World of Darkness & Cronicles of Darkness general /wodg/cofdg/

Pretty sure non-romantic sex is, by definition, depraved, and that's not even getting into the harlotry angle of selling sexuality for currency or goods.

>Separating sex from love is depravity
I mean, I never have, but that hardly makes it depraved

Zombies are neat when they're reanimated corpses created through dark arts of magic.

>How do you like your zombies?
As a necromancer's toys.

Anyway I'm thinking up a character for MtAw and I'm thinking along the lines of a thief who uses magic to assist in stealing arcane and mundane items (gotta pay the bills somehow) from private collections, museums etc

Mastigos would be the best path for that type of character right? space for teleporting antics and mind to fuck with guards?

>The character’s voice becomes so smooth and seductive that it entices those who hear it to acts of carnal abandon they normally wouldn’t consider.

>In game terms, this Benefit changes the system for Social Maneuvering from opening doors or a social chase between the seducer and the target to a simple action in which the seducer’s player rolls Presence or Manipulation + Persuasion against the target’s Resolve. Social merits still apply, but the target is made much less able to resist.

>The target won’t be convinced to do anything other than agree to a sexual tryst with the seducer, however; no matter how sexy the voice, the seducer can’t convince someone to rob a bank or jump off a bridge.

Given that this doesn't use magic directly on the target, just makes the seducer more appealing - is it rape?

>Is it straight up mind control?
If the answer to this question is no, then it isnt magic rape. Men and women use dozens of ways to make themselves more enticing to the opposite sex. Magic is just more potent.

So long as you're not using your abilities to directly influence someone, it's not rape.

If you read their mind, and use this knowledge to find the exact series of things to say and do to make them have sex with you, and maximise the harmful emotional impact that this coitus will have upon them, but they ultimately said yes of their own free will, then no that's not rape. You're a cunt, but that's not rape.

If you mentally order them to have sex with you, and they wake up the next morning feeling like a million fucking bucks, happy that they had sex with you, their sense of self re-affirmed and thinking that they could take on the world, using this positive energy to go on and sort out their life, which they live to the fullest extent, that's still rape. Even though their life was left objectively better for it.

So, slowly rising, before turning into an Asp(i)e(l) Apocalypse?

Done and done.

Thanks

So, what's your favorite Merit? Why?

Mystery Cult Initiation. It's pretty broken.

>favorite Merit?
Undead menses
>Why?
because it's the dumbest thing ever

Shadow Sanctum

Gives you a sentient mansion that you can teach any numen except one that lets you move.

And then MtAw 2E introduced a merit that's functionally the same, only with Mystery Cult Initiation's few measly drawbacks removed. Mage: The Awakening 2nd Ed., the only CofD splat that's all about having your cake and eating it too.

Honestly, Mage is the splat that makes me wonder why I should play anything other than Mage or Demon. At least Demons have a good reason for not destroying people on a whim.

Dave had too much power in OPP, is it any wonder his pet splat was the best in every way

The same could be said of Matt, honestly. As far as I'm aware Rose has to keep a tight leash on everyone because of that sort of thing.

Does Mageneven qualify as horror game anymore?

Just putting this here as it was on the end of the last thread. Latest DDR is up where we interview the WoD: Berlin organisers podcast.darker-days.org/e/darker-days-radio-episode-74/

What do Spirits look like?

That's like saying "what do animals look like"

Spirits of what? Spirits from where?

>the only CofD splat that's all about having your cake and eating it too.

While I disagree with that characterization, Mage's power level is consistent with its themes, and while internally balanced, makes no attempt or pretense of any crossover balance (nor do any other 2e games)

Mage is about exploring Mysteries and the effects of tremendous power on otherwise basic humans. If mages weren't generally quite powerful or suffered severe inherent drawbacks (other than just being a squishy human in a supernatural world without their magic) the latter theme would be meaningless as the mechanics would not represent the fluff. Note also that the antagonists in Mage are probably not only the most varied among the game lines, but also potentially some of the most powerful (e.g., immense being of anti-reality and the very symbols of human oppression). Without their breadth of ability (usually as part of a cabal), the life expectancy of most mages would be measured in mere weeks from Awakening.

Simply, while actually playing a game of Mage, the powers of mages are entirely appropriate. OPP tried to artificially limit and constrain mages in 1e, and it ended up being jarring and inconsistent. Moreover, while mages might have had a power bump in 2e, so have the other splats like vampires and werewolves, often of a much greater degree than Mage.

I need some >hot opinions:

1 - Crossover game of Hunter, Mage, and Princess? I know the power levels are gonna fuck the hunter over, so they're gonna get 50 bonus XP at chargen, and be Conspiracy level.

2 - Boulder, Colorado as a setting? I need the most average American town for the campaign I wanna run?

>Hunter with Mage
No.
>Princess involved at all
No.
>Boulder, Colorado
Could be cool.

Hot opinions coming through:

1. No. The Mages will still outpace the Hunter, and Princess will fall apart in crossover. Pick one as your main game, and if you must have crossover, only choose one other splat. I'd suggest to dump Princess entirely but I'm not your dad, do what you want.

2. Boulder's fine, though "the average American town" is a bit of a nebulous concept. The country can be so varied that a number of settings could be considered an Average America Town. That said, Boulder's not a bad choice for an average town in the Mountain States.

Boulder is too famous now

It depends on what they represent.

What I mean by average is like, small enough where it's possible to maintain a herd of NPCs, but large enough to have both an urban, suburban, and outdoors-y adventure if necessary.

To clarify on the no crossovers - is this from experience or from theorycrafting? Because only one of my players playing "optimized," but he's the one getting slapped with the Hunter.

>To clarify on the no crossovers - is this from experience or from theorycrafting? Because only one of my players playing "optimized," but he's the one getting slapped with the Hunter.

Both. Hunter is best when it is dealing with its own little world. There is a good reason why they fight "witches" and not proper Mages. I was that "optimized hunter" at one point, and I felt useless for that entire game because we had 2 Mages which could find anything out with a snap of their fingers and mind control people to get what they wanted. It was pretty lame.

Familiar

Mana battery, pet, combat/social assistant, and targeting beacon all rolled into one.

>Rose
>tight leash
>fetish bait.png

Your familiar counts as you

Things spirits use their numen on leave a Medium connection

Free medium connections errrrywhere

Experience. Once someone realizes what they can do with even tiny bits of Arcana, the outpacing starts. Princess's Charms won't outpace a Hunter as badly, but like a Mage, a lot of their power set is about utility, which even an Optimized Hunter can't keep up with without a lot of XP.

I bet you go to consilium events in a hazmat suit.

Hazmat Suit is the name of a Prime spell I use to trigger all my Mage Armors at once.

So yeah, sorta

I've always wanted to play a game of Mage in which I played someone who was insanely paranoid, because honestly it seems pretty justified.

How does a properly paranoid Mage prepare for the day? What spells do they use?

Depends if imbued items/artifacts count against spell control. I could see a really paranoid mage with a whole toolbox filled with imbued items with various shielding spells on them.

What is gothic punk?

>I've always wanted to play a game of Mage in which I played someone who was insanely paranoid

That is basically the default presumption in Mage.

You are playing correctly.

Remember, all mages are effective armed at all times and tend to face unexpected and dangerous obstacles in pursuit of their Mysteries. The absence of caution would be deadly.

Are you really paranoid if everything is truly out to get you?

It also helps that while Mage's background touches on the other games lines it never does anything that invalidates them (something Beast has a problem with) Werewolves can still totally be children of Luna and Father Wolf, Dracula and Longinus can still have existed as the Vampires claim they do, Mage Arcadia has now be fully separated from Changeling Arcadia and even before it was it didn't really cause too many problems for the gameline, the Sin-Eaters are much the same as Werewolves where they coexist without much effort, Nothing stated in Mummy in any way contradicts Mage, and the God-Machine is a bit weird but there is a subtle implication that there is some relationship between it and the Exarchs (even with some Demons having rumors that some mages work for the GM ie Seers)

the only lines whose cosmology don't play nice with mage are hunter (where the characters are deliberately written to be misinterpreting the universe) and Beast (which has its own problems overwriting and minimizing other game lines)

Armed combat is the least of it. What about spying? What if you have good cause to believe the Seers are watching you?

You protect yourself from scrying to find that your cat is a Seer in disguise, your best friend is a sleeper agent and when you leave your house people break in to watch everything you did. How insane does reasonable precaution begin to look?

Not only does nothing in Mage invalidate or necessarily contradict most of the other game lines, the differences are feature, not a bug. Everything you mentioned and more are great avenues to explore as Mysteries.

>What if you have good cause to believe the Seers are watching you?

Oh, they are watching.

They are always watching...

youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY

I am going to make a R18 text RPG based on some Black Dog splat and this is the worst idea I've ever had.

Everything is baroque and sad but the people (read: the players) are angry and want to tear things down and change it into something new.

Oh, if only user. If fucking only.

>Hazmat Suit is the name of a Prime spell I use to trigger all my Mage Armors at once.
>So yeah, sorta

Would this be doable with Prime?

You do realize that most people who write for OPP have exactly as much power as a ham sandwich?

So I'm new to Tabletop and I'm going to be running a game of Mage: The Awakening with a few friends as the GM/Storyteller.

How is the site Roll20? Does it work well for games over the internet? I was browsing Youtube and found some video from the site's channel on my recommendations.

It's decent. Personally I'm more of a fan of video conferencing the people I'm playing with.

How do you even deal with that though? Give up?

Well, I think the site said you can do that.

Also the friends I'll be playing with all have Discord and Skype so we will be communicating with one of those.

You watch them back, use magic to hide yourself, lead a full on assault on the seer strongholds in your territory, or sic abyssal monstrosities/powerful spirits/banishers/hordes of undead/hunters/[insert horrible thing that you might feasibly be able to manipulate here] on them

Are Spirits supposed to look like normal stuff (e.g. does a cat spirit look like a cat?) or are they some kind of Hayao Miyazaki "Spirited Away" shit?

I know I can have them look like whatever I want in my game, I was just wondering if it's ever talked about anywhere. I've never played Werewolf, I'm just now reading the spirit rules in Mage 2e.

>Sex for fun is Evil
So you know the Pope says condoms are ok right?

Animals spirits will look like animals, car spirits will look like cars, tree spirits will look like trees.

The more obtuse stuff like emotions or consepts will look more abstract. Likewise powerful spirits (Rank 3-5) got that way by feeding on all sorts of essence which will affect the way they look.

A rank 1 dog spirit looks like a dog. It feeds on cat, mouse, etc. spirits and when it becomes Rank 2 it will look much more ferocious, maybe with blood forever at it's maw.

If it fed on emotions from kids who love their dog then at Rank 2 it might look like a golden retreiver as drawn by an anime artist

If the dog it was fettered to's owner was murdered and it fed on the sorrow, anger and death essence, it might look ghostly and cry tears of flame. If their son was having an existential crisis it might grow a third eye that is unblinking as it now feeds on his essence of despair and porly thought out philosopphy.

Space wards can go a long way, making you invisible to scrying effects (or at least making you aware, via Clash of Wills, when somebody pierces your wards and scries on you anyway.)

The more Arcana you have access to, the more versatile wards you can put up. e.g. Time can make yourself invisible to postcognition as well. Mind can protect your from mind reading, mind control, memory alteration, etc.

Make the mage never has prep time and you're golden

Happy holidays, Dave.

In order to spread some holiday cheer, how about some Signs of Sorcery or Deviant spoilers?

What the fuck is depravity, anyway?

That sounds like the answer is 'be powerful in lots of arenas'. Not really something you can rely on and also not very fun.

Silence of the Veeky Forums

Lector: Look for severe childhood apathy associated with overbearing parents. Our Shitposter wasn't born a troll, user. He was made one through years of systematic entitlement. He hates his own identity, you see, and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But ASp's pathology is a thousand times more sheltered and more autistic.

>be powerful
>not fun

if you think the end goal of most if not all mage characters isn't to scream "UNLIMITED POWER" or just say the words "A god am I" then you are playing the wrong game

The less powerful you are, the less likely the Seers are to care about you. As you grow stronger and more worthy of their attention, you also gain many more tools to evade them,

Really, though, this is part of the reason why Mages form cabals: a bunch of moderately powerful Mages can do a let more to protect each other than one lone Mage can do to protect himself.

Mage should be the game of carrying around the metaphysical toolbox. Fighting a problem and desperately trying every wrench, screwdriver, and hammer. Before realizing you're in way over your head. Then eat the paradox to survive

>That sounds like the answer is 'be powerful in lots of arenas'.

Vastly increased versatility and mutual defense are the very reasons why mages form cabals, pylons and columns.

You might be paranoid, but at least you have friends and colleagues who are also paranoid and will (more than likely) have you back when things get real bad.

Cabals are a big deal in the setting, and solitary mages are frowned upon.

Unless your character has Fate or Time in 2e. Then he has all the tools he needs...

Yeah but your characters are doing that in search of more power (or because they overreached in their use of power) as that is the entire driving force behind the game. To say that being more powerful is less fun goes against the entire concept of a 'power fantasy' and goes against the entire appeal of the game.

If you don't find being more powerful fun you shouldn't be playing Mage

Really? How?

>tfw you're waling down the street and see pic related

Fuckin WoD

Do people find these memes funny?

Jesus man

...

I just can't see anyone seeing that and laughing. It's not even a joke.

My problem with Mage 2e is that, mechanically, mages are balanced solely against other mages. If the antagonists for a Mage game don't have access to Supernal counterspelling, or don't traits that grant them immunities to a wide range of Practices or Arcana (like the Idigam's blanket immunity to magic that can bind/coerce/command spirits, or Chris', currently theoretical and non-canonical, Boddhisatva Predator werevolves' immunity to Unmakings and having their personal timelines fucked with), then they're trivial and a fucking joke.

Well I guess if you're st is a boring doormat I can't help you

Beings that use the Ephemeral Entities rules have it especially bad, what with their Withstand rating being their Rank.

>Withstand isn't a thing
>Powerstat isn't a thing
>Clash of Wills isn't a thing
>Multiple threats aren't a thing

>Withstand
>Powerstat
"Well would you look at that, looks like I got 3 successes. With my Exceptional Success I'd like to ignore the Withstand rating to turn the Elder Vampire into an ashtray"

Withstand a) scales like shit for any spell that doesn't target stamina, and spirits, ghosts, and astral beings have it even worse like says b) can be IGNORED ON AN EXCEPTIONAL SUCCESS.
Powerstats don't effect Withstand rating.
Clash of Wills doesn't apply to most Supernal spells, because, and get this, THAT'S WHY THE WITHSTAND MECHANIC WAS IMPLEMENTED.
Mutiple threats that don't possess Time, Fate, and Space, don't get to engage mages on anything other than the mages' terms.

>literally no counterarguments the post

Why are you allergic to the idea that being powerful is fun? Explain your position in some way that isn't just

>hurt durr your st is bad

That's only assuming the Mage and Werewolf are in the same universe. Stuff like this is a good example of why each CofD game should be treated as one where only that splat and their setting exists, and everything is like our world otherwise.

What is the perfect world for seers of the throne?

>What is the perfect world for seers of the throne?

You're looking at it.

I assume these and related issued will finally be dealt with in the upcoming Crossover Chronicles, although I doubt we'll see the book before 2020.

I don't have access to my copy of Forsaken 2E right now, so could someone who does check the wording on that Dread Power that makes Idigam immune to most spirit-fuckery?

Except it's a mechanical issue not a narrative one, you're throwing the baby out with the bath water pretty hard here.

I didn't say shit about splat crossover. I said that the mechanics of MtAw 2e make so that any non-mage antagonist, which without going into crossover can include spirits, ghosts, astral beings, assorted cryptids, sleepwalker hunters, are simply trivial to deal with because of the mechanics for Supernal magic work, as these posts point out. If it's not a mage, or a Supernal entity descended to the Fallen(like an Ochemata for instance), then it's absurdly easy for mage players to walk all over the opposition, because that's what the mechanics are written as.

no conflict = no story

if you just want to be babysat that's fine my rates are $100 bucks an hour