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

I've no idea who this Gate thing is supposed to be. Though I get the feeling it is oWoD related.

I assume he was a Purified?

Really? I assumed it was anime.

Anime and world of Darkness really go hand in hand.

tfw the only decent thing to come out of the Time of Judgement was a review of a shotglass

>rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9809.phtml

Gate is the 11th and forbidden Exarch in nWoD Mage. And despite the other 10 being grade A assholes, Gate just keeps the Abyss from eating the universe and murdering everything, and does it even though holding back the Abyss is a thankless job and she gets shit from the rest of the Seers for it.
Thus Gate is a pure waifu and best girl

The Gate is the sole Exarch who did not remain in the Supernal Realms.
He/she left, and travelled to the newly formed Abyss, she bargained with it, and introduced Quiescence, the Sleeping curse into humanity, to stop those Mages who remained from dominating the planet (but also perhaps to avoid the Exarchs achieving total overt domination of the planet).

She is entirely essential for the Exarch's tyranny to continue, but also (to my eyes) hampers an exhaustive victory.

The Secret Order of the Gate are her servants, or at least the latest iteration of them. They seek to 'balance' the Supernal and the Abyss, when one grows too strong, they introduce the other to balance it out, culling and strengthening the presence of Abyssal entities as required.

However being the one Exarch who might have some of humanity's interests at heart (if you look at it one, weird way), and being the one which isn't in the Supernal, living it up as a tyrant, and also because of the weird Eldrich Waifu craze, people Waifuify her.

Well that really depends on the gameline, doesn't it? KotE and Hengeyoki were so strongly influenced by anime that it over-ruled any kind of cultural context or realism about Asian cultures, but other games like Wraith or Changeling don't seem to fit the same mold.

Now I think about it, the oWoD started strong and then had a pissweak ending... just like most Anime series I've ever seen.

Yes. 1e Vampires could pretty easily pretend not to be vampires with some low end powers, or at least not read as one to other vampires. That was how we were fooled, by trying to metagame.

I think they're the first and last iterations. She waits until they all go crazy and die, then re-activates them with forcible legacy induction when she needs eyes and ears and hands.

Why did they decided to nerf vampires so hard in requiem compared to masquerade?

The old WOD suffered from decades of power creep, often to support the bloated metaplot.

In the new WOD, all splats received a significant power decrease to focus on street-level, toolkit, local stories. While the CofD / 2e has seen a general across the board power increase among the splats (and elimination of weakness designed for game balance or to force stories to remain local), they have not, nor does OPP intend to, be anything like the old WOD.

Vampires had legit Methuselahs and Antediluvians in oWoD and their Disciplines went up to 10.
Not as powerful as Archmages and their Arch-Spheres, but it was rather obvious why they were leagues ahead of their Requiem counterparts.

Classic Celerity was pretty stupid though.

That isn't true at all. Awakening mages are just as powerful as ascension. Geists are stronger than wraitns. And descent demons and changeling far outstrip their oWoD counterparts. Vamps and Woofs are the only severely weakened splats

Mage the Awakening question:

What are your characters' nimbus tilts? Give me some examples please, real ones you used in actual play, and ones you've considered as well (maybe specify the difference though).

Demons from Fallen are noticeably more powerful than their Descent counterparts.

>Awakening mages are just as powerful as ascension
It's strange, but cheesed out Ascension mages vastly outstrip their Awakening cousins.
In general Awakening is more meaty.

>Geists are stronger than wraitns
Evidently

>And descent demons and changeling far outstrip their oWoD counterparts
Changelings? Yes.
Demons? No.

>Vamps and Woofs are the only severely weakened splats
Like Ascension, cheesed out Masquerade Vampires are meatier than their Requiem brothers.
Werewolves are a mixed bag, depending on a couple of things.

Aren't 6+ Disciplines supposed to be at least as powerful as what the Archmages can do?

How are fallen demons stronger? Granted I never player fallen and this is coming from anecdotal evidence.

You will have to read Fallen for yourself. Earthbound are on par with Methuselahs and lesser Archmages, or perhaps sufficiently prepped masters.

no

Non-Euclidean: Penalty to perception tests as everything twisted and bent in upon itself, sounds of low chanting of gibberish.

Celestial: Halo of lowing light, bonus to expression tests with the pure light of inspiration, residual was a glowing effect

Insidious: Everything gains a hidden, secret meaning that you can scarcely comprehend, penalty to resisting intimidation tests

Numbing: Everything seems further away, your thoughts more sluggish, as if your brain is drowning in tar, each thought slower, and slower, and slower. Penalty to Investigation tests, but bonus to Composure tests.

Inevitable: Everything takes on an appearance of significant age, residual nimbus is a fine coating of dust and an old smell. However the inherent purpose and design of everything shines from within.

Resilient: Physical objects seem more solid, especially manmade ones. Actions, words, everything seems more solid, more lasting. Bonus to Resolve tests.

Nowhere even close.

Pick up Masters of the Art. Basically, picking up archspheres at 6 is.. okay. At 7, you start to run into serious issues with how you interact with the world. A time 9 master, for example, is basically powerless. They can't do anything without spawning a million other continua. Most Archmastery levels have something that severely limits your freedoms.

Thanks, notes are being taken!

It really bugs the fuck out of me that Vamps are given the same baseline stats (5/4/3) as humans. Woofs too, but at least their forms give bonuses, even then though they are kind of meek compared to what they are actually described as (stat description at x dots vs description of hulked out Gauru)

Yeah, in virtually every piece of source literature I can think of, vampires are always described as being physically MUCH superior to humans as a baseline. Forget all the celerity and other blood spending funk, your vampire not even trying/expending effort is much more than human. Yet in requiem, that's all they are. It's foolish, and really violates the image of what vampires are. Same applies to werewolf I'd say.

How so?

I thought that was only because they can't go back to earth

I don't know. In some media, you can tell they have to 'try' to be special when it comes to physical strength.

They aren't always zipping around at the speed of sound, or hulking out. They do that when they need to, and it is obviously magical. Not in all vamp stuff, but in some.

Look into the 1e book, Tome of the Watchtowers, it had loads of example nimbuses by path and philosophy.

Running an Obrimos with a classic super saiyan nimbus. Gold light, +brawl, -stealth. With the -stealth malus manifested as having a really, really loud voice.
Well, if you'd like, the wiki has their Lores available. They don't really illustrate it fully, nor their other abilities. But it's enough to give you an idea. They are *incredibly* disgusting. A well built demon basically becomes an occult blender no matter what's infront of it. A utility demon is everywhere and anywhere.
Sort of. Lots accumulate enough paradox that earth is a no go zone. There is the new avatar storm issue with the gauntlet. But lots of the powers limit your ability to interact with the world in any meaningful way.

Vampires were never Flash in folklore. They only incredibly strong and durable.

I fucking hate what Anne Rice did to them.

That's only Time 9. By that point you can't interact with the material in any meaningful way. You'd have to worth through proxy means.

Boohoo bitch. I happen to like my super strong and fast leeches

Go fuck yourself

oWoD celerity is terrible and getting rid of it was one of the best things nWoD did.

I'm almost afraid to ask.

What did owod celerity do?

It was so starting players actually had a fucking chance going toe-to-toe with the power players. The mechanics of V:tM were slanted heavily in favor of the oldest and most pure blooded, from things like Dominate not working on someone of lower (purer) Generation, to the amount of Blood Pool the character could access, to the ridiculously hyper-powered NPC's that were supplied in settings and expansions. Neonates had to play a careful long game of manipulation, going full Scarface as they first get the blood, then the power, then the Diablerie, using social outmaneuvering and a complex web of favors.

With Requiem, they wanted for players to be able to scream "ALUCARD SMASH" but at the same time they wanted Mortals to have a better shot at kicking vampire ass.

Mechanically it was a god mode. You needed it to engage in any sort of combat, because having it over an opponent meant you'd instantly win otherwise.

Got you torn apart because Force Mage increased the magnitude by which the force of friction affected you.

>Geists are stronger than wraiths

Are they, though? An Embodied Wraith has 10 health levels, becomes invulnerable for a turn after someone hits it and suffers no wound penalties. A lot of their passive abilities are pretty neat, as well. Good luck hiding your motives when your feelings are literally edible radiation, flavored with intent.

In terms of broken mechanics, though, Geist is definitively easier to be a wanker with. One cited example was a "remote seeing" power that could have been simply left at that (perhaps with the added limitation of it being only vision, no sound) .... but which the head dev decided to grognard hard with the inclusion of being able to use attack powers, invisibly, to assassinate powerful NPC's in their secure havens from the other side of town.

>Werewolves are a mixed bag, depending on a couple of things.

The Changing Breeds book for Chrod fucking sucked. Distinct tribes of were-creatures wasn't good enough for Satyros, so instead we get wishy-washy thought bubbles, stereotypes and a "horned god of the forest" that had his original cock airbrushed out of the book.

*his* cock, by the way. Not his father's. And it was dangling, rather than thrusting.

how the heck did Changing Breeds get brought up?

It made that user think of their hate for Brucato.

You know Ascension was fucked when it could hard counter classic-Celerity

Yes and no.

On the one hand, they do some fucking impressive stuff - I vaguely remember Obfuscate 9 allowing someone to literally erase any memory of them ever existing - but they are static powers, locked into a single effect.

Archspheres are far more flexible, but they accrue such insane levels of Paradox that they take long rituals, massive levels of Quintessence and a safe environment in the Umbra to pull off. They're more suited to a plotline device than the spur-of-the-moment feel of Disciplines - "defending the ritual at all costs" stories, or "stop the ritual at all costs" stories.

Finally, learning powerful Disciplines doesn't ever seem to have any impact on Humanity or Path ratings, nor prevent a Vampire from achieving Golconda; learning Archspheres is ultimately sacrificing true Ascension to obsess over controlling a limited piece of the universe utterly, so there's a sense of bittersweet loss to Archspheres as much as absolute power.

The one piece I can never find in any sourcebook, the one trope from pop culture and folklore about vampires, is an ability to walk on walls and the ceiling in full defiance of gravity (Interview With The Vampire and Wir Sind Die Nacht are my two favourite examples).

What the fuck are you going on about?

I don't seem to recall any 10 dot Discipline affecting the Tellurian as a whole.

The Archspheres on the other hand can do just that. Shit is whack.

Yeah, you're right. Strange!

Um, which folklore?

If we're talking the extensive vampire hunts in Europe centuries ago, they were either disease-spreading shambling corpses or vengeful dead come back to shag their widows to death. Modern vampire folklore is inseparable from contemporary fiction, and that stretches back to Bram Stoker (nobody remembers Varney the Vampire, and that's okay, because it fucking sucked and given your complaints you'd fucking hate it... Varney gets revived a bunch of times from wierd moonlit rituals like a Hammer Horror Movie and finally tops himself by swan diving into a volcano)

>not posting the pic that had Eric and Bill naked except for a thin coating of blood and Sookie Stackhouse

Inconceivable!

What's your fucking point you dreary autist?

Speaking of Archmages. Is this actually mechanically achievable or was user just blowing smoke?

Literally an extra action for every dot. Whereas Potence meant automatic successes for damage and Strength rolls, and Fortitude affected soak, Celerity was decidedly universal and almost unstoppable. There wasn't an easy solution to counter it except giving all the NPC's a few dots of it too.

because Changing Breeds is part of the Werewolf line, and because we were comparing old world to new world...?

Donate to his Patreon, his cat needs surgery.

hey /CofD/, in Geist, when you use plasm to block a wound, does that count as plasm use for the turn? Or is it just something you can keep doing with plasm?

And his goat needs treatment for its anal prolapse.

That counts as plasm used for the turn

Actually, Changing Breeds is a blue book just for 'world of darkness'. I mean, we instantly treat it as a werewolf related book because it constantly has to remind us the forsaken exist.

But you can easily just play as some random weirdo who changes into an animal sort of, and has nothing to do with spirits or werewolves.

Sadly in 2e that damage is capped at Potency.

My point is that you are a retarded piece of shit who is literally too young to understand what he is complaining about

Just saw this excellent film. It has given me alot of ideas both as a player and a storyteller

He's skipping the century long+ massive quest to set up said ritual.

Just saw this excellent film. It has given me alot of ideas both as a player and a storyteller

There's nothing of the sort in Ascension.
It only takes that long to reach Archmage status.

In Awakening, yes.
You need the necessary Quintessence.

Would you fuck off retarded magefag. Isn't it past your bedtime now?

Ah mixed up the lines

These ARE games.

Can you do 'the illuminated path' next?

We are a miniature society of spiteful anons, huh?

I wish I could actually play that Legacy but it's already two degrees of separation from an average playable PC (Seer & Abyss fuckery).

Blame the Magedom

The dream sequence in that movie had a well done vampire fight scene.

no

it was crap

you're crap for thinking it wasn't crap

Let me guess. Lots of gay shit.

Blame the whiners who get salty over Mage.

Games about Vampires and Werewolves, where players expect some degree of verisimilitude with their counterparts in the actual fiction they are based upon.

You do know the starting stats are 'above average to exceptional' people to begin with, already out doing most average humans. right?

The film is super hetero. Nothing gay appears at all.

And they have it. You can still use powers to achieve all the feats you see in fiction, but these are games, and permanent superhuman stats were probably disallowed for a reason.

Vigor/celerity/resilience should be baseline with all vampiric clans

Yet still hardly representative of the fiction. Stop being obtuse.

Have you ever seen a vampire movie from the era prior to the original VtM, or read Stoker's Dracula or other fiction in that era, even friggin Rice?

The only well done fight scene in the Twilight series is Edward v Victoria in the Eclipse book. The films are all garbage.

That doesn't even make sense. GURPS and HERO system have been around for longer than WoD functioning quite well with stat spreads ranging from mundane to superhuman baseline. Exalted did it too, so it works in Storyteller. The designers just went full retard with the current iteration, in that aspect.

Yeah. Because it has to represent all the fiction. Even where vampires can be bummy drug addicts that are lucky if they can regenerate right.

Like blade.

Blade wasn't even representative of vampires within his own setting, you fucking idiot.

I meant the movies, not the character. Idiot.

You know, the lines of vampires Blade cuts through because outside of the more powerful ones, the rest are just mooks with fangs?

Blade's vampires were largely killable mooks. Not representative at all of what anyone here is talking about. Optimistically you are just trying to play devil's advocate here, but yeah, I think that deliberately obtuse, just to string out an empty argument, is far more likely.