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

New Geist has just caught my interest. I like the direction it's heading already.

Stay away from Promethean. It would make a great game but STing it for a newbie would be hell and it might put off new players with the whole, everything inherently hates you. Changeling is super whimsical and lots of fun and say you have people who want to play different splats, you could easily run Changeling and give them what they want. Seemings and kiths easily emulate other sups without getting the weird power level mix ups that come with crossover games.

Anyone here played a Lasombra? I'm looking to make one of my own, but I'm afraid of steering into 2edgy territory, what with the Clan's focus on social Darwinism. So I'm here asking about yours, so I could get an idea/inspiration for my own, because I'm a complete newb.

Basically, what were the circumstances behind your character's embrace into the Lasombra clan and what were they like after said embrace?

There is a trilogy of Dark Ages novels with a Lasombra protagonist. He didn't come off as edgy at all. Just wanted to find the Holy Grail and rail against the bonds of the antediluvians.

I liked the show a lot better when it was a monster of the week thing.

The once they started going more and more into the judeo-christian thing it lost a lot of it's appeal.

This only makes sense... once one recalls this is in the Astral Plane, where the collective unconscious is the witness.

Still kind of gay, honestly. I think owod's factions are better by far, but its schtick of the astral plane mostly being the mage playpen is spot on.

Wow, the people who were saying the Iconnu participated were right. Who'd a thunk?

I already figured the Tremere's victory was ludicrously beyond the pale before I found out the OoH were involved and before the Iconnu were involved.

Promethean is definitely hell to ST. One player requires 25-40 milestones. Nothing wrong with using the default ones, but its still a level of meta that is crazy hard.

I would say, to emphasize Dominate in the form of helping the party. I am ... not quite a moralfag, but more like a softyfag, and so I prefer Presence. But simply put, I would try to emphasize Dominate in a way that is necessary to deal with enemies (one shotting foes via Mesmerize, harmlessly removing witnesses via the Forgetful Mind).

They are about subtle social dominance, but assertiveness can be as much of a healthy, warm, positive thing as much as it is stereotyped as a negative Machiavellian thing.

It has. I am enthused solely for revamped goasts and disembodied geists.

A ST should never be afraid of the enduring vitality of shameless episodic storylines.

When you have the indirect support of Kupala and Saulot (the latter who was kind enough to borrow the Tremere its power by letting itself be devoured), and have a third of all Salubri - the entire healer's caste - serving as diablerie-power-boost snacks and not fighting back because of "muh ways of Saulot" it starts to make more sense. This all happened throughout the span of several hundred years too.

I'm not opposed to long form story telling I just think it's dangerous. If your audience/players aren't immediately on board it's just going to be like pulling teeth.

Don't be afraid to be ruthless as a Lasombra. Dominate's really good and the Lasombra have a handful of merits that favor such a build.

Enchanting Voice (2pt. Merit), Eyes of Shadow (1-4pt. Merit), Aura of Command (3pt. Merit), King or Queen of Shadow (4pt. Merit) are all your friends.

If you use mental torture on your rivals to drain their temporary Willpower you can easily alter entire periods of their life with Dominate 3 and have them be puppets.

Do we know anything more about the changes to powers/haunts/boneyards/etc.?

I had an idea (probably cliche) or a mariachi hitman.

Yeah, I gotta say, Tremere-Saulot(+Tzimisce?) (+Kupala?) is pretty dope. His weird level of stackiness and success in the face of adversity reminds me of a PC.

At some point, I want my last VtM hurrah as a ST to be a Tremere recreation -- not really bound by canon (including the possibility of the Tremere being wiped out), using a player's pick of Black Hand style ghoul mage, some sort of abhorrent variant Tremere vampire, and perhaps Gargoyle/Nosferatu, Tzimisce, and Gangrel hybrids.

...Aside from the fact that, as soon as PCs are involved, everyone ever will try to Correspondence/Sympathy cast like a faggot. But its the main time in history that NPCs diablerize, stack, scheme and kill like a PC would.

If you're going to do one storyline all the way through, it should be a known about thing by all the players before the game even starts, to avoid this sort of thing.

But Hunter is practically made for Monster of the Week, so nobody will really complain about running it like that.

What would a war between the Exarchs and the God Machine look like? Which one is the stronger of the two? Could I throw the Others into the mix?

A short one, the Exarchs outrank the Machine. They aren't totally incomparable, the God Machine supposedly uses the Exarchs as code in its calculations but its hinted in Imperial Mysteries the entire God Machine was created by an Archmage as part of his bid for Ascension.

The Exarchs form the infrastructure the God Machine depends on (according to DaveB's interpretation)

The God Machine, on the other hand, designed the rules of the supernatural that everyone else use (GMC core and DtD core)

A war versus the God Machine would essentially be cancer -- individual cells rebelling against the greater whole. The Exarchs could perhaps effectively metastasize to the point that the God Machine's health is threatened, and thus, if they are truly successful, exterminate themselves and all humanity. This would take the God Machine awhile, probably a few centuries, to recover from.

The God-Machine "uses" the Exarchs the same way we use gravity. Concepts. Stop overthinking it. They literally don't interact thanks to how the Supernal and the Phenomenal function.

A war of these two is as inconceivable as it is pointless.

I mean, the Eye, being the living symbol of paranoia is "infrastructure" to anybody who thinks they're being watched.

Neither cares or acknowledges the other.
The Exarchs could burn the God Machine's facilities in the Supernal and make the Seers that do the heavy lifting for much of the God Machine's projects go berserk.
The God Machine could cause unlimited chaos for the Exarchs in every realm.
Its like asking what would happen if the Nephandi and Ravener Earthbound went to war in owod -- they're almost the same faction with the same goals with the same means and no knowledge of each other.

The thing is, this does not apply to any of the other realms. Vulgate, Spires and Epiphanies don't invoke this. Paradise doesn't invoke it like this. It's only hell.

How the fuck does Hell acknowledge it all but somehow enforce paradox?

Exactly. As far as demons are concerned, the Eye is the God Machine.
There is a half hearted attempt to analogize the God Machine as taking advantage of the negative elements of religion, but ... that's more Paternoster. There is a vague Aesop there but its never relied upon.

"Creepy cultists who do weird things and protect the status quo and have powers that make them auto win" vs "creepy cultists who do weird things and protect the status quo and ????OCCULT MATRIX????" is, as far as I'm concerned, two descriptions of the same schtick.

>The Exarchs could burn the God Machine's facilities in the Supernal

No such thing. It's one of the few realms he does not have access to. Similar to the Hedge. The Supernal isn't even a place.

The Demon-Mage crossover section in the Demon Storyteller's Guide implies that Seers and agents of the God Machine help each other out. While the Exarchs are more powerful than the GM, their relationship appears to be more akin to allies than anything else.

Can someone explain why the Wraith 20 is so shit?

That is an excellent houserule I guess?

Houserule? No? The Supernal isn't some LaLa land. You don't build any such facilities. Anything that doesn't form a Lustrum gets obliterated trying to "enter" it. Walking to the end of a Golden Road spells utter disaster for anyone.

Obviously hell is the rejection of the hope that your avatar provides in this bleak world.

I'm pretty sure its because Dodge is still a skill so its still going to come in above m20, just below all the other ones.

Whats wrong with Dodge?

Skill bloat.

Supernatural lost my respect after season 5. The first time an angel appears in the show we see the awesome power of heaven. In later seasons, we have an angel stabbed to death by a bum.

Nether regions and vulgarity kind of go together.

It was merged with athletics in every other x20 line. It was one of the only actual mechanical changes they bothered to make. For some reason Wraith dropped the ball, though it sounds like it dropped the ball in a few other places too.

How exactly? Fireballs and shit are the domain of Nether Realms, yet there's an arbitrary enforcement of vulgarity for no reason. Why do demons disbelieve in magick?

I made a genitals joke, user.

They did get neutered pretty heavily after the main arc where the original writer wasn't on it anymore. Looks like in the newest season they are gonna get powered back up though.

In CofD is Defense always better than Dodging? Or rather I don't understand when dodging is useful.

I want /v/irgins out!

Some splats have special effects for dodging.

Anyone know where I can find a pdf of the oWoD Kindred of the East books?

See, I'm the opposite, I prefer to make combat-centric characters in CofD because most (level appropriate) enemies are ill-equipped to handle them. I'm the guy who plays a Hunter with an M-60 in his trunk and sawed off shotguns under his duster, loaded with silver, iron, and dragonsbreath shells just to make sure I'm covered against as many things as possible. I like being the guy the enemy has to plan to defeat, because otherwise attacking the group is suicide, and the guy the party face can just vaguely gesture to when he says "or else."

Yo! Anyone see da new wraith, is it shit like 20th mage or is it gold like 20th Vampire?

/k/ommando ae.

>valentine's day
>no vampire waifu to share blood filled chocolates with

feels bad

Mages are the Dnd 3.5 of nwod. There is always something from some other book for People to bring up.

What happens if you microwave a Setite's removed heart and does it count as a valentine?

...

And there is always a faggy Dave quote about mage to go with.

Does 3.5 have devs commenting on Veeky Forums?

Probably. Go ask them.

>...Aside from the fact that, as soon as PCs are involved, everyone ever will try to Correspondence/Sympathy cast like a faggot.

The Tremere had a historical advantage in this aspect at least in the first Massasa War that they could prepare for the war they knew was coming for over 177 years, they also knew exactly how Hermetics waged war whereas the Order of Hermes had only heard of rumors over Thaumaturgy and the Tremere's newly-gained vampiric abilities; they also had Thaumaturgical bans that at rating of 6 could permanently and completely shield entire chantries/areas from being affected by all Awakened magick from rating 5 and below (and some 177 years to do this to all their headquarters); back then mages used Pillars and as far as it's been detailed by the books there were no archpillars; this forced mages to go all the way to the Carpathians and fight the Tremere in person

And to think that the head of all that could've very well not even been a mage.

try snipli.com/CWoD

and something a little bit different for all the oWoD Vampire fans:
all 8 episodes of Kindred: The Embraced (the short lived TV show)
mega.nz
/#F!H8hnhTKB!uzupDEkmhRGX3RW7DsljgA

Its a pity the one of the actors died. I would have loved to see how far south such a low budget production would have gone.

How many of you are even in a game right now?

I might be in a Dark Ages v20 game, ST isn't on, think it might be later or another no show.

I'm between sessions 2 and 3 of my Freak Legion game. Getting everything prepped has been slow because I can't use any prestatted NPCs from werewolf because they all get wrecked by char gen fomori. Classic White Wolf. I'm still not sure what game the attached would ever come up in though.

Oh yeah, the Tremere were subtly influenced to go to the Carpathians by forces such as the Root of All (Kupala) and Stars Above (Saulot), it was also Saulot who provided the Tremere the power and part of the knowledge to become vampires through the ritual they enacted; in the end the Tremere (and the Order of Hermes) were but one of the many victims of the Ancient's machinations and fell prey to the Jyhad.

>think it might be later or another no show.
That sucks, user.

No. Few months ago I set up an online dark eras game but it fell through. Free players didn't even bother finishing their characters

Currently finishing a Detroit sandbox for a VtM game.

I just finished the first chronicle of a Vampire Masquerade game, and am thinking of starting a Mage the Ascension game.
>Players start out as unawakened in High School
>Awaken
>Go on low-key adventures, learning about Magick naturally through RP
>Until Arete 3
>Then a Nephandi comes in to ruin everything

What makes omages so strong when it comes to running in crossover groups? everyone at OPP seems to think they're the capital D Devil.

This is rather sweet, a brief honeymoon period where they get to enjoy the beauty that is True Magick... almost taste the potential of being demigods on their lips; then reality comes down crashing like the surf upon a cliff face and they realize everyone and their dog is out to either kill or enslave them for their gifts.

not since August of '15

What is there to learn about magic in Ascension when everyone makes it up for themselves?

My only quibble so far is that I don't want to necessarily shoehorn them into the same traditions. Can they potentially be taught a very loose paradigm that could apply to nearly every other tradition?

A lot when you don't horribly mischaracterize the game.

They learn via making it all up you mean, or if the st is shit via them reading the mage book it's self. As they some how learn how spells work and this idea of "meta" of which they read in da book. And some break and go mental and start shouting how their just a PC and that everything is fake. But thats because you fucked up and got perdox till you ended up in a perminate quite.

Mischaracterize it how? Is that not the whole point of Paradigms? An individual's unique interpretation of the grand power of reality warping they suddenly received, that shapes it entirely?

>what are paradigms
>what are foci
Have you even read any of the Mage Ascension books?

I personally think it'd be best if at first they didn't belong to any Tradition but rather Awakened as Orphans (whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Orphans), that way they could come up and shape their paradigm together as they uncover the secrets behind True Magick; at least until they're approached (or not) by a Tradition that tries to properly indoctrinate them

Do you really think a philosophy is just summarized in one sentence and has no depth to explore? Are you brain damaged or something?

Everybody makes it up for themselves AND then has to ask the ST if they can cast magic.

Stop getting triggered, friendo. I'm literally asking how they are going to learn about magic when it's something they form on their own.

Okay, so you don't understand philosophy in any capacity then. Got it. Given that, there is no way to answer you that you could comprehend.

He's likely not a postmodernist.

It's funny how quickly Ascensionfags get rustled when you even look sideways at the implication that the "magic" in their game is nothing more than a shallow prop, just like all the other refluffed variations of the "Mages'" reality warping power.

Aren't those things the reason why mages are held down and don't actually do anything

Almost like when you lie about a game people who like it get mad. Its amazing the number of vamp v mage arguments that are exactly that. Typical vamp fag never having read the book or even understanding the base concept of the game lying about mages and then pretending they are in the right while shitting up the thread.

The former is any given Mage's specific delusion and the latter are their stage props.

There's also issues about how you're rarely going to be able to get too far (Sphere-wise) through personal exploration alone; that's like trying to completely reinvent the magickal wheel; M20 presents only two ways to learning Spheres, through apprenticeship as you're mentored by another Awakened -- with knowledge taught that doesn't belong to your sect taking two, three, or even five times as long as it would have taken if he’d been studying with a member of his own group -- or through grimoires made by other mages.

That means if you want to get anywhere really you'll either have to conform to already established Traditions, become indoctrinated and assimilate the bulk of their paradigm; when you get too deep into a paradigm then there's rarely going back

Huh? I don't see that at all. You must be delusional.

Sorry.. Do you think magic is real? Are you that far in post-modernism that you think it's a thing.

>Exhibit A, your Honor.

Meant to reply to this instead:

No one ever said anything like that in this thread. The only retard who believes shit like that is Phil Brucatto