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

I prefer Redemption over Bloodlines, if only for the transition from dark ages to modern nights.

Not first, but it's really very silly to have spooky owls as a main antagonist.

For me it was completely different. Coming straight from Vice City, the glorious 80's pumping neon masterpiece, to... San Andreas. Playing a barely understandable negro and listening to shitty jungle drum music just... didn't work at all. And I wasn't even that racist back then, but black 'culture' is just ugh...

>he didn't listen to KDST, KROSE, or RADIO X
what a way to make yourself out to be a gigantic pleb

>transition from dark ages to modern nights.
that was god damn neat, that's for sure

for me Redemption was kind of awkward, loved it for Vampire but i played it after the other great RPG's so my bar was set high already
had more fun in modded Neverwinter Nights with it tho but thats kind of niche in niche already and not many people know about it im afraid to be relevant.

At least im happy its not as much my fault that im struggling with it so much. Who would thought that games fluff can age so much.
Fuck living in future. Can't wait until GURPs Tranhuman Space starts to be historical setting.

>for me Redemption was kind of awkward, loved it for Vampire but i played it after the other great RPG's so my bar was set high already
>had more fun in modded Neverwinter Nights with it tho but thats kind of niche in niche already and not many people know about it im afraid to be relevant.
Do go on. Redemption was always too clunchy for me. But I am a fan of Neverwinter's UI

Oh man, that was some years ago, some people did a lot of mods (hakpak's iirc) with D20 modern stuff and mixed it with some scripts and made couple of modules about Vampire Masquarade thats all i remember. If im not mistaket some did conversion of Rademption. It was long time ago tho, most of them probably don't exist anymore but you can check nwnvault.org and search for yourself.
NWN is cheap as dirt on gog.

Favorite moment would have to be a 1e Mage game I ran in 09. It was the last scene of the last session before a short holiday, and the PC's had just escaped a bound Abyss-tainted spirit of Death that was consuming the spirits and people in the hospice ward. As they make their way to the getaway van driven by the proximus retainer, one of the PC's says that the bomb they set up should go off by the time they escape. The incredulous looks on their faces were only surpassed when they opened the van door to find their proximus bound and gagged on the floor and the local Guardian of the Veil pointing a gun at their heads. The bomb detonates, there is a gunshot, and the session was over.
My players were so excited to find out what happened and keep going, we went to 2 sessions a week when we returned.

>ww as written doesn't work because it needs the huge overarching threat for all the other to band against.

Other huge overarching threats in fiction that have not worked.
>An evil, Star spanning empire hellbent on subjugating a band of plucky rebels.
>An ageless, evil, overlord living in blasted, industrial wasteland who periodically sends his minions out to pillage the world of men.
>Every fictional nazi ever.
>A giant, world-eating cosmic being that the world's superheroes must band together against.
>FINAL FORM SEPHIROTH!

I mean c'mon, man.
>

>you forgot an Imply
>also you're proving my point.

The tribal infighting. Not mention they aren't exactly subtle in their operations. Sorry mate Apco is a product of the 90s get over it. which was the problem of the entire line, and of a couple of them. Vamp had caine waking up. ww had the wyrm. Mage had fuck reality? They line kept threatening the end times but blue balling the reader/player until it was just passing the height of it's popularity.

So at that point they had to destroy the world or renege on the threat. Reneging is the direction I believe nunuwod is going with anyways. With oh it's global warming but not a world shattering thing. Bitch we were promised volcanoes, worldwide plague and darkening of the sky. Not oh its 5 degrees warmer. Fuck that weak ass sauce

How am I proving your point? Galactus never goes away... he never munches the world but he's still out there, waiting to come back. The Empire is never fully vanquished in Star Wars.

Oh, wait. You just said that to sound snide.

>What was your best experience playing oWoD/nWoD/CofD?

i am torn between 2.
The first one was a WtA game. I love it because we relegate fighting the wyrm directly in favor of heavy politicking with the tribes trying our best to drag those inbreed idiots into an fighting force agaisnt a hive. The DM handle punching the banes/fomori/bsd as fade to black. It was awesome to explore the garou nation and how fuck up it is.

The second one was a mage the ascension game. The Dm put a cap in spheres so we got plenty of time to understand and learn what they could do at each level and at the same time, the progression between street game and star-ships in space saving pink triceratops felt natural.

Mages supremely cute

namefag, try harder plz

Not entropy mages though

>Correspondence 2, Entropy 3, Time 2
>pic related

>Having even 1 dot in entropy

Why the fuck do people care so much about Entropy mages?

jealousy.

Guess you like global warming as the main antag. thats cool mate. I prefer the volcanoes, but if you're happy with slightly more temperate waters who am I to judge

Is the fancy red lavos-y star still in the Umbral Sky?

O... Kay?

Not sure about that one, but what I'm hearing is that it's more haily's comet signalling the end times than the actual threat. But they're also bringing back as old tired plot point. Thats right Its the lost LOST werewolf spirit thingy. oh please nunuww. we've had the lost croatoa the lost werewolf tribes, the lost spirit gods. At this point I think They've Lost the metaplot

It my heart the Red Star will always be the same red star that came to kill the Lizard people. Good ol' Sons of Ether book backing up the Mokole. Which is pretty much the plot to Chrono Trigger.

The literal son of ether creation

So one of the PCs in my Mage game is a fan of the magicians t.v. show and he's gotten really good at tutting.

So I've made a house rule that if someone actually acts out a rote mudras I'll give them the 9 again on the roll.

The results have been awesome.

>Roleplaying in a roleplaying game
Think of the children!

Statistically 9again is a small nudge. but psychologically a good motivator. Nice

It's worked out so much better than I hoped for. The amount of meta gaming has dropped. People are actually trying to flesh out their characters.

>The amount of meta gaming has dropped
Sometimes it's hard to figure out what works for which groups. what else have you tried/done?
I'm curious

Didn't Voormas nearly succeed at freezing the whole universe by trying to achieve Entropy 7?

I can see why they'd be jealous.

God, I miss Sheikman's art.

I've had great success with just getting the mood right. Light up incense and some candles during a ritual. Play music. Voice acting NPCs.

Also construction paper. Draw out and model if possible the general layout of the area. It helps my group focus on the current situation.

Also embrace hubris. I don't believe you should ever nerf magic you just have to ensure there are consequences for mage-dickery.

Do dice tricks stack? Can you combine 8 again and rote quality?

>Also, relying on an ES is a risky endeavor. ES are hardly guaranteed

I keep hearing / reading that Masters will eventually garner rather "guaranteed" Exceptional Successes after a certain point, assuming they make proper use of their single Reflexive Yantra, etc.
Or maybe not? I'm rather ignorant.

When does this happen, exactly? Or more bluntly, when will said Masters have the capability to flat-out Unmake something / someone by just looking their way?

anydice.com/articles/new-world-of-darkness/

have fun

So basically if you're a master you're almost guaranteed an exceptional when casting a praxis? Holy shit.

As a master you can design your own rotes which gain the rote quality on spell rolls.

Mathematically it's superior to craft and cast your own rotes over praxis.

Also remember a master can use unraveling magic to devastating effect. A guaranteed 5 aggravated damage a turn at range is nothing to sneeze at. Especially since RAW means a majority of humanoid target will also suffer the 'Stunned' tilt.

How does the rote math work out? I'm not well versed in statistics.

Today

I

I've been challenged to fill in for a game of VtES on the weekend. What am I getting into?

will

remind

them

Nothing we already don't know mate

A master casting a praxis with default dice pool of 10 w/o using a yantra or spending willpower has a 66.27% chance for an exceptional success.

A master casting a self-made rote under the same conditions has a 72.08% chance for an exceptional success.

However a rote can use a unique mudra yantra which is a potential +5 to the dice pool which you will almost certainly have because you can chose what skill to use as a Rote mudra when you design the spell.

Under the condition in which you're using 15 dice pool with a mudras the probability of an exceptional success goes up to 96.24%

Compared to a praxis 15 dice pool of 89.08%.

And you still haven't used all the tricks up your sleeve!

>Also embrace hubris. I don't believe you should ever nerf magic you just have to ensure there are consequences for mage-dickery.

I am more on the camp of nerfing mages as much as i can as i think necessity is the mother of creativity which i feel awakening lacks.

However i am curious of this approach. Can you share more? If magic must always have consequences, in a narrative enforced way, how do you avoid making every session into a morality play? If all magic will inevitably come back to bite them in the ass, no matter how smart or lucky they are because you as dm enforcemit, then why would they use it?

Jeez.
Masters are properly terrifying.

>she’s coasting on her own brilliance

While I won't call any of those good, they aren't horrible, either. Seriously, of all the things fucked up with M20, those are fucked up the least. It's like Phil tried to put a layer of tumblr over The Orphan's Survival Guide. Which is a shame, because that's one of the best books that he ever put out.

Seriously, guys. Take Phil out for one last spin around the park, give him a sausage and a pat on the head and then it's off to the vet.

A little too terrifying. It's a little ridiculous especially for gms.

A Rote Mundra can add up to +6 to the roll. The skill is capped at +5, but if using an Order Rote specialty skill, the mage gets another +1.

Also, the Rote Mundra counts against the Yantra limit, and will count as the mage's one reflexive Yantra.

>magic must always have consequences

The consequence don't have to be some physical or spiritual malady befalling the mage. Rather, the consequence is often the mage increasingly viewing other people as mere insects or things. Hubris is a consequence.

>+6
>reflexive Yantra
Masters keep getting scarier the more I hear about them.

10gnosis is very different from 5gnosis

My suggestion is Just take out the bypassing of withstand as an option for exceptional suxs. At five dots the potency of the spell will overwhelm the target's Resistance stat anyways. It's not that much of a nerf because that other options of free reach or a nice condition or a free refund are still pretty good. and it cuts down on the meme-ifcation.

You have to realize, this requires you to be at a minimum of 5 Gnosis, and at that point it can only be done with 1 arcanum, requires a buttload of successes(5 per dot of the arcanum involved in the spell), a lot of mana(1 per roll), loads of time(3 hours per roll, though it need not be done all at once), and an arcane xp to spend.
And if you fail any of the rolls, you have to either start over or take a condition that can't be resolved until you finish making the rote.

Granted, assuming you're using a skill you've got 5 dots in to do this, you have 10 dice. You can't add yantras or anything to this, it's purely arcanum+skill.

And even then, assuming you do succeed, who gives a flying fuck? As a Mage ST, you've signed up for your players to be strong, and you can just throw NPCs at them who ALSO have their own self-made rotes with ridiculous dice pools.

Mages are scary powerful. That's the entire point of the game; given unlimited power, what would you do with it?

1st degree Masters aren't even on the top of the heap. Shit gets way crazier.

>This thing that can ruin games is fine.
Okay. I like mage but you're delusional. This is why people don't even want to touch mage. They have too many to the point of seeing as much play as archmasteries with the exponential growth they have.

Okay but that just depends sorely on the player then. The dm doesnt have any imput on the pc worldview, specially in cases in which the player and dm disagree on the hubris hit.

I've run 30+ player LARPs and never had arguments over Hubris hits, even ones not explicitly listed in the book. And these were /LARPfags/. Do you just have awful players?

a better question is could they resist the knot?

A quirk of Mage mechanics is that there is a 'chain reaction' for power gain.

As your character grows in power it's easier to gain arcane beats due to having more obsessions/resolving conditions from exceptional successes. Which means you'll be gaining arcane experience by the boatload after a certain point.

Today i got invited to a friends game of awakening.

My friend is a player but knows the dm for a long time.

Before we started chargen the dm said "look guys i want to run a game of MAGE by this i mean that i know that the system gives you plenty of liberty but try to make your spell feel like magic.

Magic is curse, thunder, zombie or fireballs. Magic isnt "i throw antrax at him" nor it is "i turn his sweet into acid". That just power fantasy god mode wankery"

I will be playing a moros with 3 on matter, anyone can suggest spells that "feel" like magic?

Not particularly but i dropped the whole hubris system and replace it with resonance from ascension.

However i have seen lots of arguments on hubris both here and opp forums

Find a new ST. He's severely gimped you.

This whole post comes across as "I have not read Awakening 2E"

turn people's sweat into BEES

>resonance from ascension
This seems like a better system, but how do you integrate it into NWoD? There are quite a few random bits that use your Morality track.

Are you making up mechanics to make yourself feel better?

Because none of that is how Mage 2e works.

Have you played two 2e? skill yantras add 5 dice to the gnosis+arcana pool. Fucking read the book you goddamn retard. I can't believe I'm arguing with someone defending something he doesn't understand.

That doesn't sound like fun.

Basically the dude wants you to use more classical Magic. I can appreciate what he's asking, but really he should let players do what they want.

A good way to do that and make your powerful at the same time is to take the Shadow Name merit, and then focus all of your spellcasting around that persona. He's being a bit of a dick, to be honest, but really I think he just doesn't want you doing "lolsorandom" magic.
For example, taking an "Alchemist" name would mean that rearranging the fundamental properties and nature of elements would be boosted with a potent Yantra.

With regards to that, some nice "mystical" spells including Shaping (which with reach can turn solid matter "liquid" and cause it to flow, such as making a guy's gun dissolve and then wrap his hand in metal before setting again).

Alter Conductivity is fantastic for "cursing" mechanical devices, or turning objects invisible, or causing people to be electrocuted by their own devices.

Alter Integrity is wonderful for an "alchemist" type character. Render a glass window bulletproof, or render someone's pistol so delicate one shot will cause it to break.

Shrink and Grow is also excellent, can't beat shrinking a tank down the size of a keychain. I'd suggest talking to him about that decreasing object's weight as well though.

Wonderful Machine is the ultimate in modern-mystical practice though. Fusing two different devices together to create an arcane monstrosity. Such as combining a blowtorch and a shotgun to fire super-heated pellets. Or making a flame-knife.

The numbers don't lie. There's a reason why magefags proclaim themselves the strongest players sitting around the table.

He shouldn't be limiting powers he should be enforcing a thematic. It's just dumb.

I'm always for letting mages try to solve their problems with magic, seeing how easy it is to solve the simple, mundane ones and letting it all go to their heads. Like that user said, there should always be consequences, but not in the sense that everything, everywhere is somehow out to get them. Said consequences don't need to have anything to do with the mages themselves or their lives and they don't have to be negative, simply present. Always ask 'and then what?' from yourself, the setting and your players. See just how deep down the magic rabbit hole your players are willing to go and how long it takes them to no longer recognize themselves and their cabalmates.

You guys might not realise, but that guy's talking about the process for developing a Rote, not casting a spell.

I mean, his stupid fault for not mentioning, but that's how Rote creation works.

Multi-degree Masters would be right behind Archmasters, which are the absolute strongest things playable in the setting.

I get that, but really if you can't get him to change his stance, then make the best of a bad situation.

You have all the time in the world to develop Rotes.
Why make it sound so tough from an OOC perspective? If that was the case, why do Rotes even exist at all?

Rote creation isn't something worthy of the Nobel prize. It's certainly difficult, but not enough to prevent any sort of Master from accomplishing it, or even multiple for that matter.

And once it's done? You're good to go.

After you Master an Arcana, the advantages of mastering one or more Arcana are marginal until archmaster, particularly at the expense of broadening your knowledge of all the Arcana.

Your enemies can only be so dead and vanquished.

>could they also do the same to nightfolk

More than likely, though not with Prime.
I am inclined to believe that Caine would be able to defend himself against the Archmage, but I'm also inclined to believe that he wouldn't be able to, considering how easy it was (only 5-dot effects were used) for the Union to take down the Ravnos Antediluvian.
It's not like anyone can actually challenge an Archmage with sufficient Arete, barring Incarna/Celestines, God and other Archmages.

Yet, even then I'm leery about white-rooming them. Prime 9, like someone else mentioned pre-current thread, is enough to create separate universes in your bare hands.
The Disciplines don't even come close to rivaling that, not by any means.

Just house-rule it.
Or ignore it all, I know I do.

>He's being a bit of a dick, to be honest, but really I think he just doesn't want you doing "lolsorandom" magic.

Basically that. the DM told us that the one thing that he misses from ascension in awakening is thematic magic. That mages in awakening tend to just cast wathever is convenient and it doesnt feel like magic.

He told me that as long as the effect looked magical i can pull off whatever i want (and have the arcanums for).

The example he used was that i cant transform a person sweat in a chemical compound that it explode in contact with the air because i saw that in discovery channel....i think my DM have had a problem player in previous group because thats an oddly specific example.... but that i could just make a potion that is acidic and throw it at him.

>For example, taking an "Alchemist" name would mean that rearranging the fundamental properties and nature of elements would be boosted with a potent Yantra.
>With regards to that, some nice "mystical" spells including Shaping (which with reach can turn solid matter "liquid" and cause it to flow, such as making a guy's gun dissolve and then wrap his hand in metal before setting again).
>Alter Conductivity is fantastic for "cursing" mechanical devices, or turning objects invisible, or causing people to be electrocuted by their own devices.
>Alter Integrity is wonderful for an "alchemist" type character. Render a glass window bulletproof, or render someone's pistol so delicate one shot will cause it to break.
>Shrink and Grow is also excellent, can't beat shrinking a tank down the size of a keychain. I'd suggest talking to him about that decreasing object's weight as well though.
>Wonderful Machine is the ultimate in modern-mystical practice though. Fusing two different devices together to create an arcane monstrosity. Such as combining a blowtorch and a shotgun to fire super-heated pellets. Or making a flame-knife.

Thanks for all the examples user!

Honestly, I'm inclined to argue that splats in oWod shouldn't really be combined- each splat should have its own separate portrayal of the others, mechanically different- Mages in Mage? Definitely can beat Caine. Mages in Vampire? Can't even hope to.

jesus christ
This is not even a person, just a selection of tropes.

Wanna know what did something like this but better? That gay Nosferatu in the old books

>Mages in Vampire? Can't even hope to.

The Week of Nightmares was within a Masquerade supplement... .... ....

Separate or not, if we go by feats, mechanics and plot-devices, Archmages still shit on Caine as they have better examples of all three.

My bad for assuming for a moment that the people of /cofd/ could draw a logical conclusion based on the mechanics being talked about, or that they'd even read them in the book in the first place.

But no, of course they go straight for 'this guy must be a delusional retard making things up to make himself feel better'

There's an irony in wanting to limit the potential of magic while playing Awakening.

I mean if you're playing a Seer chronicle it could work.