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

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>News
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>This week's Monday Meeting Notes:
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>5th edition cliffnotes
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>Question:
Forget your favorite splat for a second. What's one you've been passively interested in but haven't played? What's stopped you?

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theonyxpath.com/one-of-a-kind-deviant-the-renegades/
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/default
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What's your opinion on the spell Ghost Gate? It seems to be a top tier stealth option against mundane things for a Moros

art in OP is from magic the gathering

Geist in CofD. I never got what am I supposed to do in it. Also lack of supplements to do some additional reading

The actual majority of OP art comes from other media. We easily have dozens from Dresden Files.

Demon. I even got a possible Unchained lined up. What's stopping me is same as with everything else: I don't know any people to play CofD with.

It is, but I could see it getting really annoying to have to retrieve all your clothes and possessions with Touch of the Grave.

I though clothes turn into ephemera along with you?

They do, but their physical forms are destroyed. Once you come back from Twilight you have to either come out naked and get them out or see if you can cast Touch of Grave while in Twilight to walk out with your stuff still on you.

Book of the Dead isn't branded as a Geist book, but it connects to Geist.

Oh? I will take a look at it then. Thanks mate

What is it with psychopaths and vampires?

theonyxpath.com/one-of-a-kind-deviant-the-renegades/

New Deviant preview.

One thing that interests me is out of this preview is the character sheet simplification. Wonder if this rules will be adaptablem without much trouble to other lines and how good will the be

Conspiracies as characters? Interesting.

Conspiracy: A True Fae
>"B-but, user, that doesn't make any sense! Wouldn't True Fae turn its victims into Changelings?"
No, this Kindly Cousin gets its kicks out of turning humans into Remade instead of fey. The Horror! The Depravity!!

Neat. This also means you could use Deviant rules to create as of yet "unclassified" monsters for the other games, yes? Like an antagonist of a mortals game or a mysterious creature for a Mage game.

It seems a little unfair to me that we aren't getting any updated alchemy stuff. At least not in Signs of Sorcery. Alchemy in 1e suffered from the distinct multiple Arcana requirements for more complex magic that have been largely done away with, as well as the scattered dot levels. I mean if we don't even need Prime to make Thaumium anymore, who knows how the alchemy rules would be different?

Is there anything in Mage the Awakening about Blood Mages?

Would you say a Hunter cell being close friends is beneficial or not? Does the bonus to teamwork of being close outweigh the possible additional trauma of losing said close friends during a hunt?

Alchemy has essentially been replaced by Imbuing charges of spells with Prime 3.

Human Sacrifice offers up Mana equal to the subject's integrity.

You're more likely to go further to protect friends, more likely to notice when they've been compromised by your quarry, also that shit sometimes helps against weird Bans.
Plus, having friends makes you better than a lot of the shit you hunt.

Plus it's honestly just plain better when you're working with people you want to.

You've got Tamers of Blood.

>Alchemy has essentially been replaced by Imbuing charges of spells with Prime 3.
I'm sorry? What spell is that? It can't be an Attainment, because the 3 dot Arcana Attainment is Supernal Summoning. Did I miss something? And as an aside, I mean alchemy like potions, bombs, tinctures. Like from the Witcher, basically.

I agree, plus it's better from a story perspective. Stakes also feel higher.

Little help needed here. I'm trying to storytell CoD and to simplify my job I wanted to make the players roll all the dices.
For active rolls it's all ok (they are all resisted).
Problems start when they are the target of an attack of effect, because: the number of successes is relevant (potency of the effect, number of damages, etc.), dicepool building is amboguos (to resist intimidation the pcs should roll Composure + ?).
How can I solve this?

>Composure + ?
Subterfuge? To hide your emotions.

>I'm sorry? What spell is that?

Dave mentioned that new alchemy rules will be in Signs of Sorcery, largely to make magic items with "charges" before Prime 4. However, unlike Tome of the Mysteries, these mechanics will supposedly be very short and simple.

Ah, okay. At the very least that sounds like something I can work with and dress up if I want it to be more involved. Thanks.

Who cares if there is. The game's going to wither on the vine.

Whenever that book gets here.

Well OPP has taken on an award winning writer and developer full time, a guy apparently famed for keeping White Wolf actively publishing back in the day, and that's why they hired him, to keep them productive and organize efforts. So who knows?

What's the latest word on CtL? Seems like ages since anyone's even mentioned it.

They've released a bit about a new Goblin Market that spans states, or something. Aside from that it's been going through a mess since David Hill quit and Rose Bailey took a pair of scissors to what he had already done. That's not a comment on the expected quality of either version, just saying that it's being changed.

> What's one you've been passively interested in but haven't played? What's stopped you?

OWoD, Mummy 2nd Ed. I've been hampered by a lack of players.

if Dave told you to jump off a cliff, would you?

>a guy apparently famed for keeping White Wolf actively publishing back in the day,

What's his name? I want to check the credits pages of my old books.

It was the 90's.

All I need is to for Deviant to let me play Venom an I'll have a new favorite splat.

Eddy Webb.

>Aside from that it's been going through a mess since David Hill quit and Rose Bailey took a pair of scissors to what he had already done.

David Hill actually alleged that Rose Bailey had been working on another draft in parallel to his own project. They can't use any of his work unless he signs a release form, and given that there's still money owing - as well as personal copies of nearly every book he wrote on - I doubt he'd willingly sign one.

General consensus is that the company has spread itself far too thin. Looking at the number of projects in the pipeline versus the number of people at the top of each project, it's easy to understand why. Hiring new, untested talent for every project to "give them a start in the industry" is commendable for the community in general, but fucking ridiculous for the release timetable - getting the enfants to redline would be like herding fucking cats.

It mentions Symbiotes as a Form that can be taken in Deviant so it looks like you could have a party with the whole dang Venom family if you wanted.

>Beast flipped our usual crossover assumption from supported in a supplement, maybe, to talked about throughout the core.
Well well FUCKING well.

That would be really exciting, actually. Venom has amazingly cool powers.

I am rock hard right now.

>he's still here
>and is now engaging in confirmation bias

I thought they actually didn't do much hiring?

Yes, because mages needed even more.

More what?

>throughout the core
>from the devs themselves
>confirmation bias

Anything.

This is where things get hazy.

As far as your rights as a paid employee go? You have none, you are a contractor, you're working on commission. But don't you dare post to forums and say anything that blows back on the almighty Onyx Path, because you "represent the whole company" like you're 14 years old and getting the "ambassador of the school" routine again.

Phil's coming round soon. Phil's coming round to put it back the way it ought to be....

Well, 2e doesn't have any supplements that work with the new rules and tweaks to fluff, so yeah. It needs more.

More supplements and add-ons at the expense of any other creative output on any other line. OWoD isn't doing much better - they took far, far too long working on fucking cookbooks, which are single column layout with no graphics; all they needed was proof-reading and someone to test the fucking recipe.

The delays are unacceptable, and no-one is willing to hold on to the buck when there's someone else around to blame.

>ignores the part about how beast flips their stance on crossover from maybe being possible in the peripheral to being talked about throughout the core of one game out of nearly a dozen
And it's shitty. Go read it.

The quality doesn't change the fact cross-splat games are supported by the devs.

>implying mages need more than their core book

>Beast flipped our usual crossover assumption
>our usual crossover assumption
>supported in a supplement, maybe
>maybe

Aside from having a base ruleset to make development easier and providing a toolbox framework, cross-splat parties were not an explicitly goal in mind when designing 1e and the early part of 2e. A crossover focuses 2e will be a major challenge because of this, because crossover was not a focus from the get go.

Just because there is a focus on crossover now doesn't mean that it was a design focus before (the support he mentions is more for NPC support than anything else).

Until very recently, the past two years, crossover was not considered a potential default mode of play. This is why there will be no satisfying inter-splat game balance without a focus on it from the get go, and why Contagion faces a huge challenge.

>Until very recently, the past two years, crossover was not considered a potential default mode of play.

Fuck off. There were crossover rules published every Storyteller Screen from the 2nd Eds of the Big Three onwards.
WoD Combat is nothing but cross-over.
WoD Midnight Circus is nothing but cross-over.

But hey, you can't see it, because you've got your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears. How fucking mature.

Are you just aiming to make that one point, that cross-splat games are supported in one game, or do you want to make the point that they're viable and not done in a totally stupid way? Because let me tell you crossover in Beast works. Beasts get bonuses to social maneuverings with other splats (a "like me" power that gets other splats to join their Brood) and they can buff other splats somehow, in ways I forget. Because so much of Beast was mindbogglingly retarded that I've repressed the trauma of reading it. But that's how crossover goes in Beasts. Beasts are the star. Conflicting themes aren't resolved, the themes of the other games are thrown out in favor of a Beast anchoring other splats together. Power levels aren't balanced, a Beast can just help you out.

But why are we still arguing? Why are you still here instead of rushing off to read Beast and play the perfect crossover of your dreams?

>Beasts are the star.

No, Beasts are the equivalent of a D&D Bard. If it was Twilight 2000, they'd be the guy with the FN-FAL. Get it right.

That doesn't mean crossover was considered a default mode of play. That just means it was something supported in a supplement, maybe.

BLADES EVERYWHERE

>It was never considered a default mode of play
>[examples]
>th-that doesn't mean it was considered!

You're really pathetic, bra.

>That just means it was something supported in a supplement, maybe.
>maybe

It's the little qualifiers that function as the Tell. This is how I know you're drowning in your own ill-advised position.

To play? No. The game works just fine. To build more fleshed out settings and chronicles without having to look back to earlier, often outdated supplements? Yeah.

It doesn't have to be DEFAULT you retard, but stop acting like the game wasn't designed to allow it IF TH ST CHOOSES TO.

I don't think you understand what "default" means.

Don't do much reading, do you? It was a reference back to what the other user quoted.

>but stop acting like the game wasn't designed to allow it IF TH ST CHOOSES TO.
CofD 2e sans Beast? They aren't. Dave literally said the crossover rules implemented in 2e are for other splats to star as storyteller characters. Beast, the dedicated crossover splat that sucks at crossover? Sure. Go nuts.

>To build more fleshed out settings and chronicles without having to look back to earlier, often outdated supplements?

This is why they should prune back the Monster Mash a bit. The last thing we need? Deviant. How many splats is that now? At this rate there never will be another edition of the big three, just a new kind of supplement treadmill involving ever more supernatural creatures hammered into the setting. Soon, Mortals will become a mythical thing, barely ever seen, pushed out by two dozen different splats. It'll be like I Am Legend, but more like the original novel and not anything Will Smith pissed on.

>Monster Mash
Urr...Mash good!

default

noun

dJˈfɔːlt,ˈdiːfɔːlt

1.
failure to fulfil an obligation, especially to repay a loan or appear in a law court.

>"the company will have to restructure its debts to avoid default"

synonyms:
non-payment, failure to pay, non-remittance;

2.
a preselected option adopted by a computer program or other mechanism when no alternative is specified by the user or programmer.

>"the default is fifty lines"

verb

dJˈfɔːlt/

1.
fail to fulfil an obligation, especially to repay a loan or to appear in a law court.

>"the dealer could repossess the goods if the customer defaulted"

synonyms:
fail to pay, not pay, renege, fail to honour, back out, backtrack, backslide;

2.
(of a computer program or other mechanism) revert automatically to (a preselected option).

>"when you start a fresh letter the system will default to its own style"

synonyms:
revert; select automatically

>"when you start a fresh letter, the program will default to its own style"

Given the dictionary definition, I would say that you are the one who doesn't understand what it means. Suck it, bitch.

>Don't do much reading, do you?
Why would I want to read more of your drivel than I have to? Go fitfully masturbate some more.

In fairness, Deviant sounds neat and useful from the most recent preview. Apparently it aims to be a toolkit to make one off monsters of any kind. Hey, maybe with that they'll stop trying to reinvent the wheel so much? If Deviant can make any kind of monster playable then there's no reason for every ugly Tom, Dick, and Harry to have their own game.

>Apparently it aims to be a toolkit to make one off monsters of any kind. Hey, maybe with that they'll stop trying to reinvent the wheel so much?

See, I doubt that, because of the words "one off monsters". They'll still put out books for critters that have a population. Greed motivates OPP, nothing else. The old Gencon panel vid from a year or so ago, Rich Thomas alluded to attempting to convince WW to introduce even more creatures into the OLD World once they had a grasp of the existing ones.

Welcome to the new treadmill.

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/default

>a selection made usually automatically or without active consideration due to lack of a viable alternative

Google isn't an actual dictionary, user.

I don't know about you, but I personally cannot wait for Sewer Alligator: The Slithering in 2024.

Well, Deviants will the population.

How does a supernatural tell if a human is a mage or when they're casting a spell?

Making new splats over supplementing existing ones seems like more work for less gain. Deviant seems cool and all, but to just opt for new splats again and again is weird. First, you'll run into the same problem you get with new comic book characters. They have no brand recognition, and people will ultimately lose interest once their 15 minutes are up and go back to stories about characters that have had decades to cement themselves. Same with the games here. Something entirely new, with nothing to stand on, would have to be something really enticing and exciting to even approach the amount of attention more material for one of the more popular games would be.

>Hey guys, look at this totally new thing that we made up from near scratch that probably won't offer a unique experience or substantial additions to the setting!
>Hey guys, loot at this book of new material for a game you already know and love that builds on something previously established!

What do you think most people would pay more attention to, and are less likely to just pirate off the internet to see if it's even worth their money to actually own?

Are they waving around any knives or wands and speaking words that sound like harsh static to your ears? Probably a Mage.

But in all seriousness you would probably have to look to some kind of aura detecting power, or some other ability that lets you detect supernatural phenomenon.

Nu-Mummy, the power seep is a really weird (but also cool) idea.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when it comes to power parity, it matters to me as ST because when I create a scenario, other supernaturals don't disappear from it, and if it's something from a splat book, I will create them, and use them, according to the splat.
It allows me to experience using creatures I would not as a player, and allows the players to experience dealing with different supernaturals in a variety of situations, like the changlings that were hiding out on the pack's turf, the sin-eater krewe that was causing a ruckus in a local vamp hangout, and also as antagonists.
That is where my mage issue crops up, because while the mad wizard trope appeals to me, a mage powerful enough to present a problem to a player group's concerns also has more than enough resources to damn near crush them. I found that out when I had a capable mage that was fucking around with a pack's locus, and when they went to put the boots to her, even with basic counters, they struggled in a way I had only seen against rank 4+ spirits.

>WoD Combat is nothing but cross-over.
Not really, it has advice for most spalts, but it doesn't cross them over.

This is like super stale and outdated. Since Markets we got full list of Merits, and All Contracts of Steed Regalia as well as list of Regalia. Rose also posted rules for Contract Creation on Onyx Path forums.
It's been hardly over a month since Changeling entered post editing development but people here sure like doomsaying.

Ok. Well. Powerful mages are essentially the boss fights you encounter at the end of a game. Not surprising. Maybe even the final boss.

I suggest using them as wild cards, not antagonistic forces. An exotic flair.

wbere are archmages detailed in mage acensionc revised?

>Maybe even the final boss.
A Master of Spirit is going to be the final boss for any Pack.

How was the Mage statted? If it was an Adept of Spirit, they are considered to be on par with Rank 4 spirits. Literally, the greater utility Attainment for Spirit is Honorary Rank, which means they get their dots in Spirit as a Rank when dealing with spirits. And you get greater utility Attainments at 4 dots, so yeah.

Masters of the Art(6-9 dots)
Horizon: Stronghold of Hope(6 dots)

The mage wasn't even incredibly powerful, she had 3 Gnosis and 2 dots in a handful of Arcana.
She was practicing shifting the resonance of loci to gather spirits of particular types, it was that she had so much raw power that she was able to fend off, in direct combat, the entire pack (all at PL2), even in warform.
Statistically, they were not that much weaker, it was a difference in sheer power available, and this was after a number of strengthening houserules for werewolves I had implemented.

If you think about adding mages to your games
>stick your hands in boiling water
If you think about adding archmages to your games
>tear off your sack and feed it to your non existent soul

Stop using mages

B-but i'm playing Mage user.

Yeah, I'm going to have to call bullshit here chief. What were her stats? What Arcana? What spells did she use? You don't even get direct damage spells until 3 dots, so how was she doing damage? How were the werewolves made stronger?

I think that means you have to put your head in the oven.

Not to mention that if she only had Arcana at 2, she could only cast spells with the Primary Factor at 2 (read: weak) for free, before taking penalties to her dicepool of 5. To use multiple yantras takes multiple turns, so in a fight with more opponents that's practically suicide since she was on her own. And if she was using one yantra to get spells off in one turn, that's just like a +1. I imagine more than one of her spells had to just fail outright, even if she was burning through her Willpower.

>How was she doing damage
Indirect methods, the purpose wasn't to kill them, but to delay them so she could escape.
They were in the physical world, so there was a lot of hide and seek, calling up friendly spirits, manipulating the environment. She wasn't a combat monster, but gave them unbelievable trouble despite their strength. Iirc, she had 3 spirit, and 2 dots in almost everything else, a fair number of relevant merits to mage and some general ones, good stat spread.
>werewolf buffs
I have to look over the notes for exact numbers, but I took away having to spend xp for honor ranks, bolstered the different forms by adding PL to stats, some other things. They were ded killier and had more flexibility with xp, but I don't remember the exact changes, this was nearly 4+ years ago.

Yeah, I don't believe you.

>You don't even get direct damage spells until 3 dots,

Direct damage spells are often the worst, and by far least efficient, offensive option. They're more displays of power to influence social rolls rather than good tactics.

Arcana at two dots are more than sufficient to deal a world of hurt on most adversaries outside of other mages and demigod-level antagonists.

Further, as the other user mentioned, creative uses of lower level Arcana can also be quite effectively used to tie opponents in knots or render them useless instead inflicting lethal harm.

The beauty of the Arcana is there open-ended versatility, limited only be the player's imagination.

You don't need to if you don't want to.
You probably wouldn't believe that a single member of the pack managed to fend off a rank 4 spirit alone while the pack escaped alone, at high cost either.