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

>that face

>fund normal humans so they invent tiny cameras
>convince them to put cameras on every cellphone
>convince them to take selfies all the fucking time
>now most supernaturals can't even use their powers outside without risking the humans/hunters finding out about their existence

Why are Technocrats such dicks?

He was a writer who was around since the late White Wolf days, wrote for the books for at least a decade. He's an OK writer overall, though I don't think his design philosophy really syncs up with mine, and that leaves me cold on a lot of his stuff.

Do you mean "why are technocrats so based?"

The Balkans are pretty much Tzimisce territory in oWoD, right?

Don't forget how the Technocrats leak information to the Hunters and provide Hunters with guns and shit to fight supernaturals.

But Technocrats are dicks user, the biggest dicks in the World of Darkness

you see, there are three kinds of mages: dicks(Technocracy), pussies(Traditions) and assholes(Nephandi). Pussies think everyone can get along and dicks just want to fuck all the time without thinking it through. But then you got your assholes. And all the assholes want is to shit all over everything. So pussies may get mad at dicks once in a while because, pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes, and if they didn't fuck the assholes, you know what you'd get? You'd get your dick and your pussy all covered in shit

Yeah. They share a rivalry with the local Shadow Lords.

That's the most retarded analogy I've read in a long time.

Considering that that's the final monologue from Team America: World Police, that may be intentional.

Anyone has a "Ignore vampire posters..." image?

Is stepping sideways a sort of teleport?

If i need to roll, do i need to roll first to enter the umbra, and then roll again to exit in the real wold in another place, or is it imemdiate?

Is there such a thing as a Mage Werewolf?

...

Technically not a mage nor a werewolf

Technically, he's an ashtray.

In WoD? No.
In CofD? No.

Haight managed to steal a branch from the Tree of Life which gave insane power, but he wasn't Awakened.

>There's a suggestion on Gehenna that that whole shtick was a ploy to fool the antes and that they've been stocking up on weapons the whole time

That's actually a really cool idea, might steal it

Say what you want about beast, I'd still fuck a qt Anakim giantess

>While Slayers who've managed to purge most of their's will have an aura of 'purified wyrm'.
What is purified Wyrm even? Haven't read much of werewolf

Is Pisha from Bloodlines the only example of a non-edgy Nagaraja?

...

she was eating people in the morgue of an abandoned hospital, how is that not edgy?

When the other option is eating live people, it isn't

That's an Ashtray.

She doesn't do the kind of shit I've seen brought up in the Lore of the Bloodlines, like mentioned.

Need help for a W20 story i'm coming up with

The players i'm GMing for have just started, and for now they only formed the pack.They like the idea of pooled background and wanted a totem to atch over them, standard stuff.
Problem is, they can't decide what totem they want, especially since I made it clear that the choice is permanente, save some extreme cases.
On guy, playing a Theurge, read up a bit on the book and proposed to make a tour in the Umbra and find a spirit that is willing to accept them on his own volition, but cool asit might be, this thing put me in a bit of a pickle

Is there some sort of table they can roll on to decide which kind of spirit they find, or how should i treat their voyage in the realm of spirits? I don't want to have them face anything ovretly dangerous, and have them face spirits that if they are smart, can get through without fighting

I am pretty sure vampires can't eat dead people, hence even Pisha must eat them alive, or dead by mere minutes

Give me random rumors a Nosferatu might know:

- Their is a new gang of hunters in town. They call themselves the Fangbangers. They stake vampires and then they rape em for cheap thrills.

- Their is a new monster in town. They call him the Piggybank Slayer. He calls himself Ricky Nickles and when he's done with you you'll be leaking loose change out your orifices.

She preserves the flesh in some way, or so she claims.

>Problem is, they can't decide what totem they want, especially since I made it clear that the choice is permanente, save some extreme cases.

I think one thing players need to realize is there is no perfect min-max totem. If they're looking at it from that perspective they'll need to take both good and bad.

Sure they can, it's just nasty as fuck since the blood's cold and congealed

They know already, but they all find them equally nice, and can't really decide.
Except for Griffin, fuck that guy. But since the party is 2/4 homid, griffin wasn't an option to begin with

Is Children of the Revolution worth reading?

You know, I'm not much for vampires, but this is actually pretty hot.

I just got around to actually reading beast stuff and I have to say, if you ignore dev commentary its probably the best game I've ever seen for playing straight up monsters, both in the physical sense and in the personal sense.

The real problem with M20 is the continued pain in the ass nature of doing magic in it.

I ran a campaign using Mage and things became amazingly litigious every time the magic came out. It wasn't even the party trying to rulers lawyer, but rather my own desire to be consistent basically requiring I develop an extensive jurisprudence with barely any help from the source book.

Have there been any examples of actual, true love with vampires, Christof and Anezka aside?

A skin dancer once used a plot device power stealing sword to kill a mage, but the sword exploded.

Leaving Samuel Haight with access to several spheres. He later acquired a powerful artifact to get more robust abilities with magic.

it's basically just a collection of rather in-depth characters. how much you'll find that useful is entirely up to you.

>Haven't read much of werewolf
That's okay, I spent some of my creation points on Encylopedic Knowledge (it's not that useful actually).

The Wyrm used to be sane and not trying to kill everything. It's job was still to kill stuff, but according to the natural order of things, to make way for new life. Basically the natural forces of entropy.

Then the weaver (order) tried to wrap everything in its web (whatever), and that caused it to go crazy and try start murdering everything.

Fluff question about awakening.

Why aren't seasoned/powerful mages incredibly depraved or alien in mindset? Part of empathy is the shared experiences of the human condition due to our limits. People understand hunger, pain, or being tired. If you can zip around the visible universe, or regrow limbs, or stop time your views on you fellow man should be as alien if not greater then that of a True fae or a demon or ancient vampire.

- There's an embrace in the city and the sire did not see permission from the Prince. Bonus points if this is someone important, like a primogen

- there's sightings of a wounded werewolf, alone and weak

- a vampire appeared claiming to be Caine himself and is amassing a cult

- One of the vampires has a shameful addiction (weird feeding practices, sex with animals, something like that)

- supposedly there's a failed Malkavian embrace roaming the sewers. He needs to be taken care of

All I can think of right now. Though some of those would be juicy pieces of information, so you might want to force the players to pay for that

A veteran player instantly recognizes most of those as being traps meant to kill them.

>- a vampire appeared claiming to be Caine himself and is amassing a cult
This has happened so many times it's cliche by now.

>- supposedly there's a failed Malkavian embrace roaming the sewers. He needs to be taken care of

They wouldn't be left in the sewers, they're gathered up and shipped to some institution in New England as part of a joint Malkavian and antitribu malk plan to spread Malkav's conscience thin enough so that when Gehenna comes round he'll be rendered helpless

>I am pretty sure vampires can't eat dead people
There's Merit that lets you eat anything.
And there's a Flaw that says besides drinking blood you need to eat some "fresh tissue", with a note that it doesn't need to be killing people if you have resources to get creative about it.

>So who is david hill anyways? I see his name on a lot of the books, hell even on the chronicles core book. How long has he been around, and how good of a writer is he?

He is of the lazy school of game designer that think "balance" of any kind or form is pipe dream, a product of OPP shitty hiring practice and echo chamber forums.

You seem the parody of what OPP fans are? He is that but with a straight face. To the point of complaining that the word waifu was racist.

>sex with animals
>shameful
>by WoD standards
My little user can't be this pure.

>sex with animals

So a Gangrel's in town.

>What was your best chronicle of WoD like?

Werewolf the apocalypse one, DM made the game shine by reaching a good thesis of what Apocalypse is about the temptation of power " in a way Awakening´s komodo dragon keeps failing at even today.

Barbarians in modern times, in which you are being glorified in a monstrous society and you gotta play some kind of ball with them to save the world.

The clash of modern values with ancient ones was great as was the whole concept of how the best of intentions doesnt justify you.

>What was your worst one?
A changeling the lost game, DM completely missed the point of changeling and made it watered down masquerade.

The 4 courts were always on agreement on everything because he made a bird court (with no emotion to it) to serve as a poor man sabbat.

Made all the courts true fae in everything but name. Didnt read the material and refuses us to use contracts after we already purchase or change their working on the fly.

Pixel bitch us the fuck out of us and made all pledges have to be made through a shitty NPC of him that was basically a tzimice.

Didnt let us raise mental attributes because it not "realistic" as people in real life dont increase their IQ.

>You seem the parody of what OPP fans are? He is that but with a straight face. To the point of complaining that the word waifu was racist.

And he got shut down hard for that bullshit.

Is there a reason in the lore why the Weaver went mad?

Except not really, because his comment was aimed at *Westerners*, not fucking Japanese people.

Wyrm was destroying his shit and he got tired of it all

Nah, it wasn't. The faggot clearly generalized and only went back on what he said when the Jap shat all over him.

>"balance" is a pipe dream

It was McFarland who wrote that game balance essay, not Hill. If we need to go on yet another circlejerk about someone who doesn't even write for the books anymore, the least you people can do is get the facts right.

That was the point.

Japanese people don't need a white savior to protect them from big bad evil imperialist whitey

I said he is of that lazy justification to get a paycheck for less work, not that he is the one who came up with it.

What kind of balance? In-game balance or inter-splat balance?

Because the latter really is a pipe dream.

is VTR better than VTM?

Yes

Game terms yes.

Lore terms no.

But the lore is fucked with VTM. Theyve basically dug themselves into a hole by making the story of caine canon, and by extension, the abrahamic faith to be true. But how can that be when kuei jin exist?

How do you know that for sure? With McFarland, there's an essay to point to for his take on balance, but do you have any evidence for Hill?

Does vampire at any point actually contradict the idea that the "God" spoken of is anything but a Celestine type creature? I don't think vampire actually validates IRL christian beliefs of a supreme deity in anyway. Just one with the same name. Even Demon calls out the Jews for getting things wrong.

So, a few threads ago a player of mine came here to ask about low Arcana/high Gnosis mages who focus on high mundane attributes and skills rather than the ability to cast spells. He mentioned never risking Paradox, but failed to clarify what he meant, he's talking about almost never casting spells at all, so Paradox is never a worry (but he thinks a guy who flips over a semi with his bare hands won't have repercussions but whatever). I reviewed the lore to see if Mage society would have some kind of issue with this, and as far as I can tell...no, no problem. In fact, I'm surprised Mages don't have people who do this more often, there's all kinds of laws about using magic to fuck with other mages, but nothing about mundane ability. If a Mage with Strength/Dexterity/Stamina/Brawl/Athletics/whatever 10 all at once decides to fuck shit up, there's a lot of leeway since he's not using magic. Has anyone else ran into this? A player pitching a character as a "human hand grenade" used by a Consilium to just throw at some problem without risking overexposure to Sleepers?

Honestly, I don't see why so many people care about the game mechanics. Why not just use the books for the setting ideas and then stat everything up in a generic system like Fate or GURPS?

>And you, stop being an ass just because it doesn't come from a Mage book. 'Mage God' is the same fucking YHWH that's cited throughout the rest of the setting.

Not necessarily so! God has different definitions in each of the gamelines. This isn't something you can argue.

>How do you know that for sure? With McFarland, there's an essay to point to for his take on balance, but do you have any evidence for Hill?

Read Secrets of the covenants & Hurt locker (the plain). Some incredible stupid shit in there that could only be approved if the asshole didnt subscribe to that dumpfire of a design philosophy

>Why not just use the books for the setting ideas and then stat everything up in a generic system like Fate or GURPS

Because FATE is shit. Gurps mage is pretty good though.

Can you raise gnosis without arcane beats? And how does he get so many arcane beats without using magic?

And what kind of wankery game runs so long as to reach gnosis 10.

the 1000 hells are abrahamic ones, only asians can escape because the hell is directly beneath it.

DtF already says that the scarlet queen and the dragon emperor are angels

>What kind of balance? In-game balance or inter-splat balance?

Both. And personally, i dont think inter splat balance is a pipe dream, just because the idiots at OPP cant figure it out doesnt mean that it cant be. Beside 90% of their success is because fans grab their cool ideas and make them work in way the creators didnt intend to.

That said, in-game balance was also fuck under hill.

Inter-splat balance is possible, sure, but I doubt the end result would be pretty or satisfying in the least. It's also pointless, because these games aren't meant for crossover play anyhow.

>That said, in-game balance was also fuck under hill.
Are there more example's than just the Plain? A few people I know still think hes a great writer and I want to show them why they are wrong. Just telling them he's a communist isn't nearly as effective as I'd hoped.

His opinion seems to be that what arcane beats he does get all go to Gnosis rather than Arcana, so he won't need as many.

I've read those, and while I'm no fan, a loose balance design philosophy isn't laziness. It's wrong for a crunch-medium game like CofD, in my opinion, but it's not lazy.

It's certainly not impossible, but no dedicated playtesting division and with books that have quick turnarounds even with the delays, there's no way it is feasible with current company structure.

Is he aware he'll be completely useless compared to people using magic? Even at 10 Gnosis. Even with exceptional stats, you can still only do mundane things, which can almost all be hard countered with actual Magic. Of which he has little to no defense against, and can't even generate Clash of Wills to take advantage of his high Gnosis because of a lack of magical depth.

Not that user but my favorite analogy, quoted below, is from an ancient RPG.net thread...

>I've always thought of the Technocracy's good and bad sides like this.
>They've told you there's no monsters under the bed. Never were. Never will be.
>And this is a good thing, because there were monsters under the bed and they hunted them down and brutally killed them.
>Except now, now they've told you that there's no Santa Claus.

Oh man I loved reading this.

Technocracy fuck yeah

youtube.com/watch?v=BWWFJ2yjQGE

W H A T

C O U L D

G O

W R O N G

It's a mixed splat game, this is his "I can play a Mage without overshadowing everyone" idea. Everyone in the group has a different favorite splat, so once in a while I agree to do a mixed game. Usually Mages are a huge No, however.

>>Except now, now they've told you that there's no Santa Claus.
This is only bad if you have such an obsession with the Captialistic Paradigm of the Syndicate. The entire idea of Santa is just greed incarnate anyway. Not to mention the myth itself exploits the labor of elves.

Thanks mate.

>His opinion seems to be that what arcane beats he does get all go to Gnosis rather than Arcana, so he won't need as many.

Thats 45 XP to reach gnosis 10.

And the 324 XP to reach all in attributes in then. That 369 XP points.....i mean sure if you game runs that long go for it.

If he's not interacting with other Mages he's still going to fall behind the XP curve because attributes give you access to very little, even if you can somehow generate twice as much XP with Arcane Beats.

All the other characters will grow linearly and the Mage won't really grow at all, vs growing exponentially like they normally do.

Basically this. His idea costs way too much XP and would make for near peak builds of any other Template, even if the players aren't optimizing.

>Why aren't seasoned/powerful mages incredibly depraved or alien in mindset

Archmages usually become quite insane in Ascension. The individuals capable of one-shotting Caine should never be approached.
Even Porthos Fitz-Empress (who is the nicest old man, really) will disintegrate you during one of his 'senior moments', or if you just touch his favorite yogurt.

Carthian law. Coil of zinitra + pyrokinesis. The whole thing that Secrets of the covenant was suppose to be just like those popular clan books and then miss the marks because a) the fiction was subpar and b) clan books got away with it because clans are meaningless in Requiem while Covenants are a thing and if i "buy" a book about them i so very hope to understand how they work/operate.

Reminds me of Professor X from the new Logan film. So much power barely held in check.

>Just telling them he's a communist isn't nearly as effective as I'd hoped

The Red Scare's been over for decades, grandpa. Seriously though, expecting people to dislike a writer's work because of their politics is pretty foolish, even in this political climate.

If I remember right, that anti-sorcery merit chain was busted in theory, but I don't know if Hill actually wrote that or if it changed by the time it came out. Either way, the V20 Dark Ages line was pretty good, and I believe he developed that.

It comes off like it's supposed to be a companion to the 1e covenant books as opposed to the new covenant books for a new edition, but then Blood and Smoke became a real 2e and it was too late to change directions.