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

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>Question:
How did you get into these games? What was your first character?
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Read a MtAw 'That Guy' story and read the rulebook out of interest. Guy I half-knew ran a fairly bad game, but I saw what could be. Though to be fair, I'm starting to lose my interest again.

My first character? Urgh, I don't like to think about him.
Mastigos Horror author. I know, original. Especially as his genre was Lovecraftian.
God did I miss the point.

What got me was reading Genius, but unfortunately I haven't found people in my vicinity who play nWoD or CofD, so I still haven't played a single game. I will make certain that my first character will be easy to treasure.

In the dark ages of the world, a mate ran a really cringy werewolf game. Sort of stuck in my mind; later, in university, got a regular group together and we started playing.

That cringy werewolf as a secret black spiral dancer, a ugandan goth I thought would be edgy and cool. He died because I'm not nearly as clever as I think I am and the pack found him out. My first 'real' character was years later, a Tremere on the Path of Flames and Pyrophilia. He was pretty much completely unwelcome in polite company and subject to one or two very lazy 'why not, but we don't care enough to put into motion any serious attempts' assassination plots at any given time, usually from within the pyramid.

LING SUPREMACY

I know how you feel. I live in a small southern town and I can't even find a store online that sells tabletop books in my area. I figure going to a store would be the place to get into whatever roleplaying community is around here. As it is I'm just reading through the books and keeping my eyes peeled for any online games that catch my eye.

A while back someone had the idea that Alex Jones would be a Technocrat in Mage.

What splat would Trump be?

Contracts

Common Contracts are deals the True Fae originally negotiated for their servants. They focus on extending senses, and shaping what’s already there, whether it be emotions or physical phenomena.

Royal Contracts are agreements the Gentry originally forged for themselves, which changelings can make themselves party to. They deal with creating people, places, and things out of whole cloth, directly tampering with minds, forcing people to do your bidding, and affecting destiny.

Court Contracts also come in Common and Royal categories. In this case “royalty,” rather than being those who rise to the levels of the Others, are those who rise to the level of the court founders.

A Court Contract can be something that either the patron grants to the courtier, or that the courtier gives to the patron. For example, Summer grants a lot of heat-based powers, explained by such means as Helios being the lover of Summer and so well-disposed to her vassals. But Summer also grants powers which amplify wrath. Other Seasonal Contracts, such as Autumn’s, provide ways for a changeling to consume the patron’s emotions, feeding it. (Keep in mind that a “patron” isn’t necessarily a single entity or spirit — it just has to be able and powerful enough to make and uphold a deal with True Fae or changelings.)

Contract Creation

To create a Contract, first decide whether it’s more about manipulation or enhancement (and hence Common) or creating or wholly reforging (and therefore Royal). Once you’ve established that, decide whether the Contract requires a roll to activate. Contracts that are actively resisted or opposed by other people should always require rolls, while Contracts that primarily affect the changeling or act on (apparently) inanimate objects should just work.

Specific ranges of dice bonuses aren’t as important as the nature of what the Contract does. Mind control that only lets you marshal someone the way that they were going is usually going to be Common, whereas one that stirs them to a grudge they’d never before considered is usually going to be Royal.

If the Contract belongs to a court, consider the court patron’s personality and purview. Under most models, Summer’s personality is fierce and unsubtle, and its emotions are anger and wrath. Therefore, Contracts that manipulate or create those emotions fit well. As well, Summer is a season of heat and dryness, so Contracts that summon scorching sunlight, or dry flesh to a crisp are also appropriate.

Effect: A Contract can have almost any kind of effect. Most of them emphasize being tricky or slippery. Contracts, especially Common ones, usually provide a changeling with a way to “cheat,” rather than giving dominion over a broad mystical purview. However, Royal Contracts are usually a bit flashier than Common ones, and the powerful patrons or other forces behind Court Contracts can make their effects more overt.

Type of Roll: Many contracts don’t need a roll — if the changeling pays the Glamour or fulfills the Loophole, they just work. However, Contracts that are actively opposed often need a roll.

The type of roll made to activate a Contract varies based on what forces push back against it and how success is measured. If another living or thinking force is acting against the Contract, and the number of successes matters, it’s Resisted. Subtract one of the force's resistance Attributes from the player's dice pool.

Where there's active resistance, but where the number of successes doesn’t matter, the action is Contested. The opposing party rolls a Resistance Attribute + their Supernatural Tolerance.

In either case, the player’s dice pool is Attribute + Skill + either Wyrd (for Arcadian Contracts) or Mantle (for Court Contracts).

Loophole: Every Contract has a Loophole, a way a changeling can get the Contract’s benefits without spending Glamour or any other resource. It takes the form of a ritual behavior that appeases the patron in lieu of payment. The Loophole is always thematically related to the Contract, based on symbolism or sympathetic magic.

For example, a Contract that protects against extreme temperature might allow a changeling to blow out a fading ember instead of paying Glamour. Even better Loopholes represent a small risk, like stealing a sentimental object from the target or forcing them to break your skin.

The difficulty or risk of fulfilling a Loophole depends more on the value of the ritual to the other party in the contract — blowing out a candle lit by a true friend might be trivial for a changeling, but have great value to Intimacy itself.

Reminder that everything in Forklift Driver Klaus was the result of an Acanthus dicking around.
youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo

Official Contract creation rules. If necessary I can also post Regalia for Arcadian Contracts, but this should be enough for brewing-fans to start writing their own Contracts. Any takers?

Your diligence I meet with apathy
I return your enthusiasm with disgust
Your Hope I will turn into Despair
I am user on Veeky Forums

Hey, my effort was met with poetry! Lucky me!

Vanilla mortal being puppeted by multiple, likely opposing, factions. He has money and notoriety to spare, which makes him useful. Need a new hunting ground? Dominate Trump into building a casino to attract some Kine. Need a barrel of urine collected from across the the nation for an Idigam's bane? Trump can make that happen. Want to foster a new conspiracy theory to distract Sleepers with? Trump's your man.

Fun Genius Changeling Cross-Over: Madboys are True Fae Larva.
After their Breakthrough Genius personality can radically shift. Some start recalling visions of what they recognize as their native "futures". In reality, long dormant Charlatans are starting to stir in their sleep alerting their amnesiac personalities.
Geniuses are capricious entities who are always desperate for resources, work space, work force, attention, conquest and so on and so on, similar to have True Fae of Arcadia never cease their desire to posses.
80% of Geniuses eventually lose their minds and become Unmada, slowly bending reality to match their believes and aesthetic, similar to have Kindly Folks bend and warp their home realm.
More than 10% of Geniuses eventually experience Illumination, when they lose their ability to see humans as anything but lab equipment. Their minds blossoming into full Fey glory.
Genius Axioms of Wonders fall suspiciously close in their categories to Regalia of Arcadian Contracts. Epikatro, axiom of control echoes of Crown and Jewelry. Katastrofi, axiom of destruction is renamed Sword as Prostasia is shield. Mirror serves double duty of Apokalypsi, discovery, and Metatropi transformation and illusion. Finally Skafoi is Steed of True Fae grubs.

Of course this all might be just big misunderstanding, but Lost are extremely suspicious of men and women with strange intense eyes, and stay as far away from them and their Tokens and Markets.

I am trying to explain Paradigm (mage the ascension) and how to relate to sphere system to my players in writing.

Would you say this is a good way to put it?

"The sphere system is the motor of a car while the paradigm is the chassis. Yes, some models have more or less wind resistance and/or impact. Some are taller than other and some have 2 doors instead of 4. But all cars function with the same combustion engine (dont care about the electric cars).

This is the same with paradigm and spheres. All mage use the same exact system of sphere (exceptions for data sphere) but their filter it through their paradigm. Some paradigm require more complex things, other less with both pros and cons to each other."

"Paradigm is how you view your magic, wether you practice voodoo or wicca. Arete is your magical muscle mass. Spheres are the aspects of the universe that you have influence over - skills, if you like. So in a game of soccer, Arete is your physicality, and your spheres are your skill at the game, while paradigm is your ruleset."

Can we talk about games you play in instead of having everyone bitch about mages?

Who was bitching about Mages? And sure, let's hear what games you've got going, or have been in recently.

I can't, I play Mage and everyone will bitch about my games being one big lie (because my players don't power play and don't know about Mage Supremacy).

I habe been spamming this thread with my unfiltered Changeling nonsense for whole day and I've seen no Mage nor any other splat complain about anything. Hell meanest thing I've seen was somebody writing a short rhyme about being apathetic.

I'd give you input but I don't know jack about Changeling.

I don't care, tell me sweet little lies. And what happened to that one guy who was playing a Thyrsus in a Philadelphia game?

I just finished my first arc, where my players guarded Awakening mage from the vampires, at the same time making sure she won't become Banisher. But they kinda fucked up in the end (they killed a Sleeper and had no time to cover this up), and now they are being hunted by local gang, half-crazy gang member (who trusted one of character and was betrayed by him), vampires and FBI (which is being directed by vampires and Seers) - at the same time. And they may just become the next target of several groups of hunters, who are moving in town - for some Mysterious reason...

Who are the characters?

Been loving the changeling posts by The way, don't have the ability to contribute today unfortunately.

I am actually really glad to hear that! Thanks.

>Alex Jones would be a Technocrat in Mage.
That doesn't make any sense, he doesn't like the financial sector, the nwo with its black helicopters, vaccines, people building big ai to rule us all or there being chemicals in the water to make the frogs gay. He'd be an conspiracy theory flavored orphan, big on ancient aliens and moon hoaxes and water filters.

He is actually clearly just scam artist trying to sell useless crap to people who buy into his conspiracies to feel important. Him and Donald are just that, scam artists.

Time/Fate magical detective (I suspect player ripped off Harry Dresden completely, but I didn't read it), Death/Life doctor with cruelty issues and fixation on undead, and Matter/Mind "transhuman engineer" how isn't playing much yet due to problems with the system.

The consensus wasn't that he was a technocrat, or, that if he was, he was deliberately making people who might believe in the technocracy seem insane.

And? Hubbard started Scientology as a scam and ended up believing that Xenu nonsense before long. It's easy to believe in things that bring you wealth and power.

The magical detective bit is probably Dresden, but to rip it off completely they would need to be an Obrimos.

Next session I'm planning on dropping my players into a Westworld/FNAF scenario where they get trapped in a location with some possessed animatronics. Any suggestions for stats/abilities/shit to have happen etc?

What do you think would be some good -witchy- additions for a changeling's mien?
I want to make changeling who sort themselves into two groups; Demons and Witches. This decision is Big Deal, as evidence that it can effect a changeling's appearance.

Demons are easy to design.... But I'm not sure what to add for Witches.

>Witches

Green skin and warty? Cackling hacking coughs?

Glowing runes, altered power leaking eyes, if "druidic" moss or fungi growth might be appropriate, consider what aspects of witchcraft you want to focus on, deals with darkness, curses, stigmatized oneness with nature, or maybe the fact of being prosecuted?

Spider silk, sound of bats fluttering, cackles, at least half of autumn courts mein... their focus on Baba Yaga is a good source too. Depending on the direction, warts and green skin?

Teeth appear to be collected from different animals and people. And/or have stuff inscribed on them.

What splat should I play as for my hannibal lecter tribute character.

Slasher.

Mage. Definitely Mage.

Mage.

Solely because a man with that much brainpower should use the best medium for it.

Stuff like this, I suppose?

Hannibal Lecter would be a Mastigos Master of Mind with no ties to any Order.

There's a vampire bloodline that let's you eat people, I believe.

Hannibal being a Vampire would defeat his genuine cannibalistic behavior. It would lose all of its creepiness.

Ignore the memelords saying mage, he's a Slasher.
Probably a Etherite

But he'd be cooler as a Mage

Trump is fundamentally uncool and trying to make him cool automatically muddles the concept.

For the purposes of playing a game, Vampire is probably the best way to go. Being a cannibal would be too much of a thing in the other games. The majority of vampires don't eat people, so it would still be entirely possible to foster a sense of creepiness as it becomes apparent that you eat people and totally relish it. In other games it would be creepier, but potentially a wonderful way to derail any kind of campaign if you get found out.

I'm talking about Hannibal

90% sure there's a splat with optional cannibal vampires back in 1e.

Anywhere near Huntsville, AL? They got The DeeP, which usually had gaming sessions of all kinds.

But part of what makes Hannibal so terrifying and so fascinating as a character is just how human he is. He's an intelligent, charismatic, renaissance man who also happens to be a serial killer/cannibal.

Vampires might be too far in the monster category.

What the fuck happened with 2e/Chronicles? I've only read Demon and Mage 2e, and they are both pretty good. But I'm hearing a lot of negatives at my FLGS about the rest of 2e, especially Beast.

What's the situation there?

>But part of what makes Hannibal so terrifying and so fascinating as a character is just how human he is. He's an intelligent, charismatic, renaissance man who also happens to be a serial killer/cannibal.

...isn't that like a perfect description of how a vampire game is supposed to be

The three core 2e lines (Vampire, Mage, Werewolf) are all great.

Beast is shit, Demon is ok.

It's more interesting and skillful to do all that as a human.

Now have Lecter Awaken as a Mage, scary stuff.

I thought vampire games were about gender politics and creepy bdsm fantasies?

Etherites tend to believe in science in some way. Trump is obviously Clockstopper, an unimaginative bigot whose mere presence kills thought and faith in reason and slowly drives people back into middle ages.

Guardians TRY not to kill people, especially with magic. They just realize that sometimes you have to. They feel bad afterwards and fantasize about their messiah punishing or forgiving them.

Beast, an Ugallu Tyrant who enjoys controlling people, and especially likes to fire them.

Atavisms: Eye of Heaven, Alien Allure. His Horror is a weird velociraptor bird thing, the hair almost gives it away. He reads people excellently and can be fascinating in person. Alien Allure stacks with the genuine celebrity/wealth/power he has accumulated.

Nightmares: Everything You Do Is Worthless, You Are Alone. His standard negotiating tactics include You Are Alone. He brought the other one out for the debates.

Lair: Unstable/Heavy. Can be invoked in an elevator going up, and one of the chambers is an elevator. Trump is social, not violent, so the lair is not a killing ground, it just hinders physical resistance while you're fired.

Love Trump or hate him, this would explain a lot. How he became a celebrity. Why he was on a TV show where the whole point was him firing people. Why he decided to run for President. Why he fires people so fast, like Scaramucci -- it's that quick Satiety hit.

He's probably not a starting character by now (because how/why would a non-beast come up with The Apprentice), but he can still work as one. Beast is an amazing game, eh?

And it would be perfect antagonist material. But for a PC, too much of a hassle for the other players and the ST to accommodate.

During Beast's development, they showed parts of it to the internet. Onyx Path's favorite stomping grounds, their own boards and RPG.net, wanted their dicks stroked about what a progressive game they were playing and how special the PCs are, so Beast got rewritten somewhat to suggest that. The result pleased nobody. If you can look past that, and your group is interested in playing bad guys, Beast is a viable game.

Out of the splats, which one would make the best villain(s) ?

I'm thinking either Mage or Beast.

Slasher works great because they are just a man.
Promethean is a classic choice for "tragic" villains.
Changeling when you just really hate your players.

Nah man
>Trump = Syndicate
>Jones=Etherite

Werewolves. A werewolf pack is a great nemesis for the players because you can deploy one member or the whole pack depending on the level of challenge required or the area of expertise involved, and while the players can score victories by killing pack members, the recurring villain persists so long as any of the pack survive.

The rest of the thread will be along in a minute to remind you of the problems with making a mage an antagonist in a non-mage game.

Werewolf is fine, from what I've read of it, even if the book seems a little full of itself. Beast hit with something of a splash. It was definitely full of itself, and while the concept of it is okay -nothing unique or particularly inspiring- the book was just full of really obnoxious stuff. And of course it angled for crossover in just about the dumbest way possible, which didn't help things. It wound up being something people love to hate.

For who?

Mages make for the absolute best villains in CofD. There's nothing more evil and iconic than the power mad wizard.

I mean, really.

Thyrsus
>The bastard ruining a Tribe's good graces with the local spirit ecosystem
Moros
>The bastard wrecking havoc on Kindred society through an army of Strix
Acanthus
>The bastard responsible for trolling whole Freeholds and hanging out with True Fae

There are so many options. Fate alone would make you the puppeteer of an entire Chronicle.

How's this for a start?

Yes. Except how does one defeat such capable Mages? You don't. So fuck that.

BBEGs are supposed to be freakishly powerful, right?

Therefore Mages.

This. A mage capable of performing the feats in would have to be intentionally lowballed against the pcs in order for them to stand a chance.
It would be different if they didn't have incredible power AND versatility, but they come with both stock.

While I don't advocate using Mages for every possible antagonist position, protagonists beating more powerful antagonists happens a lot. I mean there are a lot of ways to have the conflict be more than just "trying to kill each other". This happens even in Mage games. Look to Dave's own APs if you don't believe it. He's had Masters and even Supernal beings as antagonists for weaker players, and it worked out fine. Better than fine.

So you bring a whole team and treat the Mage like a raid boss?

When I've used mages as antagonists I rarely have the mages direct goal be the plot that effects them, usually something that isn't directly in their concern but is a side effect of their actions.

Weaker players who ran mages in good Pentacle standing though, often with useful mentors. A lot of PC groups won't have anything like those resources.

fucking nerf mages in your games don't listen to the faggots in this threads

Assuming you can jump them alone, that they have no servants of their own, that they have no peremptory defenses.

Too much work, I'd rather never run Mage again.

see
and tell me how powerful those mages need to be in order to accomplish it in terms of mechanics.
Unless you just handwave it all away and say "this happens for reasons"?

The thing with Mages is that even a kindly middle-aged Libertine lady will destroy your ass in a chance encounter.

It doesn't take brains to figure out how much damage even a single Arcanum can do at 2-3 dots.
All Mages are practically living deathtraps if you get in their way.

Most other splats have to learn to fight properly.

The roles the mentors played were actually not THAT useful. I think the biggest thing was when Samuel traded his votes for Seraph's sympathetic name, or something like that, which practically ensured the player's goal of getting another one of their mentors elected as Councilor. And in Soul Cage they actually wound up being banned from a consilium, which didn't help them much at all against one of their Master enemies. And then in their home consilium that Master antagonist was actually putting the moves on the leaders to manipulate them against the players, and multiple future reading spells foretold the death of one of the players if he was successful.

>and tell me how powerful those mages need to be in order to accomplish it in terms of mechanics.
To ruin the spirit ecosystem, Disciple level at the most. An army of Strix would be a bit harder if he was outright controlling them. Disciple at the least. The Acanthus is trickier, as there are a lot of ways to troll with Time and Fate, the dickbag Arcana. Hanging out with True Fae probably wouldn't happen.

I think you're underestimating the value of deterrence. For example, in Broken Diamond, if Dantor had come after the Crucible too hard, she'd have been picking a fight with Samuel.

How much damage can even a single Arcanum do at 2-3 dots?

Dantor wasn't a primary antagonist though, or even much of a side one. She had beef, but that's about it as far I recall. A better example would be Samuel intending to duel Mara in Kali's place.

Just as an example, Forces 2: Control Gravity.

I like how nobody gives a shit about C20. I mean I'm not surprised, it's Changeling, but it's kind of funny picturing these guys working so hard...for nothing, for nobody to read their shit.

That's also good. What that mage society stuff does — especially dueling — is discourage mages from deciding on total war and digging out their doomsday imagos. Another splat's PCs would be less likely to have that protection.

So why do people hate and attack Mage?

Is it because they're stronger than your favorite/preferred splat?
Is it because they're the strongest splat, period?
Is it because they're the only splat to have a god tier template?
Is it because they trivialize all other splat themes and issues?
Is it because they're human and totally not monsters?
Is it because freeform magic systems piss you off?
Is it because the magefags turned you off from it entirely?
Is it because of something else altogether?

A mix? All of the above?

It seemed okay but it still seems like the game is made to play children in weird satyr situations.

Mages seem to have the answer(s) to everything and more. They seem to know more about other splats than the actual splat in-question.

I have no problem with it, but a good quarter of my players do/did. Once they realized Mage is the 'detective' splat they calmed down a bit.

It's because people can't let go of crossovers in a set of games that don't cross over well.

That's assuming a lot of things, like that you yourself and your allies are outside of the radius set by the spell (which would have to be fairly large to get the kind of damage you're talking about) that your enemies have nothing to anchor themselves with, and that there are no Sleepers to cast more Paradox on the spell, either by witnessing people floating up, or even floating up themselves. What are the ratings for falling damage anyway?

Mage is my favorite game but even I get annoyed at people yammering on about how Mages are great at everything and would totally just be the absolute best for anything, especially because they usually do it by missing a bunch of the points of Mage as a game, show off spectacular ignorance of how context and circumstances matter by presenting everything in a white room, and in general advocate playing to "win" over actually roleplaying in the roleplaying game. It doesn't help that shitposters latch onto Mage as their bait of choice.

Try using number of subjects as scale basis instead of area of effect. The mage has directional control. The presence of Sleepers would not be a critical problem; review Awakening 2e page 115. Remember also that this is not likely to be a mage's only tool.

I felt like there was two factions in the devs, like one side wanted to make it something you could play without feeling like a creep, and the other side wanted to take the robin hood bullcrap up to eleven.