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

>He just needs to actually TALK more.
what do you mean? when game begins?

In the sessions. We usually have to prompt a response out of him, and sometimes he asks what's going on.

That's wrong, PCs are almost never just unlucky folk trying to escape. They shouldn't be using their own phones because they're more likely a splat trying to operate in secrecy from competing conspiracies that can turn phones into surveillance. There's a lot less horror in implying there's any help outside that could possibly be called.

I don't now. That depends on the person, but playing sometime at the turn of the century when you have no idea if the next town over is going to have a telegraph office so you can get quickly in touch with your base for them to send back up is kind of a big deal.

>back up
That's urban fantasy code for carpet bombing. Don't admit you've lost containment until you're dead anyway.

How do you guys handle faction warfare in your games. For my next VtR campaign I plan on building up tension between covenants and than making it erupt into violence. Have anyone here done something like that?

>Some splats have anti-magic abilities, but they can be nullified using Prime.

How does this work? Mages negating other splats anti-magic abilities. Wouldn't said abilities negate Prime's attempt to fuck with them?

One of the main deals of Prime is basically fucking with the underpinnings of magical effects, including those intended to repel other magic. It's like bypassing a password by hacking the base code of the system.

Yeah but to extend the analogy: It doesn't matter if you have the ability to access the lower level parts of the system if you can't get past the firewall to use that access. Does it actually say that anti-magic effects can't stop prime?

The equivalent to a firewall in this analogy would be another mage attempting to use Prime to block what you're doing, rather than the anti-magic effect you're trying to bypass.

But yeah, Prime can just dig in and cancel or alter active magical effects, provided you have enough dots to do more than just manascan.

...that seems kinda bullshit. So a GM for a Mage game needs to make literally every foe group have a mage or they have no protection or invent 'This is above Prime' stuff? That seems limiting on a GM front.

But then, I'm the sort of WoD player who has my fondest memories of mixed splat games...which is really not a design decision behind either Exalted or nWoD. Mores the pity IMO.

Prime is the meta-magic Arcana, it's intended for it to fuck with other non-Supernal magics.

This includes anti-magics.
This shouldn't be hard to understand.

Can't gm just rule that such effects like say Carthian Coda against sorcery are in fact Prime in nature and be done with it?

>I'm the sort of WoD player who has my fondest memories of mixed splat games

Into the trash you go.

That would be a reasonable way to houserule it. Lets you have that group of holy monks chanting prayers against magic and have them not be the punchline of a joke if you want non-mage threats in your mage game.

>anons get angry that mages can overrule one of the minor few things non-Magers have against mages.

Get over yourselves. Prime always fucked with other sorcerous workings. Antimagic is not an exception.

Oh, I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me. It's just my personal preferences as I feel it makes for a richer setting than subdividing it into 'Cannot cross these lines' zones.

>doesn't like that mages have the best anti-magic
>decides to make vampires better because REEE

Those monks better hope that their foe mage doesn't have Prime to counter their faith.

Part of the issue is that a major theme of mage is Hubris. However a major part of Hubris is that overconfidence can cost you heavily in a situation where you thought you had the upper hand. Mechanically however it's not really hubris is you DO always have the upper hand.

Yeah whatever

>Those monks better hope that their foe mage doesn't have Prime to counter their faith.

Well, that was in the case of ruling that other splat anti-magic counts as Prime (As it IS countermagic).

I think it's more that 'People don't like that anti-magic doesn't actually work on the splat based around magic'

>Hubris
One of the major themes of the line, yet a far too common excuse made by those with bitter opinions of it.
Not every mage is an idiot, and a lot of mages can actually back up their overconfidence without failure. Jesus.

>Mechanically however it's not really hubris is you DO always have the upper hand.
Just deal with it. Crossover balance is not a focal point for the developers. Mage is explicitly one of the three most potent game-lines, alongside Mummy and Demon. This is by design.

>Not every mage is an idiot, and a lot of mages can actually back up their overconfidence without failure. Jesus.

Then it's not really overconfidence. That's just confidence.

Nah, it's called overkill.

Prime is more than just magic, it's also truth.

It's not far fetched to assume that the splat based around magic, wherein one of its ten Arcana is all about just that, would have the best anti-magic available.

Just because something is by design doesnt mean it's good design.

I love mage but it sucks as a WoD game if your players never have to actually deal with the repercussions of their hubris.

They needed to give paradox waaaay more bite because honest to god, the fact it's so pathetic makes one of their entire Orders basically redundant.

It's less that it's got the best anti-magic and more that it's got the ability to just ignore other people's anti-magic. So mage just removes it's own weakness very easily.

>Just because something is by design doesnt mean it's good design.
I have seen nothing BUT good design since Awakening 2e came out. I'm loving every facet.

>I love mage but it sucks as a WoD game if your players never have to actually deal with the repercussions of their hubris
That's your STs fault, not the system or the players. They can and do suffer, just within their own setting and not as much from the others.

>They needed to give paradox waaaay more bite
Paradox being too harsh was one of the big complaints about Ascension, and it still didn't stop mages from being at the top of the totem pole, in terms of potential.

You can still use anti-magic against mages, Jesus Christ Almighty.

Just pray to god that the mage doesn't have Prime. That's all there is to it.

>Jesus Christ Almighty

Well, semi-mighty. He's no mage.

I'd honestly, if I had the chance to do design, make magic a little less reliable, especially on the fly.

Yes, you are incredibly powerful...but your hurbis will cost you badly if you just assume your magic will always be there to answer when you call. You can't ever assume it's certain or rest on your laurels.

Go piss on another splat. Get out of here.

So i'm swimming over this sea of wankery and vomit that is this board in search for advice. Did anyone run open faction warfare instead of normal cold warish type that seems to happen in cofd on average day? I'm mostly interested in covenant vs covenant but would be interested to hear stories from other splats

user are you actually this retarded? Does your aide know you are browsing Veeky Forums?

I accept it because otherwise hunters are the WoD equivalent of heroic mortals in Exalted. That's what you're signing up for.

>not teetering on the brink of Madness if you fuck up one more time

you're not playing the game right

>implying Jesus wasn't a mage

>I love mage but it sucks as a WoD game if your players never have to actually deal with the repercussions of their hubris
>That's your STs fault, not the system or the players. They can and do suffer, just within their own setting and not as much from the others.

The problem with Mage, and other WW games, is that the characters don't suffer the consequences of their actions from the setting reacting narratively to the fucked up shit they do.
They suffer by rolling bad on the omnipresent Fuck You track.
I mean Masquerade has an actual roll to determine wether your character or not feels remorse for their actions. What the shit?

>Is that the characters don't suffer the consequences of their actions from the setting reacting narratively to the fucked up shit they do
I'm new to this conversation, but that's a narrative effect. Unless you want to introduce those as a dice mechanic, there's no way to put that in the system.

Still looking for that "A Beast I Am" album, because holy fuck, you literally can't find this shit anywhere to download, not unless you buy it first.

Yes, you are right, you can't put "the local hunters notice the trail of blood-drained corpse leading to your Haven" in dice mechanics. Well you could but it would suck ass.
I was referring more to the fact that you never get to, or care about, roleplaying the degeneration into a Wight on a failed Conscience roll or conscience biting you hard on a success. A supposedly big and emotional part of your personal horror story relegated to a chuck of the dice.
About Mage though, you could certainly integrate Paradox into the narrative rather than having it as a pure mechanic. Paradox is supposed to be caused by Paradox spirits, minor or ajor characters who are watching your Mage and deciding when he has fucked up enough. Though it's true that's a bit more work than any ST would want, probably.

>Yes, you are right, you can't put "the local hunters notice the trail of blood-drained corpse leading to your Haven" in dice mechanics. Well you could but it would suck ass.

Yeah, that's one of those things that sorta irks me with mage. If you want to threaten a mage, you need a mage so it really limits the number of threats the group can reasonably have.

There are ways around that.
I've generally found overwhelming force, or playing against the Mage's weaknesses works well too.

Yeah, I have a bit of a problem with keeping focused. On the scale of GM sins I feel that that's not that bad though. Anyways, I'm going to try to improve that this game, since it'll be easier to follow the players (stupid) plans. (My current game that's wrapping up is Mage, which means that there are a massive number of options available, which makes it harder to follow along)

Roll20's community has... issues. That's why I'm just using the page to coordinate, and trying to pull my actual players from various other websites. It's also better when you're not doing dnd/pathfinder.

Derp, meant to tag

I think that It is closest to an Abyssal being, being a creature from Todash space, a dark void that fills the spaces between realities or some shit like that.

Shit, meant for

What are the best splats for getting CoD/WoD fluff?

I've read CoD's WoD a while ago, and I re-read the opening short story again today and I still love it and this book, not so much for the rules, but for the feeling the short stories hit on.

I'm planning to read nWoD, CoD and VtR2e for the short stories, as well as VtM, are there any other books that I should read?

Don't even bait me with beast, you know better.

Just read novels and anthologies. They sadly aren't NEARLY as numerous like they were for oWoD, but they exist.

what Mage path and Order do you think she is?

>Go piss on another splat. Get out of here.

Aww look, the little DaveB fanboy got mad.

>what Mage path and Order do you think she is?

A seer of the Gate with the path of the Unknown Tower, obviously user. Dont ask obvious shit.

terminology aside, how readable is owod stuff if you're not familiar with game lines?

>tfw always skip the short stories because of the retarded fonts they use

They got better now. Fiction in Mage the Ascension 1E, though? Good god. They also had horrible gold on white color scheme going on throughout. At least art styles were consistent for each game.

>Mage 1e art styles
>Obrimos on Unicycle

I don't know. I'll still take the 1E over 2E where everything looks interchangeable because they're re-using artists as much as possible and can't be bothered to actually give each game line its own artistic flair.

>Ascension
I'll assume you mean Awakening and it was a lapsus.

Prime doesn't work on Abyssal entities. That kind of anti-magic is beyond anything short of Archmastery.

Where can I see which books have the nWOD or Chronicles rules? Or are those two so similar that it doesn´t matter?

Anything from November 2012 or later is 2e. In general the fluff is all portable and most of the rules are, just with a little tweaking.

Corebooks?

Thank you.

It is definitely an Abyssal being.
Pennywise is one of many forms It takes.

I was under the impression that reapers harvested souls, not just fucked around with them.

Chicken and egg. You need to harvest a soul before using it.

Echo Walkers don't.

Fair point. Reaper is a catch all term for the left handed practice. There will be variance.

>tfw god machine is abbreviated as GM
>GM also means game master in roleplay context.

I am the god machine!

Hello again, best White Wolf art ever created.

I'm personally not a fan of the standard fuck you track and prefer the Harmony model. I'm currently rewriting wisdom to reflect Hubris and Detachment - the former is already explained, but i'm flavoring it more towards the fallen world, where as detachment causes a mage to be all "fallen world is irrelevant, imma leave my body behind and journey out to the astral plane, peace."

This of course turns the inert body into a hard to destroy magic vacuum, which will lead other mages to either try to destroy it through mundane methods or try and get mind and soul to come back.

I played a 'walker once who became obsessed with discovering "the secrets of the soul" as an outgrowth of his studies of Death and Spirit so he could just pop a soul back in after putting it out of joint.

This led me to a Tremere, who revealed that 1. 'Walkers were beneath his notice because we weren't "real reapers" and 2. We were useful tools for easy feeding, and that my efforts to not do lasting harm made a soul more "sustaining"

Cue anti-heroic BSoD, followed with "But i assume you had a question for me?"

I'm not sure jacked jawa and mumm-ra plotting to kill batman is pretty great.

Is there any decently written World of Darkness fiction? I know there's a officially released novels for some of the splats, but I heard most of those were terrible.

What is the best oWoD Vampire sect and why is it the Sabbat?

DaveB's short story 'premeditation' in primordial feast is good. It managed to redeem Beast and Changing Breeds somewhat as having some potential.

>Mage
It's an absurdist game that only Neet underachievers play

Anything good Vampire (Masquerade or Requiem) related?

Hey I'm a gainfully employed man child thank you very much.

Mage is absurdist, that's key to actually "getting it."

I'd prefer if most Consiili regarded Echo Walkers as "Questionable" as opposed to "Verboten." It makes the slippery slope of the legacy harder to see. This could be compounded by most of them seeing themselves as "one of the good guys" and otherwise acting accordingly.

>but I heard most of those were terrible.

Nah, not really. I haven't read any of the more recent stuff, but Requiem novel trilogy was solid.

What time zone?

Last game I ran had players with PhD's, doctorates and masters. The ST had the least formal education (only college) and the best grasp the absurd.

>app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/74267/the-lost-cause
Oh this looks fairly fun but unfortunately I have to work during this time. Good luck with the game though!

EST

Does anyone have any sort of player or storyteller aids for Mage: the Awakening?

>voice only
>CoFD instead of oWoD

oh well

How does it feel to be retarded. Honest question.

Most clans/traditions/tribes are super cringe

Literally who?

The irony here is that you are the retarded one, user.