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

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>Pastebin:
pastebin.com/7HiVphFm
>News
kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/chronicles-of-darkness-dark-eras-2
paradoxinteractive.com/en/white-wolf-partners-with-focus-home-interactive-for-a-video-game-adaptation-of-the-world-of-darkness-storyteller-game-werewolf-the-apocalypse/
>This week's Monday Meeting Notes:
theonyxpath.com/always-darkest-before-the-era-monday-meeting-notes/
>poll
theonyxpath.com/dark-eras-poll/
>Question:
What idea do you like most from a splat you otherwise dislike or even hate?
>5th editons cliffnotes
pastebin.com/cp0r59da

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you want it to be

>What idea do you like most from a splat you otherwise dislike or even hate?
From CofD Beast, I like the whole "Embodiment of archetypes" thing and think a lot more could have been done with that, really using meta-narrative type stuff. But instead they made it 3edgy5u trannyshit.

I despise the idea that Beasts primal drive is anything but a horrible negative. The whole "teaching necessary lessons" thing is such narcissistic garbage that it absolutely deserves the derision it gets. Frankly it IS the petty revenge fantasy of every tumblerina in game form, and that is not in any way a good thing. There is no personal horror to it, no horror at all, it's angry blogger types + kewl monsters + pure revenge fantasy - and that's without even getting to heroes... I mean heroes... plain and simple, mischaracterization of the virtuous, or anyone they don't agree with or like as simply evil and tearing them down into some base, nasty opponent to be crushed.

I know beast rants are just easy, but I mean, it has to be said. It is a concept as a splat that could be beautiful - monsters from throughout human mythology, primordial dream.. it has so much potential if it were taken with respect and love for the source material. But instead, the source material was just a wrapper for someone's personal self empowerment through revenge and oppression fantasy and anti bully melodrama. It is the poster child for the lack of managerial control over projects at OPP, something like that messed up so severely.

Taking bets now, will anyone respond to the question in OP and not talk about Beast?

Might get a few Changelings, and some Mage/Vampire fans shitting on the opposite line.

Why are Mage and Vampire constantly shitting on each other anyway?

Magefags and vampirefags antagonize each other, just ignore it if you want to actually talk about either line.

>Why are Mage and Vampire constantly shitting on each other anyway?

Smug superiority vs. bitterness and envy.

Because people are assholes.

>just ignore it

There would be little left but arguments about pronouns and complaints about OPP's release schedule and SwedeDracula's LARPing habits.

But why those two lines in particular?

And because mages are cowards who won't do crack apparently?

Can vampires even do drugs? Does it count if you get someone else high and then drink their blood?

>Because people are assholes.

But which splats are the biggest assholes?

>Assholes of Darkness
>Chronicles of Assholes
>CofD: The Assholing

And accusations of botting the Dark Eras poll.

Which splat, or which splat's players?

>And because mages are cowards who won't do crack apparently?

Mages are too good for the crack of common riff raff.

>Join the Seers
>Snort magic cocaine off the ass of vampire strippers

Vamp is the biggest splat by far, but they're also one of the weakest. They get really jealous of other splats winning against them, and people use Mage (the most powerful and open-ended splat possibly excepting Geist cheese) as an easy method of trolling.

>Which splat, or which splat's players?

Both.

Mage: The Trolling

>Troll Supremacy

I like the idea of Heroes from Beast, flawed individuals drawn to a glorious battle against abusive monsters that delude themselves into fulfilling a purpose in the world by a grander meta-narrative and will eventually destroy themselves in their quest.

Too bad we get black-and-white fedora tier failures that clearly exist only to stereotype people that the author hates

What do you mean by Geist cheese?

>Archtroll
>Imperial Trolling
>Pax Molestia

Why would you do crack when you can get high from the ultimate drug?
>UNLIMITED POWAAAAHHHH

Don't forget they are mechanically pathetic too, making them not even good antagonists.

>considering IM essentially considers true fae rank 8 entities it would be incredibly hard to tackle one.
True Fae are rank 7 beings, silly.
They're on part with lesser to mid level Archmages.

Not to mention the 'Old Gods of the Thistle' aren't actually True Fae anymore.
Supernal Arcadia is no longer the same as 'True' Arcadia.

>Why would you do crack when you can get high from the ultimate drug?
>>UNLIMITED POWAAAAHHHH

Ultimate power is really good when it's cut with vampire ashes and the tears of changelings.

Dumb discussion. Been done already.

An Archmage could potentially graft all the capabilities of the True Fae on to his/her own Template, without any of the drawbacks. No weakness to cold iron.

Hell, someone previously mentioned that Fate 9 is enough to create a duplicate Wyrd.

Also note, creating a new Wyrd in your own Domain or grafting other template powers on to yourself doesn't touch the Pax in anyway.

Geist was rushed out the door pretty fast, so the balance is totally off the wall.

Particularly with the Boneyard ability (which allows remote viewing and remote activation of powers within a wide area) in combination with other powers, Geist players can remotely render people unconscious, drain plasm from ghosts in the neighborhood to fuel their powers, or (with Rage) literally squeeze the Vitae out of a Vampire without anyone knowing who did it.

Caul powers give the Geist a de-facto War Form, allowing them to channel their energy to gain size categories, durability, damage types, or even flying. Cold-wind Caul at 5 dots allows you to teleport anywhere within a 5-mile radius. 5 dots in the Passion Caul completely negates mind control powers.

Adding to the power of their abilities individually, Geists are unable to die. No matter how devastating the harm visited on their bodies, a Geist will just come back to life fully intact (minus a bit of their self-identity) unless their template is removed.

>Adding to the power of their abilities individually, Geists are unable to die. No matter how devastating the harm visited on their bodies, a Geist will just come back to life fully intact (minus a bit of their self-identity) unless their template is removed.
That only works 10 times or so doesn't it?

Geists are pretty cool and beefy. Right behind Mages, Mummies and Demons, surely.

I still believe that to be entirely intentional, as it undercuts the labels and image the author wanted to pin on Heroes to have them actually be a real, competent threat.

Drama club nerds (Vampire) vs Math/Chess Club Nerds (Mage). Throw in the angry nerds who do poorly in class (Werewolf) and you have the White Wolf of the 90's Triumvirate.

They keep coming back below 0 Synergy, but they're effectively unplayable because the Geist has near-permanent control of their destroyed mind.

Though I suppose the Geist would probably try to find someone else to make a deal with if that happened.

Get of Fenris did Columbine

>someone previously mentioned that Fate 9 is enough to create a duplicate Wyrd.
Never liked this proposition.

It's basically saying
>"Oh, Changeling? Here, let me make a Changeling that doesn't suck. Because I'm a fucking wizard, lololol"

Which is just another sign of how bad over all the game is. Making the primary antagonist suck not for rules or story reasons but because your had is so far up your ass about politics is bad game design. And its rampant in many OPP products.

Yes, the game is about rewriting the fundamental foundation of reality, of which every game line exists in. Your inability to mentally deal with this doesn't make it invalid. Nor does it actually invalidate anything about the other game lines, because they actually aren't mages and aren't even capable of SEEING the world the same way they do, much less matching anything they do or even actually understanding or knowing about it IC.

At that point you're so far outside the bounds of what most games deal with it isn't funny. That's like saying an omnipotent god shouldn't be able to do something.

Mage power scaling isn't fair but it also isn't something that will ever, ever, EVER come up for most games unless you're doing a specialist archmage chronicle.

If you're doing a normal game of any stripe (including Mage!) and an Archmage starts fucking with you? Reach over the table and beat the GM's head onto a table corner until dead.

Pretty much.

It's not like you even need Transfiguration to make a superior splat based on another one.

Seven dots is the 'create your own splat' tier.

The Archmage could create vampires with no weakness to sunlight, or utterly devoid of the beast.

Also mages don't necessarily exist in a game unless the ST decides so. And even then, the local consilium is not the same thing as the Exarchs and Archmasters themselves reaching down from the Supernal and kicking your game for fun

One of the most powerful fucking wizards to ever exist or have existed, with nigh ultimate control over Fate, who has engaged in an ungodly difficult search to acquire the Quiescence needed to create a new Wyrd.

Which would likely be the instant/place that the Wyrd came into existence, or is destroyed. Probably requiring Time Travel (forwards or back), and fuckery with other Archmaster-Grade entities.

Spawn the duplicate-Wyrd inside a Chantry then.

When you have Russ (er "Rose" the tranny) Bailey having that much impact on development, as well as the MacFarlands, especially Michelle Lyons, one of the worst rpg.net snowflakes developing and editing it, it was a doomed project.

I am seriously worried about Changeling. Dave Hill was a weeb, and nutcase, but the one in charge of "fixing" the project is again Russboy Bailey...

>Implying Rose isn't one of the few competent devs left at OPP

That's all well and good, if you want to replace the old one, which no one was talking about doing directly.

is Rose Bailey actually trans? hadn't heard about that

For some reason it's been scrubbed from the White Wolf wiki, but Rose used to be Russell Bailey.

>I's not that hard to find good artists that work on commission / consignment either.
>Shit, give me 20 minutes on Artstation or HentaiFoundry and I could find a better artist then anyone OPP / WW hires for probably half their price.

Right, but they prefer to hire sycophants, asskissers and the special (tranny) snowflakes they meet on RPG.net and the like to actual talent. And the end result is garbage. Amateurish garbage, that we all know can be topped - no - just crushed in quality by even.. amateur hires if a little care is taken in the selection process.

Then again, even when they have professionals like Kaluta they seem to fuck it up bad - I still want to see a postmortem for Mage the Awakening 1e's utter visual disaster.

>Archmage vs Caine
>Archmage vs God
>Archmage vs Luna
>Archmage vs True Fae

Do you idiots ever stop?

Archmages vs Archmages
Who wins?

The Exarchs. We don't need to cover this one because the books already did.

>Archmage vs Caine
Prime 6 is enough to smack down the first vampire

>Archmage vs God
Undetermined. God might just be another mage.

>Archmage vs Luna
Transfigured Archmage wins

>Archmage vs True Fae
Isn't it obvious?

>Archmages vs Archmages
Whoever sports the best looking beard is the winner

Yeah someone over on the OPP forums made a hugely controversial post praising them for all their LGBT hires a while back, but then it kind of turned around on OPP because another poster pointed out that OPP was working with LGBT artists almost to the exclusion of straight artists. It did not end well, and I can't find any sight or sound of it on the forums or archived (I thought I archived it myself)

I hate you

Its funny because they aren't actually hiring much of anyone, just giving contract work to them.

fag

Yeah, I think by "hire" they were going by the writers and developers of the Exalted and World of Darkness stuff, which are pretty much mostly freelancers or let's be honest, goddamn amateurs and nepotism hires.

Personally I'd probably call contract work more 'exploitative' than it is 'hiring' but I might be biased because the taxes are god fucking awful.

Queermosexual. Go cup your daddy's balls and give him a sweet sweet daddy's best boy sucky sucky honey gob hummer.

Nobody, they destroy the universe. And possibly a couple next door.

I agree. I remember Malcolm Sheppard whining (well actually kind of bragging, he seemed to be putting up sort of a martyr complex) about his writing "career" being a label of love, and how he's on welfare and shit over on the rpg.net snowflakeland boards.

Archmage vs Prince of 100,000 leaves?

See, this is one of the few things awakening has that ascension doesn't - viable non-mage antagonists

You still need to find an appropriate Quiescence, and to create your own Wyrd you'd probably need something related to it.

inb4
>b-but you c-can't fight a timeline! That's not an enemy that's a plotpoint!

That's exactly what the Prince is though

Perhaps take a gander at canon material before you spew "hur dur i'm no clever" nonsense?

>b-b-but you need the quintessence

No shit. No archmagefag has ever denied this.

>The Magefag is triggered

You just don't know how to read sourcebooks. It's okay to be wrong.

I'm a Cainefag

I proudly stand by my opinion that no Archmage would triumph over my lord and savior, the progenitor of the blood curse.

It's ok little Magefag, you can keep shitposting about fighting the moon all you want. The enemies written for your splat are scary.

Your determination is admirable.

Even though you're fucking wrong.

but they still pretend it's not an issue.

People complain about Beasts, but the real Mary Sues are Archmages. I would sooner include Beasts in my game than Archmages.

That's like saying you don't like Changeling because they become True Fae at Wyrd 10. It's bonkers.

They're running with the assumption that the Archmage has already acquired it.

Okay but Archmages are literally supposed to be Mary Sues, and also represent the end-point of Mage's power progression, whereas all Beasts right from the start are Sueish.

Also, there's a difference between "stupid powerful" and "wah wah my life is torment even though my very nature forces people to like me and I can do no wrong"

That's a big stretch for a comparison. And the whole "turning into True Fae at Wyrd 10 and Clarity 0" thing was always an optional rule.

And your average cabal will never get to Archmastery, so why even bother?

Can the next thread be a mage-free zone? Where we just table all mage-related talk until the one after that?

>Okay but Archmages are literally supposed to be Mary Sues, and also represent the end-point of Mage's power progression, whereas all Beasts right from the start are Sueish.

Beasts don't reshape the cosmos, and that ability which gives a Good Impression with other supernaturals does not equal "everyone loves me". It just makes it easier for Beasts to receive the benefit of the doubt. Have you seen the Impression chart for Social Maneuvering? A Good Impression isn't such a big deal.

>Also, there's a difference between "stupid powerful" and "wah wah my life is torment even though my very nature forces people to like me and I can do no wrong"

Yes. The former is boring, and the latter can be turned into something interesting.

What is "boring" to you isn't boring to others

Piss off, you pretentious asswipe

Beast is both terrible and boring archmasters are better setpieces.

Sure. But I'll stick around.

Better how? They are invulnerable unless you are another godlike being. I don't like that kind of character.

So the last three sessions of my game is happening over the next month and a half, and Gehenna is in full swing.
* The Changelings have fucked off into the Dreaming, finding that the Dreaming was collapsing and the Fomorians were free because their presence in Earth had diminished the Dreaming.
* There's a final Technocrat/Mage battle happening in San Francisco, though most mages are stuck off-world or dead due to the Avatar Storm.
* The Werewolves are about to go to Wolfhome to fight the Eater of Souls.
* The Vampires of my city have drawn the attention, through previous running around with Beckett, of Lasombra, and that's the 'final arc' is them trying to deal with the Antediluvian chasing them via its avatar, an ex-ally of the PCs.

Wish us luck, it's been a bumpy but fun ride.

>stop liking what i dont like

Hey man, feel free to like Archmages. I'm just saying I'd rather not use them. And your pic is a problem in the entire Internet, not just Reddit.

Stop trying to bait magefags. The general can shit itself up just fine without your help.

Samurai Jack

Note: For this sheet, Jack is a Dark Hero as described in the Mirrors supplement. In Season 5, he has less Integrity and probably the Madness Condition.

Virtue: Determined/Stoic
Vice: Wrath

Mental Attributes: Intelligence 4, Wits 6, Resolve 6
Physical Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 6, Stamina 6
Social Attributes: Presence 3, Manipulation 3, Composure 4

Mental Skills: Academics (Tactics And Strategy) 3, Crafts 1, Computer 0, Medicine 1, Occult 2, Politics 2, Investigation 3, Science 2

Physical Skills: Athletics (Jumping, Archery) 7, Brawl (Neutralize) 6, Drive (Motorcycle) 2, Firearms 3, Larceny 3, Stealth (Ambush) 5, Survival (Hunting) 5, Weaponry (Katana) 7

Social Skills: Animal Ken (Overcome Hostility) 5, Empathy 3, Expression (Wisdom) 2, Intimidation 3, Persuasion 1, Socialize 0, Streetwise 0, Subterfuge 2

Merits: Area Of Expertise (Jumping, Katana, Tactics And Strategy), Common Sense, Danger Sense (Advanced), Direction Sense, Eye For The Strange, Fast Reflexes 3 (Epic), Indomitable (Epic), Interdisciplinary Specialty (Tactics And Strategy), Meditative Mind 4, Multilingual (Several), Professional Training 5 (Samurai: Athletics, Weaponry, Survival), Trained Observer 3, Virtuous (Advanced 3), Ambidextrous, Demolisher 3, Hardy 3, Fleet Of Foot 3, Greyhound, Iron Stamina 3, Parkour 5, Quick Draw (Katana), Seizing The Edge, Fame 3 (Advanced 2: Inspiring), Inspiring (Advanced), Iron Will, Striking Looks 1, Armed Defense 5, Close Quarters Combat 5, Defensive Combat (Brawl, Weaponry), Fighting Finesse (Katana, Neutralize), Iron Skin 2 (Advanced 2), Light Weapons 5, Martial Arts 5, Unarmed Defense 5

[Continued in the next post]

Masteries: Weaponry (Counter, Powerful Success, Rapidity x 2, Sublime Stunt, Skill Trick: Butcher), Athletics (Counter, Powerful Success, Rapidity x 2, Incredible Leap), Brawl (Counter, The Guild, Rapidity x 1, Skill Sense), Stealth (Beyond The Limit, Skill Sense), Animal Ken (Powerful Success, Skill Trick: Whisperer), Survival (Skill Trick: Homemade Tools/Master Tracker)

Health: 18
Willpower: 10
Defense: 13
Initiative: 13
Speed: 18
Integrity: 6
Arete: 7
Conditions: Obsessed (Defeating Aku)

I'd make that Obsession 'Return to the Past', probably changing to 'Defeat Aku' in the 5th Season.

I'd also add a crazy high Allies rating specified as 'people he has helped'.

OPP Forums, why is it so fucking gay?

>I'd make that Obsession 'Return to the Past', probably changing to 'Defeat Aku' in the 5th Season.
Well user, why does he want to return to the past? What's the ultimate goal here?

It's filled with actual homosexuals. What else would you expect?

Gotta get back, back to the past

WoD is tabletops for weirdos what did you expect?

What's so gay about it?