaburp" path that made zero sense to have in the modern world.

The Samsara Path of Paradox (which is the one mainly followed by modern Ravnos, according to V20) is far more sensible and NOT STUPID.

The Path of Samsara Hierarchy of Sins
>1 --- Embracing a mother:
Mothers have given life, and should tend life. They should never be made servants of death.
>9 --- Respect deception, but seek truth:
This is the infinite paradox. Through uncovering paradoxes and realizing that both parts are true, we peel away the world’s illusions.
>8 --- Killing a mortal:
Death robs a person of the ability to fulfill their svadharma.
>7 Failing to destroy a failed vampire:
A vampire has failed when she rejects her vampiric nature. Trying to become mortal again, attempting to live a mortal life, acquire perfect humanity, or revering mortals above vampires are signs of utter failure.
>6 --- Returning to your mortal life or pretending to be mortal:
Your svadharma is no longer theirs; those ways are forbidden to you after the Embrace.
>5 --- Carrying a karmic debt:
Owing someone on a spiritual level (for example, because they saved your unlife) impacts your svadharma. Such debt prevents you from fulfilling your destiny.
>4 --- Failure to follow your svadharma:
Once you know your purpose, you must never betray or turn from it.
>3 --- Killing a vampire that is clearly following his svadharma:
No destiny is more important than any other. You cannot stop the workings of fate or karma, and you should not try.
>2 --- Becoming blood bound:
Forcibly tying your svadharma to another’s is anathema.
>1 --- Embracing, except as a critical part of
your svadharma:
The Embrace ends one svadharma to begin another. Never lightly end another’s path.

>Mayaparisatya Path of Paradox

has the same problems as fish malks. Interesting in idea, but horrible in execution, because first timers also play this game and no body sets them straight

Samsara Path is just the sabbat's version of go kill vampires. Just go kill the human vampires. which means go kill the Cam. its a propaganda piece.

>Failing to destroy a failed vampire
Can be used to paint any vampire as a target because what is a failed vampire? What does it look like and act like? And how can you trust a vamp to paint a good picture?

So Really the paths and roads and humanity are all equally bullshit as it's just the means of constructing a mind to float over the dark curse, and not be a rampaging monster with no mind

I dont see the problem with playing a Mayaparisatya, only that maintaining high humanity is difficult but thats the same for humanity path.

>what is a failed vampire?

>A vampire has failed when she rejects her vampiric nature. Trying to become mortal again, attempting to live a mortal life, acquire perfect humanity, or revering mortals above vampires are signs of utter failure.

Revelation that The Beast is just just humanity when?

"Mister Cardinal, the VMD reports are in. We've got confirmed sightings of Tremere in Italy, Giovanni also in Italy." Turns a few pages "Set making moves in Egypt and Sit-a? Ausa? The fucking Assamite leader in Palestine to counter"

"INVADE NEWYORK1"

>tfw

Nope, nope, nope, everything but this.

>has the same problems as fish malks. Interesting in idea, but horrible in execution, because first timers also play this game and no body sets them straight

Thats more the fault of DMs/players than the path itself.

The parth of Mayaparisatya is difficult to follow as it should be, the most competent followers of Mayaparisatya would probably range between morality 5 or lower because of the compromises they have to make for their end goal.

Or maybe sacrifice the efficiency of killing all those dirty vamps in favor of keeping to your principles.

The fact that is difficult to follow in modern nights is good as that avoid to make it the "path of what i was gonna do anyway"

IT
TURNS
OUT
IT'S
MAN

>e've got confirmed sightings of Tremere in Italy, Giovanni also in Italy." Turns a few pages "Set making moves in Egypt and Sit-a? Ausa? The fucking Assamite leader in Palestine to counter"

I picture Chocula writing that laughing at how "mind-blowing" it would be as an idea.

Did Dracula released another interview or I'm missing something?

Relax user, vampire's beast is nothing but a manifestation of the corrupted spirit that is Beast of War.

Nothing super recent, and nothing close to the Beast being humanity, at least for now. We should be getting those mobile apps any day now, so we can actually see what this edition is going to be like outside of talk.

yeah thats the point it is a propaganda piece. That and line 6 are the only places that talk about humanity, where every where else it talks about karmatic systems. This is the only line that talks about human vampires and is inconsistent with the rest of the piece. and infact borrows from teh Path of metamorphosis about reject the mundane mortals. You can easly change that line to Kill all clowny vamps and it'd still be the same.

What it should really be to be more consistent is
>Failing to correct a imbalanced karmic vampire
This actually references the before lines 5 and 6 and leads to the above 8 and 10. Which can then Include human vampires without being blantenly transparent that it means kill cammies

It's a piece to point all of the ravnos as a weapon against the Cam. It's religious bullshit and just a leash sabbat wants around teh ravnos

It's a dig at the bush administration and invading iran on reports of WMDs in iraq for political oil reasons, and destabilizing the region

...

Sorry i wanted to quote the user saying the beast is humanity no the whole dig at bush.

And the source tweet: twitter.com/wwpublishing/status/801113004746084352

5e is offically in playtesting, which means that it might actually be put in 2017 as promised. It also means the whole system was probably being written this whole time, hopefully.

Lots of Europeans in my old communal dorm lobby

Just 6 people playtesting?

What if my svadharma is to become mortal again?

I have to agree with I mean, what counts as "rejecting her vampiric nature"? Presumably it means being on the Path of Humanity, or otherwise not being a monster (except the Samsarans clearly aren't murderhobos who go naked and live in the woods).

Dracula and the Tremere really stick out in that group

>the whole system was probably being written this whole time

>they'll actually change anything
mechanically from edition to edition not a whole lot has changed

Should I just stop playing Masquerade once I get to the sewer level? This is the worst thing ever...

Just cheat. No one will judge you for not playing something unfun.
Well, plenty of people will, but they're assholes.

How many people would you have in a playtest game...?

Do you want to get to the ending?
Just cheat if you really have to.

Is Chinatown at least a return to form?

pretty much

Not really, no. Chinatown is the most obviously unfinished hub, with it's own murderfest club followed by a really tedious little dungeon, and after that you've got Society of Leopold, Santa Monica with nothing but vampires trying to kill you, and then Ventrue Tower where everyone has stunlocking machineguns.

It's a hub/masquerade area like Santa Monica or downtown if that's what you mean.

You get to kill a furry too

>You get to kill a furry too
Fishy.
Though in I did forget about the Griffith Park and Keui-jin ninja bullshit. And Andrej's hotel. Is the Giovanni mansion before or after that? It was one of the better parts of the game. I can only assume that means it took place before the Warrens.

>How many people would you have in a playtest game...?
About half a dozen to test basics. Then 10-15 groups.

I assume this is, in fact, the basics playtest. I figure expanded playtesting is either happening internally, or among the By Night Studios/LARPing crowd.

Playtesting is done by having groups run actual games. That's a group running an actual game.

You do need more than one group for a good playtest, but it's safe to say that this will happen. Probably no chance at an open playtest, since White Wolf really likes the idea of what they do being secret.

There's the Warrens, then Chinatown, the Giovanni mansion, the Inquisition monastery, the Hallowbrook Hotel, Griffith Park, and then one or both final dungeons (the Temple of Golden Virtue and the Venture Tower).

>How many people would you have in a playtest game...?
As many as possible. Hopefully as far from the developer inner-circle as possible.

>I mean, what counts as "rejecting her vampiric nature"?

IIRC, it specifically means not vampires on Humanity, but vampires who are seeking or are in Golconda. Paradox Ravnos believe that anyone who was made a vampire, regardless of beliefs, was made so for a reason and has a higher purpose to fulfill in so becoming. Actively trying to escape that condition is seen as heretical rejection of one's destiny as a vampire.

Of course, one could argue that finding the state of Golconda IS one's vampiric svadharma, I guess...

You want a playtest game to be like a normal game. You don't load it up with thirty people just because.

>Of course, one could argue that finding the state of Golconda IS one's vampiric svadharma, I guess...
I did. In literally that post.

Giovanni Mansion is the only part of that worth a damn, and it still has a bunch of zombies to fight through for padding.

>I did. In literally that post.

I was agreeing with you

You do if it's an RPG/LARP Hybrid!

That is, of course, the only time, and 5e sure ain't that probably.