NULL SNYPER, INTERNET SCOURGE

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely something to work with here. If you go looking, you can find plenty of examples of people who managed to defuse conflicts through establishing empathy with the attackers and reminding them of basic human decency. Taking that and expanding it into some mystical "power of higher ideals" thing could be really cool in the right context. But having it come from something as culturally ephemeral as a magic blog? Kind of undersells all the people who really have done that, all on their own without some asshole on the internet telling them about the importance of peace. Plus, these merits make it too easy. The power of those stories of human decency and peace comes from how unlikely it is. How difficult it must have been for these people to accomplish it. This trivializes it, and winds up being kind of insulting to the very principles it's trying to exalt.

Amish hate witchcraft.
Amish shun many forms of technology.

Why does reading an ex-Amish blog give you pacifist witchcraft, powered by strapping six cameras onto yourself and yelling "YOU ARE BEING RECORDED"?

I think you're hitting on a good point.

There are somethings numbers and dice can't represent and or deliver very well. This might be devolving into the CHA stat argument. Saying the words and coming up with an argument and actually convening the emotion. I can see this as a really gamey superpower, that should really be opened up after an epiphany moment.

I mean how are you going to equate years of psych study and real world experience into blog post?

We already did. This is the twisted distortion of Vivian James.

Yes, the idea is sound, even though it's not terribly novel. There is even a horribly imbalanced pacifist class for D&D 3.5.

The writing is... amusing, to say the last.

Man, it took me like 10 mins to notice that her name is not "NULL SPYDER"
I also have to wonder if she's false-flagging in arachnophobia threads.

>If u can’t take criticism, GTFO n00b! LOL
"How do you do, fellow kids?"

>As soon as she graduated high school and was on her own, she saved up enough to buy an old laptop. She spent every moment of her free time engrossed in it. Her favorite forum was one that criticized people’s self-made costumes. Members of the community would take pictures of other people’s cosplay and upload them for everyone to ridicule. Maria gleefully joined in savaging the images. One picture turned out to be of a regular poster to the group.
Null is also from /cgl/.

Second page in the OP image.

>Rumors
>“Null Snyper is so active in the men’s rights activists’ forums, we’re probably looking for a socially awkward male in his teens to early 20s.”
A little on the nose there.

>One of the local Begotten is doxed. Now, a coordinated campaign of harassment has begun. Null Snyper had an epiphany on how to use the Primordial Dream to integrate herself more fully into the realm of information, but she needs a Beast’s Lair to enact her plan. It’s a race against time as the characters attempt to find the source of the harassment before the operation reaches its bloody conclusion.
Oh no! Someone is being harassed on the internet and cannot turn off their computer! Clearly, this is a job for the valiant Beasts. Such tension, such high stakes!

It really gets my goat how Null Snyper has Allies (Internet Trolls) 5, enough to go up against Resources 5. For that matter, how does this even make sense?

>Now she maintains a carefully cultivated legion of followers. Certain circles avidly follow Null Snyper’s exploits and celebrate her as a master troll. It only takes a word or two from her to unleash the fury of hordes of aspiring trolls longing to make a name for themselves. They’ll dox anyone or breach private accounts if it means gaining a small measure of notoriety by attaching themselves to her reputation.

Why would Anons ever rally around a name/tripfag?

maybe they're not on Veeky Forums?

stallman.org

It is magical blog because it is just pandering to progressive youths. It all screams "if you blog hard enough you can change the world so keep up the good fight!" That book tries to sell itself to leftist and hipsters thinking that whining and blocking people on Twitter is being "activist" and that Gamergate is the worst thing that has ever happened. There are even rules for doxxing, for fucks sake.

>you can't buy a private jet, because the jet company got super trolle with image macros
>your bank accounts all froze because 4chen sent the bank director a shoped picture where he is the happy merchant
>the money under your mattress disappeared because someone called you a fag

>the director of Task Force: VALKYRIE can't bring his Status 5 to bear because 5chinz called him a cuck on Twitter

Bonus round: The rules for doxxing from Hurt Locker. It is so easy to dox someone in this system. Computer dots are for IT experts only, remember?

>To scrape social media for personal information, roll Intelligence + Computer, opposed by the target’s Resolve + Computer, in an extended action. Each roll represents an hour of work on the hacker’s part; rolls by the target represent longer-term vigilance to prevent metadata leakage. The hacker must accrue a number of successes equal to twice the target’s unmodified dice pool, and the target must do likewise — the first to reach this number is victorious. If successful, the hacker gains access to personal information, including name, address, and frequently visited places. An exceptional success grants government ID numbers or bank account information, giving the hacker access to the subject’s Resources Merit, if she has one (if she does not, he’ll likely open a credit card in her name and run up obscene bills, saddling her with debt).

>If the target is victorious, her stalker’s efforts are stymied, and he cannot gain access to her information through this means. On its own, doxxing (the publication of personal information to a wide audience) may not seem like the worst thing that could possibly happen. The truth of the matter is that doxxing never happens in a vacuum. If someone cares enough to dig up information and publish it, odds are others will be sufficiently motivated to act upon it. The Storyteller should roll a die every chapter — a failure indicates that the victim is clear of harassment for the remainder of the story, while a success indicates that a stalker will harass him in some way. This could be as subtle as taking selfies outside his workplace or as blatant as leaving dead animals on his doorstep — or worse. For every dot of Fame or Status the target has, add one die to the roll — bigger names attract more attention. Other Merits affect this roll at the Storyteller’s discretion.

sounds like there needs to be a new special forces team to fight the internet

So, a target with Resolve 3 and no dots in Computer? Down to a chance die and a target number of 3 successes.

The target's IT crew could help with teamwork actions, but the target number is still only the unmodified 3... and the doxxer's friends can help the doxxing with their own teamwork actions.

Exceptional success? You now have the government ID numbers or bank accounts of a mortal president, a hierarch, a vampire prince, or whatever suits your fancy.

As written, there are no rules for un-doxxing oneself. If someone gets doxxed, then for the rest of the game, the GM rolls a die at the start of each chapter (session) to see if they get harassed.

A failure means that the target is clear for the rest of the story (adventure arc)... but the roll gains bonus dice equal to the target's Fame and Status dots. Status dots are extremely common among NPCs, which means harassing NPCs will be trivial.

Do you have over 400 smug anime girls on your PC?

>the local Prince calls off all Blood Hunts because somebody linked him to a rickroll

Honestly it makes me laugh at this point.
It's like that Captain America comic that had Donald Trump as MODOK. They can pretend it's edgy and relevant but really it just looks butthurt.

Man. You know, I read Requiem for Rome, and I thought it was really good.

This? This is fucking shit, is what it is.

A sane ST would limit what Null Snyper could do with her Allies merit to things that would be believable for a gaggle of script kiddies could do.

I fear that the writers of this extract are not sane STs.

No user, a sane ST tosses the Hurt Locker in the garbage.

A sane ST wouldn't have a physical copy of The Hurt Locker to toss in the garbage, unless it was the Iraq War film.

A sane ST isn't using 2e/Chronicles at all

I feel bad for Monster (the system) it clearly started out as trying to be a more poignant version of VtM and got so consumed by adolescent revenge fantasy it no longer has any semblance of sanity

I'm just wondering, is there an opposite?

Like, does reading Veeky Forums temporarily give you Fomor powers? Or, do /pol/ readers suit up in Nazi fetish gear and swastika masks to commit mass acts of hate crime?

I mean, there has to be a Dark Side to the Light Side of the fucking Amish pacifist powers.

Yes, because a sidebar and one of the templates aren't fantastic, the entire book is trash.

I like The Lost Boys, very Bourne, and I hate/love Infected, since I've been working on a Major Splat version of Pathogen for years now.

If that would be the case I would be a /ss/ doujin MC by now. Or a cute anime kitsune. or both.

>tfw no magical powers from Internet

As someone who's followed White Wolf right from the oWoD days, who enjoyed it right alongside nWoD equally, this is physically painful to read.

Fuck Onyx Path. Fuck them all.

Hmmm, what sort of mischief could I get up too with the sympathetic names of ~half the mages in the consilium?

What's next? The "Am I Being Detained" spell?

>If someone cares enough to dig up information and publish it, odds are others will be sufficiently motivated to act upon it. The Storyteller should roll a die every chapter — a failure indicates that the victim is clear of harassment for the remainder of the story, while a success indicates that a stalker will harass him in some way. This could be as subtle as taking selfies outside his workplace or as blatant as leaving dead animals on his doorstep — or worse. For every dot of Fame or Status the target has, add one die to the roll — bigger names attract more attention. Other Merits affect this roll at the Storyteller’s discretion.

Is this seriously implying that anyone who gets doxxed will, for the rest of their life, be at risk of being harassed, more so if they have any degree of social status at all?

Okay. Voice of the Victim.

Please bear in mind that Candy here was repeatedly raped by her Beast "friend," while Candy sleeped, until she killed that Beast.

Candy here is supposed to be a Hero and thus a villain.

Candy's vlog unwittingly allows other Heroes to track down and kill Beasts.

This Hero's main tool is a vlog.

>“The sad truth is we’ve made this world a gray, uncaring place where everyone does the bare minimum to get by. The people want to believe in ideals, but harsh reality tells them hope and faith are mistakes. To hell with the needs of innocent victims crushed beneath the wheels of grinding prosperity. The man who sat beside me is a crook — a beast. Nobody will address this because he has the most expensive lawyers in the country. But let me tell you now, live: the people need to hear the strong voice of someone bold enough to tell the greedy magnates, bent politicians, and violent criminals they’re wrong. Their victims won’t take this any longer. The beast beside me, and everyone like him, need to be shown we won’t take their shit any longer.”
This speech went viral somehow. Onyx Path seems out of touch.

>Beasts noticed Voice of the Victim’s actions as their addresses, places of work, and families were featured on the publicly-visible website. The furor surrounding the site made Candy’s visible aims a particular concern to Beasts lairing on campuses. A youthful brood attempted legal action against the Hero initially, but, finding no traction, plotted her abduction. Foolishly, the brood broadcasted plans of the attack across social media, where word of it leaked to Candy.

>Rasmussen anticipated their assault and recorded every step of their aggression. The Hero’s loyal fans on campus — students and teachers both — intercepted the Beasts. After forming a human wall around the vlogger’s building, they fanatically and violently defended Rasmussen.

>Candy uploaded footage of the brood’s unsuccessful raid that evening, along with her voiceover mocking the “vengeful beasts.”

>She knew other Heroes would soon eliminate the Beasts, whose faces were online
The Beasts failed because they posted it on Twitter beforehand!

>As one of the Beasts enters a church, a therapist’s office, or another place of quiet refuge, they spy a heavily-disguised Candy Rasmussen exiting. Supposedly, Rasmussen goes nowhere alone, yet in this instance she’s unaccompanied by any of her hangers on. This is a golden opportunity to stalk the Hero, engage her while she’s undefended, or simply find out more about her. What darkness does she contain that drives her to a place of counseling and contemplation, and is it possible to reach her with words instead of resorting to claws and Horrors?

"So, you see your enemy coming out of a therapist office after having been traumatized by the bullshit someone on your side pulled. Perfect time to rap- I mean, kidnap them!"

I swear, Beast was secretly made by a bunch of serial rapists/murderers to act as a cover for them planning out their fantasies, like Slasher without the "and this is a terrible thing" added on.

>Candy’s reasoning is one of misguided altruism. She believes Beasts taint what they touch and harm what they love.

About that. This is completely true about Beasts, and Candy is completely right, especially judging from how her Beast "friend" kept raping her while she slept.

Yep. Beast was a complete misfire. I don't know what the hell was going through the writers' minds when they put the game together.

holy shit!

WTH happened to WoD?

A bad game line and a bad supplement. They've been doing ok otherwise, Demon was excellent and the 2E releases have been going well. Still though the company needs to reverse course HARD on Beast.

Yea this is fucking gross. Is it real? Like from a real book??

what line is this?

>Underneath the rust and corrosion, only three letters were even partially legible — A N I — but the location and the serpent’s memories all fell into place. They had called it unsinkable, they had ventured into his territory, and he had taken their challenge. The Titanic had sunk, like everything else that challenged him.

Several decades ago (before he became an Incarnate), this Beast literally sank the Titanic just for the challenge, and Beasts are still supposed to be "the good guys."

Beast: the Primordial

Re: Politics.

>Over the last 20 years, Alvin has mastered his feeding technique. He runs at least six different PACs and Super PACs and boasts that half the elected officials in the state owe their allegiance to him. Alvin pays particular attention to ambitious politicians whose views are strongly opposed to his own, but who are careless about accepting campaign donations. Perhaps once an election cycle, he picks one of these rising stars as his special prey. He funnels huge campaign contributions into the politician’s coffers and buys prime advertising spots in support of his victim’s candidacy. If the candidate wins the election — and most of the time he does — Alvin approaches his prey in private and offers his congratulations. A few weeks later, the Beast starts making requests — support this bill, throw that case out of court, or press charges against that company.

>At first, his requests are all things the victim was planning to do anyway. Then Alvin starts inviting the prey to fine restaurants and top tier golf courses, or he starts showing up at events his victim is hosting. Once in the presence of his prey, Alvin doesn’t hesitate to use Nightmares to ensure future meetings. As time goes on, the Beast’s requests become more troubling. The prey must propose or pass legislation that is a veritable parody of his political views. A fierce proponent of gun rights proposes a budget that includes supplying schools with enough guns and body armor for every teacher and child, or a small government state governor vetoes every piece of legislation that crosses his desk. At the same time, Alvin’s private meetings with the victim take on a darker cast, increasingly involving crimes ranging from petty theft and illegal drug use to embezzlement and sex crimes to armed robbery and murder. This continues to escalate — and continues to feed the Beast — until the victim is either arrested or resigns in disgrace.

>In the last 20 years, only three of Alvin’s victims have killed themselves as they realized how bleak their situation had become, and one of those killed his whole family before he turned the gun on himself. In the past, Alvin regarded these as something of a disappointment. Early in his career, whenever he felt a need to feed that he couldn’t immediately satisfy, visiting his prey in jail — either with offers to help her get out of jail or with assurances that that she will never feel the sun on her face again when he has finished — could take the edge off his Hunger. Alvin hasn’t needed to do that in years, though.

>Despite his unshakable emotional detachment and his Hunger, Alvin remains fairly true to his upbringing. Like his parents, his politics are fairly liberal, and most of his victims are of a conservative bent — the better to discredit their political views in the eyes of the voting public. Moreover, while he freely admits that he’s a monster, he still feels that he serves God by humbling those who succumb to pride and using their fates to warn others about the hazards of seeking temporal power. He continues to carry the banner of his parents’ philanthropy, and although he is by no means gentle with his prey, the city would miss his charity work if ever Alvin suddenly vanished. The fact that he is an unmarried billionaire with no children of his own has only made him more eager to give away his money to the causes he supports.

This Beast forces lawmakers to pass horrible law after horrible law. Not once is it mentioned how much this screws over the common person.

Beasts are still the good guys.

But damn those conservatives! We righteous Beasts are liberals!

Please do not hurt this non-American poster.

yiffe!

How Beast is supposed to be played, according to the developers.

forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?759812-Beast-The-Primordial-Roots-in-the-Community

>Matt plays John Dawson (Ugallu (Predator). He owns a house in the neighborhood, where he takes people (children, often), whose families are lying to one another and otherwise toxic. He lets them freak out, then returns the kid a few days later, unharmed.
>Dawson finishes up the practice, noting which parents are there cheering for their kids and which ones stay on their cell phones the whole time, ignoring what's going on. He doesn't need to feed right now, but he notes which of his charges might need to get lost for a few hours at some point, just enough to make their parents take notice.

This is the plot of Heavy Rain: kidnapping people just to teach them and their parents some vague "lesson."

>Michelle's character is Maia Wallis (Makara Ravager). Maia prefers to feed by getting into relationships with men and then slowing wrecking their lives. They're free to walk at any point, of course (she doesn't stalk them if they break up with her). She teaches the lesson that some relationships are toxic and it's better to end them.
>Toasty's character is Tyler Townsend (Eshmaki Nemesis)... As a Nemesis, he tries to teach thieves that their lives aren't worth whatever they're trying to steal (he runs an antique shop).
>Amanda plays Miriana Kyle (Eshmaki Predator)... As a Predator, she seeks to remind people that their status on the food chain isn't a given - even people can be prey.

The inherent problem with this logic is "Ironic shitposting is still shitposting, and ironic psychopathy is still psychopathy." Rather than create some good in the world, these Beasts inflict suffering and call it "lessons."

Beast obviously has shitty lore, but how is it mechanically?
Is it a lot like Demon, where you have lots of cool abilities but you can't use them?

Beast's mechanics involve spooking people to manage your hunger, voyeuristically observing other supernaturals also to manage your hunger, and then psychically spooking people to mass-murder (very effective, this one) or mind control them.

You sometimes manifest physical powers and can transform into mega-dream-monsters with mega-dream-lairs. These can be strong, but lack the subtlety and reliability of the psychic spooking powers.

Well, if you harass somebody important, you will just disappear. Because WoD.

>One of the local Begotten is doxed. Now, a coordinated campaign of harassment has begun. Null Snyper had an epiphany on how to use the Primordial Dream to integrate herself more fully into the realm of information, but she needs a Beast’s Lair to enact her plan. It’s a race against time as the characters attempt to find the source of the harassment before the operation reaches its bloody conclusion.

The writers think internet harassment is plot hook-worthy.

The inherent problem is the game glorifies the atrocities you are committing and not the reason behind it. If the system encouraged fighting your beastly nature and failure to do so resulting in your actions it would seem a lot more self aware. Right now it sounds like a paper thin justification for acting like a literal monster, lIke this system is to the 2000s as Kill Puppies for Satan is to the 90s

Basically, the problem is that everything you are presented with as positive is fucking awful. Unironically. I haven't encountered this much doublethink since I read the Water Margin.

You aren't even told to enjoy how evil you are, because apparently, you're not evil at all. Even when you literally eat people (as some Beasts can or do). But Heroes are the bad guys for getting triggered when you mentally fuck them up. Victim: The Blaming was actually an accurate title for this.

It's fun to watch man-children get upset at things on the Internet.

>man-children
>not man-babies
Check your privilage

I always liked Abuser: the Justifying myself

/pol/ resurrects the ancient art of Mememancy.

Well, they were right to shun tech, since blogs are witchcraft.

Well, from the name Rasmussen, she's clearly a white person. That's a bad sign already.

Mind sharing that terrible book so we can hate it alongside you?

So, how feasible would it be to dox Null Snyper, roll up, and merc her? Because I feel that would solve a lot of problems.

Isn't WoD the most SJW game on the market anyways?

I love the plain. They're just the dumbest fucking thing in the goddamn world.

Beast sure is.

Calling Beast SJW is wrong, it offends their sensibilities as well.

Honestly it's nothing new when it comes to the WoD. They did this all the time, from Stalin to Jesus, if they weren't a supernatural creature, then they were being manipulated by them.

It it seems strange to anyone, it's probably becaue the Orignal WoD ended before we really saw the rise of social media and networking, so we didn't get to see stuff like this until recently, though they did touch on it with some of the stuff like Shrecknet, Hunternet, as well as some discussion of social networks in the revised Technocracy Convention books.

That's actually par for the course in SJW circles.

Hurt Locker was good shit though.

>I swear, Beast was secretly made by a bunch of serial rapists/murderers to act as a cover for them planning out their fantasies, like Slasher without the "and this is a terrible thing" added on.
While I view it as something only a little better than FATAL, it's basically all the old edgy Black Dog stuff about the Baali, Black Spiral Dancers, and a few others, all rolled into one game.

>supplying schools with enough guns and body armor for every teacher and child
The sad part is that in some schools this would actually decrease violence.

So going by the first story hook, the Beast splat assumes that people know about the supernatural?

Didn't notice that, I guess the writer also conveniently forgot that the supernatural is supposed to be hidden in nWoD

A third of the book is about Hill's godawful Tokyo setting. That alone is enough to justify its place in the garbage.

>Her legion of "adolescent man-children" wields so much clout that they can automatically cancel another character's 5-dot Social Merit, like Status (Military General) 5, for one session.

>Mexico invades the US and takes control with little to no resistance because reddit called the marines faggot niggers

Resolve 3 and Computer 5. A bit harder than usual.

>tfw no AM I BEING DETAINED which cancels out any government-related social merits

>uncle jedhai
>uncle jedi
for what purpose

>Mexico invades the US and takes control with little to no resistance because reddit called the marines faggot niggers

conversely, the US ends terrorism by the power of Navy SEAL copypasta and Marine Todd memes

Really makes you think.

How does the Plain blogger know that the bikers didn't just flee so that they would avoid being put on death row for murder?

With amish blogger magic.

Quasi-ironic nazis and internet trolls accidentally stumbling onto effective magic and rolling with it because causing chaos is funny is some real Unknown Armies shit

>implying i'm not writing a campaign based on that
Also, if I realized that calling people faggots on the internet lead to them writing shit like this and selling it for money, I wouldn't have done it so much.

>nations around the world realize the power of internet trolling, and from henceforth, all wars are waged with dank memes

can aanybody provide links to this and beast?

I also did not notice this. Unless you run them like nut jobs it really doesn't work. which just paints left wing as nut jobs, when OPP is pretty liberal. sorry I think the verisimilitude of the setting is finally breaking here

Then going be the second story hook, is House Bill 2835 supposed to be some kind of anti-Beast legislation?

It makes me glad I only like oWoD, whose stupidity is no longer current and thus can be looked on humorously.

They're still trying to force Beast instead of abandoning the bomb?