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

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>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 is your favorite piece of BAD art from a WOD/NWOD splat?
>5th editons cliffnotes
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Other urls found in this thread:

theonyxpath.com/tumbledown-market-changeling-the-lost/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaplot
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

How do you even handle Time sphere mages without everything turning into a confusing mess of broken causality?

>Veeky Forums support here
>Have you tried using Hedge mages?

That's a storyline in and of itself, but if it's not one you want to do, make traveling more dangerous, like Avatar Storm dangerous.

How do you play Sabbat without being retarded?

>How do you even handle Time sphere mages without everything turning into a confusing mess of broken causality?

Wanna go back a scene? Thats gonna cost you a permanent paradox point.

Wanna go back 2? Thats 2 permanent points. So on, so on

At all

Please explain further

The best bad art is probably the stumpy-legged vampire from the original VtM book. Always makes me think "I killed fiddy hunters!"

You have two options, really.

Option one is to not take it seriously at all. Make it goofy; have fun with it. This can turn the game into a cartoon but cartoons are fun so who gives a fuck? If you're having fun, you're having fun.

Option two is a serious exploration of nihilism. Vampires are not part of mortal society anymore, they can't fulfill normal human ambitions, so they have to entirely define their own. The Camarilla replaces that with "Be good little boot-licks for eternity" and, while the Sabbat has something of its own response, it is more open to variation.

The Sabbat is your chance to stand in an utterly amoral universe, realize it, and become Nietzsche's ubermensch, who, on realizing the emptiness of the universe, acts on their grand desires decisively and bends the whole world with it.

>The Sabbat is your chance to stand in an utterly amoral universe, realize it, and become Nietzsche's ubermensch, who, on realizing the emptiness of the universe, acts on their grand desires decisively and bends the whole world with it.
I thought the Sabbat was too based on religious fundamentalism/cult behavior to really allow for one to do as one wills.

you can. The Sabbat is also about freedom to do what you want, as long as you don't antagonize other packs too much

>What is your favorite piece of BAD art from a WOD/NWOD splat?

>TFW I'm at work and don't have a copy of Mage 1e's Unicycle Obrimos

This one?

Let's not pretend Forsaken 1e didn't have a ton of absolutely zanny artwork

Yes. That piece symbolizes all that was wrong with the art, layout and color palette of Mage 1e.

At least Forsaken 1e didn't have Mage 1e's headache inducing, impossible to read, gold leaf coloration.

Can you have both the Virtuous and the Vice-ridden merits at the same time? As far as I know, nothing in the rules says you can't.

Aside from having 4 things to juggle around I don't see why not.

Also as you said, rules don't say jack as I recall.

theonyxpath.com/tumbledown-market-changeling-the-lost/

New Changeling 2e preview, since it went to editing.

>What is your favorite piece of BAD art from a WOD/NWOD splat?

You know it, brother

I won't lie the weird masked girl in the center is kind of weirding me out.

>It's a mask

Last I checked the gifts of the uratha didn't include the ability to creepily hollow out your own eye sockets. Maybe its a spirit or something serving as witness to whatever blood oath is being sworn there? Pack totem?

How was this not the first post?

"Kill The Batman" is not as bad as "Free Council Gay S&M Pride Parade".

No, it is worse art. You can argue if it is more unfitting or bad as an idea, but gay pride Free Council is better done than Kill the Batmage is.

No one going to call out Tumbler in the name?

How would someone non-fatally disable a Sin Eater, given:

A: They can't be knocked unconscious
B: They are immune to the negative effects of all drugs

Would a Sin Eater regenerate if you cut off a limb, or broke their spine without killing them?

LMAO jesus christ.. that is... that is just...

I knew a girl back in the 90's. She would draw terrible shit like this. But I was 20, she was desperate and trying to impress me, plus sort of attractive, and I was in a bad state after a rough breakup and I am truly ashamed... truly, truly ashamed, that I encouraged her and praised her utter garbage. But at least this person is a little better with proportion.. Christ, sudden shame spiral...

This picture definitely evocative, I'll say that.

Have you ever heard of rope?

rope is so 1800's use zip ties.

It is also fairly fitting; the Free Council is all about drawing inspiration from Sleeper culture, and proclaims how social systems that elevate some above others are ultimately a part of the Lie. A Pride Parade is a pretty decent example of libertine culture, with all its strengths and weaknesses therein.

>and the gays. dont forget the gays

You know that the word "tumble" existed before a microblogging website, right?

>techne focusing on using flamboyant gays in the area as a yantra

Pride parades are essential parts in casting the biggest ritual spells those mages in the art possibly can.

So, /cofd//wodg/, I don't normally post here but I'm at a conumdrum and would like some help. I plan to run a game of M20 for my group soon, with the focus being on a mixed group of Traditionalist, Disparate, and Void Engineer characters fighting Threat Null and other deep umbra threats. So far the team looks to include a Virtual Adept cypherpunk, A R&E Engineer, a member of Navalon (in my M20 recently split from the Union and embracing historical mysticism with their hypertech and chivalrous ideals), an Euthanatos, and a Templar Knight. The last player just submitted his character, and I'm not sure how well it fits together; he's not able to talk right now (going on a camping trip for a week), but I figured I'd ask what Veeky Forums throught.

The character's a member of the PDC, part of Fleet; a space marine. They've got a five-dot Eidolon defined as Saint Isidore of Seville, and a dot in True Faith. Their Paradigm is Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; with a three-wya Practice of Faith, Hypertech, and Craftwork; and his Instruments are Weapons, Armor, Devices and Machines, Sacred Iconography, Gadgets and Inventions, Prayers and Invocation, and Meditation.

I'm worrying that such a faith-focused character would... it doesn't really fit in the Union, even with the Void Engineers, does it? I don't want to kick the character back without good reason, but it feels off to me, and I'd like some advice as to what to do going forward.

for +1

dont play m20

Can't you get more bonus dice via the merit with more participants? Or am I mixing it up with assist rules or something

If you involve a group of Sleepers, you get 8-Again, I think.

Any group of Sleepwalkers only adds a +1. Sleepers add none unless you're a libertine whose Techne aligns with it, in which case, they not only add a +1 for using an Order tool but also get the 8-Again trait on their roll.

If you're also using a praxis, it can be pretty powerful.

Chaps Serve The Lie

That seems like a bit much, doesn't it?

Push them down a hole.

This is at least amusing. Silver Ladder's was just confusing.

Bringing more Forsaken crazy, because I'm bored.

Here's some unofficial W:tF art.

What the hell is happening to that wolf on the right's spine? It is undulating like a sin wave

but my group and I all like M20

>That seems like a bit much, doesn't it?

Do you wanna deal with a mess of timelines?

>but my group and I all like M20

You and your group have shit taste user, sorry.

>theonyxpath.com/tumbledown-market-changeling-the-lost/
It feels like they gutted the Approach Mechanic that forces true fae and/or Huntsmen into your/your freehold's story. I wonder what else they changed.

How different would the Camarilla be if the Setites had accepted the invitation?

Are you mentally retarded?

This shows some core changes to rules, and given Rose's previous showing of rules on Thousand Years of Night and the like, I have very little faith she's changed Hill's rules to anything good.

>"It's time to show time what time it is!"

Please assume that I'm dumb as bricks. What's the major changes here compare to Hill's draft? Not denying it, just curious.

Courts no longer give Goblin Vow or personal approaches, courts no longer have an approach, each court has a 'harvest' psuedo condtion that gets you glamour back, rather than a court emotion. In fact, emotions look entirely gutted.
Given the story focus of approaches, it appears your freehold's story takes on very little meaning and I see no impactful way written in this write up on how courts actually protect you from anything, so its back to the boring 1e versions that are utterly uninteresting, rather than the story/tale based focused of Hill's Courts.

Goblin Debt and its like are now core parts of the template, and mantle is now integrated into that system. It doesn't look like you get goblin vow's as standard. It likely means Goblin shit is now core and you have to look at it.

The pledge section Hill didn't like, rose loved, so that garbage is likely still in play as well.

Overall they took what Hill had, and made it worse from the looks of the previews. There were some notable problems with Hill's version (mostly just the hedge), but this seems worse to me, Both from a rules and gameplay/story standpoint. It def doesn't give the feeling of Changeling to me at all from what 1e did.

I'm more wondering why the rage princess on the far left is basically taking a header straight into the dirt

So what are the actual goals of the God Machine from DtD ?
Apart from assimilating demons
I'm kinda stumped as to what its end game is supposed to be
I just started reading DtD so please be patient, no idea if this is developed in the core book yet

Were the Tremere part of the Camarilla yet? There's no need to accept the usurpers when you already have a way older and more prestigious clan with sorcery.

The earth called her a furry, she can't let that true insult stand.

They were.

Setites know sorcery but it ain't no thaumaturgy

Ultimately, it wants to keep the world bizarre and hostile towards ordinary human beings. It doesn't do this out of malice, but because it wants some sort of greater outcome from the weirdness and suffering that benefits it in some way.

There's this example about the dangers of AI where if we program an AI to just make paperclips, it'll always look for the shortest possible way to make the most paperclips, and before you know it, it runs out of metal and starts converting all of Earth's matter to paperclips, including us. A very silly idea IRL, but the G-M isn't too far from this mindset. It thinks comically, so its shortest point from A to B for one of its functions are intricate, sinister plans that use cults, Infrastructure, and angels.

Er, it thinks cosmically. I don't think the God-Machine has a promising career as a stand-up comedian.

>weirdness and suffering that benefits it
how does that benefit it ?
I was under the impression it wanted order, a bit like the Architect from WtA ?
or am I mistaken ?

Not very. Cam would still be 1% and Anarchs would still be ISIS terrorists in nuWW :^)

Well, we don't really know. It doesn't want order, per se since one of the possible adventures Mortals can have with it involves it sending an angel to a small town to place people's minds inside inanimate objects to see what would happen. Its actions, while well hidden, can be pretty chaotic.

We don't really know how it benefits from its actions, only that it does. Not even angels really know, which is why they can end up Falling if that starts to bother them.

The God-Machine Chronicle (the book for Mortal adventures and the second half of the Chronicles of Darkness core rulebook) has a few theories, ranging from "It's trying to kill off humans now that they've mined most of Earth's Uranium" to "It's trying to repair itself to fufill its purpose as a machine to control the former Soviet Union."

Rose on 2e courts not being Emotion based
>Not as such. Some Courts are founded on emotions, but not all. Courts don't function on a single, narrow model -- they're ways changelings have found of coping with their return to the mortal world and their need to defend themselves from the Others, and so they can take many different shapes. Any coping mechanism (or coping strategy) can form the basis of a Court. You might think of them a little bit like community organizations in the real world -- they often come from common roots, but each has their own means of outreach and of achieving their goals.

>It's an approach I've favored throughout the Chronicles of Darkness 2e -- making social groups organic to their beginnings, members, and environments, rather than fitting them all into one narrow box. A Court is a way changelings reclaim and defend their lives, and it only makes sense that they'd do that in many different ways.

Personally I don't like this at all, also I recently heard from a friend who met her that Rose is a total bitch in real life.

Lefties always do dumb shit.

The Setites would gain nothing from this:
* They are actively worshipping their Antediluvian. Hard to sell "no, there are no Antes", when one of your core member regularly has services dedicated to theirs
* Setites are shady bastards dedicated to a goal, for which they use all sides to play them against each other. This advantage gets lost when they formally join one sect, so that the other sees them as enemies.
* The Setites are actively against laws, in both their Dark Ages incarnation which puts them as noble defenders of Ma'at, and in their Typhonic incarnation inspired by Conan stories. Neither goes well with the Camarilla, who actively enforces law

But to answer your question, I think the Setites would have been even more marginalized than before, given that they would have to compete with the Tremere directly after the Proclamation of Red Tears

The metaplot is pretty fucking comical IMO.

How so?

But user, ChroD has no Metaplot, you just have to use your imagination :^) fuck dark eras for introducing metaplot

so to dumb it down, it's kind of a cosmic level crazy scientist AI, both pursuing incomprehensible goal and experimenting on reality to control it better ?
that's pretty neat
thanks for the explanations by the way

do you happen to know if there any scenarii compilations for DtD ? Official or not

Courts used to be based on an archetypal idea or theme, which was based on a sort of mythological narrative about seasons and emotion. That narrative had power over the True Fae because their world works in the way that myths do.

Without the narrative power of court emotions and the bonds they create within the system, there's no protection from the Fae.

The only structures that work to protect Changelings are ones that are genuinely legendary.

it's not a metaplot, you dip, it's a setting feature

That whole thing seems either gutted entirely, or just not accounted for in any way by the writing, which is almost worst.

I believe the God-Machine's goals are essentially so byzantine and labyrinthian, spanning such vast swaths of time, and so many possibilities, so many timelines planned, and hypothetical that it's just beyond the scope of any real description beyond well, what I just said. Shit's complicated, and scary, and not good for the endlessly curious little bugs poking at its infrastructure here and there (and said bugs are also little apotheosis-bombs who can awaken into major complications... or tools...). Shit's just very complicated and not good for anything but the God-Machine, and even then, things may be fucked up beyond repair, at least that's what some demons seem to be thinking.

Who'd have thought that not having a Communist as lead dev would make things worse...

so, what does it actually do in the physical world ?
what does it send angels for ?
sorry if I'm being dense

It's basically the same shit.

Building trans-dimensional antennas, fucked up large scale experiments on both animal and human subjects, siphoning power from places with particular spiritual resonance, creating ghost-spirit hybrids, recruiting at first glance inconspicuous middle level government employees to make subtle yet important changes in their work agenda (for instance urban planning so the streets create shape of occult sigils), operating time pump that sucks up temporal energy from dingy town with its successful days long gone...

shit, she is one of them, too? I thought this evil was defeated when Hill quit

She doesn't appear to be a 'communist' in the proper sense. But she certainly seems like a cultural Marxist.

It implements Infrastructure upon the world, complex systems of action with some sort of outcome. For example, it needs to obtain something, so it sets up a situation where three people are murdered by a sniper over six months in three geographical points that make an equilateral triangle. This sacrifice will create the conditions necessary to say, keep a single family in a time loop, which might be the direct goal or a plan within a plan. Each step in the greater plan is an Infrastructure, which usually hides in our human infrastructure (businesses, road systems, political structures, etc).

To accomplish these tasks, it sends angels. A Destroyer Angel fires the gun, a Psychopomp Angel gathers the souls of the sniped dead to put them in some kind of power matrix, things like that. They keep the aspects of the Machine running smoothly. In order to do this, they're given Covers and some degree of autonomy. The pure loyalty they feel should be enough to keep them loyal to the Machine.


"Should" is the keyword. Sometimes an angel comes to care for humans. Sometimes the angel decides that it's not some with it's task and will not be disassembled until it is truly done. Sometimes the Machine gives the angel faulty programming and they doubt their loyalty for a single moment. Then the Fall happens.

>Tumbler Town Crashing and Burning
AH GET FUCKED

>fuck dark eras for introducing metaplot

Are you trolling or stupid.

History and background is a fundamental part of the setting. However, there is no overarching prospective plot elements or future continuity, i.e., metaplot, in the CofD.

Background and history are NOT metaplot, they are the setting.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaplot

I tend to ignore the canon setting of the CofD.

It implies that Mages are real and everyone else is terrified of them.

Because both are true.

that is actually much clearer than what I've read so far
thank you very much

not in myWoD

>tend to ignore the canon setting of the CofD.
>It implies that Mages are real and everyone else is terrified of them.

Anyone can, and indeed should, change setting or rules to suit their particular group and chronicle.

However, a dislike of the setting doesn't transform it into metaplot.

Do you think Dark Eras 2's slow advance will bode ill for other Kickstarters OPP was/is planning?

Wouldn't you be afraid of sorcerers if they were an actuality?

Tolkien said it best
>"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger"

I mean, it makes perfect sense to be scared of Mages. Just because Magefags are jackasses sometimes doesn't mean that there's not interesting stuff you can do with Mages.

Hopefully they'll cut the changling KS, no one who matters wants that.

>Wouldn't you be afraid of sorcerers if they were an actuality?

I assume by "everyone" he's talking about supernatural creatures and not NEETs.

I imagine supernatural creatures would have much more to fear from wizards than normies.